BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE. (Hansard, 23 March 1933)

§ LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE

My Lords, perhaps I might ask the Leader of the House whether he could say what the business for next week will be, and also when the debate on the Motion for setting up the Select Joint Committee on the Indian White Paper will be taken. Perhaps the noble and learned Viscount the Leader of the House will allow me to put a suggestion forward for his consideration with regard to the Indian debate. Experience is that in these important debates—and I suppose this will be certainly the most important one we shall have this Session—the speakers are quite ready to impose on themselves a limit for their speeches in cold blood, but once they get on their legs they seem to lose all sense of time and speak as if they had entered into the limitless regions of eternity. The effect of that is—and it has been so on more than one occasion—that those who have to conclude the debate are very much hampered. I myself have felt it incumbent on me on two occasions to say that I would only speak for ten minutes, and, even so, I felt that I was robbing the Government spokesman, who has the very difficult task of summing up the whole debate and replying to the various questions which have been put to him, of time which he would otherwise have had. So may I ask the Leader of the House 91 whether on the last day of this debate—I do not know whether there will be a Division or not—the list of speakers can be so arranged, and not too much crowded, so as to allow those who have to speak at the end of the afternoon not to be forced into too confined and limited a space?

§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM)

My Lords, in answer to the question which the noble Lord put to me, next week's business is as follows. On Tuesday there are the Second Reading of the Doncaster Area Drainage Bill, the Report stage of the London Passenger Transport Bill, the Third Reading of the Indian Pay (Temporary Abatements) Bill and the Local Government (General Exchequer Contributions) Bill. On Wednesday there are two Motions, one by Lord Polwarth on the Report of the Committee on Persistent Offenders, and another by Lord Kilmaine on postage stamps, and there is a third Motion, which at present stands on the Paper for April 5 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Ilchester, on sea pollution, which he has been good enough to say that he will advance, or put down a Motion to advance, to Wednesday the 29th, in order that we may have Wednesday, April 5, clear for the business which I am about to mention. Then on Thursday there is the Second Reading of the Middlesbrough Corporation Bill, with regard to which I think my noble friend Lord Mount Temple has an instruction to move, and there is a question by the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, on foreign affairs. That is as far as next week is concerned.

With regard to the Indian debate, I understand that we are likely to receive the Message from another place on Thursday in this House, and in that event I would suggest that we should have Tuesday, April 4, and Wednesday, April 5, for the debate. I hope that two days may be sufficient, but, as the noble Lord has pointed out, the debate is one of great importance, from which it is very desirable that nobody who has a contribution to make should be shut out; and, if it should become necessary, I would suggest that we should go on to Thursday and take the Division, if any, on Thursday evening. But I hope it may not. We will try to ascertain through the usual channels who the speakers are 92 likely to be, and I hope it will be possible to conclude the debate in two days.

In answer to the final observation of my noble friend, I am a fellow sufferer with himself, and I can appreciate fully the cogent considerations which he has urged. That matter is not a very easy one, because it so happens that if there is a debate which extends over two days some members of your Lordships' House prefer to speak on the second day when, I think, there is possibly a more attentive audience, or at any rate a larger audience, than on the first day of the debate, and sometimes it is impossible to ascertain exactly how many speakers there are going to be, and, as the noble Lord has pointed out, some of them have not quite the same sense of the passage of time when they are speaking themselves as when they are listening to other people. But I am afraid that even the Leader of the House has no control over these matters, and I am sure that any sins that are committed are innocently committed by the speakers—that they find that the points which they desire to elaborate take a little longer than they had anticipated before they began their speeches.

All one can do is to allow such time as is reasonable, and try to persuade as many people as possible to make their contributions at the beginning of the debate, rather than wait until the end, when sometimes noble Lords who have intended to speak, and whom the House would have been glad to hear, have had to drop out, in order to make it possible to have the Division taken at a reasonable hour. I am glad that the noble Lord has raised the question, but I am afraid it is not one which can be dealt with more effectively than in the way which I have suggested. I think it is probable that we may be able to meet an hour earlier on the days of the Indian debate, and possibly that might assist in getting the debate concluded at a reasonable time, and without any undue limitation of the speeches, which nobody would desire.