MEASUREMENT OF GAS. (Hansard, 12 May 1936)

THE MARQUESS OF DUFFERIN AND AVA
My Lords, I do not want to keep you from a much more important discussion, but I feel that this is a matter of some importance. I would like to remind you of the history of this Motion. What happened was that I and four other noble Lords sat for two days listening to the ablest Counsel of the Parliamentary Bar discussing this matter. We came to certain very definite conclusions. We were unanimous, and there was no question in my view that our decision was a perfectly right one. Then we were informed that the Board of Trade intended to oppose this Bill on Third Beading. I was quite content with that situation, because I had no doubt that if the Board of Trade 933 did oppose our conclusions on the Third Reading your Lordships would pay no attention to that. Yesterday I received a letter telling me that the Board of Trade had decided not to oppose the Bill on Third Reading, but that a compromise, so-called, had been arrived at. Why was it arrived at? Well, it was arrived at partly because the Board of Trade did not want to have to oppose a Bill which had been passed by your Lordships' Committee, and partly, so far as I can make out, because the threat was employed that if this compromise was not arrived at the Whips would be put on in another place, and the Bill would be thrown out by the well-regimented squadrons over there.
I make this protest because I feel that it is a gross bit of blackmail, and I regard it as a gross denial of your Lordships' rights. I also regard it as reducing the whole system of Committees in this House to a farce. If a Government Department takes it into its head to make a threat of that kind and to say: "Very well, do it if you like, but you will lose the whole Bill, because we will put the Whips on in another place," then where are you going to stop? Why should you ever have a Committee at all? I say this quite frankly, because I feel a sense of grievance, and a man with a sense of grievance perhaps never speaks too clearly. We sat two days on a Gas Committee—not a very amusing entertainment—very little "wine, woman and song" about that. We did it with the aid of the best Counsel with one object only, to help your Lordships, and we did it to the best of our ability. If, at the end of all that, simply because a Government Department takes it into its head that this matter is of importance, all our efforts are to be wasted and the whole costly farce is to be gone through again, I say to your Lordships that you are likely to find it extremely difficult to ask at any rate the younger members of your Lordships' House to have any part in your Committees again, because if we are only going to be rubber stamps we would rather be absent. With that protest, I sit down.

§ LOUD TEMPLEMORE
My Lords, my noble friend who has spoken with his usual eloquence, did not give me notice that he was going to raise this subject to-day, or I should have been prepared with a defence of the Department which I have the honour to represent in your 934 Lordships' House. I can assure him that I personally was quite unaware that any threat had been made to defeat the Bill by the nefarious process of putting the Whips on in another place. If he will take it from me, I will convey what he has said to the Department, and I hope he will take it that I have said sufficient on this subject for the moment. I really rose to say that, as the Lord Chairman has stated, the difficulties raised with regard to this Bill have been carefully reconsidered and, on behalf of the Board of Trade, I welcome this proposal for the appointment of a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament to consider whether it is expedient, and if so in what circumstances and subject to what conditions, to authorise the measurement of gas supplied by gas undertakers to consumers by means of meters so designed as to register in therms instead of in cubic feet. Of course, the Government raise no objection to the Third Reading of this Bill to-morrow.

§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
My Lords, I think I must say one word with reference to the speech of the noble Marques. I have no acquaintance with the circumstances to which he refers, but I am bound to say I have the greatest sympathy with him in his protest. What appears to have happened is that, whereas your Lordships' House had sent a Bill to a Private Bill Committee and that Committee had arrived at certain conclusions, the emissaries of a Government Department came and said: "Unless this decision is reversed we shall use the mechanical majority of the Government in order to overbear you." In other words, the action of your Lordships' House, either by its Committee or as the House itself, is to be overthrown by the orders of the representative of a Government Department. That, of course, is an intolerable position. I speak with the greater emphasis because this is not the first time it has occurred. On the last occasion on which it occurred the matter did come under my own notice, and I said what I think any of your Lordships would have said under the circumstances. I said that nothing would induce me to give way for a single second in deference to a mere direction from a Government Department. One of the Houses of Parliament to be overridden merely because the President of the Board of Trade or 935 his emissary thought that we ought to give way, and said: "If you do not give way the House of Commons"—probably a weary House of Commons—"under the orders of its Whips will override you"—that is an impossible position, and I sympathise very much with the noble Marquess in the protest that he has made.