MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (MID-STAFFORD SHIRE JOINT HOSPITAL DIS TRICT) BILL. (Hansard, 21 July 1938)

THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF ONSLOW)
My Lords, I am going to place before your Lordships a proposal which I have considered very carefully and with some hesitation. The Motion is a somewhat long one; it is in the form that precedent has established. But briefly it is that this Ministry of Health Provisional Order Bill should be carried over the Prorogation, that the stages through which it has passed should be only passed through pro forma later, and that the Bill should be carried on to its conclusion during the next Session. Your Lordships and Parliament generally have been very reluctant to suspend Private Bills and Provisional Orders except in the case of a Dissolution. In the case of a Dissolution it is the practice to carry over Private Bills and Provisional Orders until the next Parliament. The object of course is to avoid unnecessary expense. The only other times when your Lordships have been willing to carry over a Private Bill or Provisional Order are— 1033 and they are very rare—when a Committee stage has been of such a protracted character in the first House as not to leave time during the current Session for due consideration of the Bill or Provisional Order in your Lordships' House; and that has been the case in the present instance.
I said just now that your Lordships are reluctant to take this course, and I see that there are only two modern precedents for carrying over Provisional Order Bills; one was in 1928, and the other in 1933; and the last time that your Lordships, except in the case of a Dissolution, carried over a Private Bill was in 1928. The reason for this course is the one I have stated—namely, that there was not the time to take the Bill through all its stages owing to protracted consideration in another place, which it was impossible to prevent. This Bill reached your Lordships' House on July 11. At the request of the Minister of Health it was heard by the Examiners at the earliest date—that is to say, on July 19, and it is only read a second time to-day. The time for petitioning did not expire until 3 o'clock on Monday last, July 18. With so little time it would have been very difficult to obtain a Committee of your Lordships' House to consider a petition against this Bill and to sit in the last week of the Session. Even if that had been possible, there are other steps to be taken. There is the Third Reading, and the Bill has to go to another place, and if there are any Amendments they have to be considered. There would not be time in these circumstances for the Bill to pass.
It is, as I have said, a very rigid rule that Private Bills and Provisional Orders should be dealt with in the Session in which they are introduced, and there is a Standing Order of your Lordships' House, and also in another place, that no Provisional Order should be introduced after Whitsuntide. Your Lordships will remember that Whitsuntide this year came very late indeed, and the Bill was introduced in another place in accordance with the Standing Order and went to Committee. The time the Committee took, owing to the 'Whitsuntide Recess and other reasons, was such that the Bill only reached your Lordships' House on the date I have mentioned. Another petition has been lodged against the Bill. If your Lordships do not consent to carry this Bill over, all the money which has been spent—I believe it is about £600 1034 —in promoting and in fighting it in another place will be lost; it will be a complete waste of money. These Provisional Order Bills are Public Bills. I want to make that quite clear. On the last occasion I had to make this proposal it was also in the case of a Public Bill, and there was a considerable amount of hesitation in your Lordships' minds as to whether you should allow that Bill to be carried over. It was the London Passenger Transport Bill—not a Provisional Order Bill, but a hybrid Bill. Your Lordships were not very anxious to grant the privilege to the promoters and allow that Bill to be carried over; but in the end your Lordships did consent. I thought I ought to remind your Lordships of your decision in that case.
If your Lordships agree to this, it will save a great deal of money, and I have been in correspondence with the proper authorities to prevent this sort of thing happening again in the case of another late Whitsuntide. I understand that the Ministries would agree to fix a date instead of the Whitsuntide Recess, because Whitsuntide is a movable date, and they would agree that all Provisional Orders should be introduced into Parliament by May 15. Therefore, whatever the date on which Whitsuntide might fall that would not affect the matter, and this sort of thing would not occur again. The Bill would not be held up owing to the lateness of Whitsuntide and to protracted consideration in another place. We shall have to alter our Standing Orders, and that may take some time, but I have the assurance of both Ministries, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Transport, that in practice they will not introduce Bills of this nature after May 15. I think that will be a convenient arrangement to prevent this difficulty arising again. Therefore, on the whole, although I am not anxious to press your Lordships, I should rather hope that the House may see its way to grant the request of the promoters, and agree to carry the Bill over to next Session.
Just before I came into the House my noble friend Lord Darcy (de Knayth) told me he proposed to raise the question as to whether the Bill was intra vires or not. I have not had much opportunity of considering that because it was only a few moments ago that I heard he was going to raise this point and oppose the Bill on those grounds. I do not know whether it 1035 is ultra vires or intra vires, but I would point out that it has passed through another place, where, no doubt, careful consideration was given to this matter. Whether it is or is not ultra vires does not affect the issue, because that point can be considered at a later stage if your Lordships agree to carry the Bill over. I do not think that really affects the matter at the present moment. The point is this: Are your Lordships willing to allow the Bill to be carried over as an exception in view of the fact that a great deal of expense will be incurred if your Lordships will not do so, and also on the understanding that arrangements have been made whereby this sort of thing will not occur again, by the undertaking given by the Ministries that they will not introduce Provisional Orders after May 15? In those circumstances I beg to move the Motion that stands in my name.
Moved, That leave be given to suspend any further proceedings, in order to proceed with the Bill in the next Session of Parliament, provided that all fees due thereon up to this day be paid; that a copy of such Bill shall be deposited in the office of the Clerk of the Parliaments not later than three o'clock on or before the third day on which the House shall sit after the next meeting of Parliament, with a declaration annexed thereto, certified under the seal of the Minister of Health and stating that the Bill is the same in every respect as the Bill at the last stage of the proceedings thereon in this House in the present Session; that the proceedings on such Bill shall be pro formâ only in regard to every stage through which the same shall have passed in the present Session, and that no new fees be charged in regard to such stages; that the Standing Orders by which the proceedings on Bills are regulated shall not apply to such Bill in regard to any of the stages through which the same shall have passed during the present Session; that all petitions presented in the present Session against the Bill shall stand referred to the Committee on the same Bill in the next Session of Parliament.—(The Earl of Onslow.)

LORD DARCY (DE KNAYTH)
My Lords, I am exceedingly sorry that my noble friend the Lord Chairman should have had so little time to deal with this matter. I am bound to confess that until five and a half hours ago I had not heard 1036 of the existence of this Bill, and I do not think that on the whole the Lord Chairman is at any disadvantage compared with myself in this matter. My noble friend has said that this is an exceptional proceeding. I should like to mention that when this Bill was considered on its merits before the Committee of another House a minority of that Committee came to the conclusion, after considering it judicially, that the view of the promoters was ill-founded. There is a point which I have been asked to raise to your Lordships to-day. This Bill is one that was promoted under Section 63 of the Local Government Act of 1929. If your Lordships look at the Bill that you have before you you will see that it makes a reference to the Public Health Act, 1936. When these proceedings started that Act was not in existence, and, therefore, it was utterly impossible for proceedings to be taken under that Act.
The point we wish to raise is this. Section 63 of the 1929 Act gives certain powers, but is qualified by Section 65 which says: Save in so far as may be necessary to give effect to any alteration or definition of boundaries made thereunder, nothing in this Part of this Act shall prejudicially alter or affect the powers, rights, privileges or immunities of any municipal corporation or the operation of any municipal charter. The whole point is that this Bill is to do that; it affects rights. I understand that that matter was raised, and they sought to get round it, I gather, by means of proceeding under Section 346 of the 1936 Act, which was passed later. So far as I understand it, it is sought by means of Section 346 of that Act to keep this matter alive. But I am instructed that the meaning of that section, which is very long and which I am not going to read, is merely this, that something that could not have been done under the 1929 Act can be done under the 1936 Act. But the contention that is being put forward is that this could not have been done at all.
My noble friend the Lord Chairman made some remarks on the question of economy. We take the view that raising this matter at another stage is not going to effect economy, because we say that, assuming you agree to the Motion that is before the House, and this Bill goes to another stage and is then found to be ultra vires, the expenditure incurred thereby will be thrown away, and the Bill, 1037 if promoted at all, will have to be re-promoted from the start. It is possible that it is not permissible to promote this particular Bill, but if you promote it again right from the start you lose your money, and in any case it is difficult to see how you save money that has already been thrown away by proceedings which really amount to a nullity by carrying this Bill over to the next Session.

§ EARL STANHOPE
My Lords, I hope your Lordships will follow the advice which has been given by the Lord Chairman. From what I have seen it appears that what has happened is not due to any fault on the part of the promoters. The Bill has passed through another place, and all the arguments which have been put forward by my noble friend now can I think be considered by your Lordships' Committee when the Bill comes before them next Session. It would seem unfortunate that the promoters should be compelled to spend a considerable amount more money because, owing to accidents which may have happened in another place, there is not sufficient time for the Bill to go through your Lordships' House. I therefore suggest to your Lordships that we should follow the advice given to us by our Lord Chairman.

THE EARL OF ONSLOW
My Lords, may I with your Lordships' leave say one word more in reply to my noble friend Lord Darcy? As I said, and he repeated it, I only heard of this about two minutes before I came into the House. It is obviously a very complicated question, as your Lordships will have gathered from the explanation that my noble friend has given. I am assured that if your Lordships agree to carry this Bill over this question of vires can receive every consideration when it comes before a Committee of your Lordships' House; therefore no real hardship will be incurred if your Lordships agree to carry the Bill over. The question, I submit, is really one of procedure, and is whether your Lordships are willing to grant this privilege. That, in my submission, is the only thing for your Lordships' consideration.

LORD DARCY (DE KNAYTH)
My Lords, I apologise for rising again, but I take it from what the Lord Chairman has said that there is no doubt that this question of ultra vires will in fact be able to be gone into, and that there is no danger of prejudicing that position by 1038 agreeing to the Motion that is before your Lordships' House to-day. If that is so, then on behalf of those I represent I with great readiness withdraw any opposition to this Motion.

THE EARL OF ONSLOW
That is my opinion, but I have only had a moment or two in which to consider it. If my noble friend had brought it to my notice yesterday perhaps I could have gone into it more carefully, but I believe, and I have had advice on this, that the matter can and will be considered if necessary before the Committee of your Lordships' House.