THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF ONSLOW)My Lords, you are aware that it is the usual practice, when unopposed Private Bills come before your Lordships' House, that I should formally move the Second Reading, and I propose to do so in this case. This Bill, however, is of rather a peculiar type; it is an Estate Bill, one of those Bills which come before your Lordships once or twice in a Session. I need not, I think, explain it at length, but there are certain circumstances of which I think I ought to make your Lordships aware. The Bill raises a certain number of points of interest and a certain number of points of doubt. Under the Standing Orders, these Bills have to be referred to two learned Judges for an opinion, and, in the Report which the judges have laid before your Lordships, it is suggested that the Bill raises important questions of principle "which, if dealt with by Parliament, should in our opinion he the subject of a general Act, and that the matters of fact stated in the Preamble contain nothing to make a case for individual treatment."
Your Lordships will see, therefore, that the Judges' Report is not exactly favourable to the Bill. As it is a complicated measure and raises other points, I think the fairest way would be for me to bring it before your Lordships for a Second Reading, and then, although it is an unopposed Bill, that I should report to your Lordships after the Unopposed Committee 1090 has been held that it is one of those Bills which should be turned into an opposed Bill, and that it should be sent to the Committee upstairs, who would go into all the points and examine it thoroughly. I suggest that the Committee should make a special Report to your Lordships' House. I think that that would be the fairest way of meeting the promoters and of dealing with the matter, and I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time.
§ Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Onslow.)
§ On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed.