PIPE-LINES BILL [H.L.] (Hansard, 31 July 1962)

§ LORD SILKIN

My Lords, before we actually consider the 124 Commons Amendments to this Bill, I should like once more to utter a protest against the way in which this Bill has been handled. It arrived in this House as a half-baked measure. It was rushed through. Inadequate time was given at all stages for its proper consideration—indeed, at one stage, the House was so revolted at the way in which the Bill was being dealt with, that they voted almost solidly against proceeding further with it in the way in which the Government desired. A number of very reasonable proposals that we put forward in this House were rejected, I thought, in rather a pigheaded way, without proper consideration, with the result that we are now faced with this large number of Amendments—they are not all, I admit, Amendments of substance, but a great many are—with inadequate time for their consideration. Obviously, we are left with the position that we have to take the whole lot or leave them.

I would refer to one of these Amendments in particular, No. 38. This was an Amendment which my noble friend Lord Lucan and others pressed hard 126 upon the Government. It relates to safety provisions. We were told by the noble Lord, Lord Mills (I am very glad that he is here) that the Government were not in a position to say what kind of regulations would be required to provide for safety and we put forward the proposal that the Government should take powers to make these regulations, because, as the Bill stood, they had no power to make them even when they had come to know what regulations they wanted. But we were met with a blank refusal, without any reason given for it. Now we have Amendment No. 38, which does exactly what we asked for. It takes power to make regulations. Obviously, I agree that the Government are not in a position to say what these regulations are. But I am bound to say that this example—and I could quote others—is an indication of the way in which this House is being treated in legislation. We spend hours upon hours laboriously and very little change is made of any substance. Often legislation is introduced too late to enable us to discuss it adequately and then we find coming from another place the Amendments which we ourselves had put forward and advocated strongly, but which had been refused us, and then accepted in the House of Commons.

I do not want to hold the noble Lord responsible for the sins of the Government as a whole, but I do ask him this: what is the use of this House if we are to be treated in this way? We get legislation too late to be effective. It is rushed through this House and then we have Amendments coming back from another place and we are unable to object, because, of course, we should be told that if we do not like any of these Amendments, we shall lose the Bill as a whole we have to accept them. That is not the way to propose legislation. I was going to say that I hope the Government will do better another time, but I have an even greater hope that before very long, they will not have an opportunity of doing anything, which will possibly be the case. But the Government have one more Session anyway, and I would ask the noble Lord to see that in the next Session of Parliament, when Bills come to this House, they will not come too late; and I hope that noble Lords in charge of Bills will be a little more responsive to the proposals we put 127 forward than they have shown themselves to be in dealing With this Bill.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD DILHORNE)

My Lords, perhaps I may say a word in reply to the comments which the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, has made. That this is a complicated Bill in some respects no one would dispute, but if one compares the complexity of this Bill with that of the Town and Country Planning Bill, which the noble Lord once introduced, it is a comparatively simple measure. I cannot charge my memory when we discussed that Bill and I will not say any more about that, but I know that when this Bill was before the House further time was given to it, and after that time was given the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, said this: We shall be able to deal with these matters in the course of the discussions that will take place on Report stage. And those discussions took place. Of course, one regrets that this Bill has not been able to come back to us before. Perhaps the noble Lord knows something about the time it took in another place and the prolonged discussions on various matters that took place. One of course will bear in mind what the noble Lord has said and no one wishes to deny this House a proper opportunity of considering all the Commons Amendments, and, indeed, other proposals that are put forward.

In so far as the criticism was made of Amendment No. 38, I would just say this. I should have hoped that that Amendment would be welcome as it goes so far to meet the views put forward in this House. I think the noble Lord will find that a great many of the Amendments tabled are, in fact, Amendments which meet points raised in this House and which have been further considered I take note of what the noble Lord has said and I hope that having replied to it, not too shortly and I hope not to lengthily, we can now proceed to consider the Amendments.