§ Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
§ CHESHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL BILL [H.L.]
§ COUNTY OF MERSEYSIDE BILL [H.L.]
§ WEST MIDLANDS COUNTY COUNCIL BILL [H.L.]
§ 3.8 p.m.
§ The CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Lord Aberdare)My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. These four major 650 local authority Bills introduced this Session contain between them well over 500 clauses. Various Select Committees have been considering them, including Committees set up to consider the clauses common to two or more Bills. It has been a long and laborious process. They now await Third Reading in this House and it is no fault of the Promoters that they w ill not be ready to receive Royal Assent this Session. The effect of the Motion I am asking the House to agree to this afternoon is to enable the Bills, if deposited again next Session, to go through all the stages they have already passed, formally, thus saving delay and expense for all parties concerned. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Promoters of the Bills have leave to suspend any further proceedings thereon, in order to proceed with the Bills, if they shall think fit, in the next Session of Parliament, provided that notice of their intention to do so be lodged in the Office of the Clerks of the Parliaments not later than three o'clock on the day before the close of the present Session, and that all fees due thereon up to that period shall have been paid;
That such Bills shall be deposited in the Office of the Clerk of the Parliaments not later than three o'clock on the third day on which the House shall sit after the commencement of the next Session of Parliament, with a declaration annexed to each, signed by the Agent, 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 Bills shall in the next Session of Parliament be pro forma only in regard to every stage through which the same shall have passed in the present Session, and that no new fees be charged to such stages;
That the Standing Orders by which the proceedings on Bills are regulated shall not apply in the next Session of Parliament to such Bills in regard to any of the stages through which the same shall have passed during the present Session.—(The Chairman of Committees.)
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.