WALES BILL (Hansard, 24 July 1978)

§ The LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Elwyn-Jones)
My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons Reasons and Amendments be now considered.

§ Lord ELTON
My Lords, at this stage I wish to make an observation, of which I have given notice, about the circumstances under which we have arrived at the present point in our consideration of the Bill. Your Lordships will be aware that the last Division on the Bill which we are about to consider was called at midnight last Thursday, and the result was in at a quarter to one on Friday. The Committee appointed to decide what should be the Reasons which we are now about to discuss was appointed at that time. Your Lordships may not be aware that, in order to have the Papers which we now have before us printed in time, we had to make the final choice as to which should be our reasoned substitute Amendments and how they should be phrased by five o'clock on that same day, Friday. Consequently, we had to do that without the printed list of the Reasons or the Reasons themselves, and indeed also without Hansard, which stopped printing at six o'clock on Thursday, rather than ten o'clock as I had expected. We were working from a list kindly produced in intelligent, but, as it proved, inaccurate, anticipation by the Public Bill Office. We thus had not three, but 652 four, sets of numberings to correlate with the Amendments with which we had to deal, and we had no text of the Reasons that we were supposed to answer.
We on this side of the House entered into an agreement to take this stage of the Bill at this time (as with the other) but we were under the impression that this was due to the compelling reason that the House was to rise at the end of this month. That appears no longer to be the case, and I make this declaration at this stage for the benefit of those who may come after us down the same path. They should know that it is not always wise to attempt to do the Business of this House in a hurry. When one attempts to do it in a hurry, very often, as now, no apparently useful result is obtained thereby. We could, after all, have taken this Business either tomorrow or the following day, and so had a few hours more sleep.
I have the greatest sympathy with the noble Baroness, the Government Chief Whip. She is in as difficult a position as we are, but I think that probably this comment comes more easily from me than it would from her.

§ The LORD CHANCELLOR
My Lords, I certainly take a sympathetic view of the strictures and complaints which the noble Lord, Lord Elton, has made. All I can say is that we all suffer under these difficulties, but I appreciate that the Opposition have had particular difficulties by reason of the circumstances which the noble Lord has adumbrated. The only comfort I take is that I am confident that your Lordships will do your best in this difficult situation, as you have so far done so conscientiously in the handling of both the Scotland Bill and the Wales Bill. I express my regret about these difficulties, but also the feeling that an extension of proceedings next week might also be equally unwelcome.