Orders of the Day — ELECTRICITY (SUPPLY) BILL [Lords].

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am ar 25 Gorffennaf 1922.

Danfonwch hysbysiad imi am ddadleuon fel hyn

Photo of Sir William Adkins Sir William Adkins , Middleton and Prestwich

As a Member of the Standing Committee, I regret that my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead (Mr. G. Balfour) has adopted so high a calorific standard in his comments upon this Bill. It is very easy for Members, equally honest and having equal intelligence, to have differences of opinion on some of the details of the Bill. While I have had my differences with the Parliamentary Secretary in charge of the Bill, and while we are all anxious that our different points of view should be embodied in the Bill in its final stage, I must he allowed to say that the charges made by my hon. Friend come so near charges of wilful deceit that I think they overstate what he really means, and that what has occurred might very easily occur in a Bill of this complexity. Here is a Clause brought in by the Government after hearing Members of the Standing Committee, and after conferring, as they are entitled to confer, with all interested parties, which does not in some of its details meet with the approval of my hon. Friend, for reasons which we shall hear when he moves his Amendment. While I am very much opposed to pieces of Bills being together outside Paeliarment—I am afraid I have worried the House by making that protest frecinently—I submit that where you have had a matter discussed in Standing Committee, it is not quite correct to say more than that it is unfortunate if any prominent Member of that Committee interested in an aspect of the Bill does not happen to have been brought into conference, when other people were brought into conference. Therefore, to that extent I agree with the hon. Member for Hampstead, but I cannot believe that there has been any attempt to arrange this new Clause to the exclusion of the point of view of which my hon. Friend has special knowledge.