The Government of England (Vol. I)

by A. Lawrence Lowell

The preliminaries over, the bill is ready to be introduced, and the first thing is to arrange in which House it shall begin its career. This is decided at a conference between the Chairmen of Committees of the two Houses, or in practice by the gentlemen who act as their legal advisers, the Counsel to Mr. Speaker and the Counsel to the Lord Chairman of Committees.[370:2] All these proceedings take place before the usual date for the meeting of Parliament, so that when it assembles the bills can be brought in at once.[370:3]

If the examiner reports that the standing orders have been complied with, the bill is presented forthwith by being laid upon the table of the House. If not, his report is referred to the Committee on Standing Orders, composed of eleven members chosen by the House itself at the opening of the session.[371:1] This committee reports whether the omission is of such a nature that under the circumstances it ought to be excused or not; and the report is almost always adopted by the House. In case the omission is excused the bill is presented by being laid upon the table; and every bill is deemed when presented to have been read a first time.[371:2]

Second Reading.

On the next stage, the second reading, a debate may take place upon the general principle involved, and a bill is sometimes rejected at this point, either because it is inconsistent with public policy, or because opponents whose interests are involved have been able to persuade a majority of the members to vote against it. Instructions to the committee about the provisions to be inserted in the bill can also be adopted at that time.

Private Bill Committees.

The committee stage of the bill, for the consideration of its provisions in detail, is devolved upon a private bill committee. Here takes place the judicial process, or trial of the controversy between conflicting interests, which presents the peculiar feature of the English procedure. Until near the middle of the nineteenth century the committees for private bills were made up on the same principle as select committees on other matters. They consisted in large part of supporters and opponents of the measure. But in 1837 the Lords began to form their private bill committee of a small number of wholly impartial members,—a practice which was adopted by the Commons for railway bills in 1844, and for all other private bills in 1855.[371:3] The system of committees in the two Houses is now very much the same,[372:1] the order of proceeding in the Commons being as follows: All opposed private bills, except those relating to railways and canals, divorce, and police and sanitary matters, are referred under the rules to the Committee of Selection, which divides them into groups and refers each group to a separate committee, consisting of a chairman and three members not locally or otherwise interested, all of whom it appoints for the purpose.[372:2]

Railway and Canal Bills.

In order to secure greater uniformity in the private acts relating to railways, a general committee on railway and canal bills was created in 1854.[372:3] It is appointed every year by the Committee of Selection, and to it are referred all bills of that kind. But it does not take charge of them itself. It merely divides them into groups, and then acts as a chairman's panel; that is, it refers the bills to separate committees, the chairman of which it selects from its own ranks, the other three members being appointed by the Committee of Selection.[372:4]

Police and Sanitary Bills.

With the same object of obtaining uniformity, all bills promoted by local authorities for police and sanitary purposes were referred after 1881 to a single committee. In this case, however, the bills were not too numerous to be considered by the committee itself, although to relieve pressure it was, in 1892, enlarged to eleven members, and authorised to bisect itself for the more rapid despatch of business. Curiously enough the committee was discontinued for some years, but, after loud complaints about exceptional powers granted by private acts, it was revived by sessional order in 1903, and intrusted with all police and sanitary bills which contain powers "in conflict with, deviation from, or excess of, the general law."[373:1]