BRITISH PARLIAMENT

Hokitika Guardian, 26 September 1930, Page 7

BRITISH PARLIAMENT

INQUIRY INTO PROCEDURE LENGTH OF SPEECHES. LONDON, August 7. Although the report of the Select Committee which sat to consider the hours of meeting and of the rising or the House of Commons comes to very little—its chief conclusions, indeed, being that this question is only an infinitestimal part of a wide and pressing problem of Parliamentary procedure into which inquiry must be made as a whole—the evidence which is published with the report contains a good deal of interesting comment.

Mr Lloyd George said: “I think the time has come for a thorough investigation of our procedure and our methods of dealing with business, and I .think there is a good deal of business which is transacted here which ought to be delegated—-for instance, Scottosh business and London business London is the only great city in the world which has to get its roads and bridges and its tunnels considered by a great central Parliament which governs an Empire.” Mr T. Kennedy, the Government Chief Whip, who had a proposal for the limitation of the length of speeches, was asked, supposing there was a time recorder visible to the speaking M.P., would his conscience get into working order and make him bring*hifl speech to an earlier conclusion? Mr Kennedy’s sceptical reply was that he should like something more binding than the consciences of members on the subject! The Prime Minister, when asked if he thought back bench speeches could be limiteed to ten minutes, replied: “I have been an awful sinner on that, and I am so'unwilling to tell other people who want to sin in the same luxurious way that they should be silent,” adding that he seriously doubted if a standing order prescribing the length of speeches could be operated effectively. On this qubject the Speaker said: “I have often had a member'promise me that he will not be more than ten minutes and lie takes half an hour.”