My Lords, I understand that there is a Motion on the Order Paper for Monday and therefore may I ask whether it would suit the convenience of your Lordships to meet at a quarter past three that afternoon in order to dispose. of it?

My Lords, there are several questions clown for Monday and ate shall also have to take one or two stages of Bills which are not yet completed. But so far as the Government are concerned, a quarter past three is quite a convenient hour and we may look upon that as settled.

There is no judicial business on that day.

understand that in all probability the Royal Commission will be about half-past eleven on Tuesday and in that ease your Lordships will meet at a quarter past eleven. The noble and learned Viscount will understand that there ale one or two stages of several Bills to be taken on Monday, the Scottish Education Bill and also the Consolidated Fund Bill, and there may be questions of Commons Amendments to Lords Amendments to be dealt with, which will make it necessary for me to move the suspension of the Standing Orders for that day.

My Lords, I beg to move the Motion which stands on the Order Paper, to give leave for the introduction of this Bill next Session. This Motion really does not require any elaborate explanation. The Bill has already passed your Lordships' House, but we received a Message from the House of Commons to the effect that they desire to suspend this measure till next Session and I presume your Lordships will have no objection. I recommend that course to the House. The Motion is the ordinary one on such occasions to set this House in order from that point of view.

My Lords, I beg to move that the Special Report of the Special Orders Committee he considered and adopted. Your Lordships will remember that when this matter was discussed in the House on Tuesday last, the noble Marquess the Leader of the House carried a Motion referring this Order back to the Special Orders Committee and calling upon us to report whether any further Parliamentary inquiry is desirable before the House proceeds to a decision on the Amendment to reject the Order which is before your Lordships. The Report of the Committee states that in their opinion no further inquiry is necessary and recommends a certain Amendment to your Lordships to which I will refer in a moment.

I think I am acting in accordance with the wish expressed by those who were present at the Committee yesterday—it was a well-attended meeting, at least ten members being present—if I amplify a little the short Report which is before the House. I should explain the reason why we recommend that no further inquiry is necessary. Both parties were in agreement in stating that no further Parliamentary inquiry was necessary. The representatives of the Gas Company stated so openly and frankly, and the representative of the Order, that is, the rival Company, stated that, though he did not in any way fear a further inquiry, yet he submitted that no further inquiry was necessary. I do not think any of your Lordships would desire to force an inquiry on two unwilling contestants; hence our Report.

I need not tell your Lordships that that was not the whole of our discussion. We could not go fully into the merits; we did not want to and we were not in a posi- tion to do so. If we had gone into the merits no doubt we should be sitting still. But certain salient points did come up. The first clear fact is that the scheme under the Order is still incomplete. A further Order, if not further Orders, will be necessary, but we understand that they are in progress. Secondly, it became quite clear that the promoters of the Order do desire to carry out their obligations through the medium of what is called a "bulk supply scheme" and not through a small separate generating station. This is a matter which will no doubt interest the noble and learned Viscount opposite.

The promoters desire—and they have no other desire—to co-operate with Parliament in the policy laid down of generating over large areas. They have an agreement signed and naturally the question was put at once to them: Why have you got Clause 8 under which you are authorised to set up a generating station? The promoters quite frankly said that at an earlier stage a discussion had taken place as to whether this clause and the schedule relating to it should remain in the Order. It was thought at that time that they should, but the necessity for that clause and schedule had now disappeared. They stated that they would offer no objection whatever if Parliament in its wisdom thought it wise to strike that clause and also the accompanying schedule out of the Order. I appeal very strongly for this Amendment to be made.

I need not remind your Lordships that it is opposed to the decencies of Parliamentary practice to give to parties powers that they do not require. If we approve of them we give powers which are necessary for their scheme. We never give them powers that they may want, and we certainly never give them powers that they do not want. For this reason alone I hope that this Amendment may be made when we resume the debate next Monday. If this Amendment is made two things will be clear. One is that Parliament will have shown its adherence to the general principle of bulk supply, which is consistent with its previous attitude. We shall also be doing this. We shall be approving a scheme which is quite different from the scheme that was rejected earlier in the year by Lord Clarendon's Committee, whose action on that occasion has been amply vindicated by all that I have heard in connection with this matter since.

But if that Amendment is made in the Order then, speaking for myself, I should not feel justified in further resisting the passage of the Order, and say that now in the interest of saving Parliamentary time. Perhaps it would have been more in accordance with procedure that I should have made this clear next Monday, but I take the opportunity now, as I am addressing your Lordships, to make my position clear at once.

My Lords, I need hardly say that the last thing that I wish to see set up is a small local generating station somewhere down in Surrey. I dislike the idea the more in that it is now not asked for any longer, and therefore I am quite ready to assent to the suggestion of the noble Lord, the Lord Chairman, that we should take the matter in the form in which is has now been put.

My Lords, this Bill passed your Lordships' House in 1923 in almost precisely the form in which it stands to-day. When the Bill was first presented to your Lordships by my noble friend Viscount Novar it contained three clauses only—namely, Clauses 1, 2 and 5 of the present Bill. Clauses 3 and 4 were added at the instance of the noble Duke, the Duke of Atholl, as being non-contentious and on the understanding that, if any opposition developed in the House of Commons, the matter would require reconsideration. In the event, the Bill passed its Second Reading in the House of Commons, but the Dissolution of Parliament put a stop to any further progress.

The only difference in the present Bill is in Clause 2, which has to do with the minimum number of meetings to be held by the education authority. As matters stand to-day the education authorities in all counties are under an obligation to meet monthly with the exception of certain months in the summer, and the original intention was to reduce the minimum to four with a view to saving the cost of travelling. It was, however, represented to the Secretary for Scotland that this arrangement might not meet with acceptance in all quarters, and the arrangement has therefore been adopted, and is embodied in the Bill, that the minimum shall be six meetings in certain counties which are widespread and scattered and in which, therefore, travelling expenses are rather a serious item.

Turning to the remaining clauses of the Bill, I should explain that Clause 1 provides for the closing of the voluntary schools before the expiry of ten years where these are redundant and subject to the consent of the Church authority concerned. Clause 3 clears up the position under the Act of 1918 as between the education authority and the school management; committees and will remove certain ambiguities which have given rise to friction, and indeed to litigation, since the passing of the Act of 1918. Clause 4 has to do with the provision of travelling facilities for school children and enables the education authority to take advantage of that provision without having special regard to the circumstances of the parents, on the condition that such a course will be less costly than either the building of a new school or the maintenance of an old one and also subject to the proviso that it is educationally desirable. The whole matter is, of course, subject to the Scottish Education Department being satisfied. Clause 5 has to do with the maintenance and conveyance of defectives and defines rather more closely the powers of education authorities in that matter. The education authorities concerned are quite satisfied that all the necessary powers are contained in this clause. As your Lordships will see, the Bill deals entirely with minor points and is the result of experience in working the Act of 1918. I can confidently recommend it to your Lordships as a measure which will promote the cause not only of efficiency but also of economy in Scottish education. I beg to move that it be now read a second time.

My Lords, I have looked into this Bill with some care, because it came to us rather suddenly, and we had not been warned of it, nor did we contemplate taking it at this time. I find that the noble Lord is quite right. It imposes no new principle of any sort, it does not touch block grants or any controversial matter of that kind, and, in all the five clauses to which the noble Lord referred, improvements of an administrative kind are made which have been wanted for some time. In consequence there was, I think, a unanimous desire in the House of Commons that the Bill should pass, and, so far as I can discover, that is Scottish opinion, too. I shall therefore offer no objection to the Second Reading.

My Lords, I find upon inquiry that it will be better to have the Royal Commission at eleven o'clock rather than at half-past eleven. I hope that the noble and learned Viscount will forgive me for having misled him for the moment.

That will be on Tuesday?

Yes. on Tuesday. The sitting on Monday will be at a quarter past three.