Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grant Bill

Lord Elystan-Morgan Excerpts

Tuesday 7th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

I can give noble Lords my understanding of what the procedure is, but I certainly cannot and would not presume in any way to go into what process Mr Speaker went through. That is a matter entirely for Mr Speaker and not a matter for us in this House to question.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

I speak with all the neutrality that one can from these Benches. Is not the situation that there is a very substantial grey area? Section 1 of the 1911 Act gives many possibilities so that, if a rigid application of that provision had been applied since 1911, hundreds of Bills could have been called money Bills that were not called money Bills. There is a very substantial area of dispute, which will remain unless and until there is some curtailment of that discretion vested in those who advise the Speaker of the House of Commons.