Delays in Pipelines Bill
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FROM OUR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
THE House of Lords have struck a
resounding blow at the Pipelines Bill, and it is now acknowledged that this piece of legislation is going to be difficult to get through Parliament in this Session.
While Government peers were listening to the Budget, the Opposition in the Upper House voted resoundingly against the way the Bill was being pushed through—in order, it was said, to give it a full chance for scrutiny by the Commons.
Much more time has had to be devoted to its Report stage, and although the Government retaliated by making the peers work extra this week, third reading is not to be taken until May 1, after the Easter recess. The Lords tabled a mass of arndments to the Bill which were scythed down in the subsequent discussions, and their lordships' . protest will bring stringent scrutiny in the Commons. There is a chance we may be seeing Pipelines all over again next year.
Meanwhile the Road Traffic Bill, which goes to Commons committee after the recess, may prove a tough proposition, though there is no doubt that the Government will guillotine it if necessary.
This method has speeded up the Transport Bill, plainly a Bill the Government were not prepared to trifle with— though Mr. Marples has bad to push through an untidy mass of amendments before it could go to the Lords.