Orders of the Day — Land Values Tax.

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 4 May 1931.

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Photo of Mr Frederick Pethick-Lawrence Mr Frederick Pethick-Lawrence , Leicester West

I understand that it will be for the convenience of the Committee if I intervene now to answer some of the points which have been put forward in the Debate, though it was my original intention, which I think would have been more convenient to the Committee, to speak a little later, and for the Debate then to be adjourned until Wednesday, leaving my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General to wind up on that day. However, I am very glad to fall in with what I understand to be the wishes of the Committee. Some comment has been made, in particular by the Noble Lord the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Lord Erskine), on the procedure we have adopted in regard to this Resolution, and I may say at once that I fully sympathise with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Sir A. Chamberlain) in the position in which he found himself of having to answer a speech without having been aware beforehand of the principal points of the proposal which was outlined in that speech. But beyond that difficulty, which I fully appreciate, I cannot say that I feel that the Opposition have any grounds of complaint. Suppose it had been possible to deal with this subject in the Budget in the ordinary way. It would have been outlined by the Chancellor in his speech, and the Opposition would then have had an evening and a morning in which to ponder what the Chancellor had said before they came to criticise his speech. The Debate would have gone on during the two following days on which the Budget Resolutions are discussed in Committee of Ways and Means, and that discussion would have come to an end with the passing of the Omnibus Resolution. Subsequently, they would have been discussed again on Report stage, and finally they would have been embodied in the Finance Bill. That is the normal procedure. The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head.