7 JUNE 1957, Page 7

A Spectator's Notebook

THE HOUSE OF LORDS must be, with t h e possible exception of t h e Supreme Soviet, the most ineffective legislative body in the world. Al- j• though the Government's Shop Bill • offended against almost every canon of freedom and common sense, the Lords solemnly passed it through all its stages. (Since the Bill had not passed the Commons and therefore possessed only the Government's imprimatur,,the Lords would have been quite within their rights in slinging it out.) Last week Mr. Butler an- nounced that the Government was dropping the BilL It was doing this, he said, because the time the Bill had taken to get through the Lords showed that it would need prolonged discussion in the Commons. But though it is true that there were six months between the first and the third reading, the Bill took only eight debating days in the Lords, and the real reason for the Govern- ment's decision was that a large number of Con- servative MPs had told the Whips that in no circumstances would they vote for the Bill. In short : the Lords have dealt yet another damaging blow at the myth of their independence.

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