DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS.

HC Deb 14 February 1902 vol 103 cc56-69

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Jeffreys do take the Chair of the Committee as Deputy Chairman."— (Mr. A. J Balfour.)

(4.15.) MR. DILLON (Mayo, E.)

On this Motion I desire to raise a debate, in accordance with precedent. There are two points in connection with the matter, which I desire to bring under the attention of the House, and I think I am in order in doing so without making any nomination in opposition to that proposed by the First Lord of the Treasury, although if it were necessary to do that to bring myself in order I should be prepared to submit another name. The matter I desire to call attention to is, I submit, of the first importance, viz., the method of procedure adopted by the Government. There are, I understand, no Standing Orders of this House dealing with the election of either the Speaker or of the Chairman of Committees, and I have always understood that these two elections are carried out in accordance with ancient practice and the common law of Parliament. Therefore the method adopted does not necessarily constitute a precedent or guide for our proceedings under this new Standing Order. Even if we were to regard it as a precedent for our action on this present occasion, I fear we should find ourselves in somewhat of a difficulty. It will be well within the recollection of the older Members of the House that the method of electing the Speaker to the Chair is totally and radically different from the method of calling the Chairman of Committees to the Chair. In the case of the election of Mr. Speaker the Motion is made under circumstances of great solemnity, and it was even laid down many years ago that it is not seemly or right that the nomination of the Speaker should be made by a Minister of the Crown; on the contrary, it was urged that as Mr. Speaker had such great powers and was to sit impartially between the Majority and the Opposition, it would be more seemly that he should be nominated by a private Member of the House. Owing to some events, the origin of which is lost in the days of the Stuarts there arose the practice of electing, in addition to the Speaker, a Chairman of Committee, who gradually became clothed, in comparatively recent days, with powers and privileges equal to those possessed by the Speaker himself. There prevailed for a long time in the practice of electing the Chairman of Committee a very peculiar custom, viz., that he was called to take the Chair—on the first occasion on which the new Parliament went into Committee of Supply—by a Minister of the Crown, viz., the Leader of the House, and the House gradually came to regard it as a nomination of the Government. I noticed with some surprise the other day, and I think it is a not unimportant matter, that the Leader of the House, when the matter was under discussion, stated that the Chairman of Committees was a nominee of the Government. He is nothing of the sort, or, at least, he ought not to be; on the contrary, the Chairman of Committees was originally elected at a time when the House had lost confidence to some extent in the independence of Mr. Speaker, on account of the relations between the Crown and Speaker, and it therefore determined to elect another officer who would be more directly responsible to the House itself, and to allow him to preside over all Committees dealing with Supply, with Ways and Means, and with Religion. That, I understand, was the origin of this extraordinary practice, and my authority is Sir Erskine May. When we passed this new Standing Order setting up a third official, we were breaking entirely new ground, and this thing ought to have been clone with a great deal more consideration and solemnity, because it was a totally new departure in the history of the House of Commons. It is the first occasion on which the House of Commons has proceeded to elect an officer who may be clothed with as full powers as the Speaker himself, under the provisions of the Standing Order.

Now, a very serious question arises. What is to be the procedure for carrying the Standing Order into effect? The Standing Order says that at the commencement of every Parliament, or from time to time as necessity may arise, the House may appoint an assistant Chairman. The words under which we propose to act are may appoint." There is no provision that the nomination shall be made by a Minister of the Crown, and I would point out that whenever, under any Standing Order of this House, it is intended to be directed that a Motion shall be made by a Minister of the Crown, words are inserted to that effect in the Standing Order. In the present instance no such words are used. The first question then is, what ought to be our procedure under this Standing Order? Remember that on the present occasion we are doing a very important act. We are setting a precedent which will establish the procedure under this new Standing Order for all future time. The first complaint I have to make is with reference to what occurred last night. I claim that under this Standing Order, and in view of the great importance of the office which we are about to create, and the peculiar circumstances which surround it, the Government ought to have taken the House into its confidence, and to have approached this act with all due solemnity and deliberation. It would probably have been more in accord with the terms of the Standing Order had they adopted the procedure which obtains in the election of the Speaker, rather than that by which the Chairman of Committees is appointed. The Government, having a free hand in setting, as I have stated, a precedent which. will guide all future Parliaments so long as this Standing Order exists, have not only selected the worst of the two procedures open to them, but they did another thing which they were not justified in doing even by precedent. They sprang the name of the hon. Member whom they intended to place in the Chair suddenly upon the House at the very last minute. They kept it a secret. They refused to give hon. Members any notice as to whom they proposed to appoint. The last occasion on which a debate took place on a Motion to appoint a Chairman of Committees was on the 2nd March, 1883. On that occasion Mr. Lyon Playfair announced his resignation, whereupon the Marquess of Hartington, who was then leading the House, stood up and said he wished, in order that the appointment of a successor to his right hon. friend might be made with the full knowledge of the House, to give notice that on the next day, on the Motion to go into the Committee of Supply, he would move that Sir Arthur Otway take the Chair. Yesterday, with that precedent before him, when the First Lord of the Treasury was asked to give the House the name of the Gentleman whom he proposed to move into the Chair, he refused to give it, and on the Motion for adjournment, when a further attempt was made to get the name, the Secretary to the Local Government Board, who at the moment was leading the Government, declared what I think was almost incredible, although of course I accept his word, that he was in a state of blank ignorance as to who was to be appointed. The matter, in fact, seems to have been kept a Cabinet secret.

What object, I ask, was to be served by thus withholding the name? So far as I am personally concerned I certainly have no objection to make to the Gentleman who has now been proposed. My present objection is based not on the mere fact that the name was withheld, but on the more important ground that we are now establishing a new procedure. I complain that in the first case the Government in making this Motion have not only selected the worst of the two procedures open to them, but have, if I may say so, improved upon the worst procedure by endeavouring to put this important officer into the Chair without giving the House any intimation or affording it any opportunity of discussing the matter at all. When in March, 1883, the Motion was made to put Sir Arthur Otway into the Chair, Mr. Raikes, who had for many years been a highly respected and most efficient Chairman of this House, initiated a discussion similar to the present. He did it, he said, with the purpose of emphasising the fact that the appointment of Chairman of Committees was one which ought always to be open to discussion, and which should be made by the House itself and not left entirely in the hands of Ministers— It was not possible," said Mr. Raikes, "for any Member of the House to serve on any Committee, without the question of his appointment being put from the Chair, and without his nomination being confirmed in the most complete and solemn manner; and he thought the House would do well to confirm. in the most solemn and conspicuous way, the appointment of an hon. Member who would have to take so important a part in controlling its proceedings. And Mr. Raikes went on to speak of the origin of the appointment of the Chairman of Committees, and to say that his powers were equal to those of Mr. Speaker himself, and, in some respects greater, in view of the— Arduous am I delicate task of presiding over private or semi-private Committees upstairs. The Leader of the House (the Marquess of Hartington) thanked Mr. Raikes for having raised the debate, and said that— The nomination of the Chairman of Ways and Means was purely the act of the House, and was not dependent on the will of the Government. His Lordship went on to say that although the nomination had usually been made in a merely formal manner— Yet it was for the purpose of obviating that summary mode of proceeding and giving it a more formal character that lie gave notice that on Mr. Speaker leaving the Chair lie shout I formally move that Sir Arthur Otway take the Chair. And the noble Lord continued— No doubt it would have been possible to give notice of a formal Motion that his hon. friend should lie appointed to the Chairmanship of Ways and Means; but that would have been a course altogether without precedent, and lie thought it desirable to follow as closely as possible the usual course, at the smile time giving notice of his intention to make this Motion in order that there might be no reason for any Member of the House saying that lie had been taken by surprise. That was the principle laid down in 1883 by the Marquess of Hartington, and that is exactly what we complain of today—the deliberate attempt which has been made to take the House by surprise. And but for the action of the hon. Member for South Donegal the House would have been taken by surprise, and a precedent would have been set up which would have had its effect after all of us were dead and forgotten. If Mr. Raikes in 1883 thought it most important that the attention of the House should be called to the fact that the Chairman of Committees was not an appointment of the Government, but of the House, how infinitely more vitally important is it on the present occasion.

There are two good reasons for saying that it is immeasurably important. In the first place, since 1883, the Chairman of Committees and this Deputy Chairman have been clothed with enormously increased powers, and they are to be still further clothed with increased powers. Has the right hon. Gentleman considered that this Gentleman, who is and will remain a working member of the rank and file of the Party opposite, will have powers undreamt of in 1883; that he will have, for instance, power to adjourn the sitting of the House without reason stated, to give the Whips time to get their men down for a critical division. The greatly increased powers of the closure and of punishment given to the officers of the House ought to make the House infinitely more rigorous in their control over these officers than in 1883. But there is another reason, which, to my mind, in-finitely outweighs in its gravity the reasons I have already given. In the case of the Chairman of Committees, when he is placed in the Chair we do not part with our control over him. In the case of Mr. Speaker, when he is placed in the Chair, we have nothing to do with voting his salary. His official salary is charged on the Consolidated Fund, and be is lifted out of the atmosphere of Party politics. Ever since I have been in this House I have been an advocate of placing all the officials in the same position. The Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means has a salary and if he misconducts himself any Member of the House can raise every year a discussion on his conduct. In fact, on two or three separate occasions, I myself have raised discussions on the conduct of the Chairman, while the latter has been sitting in the Chair. That is a vast power, and one of the compensating advantages for allowing, I will not say a partisan, but a Member of the majority Party in the House, to preside over its proceedings. But here we are invited to submit our liberties, and even the very right to sit in this House, to the decision of a man who will remain a working and voting Member of the Party in the majority; a man wino is to have no salary, and no responsibility whatever—we are invited to do that without a word of debate or criticism. I take the opportunity of once more giving expression to my deep conviction that it will not tend to the proper conduct of our deliberations, and the smooth working of our Rules, if we have a man in the Chair who is a working and voting member of the majority. I appeal to the Government to reconsider this whole matter, to approach it in a broader spirit, and to recast the system, so that those Gentlemen who are to preside over our proceedings shall be free from Party passion, and shall know that once they sit in that chair, they cease to be Party men. The reason why I have inaugurated this debate is to establish a precedent, that the House shall be at liberty to discuss freely the nature of the appointments to the Chair. I contend that the House has been unfairly treated on the present occasion, and I claim that when a Chairman is to be appointed the House should have fair notice of the name.

(6.10.) MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON (Dundee)

, ventured to submit that this was a Motion under the new Standing Order, not under the Common Law of Parliament. Now, the new Standing Order declared two things: first, that the House might appoint a Deputy Chairman; and second, that the person so appointed should, in a given state of things, be empowered to take the Chair. But a condition precedent to tire present Motion was that the House should be informed of the unavoidable absence of the Chairman of Ways and Means. It was notorious that no such information had been given to the House. He submitted that until such information was given to the House it would be impossible to carry this Motion into effect, if the terms of the Standing Order were to be fulfilled. The proper course of proceeding on the part of the right hon. Gentleman would have been, first, to have moved that the gentleman in question be appointed as Deputy Chairman, and that then the Clerk at the Table should convey to the House notice of the unavoidable absence of the Chairman of Ways and Means.

* MR. SPEAKER

Before the hon. Member takes his seat that should be done. I think it will be sufficient if it is done before he takes the Chair.

(6.12.) MR. GIBSON BOWLES (Lynn Regis)

said that the hon. Member for East Mayo had made an attack on the Government in respect of the concealment of the name of the proposed Deputy Chairman. He thought that was not quite fair, and had not sufficient foundation. The explanation of the fact that the name of the Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means was not communicated to the House till today was probably to be found in the announcement made by the First Lord of the Treasury—the communication to the House of the Royal Assent. He desired to say, and he thought he expressed the general feeling of the House, that for the hon. Member who had been appointed Deputy Chairman he entertained the highest personal respect, and the most complete confidence in his capacity and in the impartiality he would show in the Chair. His principal reason for rising was to express his personal satisfaction at the choice the Government had made, but at the same time he could not forget that this was the choice of a Member to exercise entirely new and unknown powers—greater powers than any Chairman of Committees—nay, greater powers than any Speaker—had ever exercised. He would have power to adjourn the House without Question put, and the power to initiate proceedings which would have the effect of suspending a Member from the service of the House: or a longer period than had ever been known, and the Member would not be allowed to return until he made an apology. He trusted that the double contingency which would be necessary to put the hon. Gentleman into the position to exercise the new powers—the illness of the Speaker and of the Chairman of Committees—might never arise. It was possible, however, that the contingency might arise, and he looked upon these powers as extremely dangerous, and their committal to the Deputy Chairman as very perilous. If, however, anything could reconcile him. to them it would be the appointment of the candid and honest Gentleman who, had been selected.

(6.18.) MR. SWIFT MACNEILL (Donegal, S.)

said that to the hon. Gentleman whose name was before the House lie had not the least objection; the observations which had been made with regard to him were perfectly true. But lie had a word or two to say to the First Lord of the Treasury. The right hon. Gentleman in this matter had treated the House with contempt; he had disregarded all traditional authority; and he had not only treated his own followers badly, but the House at large. This appointment, according to all the ancient rules and practice of the House, should be made with the consent of the House, but the right hon. Gentleman had treated it as if it were entirely in his own power. It had always been the practice, in the appointment of a Speaker or anyone invested with the powers and authority of a Speaker, to submit the name of the Gentleman to the House, so that it might be a matter of arrangement with the House that some person agreeable to the House as a whole should be appointed, but when asked for the name of this gentleman the previous day the right hon. Gentleman had declined to give it. He was perfectly right in asking for the name of the hon. Gentleman, in order to ensure as far as possible that the hon. Gentleman might be the selection of the House. Lord Hartington, who knew and respected the Rules of the House, previously to appointing Sir Arthur Otway, announced to the House that he was going to propose that Gentleman for the position. In this case the action of the First Lord was wrong. The Chairman of Committees was originally appointed in order to give the House greater control over finance, as it gave that office to an hon. Gentleman not approved by the Crown as was the Speaker, and in nominating a Gentleman without giving his name or saying anything about him the First Lord had cheated the House out of its rights. On the 10th of April, 1895, the First Lord made a speech on this very principle, in which he said— Although nominally the matter is left to the House, we all know that this is a Government proceeding, and the course which the Government have thought fit to adopt on this occasion is in my judgment not only so absolutely without precedent, hut is so absolutely dangerous to the future efficiency of our proceedings that I should have thought myself guilty of a great wrong had I kept silence to day. He (Mr. Swift MacNeill) would have thought himself guilty of a great wrong if he had allowed this appointment today to proceed in this manner without raising a proper protest against it. But the right hon. Gentleman on that occasion went further. He said— But, Sir, the Government have chosen under circumstances which should have made them, I should have said, more than usually anxious to conciliate the general views of all parties in the House—under circumstances which should have made them specially cautious in following our Parliamentary traditions. The First Lord in his action today had disregarded and broken every Parliamentary tradition, but the right hon. Gentleman in his speech went further, he went on to say the fault would be the Government's— who, as I think, on an occasion so important for the future interests of this House, have deliberately elected to cast to the winds all precedent and all tradition, for the purpose of pressing on our attention one of their own friends. The gentleman who was now to be elected was a friend of the Government. He had no doubt the hon. Gentleman would act with impartiality, but he objected to the House having no voice in a matter of the election of a Gentleman who was to he put into the Chair, and who would be literally the master of the House and not the servant of it. The House would have no control over his decisions, from which there would be no appeal. The First Lord had disregarded every privilege of the House, and had again and again refused special facilities for Motions impugning the conduct of high officials. He had just one more word to say to the First Lord. The Leader of the House was supposed in some respects, with his knowledge of the powers of the High Officers of the House, to consult the House as a whole and safeguard its interests. He would not in the future regard the right hon. Gentleman as the Leader of the House. He was the leader of a Party, but he was utterly unworthy, in his opinion, to be the Leader of the House, as he was utterly callous to all the principles which ought to be a guide for anyone occupying his high position. There was one other point to which he wished to refer, upon which ho would ask for the ruling of Mr. Speaker. He very much doubted if, supposing the hon. Gentleman whose name was before the House were called to the Chair, he could take his place in the Chair until the Royal Assent had been given to his acting as Speaker. Undoubtedly, Mr. Speaker himself, when elected by the House, could not discharge the duties of his high office until his election had been approved by the Crown. There was a precedent in the time of Charles II., when the nomination for the office of Speaker was disapproved by the Crown, and another Speaker had to be elected; and if the hon. Member now proposed discharged the duties of the Chair without the assent of the Crown having been obtained, he would be acting in a highly unconstitutional manner. But the Government seemed to care not one farthing for the Constitution or its traditions, while the First Lord treated the House of Commons with studied disrespect. During the whole of his Parliamentary experience, he had never seen a Leader of the House who showed such a contemptuous disregard of the privileges of the House, and probably the followers of the right hon. Gentleman were as discontented with his action in this matter as he (the speaker) was.

(6.32.) THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR, Manchester, E.)

It is evident that if the lion. Gentleman who has just sat down had had any voice as to whether I should or should not be the Leader of the House at the present time, I should have had a very poor chance. But I notice with great satisfaction that, in spite of the tragic tones employed by the hon. Gentleman, he was much more interested over my demerits than over the merits of the Deputy Chairman of Ways and. Means, which really should be the subject of discussion. It is not, however, my courtesy or want of courtsey which is now in question; the subject before the House is whether the hon. Member who has been proposed to occupy the position of Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means is or is not suitable for that high position. [Nationalist cries of "No" and "Want of notice."] The subject before the House is not the subject of notice. There are really two questions before us; one is the question of form, the other the question of substance. The question of form is, whether the Government have, or have not, been anxious to safeguard the traditions of this House in the procedure which they have adopted on this occasion. I cannot imagine that any human being can doubt that we have acted in strict conformity with the traditions of the House and with precedent. One case has been quoted in which the Leader of the House—the Deputy Leader at the time—did give notice beforehand of the name of the Member he intended to move into the Chair the next day. But there have been, within the memory of hon. Gentlemen present, many other cases of a chairman being appointed by this House, and it is a singular fact that hon. Members have not touched on a single one of those, but have raked out of the traditions of the past this single case of Sir A. Otway in 1883. I admit I contented myself with inquiring what the ordinary procedure was, without going in detail into all the precedents; but if any one takes the trouble to go through those precedents, both before 1883 and subsequently, he will find, I believe, that precisely the procedure we have adopted this afternoon has been adopted by leaders drawn from both Parties in the past, and adopted without any question or complaint from any part of the House.

MR. SWIFT MACNEILL

The name was never kept secret.

MR. A. J.BALFOUR

I disagree with the hon. Gentleman. There is no record whatever, as far as I know, of any announcement having been made beforehand, except on the single occasion which has been referred to. I believe I am absolutely within the mark when I say that in the course we have adopted tonight we have strictly followed the great balance of sound precedent.

So much for the question of form. I do not doubt the House will excuse me from dealing with that part of the hon. Gentleman's speech in which he accused me of studied discourtesy to the House. There are some accusations so exquisitely ridiculous that even the eloquent terms and the dialectical and oratorical skill of the hon. Gentleman will hardly make them plausible to the youngest Member of the House. I pass from that purely personal question.

There only remains the question of substance, and on that I am glad to say there is nothing to be said as to which we are not all in absolute agreement. The question of substance is whether the Member who has been moved into the Chair is, or is not, fitted for the high function to which he is called. I gather from all the speakers who have addressed the House, and from what I know of the general feeling and tone of the House in the matter, that there is no disapproval expressed, but the contrary, of the selection made. I hope under those circumstances, if my behaviour has been sufficiently attacked, that he may now be proposed to carry out the duties with which we are desirous, on both sides, to entrust him, so that we may permit him to go into the Chair and to preside over the work in Committee of Supply.

MR. FLYNN (Cork, N.)

said that probably all would agree as to the high qualities of the hon. Gentleman named for the office of Deputy Chairman, and therefore he utterly failed to see where had been the necessity for so much mystery. In view of the great changes effected by the new Standing Orders, the First Lord would surely have given the name earlier in answer to Questions that were addressed to him. If the right hon. Gentleman was as confident in the excellence of his choice as were most Members who had had experience of the hon. Member, why should he have been so careful to keep the name a secret? Even so late as on the adjournment of the House the previous night, the sole representative of the Government then present was in absolute ignorance on the point. It was not in consonance with the dignity of any representative assembly that information concerning so important an appointment should be conveyed to Members only by subterranean channels. His hon. friends had rendered a service to the tone and traditions of the House by raising the question, and he was glad a protest had been made against the course here adopted,

Question put, and agreed to.