COMMUTATION SCHEME. (Hansard, 4 July 1913)

§ Mr. MOUNT
Mr. Speaker, I desire to ask your ruling with reference to an answer given to me yesterday by the Home Secretary. I asked the right hon. Gentleman if Le will state when the Report of Mr. Wyatt on the Welsh Disestablishment commutation scheme, from which he quoted on the 30th June, will be laid upon the Table of the Horse? The Home Secretary replied:— I do not propose to lay the Report referred to on the Table. As stated last Monday, I quoted Mr. Wyatt only for the figures which I gave to the House. On the question of policy Mr. Wyatt has not advised me, nor has he any responsibility for any conclusions widen the Government may draw from hi, figures. I then asked this supplementary question:— Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that it is a rule of the. House that a document from which something is cited ought to be laid upon the Table? The right hon. Gentleman replied:— I have refreshed my memory by looking up the practice and I cannot find it would apply in thin case."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 3rd July. 1913, cols. 2191–2.] I desire to ask whether this document does not come within the Rule of the House requiring documents under certain circumstances to be laid on the Table. As you were not in the Chair when the discussion took place, may I briefly remind you of what happened. The Committee were discussing the Money Resolution in connection with the Established Church (Wales) Bill. The question of the commutation scheme came up, and the Home Secretary brought forward certain considerations which he thought ought to make it more acceptable to Members on this side. In so doing, he referred to this Report of Mr. Wyatt. Three times in the discussion the right hon. Gentleman referred to the Report. In his opening remarks he said:— I have had some very interesting figures worked out by a most competent actuary. With assistance given to him by the actuary of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, he has been able to work out some very important figures. Later on, he said:— The actuary I have mentioned has taken the latest tables of the Clergy Mutual Assurance Society for May 191l."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th June, 1913, col. 1516.] But that is not the quotation on which I base my claim. Later in the Debate the right hon. Gentleman interrupted my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Rawlinson). He produced 2346 and laid upon the box in front of him a Report which we certainly understood and believed to be the Report of the actuary, and he read from it certain words. The OFFICIAL REPORT says:— Mr. McKenna: The actuary speaks of it as a process of readjustment from the actual experience of that society in respect of the lives of the clergy during the twenty-four years ending the 21st May, 1911."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th June, 1913, col. 1541,] My hon. and learned Friend then went on to say:— I presume that it will he laid on the Table of the House so that we may be able to check it. Again, the hon. and learned Gentleman reiterated that a little further on. He said:— The right hon. Gentleman purported to quote from that Report, and no doubt he will lay it on the Table of the House so that we may he able to examine it.—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th June, 1913, col. 1541] That suggestion was not repudiated by the right hon. Gentleman. The third time this Report was referred to was when the Home Secretary gave an answer to, I think, my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea. He then gave the name of the actuary, a name which is very familiar to hon. Members, Mr. Wyatt. It must be clearly understood—and I desire to put this rather in favour of the Home Secretary—that he said that Mr. Wyatt was not advising on a question of policy, by that he was quoting him only for his figures. I want to ask your ruling, Sir, whether the fact that the Home Secretary in his interruption of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Cambridge University read from this Report does not entitle us to have that Report laid upon the Table. I should like to base myself further on this: The right hon. Gentleman referring to Mr. Wyatt's Report spoke of it as not dealing with figures alone, but as a process of readjustment from the actual experience of that society in respect to the lives of the clergy during the twenty-four years ending 21st May; 1911. May I with all respect draw your attention to a previous and somewhat similar case, that of Colonel Kinloch in 1903. May I read what was said by Mr. Speaker Gully, on the question of the production of evidence, from which a quotation had been made by the present Lord Middleton. Mr. Speaker Gully (on 16th March, 1903), said:— The principle of the rule is that if a Minister quotes from a document, the context must be placed before the House so as to enable the House to judge whether there is anything in the rest of the document which would modify, alter, or contradict that which is quoted. 2347 I venture to ask you whether as the Home Secretary read from this Report we are entitled to have it laid on the Table of the House so that we may judge whether there is anything in the Report modifying, altering, or contradicting the statements of the right hon. Gentleman. I should like to ask whether we ought not to have not only the figures quoted from the Clergy Mutual Assurance Society, but also the Report itself?

§ The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna)
I desire to make one or two observations on the statement of the hon. and learned Gentleman. In this particular Debate the question was how much money the Treasury might have to guarantee if commutation were ultimately adopted. In explaining what that amount of money might be, and not in any way, as the hon. Gentleman seems to think, recommending the system of commutation proposed, but stating the total amount of the money only, I gave the estimate of the actuary employed by the Government as two million one hundred thousand pounds odd. In the course of the Debate the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Cambridge University argued that the estimate was obtained not on life tables based on the lives of the clergy, but on life tables based on the life of the ordinary human being. I replied that it was based on the life tables of the Clergy Mutual. The hon. and learned Gentleman then answered that the Clergy Mutual have other members whom they insure—of course, I am only summarising his remarks — besides members of the clergy. It was then in order to make sure of my point I turned to the title which is given by the actuary to this table, and I read the title. I was not quoting from the Report in any sense of enforcing what I have to say in the way of argument by reference to it. I turned to the Report in order to strengthen my memory upon the question as to what was the exact title of the Clergy Mutual, and who were the persons whom they insured in that company, whose lives were taken as an estimate. So much in reply to the hon. and learned Gentleman for the quotation. Further, some hon. Members having been under the impression that I had quoted from the Report, I made it abundantly clear in the course of the Debate that I had quoted no opinion and no Report, in the sense of quotation, from Mr. Wyatt, but that I had 2348 only given his actual figures. I am perfectly willing to present those figures to the House once again, if the hon. Gentleman wishes it, in the form of a Paper. To proceed to give a reason why I do not propose to lay upon the Table of the House, apart from Mr. Wyatt's figures, the rest of Mr. Wyatt's Report—though I do not know if in stating this I shall be rendering myself liable in consequence of quoting that Report to place the document upon the Table—but if I am free to give a reason, I shall be glad to do so.

§ Mr. SPEAKER
I do not think it is necessary. I was going to suggest to the House that the right hon. Gentleman should let me see the Report.

§ Mr. McKENNA
Oh, certainly.

§ Mr. SPEAKER
Then when I have got the Report in my hand and see the words attributed to the right hon. Gentleman in column 1541 of the OFFICIAL REPORT of 30th June, I shall be in a better position to say whether or not in my opinion they are a quotation from the document. If, in my opinion, they are a quotation from a document which in some respects might affect the arguments which were put forward by the Opposition if the whole document were to be published, I shall advise that the whole document ought to be laid upon the Table. If what the hon. Gentleman was reading or referred to was not from the Report, but was only a summary, or title, or heading, or something of the kind, then it will be unnecessary to lay the Report upon the Table. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will be satisfied if he gives me an opportunity during the course of the day to examine the Report for myself. I shall then be in a better position to pronounce an opinion, which it is almost impossible to do with the material now before me.

§ Mr. RAWLINSON
May I respectfully point out to you that the right hon. Gentleman read certain figures based upon the Clergy Mutual Insurance Society Reports? The point that was made by hon. Members on this side of the House was that these referred exclusively to the lives of the clergy. I remarked, as the right hon. Gentleman said, that the Clergy Mutual insured many other people besides clergy, and that they would treat anyone, whether he were a clergyman or lawyer or anyone else, as a first-class life on exactly the same terms. The quotation was made in 2349 answer. I wanted to see the figures in regard to the lives upon which this gentleman made his calculations. I wanted to see them so that I might test them with the actual figures of the Clergy Mutual.

§ Mr. SPEAKER
The only quotation, or what may be taken as a quotation, are, it appears, the words which are attributed to the Home Secretary in the OFFICIAL REPORT, col. 1541. It is true that they do not appear in inverted commas. Therefore, on the face of it, I should say that they are not a quotation. But from what the hon. Gentleman said, it did appear that the Home Secretary read that from a document which was before him. It will be my business to see whether that is a quotation from a document—if so, whether it is a quotation from the body of the Report or whether it is taken from something else. Further, to consider whether, the first being the case, it will be necessary that the whole document should be produced in fairness to the House and in fairness td the hon. Gentleman.

§ Mr. BRIDGEMAN
May I ask you to take into consideration the claim that we make that as the Home Secretary quoted a final figure as a total amount, we are entitled to have the figures which led him up to that conclusion?

§ Mr. SPEAKER
I cannot answer that question. I am going to confine myself to that one paragraph which may be a quotation. The Horne Secretary can refer to any figures he likes. If he quotes from an official document then that document must be laid upon the Table of the House if it becomes necessary to make the position of the Opposition or of those opposed to it clear.

§ Mr. BRIDGEMAN
We understood, on this side of the House, that the Home Secretary was quoting figures from a document we saw in front of him, and he himself said, in the course of the discussion, that he was quoting figures, but that we were not to take it that he was identifying himself with the matter of policy, but only with the matter of figures in the document.

§ Mr. McKENNA
Perhaps I might simplify this matter by saying that I am perfectly willing to give to hon Gentlemen opposite, or to publish, the figures Mr. Wyatt reported to me.

§ Mr. BRIDGEMAN
The whole of them?

§ Mr. McKENNA
No, not all, but the figures which I gave relating to this matter. He gave me many other figures not relating to this point at all. I am perfectly willing to give these figures—the figures I quoted—in the precise form in which they were presented to me by Mr. Wyatt. I gladly acquiesce in the suggestion you made, Mr. Speaker, and I will at once show the document.

§ Mr. MOUNT
We arc perfectly satisfied to leave the matter with regard to the Report, if, as I understand, the Report was not read, but we shall at any rate have the figures.

§ Mr. McKENNA
Oh, yes, I shall be glad to supply them.