GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND BILL. (Hansard, 5 May 1920)

§ Lord ROBERT CECIL
I do not propose to oppose this Motion in view of the events that have taken place, but, I should have liked to have heard a statement by the Government as to their policy with reference to a proposal of this kind. I remember when we were discussing the procedure of the House last year, it was laid down as a fundamental principle that all Bills should go to a Committee upstairs, although it was admitted there might be disadvantages attaching to that course. If such a plan is to be a success, we must get rid of the idea that the Standing Committee is an unusual and exceptional method of considering Bills. It ought, in fact, to be the ordinary method of dealing with them. It was argued on that occasion by some of us that if you were to have really detailed consideration—real business consideration of a Bill, and not merely a fight over principles—then the discussion could better be carried on in a Standing Committee upstairs than in Committee of the 2116 whole House. The procedure is quite familiar to every Member of this House. In discussions in Committee of the whole House you have them carried on in the presence of a very small number of Members, probably not more than thirty or forty listening to the arguments, and the decisions are not come to in accordance with the weight of argument adduced in the Debate, but are based purely on party considerations, and Members take part in the Division who have not heard any of the arguments advanced. In a discussion in a Standing Committee, however, you do generally get decisions on the merits of the Debate, not perhaps exclusively, for human beings after all are human. My experience of Standing Committee work is that you do really get a decision much more in accordance with the reason of the thing.
I think that this particular Bill, which it is now proposed to refer to a Committee of the whole House, is a bad Bill in principle and in essence. I think so for reasons which I have had an opportunity of explaining previously and which it would not be in order to go into on this occasion. It does not very much matter therefore, from my point of view, how the details of the Bill are to be considered, but I do suggest that hon. Members who really believe that this measure is likely to provide a solution of the Irish question, would be quite mad to agree to the discussion of its details in Committee of the whole House. They will not have any real discussion of the Bill under such conditions. It will produce no adequate result. It will be governed by the decisions of the Government, whatever they may be, on each Clause. On this matter I have no confidence whatever in the Government decisions. I quite recognise at the same time from what has taken place here, that the majority of the House has a wholly different view. I shall not therefore divide against this Motion, but I do not think it right to allow it to pass without entering my protest against it. I may say that until the House is prepared drastically to reform its method of dealing with legislation in detail, and to carry even further the experiment introduced last year, it will never gain a business reputation in the country. That is my personal view, and that is why I regret that this Resolution is put forward.

§ Sir D. MACLEAN
Without attempting in any way to raise a general Debate on the topic which my Noble Friend has introduced, I feel that I should not be justified in allowing this Motion to pass without some comment—a very brief comment—on my part. It is quite easy to make a theoretical case as the Noble Lord has done, for sending all these Bills upstairs. In the matter of non-controversial Bills, no doubt better work is done in smaller Committees upstairs than in Committee of the whole House. But, after all, we have that invaluable thing called experience—the experience of last Session—and I should be very much surprised to learn that the majority of the House thought the practice of sending Bills upstairs was an unmitigated success. Many of us, at any rate, have come to the conclusion that the principle has largely broken down and has very seriously affected the efficiency and moral authority of this House. I am very glad indeed that the Government have come to the conclusion at which they have arrived, because I believe, with the authority which is now vested in the Chairman and Deputy-Chairman of Committee—the power of selection of Amendments—and with a user of the old instrument of the Closure, that very efficient work can be done on the Floor of this House, not only with regard to such a measure as the Home Rule Bill, which, obviously, is wholly unfitted to go to a Committee upstairs, seeing that it deals with great constitutional questions, because I am hoping that our experience of dealing with this Bill on the Floor of the House will induce the Government, who, of course, have almost autocratic powers in this matter, to allow the House to deal with other Bills and to give us a real opportunity of seeing how the new powers vested in the Chairman of Committee will work, and whether, with the good will of the House, we can get a fair discussion and, after a business discussion, come to a decision and get on with the business.

§ Mr. BONAR LAW (Leader of the House)
I am obliged to my Noble Friend (Lord R. Cecil) for his statement that he did not mean to take time over this discussion. I think I am safe in saying that the two speeches to which we have just listened neutralise each other, and that, therefore, it is hardly necessary for me 2118 to say anything. On the whole, I sympathise more with the view of my Noble Friend as to the Grand Committee, than with those just uttered by my right hon. Friend opposite (Sir D. Maclean). There is no doubt, in view of the necessary pressure of legislation caused by the arrears of the War, that we could not have got on under the old arrangement and that some such system as we adopted was absolutely necessary. I would point out that giving time on the Floor of the House for this Bill naturally upsets to a very considerable extent the Government programme. Therefore, we should have much preferred, from the point of view of convenience and getting through the work, sending this Bill upstairs. I would like to say that I do not entirely agree with either of two of the remarks of my Noble Friend. He said that this Bill could not be improved. I know that the Cabinet have given a great deal of care and thought to it, but I had not so high an opinion of it as to form the conclusion just expressed by my Noble Friend. He also made the statement that in any discussion downstairs hon. Members did not vote according to the facts, but only according to the biddings of the Whips. To a certain extent that used to be true in the old days. Party Governments then, except on occasional occasions, of which my Noble Friend has some experience, could trust that method of getting a decision. One of the difficulties—I do not think it is anything that we have very much to deprecate—of the present system is that Members are not quite content to act in that way, and that they need to be satisfied that the Government's case is a good one before voting. I have no doubt myself, if this Bill had gone upstairs and the necessary adjustments had been made, that there would have been a good discussion, but the moment it was put to the Government I recognised that it was quite an exceptional Bill and that, if ever there was a Bill which ought to receive the best consideration of the House of Commons as a whole, this was one. From the outset, there was a very strong feeling in every section of the House that it should be taken downstairs. The Government has met that desire, and I hope, with this brief discussion, that we may now come to a decision.

§ Sir EDWARD CARSON
As far as I am concerned and those with whom I act, I am very glad that the Government 2119 have taken this course, and I agree entirely with my right hon. Friend, the Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean), that it would be really altogether abrogating the functions of this House if a Bill of this kind where not considered in Committee of the whole House. It is a great pity that there is not some method of procedure by which any particular part of a Bill that requires expert investigation can be examined closely by an expert committee. The Financial Clauses of this Bill are the most complicated of any Bill that I have ever seen. They try to divide up between Great Britain and Ireland the taxation raised by this House, and then to divide it up again between the Northern part and the Southern part of Ireland. I venture to think that there will be very few Members of the House who will be able to apply themselves to see what it all means and how it works out, unless we have very much greater information than we have had hitherto given us by the Government. I wuold suggest in all seriousness, as there is no method of examining these clauses with expert evidence, that the Government themselves should appoint an expert committee before whom the cases for England, Scotland, Great Britain and Ireland, north and south, could be put—I do not mind if you like to call it a departmental committee— and before whom you could go and really unravel matters.
The other day I saw a deputation, who I know say my right hon. Friend, the Minister without Portfolio (Sir L. Worthington-Evans), who has charge of the finances of this Bill. These men are business experts from Belfast who have taken a great deal of trouble going into the finances of the Bill, and, when one heard men who thoroughly understood what they were talking about in relation to these matters, it raised in one's mind the idea that we might be really, as regards setting up these Governments in Ireland, taking a leap in the dark which might be of the greatest possible disadvantage to both Parliaments in Ireland. At this moment you want to apply all your energies to make things run as smoothly as possible between those Parliaments and this country, because if you once get into loggerheads, above all things over finance, as between them and this Government, it will lead to more 2120 friction, more annoyance, and more breakdown of the whole system of Government than anything else. I look upon the question of finance in this Bill as being so important that I do press this matter upon my right hon. Friend. I suggest a committee be set up. Of course, it would not have anything to do except to supply to the Committee of the House information which would enable those of us who are interested, and who want to see the Bill run well, to understand its financial provisions. As far as we are concerned, we want the North of Ireland Parliament to be a great success, if possible, a model success, because I think that is the way that it would be really conferring an advantage upon Ireland. We cannot unravel the mysterious figures which are put before us unless we have access to everything to which the Government have access, and it is only by a Committee sitting round a table that you can carry on effectively a discussion of that kind. I hope that my right hon. friend will bear that suggestion in mind. I have read very carefully, and have gone through the White Paper with the experts, and, to my mind, it is absolutely useless in giving anything upon which you could form the faintest idea as to what will be the financial position of these Parliaments if the Bill becomes an Act and gets into operation. When the Financial Clauses do come up, I give my right hon. Friend notice that we shall not be prepared to take as the finance or as any part of the finance anything that we are not allowed thoroughly to understand, with the data upon which it is built up. It is the most complicated matter to unravel, and I doubt very much whether it can be unravelled simply by debate on the Floor of the House without previous investigation, in which all parties interested have access to the same methods of calculation as have been used by the Government. Otherwise, as far as I am concerned, I entirely approve of this Motion.

§ Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSON
In view of the withdrawal of the guillotine Motion, I do not move my Amendment—to leave out the words " Committee of the Whole House," and to insert instead thereof the words, " Joint Committee of both Houses."