CLAUSE 2.—(Alteration of the style of Parliament.) (Hansard, 15 March 1927)

§ Major CRAWFURD

I only want to raise a point which I raised on the occasion of the Second Beading of the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir W. Joynson-Hicks) was kind enough then to give me a reply, but, unfortunately, I had to go away, and I did not hear it. My point refers to the title which it is proposed to confer on the present Parliament. According to Clause 2, this Parliament is described as the Thirty-fourth Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. If this Bill is, as I believe it to be, an attempt to bring the titles into accordance with the facts, it is impossible to call this "the Thirty-fourth Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland." because Northern Ireland—not as regards population or area or characteristics which remain as they were—but as a constitutional entity which has to be described in the title of Parliament, did not exist before 1922. Therefore, it seems to me to he not only wrong but ridiculous to refer to this as "the Thirty-fourth Parliament of Great Britain and Northern Ireland." This is, in fact, the Third Parliament of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and, when we are dealing with matters of fact, I do not think we can possibly call this the Thirty-fourth Parliament."

§ Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

The hen and gallant Gentleman has very frankly told us that he has made the same speech which he made on a previous occasion. He then got a very able answer from the 1901 hon. and learned Member for Londonderry (Sir M. Macnaghten), which appeared in the OFFICIAL REPORT on the 9th of March. I think the point was then made quite clear, and I adopted my hon. and learned Friend's argument as my own. This is, in fact, "the Thirty-fourth Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland." Certain portions of Ireland have, as it were, slipped out of the United Kingdom, and we now call it the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but it is still the United Kingdom, and this is still the Thirty-fourth Parliament of the United Kingdom. I have adopted, as I said, the very able argument of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Londonderry, and I think it is still quite correct to describe this as the "Thirty-fourth Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland."