WAYS AND MEANS. (Hansard, 17 November 1931)

§ Mr. LANSBURY
Before going into Committee, I desire to put a point of Order with respect to the Resolution in Ways and Means standing in the name of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade—Abnormal Importations (Customs Duties). I wish to ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether it is not the undoubted right of this House alone to impose a tax and to fix the amount of a tax. According to Sir Erskine May in his "Parliamentary Practice": The imposition of a number of duties of a similar kind, or the renewal of a number of existing taxes, by means of a single resolution has been held to be in order.…It has been held, however, that a number of new duties relating to different commodities should not be imposed in a single resolution. The Resolution which the President of the Board of Trade is proposing to move gives power to impose duties on various articles, different duties on different articles—plate and sheet glass, knives, surgical instruments, vacuum cleaners, etc. Does not this statement of Erskine May in fact rule out the right of the Government or of the House to consider this question in the form in which it is to be put to the House?

§ Mr. SPEAKER
I make no complaint that the right hon. Gentleman has drawn attention to this question and put this point of Order, but I would point out to him that notice that he intended to raise the matter reached me only at Question Time this afternoon. I should have been glad to have had a little more notice that the question was to be raised, for the House will readily see that it raises a somewhat technical point that calls for consideration before an opinion is given upon it. The right hon. Gentleman is quite right when he assumes that the procedure which it is proposed to adopt here is not in accordance with the usual custom of this House. While it does not actually infringe any Standing Order, it is contrary to the practice and custom of the House for many years, as more or less laid down by Erskine May. Of 720 course, if the procedure had infringed any of the Standing Orders I should have drawn the attention of the House to that circumstance, but the House must remember that, while I am the guardian of the rights and privileges of the House of Commons, I am also its servant, and, in the House chooses to depart from what is the common practice, it is not for me to order what the House should do, but for the House to order me what to do. It is always best for the House itself to decide what action it should take in any particular circumstances. I have nothing to do except to carry out the will of the House.
But while this is an exceptional circumstance the procedure is not without precedent. Before the procedure was decided upon I was asked for my advice, and I had the opportunity of looking up the precedents for this particular action. A Ruling was very carefully laid down by one of my predecessors on 2nd December, 1919, when the question before the House was the Imports and Exports Regulation Bill. That was a very similar Bill to the one which it is proposed to introduce after this Money Resolution is disposed of. My predecessor on that occasion dealt with most, if not all, of the questions which have been put to me by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition. He laid stress on the fact that the particular Bill which was to be introduced was justified in the exceptional circumstances of the day; and as regards delegation of the right of this House alone to impose taxation my predecessor said: I am not prepared to say that the House cannot delegate that power to some other body."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd December, 1919; col. 213, Vol. 122.] As regards the question of this House delegating the power of imposing charges, or the imposition of duties, my predecessor made a remark which I think is as applicable to this Bill as it was to the Bill which was then under discussion. My predecessor said: The main purpose of the Bill is to exclude dumped goods and goods competing with key industries, and the imposition of charges in the nature of import duties is incidental to the adoption of such a policy."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd December, 1919; col. 213, Vol. 122.] This Bill is not concerned principally with the imposition of duties. The main pur- 721 pose of the Bill is to exclude dumped goods and the nature of the proposed duties is only incidental thereto. I think that that disposes of most of the questions raised by the right hon. Gentleman. As to the latter part of his question, that taxes on a variety of commodities could not be proposed in one Resolution, I would remind him that that has been done in the Safeguarding Duties. There the power to impose taxes is granted in one Resolution. Therefore, the procedure that we are adopting to-day is certainly not without precedent in this House, although it is exceptional and contrary to the usual practice.

§ Mr. LANSBURY
With the permission of the House may I say that I am extremely sorry that we were not able to give you, Mr. Speaker, more time to consider these points, but all of us have been extremely rushed over this business, and neither yourself nor we can accept any responsibility for that. With regard to the point about the Safeguarding Duties, I would mention that they were continuing duties, but the precedent set up here is that a number of new duties are to be sanctioned in one Resolution, and that that is definitely laid down as something which is not only unusual, but something that the House has never done before. With regard to the question of emergency, the President of the Board of Trade himself—I have carefully looked up his speech and I do not think he will deny my statement—said that this was not a question of dumping, but of forestalling something. Our gravest objection to this procedure is that under it a series of taxes will be levied on the people of this country in order to lead up to some other permanent levying of taxes without this House having had an opportunity of discussing them.
I repeat that we cannot forestall something if that something is not in our mind to forestall. It must be in the mind of the President of the Board of Trade that his Department is going to prepare a schedule of goods that shall be taxed, and in order that we shall not be flooded with these goods he is taking these precautions. I quite admit, Mr. Speaker, that you do interpret the will of the House, but very respectfully I also say that you are the guardian of the liberties and privileges of the House, and espe- 722 cially of the minority. We do say very emphatically that in our judgment this precedent is not on all fours with any that you have quoted, and that it cannot at all be taken as being in relation to the decision that Mr. Speaker Lowther gave in 1919. I would point out that it is the same Speaker's decision in regard to the first part of my case just now, that is, the inclusion in one Resolution of a number of articles to be taxed. We are now protesting most emphatically against this House being robbed of its historic right to discuss taxes before they are levied. We think that it is a most revolutionary proposal and one for which there is no justification whatever.

§ Mr. SPEAKER
As I have said, I make no complaint about the right hon. Gentleman not having given me more notice, but I did say that I feared my Ruling might not be as ample as otherwise it would have been. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman should think that I am not duly fulfilling my duty as guardian of the privileges of this House, and not safeguarding the minority. I have to carry out the Rules of the House and must in other respects act in accordance with the will of the House, which must be interpreted by the decision of the majority for the time being. At the same time, I have always done my best to safeguard all minorities.

§ Mr. LANSBURY
If I said anything that in the slightest way would leave the impression that any of us here would complain of your conduct in any way, let me say that that was not in my mind at all. We are always very grateful to you.

§ Mr. SPEAKER
I thank the right hon. Member.