UNEMPLOYMENT BILL (ALLOCATION OF TIM).

HC Deb 19 December 1933 vol 284 cc1129-222

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Committee stage, Report stage, and Third Reading of the Unemployment Bill shall be proceeded with as follows:—

(1) Committee Stage.

Fourteen allotted days shall be given to the Committee stage of the Bill and to the proceedings on any Instructions relating thereto, and the proceedings on each allotted day shall be as shown in the second column of the following Table; and those proceedings shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion at the time shown in the third column for that day.

TABLE.—Committee Stage.
Allotted Day.	Proceedings.	Time for bringing Proceedings to a conclusion.
		P.M.
First day	Proceedings on Instructions and Clauses 1 and 2	7.30
Clauses 3 to 5	11.0
Second day	Clauses 6 and 7	7.30
Clauses 8 to 10	11.0
Third day	Clause 11	7.30
Clause 12	11.0
Fourth day	Clauses 13 and 14	7.30
Clauses 15 and 16	11.0
Fifth day	Clauses 17 and 18	7.30
Clauses 19 to 33	—
Sixth day	Clauses 19 to 33	7.30
Clause 34	—
Seventh day	Clause 34	7.30
Clauses 35 and 36	—
Eight day	Clauses 35 and 36	7.30
Clauses 37 and 38	—
Ninth day	Clauses 37 and 38	7.30
Clauses 39 to 42	11.0
Tenth day	Clauses 43 to 49	11.0
Eleventh day	Clauses 50 to 63	11.0
Twelfth day	New Clauses	11.0
Thirteenth day	First Schedule	7.30
Second to Fourth Schedules	11.0
Fourteenth day.	Fifth Schedule	7.30
	Sixth to Eighth Schedules and any other matter necessary to bring the Committee stage to a conclusion	11.30

(2) Report Stage and Third Reading

Four allotted days shall be given to the Report stage and Third Reading of the Bill, and the proceedings thereon shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion at 11 p.m. on the last of those allotted days.

On the conclusion of the Committee stage of the Bill, the Chairman shall report the Bill to the House without Question put.

After the day on which this Order is passed, any day, other than a Friday, on which the Bill is put down as the first Order of the Day, shall be considered an allotted day for the purposes of this Order.

For the purpose of bringing to a conclusion any proceedings which are to be brought to a conclusion on an allotted day, and which have not previously been brought to a conclusion, the Chairman or Mr. Speaker shall, at the time appointed under this Order for the conclusion of those proceedings, put forthwith the Question on any Amendment or Motion already proposed from the Chair, and, in the case of a new Clause which has been read a Second time, also the Question that the Clause be added to the Bill, and shall next proceed to put forthwith the Question on any Amendments, new Clauses, or Schedules moved by the Government of which notice has been given (but no other Amendment new Clauses, or Schedules), and any Question necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded and, in the case of Government Amendments, or Government new Clauses or Schedules, he shall put only the Question that the Amendment be made, or that the Clauses or Schedules be added to the Bill, as the case may be.

Any Private Business which is set down for consideration at 7.30 p.m., and any Motion for Adjournment under Standing Order No. 10, on an allotted day shall, on that day, instead of being taken as provided by the Standing Orders, be taken on the conclusion of the proceedings on the Bill or under this Order for that day, and any Private Business or Motion for Adjournment so taken may be proceeded with, though opposed, notwithstanding any Standing Order relating to the Sittings of the House.

On a day on which proceedings are to be brought to a conclusion under this Order, proceedings for that purpose shall not be interrupted under the provisions of any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.

On a day on which any proceedings are to be brought to a conclusion under this Order no dilatory Motion with respect to proceedings on the Bill or under this Order, nor Motion that the Chairman do report progress or do leave the Chair, nor Motion to postpone a Clause or to recommit the Bill, shall be received unless moved by the Government, and the Question on such Motion, if moved by the Government, shall be put forthwith without any Debate.

Nothing in this Order shall—

1. (a) prevent any proceedings which under this Order are to be concluded on any particular day being concluded on any other day, or necessitate any particular day or part of a particular day being given to any such proceedings if those proceedings have been otherwise disposed of; or
1131
2. (b) prevent any other business being proceeded with on any particular day, or part of a particular day, in accordance with the Standing Orders of the House, if any proceedings to be concluded under this Order on that particular day, or part of a particular day, have been disposed of."—[The Prime Minister.]

3.48 p.m.

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald)

In speaking to this Motion I have to fall back upon the explanation which is always being quoted from the speeches of Leaders of all parties who have addressed the House from this Box on a similar occasion. The fact of the matter is that every party is now committed to adopting a time-table for the purpose of faciliating the passage of every Bill of importance which is taken on the Floor of the House. I will take that for granted. This practice has been forced upon every Government, Liberal, Labour and Conservative, as well as ourselves, because it is the duty of every Government to provide as far as possible for two things in connection with the transaction of business in this House. The first is that with a Bill like the Unemployment Bill which is now before us an opportunity should be given to the House to discuss every important point in the Bill, and to see to it that no important point is hidden by the moving of unregulated closures or in the hastening of business. The other point is that Debate should not be prolonged so that the time of the House is so occupied as to prevent later in the Session important, and it may even be essential, business from being considered. If the House applies those two tests to the time-table I am now moving I think there will be general agreement that the Government have secured both objects, so far as it is possible under the circumstances.

First, let me remind the House of what time has been taken and is to be taken by this Bill. The Second Reading occupied three days and the Money Resolution one day and part of an all-night sitting, so the general principles and the general finance of the Bill have already occupied four days. It is upon this time-table which I have presented that we propose to allot 14 days to the Committee stage and four further days to the Report stage and Third Reading. That is a total of 22 Government days assigned to the business regarding this Bill.

I notice that there is an Amendment on the Order Paper to-day to the effect that there should be more than four days for the Third Reading and the Report stage, and that all provisions for these two stages should disappear from the time-table which I am now presenting. We cannot agree to that. It is only fair for the House to know what time the Government believe they can afford for the full discussion of this Bill through all its stages. I want, however, to make two observations. One is that the Government do not propose to do more than to declare the total time that it proposes to devote to the Report stage and the Third Reading. Where the Guillotine will fall during those four days the Government wish to leave an open question. As we go on with our Committee consideration, this point, that point and the other point that may be unforeseen at the moment, will crop up and be of importance. Therefore, as soon as the Committee stage finishes, it will be necessary for the House to consider further the apportionment of the four days assigned to the Report stage and the Third Reading. Through the usual channels, hearty co-operation will be asked in order that these four days may be properly apportioned.

The second point that I want to mention goes a little further than that. It is impossible to give a definite pledge, but if the Debate upon the Committee stage indicates that, say, another day, a fifth day, could be advantageously used by the House in considering the Report stage and the Third Reading, we would be disposed to grant it. I want to emphasise what I have said, but that is not a pledge to be binding. It will depend upon how the other business which we regard as essential business is progressing in the meantime.

Mr. BUCHANAN

Blackmail.

The PRIME MINISTER

It is not in the same category as blackmail. In this case, we want to give the House the greatest facility possible, consistent with the transaction of other essential business, so that this Bill will receive the most thorough consideration that it possibly can have, in view of the time at our disposal.

As regards how the block of time of 22 or 23 days may be used, I think that if hon. Members will look at the details of the time-table and notice where the various sections are divided, they will find that, by the division proposed, a reasonable opportunity will be given to raise almost every one of the questions that have occupied a considerable amount of time during the Debates on the Second Reading and the Financial Resolution. I may go further and say that in regard to this time-table we have done our best to get into touch with all the sections of the House. The proposal that we now: make is far more in the nature of co-operative suggestion than a Government decision. I am pleased at the success that has attended the attempts to get these time-tables very largely agreed upon before they are put upon the Order Paper. The Government simply stands stiff—[Interruption.]—that seems a great discovery to the hon. and learned Member for East Bristol (Sir S. Cripps)—upon the time-table allotted to the Bill. The Government are perfectly willing, having given 22 or 23 days to the discussion to get this Bill through the House, to give the Opposition, or anybody interested, an opportunity of deciding where they would like the various compartments to be divided. If there is any point which they want for discussion, we have gone to them, and we have told them that we are willing to make the division as near to that point as possible, so that it will be one of the early stages discussed after the Closure has fallen upon the section before. I believe that more care has been taken to make this time-table a fair one, and to comply with all reasonable demands as to how sections should be made up than has been taken in considering any other. I therefore hope that it will be regarded as a reasonable time-table, and as a fair division of the time allotted to the Bill.

3.57 p.m.

Mr. ATTLEE

When we learned that there was to be a time-table on this Bill, we took part in discussions, through the usual channels, as to the allocation of time between the different Clauses, but that had to be done within the limits laid down by the Government. That did not mean at all that we accept the Motion, or that we accept the amount of time given. The Prime Minister said that he would not go into any of the usual discussions about the principle. I do not want to follow the idea that it is necessary on a Motion of this kind to make exciting speeches, because we know that all Governments do this sort of thing from time to time. I am prepared to admit that the forms of this House want a considerable amount of reformation in order that we may get a proper discussion upon every important detail of a Bill.

There is a very unusual feature about this Motion. Previously, we have had time-tables on Finance Bills and on the Import Duties Bill. The particular reason for putting forward a time-table in those cases was that the Bill had to be got through by a certain date. I am not aware that there is any consideration of that sort with regard to this Bill. This is the only piece of the Government's programme, so far as I know, that requires a time-table. The rest is practically empty of any other proposal, and I am not aware that this Bill has to get through by a fixed date. On the Committee stage of a Bill, it would be a good thing that there should be discussion and arrangements with regard to the allocation of time, but the Government are in a position to enforce upon the minority such time-table as they want.

We oppose this time-table. We do not think that there is any evidence that it is required. We do not know what else the Government have to propose of any importance during this Session, and we see no reason why there should not be the fullest discussion on this Bill. The second reason is that this is a Bill which affects intimately the lives of all the workers of this country. The discussions we have had already show the immense amount of detail in the provisions, and there must be inevitably a very large amount of discussion by Members on all sides of the House, because the Bill touches different categories of workers at so many points. We do not think that a Bill of this kind can be dealt with rigidly by a time-table like this, because it is not possible to see exactly the result of the discussions, and how much time will be needed. One can only get an approximate idea. This Bill, of all Bills, is a difficult one for a time-table. On a Bill which deals with things, such as an Electricity Bill, it is far easier to get a time-table, and to see where the most important Debates will take place, but on a Bill which deals with personnel it is far more difficult. Again and again, in discussions of this kind, one has found that a point which at first seemed small, has become extremely important.

We find in the table that the time for bringing discussion to a close is 11 o'clock. I should like to know why that hour is taken, instead of 10.30. I agree that it gives half an hour extra. On the Import Duties Bill we stopped each night at 10.30. There may be one, two, three or four Divisions, and very likely more. That takes us on well past 11 o'clock, and for a long period of time private Members will have practically no opportunity of raising any matter after 11 o'clock, for the time will already have been taken. The second feature is the great length of the proceedings because it is a very long Bill. For the Import Duties Bill, a comparatively short Measure, five days were allotted. Here 14 days are allotted, that is, leaving out the Report stage and the Third Reading. It is to be discussed at a time when days are taken up with Private Members' Motions, and for a very long period it will be practically impossible for any private Member to raise any matter of importance. Further, should any emergency happen—and the world is full of emergencies just now—by the provisions here it will not be possible to get an Adjournment to discuss any matter at 7.30, it has to come on after the termination of the proceedings under this Motion. That means that important matters will not come on until somewhere about 12 o'clock.

I do not know exactly what is to be the allocation of these days to any particular week, but by this provision the Government are doing something far more than regulating discussions on this Bill. They are regulating the discussions of this House for a very long period. It is not only the Opposition that they are restricting. They are cutting into the rights of private Members. It is a proposal to take the time of the House, apart from those days allotted to Bills of private Members, but anything else that may occur, where a Member wants to bring anything forward in the interests of his constituency, he will be practically debarred. This is by far the most drastic time-table that we have had brought in. I was glad to see that the Prime Minister allows a certain fluidity in his proposals in regard to the Report stage. We have Amendments on the Paper to cut out altogether the proposals relating to the Report stage. The reason is obvious. Until you have been through Committee, you cannot tell how much you have to do on Report.

We have had some experience in this Parliament of how much amendment of Government Bills is needed. The House will remember the Road Traffic Bill and the Transport Bill, the masses of Amendments that came down from the other place and the masses of Amendments on Report. In a very complicated Bill like this, almost two Bills in one, consisting very largely of references to other Acts, unless there is to be no real examination by the House—by "real examination" I mean examination leading to the acceptance of Amendments—anyone who has had experience of Committees on a large Bill like this knows that if there have been Amendments accepted, if there have been promises of reconsideration by Ministers, there must inevitably be a large amount to be done on the Report stage, and, therefore, I think it would be extraordinarily ill-advised to try to tie the House down at this stage. I do not see any reason for it. Towards the end of the Committee stage the Government will be in a position to know much better than now, exactly what time they want for other matters, and perhaps they will also be in a position to know what time is wanted by other Members of this House. Therefore, I think it would be better for the allocation of time in the subsequent stages to be left to a later period.

We intend to oppose this Bill, and we are not in the least inclined to assist the Government by assenting to this Motion. We think that the Bill will become more unpopular the more it is considered, and, therefore, this Notice of Motion setting up an elaborate time-table, before even the discussion on the Bill has begun in Committee, is a sign that the Government feel that there will be opposition in every quarter to the provisions of the Bill. They have noticed, probably, the growing objections from every part of the House, and they are taking time by the forelock to bring in a time-table to restrict debate. We do not think that the 14 days allowed will give sufficient time for bringing out the very many points of this Bill which must be fully discussed, because every Member knows how vitally they affect the lives of his own constituents. I would imagine that the number of Members taking part in the Debates on this Bill will be very large, and, looking at this time-table, I am afraid that, so far from it getting all the principal points fully discussed, at 11 o'clock or 7.30 there will be rushed through a mass of important Amendments and Clauses that have not been fully considered. We shall, therefore, oppose this Motion.

4.10 p.m.

Mr. KINGSLEY GRIFFITH

On behalf of those who sit on these benches, I am not suggesting that we have any fine frenzy of indignation against the procedure of this time-table. It is now a regrettable but necessary procedure, and, with regard to this particular timetable, we have to acknowledge freely that there have been consultations for which we are very grateful. One could wish that this procedure were not left to emergency, or rather haphazard, arrangements at the last moment, and that there could be in the machinery of this House some arrangement for putting it on a satisfactory and permanent basis. But we have to take the practice as it now stands, and I sincerely hope that this time-table will work out satisfactory. It is impossible to say at the present moment whether it will or will not. We have to remember that this is rather an unusually constituted House with a very large majority, and certain Oppositions rather small in numbers. It is obvious that under these proceedings a time-table can be very largely abused—I say can be, but I hope will not be, by the majority. It is possible for the majority, once they have got their time-table, to realise that it does not matter whether the time is spent in unimportant Amendments, so that the most important Amendments are crowded out without discussion.

That is a matter for the good sense of this House, and I trust that the Patronage Secretary will exercise his influence to see that the time-table is not abused in that way. It will make a vast difference to the feeling to this House and to the country as to whether ample discus- sion has been allowed. It is not settled by the 14 days allotted to Committee. It depends very largely on the way in which the 14 days are used—on the proper use of them. Every part of this House has its own responsibility, which, I hope, it will remember. For ourselves, our attitude must be, on the main question, the same as that which has been announced from the bench above the Gangway. We are opposed to this Bill, not merely on minor points, but on major questions of principle which we outlined on Second Reading. In those circumstances, it would be improper for us to tie our hands by giving any facilities whatever for passing a, Measure in which we do not believe. For that reason, and that reason only, we shall record our vote in the Division Lobby.

4.13 p.m.

Captain CROOKSHANK

Not being one of the parties consulted in this matter, and, I may add, having no reason to be consulted, I did rather wonder, when the Prime Minister said that every shade of opinion in the House had been consulted, whether, in point of fact, any of the Government supporters were asked. I take it that they were, as I have had no reply.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Captain Margesson)

It is the custom to consult with the Minister of Labour and with the Opposition parties. It is perfectly true that individuals on both sides are not consulted, but the Minister of Labour would realise which were the most important points of discussion, and I acted very largely upon his suggestions.

Captain CROOKSHANK

I am much obliged to the Patronage Secretary, because he puts the matter perfectly clearly, and fully justifies my intervention. Unemployment Insurance Bills, whatever may be the histories of other Bills, have a very curious history with regard to the opposition generated against them. On the 1924 Bill the right hon. Gentleman who now sits for Tamworth (Sir A. Steel-Maitland) found that the most intelligent opposition came, not from the Socialist party, but from hon. Members who sat here, led largely by the hon. Member who is now, very properly, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour, and when the Bill was introduced there was no idea, I think, in the Government's mind that it was from this quarter that opposition was to come. When Miss Bondfield was Minister of Labour in the time of the present Prime Minister, the most intelligent opposition certainly came from the then Opposition benches, but the most clamorous, vociferous, and long-winded opposition came from the representatives of the Clyde—from the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton), the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan), and their comrades who have fallen by the wayside. In that case again, when the Bill was introduced, the Government never realised that there was going to be such a great weight of opposition from behind them. I do not necessarily say that that is going to be the case in regard to this Bill, but the fact remains that a great deal of agitation—with which I am not in the least concerned—about the distressed areas has boiled up around here. The hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. L. Thompson) has never ceased making speeches on the subject, and, incidentally, he has largely got his way. For all that I know, similar agitations may arise during the passage of this Bill, but, so far from its being in the mind of the Patronage Secretary, he has not attempted in any way, from what he has told the House, to consult any of the vast body of his supporters. That seems to me to be a very serious blemish with regard to this time-table.

I heard the Prime Minister say just now that every party was committed to a time-table for every Bill of importance. I bow to his judgment on the question, but I find very little evidence of that fact. It is true that different parties have used the time-table, but it seems to have escaped the notice of at any rate some people that since we last had a time-table in this House there has been a Select Committee on Procedure. The hon. Gentleman who is now Secretary for Mines was the Chairman of that Committee, and he wrote and presented, not to an old Parliament, but to this very Parliament, a report with recommendations as to how we should deal with this problem. That seems to have gone like water off a duck's back so far as the arranging of this time-table is concerned. I do not wish to go through all the recommendations that the Secretary for Mines and his Committee made, but they made the definite assertion that the Kangaroo was far better than the Guillotine. That was their first assertion, because, they said, there was always a sense of grievance generated by the Guillotine; there were always likely to be Amendments not discussed and Clauses passed right over. They recommended that, if there must be a Guillotine, an expert Committee should be set up to decide on the allocation of the time; and, if that were done, I imagine that the patient supporters of the Government would have some place on such an expert Committee.

Moreover, it is actually stated in the report that it was an understood thing that the Government consulted the Opposition and other Members specially interested in a Bill, but in this case, according to the Patronage Secretary, other Members have been omitted. There are so many of them that I cannot blame him for that, but I do put it to the House that, when a Select Committee on Procedure has been set up and has made valuable recommendations with regard to this and various other matters of procedure, it is rather discouraging to them, not to mention anyone else who is interested in these matters, and wants to see Bills properly discussed, that, although the report is there, and although evidence was taken from everybody who was capable of giving evidence—from the leaders of parties, from the Prime Minister, from you yourself, Mr. Speaker, and from representatives of every shade of opinion, even including Professor Ramsay Muir and Commander Ken-worthy—we find that no attention whatever is paid to their recommendations. I think that that is a pity, because the situation as regards time-tables as a whole is now quite different.

The Prime Minister also said that the great advantage of a time-table was that it gave the opportunity to discuss every important point. Opportunity must be given, he said, to discuss every important point. Of course, that is the ideal, but if he would take it from me—I do not suppose he would—it is the last thing that the time-table necessarily does, because a good many Members of the House have it very much in mind that the hon. and learned Member for East Bristol (Sir S. Cripps) made his reputation by the way in which he entirely failed to deal with any point at ail of the Finance Bill under a time-table. Time and again, when we were discussing the Land Tax, we would put to him from those benches conundrum after conundrum, not to trip him up, but to ask what the Bill meant; and time and again the hon. and learned Gentleman got up somewhere about 10 o'clock and talked for half an hour without answering any of the points. Then the Guillotine feli, and the Opposition—and I come back to this point—felt under a sense of grievance. I do not expect that the hon. and learned Gentleman's present colleagues will do anything of that sort, but it does indicate that there are possibilities, as the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. K. Griffith) has said, of grave abuse in the time-table system.

For that reason I think that, if the House will really reflect with a view to giving a completely impartial decision on this matter, it will agree with the Select Committee on Procedure that the system by which Amendments can be selected, and by which the Closure can be granted by the Chairman as soon as he thinks it is necessary, is a much more satisfactory way of dealing with a complicated Bill, the details of the Debates on which cannot possibly be foreseen now. How often we have found, in the discussions on long and complicated Measures, that when the Chairman of the Committee has put the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," some hon. Member has asked, "What does line 4 mean?" and it has suddenly been discovered that line 4, or whatever it may be, meant something quite different from what everybody thought it meant, and really raised a point of considerable importance. Under a time-table all possibility of elucidating anything of that kind is lost, because the experience is that Clause after Clause has to go through without a word of discussion. There is a slight safeguard in the case of the present Bill, because I take it from what the Prime Minister said that it is very unlikely that the Bill is a Money Bill, and, therefore, it is possible that points which may have escaped the notice of this House may be dealt with in another place, which is not the case with Finance Bills. Even so, however, that is a comparatively small safeguard, because it must be admitted on general grounds that Members of the other House cannot possibly have the intimate know- ledge that we here have, through having constituents who are naturally concerned with every phrase and word of the Measure. I think it really is testing the supporters of the Government a little hard that, before the Bill has been debated at all in Committee, we should have a Guillotine Motion of this kind.

It may very well be—it is not inconceivable—that 14 days will be too much, because I think that under all these Motions, if a day has been allotted, it has to be filled up, and if there is too much time one can only say what a pity it is to have wasted any. After all, the present Opposition are hampered by their very small numbers, while the supporters of the Government do not wish to go out of their way to be obstructive and tiresome, but only to raise points which they consider to be of real importance. There are many loyal supporters of the Government who will continue to support the Bill in its general outlines, unpopular though some of its provisions may be, and we do feel that it is difficult to vote for this Motion when there is so very little reason to suppose that any obstruction to the Bill will come from any quarter at all, and when the whole object of the House is to be what the Prime Minister himself invited it to be in by-gone times—a Council of State to help him with one of the most difficult problems of social reform with which we are likely to be faced in our time. For that reason, while I would not dream of voting against the Government on an issue of this kind, I certainly cannot find myself in the Lobby with them.

4.27 p.m.

Mr. TINKER

I think the Government are rather unwise in introducing a Guillotine Motion on this Bill at such an early stage. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Limehouse (Mr. Attlee) that it would have been better to see first how the proceedings went on, and then possibly bring forward a Guillotine Motion on the basis of the time that had already been taken. When I first looked at the present Motion, I was inclined to think that the allocation of time was a fairly good one, but after that I examined the Bill itself, and also the Amendments which have been put down, not merely by Members of the Opposition parties, but by Members in all quarters of the House, with a view to trying to amend the Bill from their point of view. Naturally, we on these benches are against the Bill, and shall do all that we can to bring in certain Amendments. It may be interesting to the House to know that the total number of Amendments on the Order Paper is 187, and a large number of these, no doubt, will be accepted.

Mr. BUCHANAN

There are many more to be put down yet.

Mr. TINKER

As time goes on, other Amendments, no doubt, will be put down on points arising later. I myself have examined the Bill closely in order to see if other Amendments could be put down for its improvement, and it is quite possible that eventually the number of Amendments may be double what it is now. Then there are 11 new Clauses and 45 Amendments to the Schedules, so that the grand total of Amendments, new Clauses, and Amendments to the Schedules is now 243. The hon. and gallant Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank) appears to be determined to do a little talking on the matter, and a good deal of time will no doubt be taken up by him in discussing these various Amendments, because, despite what he has said with regard to the hon. and learned Member for East Bristol (Sir S. Cripps), there is nobody better able than he is himself to do what he said the hon. and learned Member did. He is one of the best at it in the House, and I always like listening to him, because I admire the way in which he can do it. He need not, however, condemn anyone else for talking a long while and saying very little; he can do that as well as anybody.

This Bill is probably the greatest Bill that has been before any Parliament for many years, and, when once it is settled, it will control for a long time those people who are unemployed. I think the Government would be well advised to give as much time to it as possible. I should like to make one suggestion to the Patronage Secretary. The new Clauses are 11 in number, and only one day in Committee is being given to them—the 12th day. I would ask the Patronage Secretary to be elastic on that point. If it is found that those Clauses have any substance in them at all, might we not ask that an extra day should be given to them before the Report stage? In a matter like this it would be well to get the good will of the Opposition, and I hope that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman is not going to take up a hard-and-fast attitude and say that we must be tied down to 14 days, if during the proceedings it is found that more time is necessary for legitimate discussion on the Bill. If we can satisfy the Government and the Parliamentary Secretary that our criticisms are directed to improving the Bill and that we are not able to get through the Clauses in the time allotted, they ought to be able to add another day or two. If that were done, much of the opposition to the Motion would disappear.

4.31 p.m.

Mr. LEWIS

When I first came to the House I thought it was a pity when I saw Motions of this, kind on the Paper, because they must tend to restrict discussion, but I had not been here very long before I came to the opinion, which I believe is shared by many back benchers, that the institution of such a Motion actually results in fairer consideration of the Bill as a whole than proceedings in Committee without it. Indeed, it is probably fair to say that we have now reached the stage when, if a very complicated and highly controversial Bill is to be taken in Committee of the whole House, a Motion of this kind will become a regular part of our procedure. We have to face the alternative, which is a series of all-night sittings, which are bad for the Members and bad for the work that they try to do. In my view, however, the Government are not the proper people to draw up the time-table. The Prime Minister to-day used a very significant phrase—"all the time the Government believe they can afford. 'It seems to me that in drawing up a Motion of this kind the consideration should be what time is necessary for a proper discussion of the Bill. Obviously, those two ideas would not necessarily produce the same number of days for consideration of the Bill.

My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crook-shank) has referred to a suggestion made by the Committee on Procedure, that matters of this kind should be taken out of the hands of the Government and placed in the hands of a Committee appointed for that purpose. I hope very much that some such form of procedure will be adopted. The idea that I have in my mind is a Committee of whom one should be yourself, Sir, to preside, one should be the Chairman of Ways and Means and one the Deputy-Chairman of Ways and Means. Other Members would be the Prime Minister, the Chief Government Whip, the Leader of the Opposition and the Chief Opposition Whip. We should thus have seven Members all familiar with the ordering of the business of the House and capable of expressing a valuable opinion on the amount of time that should be given to particular parts of a Measure. When I say the Leader of the Opposition, I mean the Leader of the official Opposition.

I would not suggest that any Member of the House, however personally distinguished, who can gather round him a handful out of 600 Members to share his own views should be entitled to direct representation upon such a Committee. That would mean that you would have a small but energetic group, such as the Clyde group, or different sections of the Liberal party, drifting uneasily about the Chamber and directly represented on this Committee. Those Members themselves would be the first to admit that it is a great advantage to a Member who wants to take part in debate if he forms one of a small and well-defined group, because whoever presides over our deliberations is anxious to get a variety of opinion expressed, and, therefore, a Member who belongs to a small and well-defined group finds it much more easy to get called than a Member of a big party. If anyone doubts that, he has only to turn at the end of a Session to the records of Members' speeches and he will see how Members representing small groups have an opportunity—and use it—of taking a larger share of the time of the House than individual Members of the larger party. Therefore, on the Committee that I have outlined what was felt to be fair in the interests of the big parties would prove to be fair in the interests of the small. After all, the actual protection of a small minority in this House is a matter for the Chair, and it would not need any special representation of this kind to ensure it.

The appointment of such a committee would accomplish two things. If the Government of the day desired to bring forward a Motion of this kind, they would go before the Committee and say, "We wish for a Motion in respect of this Bill," and the committee would have power to refuse or to grant it. If in their opinion a time-table Motion was not necessary it would not be granted. If, on the other hand, they agreed that it was suitable and proper in the circumstances, they would proceed to draw it up, and it would then be brought before the House for the House to accept or reject. I would not suggest that it should be debatable. Probably the best part of the day is lost when a time-table Motion is brought in, and that time would be saved.

To my mind, these questions of procedure have an importance far beyond the comfort of individual Members, beyond even the arranging in a convenient and proper way for the discussion of the matters that come before us. They affect the prestige of Parliament, and that is a very precious thing. I think it is not asking too much to ask the Government to consider carefully the recommendations of this Committee on Procedure to see whether something cannot be brought forward which will commend itself to the common sense and sense of fairness of Members of all parties as a reasonable and tolerable way of getting out of our difficulties so that we shall not always have, as at present we are bound to have, the Government coming forward and offering something, the Opposition saying it is not enough, and each party thinking the other unreasonable. I hope that out of this Debate may come an intention and desire on the part of the Government to do something so that we shall not again be faced with a similar Motion drawn up and brought before us in the same way.

4.40 p.m.

Mr. ANEURIN BEVAN

I believe the great charm which the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank) uses in addressing the House obscures the force of the criticism that he has levelled against the Motion. I believe he is correct in describing the position as one that affects the House of Commons as a whole and not separate parties in the House. Of course, Members on all sides will naturally expect Members on these benches to oppose a Motion of this description as part of their ordinary opposition duties, but I believe many Members who, perhaps, have not had the good fortune of seeing the House handle a large Bill in Committee will not be able to realise fully the extent to which the mood of the House changes when it starts its Committee work. To a very large extent, if it is a major Bill, acrimonies and party differences are subdued. It is one of the glories of the Parliamentary institution that such a change of atmosphere takes place. Hon. Members will, perhaps, not sufficiently appreciate that what is actually happening now is not a conflict between the Opposition and Government supporters, but a conflict between the House of Commons and the Executive. The House is now being regarded by the Government as their natural enemy. They do not merely want to suppress the Opposition. They want to curtail the opportunities of Debate for the House as a whole. For anyone who has any respect for Parliamentary government this is a very serious situation.

I believe the House is now doing a very silly and stupid thing. I do not agree with the point of view that has been expressed on my left, and almost expressed immediately in front of me, that the Guillotine has now been used so long as an instrument in Parliamentary discussion that it ought to be accepted as part of the normal procedure. It is an awkward and silly instrument. It is merely a stupid half-way house between government by decree and government by discussion. The principle underlying Parliamentary discussion is that the impingement of mind upon mind and intelligence upon intelligence stimulates men's minds. I have seen it happen over and over again that Members get up from one side or the other and make a suggestion or a criticism which enlists the support of the whole House and illumines a part of the Bill which was formerly dim and does really good work. Just at the very point when perhaps, the Debate is starting to be vital the Guillotine falls. There has never been a discussion under the Guillotine which has been a vital Debate. It is devitalised from the very beginning. Hon. Members might give a little serious attention to this point and ask themselves how far this sort of thing is devitalising the whole of our Parliamentary procedure.

I agree profoundly with the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Gainsborough that the Chair possesses already adequate means of preventing obstruction. It is true that there has been rather dilatory speaking in the House on certain occasions. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Colchester (Mr. Lewis) suggested that unless we had some such means of guillotining discussion all night sittings would become the order. All night sittings will never become the order; they always cure themselves. There is nothing which cures the appetite for all night sittings like the morning after the night before. There is no danger at all, if you do not have the Guillotine, that the Opposition will keep the Government up all night. The pressure of public business, and the extraordinary mass of work which a Member of Parliament has to transact make it impossible for him to stay up night after night in this Chamber. It is absurd.

Hon. Members ought to allow their minds to be governed by the realities of Parliamentary discussion and not by sensation writers in the Press. It is the practice in the general Press to deal flippantly and sensationally with incidents in the House of Commons, and to represent to the country that the House of Common's is engaged day after day in silly and obstructionist talk, when, as a matter of fact—and indeed for 90 per cent. of its time—the House is engaged in sober and serious discussion of the nation's difficulties. That fact is represented in the point of view of all parties. It is absurd for hon. Members to allow themselves to be influenced by the yellow Press and to say that, because some person has read out something from a newspaper, or because another person has made an hour's speech on one occasion, we must have the guillotine of this discussion. I suggest to the Government that they have lost their sense of humour. There is no need for them to bring forward a Guillotine Motion in these circumstances. We have 50 Members, there are three hon. Members over there and I do not know how many Members crossed the floor the other day, but there might be 30 Members there, and we are one of the smallest Oppositions in the history of Parliament.

The Bill is a first-class Measure and a most complicated one; one of the most complicated which we have ever seen. When we come to Part II we shall start discussing administrative machinery which will involve no political partisanship of any kind. The House of Commons will want to devote itself to it with great earnestness, and Members who have had long periods of service on local governing bodies will want to pool their knowledge and try and improve the stupid machinery of the Bill. I use the word "stupid," not as a Socialist, but because it is representative of the point of view of many Members belonging to all parties. What chance shall we have under the Guillotine? I agree with the hon. and gallant Member again, that we may not want all the time. It will be for the Opposition to take all the time, although on certain vital matters in the Bill we shall not have adequate time at all.

The Government have the situation well in hand. They know that they can always bring in the Guillotine, whatever they want to do. There is no need to do it at this stage. It is true, as the hon. and gallant Member said, that the Government are not so much afraid of the Opposition as they are of the weaknesses which the discussions might disclose among their own supporters. That is the position. Backed as they are by an overwhelming and, to a very large extent, docile majority, the Government turn a deaf ear entirely to what is said from these benches. That fact has been illustrated over and over again in the discussions on the Money Resolution. Speech after speech was made from these benches, to which the Front Bench returned no answer at all, but when a speech was delivered in more ambiguous terms from the benches opposite there was an immediate concession. That is natural. A Government always succumbs to an appeal from its own supporters. It does not succumb to the Opposition. It is always afraid of loss of strength among its own following. The possibility is, not that the hon. Members belonging to the Conservative party will be able to find holes in the Bill, but that we may be able to find holes into which they will fall, and they desire to curtail discussion in this way.

What will be the point of view of the country in this matter? Hon. Members really are suffering from the complacency which usually falls upon hon. Members when they imagine that the elections are a long distance away. What will be the feeling of the country on the Guillotine? First of all, in regard to a Bill which is very important and revolutionary in its interference with democratic privileges the Government are to use the Guillotine for the purpose of crushing out a small minority, who are numerically insignificant and would be unable to flick a fly off the nose of the Minister of Labour if they wanted to do so. The conclusion of the country will be that the Conservative majority is outlawing the small Opposition and suppressing Parliamentary discussion. That will be the conclusion, and it will be the correct one. I wish that the House could have an early opportunity of discussing this matter in the absence of any particular Bill, because when you have such a Bill the passions of the House are involved in their natural partisanships.

The hon. Members who support the Government will walk into the Division Lobby in favour of the Guillotine Motion because they are substantially in agreement with the Bill. They will think that this is the most effective way of getting the Bill through quickly and of gagging our discussion. If the House of Commons could discuss this matter in the absence of any measure, I believe that it would be found that the consensus of opinion would be that the Guillotine is a barbarous instrument and an outrage on legislation by discussion. It is moving away from the Athenian market place into a very rigid imposition of majority rule. Are we to de-vitalise the House of Commons and put nothing in its place, or are we to preserve the vitality of Parliamentary discussion, which—although perhaps a good deal of time is very often wasted—has made this House the best sounding board in the world and ultimately has produced perhaps as good legislation as any other form of dictatorial methods.

4.55 p.m.

Captain Sir WILLIAM BRASS

If it had not been for the speech of the hon. Member for West Midldesbrough (Mr. K. Griffith), I should not have intervened in this Debate. I think I am right in saying, that he supported in a way the principle of the Guillotine, but he finished his speech by saying that, because he did not like the Bill, or portions of the Bill, he proposed to oppose the imposition of a time-table. But I do not wish to have any misunderstanding or to cast a silent vote on this occasion, because I have already criticised the Bill on the Second Reading. Consequently, as I intend to vote for the Motion to set up a time-table, I want it to be clearly understood that I dissociate myself from the remarks made by the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough, namely, that because you do not approve of the Bill you should perforce vote against the principle of a time-table. There are two abuses which might result from a time-table. An abuse may come from the Government in that any criticisms made on the Bill might result in no answer being given to those criticisms. As a matter of fact, that position occurred on the Second Reading of the Bill to my criticisms, and I hope that during the Committee stage I shall receive an answer from the Minister on the criticisms which I made. I understand that the Parliamentary Secretary had great difficulty in dealing with the whole of the measure in the time allotted to him, and I therefore appreciate the reason why he did not deal with my criticisms at that time. That is one of the possible abuses which might take place as the result of a time-table. There is the other possibility of abuse of the Opposition. The Opposition might easily take certain things, which one might describe as their particular pigeon, and might go on discussing the particular Amendments ad nauseam and not get to the important Amendments which might be moved by Members on the Government side of the House.

Mr. TINKER

Would it not also apply the other way; might not the Government take up the time?

Sir W. BRASS

I have already said that there are two kinds of abuse: one the abuse of the Government and the other the abuse of the Opposition. Taking the whole thing together, and, having seen many time-tables introduced in the 11 years during which I have been in this House, a time-table is not really a bad thing. When there is give-and-take on both sides of the House, important Amendments get properly discussed both by the Government and the Opposition, and the result is that we get a better Bill by having a time-table than we should get if we did not have one. That is the conclusion to which I have come after listening to Bills discussed under a time-table both with my party in office and in Opposition. For that reason, I express the opinion that the time-table as set up gives adequate time for discussion of the important Amendments, and I propose, therefore, to support it.

5.0 p.m.

Mr. BANFIELD

Sufficient has been said this afternoon to bring it home to all of us that there is a great deal of uneasiness, to say the least of it, regarding the possible workings of the Government's Resolution. So far as this House is concerned those who sit on the Government benches will, in my opinion, have more to lose by the operation of the Guillotine than we who sit on these benches. The operation of the Guillotine must result in very important Clauses and very important Amendments receiving no consideration, and it will be extremely difficult for supporters of the Government to explain to their constituents why they raised no voice, why they were dumb regarding some of the revolutionary proposals in the Bill. The Bill affects from 14,000,000 to 16,000,000 of our fellow countrymen and country women and its effects will be brought into the homes of our people, in regard to which Members of Parliament, of whatever party, will be asked many questions.

Under the Resolution very little opportunity will be given to many Members who are anxious to express their opinions, to be able to express them. As a comparatively new Member I have listened to the arguments in favour of the Resolution. One argument is that you must have a time-table, and the second argument is that if you have a time-table you do away with the possibility of all-night sittings or long Sessions. If we agree that some time-table may be absolutely necessary in the interests of Government business, one is still left with the feeling that this Resolution is not the way in which the matter might be put through. We on these benches were not so much consulted by the Government on the matter; we were simply told what they are going to do. There was no real, bona-fide consultation but, rather, the Patronage Secretary made up his mind what he is going to do and tells us that we must put up with it.

If ever there was a Bill on which honest co-operation is essential it is this Bill. We are told that it is the production of a National Government, supporters of whom are men and women of varying views who come under the flag of the National Government; but I suggest that the way the Resolution has been brought forward in the bad traditions of old fashioned Toryism and shows a desire to use a big majority ruthlessly, saying to the Opposition: "This is what we are going to do. This is what you have to put up with. We are not inclined to take much notice of your views." We had a feeling the other night that we were being treated as naughty schoolchildren. This Resolution justifies the statement made by an hon. Member on this side that the Government are treating us with a suspicion of bullying so far as this Bill is concerned. I suggest that the attendance to-day is not to be taken as indicative of the interest which hon. Members feel on this question. If the scanty attendance does indicate the interest of hon. Members they will have to answer for it in their constituencies, because this is a Bill which, with its injustices, effects tremendous changes affecting unemployment insurance and the whole question of unemployment for some years to come. If there is no more interest to be taken in it than appears to-day, so much the worse for the Government.

Captain WATERHOUSE

What about your own benches?

Mr. BANFIELD

In proportion, we can give the Government benches a start, any day in the week. If the hon. and gallant Member will look at the list at the end of the Session he will see that the Opposition does its duty. Complaints are made that supporters of the Government do not do their duty. One of the reasons is that, apparently, the Government Front Bench do not desire to give their supporters an opportunity to express their own minds. Nothing is more calculated to detract from the dignity of this House when hon. Members who desire to contribute something for the good government of the country are treated simply as voting machines and not allowed to express their honest convictions. If ever there was a Bill on which a private Member ought to be allowed to express his convictions and not be bound by party, and on which freedom should be given to him, this is the Bill.

One of the chief grievances I have against the Resolution is that it is in the main intended to stifle that expression of free opinion which ought to take place on a Bill of this kind. The method of selecting Amendments would have been best, leaving it to the Chair to conduct the Debate in Committee. If there were signs of definite obstruction the Government would then have power to bring in a Resolution of this kind. The people affected by this Bill will know that in a matter which affects their everyday life the Government brought in a Guillotine Resolution before we had started the Committee stage, and they will say that the Government did not allow an opportunity for the free expression of criticism and the moving of helpful, constructive Amendments. They will say that the Bill has been forced down the throat of the House of Commons and down the throat of the country, and Ministers will arouse against themselves a great deal of opposition. There are such changes proposed in the Bill that the more we can have the Bill explained and the more we can have the views of hon. Members the better it will be for this House, and, above all, for the people who are so directly affected. Speaking not only for myself but for millions of men and women I protest against this attempt of the Government to ram a most unpopular Bill in many of its Clauses down the throats of this House and of the country, without giving opportunity for free expression of opinion.

5.10 p.m.

Mr. CROOM-JOHNSON

I do not very often address the House on any topic, but I listen to debates a good deal. It is often true that those who are lookers on see most of the game. As the result of my own experience in the House I have come to the conclusion that the lot of the back bench supporter of any Government is not an easy one. He very often desires to add not merely criticism but constructive effort in regard to what is being done by his front bench. It would be idle to pretend that it does not often happen that people who are desirous of rendering their help in matters before the House feel either that they ought not to intervene, because they may be upsetting the Government's programme, or that their efforts are not needed in view of the statement which may come from the Government Bench but which, perhaps it may be due to some accident in the course of the Debate, does not come. From my own point of view, having watched various Guillotine Motions, I am convinced that they have one definite operation. They give Members on both sides of the House, if they choose to keep their observations within manageable limits, an opportunity of conducting what is far too little done in this House and that is conducting a real debate, real answers being given from side to side on points which have been raised and which are worthy of being raised and worthy of being answered, as distinct from a number of set speeches, which are made time after time not merely on great occasions but are creeping into our Committee discussions. One watches people coming into the House and speaking for a few minutes, delivering a speech they have prepared, and before very long they disappear.

I welcome the Guillotine Motion, because I believe that it will give some of us who do not intervene much in debate an opportunity of adding our efforts to make this Bill what it ought to be. I do not adopt the attitude that hon. Members on the back benches on this side, as has been suggested, are going to be damaged by this Resolution. I am convinced that we on this side have nothing to fear in expressing our views upon the Bill and having an opportunity under the Resolution of taking a fair share in the Debates on the Bill in Committee. As to the rest of it, most of the observations, with which I have a good deal of sympathy, would have been better directed to an attempt, or a series of attempts, to get the length of time, if it is insufficient for the stages of the Bill, increased. Nobody desires in a Measure of this complexity and importance to prevent any proper expression of criticism or point of view on a matter which has been thrashed out over and over again and affects such an immense number of our fellow citizens. But to say that if you regulate your proceedings at the start you are doing something which is wrong, that there ought to be an unregulated discussion to start with and then, when the whole time-table of the Government is completely out of order, introduce a Guillotine Resolution, is not a procedure which is likely to redound to the credit of the House or the Government. Speaking as one who supports the Bill in its main features but who desires to criticise some of its details, and also as one who is convinced that resolutions of this kind are an inevitable necessity and may make for good, I shall support the Resolution.

5.17 p.m.

Mr. EDWARD WILLIAMS

We welcome the opinion we have heard from all sides of the House on this Motion. I cannot discuss the relative merits of the Guillotine and the kangaroo, being only a new Member, but during the last Labour Government I had an opportunity in Committee upstairs of seeing how the kangaroo could be applied and I think that it is a much better instrument to use in connection with this Bill than the Guillotine. We do not question a timetable as such. If supporters of the Government were to remain quiet the time allotted might be adequate for the Opposition. There are 244 Amendments already down to the Bill and no doubt there will be more to come. I leave it to hon. Members to think how much time can be given to the consideration of these Amendments; very little indeed. With the exception of the last speaker—and even the hon. and learned Member was not whole-hearted in his support—all supporters of the Government who have spoken have opposed the Resolution. The hon. and gallant Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank) in an interesting speech opposed it, as did also the hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Lewis).

Captain MARGESSON

Did the hon. Member hear the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Clitheroe (Sir W. Brass).

Mr. WILLIAMS

I believe that the Patronage Secretary was away sometime and did not hear the whole of the speech of the hon. and gallant Member, who made some strong statements, which he will see in the OFFICIAL REPORT, in which he did not altogether agree with the Motion. The hon. and gallant Member made some reference to points which he brought up on the Second Reading of the Bill to which he said he got no reply and that the Debate was partially stifled. If supporters of the Government do as they are expected to do, that is, advance some criticisms on minor or major points in the Bill, then the time-table is inadequate, and we think that some days ought to be added in order that criticism may be advanced from both sides of the House. I have been in the House sufficiently long to see how discussions lose their vitality. Under this Resolution discussion is certainly being stifled. Important points will not be adequately debated and it tends to make the House of Commons more or less a laughing stock. After Acts of Parliament have been placed on the Statute Books flaws are often found in administration which could have been avoided had more time been given to the Debate, or more interest taken in the proceedings.

We do not deny that there should be a time-table, but we press for more time to be given. This is a conflict between the Executive and Members of this House, the Executive dictatorially deciding that only so much time shall be allowed and Members of Parliament desiring more time to discuss those points which should be discussed at a substantial length. That is the conflict between the Executive and Members of the House. When seven-thirty comes the Debate will certainly fag out; and at ten-thirty, although important points which concern all Members of Parliament regardless of party or politics may be under discussion, the discussion will fade out. Moreover, the Resolution will deprive private Members of their privilege of raising Questions after eleven o'clock for the number of weeks during which this time-table will operate—

Mr. A. BEVAN

And which the Select Committee said ought to be extended.

Mr. WILLIAMS

All Members of the House should fight for private Members' privileges. The Executive are snatching away their privileges, and for weeks it will be impossible for a private Member to ventilate anything of importance in his constituency. I press upon all Members of the House to support the rights of Members in this respect and give us their company in the Division Lobby.

5.25 p.m.

Viscount CRANBORNE

It seems to me that the moral force of the speeches of Members of the Opposition is a little weakened by the fact that in the last Parliament under a Labour Government they voted for exactly the same thing.

Mr. A. BEVAN

The Noble Lord will remember that in a Division in those days only three or four votes divided the parties. Now there is a majority of two hundred—the circumstances are different.

Viscount CRANBORNE

But the principle is exactly the same; and it is on a question of principle that the matter is being debated. If hon. Members of the Opposition are in rather a weak position on this matter there are Members on the Government side who are not in a weak position in saying how much they regret that the Resolution should have been put down by the Government. I am not in the least concerned with the fourteen days, whether it is enough or too little—I am afraid that I have not had enough practical experience to know—but I gather that the opinion is that the Government have been generous in this respect. But I am concerned with the principle. The theory always has been that in the House of Commons there should be complete freedom of speech. In practice that is not altogether possible, and it has been the practice for over fifty years to impose a closure of various descriptions on the discussions. I feel that the Closure should only be imposed when it is absolutely essential and when it is evident that there is not going to be enough time to discuss all the points in the Bill. What would be the result if this practice became usual? It would immensely increase the power of the majority as against the Opposition. What is the position of any Opposition? They cannot beat the Government in a Division, all they can do is to argue and argue until the time comes when the Government may, if they feel strongly enough about it, move the Closure. That was a practice universally accepted, but if you make it the usual practice to have a time-table and impose a Guillotine at the outset you stifle the rights of the Opposition altogether. Those who were in the last Parliament will remember the Debates on the Budget when the same procedure was adopted. I remember one particular occasion when on some important points in regard to land taxes no discussion at all was possible because the Guillotine fell, and intense resentment was felt by Members of the Conservative party who were then in Opposition.

Mr. E. WILLIAMS

The reason for that was that so much time had been occupied on matters of less importance. The same thing might occur here.

Viscount CRANBORNE

That does not affect my point at all. Whether the argument is of any importance or not the fact remains that there was no time to discuss a particular matter which was of great importance to Conservative Members. They felt intensely resentful, and at the time thought that it was a bad precedent which should never be imitated by any Government. We regret that the present Government should imitate a bad precedent set by a Labour Government. And it is especially bad when followed on such a Bill as the present, because it is a subject on which people feel deeply indeed, their whole livelihood is concerned, and I feel that they should be given a chance to speak fully and freely upon it. We all recognise that the Guillotine may be necessary, and it would be necessary if hon. Members opposite were to obstruct, but at least they should be given the chance of playing the game, and if it turns out that too much time is being taken on minor matters and that there is not time enough to discuss the later Clauses of the Bill then the Opposition would have only themselves to blame; they could not blame the Government. I think that to impose the Guillotine at the outset is a real interference with the rights of Parliament, not a justifiable interference, and although I do not propose to vote against the Government I cannot support them in the Resolution.

5.30 p.m.

Mr. T. SMITH

The Noble Lord who spoke last reminded us that in the days of the Labour Government the Guillotine was put into operation. I submit that there is a vast difference between the last Parliament and this Parliament. In 1929-1931 the Labour Government scarcely knew from one day to another whether it would have a majority in the Lobbies. In the case of the present Parliament we have an almost all-powerful Government backed by a very docile majority, and when it is said that a time-table is necessary on a highly controversial Bill of this kind I cannot agree with the statement. An hon. Member on the Government side told us that he supported the Guillotine Motion because he believed it would give to back-bench Government supporters a chance of expressing their views. But that chance can be used from another point of view. We are limited, say, from 4 o'clock to 7.30 o'clock to the disposal of a number of Amendments and Clauses with divisions, and it is possible that if there is an Amendment on the Paper which hon. Members opposite do not wish to have discussed they can continue the Debate on prior Amendments in order to squeeze out that discussion which would take place if the time permitted. There is no doubt that the Government will give them assistance in that connection.

As I have said, the Bill is of a very controversial character. It contains Clauses which call for a good deal of discussion. Indeed there are in it proposals for which I would give the Government, if I had the power, more than 14 days, and it would not be 14 days of discussion in this House. It is a Bill of 63 Clauses. It deals with juveniles, it reverses the onus of proof, and deals with a number of highly controversial subjects. We on this side hope to bring our knowledge to bear on the Bill with a view to bettering it. Therefore we cannot assent to this Motion. I remember that we had a discussion on the Guillotine in 1923–24. What did we find then? We found that hon. Members opposite were keenest in resisting the Guillotine when they thought it was going to curtail adequate discussion. During the Labour Government of 1929–31 they always insisted that the fullest measure of time should be given to discussions. There was the example of the Coal Mines Bill. On that Bill, on Second Reading and the Committee stage, we had almost packed Houses. Hon. Members who are now opposite were pestering Ministers, charging them with this and that, and putting up all kinds of arguments as to why the Bill should not be passed. Here we have a Bill of the utmost importance and there are 244 Amendments on the Paper already. If hon. Members opposite take the opportunity during the coming Recess of consulting their constituents and explaining to bodies of unemployed men what the Bill proposes, I am sure that many of them will promise to express their point of view in this House and many of them will put additional Amendments on the Paper.

Therefore we say that we cannot assent to the Motion. We think that 14 days is totally inadequate for the Committee stage. If we cannot get time for discussion we are likely to have a number of scenes on this Bill when it is in Committee because, whether the Government believe it or not, we are hostile to certain provisions of the Bill and we shall fight them whenever we get an opportunity. This Motion treats the House with scant courtesy. It is unforgiveable, coming from a Government with such a majority. In the time of the Labour Government we never knew from day to day whether we were to be defeated, and on occasions we had to take safeguards, but in this case the Government with its huge majority has no reason for the Guillotine.

5.37 p.m.

The MINISTER of LABOUR (Sir Henry Betterton)

It may be convenient if at this stage I make a few observations on the Debate. The hon. Member who has just spoken said that he intended to oppose the Motion. We never expected him to do anything else. Every Opposition always opposes this kind of Motion, and every Government at one time or another always proposes such a Resolution. We are therefore proceeding so far in what is common form. The Opposition were bound to oppose the Motion just as we were bound to move it. One hon. Member has objected to the Motion on two perfectly familiar grounds. The first was that the Opposition objected to a Guillotine at all, and the second was that they objected to this particular Motion because they say the time allowed is inadequate. With regard to the objection to any Guillotine at all, let me remind the House that we as a Government were warned, even before the Bill was printed, that it would be opposed Clause by Clause and line by line from beginning to end. No sooner had the Bill appeared than many pages of Amendments were put on the Paper, and we have been warned that those Amendments will be followed by many more pages. So we are faced with the prospect of getting through a very long and necessarily complicated Bill with the expressed determination of those who oppose it, even before they saw it, to fight it line by line.

I have risen, however, for what I regard as an overwhelming reason. I want to get this Bill passed in order that somethink like 790,000 people will get the benefit of the ratio rule that is proposed. Until the Bill is passed that very great advantage to this large number of people cannot become operative. Then there is the second objection: Is the time that is proposed adequate? I should have thought that the time proposed in the Schedule is adequate for all real discussion of salient points. The Prime Minister reminded us that already we have had three days on the Second Reading when questions of principle were discussed. He told us that we had discussed the Financial Resolution for one whole day and part of a night or early morning. But he omitted to say that in addition to that we discussed the Financial Resolution for several hours last night. So altogether we have spent six days on the Bill before we get to the Committee stage at all. Now we are proposing 14 days for Committee and four days for Report and Third Reading. That is 24 days altogether, including last night, or something like 168 hours. I do not believe that this or any other Bill would lack adequate and proper discussion in 168 hours of Parliamentary time.

Mr. E. WILLIAMS

That includes Divisions.

Sir H. BETTERTON

That is true, of course. It has been said that there has been no discussion with other parties in the House as to the time-table. I am, of course, aware that discussion has taken place through the usual channels. But I admit at once that the responsibility for the time-table is the Government's responsibility. I shall not attempt to shield myself behind any arrangements that have been reached between the Opposition and the Government, for quite clearly the time-table is the Government's responsibility. It is quite true that I was consulted with regard to the drawing up of the time-table. I have had two principal points in mind in the matter. First of all I refreshed my memory as to the points to which most importance appeared to be attached by various speakers during the discussions that we have already had. The time-table, therefore, is designedly drawn in order to enable, as far as possible, time to be given for full discussion of those points.

Another thing I had in mind was this: It seemed to me that the time-table should be so drawn that after the Guillotine has fallen and we are starting a new section of the Bill, as far as possible that new section should begin with Clauses which were of obvious importance in the opinion of hon. Members. We have, therefore, designedly drawn the schedule in order to make certain as far as possible that those very important Clauses shall have full and adequate discussion.

The hon. and gallant Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank) appeared to be alarmed at the prospect that he or someone else would be compelled to fill up time if the time allowed was too much for the discussion of a particular group of Amendments under the Guillotine. I can assure him that we are under no such apprehension. Everyone who has been in the House any length of time knows that it is quite easy, if it is found acceptable to Members, to overrun the Guillotine and to go on to the next batch of Amendments. I do not want to say any more at this stage, except that I believe that the Guillotine is absolutely essential, in the interests not merely of the Bill, but in the interests of the prestige of Parliament itself. I believe also that the time we are allowing under this programme is ample to secure full consideration of this very complicated Measure.

5.45 p.m.

Mr. COVE

The statement of the Minister is highly unsatisfactory and does not justify the employment of the Guillotine by this Government. The right hon. Gentleman must realise that he has a sufficient number of Members behind him to enable him to do whatever he likes. Yet this Government, with the biggest majority, probably, that has ever been known in Parliament, is bringing in a Guillotine which will have the effect of stifling discussion and will in these circumstances lower the prestige of the House of Commons. While the Minister was speaking I looked at the time allotted to some of the Clauses of the Bill in which I am specially interested. I find that in the case of Clauses 1 and 2 the Guillotine will fall at 7.30 o'clock. On the Amendment Paper I find about half-a-dozen Amendments to each Clause. A Division occupies somewhere about 15 minutes and, thus, out of about four hours allowed to us for discussion, an hour and a-half may be taken up with Divisions. Again the Guillotine is to fall at 7.30 o'clock on Clauses 13 and 14. The number of Amendments down to each Clause is about 20, and thus the whole of the time allotted for the discussion of these Clauses would be more than taken up in marching through the Lobbies if there was a Division on each Amendment. If we work out the allocation of time in relation to the other Clauses of the Bill it is easy to see that there cannot be ample or even decently adequate discussion of its provisions.

The Minister must not forget that it is not the Government which constitutes the legislature of this country. It is the House of Commons. This Bill, we were told, was to make history. Yet a Government with a huge majority seeks on a Measure of that kind to prevent the House as a whole performing its proper function as a real legislative body. The only, effect of applying the Guillotine will be that what we cannot reasonably put forward in discussion we shall have to demonstrate about as the proceedings go on. If the Government are going to stifle discussion, the Opposition must make their opinions and feelings known in other directions. The Bill involves questions of paramount importance to the working classes. It will affect intimate details of their lives. The very livelihood of millions of people: will depend on what we pass through this House in the provisions of this Bill. Yet the Government will not give us the chance to amend it or even to discuss it properly. The Minister has treated us from the beginning as an Opposition who are out merely to obstruct. [HOST. MEMBERS: "No!"] That is the meaning of the Guillotine.

Mr. A. BEVAN

That is what the right hon. Gentleman said.

Mr. COVE

The Minister has not given us any opportunity of showing that we are prepared to treat this Bill in a reasonable manner and to offer constructive suggestions. He says in effect: "I know that that little Opposition of 40 or 50 Members intend to keep the House sitting all night on this Bill and intend to obstruct it line by line and therefore I am going to stifle their opposition at the very beginning by applying this time- table." I have never known a more cowardly action that that. They are a set of cowards who, with a ten-to-one majority against us, would set up a Guillotine at the very beginning of these proceedings.

Mr. A. BEVAN

But the Minister is a nice man.

Mr. COVE

Oh, yes, he is a very nice man. I have often thought that his appointment was the best ever made by the Prime Minister, because the right hon. Gentleman can do a nasty thing in the nicest manner possible. Some of us long for somebody who would do nasty things in a nasty way in that Department of State, but the present Minister is gentle and nice. Yet all the time he is doing the work of the National Government in depressing the standards of life of our people. But we are finding him out, and this Guillotine Motion is exposing him nakedly as the most urbane dictator we have ever had sitting on the Government Bench. When he introduced this Bill he mentioned the Clauses to which I have already referred dealing with children and insurance. He told us that the Bill in that respect made a big and constructive proposal; that he had been impressed by the tragedy of these young people and that he was going to do something big and good for them. Yet on this big important scheme we are to have about four hours discussion in Committee. We may not even have so much, but I am giving the Minister the benefit of supposing that we shall have the maximum.

I think the Minister ought to be thoroughly ashamed of himself on this occasion. As to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, we do not expect him to be ashamed. He will stand up for anything which he proposes in this House. That is his job, but the Minister ought to take back this Motion. He ought not to force it through the House to-night. There seems to be a consensus of opinion that even with free discussion the Bill would not take up any more time than is being allotted under the time-table. [HON. MEMBERS: "Then why worry?"] I cannot say whether that view is correct or not, but in any case we object to the time being split up in the manner proposed. What we want is a free chance for the great constructive ability of this House to reveal itself. I am not pleading only for the Opposition. I am pleading that a chance should be given to the great constructive minds behind the Government. Let hon. Members opposite have a chance to bring forward their proposals and suggestions.

We all know how the Guillotine Motion will have the effect of wakening into life the dumb Members behind the Government. I do not include the Noble Lady the Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Viscountess Astor) in that statement. Far be it from me to suggest that the Noble Lady is dumb. But the Government have a huge volume of support behind them. Why not get rid of the Guillotine and give those Members a chance as well as the Opposition? The Government, however, are determined to force this Motion through and to steam-roll the Opposition. In the Press for the last year or two we have been told that the Labour Opposition is small and ignorant, that it is very poor, that it cannot fight, that it cannot do anything—

Viscountess ASTOR

Hear, hear.

Mr. COVE

Yet here is this powerful Government putting the Guillotine on an Opposition of that kind. What a miserable and cowardly Government that is afraid to allow free discussion and afraid to allow a small Opposition to bring forward their criticisms of this Bill. The Minister as I have said is the kindest of kind men. He sits there, and he smiles and smiles and smiles, and hangs his head. I am certain that he is such a reasonable man that we might be discussing under the terms of the Guillotine Motion—

Captain MARGESSON

We might be discussing the Bill in the time which the hon. Member is occupying.

Mr. COVE

Yes, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury offers us an hour or two of discussion on the Bill this evening, in return for the power to stifle discussion on it for 14 days. That is a one-sided bargain. It is a sort of blackmail. I knew the Parliamentary Secretary could do that kind of thing, but I never thought that the Minister would be capable of it. This is a cowardly and mean action on the part of the Government. It does not enhance the reputation of the House. It deprives us of the opportunity of offering criticisms and making constructive suggestion about the most vital issue in British politics, and I shall therefore be very pleased to vote against the Motion.

5.55 p.m.

Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS

As one who has very often been accused of trying to save too much of the time of the House, I would remind the hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. Cove), when he has recovered from his excitement, that there is one method by which he and his friends can gain a lot more time for discussion and that is by refraining from Divisions except on very important questions. Before I become really controversial, however, may I be allowed to join with the acting Leader of the Opposition in asking the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury to make one concession? If as is proposed the Guillotine falls at 11 o'clock each night, the effect will be that for 14 days private Members will be deprived of the time which is usually available at that hour for raising questions on the Adjournment. Would it not be possible to amend the Motion by substituting 10.30 o'clock for 11 o'clock in this respect? That was the idea of the acting Leader of the Opposition.

Sir STAFFORD CRIPPS

If we got more days.

Mr. WILLIAMS

The hon. and learned Member is not the deputy Leader of the Opposition yet.

Sir S. CRIPPS

If the hon. Member will allow me I can explain what the attitude of the Opposition is. If they got further days they would like to change the hour to 10.30.

Mr. WILLIAMS

It is all very well for the hon. and learned Member to say so now, but that is not what the acting Leader of the Opposition said in his official speech. It would be a great help in these matters if the Opposition would stick to their leader on these occasions. Suppose that it is not possible to alter the hour to 10.30 in the Motion would it not be possible to arrange that on any day on which a Private Member expressed a desire to raise a question on the Adjournment the Division should be at 10.30 instead of 11 o'clock. It seems rather rough on Private Members that for 14 days they should be deprived of the opportunity usually available to them, on the Adjournment, of raising matters of particular interest to their constituents. May I now say something about the very interesting speech which we had from the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. A. Bevan)? I admire bits of it rather more than I generally admire his speeches, and I congratulate him on one thing. I thought until I heard his speech that I was the only person in this House who thoroughly believed that the Guillotine was never necessary. I have never yet believed that it was necessary, and I have always thought that it was very bad in the interests of the House of Commons itself. I believe there are other ways in which it might be done, and I say that if some method such as was laid down by the Committee of Procedure could be set up, whereby the parties could come together and agree upon some form of time-table for these big Bills you would be able to work things out in a very much better way.

I do not wish to cover ground already covered, but on the whole I think that directly you get a Guillotine on a Bill, you tend to kill the real interest in that Bill, and you tend to drive the discussion of it from the Floor of the House of Commons outside. Until legislation is passed, the more we can have a feeling that it should be primarily the duty of the House of Commons to discuss it, the better it will be in the ultimate interests of the House of Commons as a whole. I have always felt, when one has been in Opposition, as one has about once, and when one has heard one's own leaders making violent attacks on the Guillotine, that at any rate on those occasions my whole heart was behind them, and I congratulate them on the fact that they put up the Prime Minister to-day rather than the Leader of the Conservative party to move this Motion, because I at any rate feel that I have suffered so bitterly from these Guillotines that I have not the same feeling about him telling me what I should do this afternoon.

There was a most interesting speech earlier in the Debate from the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. K. Griffith). I do not quite know what he meant, but I thought he was giving a hint to the right hon. Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel), because he said he hoped that private Members would not abuse the opportunity of the Guillotine so to take up time on unimportant Amendments that when important Amendments came the time had gone. I can assure him that that will not happen in the case of any Conservative Amendments, but I would ask him to have some little concern for the House. We shall have 28 half-days, and I hope he was not giving a hint to the right hon. Member for Darwen, because this House would be bitterly disappointed if, on each of those half-days, we did not hear one speech from that right hon. Gentleman. After all, he did the other day, on one private Members' day, entirely forget to speak, for the first time on almost any private Members' day in the present House. I can assure the House that if many of us thought the right hon. Member for Darwen was not going to be able to speak at least once on each of these two sections of time during a Parliamentary day in favour of the Government which he was returned to support, it would be a great disappointment.

Although many of us feel that you must have a vital and strong Opposition, from my own private point of view—and it is a point of view which I have heard expressed outside as well—when you have a Bill of this kind, dealing with unemployment insurance, and vitally affecting the private lives of millions of people, until you have some recognised principle of Guillotine or time-table, it would be wiser on the whole, both in the interests of the Bill and of the Government, if they did not under any circumstances put on a time-table until there was definite, actual evidence that the Opposition in this House was going to give us an all-night sitting on the Bill. It was very well said just now that nothing killed an Opposition so much as an all-night sitting, and if we had had one on this Bill, we should have been in a much stronger position on this time-table to-day. I know the Patronage Secretary disagrees with me, but I have been in this House nearly as long as most people now on the Government Front Bench, and I have always noticed that if ever you drive the discussion of a Bill outside the House of Commons, and make ill-feeling about it in the country, you do it by the bad policy of putting on a time-table before you are actually driven to do it. Therefore, I very much regret that the Government have taken this particular line, because, whatever else you may say, once you had had opposition you could even have cut down the time-table if necessary. I think it has been a mistake in judgment to put down this Motion now, and that is my private opinion on what, after all, is a very vital question.

6.7 p.m.

Mr. GODFREY NICHOLSON

It is about time some back bench supporter of the Government expressed his deep gratitude to the official Opposition for the solicitude which they have expressed for the time that may be allotted to back bench supporters of the Government. I would remind them that the time which back bench supporters of the Government will get under the Guillotine will entirely depend on the degree of loquacity indulged in by the Opposition, or even by the official Opposition, and I can promise them that we shall not waste the time of the House, but that we shall one and all try to indulge in constructive criticism.

I rose primarily to express a point of view which is fundamentally opposed to that of the hon. Member for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams). It seems to be an article of faith with him that circumlocution is identical with efficient democracy, that length of debate is identical with quality of debate. I do not hold that view at all. I had the misfortune to sit up all last Thursday night listening to the Debate on Newfoundland, and I thoroughly believe that if that Debate had been restricted within three hours, we should have had a much more efficient and a much more profitable Debate. If there is anything that kills the vitality of this House and the reputation of this House in the country, it is prolonged and repetitive Debates on one particular Bill, and if there is another thing that will kill constitutional democracy in this country, it is the shortage of Parliamentary time. But I am blessed if I can think of a single Measure that deserves more than the 23 or 24 days which this Bill will receive at the hands of this House, and if there is any Member of this House at the end of the 18 days that are to be devoted to this Bill under this Motion who wishes in his heart to go on with it after that, I should like to "meet him, and I think his state of mind ought to be investigated.

If Parliamentary democracy is to survive in this country, it will survive because the nation as a whole believes that it conducts its business with celerity and despatch, and if the Opposition say, as they well may, that the main objection to the Guillotine is that discussion will tend to become diffused over matters of minor importance and will not be directed to matters of major importance, I retort that that entirely depends on the official Opposition. It is about time that the official Opposition, or, for that matter, the Opposition, realised that it is they who make the interest or dullness of a debate, and that it is up to them to restrain their eloquence; and then back benchers in every party will have plenty of time.

6.11 p.m.

Mr. McENTEE

One could not help feeling, in listening to the hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. G. Nicholson), that it was very like Satan reproving sin, for, after all, the hon. Member himself is guilty of as much loquacity as that for which he gives credit, or otherwise, to some of us on this bench.

Mr. NICHOLSON

I think the hon. Member must have mistaken me for somebody else.

Mr. McENTEE

I would point out that if every one of the 615 Members of this House desired to speak on this Bill, at even the length at which he has just spoken, there would not be time in the 168 hours for them each to make one speech. After all, there are 615 Members in the House, and one can reasonably assume that every one of them will have some interest in this Bill and, at least on one of its Clauses, will desire to make some speech at some time. There are a number of Members who have been here for years and have not spoken very much, and probably in some cases have not spoken at all, but this is a Bill that affects every constituency in the country. There is not a constituency in the country where there are not a number of people who will suffer severely as a consequence of the passing of this Bill, and I should doubt very much if there is a Member in this House who has not had from his constituents representations with regard to the Bill and how it will affect them. One would imagine that those Members would desire at some stage of the Bill to express the point of view of those constituents, but only four of them in an hour can get up, and that is counting nothing for Divisions at all. If one takes off the Divisions, it can reasonably be said that there will only be about six Members per hour in the whole of the allotted time given to the Bill.

This Bill will affect millions of people. It is being bitterly opposed in the country by millions of people, and, in addition, it has the opposition of some of the most powerful and important public bodies in the country; and I say without any hesitation that the time allotted to it is altogether insufficient. The Government know that, and I believe that it is because they know the effective criticism that can be made against the Bill that they are endeavouring to stifle that criticism and its effectiveness by introducing this Guillotine right at the beginning. I think that everybody on the Government Front Bench will admit that the Opposition right from the beginning of this Parliament have given them every reasonable facility for getting their Bills through. My own criticism of my own party and of my own party leaders—I mean the hon. Member who is unfortunately in hospital at the moment—is this. If I have any criticism of him at all, it is that he has been too lenient with the Government with regard to the facilities that he has given to them for passing through this House from time to time Bills that I personally consider ought to have received very much more strenuous opposition than they did.

As a result of the leniency that he has shown and the facilities that we have been willing to give to the Government, however, I think we have a right to expect that when something of such extreme importance as this Bill came along, they would at least show the same leniency to those of us who are bitterly opposed to it. The Government will get their time-table, although the Members who will vote for it are not in the House now and have not possibly been in the House, but they will vote for it like a docile majority without knowing anything about the arguments against it. It cannot be expected that Members, like myself and others, who represent people who are being hit very hard by this Bill, will treat the Motion in the same docile manner. I and other Members represent people who have been living in hell as a consequence of unemployment insurance and the regulations that have been imposed by the Government for years past. They are well aware that this Bill will make their conditions infinitely worse, and I should be doing less than my duty if I did not make, on behalf of my constituents, the most bitter opposition to the imposition of a time-table which will prevent discussion on some of the most important matters connected with the Bill.

6.17 p.m.

Sir EDWARD CAMPBELL

I support the Guillotine Motion because, as has been said by the Opposition, it relates to a most important Bill. The Opposition have already said that they will, by every means in their power, try to stop it getting through the House. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] They have said that they will discuss it line by line and word by word. Those of us who had the pleasure of hearing them talk for 23 hours two or three nights ago, when I do not think that Members on the back benches on this side uttered a word—

Mr. BUCHANAN

If it had not been for the incapacity of one Member of the Government, the discussion would have occupied half the time. The hon. Member must not blame the Opposition, but the Dominions Secretary.

Sir E. CAMPBELL

I am not placing any blame on anybody. I am stating the facts, and the facts are that we sat talking 23 hours doing business which could have been carried through in an ordinary businesslike manner in an hour. I admit that I never spent a more enjoyable all-night sitting in the House of Commons, because we had most amusing speeches, although they were speeches which were very little to the point. Having spent 23 hours here, I do not feel that I wasted my time, because I heard some very good jokes. With regard to this Motion, the Opposition have twitted us on this side with speaking so little, and they have complained that they never hear our views on the various Bills. Hon. Members who have served as supporters of a Government know that it is their duty to help the Government to get Bills through as quickly as possible, and that the less they talk the better. Under normal conditions, therefore, we refrain from expressing views so as not to hold up a Bill. Under the Guillotine, however, the back benches on this side will get an ample opportunity and just as much opportunity of speaking as Members on the Opposition.

It is idle for any hon. Member to try to make people outside believe, that because we do not criticise as they do, we have not the same amount of interest in the Bill. We are all just as interested, and we have all to go to our constituencies and explain the Bill, as have hon. Members opposite. When hon. Members konw that the Government Back benchers are not always able to express their views because of the necessity of getting Bills through, they take a mean advantage when they go to the country and say that the National Government supporters are docile, and simply do what they are told to do. We believe that a good Bill should be got through as quickly as possible, and it can be got through better by a little talk than by a lot of talk. I believe in short speeches, but we often hear long speeches which add nothing whatever to the Debate, but which are merely made for publication in the local newspapers. Under the guillotine we shall have debate between the Back benchers on both sides, and not merely between the Front benchers on both sides. I feel sure that the Guillotine Motion is in the interests of the country and of the people for whom the Bill is designed.

6.22 p.m.

Viscountess ASTOR

I suppose it is because it is getting so near the holidays that we are having what we might call this silly Debate. I have been in the House 15 years and seen every Government bring in the same sort of Guillotine Motion, and yet the Opposition always get up and say the same thing. I consider the Guillotine an absolute God-send to the House of Commons. I did not sit up all Thursday night. I was here until 2 o'clock, but I refuse to be what they call a Lobby follower for any Government. I like to serve the Government with my head, and not with my feet. The all-night sitting was really a shameful performance. It may have looked well in the papers, but it does not add to the dignity of the Mother of Parliaments. The Opposition against this Bill is a sham from start to finish. We know that the Labour party have asked questions about such a Bill, and that they promised to bring in a Bill of this kind. Mr. Sidney Webb promised it. He was the foundation of the Labour party, and he made it; and he said he looked forward to the time when a Bill of this kind would come in, but, knowing the Labour party, ho despaired of it ever being brought in. We despaired of it, too. They would never have had the courage to bring in a Measure of this kind, and we rejoice that we have a National Government with the courage—and the capacity for work, too—to bring it in. To produce such a Bill requires not only work, but real thought. That is why the Labour party never brought it in.

Now the National Government have introduced the Bill, it is absurd for the Opposition to say that they are going to fight it tooth and nail. In the constituencies they cannot generate that fire and fervour against it that they can in the House of Commons. Their views in the constituencies are very half-hearted, because the people who think know that this is the Bill that they should have brought in four years ago. So I say that their opposition is a sham from start to finish, and I welcome the introduction of the Guillotine. It will give Back Bench Members plenty of time to say what they want to say. It is not really speeches that count so much in the House of Commons. The people who make the longest speeches do the less thinking, as we all know. Some of the stupidest men I have ever known could not make anything but a speech. They have never been able to make a living except out of speaking. Such men are not in the Labour party only; we have men in our party who have got where they are simply by talking and the House ought not to encourage that sort of thing. So the Guillotine is a Godsend. The opposition is a sham, and I hope that during the festive season Members of the Labour party, who are always talking about honesty in politics, will put honesty in their own hearts, and will come back to the House with the intention of really trying to make this a perfect Bill.

It is one of the biggest Measures that have been introduced during my time in Parliament. Most of us are deeply grateful to the Government for bringing in so great a social Measure. We know in our heart of hearts that the opposition to it is a sham, and we ask hon. Members, for the sake of the country, to come back and help the Government, instead of doing themselves real harm by putting up all-night fights about nothing. I know they are amusing, and I am sorry to have missed the last all-night sitting. I have very little time to go to the "movies," and if I had known there was going to be an all-night sitting so amusing, I would have stayed up.

Mr. BUCHANAN

It would have been two nights if you had been here.

Viscountess ASTOR

I congratulate the Government on bringing in the Motion, and hope that we shall all stop talking and get on with the Bill.

6.26 p.m.

Mr. CHARLES BROWN

The Noble Lady evidently thinks that all speeches are of no use except those which she herself delivers. I am certain that most Members will not share that view, but will agree that many speeches are interesting and useful apart from those made by the Noble Lady. She contends that in this instance it is justifiable to bring forward this time-table. We do not think so, for an obvious reason. The Minister said he felt that a time-table was necessary for a Bill of this character, but I would remind him that the Bill is unique, and quite different from any Measure with which the House of Commons have ever had to deal. In his Second Reading speech, he himself stressed the importance of the Bill. It will deal with a certain section of the unemployed in a way in which they have never been dealt with before. There is to be set up a body over which Parliament will have very little control, and this Measure will make certain sections of the unemployed virtually social outcasts. As the Bill is unique, there ought not to be any attempt, especially in the initial stages, to stifle discussion. We do not know how many people will come within the purview of the new body. The Parliamentary Secretary attempted to give us an estimate of the number when he told us that probably, in what he called a year of stress, only 15 per cent. of the unemployed would probably have to be dealt with by the new authority. He assured us that 85 per cent. would probably be dealt with under Part I of the Bill.

Some of us are not satisfied with those figures, for they are based on assumptions which seem to us to be challengeable, and which will certainly be criticised. He said that the basis on which he made his statement was that unemployment was due to three factors—fluctuations in individual industries, the trade cycle and the decay of old industries. He has not explained the causes of unemployment, and has not explained those factors which are likely to add to the number of people who will be treated under that part of the Bill. It is an innovation and an entirely different method of treatment. To speak of fluctuations in individual industries, the trade cycle and dying industries is merely to describe what happens without explaining it. There is no explanation in an analytical description of that kind. He does not address himself to the question why individual industries fluctuate, why there is a periodical trade cycle, or why certain industries decay and create long-term unemployment. Perhaps it would be out of order to deal with the mater at any length now, but we on these benches doubt very much the accuracy of the Minister's statement that only about 15 per cent. of the unemployed are likely to come under the operations of this extra-Parliamentary body which we are setting up. With a Measure of this kind it is not right that the Government should, at the outset of the proceedings, stifle legitimate discussion and constructive criticism, and I shall have no hesitation whatever in voting against the proposed time-table.

6.32 p.m.

Mr. MCGOVERN

I desire to associate myself with the protest against the Guillotine being adopted for this Bill. Discussion in this House, even when it runs to the extent of an occasional all-night sitting, should not be treated as it has been by some hon. Members, because in these days of decaying Parliamentary institutions if there is anything that might revive in the people of this country a feeling of admiration rather than of contempt—which they have at the moment—for Parliamentary institutions, it is the knowledge that, even at the expense of inconvenience to hon. Members, an occasional all-night sitting takes place. I also object to the statement made by the hon. Member for Bromley (Sir E. Campbell) that the business last Thursday and Friday would have occupied only an hour had it not been' for the endless, useless and unintelligent discussion which was carried on. No one can say that the business of taking away Parliamentary government from a Dominion ought to be done without adequate and proper discussion and an opportunity for Members on all sides of the House to ventilate their views. I am certain that, with rather more close and clear thinking, Members who believe in Parliamentary government will be rather inclined to admire than to treat in a contemptuous manner the preparedness of Members of this House to engage occasionally in discussions which may be of advantage to the institution of Parliamentary government as a whole.

Coming to the Bill, we are told that hon. Members only engage in discussions which they fell will be reported in their local Press. Anyone who looks into the speeches made from the Socialist benches will discover that sometimes they are too extreme for the Tory Press and at the same time too extreme for the Labour Press. We on this bench suffer from inadequate reporting because, in the main, our propaganda is not palatable to the Tory party and is not desired by the Labour party, who fear that we might convert their supporters to our Socialist point of view. Adequate and proper discussion of this Bill is absolutely essential in the interests of the average man and woman, who feel that this is a House for the ventilation of their feelings, their disagreements and their protests. There ought to be no closing down of discussion on this Bill, which I regard as the biggest and most fundamental Measure which Parliament has tackled for a considerable number of years. It affects the lives and well-being not only of unemployed persons but, with the means test and the "cuts," it affects whole families, both those in employment and those unemployed. The people affected, taking into account their dependants, probably number from 10,000,000 to 13,000,000, and it is wrong to say that anything which affects so large a number of our people should be forced through this House by a Government using their overwhelming power and majority to stifle adequate discussion. Therefore, I desire to asso- ciate myself with the protest of the official Opposition.

I would also point out that many supporters of the Government who do not speak nowadays were frequent speakers when they were in opposition. The hon. Member for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams) was an endless talking-machine when the Labour party were in office, but now he comes along, with other Members, to say, "Why cannot we have these Measures hurried through this House? Why should there be this endless discussion and all-night sittings?" Within a fortnight of coming to the House I remember an endless discussion, one which never had any value at all, on the Budget. It was carried on night after night by the very people who are to-day protesting against any delay with this Bill. I am not concerned altogether about the Guillotine. I know that the Government have to regulate their business and to get their Measures through the House, but they ought to pay proper attention to the fact that this Measure is being viewed with alarm and antagonism by the unemployed, by their dependants, by the trade unions and by large sections of the shopkeeping community. The Government do not yet realise the weight of public feeling in the country against this Measure and against the way in which the unemployed are being treated.

If Members do discuss the Bill it ought not to be taken that they are desirous only of talking. Personally, I feel that I do not want to talk, because there is no chance of getting any concession from the Government in return for any plea that is made or reason advanced. The Government may say that they have offered to come to an agreement on the timetable, but they have decided on the number of days they will allot to the Measure and we are only invited to regulate the apportionment of that time within the limits of those days. Supporters of the Government very often do not desire to talk on a Measure like this because by doing so they would bring down condemnation on themselves in their constituencies. They desire to play the silent man and to give silent votes without expressing their views. The hon. Lady the Member for Dundee (Miss Horsbrugh) shakes her head, but I am prepared to be a prophet and to say that she will fall at the next election after backing this Measure.

Miss HORSBRUGH

I would like to suggest to the hon. Member that the people of Dundee are more intelligent.

Mr. MCGOVERN

Yes, that is a very fine phrase to use. When people do not elect us we always think they are very unintelligent, and very intelligent when they do elect us.

Miss HORSBRUGH

I did not refer to the intelligence of the electors concerning whom they would vote for, but their ability to understand the advantages of this Bill and not oppose it.

Mr. McGOVERN

I am prepared to wait and see. I am prepared to advance this offer, that I would attack Dundee as a seat and secure a thumping majority over the hon. Lady as a mandate against this Measure. If any hon. Member for a large industrial area will provide the opportunity for a by-election, I am prepared to go into his division and challenge him over this Bill, because I know the feelings of the working class against it. It must be remembered that their feelings do not develop when a Measure is introduced, but only after they begin to realise what is in it. On many occasions Measures go through this House without adequate discussion, an example being the one which took away medical rights, pensions and maternity benefits and imposed reductions of benefit. If the working class had realised at the time what was in the air they would have made that protest which they now realise they ought to have made. In the same way the Government have no right to force this Bill through and attempt to compel the Opposition to agree, or to give any semblance of agreement, to the period they are allotting for discussion.

Training camps for the unemployed are to be set up, one of the most dangerous precedents ever introduced in this country. Members ought to have every opportunity to express their views on that issue and to get the views of their constituents, because a Member has no right to put forward his own personal point of view instead of representing the views of the overwhelming mass of his constituents. There ought to be days on end for the discussion of that proposal in itself in order that we might hammer out the question of whether it is an advantage to the country and ought to be tolerated by the people. The Government may force through their Measure, they may compel the Opposition to give way to numerical superiority, but let them remember that there are millions of human beings who are opposed to this Measure. As time goes on the Government will realise what is the overwhelming mass of opinion amongst the people, who will say: "This is a slave Measure which ought not to be tolerated by a free democracy and ought not to be allowed to go unchallenged. While I associate myself with the official Opposition in this protest, I recognise that the Government will force their will on us, and that we shall not have adequate discussion; but in the end the Government will only bring this institution into greater contempt at a time when they ought to attempt to bolster it up in the eyes of the people. Then the people will be compelled ultimately to make their mind felt, not by Parliamentary discussion, by Divisions, and by Amendments, but by a mass struggle against the ruling class.

6.45 p.m.

Mr. LAWSON

I beg to move, in line 2, to leave out, "Report stage, and Third Reading."

Usually it is quite possible to estimate the time needed for the Report stage and the Third Reading of a Bill, but, when it comes to a Bill of this description, we say that it is. beyond the power of any Government or of any body of people, however wise, to estimate the time that will be necessary thoroughly to discuss the Bill in Committee. I have been surprised at the tone of the Debate in some quarters this afternoon. There was a speech from the hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. G. Nicholson) who, I am sorry, is not in his place. Probably he is suffering from the effects of the all-night sitting. I recognise in his comments as to how we should conduct our Debates some of the old strident and staccato comments which I used to hear at one time, and I automatically looked down to see if my buttons were bright. Another hon. Gentleman said that the Newfoundland Bill ought to have been put through in an hour. To what is the British House of Commons coming when an hon. Member is so unmindful of the great and glorious principles of liberty that we should take way the liberty of a whole Dominion in an hour? As far as this time-table is concerned, we believe that the Government ought to give serious consideration to the Amendment which I am moving.

One of the outstanding things about the Bill is that the more the House has understood the underlying principles of it, the more have hon. Members of all parties wanted to discuss it. I remember when the Minister of Labour moved the Second Reading in a very able explanatory speech which was probably one of the best expositions of the. underlying principles of a Bill that we have heard. The House will remember that after the speech was made, there was a general feeling that the Bill was so big that we could not grasp it. What has happened as we have gone on? I remember another speech by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour which for constructive thought was powerful and clear, in which he told us that not only was this. Bill going to cut through all the difficulties, but that it was actually laying down principles which would go infinitely further, when the whole logic of them was seen.

With a Bill of that description, one cannot estimate, before the Committee stage and all the necessary analysis that takes place there, what time will be needed in order to discuss the Report stage. It has been pointed out that, on some of the principles which the Bill lays down, there will be dispute as to interpretation. The right hon. Gentleman gave a certain interpretation, and, as far as I can gather, it has only been dealt with very shortly during the Debates. He gave a very different interpretation of Clause 6 from what some of us would give. I think I differ from the right hon. Gentleman in regard to the Clause dealing with proof, and which lays the onus of proof upon the man. As the Debates go on, it will become apparent that that principle is so big as almost to need a full day to itself in the Committee stage, because it will be seen that it is really the restoration of the old, "Not-genuinely-seeking-work" Clause. The right hon. Gentleman will not agree with me, but my point is that the further we go in the discussion of Clauses of that description, the more apparent it be- comes that more time for closer analysis and overhauling will he needed upon the Report stage of the Bill.

Then, and only incidentally, there are certain disciplinary and penalising Clauses which will actually in the long run reshape the Poor Law. I do not know whether the House clearly apprehends what is going to happen in that direction. The Clauses dealing with training, and particularly those under Part II, because of certain penalising effects, will indirectly affect the Poor Law as well as Unemployment Insurance.

Principle after principle is laid down in the Bill. There is the question of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in relation to the members of the board being paid Out of the Consolidated Fund. Everybody knows that, although there have been three days of discussion upon the Second Reading, and almost two days upon the Money Resolution, there is a good deal to be said yet before we get clear as to what is going to be our position under Part* II of the Bill, in regard to the members of the board and the Consolidated Fund. That is not a matter which is limited to the Labour party, because Members of the Conservative party, and Members in other parts of the House, have very grave apprehensions about making such a departure from the ordinary principles of legislation in this country. Not until we overhaul the Bill in Committee can be estimate what days we shall need for the Report stage. Up to the present, our experience has been that the more the matter is discussed, the more explanation has been necessary. Whatever one might think about putting a time-table into operation, so far as the Committee stage is concerned, there is a very strong case for keeping out of this time-table both the Report stage and the Third Reading, in order that we may be able to estimate the time needed after the Committee stage.

6.56 p.m.

Mr. McENTEE

I hope that the Minister will give consideration to the Amendment. I should have liked to see an extension of the time given to the Committee stage, but probably we cannot get that. When the Committee stage ends, there may be many important Amendments that have not been dealt with because of the insufficiency of time. In going through a number of Amendments in the brief period of time that has been allotted, the natural result seems to be that the Amendments which happen to be first upon the Order Paper get so much discussion that the remaining Amendments get very inadequate discussion, and many will be passed over without any discussion at all. I think the Minister will agree that that is what generally happens under a time-table. There does not appear to be any necessity for it in this case, and we are asking that these words should be taken out. At the end of the Committee stage, if the Minister feels that a number of Amendments have not been adequately discussed, whatever the reason for that might be he ought to be able to decide in conjunction with other Members of the Government, that those Amendments are of sufficient importance to extend the time that is in the Schedule. On the other hand, if he considers that the matter has been adequately discussed, and that all Amendments of substance have been dealt with in Committee stage, and that there is no need for any extension of the time, he has always at his disposal the power of the Government, with their large majority, of moving the Closure.

Some concession ought to be made in regard to this matter, and the Minister, without injuring the Bill or the prospects of getting it, could give some hope that Clauses that may not receive adequate discussion on the Committee stage may, by an extension of time, if he considers it necessary at the end of the Committee stage, receive that consideration which he and the Committee may consider advisable. There is no necessity for the inclusion of the provision in regard to the Report stage and the Third Reading, and I ask the Minister to agree to the words being taken out.

7 p.m.

Sir H. BETTERTON

I cannot agree that there is no need to include in the time-table any reference to the Report stage and Third Reading. The hon. Member who moved the Amendment made the point that you cannot estimate at this stage precisely how much time will be required for the Report stage, and his argument ran that in a Bill of this complexity, where the discussion will be necessarily prolonged, you cannot decide at this moment how much is the proper time to allot to that stage. I think there is a good deal of truth in that observation. I agree that it would be impossible at this moment to say what would be a proper time for that stage. It is for that reason that the Government, through the Prime Minister, stated this afternoon that, should it turn out that an extra day would be advantageous if given to the Report stage, and subject to the necessary Government business being disposed of, such a request would be sympathetically considered if and when it was made. That should go a very long way to meet the hon. Gentleman. What we say in effect is that we agree; we cannot say definitely at this moment how many days can be advantageously allotted, but we

think the three days for the Report stage is a liberal allowance. Indeed, it is longer than the ordinary time allowed for Report stages. At any rate, we have two days in the schedule, and we are prepared sympathetically to consider a request for a further day if it should turn out during the progress of the Report stage that such a day could advantageously be devoted to it, and were necessary for the further and proper consideration of the Bill. I hope that I have shown the hon. Member reason why he should not press his Amendment.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 249; Noes, 59.

Division No. 60.]	AYES.	[7.2 p.m.
Albery, Irving James	Courthope, Colonel Sir George L.	Howitt, Dr. Alfred B.
Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'k'nh'd.)	Craven-Ellis, William	Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Anstruther-Gray, W. J.	Crookshank, Col. C. de Windt (Bootle)	Hudson, Robert Spear (Southport)
Applin, Lieut.-Col. Reginald V. K.	Croom-Johnson, R. P.	Hume, Sir George Hopwood
Aske, Sir Robert William	Cross, R. H.	Hunter, Dr. Joseph (Dumfries)
Asthury, Lieut.-Com. Frederick Wolfe	Crossley, A. C.	Hurd, Sir Percy
Atholl, Duchess of	Culverwell, Cyril Tom	James, Wing. Com. A. W. H
Bailey, Eric Alfred George	Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)	Jones, Lewis (Swansea, West)
Baillie, Sir Adrian W. M.	Dickie, John P.	Kerr, Lieut.-Col. Charles (Montrose)
Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley	Drewe, Cedric	Knox, Sir Alfred
Baldwin-Webb, Colonel J.	Duckworth, George A. V.	Lamb. Sir Joseph Quinton
Balniel, Lord	Dugdale, Captain Thomas Lionel	Lambert, Rt. Hon. George
Banks, Sir Reginald Mitchell	Duggan, Hubert John	Law, Sir Alfred
Barclay-Harvey, C. M.	Dunglass, Lord	Law, Richard K. (Hall, S.W.)
Betterton, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry B	Eady, George H.	Leech, Dr. J. W.
Blaker, Sir Reginald	Edmondson, Major A. J.	Leighton, Major B. E. P.
Blindell, James	Elmley, Viscount	Levy, Thomas
Boulton, W. W.	Emmott, Charles E. G. C.	Lewis, Oswald
Bower, Lieut.-Com. Robert Tatton	Emrys-Evans, P. V.	Liddall, Walter S.
Bowyer, Capt. Sir George E. W.	Entwistle, Cyril Fullard	Lindsay, Noel Ker
Boyce, H. Leslie	Essenhigh, Reginald Clare	Lister, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip Cunliffe
Braithwaite, J. G. (Hillsborough)	Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst	Llewellin, Major John J.
Brass, Captain Sir William	Fox, Sir Gifford	Lloyd, Geoffrey
Broadbent, Colonel John	Fraser, Captain Ian	Loder, Captain J. de Vere
Brocklebank, C. E. R.	Fuller, Captain A. G.	Lovat-Fraser, James Alexander
Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd, Hexham)	Galbraith, James Francis Wallace	Lumley, Captain Lawrence R.
Brown, Ernest (Leith)	Ganzoni, Sir John	Lyons, Abraham Montagu
Brown, Brig. -Gen. H.C. (Berks., Newb'y)	Gault, Lieut.-Col. A. Hamilton	McCorquodale, M. S.
Buchan, John	Gibson, Charles Granville	MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Seaham)
Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.	Gillett, Sir. George Masterman	McKie, John Hamilton
Burnett, John George	Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John	Maclay, Hon. Joseph Paton
Burton, Colonel Henry Walter	Gluckstein, Louis Halle	McLean, Major Sir Alan
Butler, Richard Austen	Glyn, Major Ralph G. C.	McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)
Campbell, Sir Edward Taswell (Brmly)	Goodman, Colonel Albert W.	Maitland, Adam
Caporn, Arthur Cecil	Grattan-Doyle, Sir Nicholas	Manningham-Buller, Lt.-Col. Sir M.
Carver, Major William H.	Grenfell, E. C. (City of London)	Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Castlereagh, Viscount	Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John	Martin, Thomas B.
Cautley, Sir Henry S.	Grimston, R. V.	Mason, Col. Glyn K. (Croydon, N.)
Cayzer, Sir Charles (Chester, City)	Gritten, W. G. Howard	Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John
Cayzer, Maj. Sir H. R. (Prtsmth., S.)	Guinness, Thomas L. E. B.	Milne, Charles
Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)	Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.	Monsell, Rt. Hon. Sir B. Eyres
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Edgbaston)	Hammersley, Samuel S.	Moore, Lt.-Col. Thomas C. R. (Ayr)
Chapman. Sir Samuel (Edinburgh, S.)	Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry	Morgan, Robert H.
Christle, James Archibald	Hartland, George A.	Morris, Owen Temple (Cardiff, E.
Clarry, Reginald George	Harvey, George (Lambeth, Kenningt'n)	Morris-Jones, Or. J. H. (Denbigh)
Clayton, Sir Christopher	Haslam, Sir John (Bolton)	Muirhead, Lieut.-Colonel A. J.
Cobb, Sir Cyril	Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Cuthbert M.	Nail. Sir Joseph
Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.	Henderson, Sir Vivian L. (Chelmsford)	Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.
Colville, Lieut.-Colonel J.	Hope, Sydney (Chester, stalybridge)	Newton, Sir Douglas George C.
Conant, R. J. E.	Hore-Belisha, Leslie	Nicholson, Godfrey (Morpeth)
Cooke, Douglas	Hornby, Frank	Normand, Rt. Hon. Wilfrid
Cooper, A. Duff	Home, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert S.	Nunn, William
Copeland, Ida	Horsbrugh, Florence	O'Connor, 'Terence James
Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William G. A.	Runge, Norah Cecil	Sutcliffe, Harold
Pearson, William G.	Russell, Hamer Field (Sheffield, B'tside)	Tate, Mavis Constance
Percy, Lord Eustace	Salmon, Sir Isldore	Taylor, Vice-Admiral E.A. (P'dd'gt'n, S.)
Petherick, M.	Salt, Edward W.	Thomas, James P. L. (Hereford)
Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)	Samuel, Sir Arthur Michael (F'nham)	Thompson, Luke
Peto, Geoffrey K. (W'verh'pt'n, Bliston)	Sandeman, Sir A. N. Stewart	Thomson, Sir Frederick Charles
Pike, Cecil F.	Shakespeare, Geoffrey H.	Thorp, Linton Theodore
Potter, John	Shaw, Helen B. (Lanark, Bothwell)	Titchfield, Major the Marquess of
Preston, Sir Walter Rueben	Shuts, Colonel J. J.	Todd, Capt. A. J. K. (B'wick-on-T.)
Procter, Major Henry Adam	Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John	Todd, A. L. S. (Kingswinford)
Radford, E. A.	Skelton, Archibald Noel	Train, John
Raikes, Henry V. A. M.	Smiles, Lieut.-Col. Sir Walter D.	Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement
Ramsay, Capt. A. H. M. (Midlothian]	Smith, Sir J. Walker- (Barrow-In-F.)	Wallace, Captain D. E. (Hornsey)
Ramsay, T. B. W. (Western Isles)	Smith, R. W. (Ab'rd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)	Wallace, John (Dunfermline)
Ramsbotham, Herwald	Somervell, Sir Donald	Ward, Lt.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)
Ramsden, Sir Eugene	Somerville, Annesley A. (Windsor)	Ward, Irene Mary Bewick (Wallsend)
Rankin, Robert	Soper, Richard	Ward, Sarah Adelaide (Cannock)
Rathbone, Eleanor	Sotheron-Estcourt, Captain T. E.	Waterhouse. Captain Charles
Rawson, Sir Cooper	Southby, Commander Archibald R. J.	Wells, Sydney Richard
Reed, Arthur C. (Exeter)	Spencer, Captain Richard A.	Weymouth, Viscount
Reid, James S. C. (Stirling)	Spens, William Patrick	Williams, Herbert G. (Croydon, S.)
Reid, William Allan (Derby)	Stanley, Lord (Lancaster, Fylde)	Willoughby de Eresby, Lord
Remer, John R.	Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westmorland)	Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir Arnold (Hertf'd)
Renwick, Major Gustav A.	Stevenson, James	Wilson, G. H. A. (Cambridge U.)
Rhys, Hon. Charles Arthur U.	Stewart, J. H. (Fife, E.)	Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George
Rickards, George William	Stones, James	Wose, Alfred R.
Ropner, Colonel L.	Strauss, Edward A.	Withers, Sir John James
Rosbotham, Sir Thomas	Strickland, Captain W. F.	Womersley, Walter James
Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)	Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
Ruggles-Brise, Colonel E. A.	Sugden, Sir Wilfrid Hart	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter	Summersby, Charles H.	Lord Erskine and Sir George Penny.
NOES.
Adams. D. M. (Poplar, South)	Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Arthur	Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)
Attlee, Clement Richard	Grenlell, David Rees (Glamorgan)	Milner, Major James
Banfield, John William	Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro', W.)	Owen, Major Goronwy
Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale)	Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)	Parkinson, John Allen
Briant, Frank	Groves, Thomas E.	Pickering, Ernest H.
Brown, C. W. E. (Notts., Mansfield)	Grundy, Thomas W.	Price, Gabriel
Buchanan, George	Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvil)	Rea, Walter Russell
Cape, Thomas	Hamilton, Sir R. W. (Orkney & Zetl'nd)	Salter, Dr. Alfred
Cocks, Frederick Seymour	Harris, Sir Percy	Smith, Tom (Normanton)
Cove, William G.	Hicks, Ernest George	Thorne, William James
Cripps, Sir Stafford	Holdsworth, Herbert	Tinker, John Joseph
Daggar, George	Jenkins, Sir William	White, Henry Graham
Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)	Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)	Williams. David (Swansea, East)
Dobbie, William	Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)	Williams, Edward John (Ogmore)
Edwards, Charles	Kirkwood, David	Williams, Dr. John H. (Llanelly)
Evans, David Owen (Cardigan)	Lawson, John James	Williams, Thomas (York, Don Valley)
Evans, R. T. (Carmarthen)	Llewellyn-Jones, Frederick	Wood, Sir Murdoch McKenzie (Banff)
Foot, Dingle (Dundee)	Logan, David Gilbert
Foot, Isaac (Cornwall, Bodmin)	Lunn, William	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)	McEntee, Valentine L.	Mr. C. Macdonald and Mr. D. Graham.
George, Megan A. Lloyd (Anglesea)	McGovern, John

Mr. BUCHANAN

I beg to move, in line 54, to leave out: (but no other Amendments, new Clauses, or Schedules), and to insert: and any other Amendments, new Clauses, or Schedules of which notice is given by any Member and which are selected by the Chairman or Mr. Speaker. At present, when the Guillotine falls at the appropriate time—say at 11 p.m.—there may be outstanding Amendments on both the Government and the Opposition sides. Nevertheless, the only Amendments which may be voted on after that are Government Amendments. In. other words, when the Guillotine falls at 11 p.m. the only Vote which the House is allowed to take is a Vote that the Clause stand part or a Vote on a Government Amendment. The effect of my Amendment is a very fair one, namely, that when the Guillotine falls and the Opposition have an Amendment on the Paper of some importance to them, a Vote may be taken on that Amendment. We do not ask for a discussion, but we say that any Amendment that Mr. Speaker would have selected for discussion had the Guillotine not fallen, and which contains a principle on which, in the view of the Opposition, the House should express an opinion, the House should be allowed to take a Vote on it in the same way as on a Government Amendment. That is, I think, perfectly fair and reasonable.

I should like, if I may, to say a few words of personal explanation. Our numbers are depleted and our Leader is in bed to-day with a cold, and a Member of the official Opposition has been kind enough to second my Amendment. I recognise the discipline which governs the official Opposition and am very grateful to them. The Government insist that, when the Guillotine falls, their Amendments shall be voted on, and surely the Opposition have a right, on any Amendment that Mr. Speaker would select, to claim that a vote should be taken. It may be said that to vote on some of these Amendments might limit discussion on other Amendments, but, once the Guillotine is carried, the Opposition will see that no frivolous votes are taken on any points which they do not think are points of principle. I can foresee a kind of case such as this: It may be that under Part I, which deals with the rates of benefit applied to all classes of unemployed persons, there will be a discussion on, say, children's allowances, which may take up a great amount of time, because many Members feel that, even before the cuts are restored, the children's allowances should be increased. Indeed, that point of view has already been expressed. A vote would then be taken on the question of children's allowances, but the Opposition might feel that there should also be an opportunity to register in this House a vote on what a woman should get as a wife, or a man as a male claimant, but the discussion on the children's allowances might prevent the taking of a vote on these other important points.

We are not claiming a privilege of any kind, but merely that, when the Opposition feel that there is a point of principle on which the House of Commons should register a vote, they should be allowed the same facilities as the Government. I think that that is fair and reasonable. As to the Guillotine Motion itself, I cannot understand the action of the Government at all. If they had not introduced a Guillotine Motion, the proceedings might have lasted a day longer or a day less, but I think that the bringing in of the Guillotine on a Measure of this kind is bad in principle and unsound. It would be out of Order to argue that question at the moment, but, if the Guillotine is carried, the Opposition should be allowed to register a vote on points of principle which they consider to be important, just as in the case of Government Amendments.

Mr. LOGAN

I beg to second the Amendment. In doing so, I shall not make any speech, firstly because I merely desire that the Mover should have those facilities which otherwise would not be available to him on account of the absence of his colleague, and, secondly, because what he has already said sufficiently covers the point.

7.20 p.m.

Sir H. BETTERTON

I am sure that the whole House was moved by the touching reconciliation between the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) and the Labour party. I regret the absence of the Leader of one part of the Opposition, and particularly, I regret the cause of his absence, but, on the other hand, we have seen, as I say, this very moving reconciliation.

The hon. Member for Gorbals has put this quite short point with complete clearness. His Amendment would have the effect of allowing Divisions on Amendments which appear on the Paper but which are not actually under discussion when the Guillotine falls, and, as he says, the result would be that the Committee would be able to register its approval or disapproval of the proposals contained in those Amendments, although the Amendments themselves had not been discussed. The answer that I would make is quite short, but, I think, complete. In the first place, this is a completely novel procedure. I admit that that is not conclusive, but it is a fact that this procedure has not found a place in any previous proposals by any Government in introducing Resolutions of this kind. I would ask hon. Members to consider whether it would really be to the advantage of the House that it should be called upon to record its assent or dissent regarding, perhaps, whole pages of Amendments which have never been discussed, and which, therefore, cannot be considered in all their bearings. In the second place, I am not at all sure—in fact, I am more than doubtful—whether it would be a useful addition to our procedure—

Mr. BUCHANAN

May I point out that there is this safeguard, that it would only apply to Amendments which Mr. Speaker would otherwise have selected? That, therefore, would cut down the number. In any case a vote is taken on the Government Amendments, which are very often vital, without one word of discussion.

Sir H. BETTERTON

That was the next point to which I was coming, and the last with which I was proposing to deal. The hon. Member is asking that the Chairman of the Committee should be empowered to make a selection between the Amendments on the Paper. The Chairman does make a selection now, but there is this difference, that, whereas the Chairman's selection now is of Amendments which he thinks ought to be discussed, the hon. Member's Amendment suggests that the Chairman should be asked to make a selection, not of Amendments which can or would have any chance of being discussed, but of Amendments about which he thinks there ought to be a Division. That, surely, is a totally different burden to put upon the Chairman. It is not for me to express an opinion on it, except, perhaps, that I might say that it would be an almost intolerable burden. For these reasons I cannot accept this very novel proposal, which I think might have more far-reaching consequences than perhaps the hon. Member realises.

7.25 p.m.

Mr. A. BEVAN

The answer of the Minister must fill the House with astonishment. He tells us that it is an imposition upon the Chairman to ask him to select Amendments which have not been discussed, and suggests that because they have not been discussed they ought not to be voted upon. But that is precisely what will happen in the case of the Government Amendments. Will the Minister tell us why the Government Amendments should be voted upon without discussion, while the Opposition Amendments should not?

Sir H. BETTERTON

As the hon. Member knows, the Government Amendments at this stage will not be more than drafting Amendments.

Mr. BEVAN

I remember that in the 1929-31 Parliament a very important manuscript Amendment was put in by the Government, and also an important manuscript Amendment to the manuscript Amendment was put in by the Government, and voted upon. There will be nothing to prevent the adoption of that procedure in the course of these discussions. It is true that the Amendment of the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) introduces a very novel element into the Guillotine, but I would ask the House to remember that the Guillotine in itself is an instrument which is infrequently used, which therefore comes under consideration only at infrequent periods, and which is in process of evolution. What we are now being asked to do is to stereotype the procedure by means of which a Member of Parliament is not only prevented from discussing a principle in the House, but is effectually disfranchised from voting upon it. That is monstrous.

It would be easy for a Member on the Government benches, knowing that we were reaching an important Amendment of the kind suggested by the hon. Member for Gorbals, which Members on the Government benches might think would have a great demagogic importance outside the House, and on which they might be anxious to prevent the Opposition from recording their adherence to the principle. They might be entitled to condemn it as a vote-catching Amendment, but nevertheless it would be a legitimate expression of opinion by His Majesty's Opposition or anyone else in the House. But a supporter of the Government could keep the discussion going on some insignificant Amendment, drive us up to the Guillotine, and not only prevent such an Amendment from being discussed, but from being voted upon at all. I do not warn the Minister of Labour, because we do not know the circumstances that may arise in Committee, but I suggest to him that this Bill is regarded by Members of the House as so very important a Measure that quite possibly very difficult situations may arise in Committee, and I would suggest to him that he should be a little more conciliatory. If we can have a little conciliation in action, we do not mind a little less in attitude. The Minister's attitude is always conciliatory, but he does not seem to give us any more than any other Minister. We are beginning to disregard his attitude and to look upon his conduct, and we think that inside he is as black as the rest of them, no matter how nice he may be externally.

I would ask the Minister to permit Members of the House of Commons, whether they belong to the Opposition or not, to record their views in the Division Lobby about (matters of principle. At present he proposes not only to guillotine us but to disfranchise us as well, and, if that is continued, there is bound to be trouble. If the Minister wants to get this Bill through the House amicably and with good temper in the time allotted to it, he had better make up his mind that he has got to give way somewhere. He is taking away from the Opposition means of Parliamentary persuasion which Oppositions have enjoyed for very many years. If we cannot persuade the House of Commons to give us concessions, we shall have to resort to some other method. I believe that, if the Whips were taken off and hon. Members were permitted to express their opinion openly, without fear of any party consequences, they would say that, if Members are not permitted to move Amendments, they should be given the right of voting upon them in order that their constituents shall know to what policy their representative adheres. The Minister ought to depart from his adamantine attitude on this most reasonable Amendment.

7.31 p.m.

Sir BASIL PETO

I believe the hon. Member has left out of account one of the most important factors. There is such a thing as the Report stage and, if the Opposition found some Amendment which they thought of vital consequence, they could always secure not only a vote but a discussion upon it if they cleared the Order Paper on the Report stage of trivial matter so as to concentrate attention upon the particular Amendments to which they attach importance. I can understand that sentimentally there is a very great deal to be said for the argument of the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan), but we cannot expect perfection, least of all under the Guillotine. Debate is entirely barred upon Amendments, some of which may be important, which are in the name of the Government, but you do not make that any better by voting without Debate on a number of other Amendments perhaps also dealing with vital matters, which are shut out simply according to whether the Chairman thinks they are matters of importance or not. It would make our Report stage unreal for all Amendments shut out by the Guillotine to be voted upon sub silentio.

There is one other difficulty. The House of Commons is not always divided in the disproportionate manner that the present one is divided. We shall probably at some future time have a closely divided House where a few votes one way or the other will pass or reject an Amendment. In those circumstances it would be impossible to contemplate this proposal. An Amendment might be vital to the Measure, and it would be intolerable that the Government should simply vote on a vital point in one of the principal Measures of the Session without being able to say a single word in defence of the Bill as drafted, and very likely the House might, in ignorance of what was to be said for the Bill, vote in a manner contrary to that which it would otherwise have done. Because the Government find it necessary to put a Measure through under the Guillotine, that is no reason for introducing an alteration which would make the whole procedure of Parliament impossible, and that we should have decisions taken on vital matters on which we have not heard a word of Debate, and possibly a vote adverse to the Government on a matter which has not been discussed. That is what this proposal might lead to. There is more to be said against it from a practical point of view, leaving sentiment apart, than has yet been put.

7.35 p.m.

Mr. McGOVERN

I am amazed at the unreasonable attitude of the Minister. His argumant was certainly not intelligent or reasonable. The hon. Baronet suggests that it would be unfair to allow decisions to be taken in connection with Amendments which had not been properly discussed, but is that not the case in connection with Government Amendments, which are passed in the very same way? When he talked about Amendments which had not had proper discussion, I am a little doubtful about his argument, because the worst feature of this House and its decisions is that Members flock into the Lobbies who have heard nothing of the discussion. They do not ask, "What is the Amendment about?" but "Which is our Lobby?"

Sir B. PETO

I was presupposing a House narrowly divided, and I assumed that there would be some Members attending the Debate, and that, there- fore, the Debate might have some influence.

Mr. McGOVERN

Even if there is almost a balance between the two sides, I have seen in the short time that I have been in the House that Members, though in the building, are not in the Chamber. They may be in the smoke room, or the tea room, or the chess room or at the bars. They may be anywhere, but they are not present when discussions are taking place. All that is being asked is that Divisions should be allowed on Amendments which the Chairman would have called. If you take away the right of registering our votes, it is a very short step indeed to take away the entire right of Members to vote at all on any Amendment or any Motion. Then, when we go back to our constituencies and someone says, "Did you not propose that a higher scale of relief should be given to children?" and we say, "Yes, we put it down on the Order Paper and the Chairman thought it was a proper Amendment, but we were not allowed to discuss it or to take the verdict of the House upon it," the people outside will rightly say, "What a sham and a contemptible institution to be called a democratic expression of the rights of the common people." Why should I be debarred from voting for Amendments which I consider reasonable and proper when probably a whole evening has been taken up in discussing Amendments of a minor character?

In order to satisfy the demands of democracy you ought to be able to?convince the people outside that on every Amendment there is a proper avenue of expression and a proper chance of recording your decision. Hon. Members may say we can cut down the time on other Amendments and allocate a period of time to Amendments which are considered important, but there is no guarantee that you can get agreement on those lines. The suggestion contained in that argument is that, not only must you have no adequate discussion of the Amendments that are going to be operated by the Guillotine, but you must cut down reasonable discussion on other Amendments and allow the whole of them to be operated by the Guillotine for the satisfaction of the Government. If that is how it is desired to operate, we had (better have it that Amendments should be put on the Order Paper and accepted or rejected by order of the Chairman without discussion of any kind. The House to-day is a complete sham as far as democracy is concerned. I see no evidence of Members showing their intelligence or their thinking capacity. I am ready to believe that there are people who are prepared to see the point of view of the man or woman on the other side and prepared to be convinced if reasonable argument is applied. But, if they do not come into the House, they cannot be influenced in any way, and the term democracy is all wrong. If the Minister's argument is the best that he can put to rebut the arguments and reasons behind this Amendment, the Government are in a poor way.

7.45 p.m.

Mr. COVE

The suggestion of the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) is a most reasonable one, and I am very pleased to support him to-night. I should have thought that the Minister would immediately have accepted it. I cannot understand his attitude. He not only wants to stifle discussion, which he is doing by the Guillotine, but we shall be unable to discuss parts of the Bill adequately, while we shall not be able to discuss at all some of the proposals embodied in the. Bill. We shall not be able to say a single word about them, and we shall not be able to make a constructive suggestion from this side of the House, nor will hon. Members behind the Government. The Minister is not only trying to stifle discussion, but he is succeeding to avoid decisions. The House will not only not be able to discuss any proposals put forward, but we shall not be able to walk into the Lobby in order to register decisions unless they are decisions upon proposals or Amendments made by the Government. I ask the Minister why we should be compelled to walk into the Lobby in regard to Amendments proposed by the Government when he refuses us the opportunity of walking into the Lobby on proposals put forward by the Opposition. It is an absolutely unfair attitude to take. I heard an hon. Member opposite say that it is unreasonable to walk into the Lobby on any Amendments which we have not discussed, but we shall walk into the Lobby on Amendments which we have not discussed if the Government bring forward Amendments.

Sir B. PETO

I did not say so. I said that it had the disadvantage that it involved voting without discussion on certain Government Amendments. It does not make the position any better by duplicating the thing and voting on Opposition Amendments as well.

Mr. COVE

That is an amazing suggestion. The hon. Member admits that we shall be walking into the Lobby on Government Amendments without discussion. Why shall not we have the same right as an Opposition to put our proposals before the House, and, although under the Guillotine procedure we cannot discuss them, have decisions registered? I hope that the House is not merely a talking shop. The Guillotine, as far as the Government are concerned, is to make it a restricted talking shop and to refuse to allow us to take the only action we can take, that is, to walk into the Lobby. The question of registering decisions without discussion was mentioned by the hon. Member opposite. Take the end of a Parliamentary Session every year, when at 10 o'clock at night we troop into the Lobby. On such occasions hon. Members very often have a chance of making up their voting record when they have had a bad Division record for the Session. They have a chance of making it up by walking into the Lobby and voting away millions of pounds without a word of discussion. That has occurred ever since I have been here, and it will occur again. If it can be done with regard to the voting of millions of pounds, surely it is reasonable to say that we ought to have an opportunity of doing it on a Bill of this kind. Estimates come forward and the Government indulge in certain expenditure which involves a certain policy, and although we have been unable, owing to lack of Parliamentary time, to discuss the Estimates, nevertheless, the House has an opportunity of registering a decision if the Opposition wants to do so.

We register decisions on policy much more when we vote than when we talk in this House, and therefore I should have thought that the Minister would have taken up a more reasonable attitude and have accepted the Amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Gorbals. He is attempting to make the Guillotine a more reasonable instrument, and to give a little more fair play to those of us who are in opposition. Is the Minister afraid to have these decisions registered? Is he afraid that we might put down an Amendment which would increase the allowances for children? Is he afraid to allow us to vote on it? Is he afraid that the country should know exactly the attitude of the Government on these definite and concrete proposals upon which my hon. Friend wants a vote to be registered? The Minister is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. A. Bevan) said, a very sweet gentleman. He seems very pleasant. I think that the Prime Minister was pretty cute in choosing him for this nasty job.

Mr. BUCHANAN

He did not make a good choice in choosing the Dominions Secretary.

Mr. COVE

He made a mistake there, but he made no mistake in choosing the right hon. Gentleman opposite. He is the most suave Minister sitting on the Government side. We shall not be satisfied very much longer merely with a reasonable attitude. We shall want reasonable deeds from the Minister opposite. He must remember, as has been repeated over and over again—and we shall not tire of repeating it—that the Bill deals with things of vital concern to millions of working-class folk in this country. It deals with the starvation levels of our working folk, and a sweet smile will not meet that situation. The Minister must meet it by deeds and by action. If we are not given an opportunity in this House of reasonable discussion and of recording our votes and of registering in this House the policies for which we stand, I assure the Minister that there is going to be a very rough time as far as we are concerned. We claim as an Opposition an equal right with the Minister to register our votes and policy. Is it not possible for him to reconsider his attitude on this matter? What harm can it do to him? Is he afraid of it? It is a reasonable request, and I should imagine, judging from what I have noticed of hon. Members listening to the discussion, that they are very much disturbed about the attitude of the Minister. Hon. Members behind the Minister will be very glad indeed if he will concede this point.

Captain WATERHOUSE

No.

Mr. COVE

I am not going to take the Private Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister as representing the views of hon. Members opposite on a matter of this kind. I have watched the House very carefully, and I have come to the conclusion that if the House had a chance of a free vote the Amendment would be carried, as it is so essentially reasonable. I am rather surprised that it should be so reasonable coming from such a quarter. I have never found my hon. Friend the Member for Gorbals so reasonable and so constructive as he is in the Amendment to-night. It is a reasonable and a constructive Amendment and gives a chance to every Member to record a vote and to register for what they stand in relation to the unemployed, but they are not to be allowed to do it. The Guillotine is bad enough, in all conscience, in stifling discussion, but the Minister is now taking up the attitude, not only of stifling discussion, but absolutely of preventing Members of the House from registering their votes in the Division Lobby. I have an impression that the Government are afraid of this Measure. Never have they appeared more cowardly than in their attitude towards this Amendment. If they had a spark of courage they would accept the Amendment and allow us to register our opinions so that the country might know exactly where we stand. Therefore, I have much pleasure in supporting so reasonable an Amendment as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Gorbals, and I shall certainly go into the Lobby and vote for it unless the Minister reconsiders the matter and comes to the conclusion that he ought to accept it in the interests of the House.

7.56 p.m.

Mr. E. WILLIAMS

We must press the Minister upon this matter. It is regrettable that the Opposition has to fight for the rights of private Members.

Mr. A. BEVAN

Where are the Liberal party?

Mr. COVE

Send for them.

Mr. WILLIAMS

There can be nothing more reasonable than the Amendment which has been moved by the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan). The Guillotine will fall and not only will Opposition Amendments apparenty be ruled out, but if any Members of the Government desire to move Amendments which they feel to be essential and they have not got the Government to accept them, they will have no right, even though they may normally be supporters of the Government, to register a decision upon such Amendments in the Division Lobby. It would seem that the rights of the private Member are to go as well. I am very pleased to notice the restlessness on the part of Government supporters. They are very alert about this matter. Probably we shall see them wake up and realise their responsibilities. It is no use talking in the country about the House of Commons and the work they are doing, and how they are standing up to defend their constituents when they are prepared to let the Minister, on behalf of the executive, absolutely over-ride the House of Commons, who will really have no jurisdiction at all on these matters. The Government will come along at a certain time of the day in accordance with the time-table, and Government Amendments will be taken, but the Opposition, even if they bring forward important Amendments, will not be able to register their decisions upon them in the Division Lobby.

I should not have thought that anyone could have sat upon the Treasury Bench and have advanced a proposal of that kind in these days. I am certain that the constituents whom hon. Members are representing cannot possibly conceive what is taking place in the House of Commons. I would prefer the Chairman of Ways and Means to operate the Kangaroo and exercise his choice of Amendments in accordance with his knowledge of the procedure, but the Government are pressing the Guillotine upon us—a very much worse instrument in our estimation—and they are giving us a very limited time in which to discuss one of the most important Measures which have come before this Parliament, and, indeed, one of the most important Measures which we have had for many years. It concerns a greater number of people in the aggregate than any Measure that has been before us in the last two decades. For a Measure of this kind we are to have 14 days discussion. Already 244 Amendments to the Bill have been handed in, and many more will be forthcoming from ourselves and other hon. Members when they realise exactly what their constituents think of the Bill. Although those Amendments may be put on the Order Paper and may be called, unless the Amendment is accepted it will be impossible for hon. Members to register their decision on it in the Division Lobby. That is a flouting of Parliamentary democracy. It is impossible for anyone to put up claims on behalf of Parliamentary democracy unless it is possible in the Division Lobby to register our views. Therefore,

I am hoping that we shall have the support of most hon. Members present, and I sincerely trust that they will influence the sheep who will come along and who, I am afraid, will walk just as they are bidden to walk in the Division Lobby.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 236; Noes, 59.

Division No. 61.]	AYES.	[8.2 p.m.
Adams, Samuel Vyvyan T. (Leeds, W.)	Elmley, Viscount	MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Seaham)
Agnew, Lieut. Com. P. G.	Entwistle, Cyril Fullard	McKie, John Hamilton
Ainsworth, Lieut.-Colonel Charles	Erskine, Lord (Weston-super-Mare)	Maclay, Hon. Joseph Paton
Albery, Irving James	Essenhigh, Reginald Clare	McLean, Major Sir Alan
Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'k'nh'd)	Fox, Sir Gifford	McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)
Anstruther-Gray, W. J.	Fuller, Captain A. G.	Maitland, Adam
Applin, Lieut.-Col. Reginald V. K.	Galbraith, James Francis Wallace	Manningham-Buller, Lt.-Col. Sir M.
Aske, Sir Robert William	Ganzoni, Sir John	Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Atholl, Duchess of	Gault, Lieut.-Col. A. Hamilton	Martin, Thomas B.
Bailey, Eric Alfred George	Gibson, Charles Granville	Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John
Baillie, Sir Adrian W. M.	Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John	Milne, Charles
Baldwin-Webb, Colonel J.	Glossop, C. W. H.	Mitchell, Harold P. (Br'tt'd & Chisw'k)
Balfour, Capt. Harold (I. of Thanet)	Gluckstein, Louis Halle	Moore, Lt.-Col. Thomas C. R. (Ayr)
Barclay-Harvey, C. M.	Glyn, Major Ralph G. C.	Morgan, Robert H.
Beauchamp, Sir Brograve Campbell	Goodman, Colonel Albert W.	Morris, Owen Temple (Cardiff, E.)
Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (portsm'th, C.)	Graham, Sir F. Fergus (C'mb'rl'd, N.)	Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H. (Denbigh)
Bernays, Robert	Grattan-Doyle, Sir Nicholas	Morrison, William Stephard
Betterton, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry B.	Grenfell, E. C. (City of London)	Muirhead, Lieut.-Colonel A. J.
Blaker, Sir Reginald	Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John	Nail, Sir Joseph
Boulton, W. W.	Gritten, W. G. Howard	Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.
Bower, Lieut.-Com. Robert Tatton	Gunston, Captain D. W.	Nicholson, Godfrey (Morpeth)
Bowyer, Capt. Sir George E. W.	Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.	Normand, Rt. Hon. Wilfrid
Boyce, H. Leslie	Hammersley, Samuel S.	Nunn, William
Brass, Captain Sir William	Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry	Oman, Sir Charles William C.
Broadbent, Colonel John	Harbord, Arthur	O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh
Brown, Col. D.C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)	Hartland, George A.	Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William G. A.
Brown, Ernest (Leith)	Harvey, George (Lambeth, Kenningt'n)	Palmer, Francis Noel
Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks., Newb'y)	Haslam, sir John (Bolton)	Pearson, William G.
Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.	Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Cuthbert M.	Penny, Sir George
Burghley, Lord	Henderson, Sir Vivian L. (Chelmsf'd)	Percy, Lord Eustace
Burgin, Dr. Edward Leslie	Hope, Sydney (Chester, Stalybridge)	Petherick, M.
Burnett, John George	Horsbrugh, Florence	Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, B'nstaple)
Burton, Colonel Henry Walter	Howitt, Dr. Alfred B.	Peto, Geoffrey K (W'verh'pt'n, Bilston)
Campbell, Sir Edward Taswell (Brmly)	Hudson, Robert Spear (Southport)	Pike, Cecil F.
Caporn, Arthur Cecil	Hume, Sir George Hopwood	Potter, John
Carver, Major William H.	Hunter, Dr. Joseph (Dumfries)	Radford, E. A.
Castlereagh, Viscount	Hurd, Sir Percy	Raikes, Henry V. A. M.
Cayzer, Maj. Sir H. R. (Prtamth., S.)	James, Wing-Com. A. W. H.	Ramsay. T. B. W. (Western Isles)
Chapman, Sir Samuel (Edinburgh, S.)	Jennings, Roland	Ramsbotham, Herwald
Christie, James Archibald	Joel, Dudley J. Barnato	Ramsden, Sir Eugene
Clarry, Reginald George	Jones, Sir G. W. H. (Stoke New'gton)	Rankin, Robert
Clayton, Sir Christopher	Jones, Lewis (Swansea, West)	Rawson, Sir Cooper
Cobb, Sir Cyril	Kerr, Lieut.-Col. Charles (Montrose)	Reed, Arthur C. (Exeter)
Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.	Kerr, Hamilton W.	Reid, James S. C. (Stirling)
Colville, Lieut.-Colonel J.	Lamb, Sir Joseph Quinton	Reid, William Allan (Derby)
Conant, R. J. E.	Latham, Sir Herbert Paul	Remer, John R.
Cooke, Douglas	Law, Sir Alfred	Renwick, Major Gustav A.
Copeland, Ida	Law, Richard K. (Hull, S.W.)	Rhys, Hon. Charles Arthur U.
Courtauld, Major John Sewell	Leighton, Major B. E. P.	Rickards, George William
Craven-Ellis, William	Levy, Thomas	Robinson, John Roland
Crookshank, Col. C. de Windt (Bootle)	Lewis, Oswald	Ropner, Colonel L.
Croom-Johnson, R. P.	Liddall, Walter S.	Rosbotham, Sir Thomas
Crossley, A. C.	Lindsay, Noel Ker	Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)
Culverwell, Cyril Tom	Lister, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip Cunliffe	Ruggles-Brise, Colonel E. A.
Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)	Little, Graham-, Sir Ernest	Runge, Norah Cecil
Dickie, John P.	Llewellin, Major John J.	Russell, Hamer Field (Sheffield, B'tside)
Dower, Captain A. V. G.	Llewellyn-Jones, Frederick	Salmon, Sir Isidore
Drewe, Cedric	Lockwood, John C. (Hackney, C.)	Salt, Edward W.
Duckworth, George A. V.	Loder, Captain J. de Vere	Sandeman, Sir A. N. Stewart
Dugdale, Captain Thomas Lionel	Lovat-Fraser, James Alexander	Sanderson, Sir Frank Barnard
Duggan, Hubert John	Lumley, Captain Lawrence R.	Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip A. G. D.
Duncan, James A. L. (Kensington, N.)	Lyons, Abraham Montagu	Savery, Samuel Servington
Dunglass, Lord	Mabane, William	Shaw, Helen B. (Lanark, Bothwell)
Edmondson, Major A. J.	McCorquodale, M. S.	Shepperson, Sir Ernest W.
Shute, Colonel J. J.	Strickland, Captain W. F.	Warrender, Sir Victor A. G.
Smith, Sir J. Walker- (Barrow-ln-F.)	Sugden, Sir Wilfrid Hart	Waterhouse, Captain Charles
Somervell, Sir Donald	Summersby, Charles H.	Wells, Sydney Richard
Somerville, Annesley A (Windsor)	Sutcliffe, Harold	Weymouth, Viscount
Soper, Richard	Tate, Mavis Constance	Whiteside, Borras Noel H.
Sotheron-Estcourt, Captain T. E.	Thompson, Luke	Wills, Wilfrid D.
Southby, Commander Archibald R. J.	Thomson, Sir Frederick Charles	Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir Arnold (Hertl'd)
Spencer, Captain Richard A.	Thorp, Linton Theodore	Wilson, Clyde T. (West Toxteth)
Spens, William Patrick	Titchfield, Major the Marquess of	Wilson, G. H. A. (Cambridge U.)
Stanley, Lord (Lancaster, Fylde)	Todd, Capt. A. J. K. (B'wick-on-T.)	Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George
Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westmorland)	Todd, A. L. S. (Kingswinford)	Wise, Alfred R.
Stevenson, James	Wallace, Captain D. E. (Hornsey)	Withers, Sir John James
Stewart, J. H. (Fife, E.)	Wallace, John (Dunfermline)
Stones, James	Ward, Lt.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
Stourton, Hon. John J.	Ward, Irene Mary Bewick (Wallsend)	Captain Austin Hudson and Mr. Womersley.
Strauss, Edward A.	Ward, Sarah Adelaide (Cannock)
NOES.
Adams, D. M. (Poplar, South)	Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Arthur	Mallalieu, Edward Lancelot
Attlee, Clement Richard	Grenfell, David Rees (Glamorgan)	Milner, Major James
Banfield, John William	Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)	Owen, Major Goronwy
Batey, Joseph	Groves, Thomas E.	Parkinson, John Allen
Briant, Frank	Grundy, Thomas W.	Price, Gabriel
Brown, C. W. E. (Notts., Mansfield)	Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvil)	Rea, Walter Russell
Buchanan, George	Hamilton, Sir R. w. (Orkney & Zetl'nd)	Salter, Dr. Alfred
Cape, Thomas	Harris, Sir Percy	Smith, Tom (Normanton)
Cocks, Frederick Seymour	Hicks, Ernest George	Thorne, William James
Cove, William G.	Holdsworth, Herbert	Tinker, John Joseph
Cripps, Sir Stafford	Jenkins, Sir William	White, Henry Graham
Daggar, George	Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)	Williams, David (Swansea, East)
Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)	Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)	Williams, Edward John (Ogmore)
Dobbie, William	Kirkwood, David	Williams, Dr. John H. (Llanelly)
Edwards, Charles	Lawson, John James	Williams, Thomas (York, Don Valley)
Evans, David Owen (Cardigan)	Logan, David Gilbert	Wilmot, John
Evans, R. T. (Carmarthen)	Lunn, William	Wood, Sir Murdoch McKenzie (Banff)
Foot, Isaac (Cornwall, Bodmin)	Macdonald, Gordon (Ince)
George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)	McEntee, Valentine L.	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
George, Megan A. Lloyd (Anglesea)	Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)	Mr. A. Bevan and Mr. McGovern.
Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)	Mainwaring, William Henry

8.11 p.m.

Mr. NEIL MACLEAN

I beg to move, in line 59, to leave out: and any Motion for Adjournment under Standing Order No. 10. I am moving the Amendment which stands in the name of hon. Members below the Gangway which we understand they are unable to move because they have taken part in moving and discussing other Amendments standing earlier on the Order Paper. I feel privileged to be able to get them out of the difficulty that has arisen, and I am pleased to move the Amendment. I consider that the words which they seek by their Amendment to delete are an insult to every Member of this House if they are permitted to remain in the Resolution submitted by the Minister of Labour. The Resolution is sufficiently iniquitous when it asks the great majority of the Government's supporters to take away the rights of the Opposition in regard to voting upon important Amendments which, through the action of the Guillotine, they are unable to move, but we find a still further iniquity is proposed to be perpetrated. We are asked to agree to this proposal: Any Private Business which is set down for consideration at 7.30 p.m., and any Motion for Adjournment under Standing Order No. 10, on an allotted day shall, on that day, instead of being taken as provided by the Standing Orders, be taken on the conclusion of the proceedings on the Bill or under this Order for that day. That is, after we have exhausted the proceedings according to the time-table. One of the very great rights which Members of this House enjoy is the right given to them under Standing Order No. 10. Not merely is that the right of every hon. Member but it is a very powerful right given to the Opposition. Something may arise at any time, for example, in foreign affairs, brought about by weakness on the part of the Government or failure to estimate what was likely to arise abroad, which might cause considerable distraction throughout the country and the Empire, or there might be many other matters of extreme importance and urgency requiring to be brought before the House immediately, and to be discussed at once during the 18 days for which the time-table makes allowance, yet the Minister comes to the House and asks Members to waive their rights, asks the Opposition to waive its right to be able to bring forward a Motion under Standing Order No. 10, and have it discussed in the ordinary way.

The Parliamentary Secretary may say that they are not taking away any right of discussion and that all they are doing is to delay the discussion until the business set out for that particular day has been concluded. That is not sufficient for a notice of Motion on a matter of urgency. To discuss a matter of that kind after 11 o'clock instead of at 8.15, as under the Standing Order, means that the Debate loses its effect. There is no adequate Press report to make the people of the country understand what is happening. They may be aware of an extreme crisis arising and tormented by the fear that difficulties are likely to arise between this country and a foreign nation, possibly with a declaration of war, and there is no opportunity save by broadcasting to allay their fears except through a Debate in this House and a statement made by the Government. I submit that it is asking hon. Members to yield too much, to give away their privileges under Standing Order No. 10. It is quite effective to safeguard the rights of hon. Members. I will read it for the purpose of enabling new Members to understand what it really means: No Motion for the adjournment of the House shall be made until all the questions asked at the commencement of business on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday have been disposed of. It will be seen that those are the very days upon which the Guillotine is going to operate— and no such Motion shall be made before the Orders of the Day or Notices of Motion have been entered upon, except by leave of the House, unless a Member rising in his place shall propose to move the adjournment for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, and not less than 40 Members shall thereupon rise in their places to support the Motion, or unless, if fewer than 40 Members and not less than 10 shall thereupon rise in their places the House shall, on a Division, upon question put forthwith, determine whether such Motion shall be made. If the Motion is so supported, or the House so determines that it shall be made, it shall stand over until a quarter-past eight on the same day. The Motion as it is framed does not permit of any Debate upon a Motion which the House agrees shall be considered under Standing Order No. 10 on an allotted day. It means that hon. Members are not going to have the right to discuss a matter of urgent public importance at half-past eight in the evening as under the Standing Order, but that it must be taken after we have exhausted the time-table for the allotted day, that is, after 11 o'clock at night. The Government is asking the House to agree to too much. They are trifling with the House in putting forward such a proposal, and it is a privilege on my part to move the Amendment that these words be deleted.

8.20 p.m.

Mr. BUCHANAN

I want to thank the hon. Member for Govan (Mr. Maclean) for moving this Amendment. We want to take a Division upon this point, and we appreciate the fact that he has given us a chance of so doing. I think he has been moderate in his statement. The chances are that such discussions as these will not arise until after 12 o'clock, because we may have three or four Divisions at 11 o'clock and it will be 12 o'clock before we can take such a discussion. I remember a motion of this kind being made in connection with a very serious pit disaster, when Mr. Speaker exercised his right with more care than on any other occasion that I can remember. Mr. Speaker never grants a motion for the adjournment unless it is urgent and important. On the occasion I have mentioned the motion was moved by Mr. George Warner in connection with a terrible disaster in a mining area, and Mr. Speaker granted it. If such a case occurred under this Motion we should not be able to discuss the matter until 12 o'clock at night. On that occasion it was the one thing which was uppermost in all our minds, and to ask us, as the Government do by their Motion, to delay the discussion until 12 o'clock at night is asking too much. All that our Amendment says is that if Mr. Speaker says it is a matter of urgent public importance it shall be discussed in the ordinary way under Standing Order No. 10, at 8.15 p.m. It is the Speaker and no one else who says that such a matter is urgent and important, but the Government in effect could delay discussion of it until the next day as a result of this Guillotine Motion. It means that the Government can go against the decision of Mr. Speaker and say that the matter is not urgent. In a case where such a Motion is allowed by Mr. Speaker the time allotted to Unemployment Insurance should be given another day.

I trust that the Minister will accept the Amendment. I agree with the statement of the hon. Member for West Walthamstow (Mr. McEntee) that the Government have no right to complain that anyone has created difficulties for them. Even in the case of the recent all-night sitting the difficulties were made by the Government, and no one else. If those in charge of Government business had known how to handle the situation the difficulties would not have arisen. In this Amendment we are asking for only a small thing. Everything that we have asked for so far has been refused, but here we make the modest request that when Mr. Speaker allows an urgency Motion it should be taken on the same day. Under the present procedure, when the Guillotine falls at Eleven o'Clock we may have a number of Clauses and Government Amendments on which to vote, and as each Division would occupy from 10 to 15 minutes it might well be midnight before the urgent Motion is discussed. This Guillotine proposal is another attack on the Opposition's right, because nine times out of 10 the claim to move such Motions comes from Opposition Members.

8.27 p.m.

Sir HUGH O'NEILL

I am now in favour of the Guillotine as a principle for carrying through this House very large Measures which would not be carried through in any other circumstances without very great difficulty. That principle is accepted by all parties in the House to-day. We all know that the Guillotine has been used by every party, including the present Labour Opposition. This particular proposal to postpone till eleven o'clock any discussion under Standing Order No. 10 was, I think, included in the Guillotine Motion moved by the Labour Party for discussion of the Land Taxes in the Finance Bill. It has been. a common feature in recent Guillotine Motions. Yet I must say that I think in this particular case there is a very great deal to be said for the Amendment, and I find myself in agreement with much that has been said by the hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment and by the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan). They both showed a keen knowledge and appreciation of what would be the effect if this proposal in the Guillotine Motion is allowed to remain as it is. The right of moving the Adjournment of the House to discuss a definite matter of urgent public importance is one of the most important rights contained in our Standing Orders.

I have now been in this House for a considerable number of years, and I have noticed that in recent years there are far fewer Adjournment Motions than there used to be under Standing Order No. 10. I can remember that shortly after the War, when it was quite common for one of these Adjournment Motions to be moved and to be accepted by the Chair; it came on at 8.15 and was discussed. As the hon. Member for Gorbals said, such Motions are now infrequent, and I do not believe that if the Government were to give way by accepting this Amendment it would really make any practical difference. There have been no such Motions this Session. In fact I cannot remember any in this Parliament. [HON. MEMBERS: "None in this Parliament."] That is rather extraordinary to those who can remember former Parliaments. If the Government would give way on this point the chances are that they would not be giving away any time at all, and they would preserve to this House what is a very valuable right.

Of course, I recognise that the right is preserved in this Guillotine Motion, but we all know that discussion after eleven o'clock is never a proper discussion; it is very often a farce. Members go away; they will not stay; there is no proper report in the Press. That is not a proper way to discuss an important matter like an accident in a mine or something of that sort, which might be considered to be a definite matter of urgent public importance. Another point made by the hon. Member for Gorbals was that under this Guillotine, when 11 o'clock or 11.30 comes, there are generally several Divisions on Government Amendments, and it probably would not be till midnight that discussion would come on.

I rise to say these things because I have always taken an interest in the procedure of this House, and with you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I was a member of the Committee on Procedure which sat in the last Parliament, and I do feel that it falls to someone who is not of the party which moved this Amendment to put a point of view in the general interests of what I consider to be the preservation of important rights which should not be taken away lightly. In this particular case if the Amendment were conceded I do not suppose it would take away a single hour of the time at the disposal of the Government

8.35 p.m.

Mr. C. BROWN

I wish to add my appeal to those of the hon. Member for Govan (Mr. Maclean) and the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan), especially in view of what has just been said by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Antrim (Sir H. O'Neill). We on these benches have been trying to persuade the Government to accept Amendments to this time-table, but up to the present they have been adamant to all the arguments advanced by us. Notwithstanding the persuasive powers of hon. Members on this side, the Government have refused any concession whatever. I wonder whethey they will listen to one of their own supporters. Nothing that we can say can add to the significance of the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Antrim. I would only point out that we are living in very disturbed times and under conditions which may make it necessary at any moment to call the attention of the House to a matter of urgent public importance. The more we discuss this time-table, the more we discover the encroachments which it involves on the rights of private Members. Apart from the rights directly taken away by the time-table itself, it is now obvious that their rights in certain other respects will be affected. The Amendment seeks to restore one very important right which will be affected by this Motion. Externally, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour is almost as amiable as the Minister. Everybody comments on the Minister's amiability, and the Parliamentary Secretary seems to possess that quality also. I hope, however, that when he replies he will show more consideration for the House than the Minister, in spite of his smiling face, has shown us. There cannot be any doubt as to the importance of the issue raised in the Amendment, and it would be an act of grace on the part of the Government to accept it.

8.38 p.m.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. R. S. Hudson)

I need hardly say that no one would welcome more than I being in a position to accede to the appeal made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Antrim (Sir H. O'Neill) and by the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. C. Brown).

I am not sure, however, whether the hon. Member for Govan (Mr. Maclean) appreciates the effect of our proposal and the effect of his Amendment. In the first place, our Motion is in what may be called common form. This proposal has been inserted in all the Guillotine Motions passed during recent years. I think it was in the Guillotine Motion passed by the late Labour Government. But the effect of our Motion is not to deprive Members altogether of their rights under Standing Order No. 10. It merely postpones the exercise of that right from 7.30 o'clock to 11 o'clock or, in certain cases, possibly 12 o'clock as the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) suggested. On the other hand if this Amendment were passed it would not alter the time-table. The time-table would continue to operate. The only effect of the Amendment would be that, if a Motion for the Adjournment of the House were accepted by Mr. Speaker to be debated at 7.30 o'clock, then the time allowed for the discussion of the Clauses of the Bill set down for that day would only be the time between the conclusion of the Debate on the Adjournment Motion and 11 o'clock.

Mr. BUCHANAN

I know that is the effect of the Amendment as it is here, but we say that if this Amendment were accepted then the Government would take steps, where an Adjournment Motion was granted, to alter their programme accordingly. We did not wish to overload the Amendment though we saw the point to which the hon. Gentleman refers.

Mr. HUDSON

I am dealing with the Amendment on the Paper and I am concerned to point out what its effect would be. It would merely give the time for the discussion on the Motion for Adjournment of a matter of urgent public importance. At the same time it would cut down to vanishing point the time allotted for the discussion of whatever Clauses of the Bill were due to be taken at that particular time and I think the final result on the consideration of the Bill would be much worse than the procedure which we suggest.

Mr. ATTLEE

But the point which we are dealing with here is not the effect on the Bill. We are dealing with the possibility of some grave crisis arising, perhaps in international affairs or some other matter of great urgency. Under the Motion as it stands you could not get a discussion on a definite matter of urgent public importance at the time when such a discussion would be necessary. You could only have such a discussion at a time when it would be, perhaps, much too late. We are looking at the matter from the point of view of this House and are not merely considering the effect on the Bill.

Mr. HUDSON

In a case of such grave emergency as the hon. Gentleman indicates, I cannot conceive that if the House determined to discuss the subject, arrangements could not be made through the usual channels for such a discussion.

Mr. BUCHANAN

But the Government might not want it.

Mr. MACLEAN

But in circumstances such as the hon. Gentleman has just now suggested, would not the result be the same as he described previously? Would not the House then be taking up in such a discussion a portion of the time allotted under this Motion? By the statement which he has just made the hon. Gentleman only adds to the strength of our objection.

Mr. HUDSON

I am afraid I cannot admit that. I still maintain that as far as the Bill is concerned the effect of the Amendment would be to deprive hon. Members and especially hon. Members opposite of the opportunity of having adequate discussion on, perhaps, important Clauses of the Bill. The final consideration which I would urge is this. The hon. Member for Govan quoted the terms of Standing Order No. 10 quite correctly. It states: No motion for the adjournment of the House shall be made until all the questions asked at the commencement of business on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday have been disposed of. He went on to say that those were the very days on which the Guillotine would operate. The fact is that we are not going to take this Bill in Committee on every day of the week. Wednesdays, at all events until Easter, will be private Members' days, and, between the reassembly of the House and Easter, there will be a great deal of other business, so that although we intend to devote considerable time to this Bill, obviously we shall not devote every available day to it. Therefore the extent to which, in practice, the Guillotine is going to limit the opportunities of moving the Adjournment to raise a matter of urgent public importance, is very much less than the hon. Member has given the House to understand.

Mr. ATTLEE

The hon. Gentleman realises that the essential point of moving the Adjournment under Standing Order No. 10 is to call attention to a matter at the earliest available opportunity. Therefore, if the matter is not raised on the particular day it is not much good saying that it can be raised on another day. It is necessary to have the discussion while the matter is hot.

Mr. HUDSON

Yes, but the hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do the theory of probabilities. It has been pointed out that no such Adjournment Motion has been accepted, so far, in the lifetime of this Parliament. The hon. Member for Govan suggested that such an occasion would probably arise on one of the days on which the Guillotine was operating. I am arguing that in all probability such an occasion would not arise on one of those particular days. I admit that there is a possibility, but the odds are all against it.

Mr. MACLEAN

Under the Guillotine you are taking more days in the week to discuss this Bill than are going to be left to the Members for Private Business or other matters, and consequently the number of probable occasions upon which a Motion could be moved arising under Standing Order 10 is greater on the days when the Bill is under the Guillotine.

Mr. HUDSON

No. because lots of days between now and Easter will also be given to other Government business besides this Bill, and on those days hon. Members can move the Adjournment, if Mr. Speaker accepts the Motion.

8.46 p.m.

Mr. JANNER

Having heard the hon. Member, I have come to the conclusion that there is no reason at all why the Government should not accept the Amendment. He appears to base his reply on two distinct grounds. One is that if this Amendment were accepted, it would not give time for the Unemployment Bill to be fully discussed, but the fact that another Amendment does not appear on the Paper does not prevent the Government from handing in a manuscript Amendment in order to settle the matter, so that everybody shall be satisfied. It is obvious that if a matter of urgency cropped up, there ought to be an opportunity under the Rules for it to be dealt with.

It is not a question of how often this right to move the Adjournment may be put into use; it is a question of its being the fact that it may have to be exercised at any time. The fact that it is not perhaps in frequent use does not detract from the value of the argument which says that, should the opportunity arise, the possibility of bringing forward a matter should be there. The same argument has been used by the hon. Member opposite, who asked why we were bringing forward this Amendment as the occasion might not occur. The obvious reply to that is that it may occur, and that if it does, surely an opportunity should be given for an urgent matter to be raised. I hope the Government will appreciate that it is a matter of extreme importance from the point of view of principle. You cannot leave an urgent matter until the end of the day. The fact that it does not get publicity in the Press is out of the question, but the fact that it has to be attended to immediately is of extreme importance, and the Government should not force the House to discuss it at an hour when Members are not in a position to discuss it or are not present to vote upon it.

The fact that it may not be approved of by the Government is out of the question. The Government are not aware of every urgent matter that requires attention. Private Members may sometimes know of matters of urgent importance which should be brought before the House, and their information upon them may be more intimate than that of the Government. If the Government want to bring a matter forward, they have other opportunities of doing so, but private Members have not, and I believe that it would detract from the value of this House if this Amendment were not carried. It would be a gesture of good will on the part of the Government if they were to turn round, even at this late hour, and say that they were prepared to accept the Amendment, and thus not drive us to oppose it. We on these benches consider this to be an important matter and shall certainly support the Amendment.

8.50 p.m.

Mr. WILMOT

I intervene in an endeavour to understand exactly where this thing leads. I am at a loss to appreciate why the Government should refuse to give way in this matter. The argument put forward by the hon. Gentleman who spoke for the Government seems to be a mere facade, and there must be some other reason why the Government should adhere to the terms of the Motion. One is not convinced by the argument that because there has not been an explosion yet, it is a good time to remove the safety valve. The chance of this Standing Order being used is, as the hon. Member said, very remote, but that is one of the reasons why it is very necessary that the Government should give way in this matter. This right of Members of Parliament to raise matters of urgent public importance in this House is of very great value. The British public feel that in their Parliamentary representatives they have an outlet and a sounding board which will reflect the feelings of the country in a grave emergency or crisis, even though it be a local question, and on the mere chance that that may happen, to urge that it may delay the procedure on this Bill by a mere fraction of the total time involved and take away this private Members' right for a very long period, seems to me to be very undesirable. I can only feel that there must be some other reason which causes the hon. Gentleman to stand by his original position.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 228; Noes, 54.

Division No. 62.]	AYES.	[8.53 p.m.
Adams, Samuel Vyvyan T. (Leeds, W.)	Grimston, R. V.	Pickford, Hon. Mary Ada
Agnew, Lieut.-Com. P. G.	Gritten, W. G. Howard	Pike, Cecil F.
Ainsworth, Lieut.-Colonel Charles	Gunston, Captain D. W.	Potter, John
Albery, Irving James	Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.	Radford, E. A.
Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'k'nh'd.)	Hammersley, Samuel S.	Raikes, Henry V. A. M.
Anstruther-Gray, W. J.	Hanley, Dennis A.	Ramsay, T. B. W. (Western Isles)
Applin, Lieut.-Col. Reginald V. K.	Harbord, Arthur	Ramsbotham, Herwald
Aske, Sir Robert William	Hartland, George A.	Ramsden, Sir Eugene
Atholl, Duchess of	Harvey, George (Lambeth, Kenn'gt'n)	Rankin, Robert
Bailey, Eric Alfred George	Haslam, Sir John (Bolton)	Reed, Arthur C. (Exeter)
Baldwin-Webb, Colonel J.	Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Cuthbart M.	Reid, James S. C. (Stirling)
Balfour, Capt. Harold (I. of Thanot)	Henderson, Sir Vivian L. (Chelmsford)	Reid, William Allan (Derby)
Barclay-Harvey, C. M.	Hope, Sydney (Chester, Stalybridge)	Remer, John R.
Beauchamp, Sir Brograve Campbell	Horsbrugh, Florence	Rhys, Hon. Charles Arthur U.
Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'th, C.)	Howitt, Dr. Alfred B.	Rickards, George William
Bernays, Robert	Hudson, Robert Spear (Southport)	Robinson, John Roland
Betterton, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry B.	Hume, Sir George Hopwood	Ropner, Colonel L.
Blaker, Sir Reginald	Hunter, Dr. Joseph (Dumfries)	Rosbotham, Sir Thomas
Blindell, James	Hurd, Sir Percy	Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)
Boulton, W. W.	Jackson, Sir Henry (Wandsworth, C.)	Ruggles-Brise, Colonel E. A.
Bower, Lieut.-Com. Robert Tatton	James. Wing.-Com. A. W. H.	Runge. Norah Cecil
Bowyer, Capt. Sir George E. W.	Jennings, Roland	Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)
Boyce, H. Leslie	Jesson, Major Thomas E.	Russell, Hamer Field (Sheffield, B'tside)
Brass, Captain Sir William	Joel, Dudley J. Barnato	Salmon, Sir Isidore
Broadbent, Colonel John	Jones, Sir G. W. H. (Stoke New'gton)	Salt, Edward W.
Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)	Jones, Lewis (Swansea, West)	Sandeman, Sir A. N. Stewart
Brown, Ernest (Leith)	Kerr, Lieut.-Col. Charles (Montrose)	Sanderson, Sir Frank Barnard
Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks., Newb'y)	Lamb, Sir Joseph Quinton	Savery, Samuel Servington
Burghley, Lord	Latham, Sir Herbert Paul	Scone, Lord
Burgin, Dr. Edward Leslie	Law, Sir Alfred	Shaw, Helen B. (Lanark, Bothwell)
Burnett, John George	Leighton, Major B. E. P.	Shepperson, Sir Ernest W.
Burton, Colonel Henry Walter	Levy, Thomas	Shuts, Colonel J. J.
Campbell, Sir Edward Taswell (Brmly)	Lewis, Oswald	Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)
Caporn, Arthur Cecil	Liddall, Walter S.	Smith, Sir J. Walker- (Barrow-In-F.)
Castlereagh, Viscount	Lindsay, Noel Ker	Smith, R. W. (Ab'rd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)
Cayzer, Maj. Sir H. R. (Prtsmth., S.)	Lister, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip Cunliffe.	Somervell, Sir Donald
Chapman, Sir Samuel (Edinburgh, S.)	Little, Graham-, Sir Ernest	Soper, Richard
Christle, James Archibald	Llewellin, Major John J.	Sotheron-Estcourt, Captain T. E.
Clarry, Reginald George	Lockwood, John C. (Hackney, C.)	Southby, Commander Archibald R. J.
Clayton, Sir Christopher	Loder, Captain J. de Vere	Spencer, Captain Richard A.
Cobb, Sir Cyril	Lovat-Fraser, James Alexander	Spens, William Patrick
Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.	Lumley, Captain Lawrence R.	Stanley, Lord (Lancaster, Fylde)
Conant, R. J. E.	Lyons, Abraham Montagu	Stanley Hon. O. F. G. (Westmorland)
Cooke, Douglas	McCorquodale, M. S.	Stevenson, James
Copeland, Ida	MacDonald, Rt. Hn. J. R. (Seaham)	Stewart, J. H. (Fife, E.)
Courtauld, Major John Sewell	McKie, John Hamilton	Stones, James
Craven-Ellis, William	Maclay, Hon. Joseph Paton	Stourton, Hon. John J.
Crookshank, Col. C. de Windt (Bootle)	McLean, Major Sir Alan	Strauss, Edward A.
Croom-Johnson, R. P.	McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)	Strickland, Captain W. F.
Crossley, A. C.	Maitland, Adam	Sugden, Sir Wilfrid Hart
Culverwell, Cyril Tom	Manningham-Buller, Lt.-Col. Sir M.	Summersby, Charles H.
Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)	Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.	Sutcliffe, Harold
Denman, Hon. R. D.	Martin, Thomas B.	Tate, Mavis Constance
Dickie, John P.	Mayhew. Lieut.-Colonel John	Thompson, Luke
Dower, Captain A. V. G.	Milne, Charles	Thomson, Sir Frederick Charles
Drewe, Cedric	Mitchell, Harold P. (Br'tl'd & Chisw'k)	Thorp, Linton Theodore
Dugdale, Captain Thomas Lionel	Moore, Lt.-Col. Thomas C. R. (Ayr)	Titchfield, Major the Marquess of
Duncan, James A. L. (Kensington, N.)	Moreing, Adrian C.	Todd, Capt. A. J. K. (B'wick-on-T.)
Dunglass, Lord	Morgan, Robert H.	Todd, A. L. S. (Kingswinford)
Eastwood, John Francis	Morris, John Patrick (Salford, N.)	Wallace, John (Dunfermilne)
Edmondson, Major A. J.	Morris, Owen Temple (Cardiff. E.)	Ward, Lt.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)
Elmley, Viscount	Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H. (Denbigh)	Ward, Irene Mary Bewick (Wallsend)
Erskine, Lord (Weston-super Mare)	Morrison. William Shephard	Ward, Sarah Adelaide (Cannock)
Essenhigh, Reginald Clare	Muirhead, Lieut.-Colonel A. J.	Warrender, Sir Victor A. G.
Fox, Sir Gilford	Nall, Sir Joseph	Waterhouse, Captain Charles
Fuller, Captain A. G.	Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.	Wells, Sydney Richard
Galbraith, James Francis Wallace	Nicholson, Godfrey (Morpeth)	Weymouth, Viscount
Ganzoni, Sir John	Normand, Rt. Hon. Wilfrid	Whiteside, Borras Noel H.
Gauit, Lieut.-Col. A. Hamilton	Nunn, William	Wills, Wilfrid D.
Gibson, Charles Granville	O'Donovan, Dr. William James	Wilson, Clyde T. (West Toxteth)
Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John	Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William G. A.	Wilson, G. H. A. (Cambridge U.)
Glossop, C. W. H.	Palmer, Francis Noel	Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George
Gluckstein, Louis Halle	Pearson, William G.	Wise, Alfred R.
Graham, Sir F. Fergus (C'mb'rl'd, N.)	Penny, Sir George	Withers, Sir John James
Grattan-Doyle, Sir Nicholas	Petherick, M.
Grenfell, E. C. (City of London)	Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John	Peto, Geoffrey K. (W'verh'pt'n, Bliston)	Captain Austin Hudson and Mr. Womersley.

NOES.
Adams, D. M. (Poplar, South)	Batey, Joseph	Cape, Thomas
Attlee, Clement Richard	Brown, C. W. E. (Notts., Mansfield)	Cripps, Sir Stafford
Banfield, John William	Buchanan, George	Daggar, George

Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)	Holdsworth, Herbert	Parkinson, John Allen
Dobbie, William	Janner, Barnett	Price, Gabriel
Edwards, Charles	Jenkins, Sir William	Salter, Dr. Alfred
Evans, David Owen (Cardigan)	Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)	Smith, Tom (Normanton)
Evans, R. T. (Carmarthen)	Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)	Thorne, William James
Foot, Isaac (Cornwall, Bodmin)	Kirkwood, David	Tinker, John Joseph
George, Megan A. Lloyd (Anglesea)	Lawson, John James	White, Henry Graham
Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Arthur	Llewellyn-Jones, Frederick	Williams, David (Swansea, East)
Grenfell, David Rees (Glamorgan)	Logan, David Gilbert	Williams, Edward John (Ogmore)
Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)	McEntee, Valentine L.	Williams, Dr. John H. (Llanelly)
Groves, Thomas E.	McGovern, John	Williams, Thomas (York, Don Valley)
Grundy, Thomas W.	Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)	Wilmot, John
Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvll)	Mainwaring, William Henry	Wood, Sir Murdoch McKenzie (Banff)
Hamilton, Sir R. W. (Orkney & Zetl'nd)	Mallalieu, Edward Lancelot
Harris, Sir Percy	Milner, Major James	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
Hicks, Ernest George	Owen, Major Goronwy	Mr. C. Macdonald and Mr. D. Graham.

Main Question put.

The House divided: Ayes, 227; Noes, 58.

Division No. 63.]	AYES.	[9.2 p.m.
Adams, Samuel Vyvyan T. (Leeds, W.)	Fox, Sir Gilford	McLean, Major sir Alan
Agnew, Lieut.-Com. P. G.	Fuller, Captain A. G.	McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)
Albery, Irving James	Galbraith, James Francis Wallace	Maitland, Adam
Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'k'nh'd)	Ganzoni, Sir John	Manningham-Buller, Lt.-Col. Sir M.
Anstruther-Gray, W. J.	Gault, Lieut.-Col. A. Hamilton	Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Applin, Lieut.-Col. Reginald V. K.	Gibson, Charles Granville	Martin, Thomas B.
Aske, Sir Robert William	Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John	Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John
Atholl, Duchess of	Glossop, C. W. H.	Milne, Charles
Bailey, Eric Alfred George	Gluekstein, Louis Halle	Mitchell, Harold P. (Br'tf'd & Chisw'k)
Baldwin-Webb, Colonel J.	Goldie, Noel B.	Moore, Lt.-Col. Thomas C. R. (Ayr)
Balfour, Capt. Harold (I. of Thanet)	Graham, Sir F. Fergue (C'mb'rl'd, N.)	Morsing, Adrian C.
Barclay-Harvey, C. M.	Grattan-Doyle, sir Nicholas	Morgan, Robert H.
Beauchamp, Sir Brograve Campbell	Grenfell, E. C, (City of London)	Morris, John Patrick (Salford, N.)
Beaumont, Hon. R.E.B. (Portsm'th, C.)	Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John	Morris, Owen Temple (Cardiff, E.)
Bernays, Robert	Grimston, R. V.	Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H. (Denbigh)
Betterton, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry B.	Gritten, W. G. Howard	Morrison, William Shepherd
Blaker, Sir Reginald	Gunston, Captain D. W.	Nall, Sir Joseph
Blindell, James	Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.	Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.
Boulton, W. W.	Hammersley, Samuel S.	Nicholson, Godfrey (Morpeth)
Bower, Lieut.-Com. Robert Tatton	Hanley, Dennis A.	Normand, Rt. Hon. Wilfrid
Bowyer, Capt. Sir George E. W.	Harbord, Arthur	Nunn, William
Boyce, H. Leslie	Harvey, George (Lambeth, Kenningt'n)	O'Donovan, Dr. William James
Brass, Captain Sir William	Haslam, Sir John (Bolton)	Oman, Sir Charles William C.
Broadbent, Colonel John	Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Cuthbert M.	O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh
Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)	Henderson, Sir Vivian L. (Chelmsford)	Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William G.A.
Brown, Ernest (Leith)	Hope, Sydney (Chester, Stalybridge)	Palmer, Francis Noel
Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks., Newb'y)	Horsbrugh, Florence	Patrick, Colin M.
Burghley, Lord	Howitt, Dr. Alfred B.	Pearson, William G.
Burnett, John George	Hudson, Robert Spear (Southport)	Penny, Sir George
Burton, Colonel Henry Walter	Hume, Sir George Hopwood	Petherick, M.
Campbell, Sir Edward Taswell (Brmly)	Hunter, Dr. Joseph (Dumfries)	Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)
Caporn, Arthur Cecil	Hurd, Sir Percy	Peto, Geoffrey K. (W'verh'pt'n, Blist'n)
Castlereagh, Viscount	Hurst, Sir Gerald B.	Pickford, Hon. Mary Ada
Cayzer, Maj. Sir H. R. (Prtsmth., S.)	Jackson, Sir Henry (Wandsworth, C.)	Potter, John
Chapman, Sir Samuel (Edinburgh, S.)	James, Wing-Com. A. W. H.	Radford, E. A.
Christie, James Archibald	Jennings, Roland	Raikes, Henry V. A. M.
Clarry, Reginald George	Jesson, Major Thomas E.	Ramsay, T. B. W. (Western Isles)
Clayton, Sir Christopher	Joel, Dudley J. Barnato	Ramsbotham, Herwald
Cobb, Sir Cyril	Jones, Sir G. W. H. (Stoke New'gton)	Ramsden, Sir Eugene
Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.	Jones, Lewis (Swansea, West)	Rankin, Robert
Conant, R. J. E.	Kerr, Lieut.-Col. Charles (Montrose)	Reed, Arthur C. (Exeter)
Cooke, Douglas	Lamb, Sir Joseph Quinton	Reid, James S, C. (Stirling)
Copeland, Ida	Latham, Sir Herbert Paul	Reid, William Allan (Derby)
Courtauld, Major John Sewell	Law, Sir Alfred	Remer, John R.
Craven-Ellis, William	Leighton, Major B. E. P.	Rhys, Hon. Charles Arthur U.
Crookshank, Col. C. de Windt (Bootle)	Lewis, Oswald	Rickards, George William
Crossley, A. C.	Liddall, Walter S.	Robinson, John Roland
Culverwell, Cyril Tom	Lindsay, Noel Ker	Ropner, Colonel L.
Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)	Lister, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip Cunliffe	Rosbotham, Sir Thomas
Denman, Hon. R. D.	Little, Graham-, Sir Ernest	Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)
Dickie, John P.	Llewellin, Major John J.	Ruggles-Brise, Colonel E. A.
Dower, Captain A. V. G.	Lockwood, John C. (Hackney, C.)	Runge, Norah Cecil
Drewe, Cedric	Loder, Captain J. de Vere	Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)
Dugdale, Captain Thomas Lionel	Lovat-Fraser, James Alexander	Russell, Hamer Field (Sheffield, B'tside)
Duncan, James A. L. (Kensington, N.)	Lumley, Captain Lawrence R.	Salt, Edward W.
Dunglass, Lord	Lyone, Abraham Montagu	Sandeman, Sir A. N. Stewart
Eastwood, John Francis	Mabane, William	Sanderson, Sir Frank Barnard
Edmondson, Major A. J.	McCorquodale, M. S.	Savery, Samuel Servington
Elliot, Rt. Hon. Walter	MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Seaham)	Scone, Lord
Elmley, Viscount	McKie, John Hamilton	Shaw, Helen B. (Lanark, Bothwell)
Essenhigh, Reginald Clare	Maclay, Hon. Joseph Paton	Shepperson, Sir Ernest W.
Shute, Colonel J. J.	Stourton, Hon. John J.	Warrender, Sir Victor A. G.
Skelton, Archibald Noel	Strauss, Edward A.	Waterhouse, Captain Charles
Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)	Strickland, Captain W. F.	Wells, Sydney Richard
Smith, Sir J. Walker- (Barrow-In-F.)	Sugden, Sir Wilfrid Hart	Weymouth, Viscount
Smith, R. W. (Ab'rd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)	Summersby, Charles H.	Whiteside, Borras Noel H.
Somervell, Sir Donald	Sutcliffe, Harold	Wills, Wilfrid D.
Soper, Richard	Tate, Mavis Constance	Wilson, Clyde T. (West Toxteth)
Sotheron-Estcourt, Captain T. E.	Thompson, Luke	Wilson, G. H. A. (Cambridge U.)
Southby, Commander Archibald R. J.	Thomson, Sir Frederick Charles	Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George
Spencer, Captain Richard A.	Thorp, Linton Theodore	Wise, Alfred R.
Spens, William Patrick	Titchfield, Major the Marquess of	Womersley, Walter James
Stanley, Lord (Lancaster, Fylde)	Todd, Capt. A. J. K. (B'wick-on-T.)
Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westmorland)	Wallace, John (Dunfermline)	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
Stevenson, James	Ward, Lt.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)	Captain Austin Hudson and Lord Erskine.
Stewart, J. H. (Fife, E.)	Ward, Irene Mary Bewick (Wallsend)
Stones, James	Ward, Sarah Adelaide (Cannock)
NOES.
Adams, D. M. (Poplar, South)	Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Arthur	Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)
Attlee, Clement Richard	Grenfell, David Rees (Glamorgan)	Mainwaring, William Henry
Banfield, John William	Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro', W).	Mallalieu, Edward Lancelot
Batey, Joseph	Grundy, Thomas W.	Milner, Major James
Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale)	Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvil)	Owen, Major Goronwy
Brown, C. W. E. (Notts., Mansfield)	Hamilton, Sir R. W. (Orkney & Zetl'nd)	Parkinson, John Allen
Buchanan, George	Harris, Sir Percy	Price, Gabriel
Cape, Thomas	Hicks, Ernest George	Salter, Dr. Alfred
Cocks, Frederick Seymour	Holdsworth, Herbert	Smith, Tom (Normanton)
Cove, William G.	Janner, Barnett	Thorne, William James
Cripps, Sir Stafford	Jenkins, Sir William	Tinker, John Joseph
Daggar, George	Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)	White, Henry Graham
Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)	Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)	Williams, David (Swansea, East)
Dobbie, William	Kirkwood, David	Williams, Edward John (Ogmore)
Edwards, Charles	Lawson, John James	Williams, Dr. John H. (Llanelly)
Evans, David Owen (Cardigan)	Llewellyn-Jones, Frederick	Williams, Thomas (York, Don Valley)
Evans, R. T. (Carmarthen)	Logan, David Gilbert	Wilmot, John
Foot, Isaac (Cornwall, Bodmin)	Macdonald, Gordon (Ince)	Wood, Sir Murdoch McKenzie (Banff)
George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)	McEntee, Valentine L.
George, Megan A. Lloyd (Anglesea)	McGovern, John	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
		Mr. D. Graham and Mr. Groves.

Ordered, That the Committee stage, Report stage, and Third Reading of the Unemployment Bill shall be proceeded with as follows:—

(1) Committee Stage.

Fourteen allotted days shall be given to the Committee stage of the Bill and to the proceedings on any Instructions relating thereto, and the proceedings on each allotted day shall be as shown in the second column of the following Table; and those proceedings shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion at the time shown in the third column for that day.

Table.—Committee Stage.
Allotted Day.	Proceedings.	Time for bringing Proceedings to a conclusion.
		P.M.
First day	Proceedings on Instructions and Clauses 1 and 2	7.30
Clauses 3 to 5	11.0
Second day	Clauses 6 and 7	7.30
Clauses 8 to 10	11.0
Third day	Clause 11	7.30
Clause 12	11.0

(2) Report Stage and Third Reading.

Four allotted days shall be given to the Report stage and Third Reading of the Bill, and the proceedings thereon shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion at 11 p.m. on the last of those allotted days.

On the conclusion of the Committee stage of the Bill, the Chairman shall report the Bill to the House without Question put.

After the day on which this Order is passed, any day, other than a Friday, on which the Bill is put down as the first Order of the Day, shall be considered an allotted day for the purposes of this Order.

For the purpose of bringing to a conclusion any proceedings which are to be brought to a conclusion on an allotted day, and which have not previously been brought to a conclusion, the Chairman or Mr. Speaker shall, at the time appointed under this Order for the conclusion of those proceedings, put forthwith the Question on any Amendment or Motion already proposed from the Chair, and, in the case of a new Clause which has been read a Second time, also the Question that the Clause be added to the Bill, and shall next proceed to put forthwith the Question on any Amendments, new Clauses, or Schedules moved by the Government of which notice has been given (but no other Amendments, new Clauses, or Schedules), and any Question necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded and, in the case of Government Amendments, or Government new Clauses or Schedules, he shall put only the Question that the Amendment be made, or that the Clauses or Schedules be added to the Bill, as the case may be.

Any Private Business which is set down for consideration at 7.30 p.m., and any Motion for Adjournment under Standing Order No. 10, on an allotted day shall, on that day, instead of being taken as provided by the Standing Orders, be taken on the conclusion of the proceedings on the Bill or under this Order for that day, and any Private Business or Motion for Adjournment so taken may be proceeded with, though opposed, notwithstanding any Standing Order relating to the Sittings of the House.

On a day on which proceedings are to be brought to a conclusion under this Order, proceedings for that purpose shall not be interrupted under the provisions of any Standing Order relating to the Sittings of the House.

On a day on which any proceedings are to be brought to a conclusion under this Order no dilatory Motion with respect to proceedings on the Bill or under this Order, nor Motion that the Chairman do report progress or do leave the Chair, nor Motion to postpone a Clause or to recommit the Bill, shall be received unless moved by the Government, and the Question on such Motion, if moved by the Government, shall be put forthwith without any Debate.

Nothing in this Order shall—

1. (a) prevent any proceedings which under this Order are to be concluded on any particular day being concluded oil any other day, or necessitate any particular day or part of a particular day being given to any such proceedings if those proceedings have been otherwise disposed of; or
2. (b) prevent any other business being proceeded with on any particular day, or part of a particular day, in accordance with the Standing Orders of the House, if any proceedings to be concluded under this Order on that particular day, or part of a particular day, have been disposed of."