HC Deb 02 July 1934 vol 291 cc1700-7

Amendment made: In page 4, line 28, at the end, to insert: (b) the fees to be paid on any such application."—[The Solicitor-General.]

10.52 p.m.

Mr. M. BEAUMONT

May I ask if you are calling the Amendment in my name on the Paper, Captain Bourne, or the one which I have handed in?

The DEPUTY -CHAIRMAN

The Amendment on the Paper. The manuscript Amendment is quite inappropriate to this Clause.

Mr. M. BEAUMONT

I beg to move, in page 4, line 37, to leave out Sub-section (2), and to insert: (2) Any regulations made under this section shall come into operation upon the date specified therein in that behalf but shall be laid before Parliament as soon as may be after they are made and shall cease to have effect upon the expiration of a period of three months from the date upon which they come into operation unless at some time before the expiration of that period they have been approved by a resolution passed by each House of Parliament but without prejudice to anything previously done thereunder or to the making of any new regulations. Provided that in reckoning any such period of three months as aforesaid, no account shall be taken of any time during which Parliament is dissolved or prorogued, or during which both Houses are adjourned for more than four days. The purpose of the Amendment is to substitute for what is known as the negative procedure in the Bill the procedure of an affirmative Resolution. The Bill lays down that the regulations shall come before this House and unless anybody objects to them within a certain time they shall pass into law. The Amendment, on the other hand, proposes that they shall not pass into law unless an affirmative Resolution is passed by this House, stating definitely that they shall become operative. To be perfectly frank, I have never held that this Resolution procedure as far as this House is concerned was of any substantial value. We all know what has happened from time immemorial. These Resolutions are on the Paper and come up after 11 o'clock when people are tired. A few speeches are made, and Members come in from the Smoking Room to say "Aye" for the Government, and that is the end of that. Of the two methods of procedure there is no question that the only one which has any effect at all is the affirmative Resolu- tion procedure which I am proposing. Under it the responsible Minister has to state a case to the House, and the onus is not on a private Member who has some personal knowledge of the matter which naturally cannot be expected to excite a large number of Members to keep a House and get a Division. The onus for seeing that the matter is discussed by the House is on the Minister and that will provide that these regulations do not pass through the House by default.

I move this Amendment with more hope of acceptance because, although both processes are, except in very few cases, almost entirely formal, the Minister of Mines is about the only Member of the House who has under the procedure proposed in the Bill actually achieved a definite result. At one time he did stir up some excitement and succeeded in defeating one of these Resolutions under the negative procedure; but we all have not his versatility and energy—I wish I had—and we cannot all do that. It is not imposing a very great burden either on the Minister or the Ministry to ask them, when these Regulations are framed, to lay them before the House and to explain them to the House so as to give the House a chance of deciding on them, instead of leaving it to a private Member to have the whole onus of raising the question at a late hour.

10.57 p.m.

Mr. RUNCIMAN

I hope my hon. Friend will not press the Amendment. The provision that the regulation shall be laid before Parliament will give the House an adequate opportunity of dealing with any point that may arise. It is seldom that under this procedure anything is upset, but the Minister of Mines did once achieve that, and I have no doubt that if there were anything in these regulations of which my hon. Friend disapproved he would, with his usual vigilance, at once mobilise his friends, and we should be in the happy position of listening to him in the middle of the night while the regulations were under discussion. That is quite sufficient for the purpose of giving the House an opportunity of discussing the regulations. This question was discussed fully in another place, and the decision finally taken was strongly in favour of the proposal incorporated in the Bill. I hope that in these circumstances my hon. Friend will not think it necessary to press his Amendment.

10.59 p.m.

Viscount WOLMER

I do not think my hon. Friend is quite right in his diagnosis. There is a good deal to be said from the private Member's point of view for giving him the opportunity of selecting one of 28 days in which this subject can be discussed rather than leaving it to the Government to have the choice of the day on which it is to be brought forward. That is the real point so far as a private Member is concerned. If these regulations lie on the Table of the House for 28 days, nothing can be done during those 28 days, and, if there is a feeling on the subject, the private Member has the whole of those 28 days in which to mobilise opinion, and he can launch his attack on any of those days. If a positive Resolution is required the Government can bring it forward at very much shorter notice and get it through very much more quickly. Therefore, I do not entirely agree with my hon. Friend as regards this House; but there is another place and, after all, another place is becoming to an increasing extent the guardian of the liberties of the English people. Noble Lords do not attend in another place quite so frequently as we have to attend here, and therefore it is easier in many respects for the Government to get an order through there without anyone noticing it. It is from the point of view of another place that the safeguard of the Government having to introduce a positive Resolution really lies. However, the Government appear to have made up their minds on this matter very definitely, and it seems that the advantages and disadvantages are so evenly balanced that it is not worth while making a fuss about it. But I hope that when these Resolutions do come forward my Noble Friend the Member for West Derbyshire (Marquess of Hartington), who is an expert in this matter, will not hesitate to raise the subject if, in the opinion of himself and of others who are qualified to judge, there is anything in these necessarily somewhat technical Resolutions which those who view this Bill with anxiety think ought to be brought to the light of day.

Mr. M. BEAUMONT

Frankly I am entirely unconvinced by the reply of the right hon. Gentleman, but as I attach so little value to either of these procedures I do not think it is worth while bothering the House to go to a Division, and, therefore, I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

11.2 p.m.

Mr. RHYS

I beg to move, in page 5, line 4, at the end, to add: (3) Any licence granted by the Board of Trade shall be subject to confirmation by both Houses of Parliament. I attach a good deal of importance to this Amendment, which is one of great principle. Under the monopoly which we are now granting to the Government to grant licences for the exploitation of oil there is no provision for the control of Parliament over any licences which may be granted. I pressed my hon. Friend the Secretary for Mines on this point on Second Reading, but I could not get a definite answer. If we were always to have my right hon. Friend at the Board of Trade or the hon. Gentleman at the Department of Mines I think we should have little to fear, but, on a question of principle, this House ought to be very careful before it parts so completely with its control over what may prove to be, or may not prove to be, a large and flourishing industry. I see no words in the Bill which provide for the revocation of a licence once it has been granted. We do not know to whom licences will hit granted. Some large company may be able to obtain a licence, and that company or group of individuals may not be all welcome to Members of this House, and yet we shall have no power to say whether that licence shall continue. I ventured a little earlier to quote a letter which appeared in the "Times" this morning, and I was rather taken to task by the Secretary for Mines, but in spite of that I hope he will allow me to read another passage from it, because I think it is of great importance. It is written by a Noble Lord to whose opinions we may attach some weight. He says that he objects: To the powers proposed to be given to a Department to grant any concession it likes"— I think that is a mistake; he should have used the word "licence. without any opportunity of Parliamentary revision. Unless the Bill is altered the Board of Trade will be able to grant concessions. Again, I think the word should be "licences." in secret to any persons they choose, British or foreign, to bore for oil in any area, and Parliament, short of a special Act, will be quite unable to stop them. It is a most vicious precedent, and its effect in the future in making corruption easier is one which I need not elaborate. I think I have said enough on the general question of principle to invite the very serious consideration of the Committee before it parts with control over the oil industry. There is a great deal of substance in the point which I put forward, and I think there ought to be a very strong defence of the Clause as it now stands.

11.6 p.m.

Mr. RUNCIMAN

The proposal made by my hon. Friend is almost on all fours with one which was proposed to be made earlier in the Debate. It draws special attention to the fact that, where a licence is granted without examination by this House, it may be liable to irregular proceedings or irregular -influence, or in other ways may be unacceptable to this House and to the general opinion of those who may be anxious about the granting of licences. I do not know that he need be in the least anxious about that. The licences will be made under regulations which will have been laid and will have been discussed here, and they will be made on the responsibility of the Board of Trade. If anything improper be done by the Board of Trade, I am sure there are Members of the House who are quite ready to move a reduction of the salary of my hon. Friend or of myself, in order to bring matters to a head in the House. I do not think the Amendment is necessary. The regulations will do all that is necessary to safeguard the interests which my hon. Friend has in mind. Under those regulations alone can the licences be issued. It is desirable to deal with the matter with great rapidity, and a great deal of Parliamentary machinery may cause delay in the business.

I was asked earlier by one of my hon. and gallant Friends how many licences I thought might be granted between now and Christmas, and he staggered me when he talked about 100. I cannot answer that question. There may be one or there may be a very large number. Suppose that it ran up to the number which the hon. and gallant Member was sanguine enough to propose. We should be sitting here for a whole Session if we had to deal with them under the procedure suggested by the hon. Member, who must see that, from the Parliamentary point of view, that is impossible.

11.9 p.m.

Sir P. HARRIS

I do not think that the Minister has treated the Amendment with the seriousness which it deserves. We have great confidence in his judgment and integrity, and we quite realise that he will use his power with great discrimination, great business knowledge, and, in every case, without fear or favour. If the oil industry is to be a reality in this country, and if there really is oil under our soil, there will be great possibilities. We know the experience of America, to which country the discovery of oil has been a gold-mine, and we may be making a precedent over which this House should keep some form of control. Ministers come, and Ministers go, and the right hon. Gentleman may be in a very much more important position later on. His ability and capacity, and the confidence of this House, may secure that he will not always be President of the Board of Trade. Just recently we have had some remarkable changes on the Treasury Bench.

This is not a temporary Bill, but a permanent Bill, and some such provision as this is very necessary when we are embarking, almost without precedent, on something like a concession of national assets. Personally I am not very sanguine that there is a great deal of oil under our soil, but if by some miracle all the geological calculations are falsified, and suddenly quantities of oil are discovered somewhere, one can understand various interests bringing pressure to bear on the Department, and, while the Department will, I am sure, always try to do its duty, there might be some suspicion that undue favour was being shown to some interest or other. We had some discussion earlier about five applications for licences from the Noble Lord, and the right hon. Gentleman was able specifically to tell him that there had been nothing irregular, but that they had been rejected for very good reasons. But, supposing that someone did really strike oil, supposing that we did hear that the wonderful thing had happened, it would be always liable to be suggested that some particular favour had been shown to one particular interest as against another. I think that better safeguards should be provided for publicity and discussion when a licence is granted by the Board of Trade. I do not think that the hon. Member who moved the Amendment would suggest that it is the ideal form, but I think that some better Parliamentary control should be provided.

11.13 p.m.

Viscount WOLMER

There is this point, which the President of the Board of Trade has not really faced in his reply, that in these licences a monopoly is being conferred, and there is no other monopoly that can be obtained in this country which the House of Commons has not reserved to itself the right to determine. If you want a gas regulation Order, or an electricity supply Order, or a railway Bill, or if you want to get a marketing scheme through, you have to come to the House of Commons every time, and our predecessors have provided elaborate machinery by which Parliament shall not only consider the matter in principle, but also in detail. As this Bill stands, great areas of the country could be made over by order of the President of the Board of Trade, whoever he might be at the moment, and the only remedy that the House would have would be to move a Vote of Censure on the Government or to propose a reduction of the salary of the President of the Board of Trade, at once bringing the matter into the front rank of party politics. That is not at all the sort of way in which a question of this sort should be dealt with. It ought to be dealt with in the same way as a railway Bill, or a gas Order, or some other local monopoly, that is to say, it ought to be considered, apart from questions of party politics, on the merits of the case.

The only remedy that the President of the Board of Trade can think of suggesting will immediately bring the issue into the arena of party politics, and we know what that means. It means that, directly the matter becomes a party issue, Members will vote with the Government even though they think the Government are wrong, as they constantly do to-day. When the President of the Board of Trade says that the House has its remedy in proposing a reduction of his successor's salary, he is really missing the point altogether. The point is that when a great monopoly is conferred upon anyone, Parliament has in the past always insisted upon the right of itself considering whether the terms of the monopoly are right or wrong. In saying it is to be made a matter of party politics, the right hon. Gentleman has made a mistake. He is doing something that has never been done in the past and he is treating the matter in the wrong way altogether.

Amendment negatived.