GOVERNMENT OF INDIA ACT, 1935. (Hansard, 12 July 1937)

§ Mr. Wedgwood Benn
Can the Noble Lord tell the House what is the state of progress with regard to this subject? Has a Resolution been passed in the other place? Moreover, suppose we wish to make an Amendment here, are we free to do so?

§ The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Earl Winterton)
I am indebted to the right hon. Gentleman for having given me private notice of the fact that he was going to raise this point, which is, of course, a perfectly reasonable one to raise. As my Noble Friend the Under-Secretary explained on a previous stage, this is in a sense a novel procedure, but it is a procedure which is entailed by the Government of India Act as it stands. There is no other possible way by which effect could be given to this particular part of the Government of India Act, with which no doubt the House is familiar. In regard to the specific point which the right hon. Gentleman raised, the position is this. This Prayer to His Majesty has been passed by another place in exactly the form in which it appears on the Order Paper to-night. It would have been open to another place to amend the Prayer, in which case it would have been open to this House to accept the Prayer in the form in which it came back from the Lords, or to reject it. It is also open to this House at this stage and at the previous stage to make any Amendments in the Order which it thinks desirable. There is, I think, a misapprehension in thinking that this procedure in any way ties the hands of this House. It does not do so. The whole object of the procedure is to enable the House to make Amendments if it so desires.

§ Mr. Benn
I am allowed to speak again only with the permission of the House, and I would make only this comment. 1020 The fact is that if we amend this Order to-night, the whole procedure breaks down. It is a shoddy procedure. There is no machinery for controlling these things by Resolution between the two Houses. In the matter of Bills we have a Committee which draws up reasons and sends them to the Lords, and it is a very ancient procedure. Here, however, there is no procedure of the kind. if we were to pass an Amendment to this Order, the only thing another House could do would be to rescind their Motion for an humble Address and start the whole business over again. I mention this because it is illustrative of a grave defect in the Act which was put in on purpose by the Government in the last Parliament; that is to say, a number of functions which were performed as executive functions by the Secretary of State as an executive officer constitutionally subject to this House alone have now been made subject to both Houses. That means that if another Government came which had not the support of another House, it would be gravely hampered in its administration. It is a grave defect in the structure of the Act, which is illustrated by the fact that at this stage there is in fact no machinery for carrying out Amendments as the Noble Lord suggests.