HC Deb 06 July 1938 vol 338 cc415-22

Order for Consideration of Lords Amendments read.

4.5 p.m.

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Oliver Stanley)

I beg to move, "That the Lords Amendments be now considered."

It might be for the convenience of the House if I took this opportunity of saying one or two words, not upon the merits of the Amendments but on the general question of the Amendments as a whole. First of all, I ask the House not to be alarmed by what appears to be a formidable volume of Amendments. I think we have communicated with the Opposition parties, and they, no doubt, have given attention to the matter, and will agree with me when I say that the vast majority of these Amendments are either pure drafting Amendments or, if not drafting Amendments, are alterations in machinery and not in substance. I make no apology for having to bring before the House such a large number of Amendments of this character. With only two exceptions they relate to Part I of the Bill, the unification of royalties, which all hon. Members will admit does entail most intricate machinery and deals with a branch of the law which I believe is obscure even to lawyers who have not practised in that particular sphere; and as we hope and believe that we are legislating in this part of the Bill, not for some temporary purpose but are laying down a permanent code, it is obviously right that we should miss no opportunity of improving, even if the improvement is only a verbal one, the machinery that we are laying down. I think it will be found that in fact the points of substance are comparatively few in number, perhaps not more than a dozen all told.

In addition, it would be of use to the House if I indicated at this stage, again of course without in any way referring to the merits of particular Amendments, the attitude which the Government have adopted to certain of these Amendments and the advice which will be tendered to the House on them. I regret to say, strange as it may seem, that during the passage of this Bill in another place, through what could have been nothing but a series of mischances, the Government were on several occasions defeated in the Lobby, with the result that a certain number of Amendments are included in the list against the advice of the Government representatives in another place. If hon. Members will look at the list of Lords Amendments, the first of the Amendments which was carried against the Government in the House of Lords is one of a series which begins with the last Amendment on the first page and is continued by the next two Amendments on page 2. They are Amendments which deal with the fixing of the vesting date. This raises a point of great importance, and, for reasons which I shall afterwards explain to the House, the Government will ask the House not to agree with these particular Amendments.

If hon. Members turn next to page 7, they will see the insertion of two new Clauses, C and D. These Clauses were discussed together in another place and a Division was taken upon one of them, but, as a matter of fact, they raise different points, and when the time comes I shall ask permission to move that the Amendment be divided and that Clause C and Clause D be taken separately. Clause C raises the question of arbitration as between the Commission and the lessees on renewals of leases, and, for reasons which will be explained, the Government will ask the House not to agree with the Amendment. Clause D is a very much smaller point. The objection which the Government took to it in another place was not that it was undesirable but that is was unnecessary, because in fact, as hon. Members know, it is the customary practice now in the industry to include such a provision in all leases, that is to say, a provision for arbitration in the event of any dispute arising, and it is assumed that the Commission will do what is customary. On the other hand, of course, if this Amendment is only unnecessary and not undesirable, the Government do not think it necessary to ask the House to disagree with it, and will be prepared to move that we agree.

The next Amendment is on page 13 of the Amendment Paper and refers to page 49, line 12, of the Bill. This raises a very small point, and I am sorry that it should be necessary to trouble the House with it at all. It raises the question of the publication of the valuations in the respective regions. It was pointed out in another place that in answer to a question in this House or in another place such valuations could and would be given, but in another place it: was desired that it should be laid down in the Bill that the valuations are to be laid before Parliament. It is perhaps an unnecessary obligation, and the information could be obtained by a mere question in the House, but these are figures which people are entitled to have, and we do not want the Government to give, and I do not think the House would want to give, any appearance of trying to conceal them. Therefore I shall ask the House to agree with the Amendment.

The next Amendment is on page 16 of the Paper. About the middle of the page hon. Members will see Sub-section (4) in a long Amendment which has already covered two pages. I shall have to ask leave to move that this Amendment be divided and that this Sub-section (4) be taken separately. I shall not explain the exact meaning of it now, but, as a matter of fact, it was a provision which had no effect upon the Commission and none really upon the Government, but the Government thought it right in another place to point out that it might have very serious effects upon the working capital and finances of certain colliery companies. However, that warning was disregarded. This is an Amendment which was moved upon the Committee stage, and subsequently upon Report stage Amendments which were moved from the Government Bench with regard to this whole question made the provision clearly nugatory and irrelevant. On these grounds the Government will ask the House not to agree with the Amendment.

The only other Amendment I shall mention is on page 21 of the Paper, "Expenses of surface damage claims."This is an Amendment which deals with the recovery of certain expenses on behalf of the landowners. When the time comes I shall endeavour to explain why the Government feel that neither the Amendment as it stands, nor the Amendment as it was explained in another place by the Mover to mean something quite different from the actual Amendment, is acceptable to the Government, and why, therefore, they will ask the House to disagree with the Amendment. I hope that this very short explanation will be of some use to the House.

4.15 p.m.

Sir Stafford Cripps

We are obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for having given us an indication of the attitude of the Government with regard to the Amendments to this Bill which have come from another place, though we are somewhat disappointed if he has given us the full list of those Amendments which the Government intend to reject. The function which has been performed in another place in respect of this Bill, seems to be wholly consistent with the position of such an antiquated Chamber—that is to say, they have attempted, as far as one can judge, apart from minor drafting Amendments, to insert into the Bill a very considerable number of Amendments designed either to benefit the royalty owner or the landowner, or to diminish the power of the Commission. Indeed, one would take almost the same view as that which was expressed at one period by the Lord Chancellor in the course of the discussions in another place—or rather the view which followed from the warning given by the Lord Chancellor in another place—that those who were considering the Bill there had not considered it from a public point of view, but from their own personal and private point of view.

That is the serious aspect of these Amendments, and it causes us to look at them very critically indeed. A number of them appear to be fairly harmless, but if one comes to examine the purpose behind them and the reason why they have been inserted, one sees a continuous policy behind these Amendments, the object of which is to make the Commission as weak a body as possible. In a number of cases the discretion of the Commission has been removed from the Bill, and there have been inserted instead such words as "reasonable circumstances" or phrases of that kind, which would throw the decision in these matters into the courts and take it out of the hands of the Commission. In all matters of that kind we feel it essential that we should do our utmost in this House to protect the powers of the Commission so as to make it an effective body if it is to undertake what is obviously a large and difficult task. There are some 117 of these Amendments. True, some of them are very small, but I hardly like to think of what would have happened if a Bill of this sort had gone to another place with a Labour Government in power in this House. There probably would have been, not 117 Amendments but 1,117 Amendments. That power which has been exercised in this case against a friendly Government, cannot entirely be put down to what the right hon. Gentleman felicitously referred to as a "series of mischances" who went into the Lobby against the Government.

This is, indeed, a policy which represents the composition of another place, and although we cannot vote against the consideration of these Amendments, because that would kill the Bill and that would not be a right thing to do, we protest very strongly against the manner in which the Bill has been dealt with in another place. If these Amendments were put in for the purpose of improving the Bill, with the idea behind the Bill which was there when it left this House, we should of course do anything we could to assist such improvement. But seeing that so many of them are designed, not for the improvement of the Bill but for the forwarding of the special interests of a particular class of persons, namely royalty owners and landowners, we shall certainly do our utmost to oppose them in every case where they seem to give, as many of them seem to do, better conditions for that particular class, or where they seem to diminish the power of the Commission and its effectiveness to regulate coal-mining in this country. I shall not attempt to go through the various Amendments which the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned. That would not be right at this stage but I do say this, and I am sure that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on this side will agree with me, that we are certainly going to do our utmost to see that this Bill will be no worse, from our point of view after these Amendments have been dealt with, than it was when it left this House. It was bad enough then, and we shall do our best to prevent it being made any worse.

4.20 p.m.

Mr. Mander

The House is indebted to the President of the Board of Trade for so clearly indicating at this stage the intentions of the Government, and also for making it plain that the Government propose to resist the series of damaging Amendments which were carried against them in another place. What has happened in another place is well described in an article which appeared in last week's "Spectator" from which I venture to quote a short passage. They say: COAL-OWNING PEERS. The House of Lords completed its work in the Government's Coal Bill on Tuesday and the Measure returns to the House of Commons considerably amended in favour of the royalty owners, with minatory observations from various coal-owning peers as to what the consequences will be if the elected representatives of the people presume to thwart the fiat of some four-and-a-half dozen hereditary legislators, many or most of them financially affected by the Bill—for the amendments carried against the Government never had more than 55 votes behind them. It would be an outrage if this House were to accept the main lines of the attack that has been made upon the Bill. While we here shall consider carefully, on the merits, every Amendment brought forward, our wish will be to try to make the Bill as powerful and effective as we can for carrying out the work of the unification of mining royalties and the other purposes for which it was originally intended.

4.22 p.m.

Mr. Tinker

The President of the Board of Trade tried to minimise the Government's defeats in another place by saying that this formidable list of Amendments was not as bad as it appeared to be, that most of them were drafting Amendments, and so forth. If it were true that most of these were drafting Amendments, then it would be a reflection upon the drafting of the Bill as it was sent from this House. It suggests that we here cannot draft a Bill properly, if it is afterwards found to require all these alterations. But that is not the case. These Amendments are not to improve the drafting of the Bill. They are designed to defeat the purpose of the work done in the House of Commons on this Bill. I have never seen anything in all my time here like the interest and keenness shown in another place in trying to make this Measure into something different from what we intended it to be. On one occasion when this House rose at half-past eleven o'clock, I went into the Lobby and I was told that the other House was still sitting. I wondered what could be keeping members of another place sitting until midnight when they usually finish their proceedings by dinner time. There must have been some very strong inducement to keep them sitting, on three nights, until midnight.

What was the object? It was because this Bill touched their vital interests. What we were attempting to do here in this Bill meant taking from some members in another place, things to which they claim to be entitled through inheritance and in those late sittings they were castigating this House in all the ways they could, simply because we were trying to take from them something which they claimed belonged to them by right of inheritance. I think the time has come when this House ought to take up the challenge thrown down by several members in the other place. I heard them threaten us that if we attempted materially to alter their Amendments it was a question of what they would do when the Bill went back again to them. I trust we shall not be deterred by that threat. There must come a time when the conflict between these two Houses will have to be determined and if the elected representatives of the people are to be thwarted in this fashion, then I say to hon. Members "Accept the challenge. Let us have one thing or the other. Which is it to be?"

Members in another place had spoken on this Bill up to the last day's Debate 850 columns of the OFFICIAL REPORT and during the last day's Debate they added another 60 columns. They occupied over 900 columns in speaking for the protection, not of the national interests but of their own interests. We should no longer sit down quietly under this kind of thing. I trust the Government will help us to assert the rights of the Commons and will stand by the work which was done here when the Bill passed through this House. I cannot persuade my hon. Friends to vote against the consideration of the Amendments. I wish I could do so, as a direct challenge to the attitude of another place, but I trust that we will not give way on these Amendments, but will show to the other place that we have our rights and that we are determined to do what we have been sent here to do.

Lords Amendments considered accordingly.

    cc422-63
  1. CLAUSE 2.—(General provisions as to functions of the Commission under Part I.) 17,305 words, 1 division
    2. cc463-91
  2. CLAUSE 3.—(Commission to acquire fee simple in coal.) 10,096 words
    3. cc491-500
  3. CLAUSE 5.—(Retention of leasehold, etc., interests carrying right to work.) 5,509 words, 2 divisions
    4. cc500-1
  4. CLAUSE 6.—(Compensation payable in respect of acquisition as a whole.) 182 words
    5. cc501-17
  5. CLAUSE 9.—(Notice to the Commission, and effect, of dispositions made during interim period.) 6,822 words, 1 division
    6. cc517-23
  6. CLAUSE 10.—(Separation of vested and non-vested premises that are demised together by a subsisting lease.) 3,503 words, 1 division
    7. cc523-52
  7. CLAUSE 12.—(Right of freeholder in possession of coal to lease thereof.) 11,796 words, 2 divisions