OFFICIAL SECRETS ACTS. (Hansard, 27 July 1938)

§ The Prime Minister

I beg to move, That the Select Committee on the Official Secrets Acts have leave to sit notwithstanding the Adjournment of the House: That the Committee have leave to report their observations from time to time and the Minutes of the Evidence taken before them: That the Committee have leave to send their first Report and the Minutes of the Evidence taken before them, if the House is not sitting, to the Clerk of the House who shall give directions for the printing of the Report (and the Minutes of the Evidence) and shall cause it to be circulated on Tuesday, 18th October, 1938, and shall lay the Report upon the Table of the House at its next meeting, provided that in the event of Mr. Speaker summoning the House to meet at a date earlier than that to which the House stands adjourned, in pursuance of the power conferred upon him by any Resolution of the House, the Report shall be circulated as soon as may be after Mr. Speaker has issued his notice summoning the House to meet. Hon. Members will have read the report of the Select Committee on the Official Secrets Acts circulated in the Votes and Proceedings to-day. It will be remembered that the Committee was appointed on the 30th of last month, and that on the 19th of this month it had a further matter referred to it. It can hardly have come as a surprise that it has not been able to complete its report on the first part of the terms of reference before the Summer Adjournment. The Motion which I am now bringing before the House contains three paragraphs. The first two grant the powers for which the Select Committee ask, namely, power to sit during the Recess and power to report from time to time, which will enable them to present more than one report. The last paragraph of the Motion deals with the procedure of the presentation and circulation of the report during the Recess. A Select Committee can present a report only to the House, and, therefore, without some special arrangement such as that which I now propose, if the House is not sitting and the Committee were to agree on a report during the Recess, it could not be presented until the House reassembled, which, as I have said this afternoon, will not be until 1st November.

As the House will see, we propose to give the Select Committee leave to send their first Report to the Clerk of the House. He can then make arrangements 3138 for the publication of the Report on 18th October, a date which was fixed a fortnight before the date on which we propose to meet again, in order to give reasonable time for the Report to be studied before the House considers it on Wednesday, 2nd November. I think the House will wish to discuss the Report as soon as possible and to dispose of it before the present Session comes to an end. It does seem to us, and the House will probably agree, that it is not desirable that the Committee's Report, whatever it may contain, should be issued immediately after the Committee has approved it, because in that case it might be the subject of comment in the Press and elsewhere for some 10 weeks or more without any possibility for the Government or other hon. Members to state their views in a Debate in this House. On the other hand, we do not think the Report ought to be held up until 1st November, because if that course were adopted the Debate could not take place before the Prorogation and consideration of the Report would have to be delayed until after the Debate on the Address in the new Session.

If the House agrees that the matter should be dealt with as expeditiously as possible, hon. Members will see that it is necessary that the Report should be in the hands of Members before the House meets. The House, I am sure, would wish to give a considered judgment on the Report when it is available. I think that the interval of a fortnight which is. proposed will be sufficient to give hon. Members an adequate amount of time for a study of the Report. One other matter we had to provide for, and that is the eventuality of the House being called together before 1st November in special circumstances. Hon. Members will see, by reference to the Motion, that we have provided that in that case the Report is to be circulated as soon as may be after Mr. Speaker has issued his notice summoning the House to meet. I do not think it is necessary to say anything more.

§ Sir Percy Harris

I would like to concur in what the right hon. Gentleman has just said. We had to face a problem, and this seems to me to be the most practical and ingenious way out of the difficulty. No one can say that the Select Committee has not been diligent in its labours. If rumour is correct it has sat a great number of times, it has sat at great length and concentrated on the responsible work entrusted to it. This is a House of Commons matter. The House of Commons has the responsibility, and, therefore, is entitled to have the first opportunity to discuss the report after its publication. We are all agreed that it would be unfortunate, in the interests of everyone concerned, if before the House of Commons had a chance of discussing the subject there was a long report in the Press and the inevitable correspondence that would follow. One point I would press on the House, and that is that the word "circulate" clearly must mean "circulate to Members of the House." It would be a breach of Privilege if the report were circulated in any other way. We have had many discussions and some of us are a bit weary of this problem, but I think we are agreed that this is the wisest and the best way of getting out of what is an obvious difficulty, because of the inevitable delay in the Committee reaching its conclusions.