HC Deb 28 July 1939 vol 350 cc1853-70
Sir S. Hoare

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

12.25 p.m.

Mr. Ellis Smith

On a point of Order. I voted for the Second Reading of this Bill, so I am not trying to create any difficulties, but some of us have had a certain amount of correspondence this morning, pointing out the dangers connected with this matter, and some of us also have been in another place listening to the debate. I want it to be made quite clear that I am not speaking critically, but in view of the importance of this question and of the danger of creating precedents which may have an effect upon the future of this country, I think Members should have been presented with a copy of the Lords Amendments prior to their being considered in this House, so that they could have given consideration to them.

Sir S. Hoare

I am sorry that every Member who wishes for a copy of the Amendments has not got one. Copies have been printed, I understand.

Mr. Edmund Harvey

Are they available in the Vote Office?

Mr. Gallacher

The point is that the Amendments should not have been handed out while we were sitting here.

12.27 p.m.

Mr. Wedgwood Benn

On the point of Order. Might I suggest to my hon. Friends that we are in a difficulty? The House has decided that the Bill shall have its Third Reading, and, that being so, we considered that these powers, whatever precedents we might be making, should be in the hands of the Government as soon as possible. Therefore, I would suggest to my hon. Friends very respectfully, that we should not make objections to a procedure that is certainly very unusual.

12.28 p.m.

Mr. E. Smith

Further to my point of Order. I want to make it quite clear that I am not trying to create any difficulties, and I proved that by voting for the Second Reading, but what I am pointing out is that I have followed the dangers of this kind of thing in other countries, and we want to be on our guard, especially Members on all sides of the House who are concerned about the maintenance of our democratic rights, on occasions such us these. A small minority has been capitalised and used as an excuse in many parts of the world gradually to filch away the people's freedom. While I am prepared to agree to this procedure, and am not making any protest, I think it should go on record in order to avoid this sort of thing being carried through in the future.

Mr. Thorne

I take it for granted that the Home Secretary has firmly considered these Amendments and will be able to explain to us what they really mean. If that is so, I think some of us may be satisfied.

Mr. Stephen

I am taking it that these Amendments are practically what the Home Secretary undertook to get inserted in reply to criticisms that were made?

Sir S. Hoare

All these Amendments except one are the results of our discussions and of the undertakings that I gave that I would reconsider certain points. In every case I will explain the Amendment to the House when it is called, and where a new question is raised I will draw the attention of hon. Members to it.

12.30 p.m.

Sir Percy Harris

I quite appreciate the conciliatory attitude of the right hon. Gentleman, not only on the Third Reading, but on the Committee stage. In the meantime some of us have had opportunities of personal contact with him. I think it wants to be made very clear that it is a most undesirable procedure to consider Amendments that only a few of us have had an opportunity to see and which we cannot correlate to the Bill, because we have not had it reprinted in its altered form as it passed this House on the Report stage. The danger of this kind of procedure is that it is likely to become a precedent, because this House of Commons is so much governed by precedents that in the years to come this incident, that has arisen only in very special circumstances, might be used for other purposes not so desirable. If you, Sir, could make a Ruling to that effect and have it recorded, it would be, I think, a great strength for our procedure.

12.31 p.m.

Mr. Speaker

The hon. Members are quite right to raise these questions. Of course, we are in rather peculiar circumstances. It must be regarded as a case of emergency in which hasty legislation has to be passed. There is also one thing in favour of this procedure, and that is that it shows that this ancient House of Commons can proceed with speed in a case of necessity, and that is a very valuable asset. But I can quite see that there is difficulty in not having these Amendments before us before we consider them. The paper that I have had handed to me is one containing, not the actual Amendments passed by the other place, but the Amendments that it was proposed to move there and which as a matter of fact were passed.

Mr. Benn

Textually they are the Amendments that have been made?

Mr. Speaker

Yes, they have been made.

Question, "That the Lords Amendments be considered forthwith," put, and agreed to.

Lords Amendments considered accordingly.

CLAUSE 1.—(Power of Secretary of State to make orders).

Lords Amendment: In page 1, leave out line n to 14.

12.32 p.m.

Sir S. Hoare

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment".

This Amendment should be taken with new Sub-section (6) in Clause 1, page 2, line 38. The object of these Amendments is to carry out an undertaking that I gave to the House that I would accept a proposal to make periodical reports to the House on the orders that have been made. They are drafting Amendments. The form of words in which I accepted the Amendment moved by one of the hon. Members opposite was not exactly suitable for the purpose, and this is a better draft to carry out the object which we have in mind.

12.33 P.m.

Mr. Benn

This Amendment is the implementing of a promise made by the Home Secretary for an Amendment of an Amendment moved by us. I do not know whether it would be in order to ask, in reference to these reports, for some information as to their character. Really a Schedule showing that orders had been made, say, in five cases on such and such dates is not a report at all. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman can give particulars, but he must remember in this regard that he based his case on the fact that although he is acting individually —and this is indeed legislation on the word of honour of the Home Secretary—he said that he is subject to control by the House of Commons. Control depends on information, and this is the Clause which gives us the information. I think, therefore, we should welcome some statement from the right hon. Gentleman as to what type of thing he proposes to put into these reports. We rejected an Amendment which moved giving us a certain chance of bringing the matter up for review, on the plea that he would make these reports. Therefore, we should be glad to know what the substance of the report is likely to be.

12.35 p.m.

Miss Wilkinson

I should like to ask that, when these reports are brought up, they will not be rushed in at a late hour. Do I understand that there is to be no chance to question Ministers? We are, apparently, passing legislation without even agreeing as to what it means, which is very difficult when we are dealing with the life of the subject and may be dealing with perfectly innocent people. I have had a good deal of experience in this country and in Ireland, and in different parts of the world, of how people can be caught up in a net of this kind and sometimes it is the interest of all sorts of people to prove them guilty. I should like to know whether we are to be allowed to Debate the reports, whether we are to have sufficient information to Debate them adequately, and whether we are to be given time to Debate them. We have been told so often, in the matter of Import Orders, that the control is in the hands of the House of Commons and that we shall be able to Debate them. In fact, it has become the invariable practice of the Government to bring on those Orders at a very late hour when it is almost impossible to get a House together to Debate them. If the Home Secretary could give us information on these three points it would be of value.

12.37 p.m.

Sir S. Hoare

The hon. Lady is really raising a number of big issues which were discussed at great length the other day, and I could not possibly follow her into them. This Amendment carries out an undertaking that I gave that there should be periodical reports. The difficulty that I have in being precise about this is the great danger of giving an undertaking which may divulge sources of information. I think each case will have to be judged on its individual merits. I will look into the question and see what information can be circulated and I will try to give it to the House. As to the opportunities for Debate, there will be, first of all, the liberty that any Member has of questioning the Minister at Question time about a particular case. There is also the opportunity of raising questions after 11 o'clock. The right hon. Gentleman has very often made use of those opportunities himself with great effect. There is, further, the opportunity that the Opposition have of asking for a Supply day.

Question, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment," put, and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 1, line 16, leave out from "Britain" to the end of line 18.

Sir S. Hoare

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

Miss Wilkinson

If we are to work on the basis of Amendments pushed into our hands like this, we ought at least to be allowed to read the words. If the Home Secretary is going to move them automatically and we can only hastily read the words, it is not quite fair.

Sir S. Hoare

This Amendment is preliminary to the following Amendment and is designed to meet a point raised in Committee by the hon. and learned Member for North Hammersmith (Mr. Pritt).

Question put, and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 2, line 3, after "concerned," insert: and that he is not a person who has been ordinarily resident in Great Britain throughout the last preceding twenty years, or in the case of a person under the age of twenty years throughout his life,

12.40 p.m.

Sir S. Hoare

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

I gave a promise to reconsider this. I have reconsidered it, and the object of this Amendment is to make it clear that the Secretary of State will not make an expulsion order if he is satisfied that a person under 20 years of age has been ordinarily resident in Great Britain throughout his life.

Mr. Benn

That is so. These are words to which we drew attention and you, Sir, pointed out that the passage of this Bill proves to dictators abroad, and would-be dictators at home, that Parliamentary institutions can be as swift and as efficient as dictatorial machines. The Home Secretary's attention was directed to a case which showed that a person under the age of 20 can be charged by the police with an offence and acquitted after evidence has been heard. The right hon. Gentleman undertook to insert an Amendment and here it is. It covers people under 20 years of age who were born in this country. We are grateful to him. It shows that we were not wasting our time in considering the details of this very important matter, which is really legislation on the word of honour of one man.

Question put, and agreed to.

Lords Amendments to page 2, line 25, agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 2, line 38, at the end, insert: (6) Any notice of an order served on a person in accordance with the foregoing provisions of this section shall contain a statement informing him of his right to object and to make representations to the Secretary of State within forty-eight hours after the service of the notice and of the manner in which such representations may be made, and in the case of a notice of an expulsion order or registration order the notice shall also inform the person upon whom it is served whether the order has been made against him—

  1. (a) by reason of his being concerned in the preparation or instigation of such acts of violence as aforesaid; or
  2. (b) by reason of his knowingly harbouring another person so concerned."

12.44 p.m.

Sir S. Hoare

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

The question was raised whether we should not take some further steps before we inform the suspect of the cause of suspicion. Here we were faced with the difficulty, which faced us throughout all these proceedings, of giving the suspect information which might endanger the sources of our information. I have looked further into the question, and as a result I am now proposing this Amendment, which will do two things. First, it will give the suspect information as to the part of the Clause under which he is regarded as a suspect, as to the type of case of which he is suspected. Secondly, as the Bill was originally drafted suspects who were to be registered—not those against whom it was proposed to apply an order of deportation or prohibition—would have been left out of any procedure of this kind. That was a point which was raised in Committee, and on further consideration we think we ought to bring them within the scope of this new sub-section. Therefore, both in the case of the man against whom it is proposed to make a deportation order and in the case of a man against whom it is proposed to make a registration order the same procedure will be applied. A person served with a notice of a prohibition order on his arrival in this country would also be informed of his right to object and make representations.

12.46 p.m.

Mr. Benn

This, again, is an Amendment introduced by the Home Secretary in response to the criticism which took place under some difficulty in Committee the day before yesterday. Previously the Bill provided that he could serve an order on a man and that was the end of it. The man would have no opportunity of knowing what was the charge that was alleged against him. On that point we divided the Committee, and rightly divided it. Furthermore, the man had no opportunity of any appeal or of going before any independent person. That seemed to us to be utterly repugnant to any notion of British justice, and the Home Secretary in response to pressure and in spite of the great burden of responsibility he carries did agree that the case should be investigated by an independent person. Previously a man would have received an order saying "You are to go away" or "You are not to go" or telling him that he was to be treated as on ticket-of-leave, because that is what registration must mean, but would not have been told why and have been given no opportunity of going before any one to whom he could present his case. The position now is that a man will receive a notice giving him the grounds on which the order is made and giving him an opportunity of representing his case to an independent person. I hope that he will be an independent person and I have great confidence in the Home Secretary arranging that that will be so.

There are one or two criticisms of this Amendment. In the one type of case the suspect is to be told that an order has been made upon him because he was knowingly harbouring one of these persons. That is specific in a way; he must know what that means. In the other type of case he will be told that he was "concerned in the preparation or instigation of such acts of violence as aforesaid." I do not propose to divide the House upon this or to propose an Amendment to the Lords Amendment, but I should say that is not sufficiently specific. To tell a man that he was concerned in instigating acts of violence may not give him the information to enable him to clear himself. In dealing with this matter I have tried to base myself on actual cases which have come before the courts, of which there have been nearly 100. In one case a man was charged with being concerned in the Tottenham Court Road explosion. That man, being brought up in court and hearing the evidence, was able to get a friend who could prove an incontrovertible alibi, and thereupon the man was acquitted. He turned out to be an Orangeman and not a citizen of Eire at all.

The fundamental point about the whole of this legislation is that no one ought to be able to say that we have punished the wrong man, whether an Orangeman, an Englishman or whoever he may be. It would be fatal if the public believed that we were not doing justice, and we are anxious to protect the Home Secretary against any belief of that kind growing up. We want to give him whatever moral basis there is for this extraordinary system of lettre de cachet. Let me remind him of the experience of a previous Home Secretary, Mr. Bridgeman. He deported Mr. Arthur O'Brien and it landed him in infinite difficulty. Mr. O'Brien pursued the matter in the courts and received damages, and this House had to pass an Act of Indemnity for the then Home Secretary. On those grounds, therefore, it will be seen that our criticism is not based on any desire to protect terrorists but on a desire to protect the Home Secretary, when dealing with actual terrorists, from involving innocent persons.

12.52 p.m.

Mr. Gallacher

We are now giving a suspect a measure of information as to why an order is being issued against him, but there is nothing in the Amendment to clear up the question of how long the order is going to last. Is the Home Secretary not going to do anything under this Amendment, which is associated with the deportation orders, to clear up that point? He knows that such a brilliant legal luminary as the hon. and learned Member for North Hammersmith (Mr. Pritt) says that once this machinery starts operating it has perpetual motion, that it will never stop, whereas the Attorney-General says that it stops at the end of two years. Does that mean that if the terror is still going on in 18 months' time and some man is then deported under this Bill as a suspect that he can be deported for six months only? I think that is a point which the Home Secretary ought to clear up.

12.53 P.m.

Sir S. Hoare

I am not sure what conclusion the hon. Member wishes us to draw from his observations. It appeared to me that he was arguing in favour of these orders lasting longer than the two years, but I can tell him again, what the Attorney-General has already said in the course of these Debates, that these prohibition and expulsion orders can only be in force during the period of the Bill, namely, two years. There is no doubt about that.

Mr. Benn

Where does it say that?

Sir S. Hoare

There are no sanctions after two years.

Mr. Gallacher

Does that mean that in the event of this trouble going on and a suspect being deported 21 months from now that the deportation will last for only three months, that as soon as the measure ceases to operate the order fails?

Sir S. Hoare

That is so. If the terrorism was still going on the Parliament of the day would have to meet the situation; but this Bill is a temporary measure for a limited period.

12.54 p.m.

Mr. Harvey

I desire to thank the Home Secretary for having gone rather further in one respect than was asked of him at an earlier stage in the proceedings. He has brought the registration order within the scope of this procedure, and I think that shows that he is very desirous of safeguarding the liberty of the subject as far as he can do so. As regards the important point raised by the right hon. Member for Gorton (Mr. Benn), although it may not be possible to put into the Bill a more definite form of words, might it not be possible for the Home Secretary to give an assurance that when it is not against the public interest he will endeavour to give some further indication to a suspected person of the violence with which he is suspected of being associated? For instance, he might be told that he was concerned in the preparation or instigation of acts of violence "to wit, the Tottenham Court Road explosion." In that way, where it was not contrary to the public interest, he would get some information of what was the suspicion against him.

12.55 P.m.

Sir S. Hoare

The general undertaking that I gave was given because I am really anxious that the examiners should be given a free hand. They will have to use their discretion in obtaining information about these cases which differ very much one from the other. It is not possible therefore to generalise. The examiners will not be able to conduct their inquiries properly if they do not take the greatest possible trouble in finding out the details about the cases before submitting their advice to the Home Secretary. The Home Secretary wants the best advice that he can get.

Miss Wilkinson

May I ask whether when an expulsion order lapses the man can come back or whether he has to remain exiled in Eire. Can he then start proceedings? At the end of the two years can he come back without further hindrance?

Sir S. Hoare

These matters do not arise at all on this Amendment but I may say that at the end of two years he is free to come back unless the Bill has been renewed or some other Measure has been passed.

Question "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment," put, and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 2, line 38, at the end, insert: The Secretary of State shall make a report to Parliament at least once in every three months as to the number of occasions on which orders have been made by him under this Section, and the number of persons with respect to whom such orders have been made.

Sir S. Hoare

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

This is the same Amendment that we discussed earlier.

Question put, and agreed to.

CLAUSE 2.—(Effect of expulsion orders and prohibition orders.)

Lords Amendment: In page 3, line 1, at the beginning, insert: "Subject as hereinafter provided."

Sir S. Hoare

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

This is a drafting Amendment to secure that where a person makes a representation against an expulsion or prohibition order he shall not be removed until the Secretary of State has come to a decision.

Question put, and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 3, line 6, at the end, insert: and any person upon whom notice of a registration order has been served shall comply with the requirements specified in the notice.

Sir S. Hoare

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

This is the point to which the hon. Member for the English Universities (Mr. Harvey) referred just now. This Amendment together with the following Amendment give a suspect who has been ordered to register the same power of objection as, in the original Bill, was given to the man who was to be deported or to be prohibited from coming to these shores. The question was raised during the Committee stage and I undertook to consider the matter. I am glad to be able to move this Amendment.

12.58 p.m.

Mr. Benn

This is an improvement in the Bill, because the notice of registration applies not only to people in our midst on whom an expulsion order is made but to everybody concerned and there is no two years' limit to a registration order. In his original proposal, the Home Secretary took powers to serve a notice on a British subject who may have been here all his life that thereafter he was to register with the police and have his fingerprints and measurements taken. That was a swingeing power, which has now been whittled down by this Amendment to give a man the right to know for what reason an order is to be made and the right, secondly, to appeal to the examiner who is to be appointed. For that reason we welcome the Amendment as far as it goes.

Question, put, and agreed to.

Subsequent Lords Amendment in page 3, line 7, agreed to.

CLAUSE 4.—(Detention and identification of suspects, and searches.)

Lords Amendment: In page 4, line 29, leave out "has been made" and insert: is in force, or to be a person concerned in the preparation or instigation of such acts of violence as are mentioned in sub-section (1) of section one of this Act.

1 p.m.

Sir S. Hoare

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

This is the one Amendment that is not proposed as a result of our discussion in the Committee stage the other day. It raises not so much a new point but a point that is additional to certain points already covered by the Bill. The reason we ask for it is the experience that we have gained in the last 48 hours from those very regrettable terrorist outrages, and which has revealed that there is a gap in the Bill. Under the Bill you can arrest a man against whom a deportation order or a prohibition order has been made, but you cannot arrest and detain him pending the inquiry as to whether he should be deported. What we have been finding in the last two days is that a number of young Irishmen come over here and that the conditions in which they move are very suspicious. They come here in the morning and maybe by the evening are gone. We feel that, in the interests of security, it is necessary that we should be able to detain them pending further inquiries, to give the Secretary of State an opportunity of knowing whether or not a deportation order should be made.

I will be very frank with the House. I will go further and say that I have been told that if we had had these powers two days ago it is very likely that we might have forestalled one or other of the—[Interruption]—this information was given to me, and hon. Members must judge its value—of those outrages. I say that, in our view, it is essential that this gap should be filled, and that in cases of this kind we should be able to detain an individual pending inquiries. I know that the House will look with great care upon a proposition of this kind and will see that there are safeguards against the Executive in every possible way. We do safeguard the position in every possible way. The time of detention can be only 48 hours, which is a very short time, except in cases where the special direction of the Secretary of State is given. Then the maximum time is a further five days.

1.4 p.m.

Mr. Benn

Can the Secretary of State prolong that five days?

Sir S. Hoare

That is impossible. This limit must be a very effective safeguard, and I say, with all the authority that I possess, that this power is urgently needed.

Mr. Benn

I deplore that the Home Secretary should come to this House and, by repeating a whisper of recent information, ask us to agree to this Amendment. That is wrong. The statement that he has given us we cannot cross-examine or know anything about. It is like a rumour about the German money. It may be true, and I am not saying that it is not, but it is a most deplorable ground, and shows the frame of mind in which this House of Commons now is. We are anxious, as we said before, to put no obstacles in the way of the Home Secretary getting these powers, but to suggest to us that if we criticise this power, or if it were not in the Bill, he would be unable to stop something, is introducing an atmosphere which is not worthy of the dignity or the judicial quality of this House. Under the Bill we have already given the Secretary of State power, without any judicial inquiry, to make an Order exiling a man, or prohibiting him from coming here, or forcing him to register; but that had to be done by the Secretary of State, and we have been told, and indeed we know, that he will exercise his powers responsibly. Although I agree that in this case the period is limited to 48 hours, or in special circumstances to five days, we are admitting the principle that a constable may arrest without warrant, not only a person against whom such an Order has been made, but a person whom he suspects to be one against whom an Order has been made. Suppose that a constable heard someone say, "We must give Carson a dose of his own medicine," that undoubtedly would be an incitement to violence intended to influence public opinion with respect to Irish affairs, and he would then be able to arrest the man without warrant and detain him for 48 hours, or, if he received word from the Home Secretary, for five days.

I am not proposing to object to the Amendment, but this is a Bill to give personal powers to the Home Secretary, and I should be failing in my duty as a Member of this House if I did not point out plainly that here, for the first time, we are giving a police constable the right to arrest a man without warrant and to detain him for two days, or, in special cases, for five days, because he thinks that that man may be a person who is instigating or preparing to commit an act of violence designed to influence public opinion with respect to Irish affairs. If the House does this, it should do it with its eyes open. I do not propose to oppose the Amendment, or to advise my friends to oppose it, but it is desirable that we should know exactly what sort of legislation it is that we are passing.

1.8 p.m.

Miss Wilkinson

All constables and officials in the present situation must be having a very bad time and working very long hours, and, unless very special instructions are issued to them, the result of this Amendment will be, if the Home Secretary is not very careful, that it will be a criminal offence in this country to have an Irish accent. The Clause is so worded that almost any Irishman uttering, in a Southern Irish accent, words that may be completely harmless and have no intention whatever of creating violence, may find himself arrested and detained for five days. And that is not the end of the penalty, because a man who has been detained in that way will almost certainly lose his job, and therefore it may happen that a perfectly innocent person may find himself arrested and detained, losing his job as the result, and his wife and family may be condemned to penury, for no other reason than that he made a remark which, if made with an English accent, would have attracted no notice whatever. After all, the present Home Secretary will not always be there, and we do not know what future Minister may take a less strict view of these powers. It is extremely unfortunate that we are placed in a position in which liberties for which this country has fought for so long will be in jeopardy, not only because of certain things that may have been done by people from Southern Ireland, but because of some of the things done by Ulster Irishmen which have not been questioned in this House at all. I agree with my right hon. Friend that that is a tragic position.

Sir Ronald Ross

Would the hon. Lady say what she is complaining of against us?

Mr. MacLaren

That you have not a Southern Ireland accent.

1.11 p.m.

Mr. Gallacher

This Amendment brings out clearly the necessity for the protest which was made by the hon. Member for Stoke (Mr. E. Smith). We have been discussing under very hurried conditions a Bill giving to the Home Secretary extraordinary powers which strike at the very root of our liberties in this country, and now, right at the conclusion of the discussions, an Amendment is presented which extends those extraordinary powers to an alarming degree. The hon. Member for Jarrow (Miss Wilkinson) says that any man with a Southern Irish accent will be in danger, but what about the man with a Scottish accent and an Irish name? If I make an impassioned speech somewhere, as I am very likely to do, against partition, condemning the Government, condemning the stooges in Northern Ireland who represent the Government and who are maintained by the Government, what are the possibilities? Under this Amendment there would be power to take me up, to the great joy of the Patronage Secretary It is a very dangerous Amendment, and one that should not be rushed through in this hurried manner. I do not know what we can do about it. The right hon. Gentleman the Memberfor Gorton (Mr. Benn) is against dividing on it, and is not advising his friends to do so, and I do not know that we can do any more than make a protest and draw attention to the correctness of the protest which was made at the beginning by the hon. Member for Stoke. This Amendment is more dangerous than any other part of this dangerous Bill, and yet we have no chance of considering or discussing it, or deciding what should be done about it.

Question, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment," put, and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 4, line 31, leave out "has been made," and insert: is in force or of being a person so concerned as aforesaid.

Sir S. Hoare

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

This Amendment is consequential on the one with which we have just agreed.

Mr. Benn

May I ask what is the meaning of leaving out the words "has been made" and inserting the words "is in force"? It is a small point, but I cannot understand it.

1.13 p.m.

The Attorney-General (Sir Donald Somervell)

It is a drafting point to meet the effect of the Amendment we were discussing just now in regard to the period of the Order. An Order that has been confirmed after investigation will stand for all time, but, there may be cases where an Order is rescinded after investigation and these words are necessary to cover that situation.

Question put, and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 4, line 33, leave out from "no" to "for" in line 34, and insert: person shall be detained under the powers of detention conferred by this section.

1.14 p.m.

Sir S. Hoare

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

This Amendment deals with the same point. It safeguards the man from being detained for more than 48 hours, and then for more than five days afterwards.

Question put, and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 4, line 34, leave out from "hours" to the first "of" in line 35, and insert: or such further period not exceeding five days as may be authorised by direction.

Sir S. Hoare

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

This is consequential on the preceding Amendment.

Mr. Harvey

We ought, in fairness, to say how great an improvement this limitation is. As the Bill left this House, there was no limit to the time during which the Home Secretary might detain a prisoner.

Question put, and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 4, line 39, leave out from the second "any," to "by," in line 40, and insert "police station or other similar place authorised."

Sir S. Hoare

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

This Amendment makes it clear that a person can be detained only in a prison or police station or similar place. Hon. Members will remember that it was suggested that the original draft of the Bill might have meant that they could be detained in some quite unauthorised place. The draftsman did not take that view: he took the view that it must be a police station or prison or something of that kind; but we have made it clear by this Amendment that it is the intention of the Government that detention shall be possible only in a prison or police station or place of that kind.

1.17 p.m.

Mr. Ede

The Home Secretary will remember that when we were discussing the Criminal Justice Bill it was made clear that in the case of a certain policeman who lived in a policeman's cottage that cottage was for all practical purposes, a police station. That does not appear to be a very suitable place in which to keep such people, but if they happened to be arrested it might be the first place to which they would be taken. I take it that the Government do not intend this Amendment to apply to any such a place, except for a strictly limited period which might be necessitated by the circumstances—for instance, while a policeman had to telephone for a conveyance.

Sir S. Hoare

I give that assurance at once. It is intended that the place shall be either a prison or a police station. It is not possible, however, to confine the provision to these precise words, because it might, for example, be necessary to detain a person on board a ship.

Mr. Stephen

As my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) was responsible for the Amendment, I would like to thank the hon. Secretary for trying to make the matter clear.

Question put, and agreed to.

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