ROAD TRAFFIC. (Hansard, 3 February 1943)

§ Mr. Levy (Elland)
I beg to move, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, praying that the Order in Council, dated 13th January, 1943, made under the Emergency Powers (Defence) Acts, 1939 and 1940, amending Regulation 70 of the Defence (General) Regulations, 1939, a copy of which was presented to this House on 19th January be annulled. The Order to which this Motion, in the name of a number of hon. Members and myself, refers is a most amazing Order. It is contrary to the democratic and constitutional practice of this House of Commons. This is essentially a House of Commons matter which vitally affects not only every Member of Parliament but every constituent whom these Members of Parliament represent. This Order is contained in 20 words only. It is an addition to Regulation 7, and it says this: for removing or modifying, or for limiting the application of, any prohibitions or restrictions imposed by or under any Act. What does that mean? "Removing" means virtually asking for power to repeal any act or Order or Regulation which is made under the Defence Regulation Acts, and until these Emergency Powers Acts are repealed by this House it is asking for the right to become a dictator on everything to do with road traffic throughout the whole of this country. Road traffic affects every man, woman, and child in the country. It affects all transport, to deal with the industries of the country. It is doubtful whether railways could work without road transport, because they have to be fed and the goods have to be taken from them. I put it in this way to show 997 the vast effect of this Order. It means that this House of Commons is definitely abrogating all its legislative powers into the hands of a dictator. We are fighting dictators, and my right hon. Friend is seeking to set himself up as a dictator. The Emergency Powers Act, from which this Order flows, was passed in a time of stress, when there was a greater emergency than to-day. It passed through all stages and received the Royal Assent in six hours. Members of Parliament were then prepared to pass anything. Since then, the House has without question passed any Order brought before it which would help the effective prosecution of the war. It has willingly passed without question any Order to cover any conceivable emergency for the purposes of the war.
But the Orders that are laid on the Table give an indication—we complain about ambiguous terms, but if you look into them they do give an indication—of the purposes for which the Minister is asking such powers. Here the Minister is asking powers for some undisclosed, unspecified reason. He says he is asking for these powers to do just as he likes, and the House of Commons may not say a word about any Order which he may make. He is entitled to say, "The House of Commons gave me this power of its own free will, and I am acting under the power the House of Commons gave me." To vest such powers in any Minister, taking away the right of criticism even of future legislation made under the Order, is abhorrent to every member of the population. There is not a Member of this House who at some time or other has not been referred to by his constituents as "one of our legislators." We are proud to be so described. You could no longer be described as "one of the legislators" if you gave the Minister this power. It would be a misnomer. When your constituents complain to you, as they will, and as they are entitled to in a free country, about this bureaucratic control, and say, "What are you going to do about it?" you can only say, "I am sorry; I have abrogated all my powers' to the Minister. I can do nothing. He can make whatever Orders, Rules and Regulations he likes under this Order, and we can do nothing about it." Is that what this House of Commons desires to do? Are the Members of the House of Commons going to allow not only this 998 Minister but any Minister to have such dictatorial powers? Not only in the House of Commons but throughout the whole of the country people are very disturbed indeed, and they say that we are being controlled by a bureaucracy. A bureaucracy works gradually, and, if I may use a military expression, it serves its purpose and endeavours to create bureaucratic control by means of infiltration.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Colonel Clifton Brown)
The hon. Gentleman is speaking about bureaucracy. This is not in Order as relevant to the Order which is before the House.

§ Mr. Levy
This Order will give bureaucratic control, and I am complaining—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I agree that the Order is a very wide one, and I have allowed the hon. Member to discuss it very widely, but he is out of Order now.

§ Mr. A. Bevan (Ebbw Vale)
Is not the hon. Member entitled to point out the evils of bureaucratic control in general in describing the evils of this Order in particular? Otherwise, apparently, the only people who are entitled to discuss anything practically are the Government, who always discuss things impractically.

§ Mr. Levy
May I continue if I do not take too much latitude? I was endeavouring to show, with great respect—and I want to keep within your Ruling, Mr. Deputy-Speaker—that the country is becoming very disturbed with regard to the bureaucratic control which is to be found under this Order. The Order enables all kinds of Rules and Regulations to be made which are undisclosed, and the people of this country will not know what they are until they are probably charged with some undisclosed crime before a court, when they will have to appeal to their Member and ask him why he allowed such an Order to be passed, always having regard to the fact that it would have nothing to do with the war effort. It does not help the war effort. The creation of a Gestapo, of inspectors and of all this bureaucratic organisation which this is going to set up has nothing whatever to do with any beneficial effects with regard to winning the war, but it is restricting and controlling the liberty of the subject. May I quote a popular phrase which every hon. Member knows and one which I can commend? It is: 999 Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. We must be eternally vigilant in regard to these Orders, and this Order in particular. We can use our imagination, and we can benefit by past experiences. Members of the House of Commons, who are greatly disturbed, are not doing their duty if they allow their powers to be abrogated and placed in the hands of any Minister and I am not casting an aspersion upon this Minister or any other Minister.

§ Dr. Russell Thomas (Southampton)
He is making the Order: why not cast the aspersion upon him?

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I must ask the hon. Member for Elland (Mr. Levy) to direct his remarks to this Order and not to the Orders as a whole.

§ Mr. Levy
I am trying to do that. With regard to this Order, the House of Commons ought to weigh up very carefully whether they intend to pass it and so set up a dictator. The passing of this Order would affect the traffic regulations of this country. Members will have no voice in the matter. Now is the time, if ever there was a time, to maintain our democracy, our Constitution, and see that the democratic principles of this House are not undermined. We must maintain our privileges, rights and duties, which this Order would very likely take away from us. I am talking about this Order and no other Order. This Order can virtually repeal any other Order and Acts, and we should not be able to do anything about it. Therefore, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, other Orders come into it, because this Order can modify or limit the application of any prohibition or restriction imposed by any other Act.

§ Captain C. S. Taylor (Eastbourne)
Did my hon. Friend say "this Order" or "disorder"?

§ Mr. Levy
I said." this Order." I know that many Members want to speak, and I hope they will and that we shall get the support of those who cherish the liberties of this country. This is not a party question; it is a question of public issue which vitally affects every Member of the House of Commons and every one of his constituents. It is about time that this House of Commons, which seems in some respects to be losing its grip—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
The hon. Member's remarks are now going outside the Order.

§ Mr. Levy
I sincerely hope we shall get sufficient support to be able to say to the Government that we will not pass this Order.

§ Mr. Wakefield (Swindon)
I beg to second the Motion.
My hon. Friend the Member for Elland (Mr. Levy) deserves the thanks of the House for raising this matter. As he said, it is not a party matter, and it raises the widest possible constitutional points. I and my hon. Friends who are raising it are doing so not because we disagree in any way with the work or the policy of the Ministry of War Transport, to whose work the Order refers; we are raising it on the widest grounds and not in any narrow sense. I would like to take this opportunity of paying a personal tribute to the work of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport. As the representative of a constituency which plays a somewhat important part in the communications system of this country, I have had from time to time communications with the Parliamentary Secretary, and I would like to say how much I and my constituents have appreciated the courtesy with which he has always discharged his duties. I would not like him to think that in raising the matter to-day we are in any way attacking the excellent work he is doing.
Order No. 71, to which reference has been made, is short and simple, but it is very wide and all-embracing. It might be convenient to the House if I drew attention to Regulation 70, which is the main Regulation affected by Order No. 71. The hon. Member for Elland has described the wide powers which it is proposed to give to the Ministry of War Transport. What, in fact, Regulation 70 does is this. It says: Without prejudice to any of these Regulations, the Minister of War Transport may by Order provide for the regulation of traffic on highways, and without prejudice to the generality of the power aforesaid any such Order may, in particular, provide,

(a) for determining the routes to be followed by any particular class of vehicles proceeding on highways either generally or in such circumstances as may be determined by or in accordance with this Order, and

(b) for prohibiting or regulating the use of vehicles or any class of vehicles on highways or the use by vehicles of specified roads or classes of roads either generally or in such 1001 circumstances as may be so specified, and may be made so as to apply either generally or to any specified area and may make different provision for different parts of the area to which the Order applies."

Order No. 71 amends this Regulation by the inclusion of a further paragraph (c) which gives the very wide powers already described by my hon. Friend. It gives the widest possible powers to the Minister. As I see it, the work of Parliament will be completely nullified if this Order is passed. As I understand it, the Minister could, if the Order were passed, give instructions, under the signature of a civil servant, without ever coming before this House, that all vehicles were to drive on the right of the road instead of the left of the road because so many Americans were here. He could, for example, give an instruction that no perambulators should be pushed on the road. That might be a good or a bad thing, but an opportunity should be given to the House to say something about it. He could, as I see it, prohibit any cyclist from riding on any road where there was a path available for cyclists. Is it right that a Minister should issue such an Order under the signature of a civil servant without the House having an opportunity of making its observations upon it? I have quoted these examples to show the very wide powers which would be conferred upon the Minister if this Order is allowed to pass.
It seems to me that the time has come for us to sit up and take notice and resist the inroads of bureaucracy. My hon. Friend has rightly drawn attention to the effect that communications have upon our daily lives. We all walk upon the roads on our daily business and, if these wide powers are given, the House of Commons will have no say about anything that the Minister may desire to do. The importance of communications is well illustrated by the intensive attack that takes place day after day and night after night upon the enemy's transport system—lorries, trains and ships. It makes me wonder whether this Order is, in any way, related to possible invasion. We do not know. There is nothing to tell us the purpose of these wide powers. Surely, when invasion was a very real and imminent danger all necessary powers were available to have roads diverted and closed. The powers that are available now ought to satisfy the Minister. They are surely strong enough to meet present demands.
1002 If the Order is passed, it means that a civil servant can make any alteration that the Minister thinks fit, without the House ever having an opportunity to say anything about it. The time has come for us to be firm. If we are not firm we shall be gravely neglecting our duties and our responsibilities towards our constituents and, what is perhaps more important than anything else, prejudicing the future. Hon. Members do not want to do anything which will in any way hinder the war effort. That is not our purpose. The House has shown its readiness to give immediate effect to any legislation which may be brought before it which is necessary for a more intensive war effort. I and my hon. Friends would be the last to wish to hinder that effort. Without an explanatory Memorandum, this Order does not suggest to us that it will do anything towards furthering the war effort. I hope that the Minister will withdraw the Order and that in future, if he wants to amend any Act, an Order will be laid upon the Table so that hon. Members will have an opportunity of seeing what is intended, and will be able to make any observations which they may think necessary upon it.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
Mr. Holdsworth.

§ Mr. Clement Davies (Montgomery)
On a point of Order. I observe, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that the Minister has made no effort to catch your eye. Would it not be for the convenience of the House if he were to state the purpose of this Order, so that we may know why it is wanted at this late stage, in the fourth year of the war.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
That is not a point of Order.

§ The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Noel-Baker)
I am entirely in the hands of the House, but I thought that it would be for the convenience of the House that more hon. Members should express their views before I spoke.

§ Mr. Holdsworth (Bradford, South)
I might almost ask for the indulgence of the House, as I have not spoken here for three years. I want to speak about the Order itself. At the beginning of my Parliamentary career I spent many months upstairs in Committee dealing with the Road and Rail Traffic Act and another transport Measure. In those 1003 Measures certain privileges were given to the citizens of this country. They could get A, B or C licences and certain obligations were laid upon them in connection with those licences. I want to ask the Minister to explain, in detail, why he wants this particular power. It appears to me that the result of all those months of labour upstairs in Committee can be wiped out with a stroke of the pen, if this power is given to the Minister. I believe that the whole transport of the country could be nationalised if this Order were carried. It gives power for removing"— that is, a licence can be taken away— or modifying, or for limiting the application of, any prohibitions or restrictions imposed by or under any Act. Some of us have from time to time carried on negotiations with the Minister, and the Parliamentary Secretary will not deny that for many months particular negotiations have been going on with regard to transport problems. Some of us are afraid that the big men in industry are agreeing to certain things, in order to get a monopoly in the industry. Under this Order the Minister can hand over that power to them, and the small man with the C licence, or the man who uses his own transport in his own industry, can find himself without a vehicle, without the means which he is using to-day to transport his goods—all this in order, probably, to meet the terms of an agreement of which this House has no knowledge. Things are getting into a very serious state if that can be done by a stroke of the pen. It is not the Minister of whom I am afraid. I am not particularly criticising the Civil Service, but there is a type of man within that Service who, once he has been given a power like this, waves a little flag and becomes a tyrannical Hitler in his own domain. Although I have had to remain silent for so long, I have not lost my belief in what used to be called the old individualism. A new lorry is being delivered to my own firm this week. Suppose the Minister comes along and says, "I am going to take away your licence. I know that under the Road and Rail Traffic Act you are permitted to be a C licence-holder, but the whole of that can be done away with under this Order."
1004 I agree in general with what has been said about the power of the Executive under Defence of the Realm legislation, but I am not prepared to agree to this Order going through, unless the Parliamentary Secretary is prepared to give us not general but specific reasons why he desires this power. Is it true that certain negotiations have taken place between individuals or parties—I am not saying that this is true, I am asking—in which they have suggested that if certain powers are given to them, which in the result would take away the liberty of other subjects, they will be prepared to carry out certain agreements? In other words, is this House being asked to abrogate its own functions, to give away its own powers, in order to hand to some organisation the power to create a monopoly which would limit the activity of private individuals? Some of us are gravely suspicious of what is happening behind the scenes not only in this Ministry but in all Ministries. Many times I have listened to hon. Members here speaking on behalf of the small man, and I have wondered whether there was a set policy on the part of certain people behind the scenes to prepare the way for some future and bigger organisation. I hate monopolies of every kind, whether run by the State or run by private enterprise. I make no exception. I want to know what is behind this Regulation. I am not prepared to give carte blanche, or the absolute powers almost of a gauleiter, to the person who is to apply it. I ask the Minister why it is being done. There is some reason. Do not generalise. Tell us in particular what the reason is, and, if the House is satisfied that the Regulation will help war transport, he will find no opposition.

§ The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport (Mr. Noel-Baker)
I rise not in order to prevent other hon. Members from expressing their views, which is not in my power and is still less my desire, but to clear up some misunderstanding. I express my gratitude to those who have raised this matter and given me an opportunity of explaining why we ask for this Order in Council and the powers which it confers. I confess freely that, if hon. Members wanted to challenge the system of Orders in Council, this was a very good one for them to select, because 1005 the powers proposed in it are extremely wide. Without an explanatory Memorandum it is difficult for hon. Members to know what we have in mind. I am as anxious as any hon. Member to guarantee that democratic control shall be maintained. The Home Secretary has already told the House that the question of giving explanatory memoranda with Orders in Council shall be considered.

§ Mr. Levy
He promised that it should be done.

§ Mr. Noel-Baker
I agree that if to do so were now the practice, this Order in Council is one with which an explanatory Memorandum ought to have been given.

§ Rear-Admiral Beamish (Lewes)
When this Order was presented to the Privy Council, as it was, surely the Privy Council had something more to go upon than the wording of the Order—some memorandum?

§ Mr. Noel-Baker
No, Sir. But the Government Committee which took responsibility for asking the Privy Council to pass the Order had more before them than the mere terms of the Order, and if it were not wearying the House I would gladly read the whole document. The powers are very wide. We can remove, or modify, or limit the application of any prohibition or restriction imposed by or under any Act. As my hon. Friends are aware, that is all subject to Section I of the Emergency Powers Act by which everything must be done for one or more of five specific purposes: to secure public safety; for the Defence of the Realm; for the maintenance of public order; for the efficient prosecution of any war in which His Majesty may be engaged; or for the maintenance of supplies and services essential to the life of the community.

§ Commander Bower (Cleveland)
Does that include political warfare?

§ Mr. Noel-Baker
We are not concerned with internal political warfare. The Order is subject also to the powers which hon. Members are now using, of a Prayer to annul the Order within 28 days. The whole Emergency Powers Act itself lapses every year and must be renewed. At the end of the emergency the whole thing lapses. The Regulation is confined to road traffic, and is not, as one hon. Member suggested—perhaps I misheard him—applicable to railways and other means of 1006 transport. Moreover, with great respect to those who have spoken, I venture to think that the real guarantee of the House lies in its power to raise at any moment anything which my Noble Friend might do under the powers given to him.

§ Sir Herbert Williams (Croydon, South)
Surely my hon. Friend is totally misinformed. What we are praying against is the general power. If his Noble Friend subsequently made Orders, they would not be laid on the Table of the House.

§ Mr. Noel-Baker
No, but in the ordinary practice of our democratic method the hon. Member would come here—[HON. MEMBERS: "No!"]—and make a complaint on the Adjournment or on some other occasion—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"]—and if he can make a good case, does he really think that the Government will stand up against it? That surely is the real guarantee. [Interruption.] I venture to suggest with great respect that the two questions hon. Members must ask themselves are whether my Noble Friend is going to do something which is foolish or dangerous, or undemocratic, or detrimental to the public interest; and, secondly, if he does so, how long would it be before this House could get it undone? Under the powers which are sought he might say that the speed limit shall be 100 miles per hour in a built-up area or five miles per hour over the whole country, or that the rule of the road should be that one drives to the right. With regard to what has been said about bicycles and perambulators, I would say to my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon (Mr. Wakefield) that that can already be done under Sub-sections (a) and (b) of Regulation 70 as it stands to-day. Therefore, these powers have already been given by Parliament.
What is our purpose? I will do my best to show why it is necessary to have wider powers than we possessed before. It is not to nationalise the road passenger service industry or road haulage. If I may answer the actual question asked by the hon. Member who spoke last, I do not recognise in his description of negotiations which are going on anythng with which I am familiar. If he will let me have more particular information, I will try to find out, but I am certain that it was never in my Noble Friend's mind that he should do anything in connection with the road 1007 haulage scheme under the powers for which we are asking. Nothing of the kind. One hon. Member said it was right to give very wide powers in 1940 because we were facing a very grave emergency, but that now the emergency is less grave. In some ways that is true; in other ways it is not true. In 1940 we had lots of petrol and rubber. Now rubber and petrol are in very short supply, and that is largely the reason for this Order, as I will show. [Interruption.] We are making an Order for exactly that purpose.
We have three main objects in view. In the first place, we want to be able to modify speed limits. At present speed limits which are imposed may be varied downwards by the Minister, for example from 20 miles an hour to 15 miles an hour. They cannot be varied upwards, for example from 20 to 25 miles an hour. To do that under the Traffic Act, 1930, or the Road Traffic Act, 1934, a complicated procedure is required which involves prior approval by both Houses of Parliament, and which would take an amount of Parliamentary time which I think in present circumstances would not be justified, when the House sees what we want to do.

§ Mr. Holdsworth (Bradford, South)
Are we to understand that you want to raise the limit, to enable people to drive faster, when all the advertisements are asking people to drive slower?

§ Mr. Noel-Baker
We want, first, to be able to allow certain types of trailers used in agriculture which have steel wheels—because we are using steel wheels in order to save rubber—to travel up to 10 m.p.h., instead of 5 m.p.h., which is the present limit. We want also to make it possible for certain vehicles to disregard speed limits when on service, precisely as fire brigade, ambulance and police vehicles can under the Act of 1934. By analogy with ambulances, blood transfusion vehicles have been allowed to do so when it is necessary. There is the case of vehicles engaged on bomb or mine disposal. There are certain security services, of which the House will not want me to speak in more detail, whose vehicles ought to be allowed to exceed the speed limit when it is desirable in the national interest. Other similar cases may arise. There is a second purpose to the Order. We want to be able to make it possible for more 1008 than one trailer to be towed on the highway. Under the Act of 1930 only one laden trailer may be towed. That is a very good regulation in peace-time, because everyone knows how dangerous trailers may be, but at present it is desirable that we should be able to allow a series of gun trailers to be towed, which can be hitched together in such a way that they are not dangerous. We want to be able to tow what are called articulated vehicles. At present we cannot. If an articulated vehicle breaks down the two parts have to be separated; a breakdown gang with special tools is necessary, and it is a most difficult business.
Third, we want to take powers to vary traffic regulations, and in particular to be able easily to get rid of or to reimpose oneway traffic schemes. It is highly desirable, in order to save rubber and petrol, that a very large number of one-way schemes should disappear. We are reviewing every one in the country. Under the existing Act, the Minister can revoke such a scheme; but, in order to have it reimposed, you have to advertise your intention of doing so, to consider any objection from any quarter, to have a public inquiry, and to readvertise. That is a large expenditure of labour, taking up a good deal of the time of people who are very busy, and involving the use of a good deal of paper and so on, when those things are in short supply. We want to be able to revoke such schemes, knowing that if necessary we can reimpose them quickly. Suppose the war were to end next week. We should have an enormous number of places all over the country where one-way traffic schemes have been stopped and it was desirable to put them back. We do not want to have this kind of inquiry in every case. Moreover, many local authorities which have been asked to abolish their one-way traffic schemes have said, "We are quite willing; but only if you will give us an experimental period, so that after a trial we may confirm the abolition or, if we find it dangerous, reimpose the scheme." These are the kind of things we have in view, and I hope that the House will see that there is nothing very dangerous about them. They are fully within the kind of purposes for which the House has given powers of this kind in the past. Primarily they are concerned with the saving of petrol and rubber, in respect of which the emergency is greater than it was 1009 before. They are concerned with efforts promoting the war effort, and for these reasons I hope that the House will not annul the Order but will rely on its own sovereign power if we should do anything foolish, undemocratic or dangerous or unwise.

§ Mr. Wakefield
The hon. Member made reference to what I said about perambulators and cycles and said that he already had powers to do that. Surely the power that the Minister has is to be obtained only by Order in Council. He cannot do it now without laying an Order and our whole objection is that he is taking power to do all these things without laying an Order.

§ Mr. Noel-Baker
Under Regulation 70, paragraph (b), the Minister has the power of, and can provide for, prohibiting and regulating the use of vehicles or any class of vehicles on the highway. In other words he can prescribe perambulators or cycles.

§ Mr. Wakefield
Under the Defence Regulations.

§ Mr. Noel-Baker
But made by the Minister's order in pursuance of powers conferred upon him.

§ Sir Herbert Williams (Croydon, South)
The statement we have heard is profoundly unsatisfactory. The hon. Member tells us he wants to do a number of things and some of them are open to question. Some of his proposals with regard to the speed limit would be very violently opposed. All these things he can do properly by having a Defence Regulation setting out the specific powers he wants. If we did not like them, we could protest. He is going much further. He says that we shall still have our democratic powers, but I will give a recent example under Regulation 55 which gives extensive control over industry in this country. Under that Regulation the Minister of Supply made an Order affecting the paint industry. Owing to the energy of the hon. and gallant Member for Accrington (Major Procter), great efforts were made and ultimately there was a deputation to the Minister in which I took part, as two of the firms were in my constituency. There were about a dozen or more Members of Parliament of all parties, and a number of people in the paint industry and when we got in front 1010 of the Minister the whole case for the Ministry was blown sky high and it had to be abandoned. We had written between us hundreds of letters and there were elaborate deputations because the Order was made under Regulation without any proper opportunity given to the House to discuss it. I therefore beseech the hon. Member to withdraw the Order and to replace it by one in which he lays down precisely the powers that the Minister desires.

§ Mr. Noel-Baker
Perhaps the hon. Member will be more precise about the proposals with regard to speed limits which he thinks are dangerous, as it is a matter to which I attach great importance.

§ Sir H. Williams
A great many vehicles are going along the roads much too rapidly. Yesterday when I was in Oxford Street a convoy of five vehicles went past the traffic lights, whereas we want to stiffen the regulations with regard to traffic.

§ Mr. Noel-Baker
That has nothing to do with this Order.

§ Mr. A. Bevan
The Joint-Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport and ourselves are victims of a situation which has been developing for some time. There are two ideas before the House, though one of them cannot properly be discussed. One is the objection to the particular Order itself, and the other is the growing mood of objection to Orders in general and the form of Parliamentary procedure involved in them. For this situation the Government are solely responsible, because in 1939 this House conferred upon the Government certain powers under which this Order was made. The Government cannot make up their own minds when to proceed by Bill and when to proceed by Order. On many occasions we have had Bills when we could quite easily have had Orders and when we on this side have been the victims. I will give an illustration. We had the other day a Bill dealing with workmen's compensation. The reason why it came before us as a Bill—and I would like hon. Members opposite to listen to this—and not as an Order was because by having the Bill the Government could assist insurance interests to fight against increased workmen's compensation, whereas under the same power as those under which this Order is now being made we could have 1011 had an Order without the insurance companies being able to raise any protest at all. In these questions Government Departments are coming forward and asking for power to cut off a man's head because they do not like the colour of his trousers. The Minister says he wants concrete powers to limit the speed of vehicles and dangers on the road. If that is so, why is he asking for this all-embracing power? I am not blaming my hon. Friend; I know' he is caught in a trap.

§ Mr. Noel-Baker
May I say why? We have had other Orders before, and we are all in considerable difficulty over a number of these things and thought that similar difficulties might rise again.

§ Mr. Bevan
In other words, my hon. Friend is saying that he does not propose to limit the powers asked for so that we can disregard these powers. It would have been far better for the Government to get affirmative Resolutions on all these matters if it was necessary. It is becoming more than a full-time job to watch all these Orders, and it seems to me that apart from the merits of this Order—and this is only one of a large series of Orders of a similar kind—it would be an excellent thing, a corrective for the Government and a reassertion of the authority of Parliament if we chastised the Government on this occasion by compelling them to withdraw this Order and bring forward in precise and definite language an Order stating concretely what they want, and why, instead of conferring upon a Government Department powers more analogous to a dictatorship than to a democratic community.

§ Mr. Ralph Etherton (Stretford)
This Order asks for undefined powers for which no case whatever has been made out by the Parliamentary Secretary. In each of the three or four instances which the hon. Gentleman gave to the House he could bring forward an Order defining the specific powers required and the House would then have an opportunity, if it so desired, of discussing those particular points. But to ask, as the hon. Gentleman has done, for wide and undefined powers, is something which, apart from these Regulations, is without precedent. The time has arrived, in my submission, when objection should be taken to the method and the manner in which these 1012 Orders are now asked for. It is wrong that Parliament should be deprived of its legislative power and the power to legislate given to a Government Department, or rather to a Minister in a Government Department. That is what this Order does. Regulation 70 already gives the Minister power to do anything with regard to traffic on highways, but what he seeks to do by this Order is to alter and amend legislation, and I submit that is something which should be within the control of the House. It is one thing to take a wide power to regulate traffic on highways, which the Minister already has under Regulation 70; it is quite another matter to take power to alter legislation and to alter Acts of Parliament which have already been passed by the House. If Acts of Parliament are to be altered they should be altered by the House alone. I hope the Minister will decide to withdraw this Order and to introduce an Order or Orders which give him the precise powers which he says he needs.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Sir Cuthbert Headlam (Newcastle-on-Tyne, North)
I want to emphasise very strongly what has been said by the hon. Member for Stretford (Mr Etherton). I was very much astonished when I read this Order, and the Parliamentary Secretary has not convinced me that it is in the least necessary in the interests of the war effort or the country in any respect. If he wants the various things done that he mentioned, it would be perfectly simple for him to introduce Orders to that effect. I am certain that at the present time the country is getting more and more tired of these Orders. I know that from my own experience, because I get letters by every post complaining about one Order or another. It is realised that certain things are necessary, but this Order seems completely unnecessary, and I beg the Parliamentary Secretary to withdraw it.

§ Mr. Noel-Baker
It is very plain to everybody that I have not succeeded in convincing the House. I should like to think I had succeeded in convincing hon. Members that the intentions of the Ministry and my Noble Friend were innocent. It is plain that the House desires to have an Order which shall be more specific and deal in much more concrete terms with the concrete things we want to do. I would like to make a proposal to my hon. Friends who put down this Prayer and 1013 who have spoken so ably upon it. We want to get on with these powers because we are now in a difficulty. Things are happening which are illegal and which are not only very difficult for us to stop, but which it is in the general interests of the country should go on. That is why we ask for the powers. If my hon. Friends see their way to withdraw their Prayer so that we have the powers, then I will undertake that we will consult with my hon. Friends immediately, in order to try to find a narrower and more restricted form of words which would meet their views.

§ Mr. Pickthorn (Cambridge University)
The Parliamentary Secretary does himself less than justice, at any rate as far as I am concerned, when he speaks of his failure to convince, because he has fully convinced me. I came into the House one of his supporters. I am as anxious as anyone that Orders in Council in general should be challenged. I, as much as anyone, think that whenever the House—or anyone in the House—suspects it sees a Minister up a tree, it ought to start barking up that tree, but on this occasion I thought the House was barking up a non-existent tree which would hardly suffice even for the hanging of a junior Minister. But after the explanations we have heard from the Parliamentary Secretary, I am bound to say it seems to me that the House cannot decently part with this Order any longer, because it got worse and worse and worse as it went along. I speak not as a lawyer—neither is the Parliamentary Secretary, and I have not the advantage of the assistance of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney-General—but I had supposed that, for instance, when the Order speaks of removing or modifying or limiting prohibitions it was, as indeed the ancient Common Law in one view did, granting an enlarging but not a restricting power. But the Parliamentary Secretary, when he explained this—and I suppose he had the best legal advice—told us he could do all sorts of restricting things under this power. If that legal advice has been right, I think this Order is much more objectionable than on the face of it it has appeared. Secondly, the Parliamentary Secretary told us that the object of the Order is to deal with three specific things, but it was for administrative convenience that he should so define it that it included those three 1014 things and a great many other things also. The whole business of the House is to see that administrative convenience does not control policy and legislation. We are not here for anything else. The convenience of the hon. Gentleman and of Ministers is nothing to us except that he has this terrific engine against us in debate during war-time, that, if we used our powers so as to increase administrative inconvenience to a point which interfered with the waging of the war, we should be not only defeated but damned. We are all aware of that, but the argument has been over-strained to the point where it can be borne no longer.
The hon. Gentleman's final argument was to say, "We are now in difficulties, and we are doing things which are administratively convenient but illegal, and we wish to legalise them in this way." That seems a most condemnatory defence. Nothing could be worse. That sort of argument might rightly be used in the first weeks of the war, but we are now in the fourth year of the war, and Ministers ought to have found ways of dealing with things of this sort. For years I and others from time to time have said that Orders ought to have the positive and not negative machinery, but that is always resisted by Ministers.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
We are not discussing the general policy of Orders.

§ Mr. Pickthorn
I apologise if I am out of Order. I am not trying to discuss the general policy of Orders. I am trying to show that the Ministerial defence on the general question puts them under the necessity to do things in time, with notice sufficient for Members to understand what the thing is about before they come here, and not be left to the very chequered kind of light that we have had from the Front Bench to-day.

Hon, Members
Divide.

§ Flight-Lieutenant Challen (Hampstead)
The Minister quoted the powers contained in the main Act and made it clear that a great number of the Orders that he might produce could be produced under those powers. What he seeks to do is to produce these Orders without the obligation of laying them on the Table of the House. I cannot understand why such Orders could not be laid upon the Table, and I cannot see that any administrative difficulty arises.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
The hon. and gallant Member is not referring to this particular Order but to other Orders.

§ Flight-Lieutenant Challen
I apologise, but I was concerning myself with the object as stated by the Minister, namely, that he wishes to produce a number of Orders. Those Orders will have to be precisely made out. They will have to be issued in the same way as any Order is issued as an Order in Council. All that he is seeking to do is to produce the Orders without laying them on the Table.

§ Mr. Levy
May I suggest—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
The hon. Member has spoken once and cannot speak again.

§ Mr. Levy
I have had a consultation with my hon. Friends, and I was going to make a suggestion.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
The hon. Member has the right of reply, of course.

§ Mr. Levy
I think it would save the time of the House if I were allowed to make my suggestion now. If the Minister will withdraw the Order and bring in another, specified as we have suggested, the whole thing will be finished. He can bring in the Order in Council with the greatest possible speed, and if the House is satisfied that it will do something to help the prosecution of the war, it will pass it with acclamation.

Hon. Members
Withdraw.

§ Mr. Ivor Thomas. (Keighley)
I hope the Minister will not agree to this advice. It is obvious to me that no one has been talking about this Order at all, but that there is a conspiracy against the Minister. [Interruption.]

Several Hon. Members
rose—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
Hon. Members must realise that when the occupant of the Chair is standing they themselves must be seated.

§ Sir Henry Morris-Jones (Denbigh)
On a point of Order. I want to draw your attention to a remark made by my hon. Friend that this was a conspiracy on the part of certain Members against a Minister of the Crown.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
That is not a point of Order. The hon. Member may 1016 state his case as he pleases. It would never do if the Chair took to editing Members' speeches.

§ Mr. Holdsworth
As the hon. Member said that there was a conspiracy against the Minister, may I say that I never had a word with any Member before I spoke? I spoke about the Order according to its merits, and I suggest that it is not Parliamentary to say that there is a conspiracy among Members against the Minister.

§ Mr. James Griffiths (Llanelly)
Further to that point of Order. Have there not been indications of this conspiracy in what has been stated in the Press?

§ Mr. Thomas
The hon. Member for Denbigh (Sir H. Morris-Jones) is a lawyer. [MEMBERS: "No, a doctor."] Then he has no excuse for his intervention, because I was not using the word "conspiracy" in the legal sense but in the normal sense in which we use the word outside legal circles. Undoubtedly there has been concerted action amongst Members of this House on every possible occasion to oppose Orders in Council.

§ Mr. A. Bevan
And the Labour Party have taken part in them on many occasions.

§ Mr. Thomas
That may be so, and I can hold my own opinion on that question. But it is perfectly obvious that this Order is not being considered on its merits. This is part of a general attack. If I wanted evidence of it, we have had it recently in the consultations that have been going on. I adhere to my view that this is a concerted action against the Minister, and I trust that he will stick to his Order and call the bluff of his opponents.

§ Commander Agnew (Camborne)
I must confess that I find the Minister's reasons for requiring this Order and asking for the withdrawal of the Prayer as quite unsatisfactory. One of his main reasons was the need for economy in petrol and rubber. I have been away for some time, and certainly was away at the time of the fall of Singapore, about a year ago. Surely we are not to believe that the Minister has taken all that time to realise that it is necessary to conserve our supplies of petrol and rubber. He suddenly comes here, a year afterwards, 1017 to ask us to give him an Order which he says is going to do this. Surely there must be some wholly different object behind his action. The Minister also said that if the war were suddenly to come to an end he and his officials would, unless they had this Order, find themselves in an embarrassing position, because they would have no power left in order to open up all the beautiful highways and other places that have been closed for military and other reasons during the war. Such reasons, put to the House of Commons after we have been at war for nearly four years, are almost an insult. I do not take umbrage myself, but I feel that it is beyond the intelligence of any of us to be asked to agree to an Order for reasons such as those. What the Minister ought to do is to say that he will withdraw the Order. I am certain there will be no opposition if he withdraws the Order and lays another one, calling it, if he likes, the "Petrol and Rubber Emergency Conservation Order." I am sure the House would agree to that, probably without a Debate, if the reasons were clearly set forth in an explanatory memorandum. I find myself quite unconvinced by any proposals short of a clean withdrawal of the Order. If that were done, my hon. Friends who have promoted this Prayer would probably see their way to withdraw it.

§ Captain C. S. Taylor (Eastbourne)
I understand—[HON. MEMBERS: "Divide!"]—that while the hon. and gallant Member for Camborne (Commander Agnew) was speaking conversations have taken place, and if I sit down now perhaps we may hear that an agreement has been reached.

§ Mr. Noel-Baker
I hope so.

§ Captain Taylor
Is the hon. Gentleman going to make a statement?

§ Mr. Noel-Baker
I was going to make a proposal to the House, but the actual legal position is a little complicated and I have been trying to make quite sure that I have got it right. The Order in Council has been approved by the Privy Council and therefore I cannot, of my own volition, withdraw it. I can undertake to replace it with a new Order. I hoped that my previous offer was a reasonable one, but it does not satisfy the House, and therefore I want to make one which I hope will 1018 satisfy the House, because the things we want to do are things of which every hon. Member approves. There has not been one hon. Member who has disapproved of any of the things we really want to do. I would suggest to my hon. Friends the Members for Elland (Mr. Levy) and Swindon (Mr. Wakefield) and their colleagues that their Prayer should be withdrawn and that we should undertake to withdraw the Order in Council as soon as we can, and we would consult with them and prepare a new Order and bring that in to replace the present Order.

§ Sir H. Williams
The hon. Member has just pointed out that he has no power to withdraw the Order. The House could help him. He can consent to its annulment and that is what I suggest he should do.

§ Mr. McKinlay (Dumbartonshire)
I have not much Parliamentary experience but I do not think I have ever witnessed anything to better the situation which has now been created in this House. The Minister offers to the opposition—[HON. MEMBERS: "What opposition?"] I am looking for a word to fit the occasion, but I cannot find one. Let me substitute the word "obstruction." For a Minister to suggest that he is prepared, conditionally, upon the opposition being withdrawn, not to come back to consult the House but to consult the interests who have led the opposition, is absurd and cannot be tolerated.

§ Mr. Noel-Baker
I will consult any hon. Member who takes an interest in this subject. And of course we shall come back to the House, and if the Order does not satisfy any hon. Member he can put down a Prayer within 28 days and then we can repeat the Debate.

§ Mr. McKinlay
The obvious thing to do is to pass the Order, and if the Government come to the conclusion that the powers they are asking for are powers they ought not to have—[Laughter.] I must say that some people are moved to hilarity very easily. I am suggesting, and I think the majority of hon. Members on this side of the House are going to insist, that the Order go through or that it be defeated, and if it goes through, it is for the Minister to revise the Order as and when it suits the Ministry to do it. [HON. MEMBERS: "Fascism."] Hundreds of Orders have gone through this 1019 House which hon. Members on this side of the House have detested.

§ Mr. A. Bevan
Then why did you not fight them? Because you have not got the guts to do it.

§ Mr. McKinlay
I do not want to be offensive. I can be offensive if I want to be. In the case of some people, as a matter of fact, their guts do not even stop in their stomach.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I must ask the hon. Member to discuss the Order.

§ Mr. McKinlay
I ask the Minister not to give way, and so far as the majority on this side of the House are concerned, who from time to time are prepared to accept responsibility for something, they will support him, he will give his Order, and if the Order must necessarily be revised, then it is for the Government to do it.

§ Mr. Burke (Burnley)
We are all in a little difficulty about this Order, and as the Parliamentary Secretary has said that he was not quite clear about it, might I suggest that the Attorney-General gives the House his opinion on the matter?

§ The Attorney-General (Sir Donald Somervell)
I think the position is quite clear, and I think my hon. Friends understand it. The Order in Council has been passed. What my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary has indicated is that the Order will be withdrawn and replaced by another Order more narrowly drawn, after consultation with anyone who wishes to discuss it with him, including my hon. Friends. That, I think, is the proposal.

§ Major Petherick (Penryn and Falmouth)
On a point of Order: May I ask for guidance? We seem to have got into rather a peculiar position. The Parliamentary Secretary, on behalf of the Government, has offered in effect to use his influence in order to get this Order withdrawn. My hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams) has made a suggestion that this Prayer should, in fact, go through and that the Government should consent to the annulment of the Order. May I ask if it would not possibly be to the convenience of the House for the Motion to be put from the Chair? If the Government consented not to challenge 1020 the Motion, the Prayer would go through and the Order would be annulled.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
If I put the Question and this Motion is accepted, then the Order is annulled.

§ Mr. A. Bevan
On a matter of procedure, the position in which the House is now placed is this. A Prayer is before the House; there is an Order which has been made by the Privy Council. If the Prayer is withdrawn, the Government have already given an assurance that the Privy Council will withdraw the Order. In my opinion, after some experience of this method, the Opposition will do well to be satisfied with that and accept it. It is a most reasonable offer, and they would have achieved their purpose.

§ The Attorney-General
To get the terminology right, the Privy Council will replace this by another Order, and the replacing Order will annul this one.

§ Mr. Evelyn Walkden (Doncaster)
I hope that this is the last occasion on which we shall see the Government somersaulting to factions in this House. I state my feelings as a junior Member; at least I have not been here very long. I hate Hitler and all he stands for, and I hate bureaucratic government as well, but in local government one thing I have always detested is factions trying to dictate—[Interruption]—I did think that we still retained freedom of speech, and I believe—[Interruption]—that we have had to-day on the part of the Minister a demonstration of how far the Government are prepared to go to meet factions and to allow the House to be governed by factions when he tells us that whatever we think about the Order and its effect, however some of us may dislike it, he is prepared to take back the Order, or to withdraw it altogether, and give us another later on that is more narrowly drawn. Quite frankly, we do not know the meaning of "consultation," but we do know what is behind this kind of agitation, or, if I may use the term, intrigue. I and others are prepared to back the Government if they will stand their ground on this issue, and we will risk the consequences. We in the industrial North have had to sacrifice far more than we like to confess in the matter of transport, and we say to the Minister, "Take courage, stand your ground, and we will support you."

§ Sir John Wardlaw-Milne (Kidderminster)
May I suggest to the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. E. Walkden) and to other Members that there is nothing extraordinary about the procedure which the House has followed? It is only right and proper that the Government should meet Members in this way if they find that Members are dissatisfied. But I suggest that, in view of the pledge that has been given, the Prayer might be withdrawn, on the understanding that this Order will be replaced by a fresh Order, detailing what the Government want, and that there will be no delay.

§ Mr. Ammon (Camberwell, North)
Might I reinforce the appeal of my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne), by saying to those who have moved the Prayer, "You have gained all you wanted, and, in view of the specific promises you have got from the Minister, I think we might agree to withdraw the Prayer"?

§ Mr. Levy
In view of what the Minister has said, I have the consent of the 1022 seconder to say that we will ask leave to withdraw the Prayer, on the conditions set out by the Parliamentary Secretary and by the Attorney-General. I hope that all Members will be satisfied, and that in future we shall get something specific instead of this ambiguity.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
Is it your pleasure that the Motion be withdrawn?
Some HON. MEMBERS: No; no.