CLAUSE 1.—(Continuation of 4 & 5 Geo. 6 c. 8.)

HC Deb 18 February 1944 vol 397 cc509-62

Mr. Lewis (Colchester)

I beg to move, in page 1, line 8, to leave out "four years," and to insert "three years and six months."

The Committee will see that the effect of the Amendment, if accepted, would be to limit the continuance of this legislation to a further six months, instead of twelve months, as proposed in the Bill. My reason for making the suggestion is that I feel that six months would give adequate time to the Government to wind up the existing arrangements under this legislation. The Attorney-General showed very clearly, by the perfunctory nature of his speech in moving the Second Reading of this Bill, that, in his view, this proceeding is merely an annual formality. Should the occasion arise for any such Bill in future I hope no other Minister will make the same mistake. Some of us have been opposed to this legislation from the start. I do not think we have had any cause to regret that opposition. Others, who were not of our way of thinking at first, have become increasingly anxious as this legislation has been extended, so much so that I do not think it is any exaggeration to say to-day that a considerable body of opinion in this House is very uneasy at the continuance of these arrangements.

There is one point to which I wish to draw the particular attention of the Committee, because it seems to me, in itself, sufficient to justify this Amendment. Hon. Members will remember that, when the first Bill dealing with this matter was down for Second Reading, there was a good deal of doubt in some quarters whether the Bill would be accepted, and the Prime Minister, in order to get support for the Bill, offered to initiate a Select Committee to examine the whole question of offices of profit under the Crown. In that Debate, hon. Members said that that offer had persuaded them to vote for the Bill. The Committee was appointed and reported, and there is one recommendation which it made to which I wish to draw attention. It is suggested that, in future, the Prime Minister's certificate, in each case, should state that the Member's retention of his Membership in this House was required in the public interest. That suggestion has never been adopted by the Government. It has never been adopted, I think, for the very good reason that, in very many of these cases, no one could state that the retention by the Member of his Membership in this House was required in the public interest.

Let me take one example—the case of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Rossendale (Sir R. Cross), a very charming Member of this House, as older hon. Members will remember. How can it be suggested that it is in the public interest that the right hon. Gentleman, if he remains in Australia year after year, should claim to be a Member of this House, never coming here and taking no part in our proceedings? How can it be argued that that is in the public interest? I ask the Leader of the House. I think it is a fair question, and I should be greatly obliged if he would answer it. What do the Government propose should happen to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Rossendale if a General Election takes place? Will he have to come to fight an election? If he does not, I venture to suggest that the electors in Rossendale will soon show whether they think it is in the public interest that he should continue as their Member, and, if he does come home all the way from Australia, and is given ample time to find his way about his constituency and to fight this election, can it be argued that his work in Australia was so important? I ask the Leader of the House to tell us what the Government propose should happen to the right hon. Gentleman in the event of a General Election.

I am one of those who have regarded the procedure under these Bills as being objectionable from the start, and I suggest that the passage of time has made the procedure not less, but more, objectionable, for two reasons. First, the legislative work of this House is increasing. We may not always be conscious of it, but we are actually now, in this Session, beginning to lay the foundations of the post-war world as far as this country is concerned. It is, in my view, of first-rate importance that hon. Members of the House should be available to take part in their work. At the same time, as more work is thrust upon us, the available number of Private Members is decreasing. From time to time, new appointments are made, either of Ministers or Secretaries, or in some other form, which slowly, gradually and steadily diminish the available supply of private Members. On that subject, I want, in conclusion, to say this. I do not know what other hon. Members of the Committee may say about it, but I feel very strongly that the backbone of our Parliamentary system and of this House consists of those private Members of the House who come here to represent their constituencies, without seeking or desiring office for themselves. I think that, if the number of those Members is, through unwise legislation, seriously depleted, it will do harm to this House that nothing can put right, and I move this Amendment in the interests, and on behalf of, such private Members.

The Deputy-Chairman

Perhaps I might explain to the Committee that this Amendment and the next Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Lewis)—in line 14, to leave out "four years," and insert "three years and six months"—obviously go together, and the Amendment in the name of the hon. and gallant Member for Penryn and Falmouth (Major Petherick)—in line 14, to leave out "four," and insert "three and a half"—is practically on the same lines. With the assent of the Committee, the three Amendments can be discussed together. The speech of the hon. Member for Colchester seems to have made the discussion fairly wide. I did not interrupt him because I think that probably this course will facilitate the discussion on the Amendment and limit the discussion on the Clause. I hope that this is agreeable to the Committee.

Major Petherick (Penryn and Falmouth)

I wish to support the Amendment which has been moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Lewis). There was only one thing with which I did not agree in the course of his speech. The Attorney-General on the Second Reading of the Bill said, I think, he had reason to believe, in view of the lack of discussion last year, that the House would agree to this Bill. A Member of the Government is in the unhappy position that if he speaks for a long time, it is said that he is boring the House, and that if he speaks for too short a time, it is said he is being discourteous to the House. I do not think that any such allegation can be made against the right hon. and learned Gentleman, who always treats the House with great courtesy and fairness. With that exception, I warmly endorse everything that my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester has said.

A good many points were raised in the Debate on the Second Reading which were rather remotely relevant to the Bill. It gave my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, an opportunity, in his reply, to discuss a number of points in order to avoid the main issue. The main difficulty which arises out of this Bill is a purely constitutional one and is rather confined in scope to the cases of those hon. Members who are serving abroad, and particularly serving for long periods abroad. The provisions with regard to the rest of the persons covered by the Bill do not give rise to a very serious or dangerous position at all. Therefore, we are submitting these Amendments in order to make the period of the operation of the Measure shorter. We believe that the shorter period will give ample time for hon. Members concerned to make up their minds whether they wish to continue as High Commissioners or in whatever post they may be filling, or whether they prefer to return to the House of Commons and carry out their functions as Members of this House.

There is one point which has been made since the Second Reading Debate on the position of Ministers of State. It is pointed out that Ministers of State are in a somewhat different position from that of High Commissioners because they are Members of His Majesty's Government abroad. It would be out of Order if I were to discuss the general merits of floating right honourables. I think Ministers of State and High Commissioners are in practically the same position. Neither can be challenged in the House. A Minister of State cannot, as he may be many thousands of miles away, answer in either House for anything that he may do in the course of his operations. It is true that any hon. Member can answer for him, but that is not quite the same. That is rather a strong point. The two categories of these hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who have been serving abroad for long periods are virtually the same.

The final point I would make is that of the temptation which an Act of this nature may present to a Government or to a Prime Minister—and, of course, we except the present Government and the present Prime Minister—in relation to appointments. The temptation must be obvious. Supposing that, for the third or fourth time we pass this Measure, it will be taken as a precedent for the future. It may well be, supposing we find ourselves in similar circumstances in some years' time, perhaps not even in war, that this precedent will be pointed to, of allowing Members of the House of Commons to go abroad for long periods of time. What is the temptation? The temptation is that when a Member of the Cabinet has perhaps done rather a bad job and the Government do not want to throw him out altogether, for the Prime Minister of the day to say, "What are we to do with poor old Willie?". Somebody replies "Oh, send him to Greenland." "Greenland, where is that?" "I do not know but I think it sounds very suitable for poor old Willie," and off poor old Willie goes.

Mr. Thorne (Plaistow)

Did the hon. and gallant Member say "Winnie"?

Major Petherick

There is another case with which it may be still more difficult to deal. A right hon. Gentleman, for some reason or other, is not wanted in the Cabinet. They want to get rid of him, but he may be of a somewhat violent and forceful nature, and, if he is thrown out, he may hover round the scrum, biting the forwards in the calves of their legs. He is a person whom they might want to send to a place where his activities would be somewhat circumscribed. I have put it in that light-hearted fashion in order to prove the constitutional dangers of what may happen in the future. In winding up the Debate on the Second Reading my right hon. Friend had a fairly easy task. So many different points, which had not always a close relation to the Bill, were raised that he was able to indulge in skating over thin ice, pausing now and again to indulge in an unsteady pirouette in spite of the dark and lurking waters of controversy which lay beneath him. It was an ingenious performance but, unfortunately, he avoided the main point. But he gave this assurance to the House, which I will read to the Committee. He said: I ask hon. Member to let us have this Bill. I repeat my undertaking that, if they will, before we come to the House again—this is exactly why we are doing it in this way instead of having special arrangements made—we will examine the situation bearing in mind the sentiments of the House."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th February, 1944; col. 2104, Vol. 396.] Examine the situation. A pledge, an undertaking, was given but it did not lead us very much further. We want a far more positive assurance than that, namely, a recognition that this Measure contains constitutional dangers. We hope that it will be recognised that these perils exist, and we also hope to-day, as a result of the moving of this Amendment on the Committee Stage, to obtain an assurance that this whole system of legislation—there will have been three or four Acts by the time it is finished—will not only be examined, but examined with a view to its destruction, and that we shall not once again, a year from now, be asked to pass a similar Bill.

Mr. Shinwell (Seaham)

There is not the least doubt that the feeling of hon. Members is against the Government on this Bill. It is perfectly true that on the Second Reading the Government obtained a majority, but that does not mean the House is with the Government. Certain factors in the Debate may have coloured the decision but, be that as it may, although the case for this Amendment was ably stated by a few hon. Members opposite, it was, in fact, conceded by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary in his speech last week. What did he say? He admitted that the reason for granting certificates to certain right hon. Gentlemen now abroad, was the ground of emergency. What is the emergency which makes it necessary to retain the services of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Rossendale (Sir R. Cross) as High Commissioner for Australia? Clearly, there is no emergency in that connection. On the other hand, it might be said that certain right hon. Gentlemen, now abroad, are indispensable in their positions. I could understand that, and no doubt other hon. Members could, if they possessed technical qualifications and had been appointed to posts of a technical kind. But surely it is the easiest thing in the world to find a substitute for the right hon. Gentleman the member for Rossendale in his present post? Therefore it seems to me that the case for the Government rests on very slender material indeed.

My hon. Friend posed a very important question to the Leader of the House which certainly deserves a reply. He said, "Let us assume there will be a General Election." There have been rumours of a General Election to take place at the back end of this year, and it may come sooner. Certain political changes may force a General Election. It is difficult to say. But assume that a General Election comes along and the right hon. Gentleman remains at his post in Australia. Do the Government propose to provide a substitute for him at the Election? If not, what will the Government do? The Government have provided the certificate to enable the right hon. Gentleman to remain in Australia. Are they going to provide another certificate which will be furnished to the electorate in Rossendale at the General Election excusing the absence of the right hon. Gentleman?

Colonel Sir A. Lambert Ward (Kingston-upon-Hull, North West)

That is for the electorate to decide.

Mr. Shinwell

I am coming to that precise point. Of course it is a matter for the electorate to decide, but what would the Government do in those circumstances? They would have to support the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Rossendale, whom they had sent out of the country, and they would have to make an appeal to the electors to support him. Otherwise, they are left high and dry. If we reach that stage, we are perilously near a coupon Election, where we have special support given for a particular candidate by the Government, and not by a party. It would be interesting to know whether, in those circumstances, the leaders of all parties could send a letter to the electors in Rossendale, asking them to support the absentee Member. We ought to get the views of the Government on this matter. There is a great deal to be said for sending some people out of the country—I am not mentioning any names but we all have our views about that. There is a great deal of voluntary absenteeism from this House—far too much—and it applies all round. One of these days, we might very well inquire into the reasons for that absenteeism.

Wing Commander Grant-Ferris (St. Pancras, North)

What about serving Members?

Mr. Shinwell

I am not speaking of serving Members. I excuse any Member who is occupying a position of a Service or technical character. That is quite a different position. I am not dealing with people who have technical qualification at all. Surely the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Rossendale does not possess any special technical qualification? Of course he does not. It was probably their absence which induced the Government to send him to Australia. If he had possessed such qualifications, then he would have remained here in this House, where, I think, he was Minister of Shipping, or something of that sort. I want to deal with the question of absenteeism generally. There are certain Members who are naturally excused absence from the Debates in the House, but there are hon. Members who have no excuse whatever for being absent, and something ought to be done about it. But when we come to compulsory absenteeism, and that is what we are dealing with now, where the Government deliberately and, one might say, with malice aforethought, send certain hon. Members out of the country, that is a horse of another colour.

My final point is this. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House with his usual amiability—and no-one can deny that he is an excellent Leader of the House—and anxiety to accommodate himself to the wishes of hon. Members seemed to indicate that a case had been put by hon. Members, so strong that he was prepared to agree that the matter should be reviewed at the end of 12 months. He would not have agreed to that, if no case had been presented but, in fact, a strong case has been presented. He also agreed to it, no doubt, because the Government wanted time to consider the matter and make their arrangements. Will any hon. Member say that arrangements cannot be made for the return of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Rossendale, and certain other right hon. Gentlemen, within six months? I guarantee to find substitutes in the course of a fortnight, and arrangements could be made for their return in the course of a few weeks even by ship. Therefore if the Government accept the Amendment and if they wish to satisfy the feelings of hon. Members, they will bring back into our deliberations, those right hon. Gentlemen who are, no doubt, straining at the leash and anxious to return.

Mr. Bowles (Nuneaton)

One has comeback already.

Mr. Shinwell

That is a different story. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Harold Macmillan)—I say it, although he is not of this party—has been doing excellent work, and in a situation of that kind no-one would object. But there are some who are of no value at all. That is my feeling about the matter.

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Eden)

On a point of Order. It is not clear what my hon. Friend wants. He said he has no objection to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Stockton-on-Tees, but he has an objection to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Rossendale. How does he propose to distinguish?

Mr. Shinwell

I am just coming to that. Suppose my right hon. Friend accepts this Amendment. Suppose these gentlemen have to be recalled at the end of six months and it is then discovered that certain of them ought to be retained in the service of the Crown in other parts of the world because they have done a good job and it is not easy to find substitutes. In that case, I am quite sure the House would be generous and would be only too willing to agree to special exceptions being made. But when it is a matter of dealing with a whole bloc of Members, who are allowed to leave the country, absent themselves from the deliberations of this House and from their constituencies—which are virtually disfranchised then that seems to me to be a monstrous position. I hope the Amendment will be accepted.

Sir Stanley Reed (Aylesbury)

I would like in a few sentences to support the Amendment which has been moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Lewis). In doing so, I hope that the Leader of the House and the Attorney-General will not think that my support of this Amendment springs from any fractious spirit. I always admire, and perhaps envy, the Members of this House who profess to speak for the overwhelming majority of this Assembly. I can speak only for myself but, on this occasion, I do not think that I speak for myself alone, when I say that I will refuse nothing to the Government which they think essential for the prosecution of the war. The opposition to the substantial continuance of this Bill arises from a growing spirit of uneasiness which has pervaded the whole Chamber at the growth of government by regulation and, in this case, by certification. A substantial number of Members of this House are quite resolute in their determination that this procedure shall not be continued beyond the absolute necessities of the war.

I would ask my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to look very carefully at the wording of this Bill. These certificates are issued in the public interest, for purposes connected with the prosecution of the war, and I would repeat my invitation to the Attorney-General to go through the list which is in HANSARD to-day, to apply that test to every one of those right hon. and learned Members to whom certificates have been given and then to ask whether the purpose of that Act has been absolutely and truly fulfilled in the certificates which have been issued, I have refreshed my memory of the early Debate by re-reading HANSARD and it seems to me that the Attorney General's bogy-man is the common informer. Behind much of the purpose in bringing forward this Bill was fear of the activities of that objectionable and loathsome person. Now here is a simple way of dealing with this dreadful individual without making the breach which this Bill makes with one of the most wholesome traditions of this House. If the common informer is abolished, which is a simple matter, the whole purpose behind this Bill and the main arguments adduced in bringing it forward, and the invitation to this House to abandon one of its most treasured principles, would fall to the ground.

Therefore, I ask my right hon. Friend to give careful attention to this Amendment, and not to force those who are most anxious to support the Government in every measure for the prosecution of the war, into a course which might be interpreted into a lack of confidence. There is no lack of confidence but there is a firm determination that this procedure by regulation and certification shall be rigidly circumscribed and shall not go beyond the absolute and paramount necessities of the prosecution of the war. I submit that several of these appointments cannot possibly be brought within that category.

Mr. Denman (Leeds, Central)

As one who does not share, in the least, the uneasiness of my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Sir S. Reed) at the threat of the tyrannical use of governmental powers, or even the excessive use of governmental powers, I want to express the hope that the Government will reject this Amendment and will rely on the good sense of the majority of this House, which is not frequently vocal on these subjects. Those who were present on the occasion find it impossible to forget the time when this House, quite deliberately, surrendered the persons and property of the whole nation into the hands of the Government for their use in the proper prosecution of the war. We deliberately decided that the Government needed, in war-time, exceptional powers and free facilities for their use. Now, Members of this House are seeking to relieve themselves of the obligations towards the Government which they have so freely imposed on people outside. My impression is that people outside are getting a little tired of the pretensions of this House in that matter. We are all deeply conscious of our rights and responsibilities; we have a duty to maintain what freedom is possible and legitimate in war-time, both within this House and outside; we have the obligation and the duty of seeing that the Government do not exceed those powers and of bringing the Government to book whenever, in a particular instance, those powers have been wrongly used. Is anybody asserting that the Act we have all used for one year has been wrongly used?

Mr. Stokes (Ipswich)

Yes, we all are.

Mr. Denman

Then the hon. Member must specify the circumstances and the person, and must condemn the Government in respect of that individual.

Sir S. Reed

Will my hon. Friend recall the words of the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton)—that it is the House of Commons way to deal with these matters not by personal and individual attacks but on questions of principle?

Mr. Denman

We are, quite deliberately, in this Bill, giving the Government power to certify, in respect of certain Members of this House, that they are required for public service elsewhere than in this House. We are giving the Government that power. [An HON. MEMBER: "For one year."] Yes, we are renewing it for one year and we can only deny that power if, in specific cases, we feel that that power has been wrongly used. I suppose that no organisation has a better right to criticise the Government's use of its slender Parliamentary man-power than the National Labour organisation—

Mr. Shinwell

What is that?

Mr. Denman

We have not done so. We must, in the circumstances of the day, leave the Government to form their own judgment and take their own action in respect of individuals. One hon. Member who supported the Amendment observed that the Government might find a person hovering around the scrum with sinister intent and might certify that person, in order to get him off the field. If a man is endangering the play of his team by biting the legs of the forwards, then, surely the best thing the Government can do is to certify that his services are required elsewhere.

Major Petherick

Does the hon. Member think it really desirable, if a person is to be got rid of because he is a nuisance and they do not want him about the place, that a high office under the Crown should be used to get him conveniently out of the way?

Mr. Denman

I think the hon. and gallant Gentleman is reading more into my comment than is necessary. It may be quite reasonable to say of a person that he is undesirable behind the scrum and is exceedingly desirable, off the field, in some other capacity. I hope the Government will stick quite firmly to its policy. It is a mistake for the House of Commons to try to claim exemption unnecessarily from obligations that it puts upon the rest of the people. It does us no good and it tends to make people outside feel that we are not as aware as we were a few years ago of the overwhelming needs of the war situation.

Mr. Evelyn Walkden (Doncaster)

I do not share the views expressed by the hon. Member. When he says the electorate are getting a little tired of something, and follows it up by arguing about what they are getting tired of, I am sure that he cannot be in touch with the constituencies directly affected by these certificates. I am not very interested in any particular Tory seat or Tory Member of Parliament, I think the House could manage without quite a lot of them. But I know of no reason why we should use this method to force the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Rossendale (Sir R. Cross) into accepting the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds. When we argue that the electors are getting tired, let us examine the effects of the certificate. It is a kind of "excuse me" certificate. It excuses the recipient from fulfilling his function as a Member of Parliament. If it is necessary in the interest of the prosecution of the war or for strategic or military reasons, the Committee will wholeheartedly endorse the action of the Government in asking any Member to fulfil a particular function for these reasons, but where it is a kind of ornamental job, can we really feel happy? Can the electors of Rossendale really feel content with the action of the Government because the Member for Rossendale has been forced into a false position? At first, I imagine, the right hon. Gentleman thought he was going to Australia for a matter of months. Then it went on to a year, now it is at least three years and it is being extended to four. We suggest that it should be three and a half. We only do so to give the Government time to look into each individual case. In six months it is quite likely that they will find ways and means of bringing back several of these Members so that they will have an opportunity, between now and the next Election, of explaining what they have been doing and why they should have been excused from doing their duty.

I believe myself that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Rossendale is a sincere person and would be able to convince the electors that he has been doing a useful job for the Government. But up to now I do not know whether his departure to Australia was necessary at that time. I do not know of any particular reason why he should have gone there, and I do not know of any particular reason why he should stay there for so long. For this one occasion at least, I am defending Toryism and a Tory Member of Parliament; I am trying to find ways and means of winning back the confidence of the people of Rossendale, which has been frittered away by the action of the Government. I think the Government should accept the Amendment and during the next six months give Members who are serving the nation abroad an opportunity of being restored to their own workshop here. If they were returned to Parliament to represent the people, this is their workshop. If they can do a better job somewhere else, let them do it, but they ought to be here fulfilling, their function, and I believe the electors wish that too, despite the arguments of the hon. Member for Central Leeds (Mr. Denman).

Mr. Pickthorn (Cambridge University)

I hope I shall not be out of Order, but I gather that this is rather a general Debate and I can promise the Committee that I will not intervene a second time. I think there are one or two points of which it would be well to remind the Committee. The circumstances in which the Bill was passed have not yet been recalled to their memory. There was opposition to the Bill, in the form of a reasoned Amendment—the nearest thing to the old-fashioned pre-war opposition that there had been since the war, to a Government Bill. The person mainly responsible was the Noble Lord who then represented Burton-on-Trent, and I was by way of being his adjutant. We did not lobby, or try to beat up numbers, but there was a deliberate, blunt, direct opposition to the Bill. In recommending the Bill to us, in spite of that kind of opposition, the Attorney-General promised that there should be an inquiry by a Select Committee to consider the principle in permanent legislation. He was asked, Why not in war-time? He was not able to agree to that but he said it would come up again in a year. That makes clearer than any recital of numbers, how the thing was considered to be something for a year, possibly to be revived for a second year but not to be regarded as a normality. I think the Government ought to consider whether we have not got into a sort of state of normality now, on this matter, and whether we can go on putting this off until some post-war period.

I was rebuked by the Prime Minister on the Second Reading, for saying that the main function of the House was, so to speak, to make a market for the Prime Minister's stock. My head is still bloody, no doubt, but still unbowed. I think that that is the main function of the House, and that is a stronger point than the constituency point. The House must judge the Prime Minister by his promotions and his demotions—by those whom he brings into the Cabinet and those whom he puts out. This Act makes it impossible to be sure which are promotions and which demotions. We cannot always be quite certain. This language may appear sordid to those who are concerned wholly with affairs of State, but I think it is plain and it is fair. The House ought not to allow this system to continue for very much longer. I really rose mainly to say this, which may be considered pusillanimous by my more temerarious friends, that it would be a little hard on the Government if we were to vote them down to-day; but I think they ought to understand that they cannot any longer repeat the line which the Attorney-General took three years ago and that they cannot any longer say that it will always be a vote of confidence, because if they do, next year or the year after they will be beaten. They must clearly understand that no more notice is to be required from us. We have said more than once that we do not like this thing, and unless there is a serious fundamental recasting of the Measure, the next time this Bill comes up, it will be rejected or amended in ways disagreeable to His Majesty's Government.

Mr. Bowles (Nuneaton)

Last week the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn) said that he would have voted against this Bill if he had given the Government notice of his intention to do so. He has now given a year's notice to prepare the Government for that great event—

Mr. Pickthorn

I have beaten the Government, and that is more than the hon. Member has done.

Mr. Bowles

The hon. Member is concerned whether some of these appointments are promotions or demotions. I think that probably to receive a certificate under this Bill from the Prime Minister is equivalent to receiving a pass degree in Cambridge University, which the late Mr. G. K. Chesterton called a polite form of expulsion. The Foreign Secretary, when he said last week that the Government would consider this matter, indicated some carelessness on the part of the Government for not having given it a good deal of consideration between the passing of the Bill last year and this occasion. The Committee is anxious about the position of a large number of people in the country who are also anxious about the Debate we had last week. There is a feeling among a large number of people that the House of Commons is rather getting into the hands of the Government Whip. In the old days, when a Minister left the Government or got the sack, he occupied a place on the third row below the Gangway and made a speech either explaining why he resigned, or condemning the Government which had sacked him. That practice seems to have gone altogether. There have been very few sackings from the present Government. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Greenwood) and the hon. Member for Gower (Mr. Grenfell) got the sack, but nobody else has got it since the present Prime Minister has been in office. All the others have been either promoted—or demoted—to the House of Lords, or promoted—or demoted—to another part of the Empire. Resignations seem to be out of order altogether. I hope that the Government will accept the Amendment, because it has been seriously moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Lewis). The hon. Member for Aylesbury (Sir S. Reed) said last week that he would vote against the Government if there were a Division. I am certain there will be a Division, and, as the "Sunday Times" explained last week, it must be a very serious matter if a solid old Tory like the hon. Member, votes against the Government.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke (Dorset, South)

I hope that the Committee will reject the Amendment, and I would like to say something in support of what the hon. Member for Central Leeds (Mr. Denman) has said. The hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell) said that the emergency was passing, but I should have thought that that was far from being the state of affairs. The war is being prosecuted at the same pace as before and there are no signs of any diminution in the emergency. What hon. Members are really objecting to is that some hon. Members have been sent by the Prime Minister to different parts of the world to represent His Majesty's Government. There is no suggestion that we ought to recall to the House at this time, in order to engage in deliberations on post-war reconstruction, those Members who are in the Fighting Services. Therefore, the argument that Members with certificates now abroad are disqualified from engaging in discussions in the House on reconstruction falls to the ground. If it were not so, the Prime Minister's ruling on the subject ought to be rescinded and we should recall from the Fighting Services and from war service in every field all hon. Members who are absent.

Mr. Pickthorn

Does the Noble Lord really see no distinction between combatant service and any other kind of service?

Viscount Hinchingbrooke

I certainly see a distinction, but is it suggested that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for St. George's (Mr. Cooper), or the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Rossendale (Sir R. Cross) are not representing the House of Commons in a noble capacity abroad in an equivalent sense to Members who are in the fighting Services? I cannot understand why it is necessary to take this hothouse line about the House of Commons. Why should it not represent itself in various fields of Government and administration all over the world? Let us examine the constituency argument. It is said that the constituents of Rossendale object to the right hon. Gentleman being in Australia. I say there is no evidence that they do object. If that kind of argument is to be used, evidence must be produced that constituents do object to their Members being away from the House of Commons and representing the Government abroad.

Mr. Driberg (Maldon)

May I bring the Noble Lord back to the point of military service? Would he not agree that a large number of Members on military service are not overseas, and are able to attend the House from time to time?

Viscount Hinchingbrooke

Certainly, and there are a great many hon. Members on the list of those who have been granted certificates who are not overseas—far more than hon. Gentlemen seem to think. They are available to attend the House and frequently do so. There are exactly six Members on this list of 19 who are now out of the country. One of them was recently here, and he is paying only a temporary visit to India. He happens to be the Junior Burgess far Cambridge University (Professor Hill), which is perhaps the reason why the Senior Burgess takes such great exception to anybody going abroad. Thirteen or even 14, on this list, if you do not count the Junior Burgess for Cambridge University are available to attend the House.

Mr. Sloan (Ayrshire, South)

I do not think that the Government are having a particularly good day during this Debate and I think the reasons are pretty obvious. What strikes me about the whole business is that nobody ever seems to take into consideration the point of view of the constituents. It is easy for the Prime Minister to issue a certificate, without even the merit of an excuse as good as the one received by a certain Scottish schoolteacher: Dear Miss, The reason why Johnnie was not at school was that his mother had twine, but I promise that it won't occur again. There is no evidence that the issuing of certificates is going to cease. We have had a particular instance in Scotland where all the resources of the Tory party were put at the disposal of the candidate who won Ross and Cromarty. He was returned to the House of Commons by a minority vote. It is a very extensive constituency, and to look after its interests should occupy the whole time of its Member. It is not by any means like a burgh constituency but it requires the constant attention of a Member in the House. The right hon. Gentleman who represents it disappeared from the House of Commons, and Ross and Cromarty is, to all intents and purposes, disfranchised, I wonder how we can justify a position of that kind. There is plenty of absenteeism among Members without—

Mr. Denman

In fairness to my right hon. Friend, I ought to state that before he went out on this work he did consult his constituents, and found them entirely agreeable that he should take on this important public work.

Mr. Sloan

What is the consultation that a Tory Member has with his constituents? He consults with a few leading Tories in the district. [An HON. MEMBER: "He is not a Tory."] I have already stated that he was classified as National Labour, although there is not such a thing to be found in the whole of Ross and Cromarty. As a matter of fact, there is not such a thing to be found in the whole of Scotland.

The Deputy-Chairman

I pointed out at the beginning of the Debate on the Amendment that we could have a wide discussion, but if we are to go into the question of what is a Tory or what is some other form of political party, we shall be going too wide. It would mean an endless Debate.

Mr. Sloan

I agree that it would be difficult to distinguish what is a Tory from what is a National Labour Member. If the Government resist the Amendment, I shall be reluctantly compelled to go into the Lobby against them. Hon. Members can understand the feeling in the country. After the Debate last week, I found that the statements made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. A. Bevan) had received wide publicity and approval, in many of the quarters that I visited. It is beyond my understanding how this Committee can seriously approve of business being conducted in this manner. If I found that I could not fulfil my duties here, I should certainly clear out. The demoting by the Prime Minister of Members of this House does not, I can assure hon. Members, meet with approval outside. I heard an hon. Member below the Gangway say that if a lad was not playing properly in the team, he should be transferred elsewhere. If you do not make a good centre-forward you may get placed behind the goal to act as a net boy, and you are no longer a member of the team. That is exactly the kind of position which has arisen when people have been transferred to appointments under these certificates. I hope that the Government will see their way to accept the Amendment.

Mr. Mander (Wolverhampton, East)

This Measure, when it first came before the House, was undoubtedly very repugnant to it, and the House passed it, with great reluctance, only because of the request of the Prime Minister that we should do so. The House is inclined to grant to him powers that they would not grant to anybody else, because of the immense services he has rendered to the country by his leadership throughout the war. At the same time, however, the House did express the view that they hoped the Measure would be brought to an end as early as possible. A Select Committee was appointed, of which I was a member. I venture to quote two of the recommendations of that Committee, which have some relevance to our discussion. We said: Moreover, Your Committee hope that, at the conclusion of active hostilities, it will be unnecessary to continue the provisions of the Act during the remainder of the emergency period. I hope that my right hon. Friend will bear that in mind, and that it is not intended to carry on the Act, in any form, after the hostilities against Germany have ceased. Later we said this: Much attention has been directed to the appointment of Members of the House to offices or posts involving long residence abroad and consequent enforced absence from the House. In this connection, the House might consider whether the exemption from disqualification should not be limited to some stated period of time, unless extended in any particular case by a similar Order in Council or Resolution of the House. I think that recommendation was wise, but it has not been carried out, and it is worth the consideration of the Government, whether, if they do anything to modify this Measure, something of that kind ought not to be brought into operation.

Speaking last week, my right hon. Friend paid a great tribute to the two High Commissioners for the splendid work that they have done. I entirely agree that they have had very great success and have rendered great services to the State. But that is not the point. Have they been great successes as Members respectively for Ross and Cromarty and Rossendale? Are their constituents being looked after in the way that every constituency expects to be looked after by its Member? Obviously no. They have not been able to carry out their duties in that respect.

I think the example of another Member who was appointed to a position ought to be followed in cases of this kind. That is the rather curious incident of which I have never seen an explanation. Lord Burghley, then Member for Peterborough, was made Governor of Bermuda and a certificate was issued to him. Within a very few days he applied for the Chiltern Hundreds. I hope that my right hon. Friend will give some explanation of why it was certified that in the national interest he must remain a Member of this House while serving as Governor of Bermuda, and that the Governor of Bermuda a few days later decided that that was unnecessary and gave up his position here. It was much fairer to his constituents. They are to be looked after now by a Member chosen by them, and I have no doubt that the noble Lord will carry out his functions as Governor of Bermuda to the great advantage of the people who live there and of the Empire as a whole.

It has been made plain to the Government from every quarter of the House of Commons, that we are very unhappy about this Measure and would like to see it brought to an end at the earliest possible moment. If my right hon. Friend can say that he will accept this Amendment, I shall be delighted, but if he says that the notice is too short and that he would like another year, I feel sure that he will be most reluctant to bring the Measure forward again in 12 months' time. I think he has had notice served upon him that the House of Commons will be even more restive than has been evident during the Debates on this Measure. I hope he will accept this Amendment, but, if not, I shall certainly resist the Amendment and support the Government, in the belief that Parliament has really gone a very long way towards bringing this Measure to an end.

Rear-Admiral Beamish (Lewes)

I am wondering very much whether the Government are in need of all these warnings and all this curbing. I think we are putting too stiff a curb on the Government and I hope they will resist the Amendment. After all, the House of Commons is a weapon of war, and as a weapon of war it is the origin and source of all our efforts, of all our inflexible and unfailing determination to wage the war to a victorious conclusion, and if we like to use part of this weapon of war to further our efforts and our interests in the persons of the Members of Parliament who are under discussion at the moment, I feel we are doing a very wise thing. I would say, also, that the Members who are now under discussion did not ask for the jobs to which they were appointed. They did not take them because they thought it was their bent or duty, but they did so because they were ordered to go. That is a very important point. Also, I have no doubt in my own mind that they are, individually and collectively, of very great credit to this House of Commons and to this State, and I should very much doubt whether it would be possible in any of the areas in which they are serving to find anybody to complain that they are redundant and useless and ought to be back in the House of Commons. Wherever they are serving the people there will say, "We are proud of the British House of Commons, proud that you should be able to produce such material to further the interests of the Allies in this great war."

Everybody knows that the appetite is said to grow with what it feeds upon, and I suppose corrupt Governments might possibly exceed the numbers that were reasonably necessary, but I see no signs of it now. It is a very short list that we have before us, and I see no signs that the Government's appetite has grown to serious proportions. Personally, I am in considerable doubt about there being so many Members of Parliament away from the House of Commons in various capacities, but there is a great distinction to be drawn between those who have been sent elsewhere by the Government and those who have gone to follow their own bent, a bent which I should have liked to follow and which many hon. Members have already followed in undertaking military service of one kind or another. I am in some doubt about the desirability of Members of Parliament staying away too long at their military duties, quite apart from the type of Members who are under discussion to-day. I suffer to some extent and with pleasure, from doing the work of the Member for another division, a large division which has provided me with a great deal of work during the last 18 months. I only wish that I were the Member abroad and that he was here doing his job. I hope I am not misquoting the hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Shin-well), but I think he suggested that the emergency is not what it was. My own feeling is that it is, if anything, a great deal more urgent, and that as time goes on it will grow still more urgent.

Mr. Shinwell

I did not mean that the emergency in relation to the war is past or has diminished. I meant that the purpose for which these certificates were granted was passing and that we could do without them.

Rear-Admiral Beamish

I did not want to misquote the hon. Member, but he rather gave me the impression that we might perhaps recall these Members or at any rate not increase their numbers. Perhaps I did not quite catch his intention. My last word is to say that the emergency is a very serious one. Everybody knows that when war draws to its culminating point things are very difficult indeed. Therefore, I hope the Government will resist the Amendment.

Mr. Arthur Greenwood (Wakefield)

Fortunately, I am not a Member of the Government. The Debates last week seemed to show that the Government have been caught unawares. I do not think they appreciate the growing feeling in the House of Commons against the continuance of this Measure. My right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General tried to dispose of it, as he had previously done, with a very short speech, taking it for granted that Parliament would gladly and without undue discussion accept the Measure again for a further term. Events have proved that that is not so. My hon. Friend the Senior Burgess for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn) has pointed out the reluctance and hesitancy of the House of Commons to accept this Bill in the first place. Everybody felt that it was a Measure foreign to the traditions of the British House of Commons. It was accepted in the beginning because it was heavily pressed by the Prime Minister. I do not think it necessarily follows that the Members who have been certificated under the Act are the only possible choices, under God's providence, for the posts they are occupying.

The Measure was accepted with very great misgivings by the House of Commons and it has been accepted since. In the interval—this is quite spontaneous, this is not a worked up agitation of any kind—it is clear that there has been a resurgence of the feeling that existed when the Bill was first pressed. My own impression, from conversations I have had with hon. Members on all sides of the House of Commons, is that Parliament is in no mood to continue the Act for another indefinite period—at the outside, say, beyond the next year. I believe that is the view of a very large number of people. I do not think myself that the six months would, in fact, be feasible. Great events are imminent, there will be other problems to consider and the Members concerned may have work to clear up in their appointments. I think it would help matters if my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House could go rather further than he went last week. My hon. Friend the Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell) rightly said that the Leader of the House had recognised and appreciated the feeling there was in the House.

I would say this further, and I think it is a matter for consideration, and one which ought to be dealt with when we wind up this rather unfortunate experiperiment in constitutional practice. Most of the criticism has centred upon Members who are abroad, but there are a large number of Members who are at home and are able to carry on with their Parliamentary duties and who are receiving no emoluments for their work. Several hon. Members are, so to speak, put in the dock as enjoying offices of profit under the Crown. The hon. Lady the Member for Anglesey (Miss Lloyd George) is a case in point, and there are several other hon. Members who are in that category. I submit to the Committee that to put them in that category is most misleading and is injurious to them. An hon. Friend of mine on this side of the Committee became a member of a Government committee, and the Press in his constituency came out with the statement that he had received an office of profit under the Crown. The ordinary citizen, on reading that, immediately thinks that his Member has got the emoluments of the Attorney-General or the Prime Minister. I seriously ask that in their further consideration of this Bill the Government will look at this outworn phrase "an office of profit under the Crown" and devise a new formula—this really has a bearing on this Bill—more in accordance with modern circumstances.

Mr. Mander

That is exactly what the Select Committee did. They worked it all out in great detail, and there are proposals all ready to be put into law.

Mr. Greenwood

I was going to point out that the Committee, or large numbers of Members, seem to have forgotten the Select Committee, of which my hon. Friend was a Member, which did go into these matters in very great detail. I am not trying to make mischief, but I am wondering whether the Government are prepared now to look at the Report of the Select Committee and to consider this anomalous situation, in order to see whether, before the Act is due for any further extension, they can make proper arrangements to bring it to an end. If it could be done before the end of the year, well and good. I suggest to my hon. Friends who are anxious about the six months that that solution may not prove to be practicable, but I think it would be possible within perhaps less than a year and certainly by the end of the year. As my final word I would say, and this is not a threat, that in my judgment, with the House of Commons in its present mood, a mood which will not weaken during the coming year, if the Government try to impose this Measure upon Parliament again it will risk and will merit defeat.

The Attorney-General(Sir Donald Somervell)

I very much hope that the Committee will reject this Amendment if it is pressed, and will be content with what my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said in the Second Reading discussion. I will read his words: I undertake that between now and the next occasion we will consider all that has been said in the Debate, and the Cabinet will go into the whale question."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th February, 1944; col. 2100, Vol. 396.] That will, of course, include what has been said in the full and very wide discussion which we have had to-day. The discussion has ranged widely, and indeed has covered the general principle of the Bill. I want, therefore, to make one or two general observations but I do not want in any way to be controversial, or at any rate unnecessarily controversial. One must consider this question against its background, which is that we are living in a war period of quite exceptional gravity. This is a war which requires the whole of the resources, abilities and sinews of every member of the nation, and in this case, the original Act and the renewals of it, have been put forward by the Government as rigidly confined to the war period and to war circumstances.

I agree that there is a distinction which everybody realises between service in the Armed Forces and other service. The dis tinction is, of course, in a sense much more vivid if one considers those, whether of the House of Commons or outside it, who are engaged in the actual fighting, as compared with those whose age and abilities require them, as members of the Forces of the Crown, to do their work in offices or at any rate largely away from where the bullets and the shells are falling—though, as we know, bombs may fall on anyone, whether he is in uniform or not, Whatever the law would have been without the Act with regard to service in the Armed Forces of the Crown, it is inconceivable that, apart from the emergency of war, Members of this House, to the numbers of which we know, would have joined the Army and gone to serve overseas. It is because of the war that so many hon. Members of the House of Commons have left, for shorter or longer periods, and that some are away to-day fighting. That is the way in which they wish to contribute to the war effort, and surely the Committee is proud of the services they are now rendering.

What does this Bill do? Within the limits of the number 25, it empowers the Government, through the Prime Minister, to remove the disqualification which would otherwise attach to non-military service for war purposes. That is all it does. The general idea that Members should be free to serve in the Armed Forces is, I think, recognised. There is a distinction, which I appreciate, between service in the Forces—

Earl Winterton (Horsham and Worthing)

Surely it is not a case of "thinking"; it is recognised. In the last war a large number of Members of the House of Commons served in the Armed Forces. No one questioned the merits. The right has always been recognised. It was the same in the South African War.

The Attorney-General

A special Act was passed.

Earl Winterton

In this war?

The Attorney-General

I think the position was, that over a considerable range of the Armed Forces there were precedents which clearly established that service did not disqualify, but it was not quite clear whether that applied to all the modern Forces of the Crown. Therefore there was a special Act. The Noble Lord is right in saying that, for generations, service in the Armed Forces has been recognised. I was trying to put the case in substance that all this Bill does is to say that, within the limits of the number 25, the Prime Minister can give a certificate which removes the disqualification which would otherwise attach in respect of service under the Crown other than service in the Forces.

Having realised the limits within which the numbers are confined, one has next to turn to the list which appears in the OFFICIAL REPORT to-day. As my right hon. Friend who spoke before me pointed out, there are a number of Members on that list who are receiving no salary or expenses and are doing work which in no way conflicts with regular and full attendance at this House. I think it relevant to point that out. It is also relevant to point it out in considering whether any case can be made for the Government having misused or made an excessive use of the limit of 25 placed by the House in the amending Act of 1942. The hon. Member who opened this Debate asked a question of the Leader of the House. Perhaps my right hon. Friend will allow me, at any rate to give an answer on his behalf at the moment, as to what would happen with regard to a General Election. The hon. Member instanced the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Rossendale (Sir R. Cross), though of course it would apply equally to any other of the hon. or right hon. Members on this list who might be abroad, and of course it would apply equally to all officers in the Forces who were serving overseas. If we had a General Election in war time, the problem would arise with regard to every officer serving overseas. I should think that, on the whole, a General Election—should we have one while these emergency circumstances continue—would very much simplify any problem which this Bill may raise because if the constituents of one or other of these Members who are abroad, or the constituents of a Member who is an officer or soldier who is abroad, are dissatisfied with him, either because he has been abroad so long or possibly for some other and quite different reason they can turn him out if he is nominated.

Mr. Pickthorn

Would they not, thereby, inflict a vote of censure on the Prime Minister who has ex hypothesi certified that the Member's services are necessary for the prosecution of the war effort?

The Attorney-General

No. The hon. Member tried at an earlier stage to get the Government to insert in the Bill a provision that the certificate given by the Prime Minister should state in terms that, in the Prime Minister's opinion, it was in the public interest that a Member should remain a Member of this House. We resisted this proposal because we thought that was utterly wrong constitutionally, and contrary to the intention of the Act. The purpose of the certificate is exhausted when it has achieved this result, namely that the Member can accept an office without being disqualified. The hon. Gentleman raised the point of a certificate given to Lord Burghley. That certificate gave him the power to remain a Member if he so chose. He chose to resign. There was nothing inconsistent with the certificate in his choosing to resign. That is the basis on which we have always put this forward. I am certain it is constitutionally right.

Mr. Lewis

May I draw the Attorney-General's attention to the fact that the question I put to the Leader of the House was this: In regard to the case of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Rossendale, what do the Government propose to do in the event of a General Election? Has he then leave to come home or not? It appears to have stumped the Leader of the House, and apparently also my right hon. and learned Friend.

The Attorney-General

Obviously I cannot give a specific answer, but let me take the analogy of an officer on active service overseas. Supposing there is a General Election, he might ask for leave to come home. It might be quite impossible or circumstances might make it possible for him to do so. Let me take two Members on the list, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Ben Smith) and my right hon. Friend the Member for St. George's (Mr. Duff Cooper). The circumstances might be such, if we had a General Election in the fairly near future, when the war might be in a more desperate condition than it has been, at any rate in the last year or two, that it would be quite impossible to arrange for a Member to come home. Or it might be possible—[Interruption]—Transport difficulties or possibly the duties which the hon. Member was doing might prevent it.

Earl Winterton

Does the Attorney-General mean to tell us that any Government would have the power to prohibit a Member of this House from coming here to attend to his Parliamentary duties, if transport were available?

The Attorney-General

No, I was talking about circumstances. To take an example. The Deputy Prime Minister was out of the country on the Statutory Commission in India in the General Election of 1929. He was, I am happy to say, elected in absentia. A position like that might arise, as it arose in that case in peace time. I do not think any one could give a categorical answer as to all the circumstances that might arise in war-time.

Mr. Shinwell

Supposing a Member of this House who is serving the Crown under a certificate or is serving in the Forces expressed a desire, on receipt of information about an impending General Election, to return home and contest his seat, surely the Government would not put any obstacle in his way?

The Attorney-General

I should have thought certainly not. All I was saying was that in war circumstances, conditions might arise such as arose when the Deputy Prime Minister was abroad on an important public duty and was in fact out of the country at the time of the Election.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sea-ham (Mr. Shinwell) raised this point. He said he did not object to certain categories of persons who have under the existing law to be covered by this certificate but he made certain criticisms with regard to others. I think I would probably be accurately summing up a good deal of the discussion to-day—I do not say everybody; for instance, the hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Lewis), who has disliked the whole thing from the beginning but I am sure from the speeches we have heard that that is not the universal view of the Committee—by saying it has been criticism of the use of the power in one or two, a very limited number of, cases, rather than an attack on the principle of the Bill, the principle being that there should be power within strict limits to enable Members to serve in these different offices without disqualification. I know that is not everybody's view. The Noble Lord shakes his head. I am only saying that a good many of the speeches to which I have listened have been on that sort of line, that you ought not to use these powers to put a man in an office and keep him overseas too long. Some say that where there are no salaries and no services they think this quite unobjectionable. Other Members say that Ministers of State abroad may be a useful addition to the functions of Government in war-time. The Leader of the House has given an undertaking that everything said in the last Debate and in this Debate will be considered. We ask the Committee to give us the Bill for a year, on the same lines as those laid down in the original Bill, which were not, as such, criticised by the House, and we give an undertaking that the whole question will be examined by the Cabinet before any further Bill is introduced.

Mr. Shinwell

I quite appreciate what the Attorney-General has said; but is this possible? The Cabinet have promised to consider this matter, and possibly to review it at the end of the period. Is it possible for the Government, having considered the matter, to report to the House before the expiry of the period of this Bill?

The Attorney-General

No.

Mr. Shinwell

Why not? Otherwise, we may be met with a fait accompli next year when the Government introduce another Bill, whereas if, after six or eight or nine months, the Government came back to the House, and said, "We have considered it, and this is the position," the House would have an opportunity to deal with the matter.

The Attorney-General

We ask the Committee to give us the Bill for another year. My right hon. Friend undertook, on behalf of the Cabinet, that the whole question would be gone into. If the Government decide to ask the House to renew the Bill, either for its whole period or for part of the time, they have to come to the House, and the House will decide with the knowledge of what has happened. I do not think I can go further. I think it is a reasonable offer, and I ask the Committee to reject the Amendment.

Mr. Lewis

Having regard to what my right hon. and learned Friend has said, I do not desire, if the Committee are agreeable, to press the Amendment. It has served a purpose, because it has shown the Government, without any possibility of doubt, the strength of feeling in the House of Commons. I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Hon. Members

No.

Mr. Maxton (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

The hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Lewis) is satisfied with the assurance that the Government have given, but I do not think it is an assurance at all, because, when we reach this stage a year hence, we shall be told, "At least you have to give the men who are in these posts some notice before you terminate their appointments." On the statement made by the Attorney-General, these men will get 12 months' additional lease of life from now. Nothing is to be said before the expiry of the Act, so that when the date comes for its renewal these men will have no notice that their opportunities of holding the two positions are to be terminated.

Mr. Lewis

Surely that is effected under the Act, since it is renewed only for 12 months.

Mr. Maxton

Yes, they will have notice in that sense; but in one case, at least, the holder of the office has now had three years, and is getting a fourth. He will feel that he ought to have some notice in advance if this good job of his is to be brought to an end. That consideration would certainly be urged very strongly next year by the Minister who was asking for just another year. I think the point put by the hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell) might have been conceded, and some statement promised in advance of legislation. I agree with the hon. Member for Colchester that these Debates have perhaps served the major purpose that the majority of the House of Commons had in mind. The very powerful speech of the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), although it was greatly resented on the other side of the House, was not felt by the majority of Members to be entirely untrue. The gravamen of that charge related to matters somewhat beyond the scope of this Measure, but those who cast their minds back to the political situation at the end of the last war and in the period immediately following that war must admit that the war played havoc with the general codes of conduct and the moral standards of Members of Parliament. Thane were Members who during the war period were the great public spokesmen for the Government of the day and who, when a soberer mood had descended on the House and the nation, were exposed for what they were—crooks was what they were. There was one—he is dead now, and it is no good raking up his name; but there was a very low moral code. Even when I came into Parliament, in 1922, we had the left-overs of that period.

Parliament should be more than jealous about its standards of conduct. In normal times there is the check that comes from having a Government and an Opposition. If the Government of the day are throwing patronage about, and thereby debauching the morals of Parliament to some extent, there is an Opposition watching very carefully and ready to point it out, but when you have this widespread Coalition with the patronage fairly evenly distributed—with perhaps a slight loading in favour of the majority parties—there is not the same impetus for the exposure of that sort of thing: the House of Commons as a whole, apart from party alignments, has to deal with it. I should have said that it would have been a wise thing for the Committee to accept the six months' limit. I cannot see why the Leader of the House should object. I think that he said the other day, when it was mooted, that it was unfair to the men holding the jobs to give them only six months' tenure. I think that that is a fairly good tenure, and it would give Parliament an opportunity of going into this matter again, and seeing how it stands, six months from to-day. I would have preferred an Amendment putting the power of terminating the arrangement at six months, or such earlier date as was determined by a Motion of the House of Commons. I ask the Committee not to agree to the withdrawal of the Amendment, and I ask those who are keen about the matter to take it into the Division Lobby.

Mr. Arthur Jenkins (Pontypool)

The hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) has told us that he thought the Committee would have been wise to accept this Amendment and limit the Bill to six months. I am not going to argue whether that is right or wrong, but I would like to place on record my views on my own position, as I am included in this list. As every hon. Member will appreciate, it is not a pleasant task, particularly in view of the fact that my post came to me without my seeking it, and without my desire. Indeed, I have sought to give up my post for a considerable time. I want to put on record how I came into this post, because that is only fair to the Government and to myself. It is not one of the positions which were filled on the initiative of the Government It was filled at the pressing request of the trade unionists employed in a very big ordnance factory. I consulted my trade union friends outside the factory, and without exception they all thought I should accept the post. There are more than 13,000 people employed in that factory, and the trade unionists were anxious that the factory should work well, that there should be an absence of disputes, and that any that arose should be disposed of as speedily as possible. They thought that I had a pretty considerable industrial experience, and might be helpful. They approached the management of the factory, and a joint application by the management and the workpeople was made to me. I was reluctant about it, as I was busy at the time, but I thought the matter of some importance to the war effort. Every one of us wants these factories to work well. I have sat on that board on—I cannot tell the number, but I think something in the region of 50 sessions. I have dealt with a large number of disputes. I do not think there have been more than three occasions when we have been divided, and there has been no strike or stoppage of any sort, which I think is something to be proud of.

My position was sanctioned by the Ministry of Supply. Both the Ministry of Supply and I, as well as political friends whom I consulted, were totally unaware that the post would come under the Act of Queen Anne, that ancient Statute. I went on for some months, and then suddenly one of the Ministries discovered that the appointment did come under that Act. Up to that moment I had not charged a penny, either for fees or expenses or anything of that sort. The House of Commons, with its usual generosity when a Member gets into a difficulty of that kind, gave me a special Bill all to myself; and I am very indebted to the House for it. I wanted to leave the post. I was very busy, and often my attendance at sessions involved my travelling from London overnight and back to London overnight. I sought to fix all the meetings of the Board and generally succeeded on days when the House of Commons was not sitting, because I wanted to keep myself free so that I could attend to my Parliamentary duties without interference of any kind. Hon. Members will understand that that involved considerable expense. For some time I charged neither expenses nor fees, but the burden got a little heavy, and ultimately I charged fees for about—I cannot tell the exact number but I should say approximately half the number of sessions I have attended. It has always meant a substantial effort on my part in order to make sure that this huge factory, which is of so much importance to the war effort, worked smoothly, and this it has done. My colleagues and I on the Board can rightly claim a little credit for that. And the workpeople and management helped us. It is unfortunate that one gets brought into a position of this kind, as a result. I believe men with industrial experience should be chairmen of these Boards.

Mr. Kenneth Lindsay (Kilmarnock)

I appreciate the hon. Member's position, but I think he ought to realise also that a great many Members of the House of Commons do give up their entire time to voluntary work. A great many of the hon. Members opposite had practices at the Bar but have given up their time in the same way. Can the hon. Member make clear to the Committee the specific work he is performing with regard to these trade union workers?

Mr. Jenkins

I am not attacking anyone, but just calling the attention of the Committee to something that happened yesterday on the rehabilitation Bill—the point whether solicitors only should be appointed to the positions of chairmen of tribunals. In the very short contribution which I made yesterday, I said we should not restrict it to the Civil Service, but that we should make it as wide as possible so as to bring in people of the greatest experience to deal with these problems. Many people, I agree, have given a very considerable amount of voluntary effort, and this involves expenses. One gets expenses for Parliamentary duty, and if one incurs additional expenses there is nothing wrong in them being paid. That is the whole point and I would like to have the position regularised. There is one thing further. I have sought to get excused from this position. Only last week, before this Bill came up, I again wrote the trade union secretary at the factory pointing out how busy I was and asking that an effort should be made immediately to appoint another person in my place. I am quite sure that the Committee will appreciate that it is unfortunate, that my doing what I thought would be helpful to the war effort should result in the possibility of some misunderstanding in the public mind.

Mr. Driberg (Maldon)

The hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. A. Jenkins) has given an excellent example of the kind of service under this Bill to which none of us would take exception at all, and his work is an example of the specialist technical work to which the hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell) referred—questioning the presence of such special technical qualifications in some hon. Members who have been sent overseas under this arrangement. That was one of the points with which the Attorney-General did not deal when answering the hon. Member for Seaham, and, indeed, it seems to me that the Attorney-General, with, of course, immense skill, managed to give the appearance of answering most of the points in the Debate without, in fact, answering any of the more substantial ones at all. On the hypothetical General Election question, which, I agree, he said was very difficult to answer, the Attorney-General did not answer the major point which he was asked by one hon. Member—whether, in fact, the Government would provide a "coupon" and issue some pronouncement to the electors urging them to vote for the absent candidate. He did not, again, answer, the minor point made by the right hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Greenwood), which would, I think, largely relieve hon. Members, who are in this very difficult position, of their embarrassment. The right hon. Gentleman asked if the Government would not try to find some new phrase or formula to get away from this invidious and obsolete term "Office of profit under the Crown," and to make it quite clear to the country at large what such hon. Members are doing by way of war service.

In general, I cannot feel that the Attorney-General gave a very satisfactory answer, and I was rather sorry to hear the hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Lewis) say he proposed to withdraw the Amendment. In fact, I rather hoped that leave to withdraw would be refused, because this is not a matter on which a hostile vote, or a strong minority vote, could possibly be interpreted as an indication of general lack of confidence in the Government. It is surely a House of Commons matter, on which every hon. Member is entitled to air his opinion, whether he is a member of a party or not. I therefore hope that the matter will be pressed to a Division—because, apart from anything else, I do not feel that it is at all a bad thing to have an occasional Division on a Friday to encourage hon. Members to defer their week-end absenteeism.

Earl Winterton (Horsham and Worthing)

I think that no one would say that the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. A. Jenkins)—who, following the modern custom, having made his speech, has left the Committee and who has just given an account of his stewardship—is doing otherwise than good work. We are really not concerned, however, with self-adulatory speeches about the good work which this or that hon. Member is doing, and, equally, I am bound to tell the hon. Member for Maldon {Mr. Driberg) that many of us are not concerned with what are his or anybody else's views.

Mr. Driberg

I am entitled to put them.

Earl Winterton

The hon. Member is entitled, if he desires, to make an attack on any Minister overseas, but I suggest it is slightly invidious, in their absence, to discriminate between the work of one right hon. Gentleman and another.

Mr. Maxton

Because these right hon. Gentlemen are overseas and are not fulfilling their duties in the House of Commons, is it to be suggested that they are to be exempt from normal criticism of their work?

Earl Winterton

I entirely agree with the hon. Member, but I think it is desirable to give them notice that you are going to attack them, and they can come back. I think it is a very good thing to do so.

Mr. Maxton

The Noble Lord is asking me a little too much if he says that these hon. Members in offices of profit under the Crown overseas, are to be exempted from their normal Parliamentary duties, and, in addition, are to be exempted from criticism.

Earl Winterton

On consideration, I think the hon. Member is right, if you are going to make a personal attack.

Mr. Driberg

I made no personal attack.

Earl Winterton

I think the hon. Gentleman made no personal attack. He never makes a personal attack on anybody. The hon. Gentleman below the Gangway put a good point and I would like his agreement on this. We are not—at least, many of us—concerned with individuals but with the principle of the thing. I rise only for the purpose of putting this point in support of the hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell) and I do not ask that it should be made a condition of the withdrawal of the Amendment that the Government should give an undertaking on this point. But, as, I hope, a friend of the Government, I would like to tell them what a peculiar position they will be in if they do not give some consideration to it. It is clear, I agree with the Leader of the Labour Party, in view of the feeling expressed in this Debate that if the war is in full swing next year—which we hope will not be the case—and the Government find it necessary to bring in this Bill again they will have one of the stickiest Debates they have ever had. No doubt there are means of getting over the difficulty and of giving the House of Commons an opportunity of expressing its views in advance. Otherwise, I am afraid there will be a great deal of trouble, which will not be conducive to the prestige of the House of Commons and will not make the position of those hon. Gentlemen abroad quite easy. I do not ask that permission be given to withdraw the Amendment. It is intended to be a general suggestion helpful to the Government, and I am sorry that the Attorney-General did not agree with the proposal put by the hon. Member for Seaham.

Mr. Ivor Thomas (Keighley)

I do not think the noble Lord realises the misunderstanding created in such constituencies as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool (Mr. A. Jenkins) by these Debates. As one born in that constituency and who knows it well, I can assure the House of the great work which the hon. Member has put through. I think it would be a pity if in their reconsideration the Government should so delimit the work open to hon. Members that it would deprive them of the services of such hon. Members as the hon. Member for Pontypool. I think we can say that the Arthur Jenkins' Act will go down in constitutional history as surely as the "war of Jenkins' Ear" has gone down in military history.

There are three classes of hon. Members covered by this Bill. There are hon. Members working at home who can fulfil all the duties to their constituencies as well as the rest of us, and here, I suggest there is practically no difficulty. I think it would be most unfortunate, for example, if any further legislation prevented the Junior Burgess for Cambridge University (Professor Hill) from giving his invaluable scientific experience to the Government. The hon. Member does not receive any monetary advantage, or any other advantage—it can confer no prestige upon him—but it would be a pity if the unexampled services he can give should be lost to the public weal. The second class is that of Ministers of State serving overseas. This, I feel, is an experiment and we do not yet know enough about it. There is a Cabinet Committee sitting on the machinery of Government, and no doubt this will be one of the questions which will be considered, and perhaps something of permanent value to our constitutional machinery will be produced. I would not like to say offhand that such appointments should be ruled out.

Thirdly, there are the hon. Members holding such posts as diplomatic appointments and High Commissionerships overseas. These, it seems to me are quite different from the first class and probably from the second class, but the opponents of the Government are flogging a dead horse in this matter. The speeches of the Leader of the House last week and of the Attorney-General to-day have made it quite clear that in principle the Government agree to this. [Interruption.] That is my interpretation. I have listened to most of these Debates, and I should be very surprised indeed if, in the course of the next 12 months, the right hon. Member for Chelsea (Sir S. Hoare) does not come home from Madrid to his Parliamentary duties, and if the High Commissioner to Canada does not apply for the Chiltern Hundreds. I think it is inevitable that some action of that sort will be taken in the next 12 months.

The Amendment seeks to substitute a period of six months for twelve months. We must be guided by the Government in this matter. There may be matters in Madrid which the right hon. Gentleman could not wind up within six months, and I would not wish to force them if they were of a contrary opinion. What I wanted to say mainly is that the most unfortunate aspect of the Debate is that some of the arguments used to support the Amendment—not the principles, which are generally sound—have been lamentable. I refer in the first place to the argument used by my hon. Friend the Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell) about absenteeism in this House. It is most unfortunate that such an impression should be given by an hon. Member of this Committee. During my membership, of just over two years, I have been struck by the high degree of service of hon. Members. Consider the Committee Stage of the Education Bill—

The Deputy-Chairman

We can hardly come to that issue. At this particular time, any question of absenteeism on the part of an ordinary Member from his ordinary duties is absolutely outside the scope of the Bill.

Mr. Thomas

I realise that, normally, that would be out of Order, but I thought that greater latitude than usual was being allowed on this occasion. I shall not, therefore, pursue that matter. Among other arguments in support of the Amendment has been the argument that the Government patronage which is exercised corrupts the House of Commons. That has given a most unfortunate impression throughout the country; it is quite unfounded, as we all know in this Committee, and should be repudiated most strongly. I refer in particular to the arguments of my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. A. Bevan). The hon. Member is a great constitutionalist, and he has one side of the constitutional doctrine right—that is the separation of the powers in this country. But he has failed altogether to appreciate that in this country there is also a fusion of the legislative and executive powers. He seems to think that the natural state of feeling between Parliament and the Government should be one of bitter hostility, that our principal object as soon as we get a Government in power should be to try to overturn it. That is not the British doctrine. It might be said to be the American doctrine, and that of certain other countries, but it is certainly not the British doctrine. One of our constitutional doctrines is that the Government must command a majority in the House of Commons, and my hon. Friend would be the first to point that out. The obverse of that doctrine is that a primary duty of the House of Commons is to maintain a Government in power. We have developed over the course of centuries various sensitive relations between the Government and the House of Commons. The Government at the present time probably have less means of influence over the House of Commons than they have ever had before. A hundred years ago they had very wide powers indeed. There was the power of local patronage before the Civil Service Commission was created—

The Deputy-Chairman

The hon. Member is again getting a little wide.

Mr. Thomas

I will abstain again from making that point. I was anxious to develop the point that the natural relations between Government and Parliament are not of hostility, but that, in this country, the Government always have had various means of maintaining good relations with the Legislature. My hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale is greatly mistaken in his constitutional doctrine.

Mr. Bowles

Does not my hon. Friend agree that it is the duty of every Member of Parliament to watch the Executive vigilantly all the time?

Mr. Thomas

Certainly, that is one of the prime duties of the Legislature, and if I were allowed—as apparently I am not—to go fully into the constitutional doctrine, I would have emphasised that also. The duty to maintain a Government in power and to give it our confidence until we think it ought to be turned out is the one which needs emphasising at the present time.

Mr. Mander

Surely, the hon. Member realises that in normal peace times a party Government is in power, and that only the majority want to keep the Government in power, and the Opposition do all they can to turn them out.

Mr. Thomas

It works rather more subtly than that. The Opposition try to turn out the Government at the time most favourable to themselves.

Mr. A. Jenkins

Does my hon. Friend claim that it is the duty of the Opposition to support the Government on all occasions when they are in agreement with the Government, or does he say that the Opposition should always oppose?

The Deputy-Chairman

We are not discussing a constitutional question but rather a narrow point. We have had a wide Debate for the general convenience of the Committee.

Mr. Thomas

I will not pursue the constitutional question, though I seem to have initiated rather an interesting Debate on the subject. I will leave it by saying that the Government have given certain undertakings in this matter. I am sure myself they will give the fullest consideration to the principles which have been raised by the mover and supporters of the Amendment, which are fundamentally sound, and I am happy to leave the matter in the hands of the Government.

Dr. Russell Thomas (Southampton)

I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) for protecting my interests and those of other private Members in the way he has done, although I do not say that I support him in the arguments he has produced, nor will I for a moment attempt to follow the wide constitutional field covered by my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. I. Thomas). Although I put my name to one of the Amendments I do not think that I would press the matter at all, especially after the speech of the Attorney-General and of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House on the Second Reading of the Bill. I am prepared to accept their assurances and to wait and see what will happen another year. The Bill centres around the giving of a certificate by the Prime Minister. Personally, I always consider—and have said it before—that the Prime Minister has far too keen an appreciation of our Parliamentary institutions to wish in any way to detract from or injure them by making them permanently subservient to the Executive. From some observation of the Prime Minister, I have always considered that Parliamentary institutions, over a long period of years, have eaten so deeply into his heart and mind that he would not wish in any way to interfere with them. I mean that sincerely. On the other hand, I do not believe it to be a good thing, normally, for hon. Members to go abroad for any length of time and so leave their constituencies, or even indeed to be absent from the councils of this House.

I do not intend to go into the question of whether these Members receive payment or not. It has already been threshed out to a large extent. We must remember that in time of war a Bill of this kind, if it is of a temporary nature and Parliament shows a healthy vigilance, demonstrates the great flexibility of our Constitution—one of its greatest attributes—and also the ability of that Constitution to meet events in time of great stress. Nevertheless, it is right that hon. Members should be ever watchful of the rights and privileges of the House of Commons.

Those of us who feel in this way in regard to this Bill have maintained that attitude in spite of the reckless allegations of the general corruption of Parliament made by the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. A. Bevan) on the Second Reading—allegations which, in my opinion, tend not to convert men to his cause but rather to alienate them. It reminds me of the story of President Jefferson who went down to Virginia to condemn the penal laws. He condemned them with such violence and vehemence that he postponed their reform for 20 years. That might have been the effect on me, if I had not steeled my mind against the argument of the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale on the Second Reading of the Bill. Therefore, I trust that due appreciation will be given by His Majesty's Government to this Debate and I hope that they will examine in detail everything that has been said.

I accept the assurance of the Leader of the House, who, in my opinion, showed himself at his best when he answered that very difficult Debate. What he said, he said graciously and courteously, although he might have been justified, under the conditions, in being a little more severe, a course which might well have been taken by lesser men. I commiserate with the Attorney-General on his speech on the Second Reading of the Bill. He made an error, but a pardonable error. The error was in not being able to prejudge the reaction of this House. But it is not always an easy thing to do, even by the most skilled. I take this opportunity of congratulating the Attorney-General upon his good temper, and especially do I take a delight in doing this, because I have spoken on so many occasions on matters with which he has been concerned, in a manner well calculated to upset it.

Mr. R. C. Morrison (Tottenham, North)

An hon. Member who has taken part in this Debate said he thought that the Members who held the Prime Minister's certificate must be embarrassed. Mine is one of the early names in the list, and I am bound to say that I have never felt embarrassed, but I have felt a little perplexed. I propose to tell the Committee wherein my perplexity arose. When the situation of this country became difficult, obviously, those who were of military age and felt like fighting for their country proceeded to do so, and a great many are still doing it. Others who were rather too old for that sort of thing, looked round to see how they could help the country. One day I made a speech in the House of Commons and suggested that one thing which might be done was to organise the collection of waste food throughout the country, and that more feeding stuffs might be obtained thereby.

The House received the suggestion so well that three Ministers personally took an interest in it; they held a conference and, believing that there might be something in the idea, decided to put forward the idea of the Waste Food Board, consisting of two Members of this House and two other people. They asked me if I would be the Chairman. At that time I was busily engaged, apart from ordinary work common to everybody, as a member of the Select Committee on National Expenditure. We were travelling all over the country, mostly at week-ends. We went to Edinburgh, Glasgow, Birmingham, Liverpool and to other places, holding inquiries, taking evidence and compiling reports on all sorts of things. I was not expected to pay my own railway fare or hotel expenses. I would not have been able to go if I had been. Having been approached by the Government on the question of the Chairmanship of the Waste Food Board, I immediately resigned from the Select Committee and took over the chairmanship of the Waste Food Board. Where my perplexity arises is that it should be necessary to put me down as holding a certificate when my expenses are considerably less than what I was being paid while I was a member of the Select Committee on National Expenditure. The expenses that appear in the list issued to-day are not the expenses that are paid, they are the expenses authorised to be paid if claimed, and that is an entirely different thing. There is one Member of Parliament, whom I know well enough to speak on his behalf, whose expenses were less than half the amount appearing in that list, which shows the amount which would be paid if he had asked for it.

Mr. Bowles

May I ask this question? Why does the hon. Lady the Member for Anglesey (Miss Lloyd George) have "nil" against the expenses authorised?

Mr. Morrison

I am not responsible for the hon. Lady the Member for Anglesey (Miss Lloyd George). It is obvious that the hon. Member has not had a long experience of Parliament, or he would know that on a small Board like this a good deal of the work devolves upon the chairman, and I have had to go all over the country holding conferences of local authorities. Perhaps he will be interested to know that, as a result of the work, the estimate which I made in the House has been far exceeded, and the amount of waste food made available for soft feeding stuffs for pigs and poultry in this country is at the rate of 430,000 tons a year. Over 2,000,000 tons of waste food have been collected up to now, and that, I venture to say, with all due modesty, is a slight contribution to the shipping situation. I do not feel embarrassed by the fact that I have done this work. Mention of the hon. Lady the Member for Anglesey brings me to this point to which I want to direct the attention of my right hon. Friend. I think he made two charges, first that this work means that Members neglect their constituencies. He adopted a very simple device, which was very foolish if I may say so. He said that there were about 20 of these constituencies and that, as a result, over 1,000,000 people were disfranchised. The hon. Member knows my constituency fairly well, and if he comes down and tells my constituents that because I hold the Prime Minister's certificate, they are disfranchised, the retort he will get will not be quite so polite.

The other charge was that we become "yes" men of the Government, that the fact that I have had to organise the collection of waste food throughout the country and try to get all the local authorities to enter into this scheme means that I have now sold myself body and soul to the Government. That just is not true. I did not ask for the Prime Minister's certificate. I had no knowledge, when I was asked to be the chairman of the Waste Food Board, that there was any need for a certificate and, in fact, I have not got a certificate. A London evening newspaper said that the few Members who hold this valuable certificate would find it of great value after the war. Well, the certificate is like the office of profit, it does not exist. So far as being a "yes" man of the Government is concerned, no pressure is brought upon me to support the Government in any way and, when they are doing wrong in my opinion, I vote against them. I thought they were wrong on the Beveridge Report, and I voted against that; and in the case of Sir Oswald Mosley, and therefore I voted against that. The hon. Member knows the hon. Lady the Member for Anglesey is not the sort of person who will kowtow to the Government and do as she is told, and therefore suggestions that we are "yes" men and "yes" women of the Government because we hold a particular certificate is quite wrong.

Mr. Bowles

Will my hon. Friend explain why the sum against his name is £200 apart from the allowances for travelling and subsistence?

The Deputy-Chairman

I do not think that comes in here. I allowed the hon. Member to give the illustration of his own case, because it seemed to me to be germane, but we cannot go into all the details.

Mr. R. C. Morrison

I have practically explained the position as I see it. The fact that I was serving as a member of the Select Committee on National Expenditure, the fact that there are Members of Parliament serving as Regional Commissioners who do not need the certificate—that, and a whole lot of other things, are so perplexing that I hope the Government will go into conditions, as some other Members have served as I have. In fact there is one hon. Member here to-day who has served as chairman of one of these boards without any salary or expenses at all, and I congratulate him. I should have done the same myself, but I could not afford to travel all round the country.

Mr. Lindsay

I agree with what my hon. Friend has been saying, but is it not true that there are certain hon. Members of this House who are able to do this simply because they have private economic resources while certain other people are compelled to take some remuneration? It is most unfair that they should be put in this position, and I beseech my right hon. Friend to consider this aspect of the question when he reviews it.

Mr. Morrison

I entirely agree, but even the list published by the Government to-day is not altogether clear, because the figure of expenses given is not the amount of expenses paid to the Member but the amount authorised to be paid if he asks for it.

The Deputy-Chairman

We must stop this discussion on authorised expenses; it does not come under the Amendment. It has been allowed, but it is unfair to the Committee to carry it on at great length.

Mr. Morrison

It is most unfortunate, but the Committee wanted to discuss it. I am entirely with them on the question of Members being sent overseas for long periods, and divorced from Parliament, but it should not have been mixed up with the other question, with which it has but little or nothing to do. I hope that when the Government review the question, whether in six months or, 12 months, they will go into this problem of what is called holding offices of profit under the Crown. My last word is that this list gives the name of the hon. Member for St. Rollox (Mr. Leonard), who was appointed about three weeks ago and received the Prime Minister's certificate. He attended one meeting, which was held upstairs, and therefore his expenses are nil. It is most unfortunate that his name should have been put on the list and published throughout the country.

Mr. A. Bevan (Ebbw Vale)

I want first to apologise to some hon. Members who have made reference to me, for my absence earlier, but I had to keep an urgent appointment. I am also surprised the Debate has taken this unexpected turn. I understood that the Amendment was framed in comparatively narrow terms, and a wide and roaming Debate, with the sort of speech to which I have just listened, would, I should have thought, have been entirely out of Order. I am not going to make any references in detail to what has been said. I want to put it to hon. Members that many of them appear to misapprehend the situation. It is, certainly, unfortunate that references have been made to the Prime Minister's certificate. There are very many hon. Members who do not need the certificate, but, having received it, are now in the flood-light, and it is most embarrassing to many of them. There are other hon. Members who enjoy certain advantages and privileges, but do not, for constitutional reasons, need the certificate and are therefore not mentioned at all. The need to give the certificate in certain cases arises merely because of the complexity and intricacy of the British Constitution and the relations between the House of Commons and the Crown in certain particulars. What is the position with which we are chiefly concerned in this matter? It is one to which the Leader of the House paid not the slightest attention in his reply last week. It is that it is considered to be a very bad thing for too many Members of the House of Commons to be drawn, either directly or indirectly, under the control of the Executive. A peculiar feature of our Constitution is that the Government are recruited from Members of Parliament, and therefore, the more members of the Government there are in administrative positions, the more there are who are in receipt of privileges from the Government, the more difficult it is to carry on the Government of the country, because fewer Members of Parliament are left to control the Executive, examine the Executive, scrutinise the Executive, and, if necessary, turn the Executive out. I said last week—if the right hon. Gentleman will give me his attention—

Mr. Eden

I have been here all day.

Mr. Bevan

I am sorry, but this is a point to which the right hon. Gentleman has never replied and when he comes to speak, perhaps he will deal with it. The contention is that a most unusual and dangerous proportion of the House of Commons has been drawn into the Government administratively and executively in this way.

Mr. Eden

I am trying to see how this fits into the Amendment on the Order Paper.

Mr. Bevan

I dare say the right hon. Gentleman will leave that to the Chair.

The Deputy-Chairman

We agreed, at the beginning of the Sitting, to take these Amendments together and discuss them pretty widely, instead of having a discussion on Clause 1, which is really the main purpose of the Bill. But the discussion has been very wide, very many points have been spoken on again and again, and I hope the Committee will not repeat the arguments which have been made several times.

Mr. Maxton

Is not one of the topics that have been freely discussed in his absence, the personal character and statements of the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) and is he not entitled to deal with that subject? If he spends a moment or two in putting certain points in his own way, would that be regarded by you, Mr. Williams, as being out of Order?

The Deputy-Chairman

The hon. Gentleman may know better than I do, but I have never noticed that the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. A. Bevan) was unable to defend himself. If he is defending himself against statements made by other hon. Members, he can do so; that is obvious.

Mr. Bevan

If I may say so with all respect, in spite of the intervention of the Leader of the House, mine was the only speech in Order since I have been in the Committee, because I am dealing specifically with the point that, if this Amendment is carried, a number of Members will be freed from the control of the Executive and able to devote themselves to their work as Members of Parliament. That is the central point of the whole issue. The hon. Member for North Tottenham (Mr. R. C. Morrison) has been doing a good job of work. Everyone knows that. I listened very carefully to his first speech, when he dealt with the necessity for salvage. He has been doing an excellent job of work, but so have civil servants. Does he suggest for a single moment that it is his duty as a Member of Parliament, not only to make suggestions in Parliament but to carry them out too? He said that at the beginning of the war some hon. Members who were young enough joined His Majesty's Forces; others of them were too old to join His Majesty's Forces and devoted themselves to work of the kind he has been doing and for which he had to get the Prime Minister's certificate. Does he, therefore, seriously suggest that this is a reflection on the rest of us, and that we all ought to have had the Prime Minister's certificate?

Mr. R. C. Morrison

I thought the hon. Member was suggesting that he could not understand why it was necessary for me to have it.

Mr. Bevan

That is precisely what is the matter. There is such ignorance of the principles underlying the British constitution that Members are walking into the worst malpractices without seeing the effect on the Constitution. In America the Executive does not sit in the Legislature at all. In this country, over and over again constitutional battles of the first importance have been fought over the issue of not having too many Members of the Executive sitting in the Legislature. That is the issue. The matter has been more complicated recently by what the Prime Minister said about serving soldiers. It would appear that members of His Majesty's Forces, who are Members of this House, now hold their position in those Forces at the discretion of the political heads of the Government. We had an instance the other day when the hon. Member for Skipton (Mr. H. Lawson) was informed by the Army Council that he could not address a meeting. What the Prime Minister said afterwards about the position of serving Members was—

The Deputy-Chairman

I am afraid that the position of Service Members on this matter is out of Order.

Mr. Bevan

I am using it purely as an illustration to show that we have reached the position where Members who desire to serve their country in certain capacities are, by doing so, unable properly and adequately to do their job as Members of Parliament. My hon. Friend the Member for North Tottenham is, I am quite certain, a first-class administrator, but he must choose between his work—whether he wants to be a Member of Parliament or an administrator. I have some administrative experience and there are a good many jobs I would have liked to have done. I should have been delighted, but a Member of Parliament has to abandon his right to do these things if he is to be a Member of Parliament. Hon. Members want to have the best of both worlds. They want to sit here as Members of Parliament and have the honours, dignities and responsibilities of Members, and at the same time satisfy their perhaps natural ambitions to do administrative jobs. It is in the nature of the British Constitution that that cannot be done. There is an obligation upon us that we should not do it.

Furthermore, our work as Members of Parliament is the examination of the Executive. One would think that the job of a Member of Parliament is now easy. I am as active as anybody in this House, but I cannot scrutinise anything more than a very small proportion of the Government's work. Orders are going through in their hundreds, and no one knows what they contain. Decisions are made by the Executive which we have not the time, energy or proper knowledge to understand. Yet in these circumstances—without any Opposition in this House, without organised scrutiny of the Executive—it is suggested that Members should go about the country doing work which ought to fall upon civil servants. It is a fantastically silly suggestion. If I use strong language it is because the abuse has become abominable. Four Members are to spend three months in the West Indies. What for? Recently, several Members went to Australia. What for? I am absolutely astonished. My hon. Friend the Member for North Tottenham drew a comparison between this and his work on the Select Committee, but a Select Committee is the instrument of the House of Commons, while a salvage commission is an instrument of the Executive. It is an entirely different matter. The four Members who are to go to the West Indies and enjoy the salubrious climate there have obviously—

The Deputy-Chairman

I conclude that the hon. Member is giving an illustration?

Mr. Bevan

The point I am striving to make is that this principle of the Prime Minister's certificate is merely a limited expression of a general malpractice which is springing up in this House. What I have said is an illustration of that. It is bad that these things should happen. I know why hon. Members undertake this work. They do it out of a high sense of duty. They have such special qualities and peculiar experience that, of course, only they would be able to report on what is happening. We know that they are not interested at all in going out to a salubrious climate. We know what an objective and dispassionate view they have of their public duties and how hostile they are, on occasion, to the Government. I know they are not going to the West Indies as a reward at all, but, nevertheless, they will be unable to attend their constituencies for three months, and the work of examining the Government will fall upon Members like myself who are abused, by inference, because we have not devoted ourselves to Government work, because we have not done administrative jobs. We have reached the position where Members who are not drawn into the Executive are not so patriotic as those who are drawn in. My hon. Friend the Member for North Tottenham said that rich people were able to do this sort of work without expenses. That is quite correct. That is the consequence of the malpractice.

Major Thorneycroft (Stafford)

Is it not possible that the hon. Members might know a little more about the West Indies on their return than they did before going out?

The Deputy-Chairman

The hon. Member has used the argument about the West Indies at great length and he would not be in Order in carrying it any further. I hope he will keep his illustration within reasonable limits. I would like to remind him that a number of other Members have kept their remarks within the close bounds of Order.

Mr. Bevan

I will not answer the hon. and gallant Member's question except to say, "So would we all know more about it." I was answering the point about poor people having to draw expenses. Has not my hon. Friend heard about the dollar a year man? Are we to be forced to make the choice that if we are to have Members of the House of Common doing jobs they ought not to do, then only rich people can do them? Is that the logic of the situation? The fact is that none of them ought to be doing it. In that case the situation would not arise. There is nothing more repugnant than for members of the Government to think "We had better appoint this hon. Member, who is a millionaire, rather than the other man who is poor, because if the latter's name was published and he appeared to be drawing public funds there might be a row about it." That shows how miserably tawdry the whole position has become. I seriously suggest to the Government that they have misjudged the public mind on this matter. I was not anxious to pursue this subject any further because I do not like muck-raking. There seems to be an unseemly and loathsome desire to believe that there is a great deal of corruption where it does not exist.

Mr. Woodburn (Stirling and Clackmannan, Eastern)

The hon. Member said it last week.

Mr. Bevan

I have already explained how it exists in this matter. I have used the term "corruption" for the sake of the hon. Gentleman who always reads so much more than he can ever understand. The term "corruption" in this matter is constitutional. Too many Members of the House of Commons are under the control of the Executive. The word is not meant to involve moral turpitude.

Mr. Maxton

It might get that way.

Mr. Bevan

It might get that way, but it is not meant that hon. Members are pursuing pelf. It is meant constitutionally, and if the hon. Member for East Stirling (Mr. Woodburn) had applied himself to that principle he might have been able to understand it. As I have said, I do not like muck-raking. I believe it is a bad thing and I hope the Government will pay attention to this matter. I wish hon. Members could have read my correspondence over the week-end. They would have seen how eagerly—

The Deputy-Chairman

That cannot be in Order, even as an illustration.

Mr. Bevan

That is an astonishing interruption if I may say so. [HON. MEMBERS: "Order."] I never thought it was out of Order to refer to correspondence which applied directly to this issue. However, the public are alarmed about it, and the Government-would do well if, in considering this Amendment, they would take steps to clear up the whole position. We asked for a Select Committee, but that was refused. Such a Committee would have put the position of Parliament into more regular fashion and we should have been able to show that this practice has gone too far, and would have been able to recommend to the Government methods by which they could have put their house in order and relieve the House of Commons from having to share too much in the administration of the Government.

Mr. Mander

Suggestions have been made that the same situation which is facing us now may arise in 12 months time unless the Government make an announcement of their policy with regard to the future of the Act. The Attorney-General said that he did not think that the Government could do that. Surely, hon. Members who are interested can put Questions to the Government in six months' time and ask them what they are proposing to do with regard to the Measure. I want specifically to ask the Attorney-General whether, among all the various matters which the Government are to consider, they will take into account the recommendations of the Select Committee on Offices of Profit under the Crown and, in particular, the recommendation which states that Part 1 should be introduced as soon as practicable? If that were done a great many of the difficulties which have been referred to about certificates to hon. Members who do not expect them and are embarrassed by them would not arise. It is worth the Government's while considering whether to put this into operation because it would get them out of a great many difficulties. Can the Attorney-General give us an assurance that the Government intend seriously to consider the possibility of implementing these recommendations?

Mr. Lindsay

May I ask a further question before we part with this Amendment? I have been very much worried by the speeches of my hon. Friends the Members for Pontypool (Mr. A. Jenkins) and North Tottenham (Mr. R. C. Morrison). I believe that the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. A. Bevan) is incontestable in its general outline but what is very embarrassing is that hon. Members should have to come to this House and try to explain their own positions. For example, my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North Portsmouth (Sir W. James) is placed in this list. It put them in their constituencies in a most unfair position. These figures do not represent the true position. Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman bear in mind the impossible position that Members of Parliament are being put into through the publication of figures like these?

Admiral Sir William James (Portsmouth, North)

I think my name has come on the list by mistake. I am in the same position as all other retired officers. I do not quite know why it is so but, as far as salary is concerned, they are getting me far cheaper than they could by any other method. I am a much cheaper person than the average Service officer.

The Attorney-General

I quite appreciate what the hon. Member opposite says about Part I of the Select Committee's report. There have been questions about it. It is, unfortunately, a complicated piece of legislation to fit the old jig-saw puzzle together and it will be more complicated to get it into line with the wishes of the House of Commons. The Prime Minister thought it would be more convenient to postpone it until quieter times, when it could be considered more at leisure, but I can say on his behalf that that will not be ruled out from the consideration that the Cabinet will give to the question.

Mr. Mander

Will it be ruled in? That is what I want to know.

The Attorney-General

Consideration will be ruled in but I cannot anticipate the result of the operation.

Mr. Driberg

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman say a word more on the point of the constituencies of Members serving overseas and on the likelihood of the Government issuing a "coupon" on their behalf?

The Attorney-General

I have made my speech.

Mr. Driberg

Can he not add to it?

Amendment negatived.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.