HC Deb 04 April 1946 vol 421 cc1388-9
45. Mr. De la Bere

asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the secrecy imposed on the British Hospitals Association during their recent discussions with the Minister of Health and the misunderstandings which such secrecy engenders, he will give an assurance that the Government will discontinue this practice in connection with the introduction of further measures of legislation.

The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison)

In the case mentioned my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health was not consulting the British Hospitals Association as such, or expecting it to commit itself to any specific proposals. He was consulting a group of individual representatives from the Association in order to obtain their personal expert opinion on certain points before the Government's proposals were submitted in the proper manner to Parliament. Such a consultation was naturally confidential, and I see nothing to be deprecated in it.

Mr. De la Bère

Does not the right hon. Gentleman now appreciate how very regrettable it was that these enlightened representatives were both gagged and muzzled, and is he aware that the Government always seek to move the Closure,. both in Parliament and with the general' public, on all matters of truth?

Mr. Morrison

That seems to me to be rather a mouthful of irrelevancies. These confidential discussions were started by my right hon. Friend's predecessor, the. previous Conservative Minister of Health.

If Parliament is never to permit confidential discussions prior to the introduction of a Bill, the alternative is to bang the Bill down on the Table and say to all those interested, "There you are, take it or leave it.'' I think it is far better to consult people. The hon. Member is getting shockingly bureaucratic.

Mr. Oliver Stanley

Was not this the procedure which the Minister of Health adopted in this House, and did he not, in fact, gag them by asking them to come and see him, and then paying no attention to them?

Mr. Morrison

If consultation proceeds on broad policy prior to the introduction of a Bill, it must be confidential. The right hon. Gentleman may call it gagging if he likes—that is just Conservative language—but they must be confidential. That is what it amounts to. I am perfectly sure that the right hon. Gentleman, in the course of his Ministerial life, has had heaps of consultations of precisely the same type.

Mr. De la Bère

The matter is thoroughly unsatisfactory.