CLAUSE 1.—(Treasury control of borrowing, etc.) (Hansard, 10 July 1946)

§ The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Dalton)
I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
When this Bill was last in play between the two Houses, it was suggested in 475 another place that there should be a limitation of five years on the operation of the Bill. To that we felt unable to agree. The Amendment which is now under consideration does not touch the period of the operation of the Bill at all; that is now admitted to be eternal. On the other hand, it does insert into the Bill itself a limit of £1,000 on the amount of borrowing which will be free of control. It permits up to a limit of £10,000, within which borrowing will be free of control in any particular 12 monthly period. This is to be read in conjunction with the draft Order in which a limit of £50,000 is inserted. This, therefore, comes well within that limit, and for my part, since it has been represented that otherwise this Bill would be used to prohibit the borrowing of sixpences, shillings and spare quids, in order to remove any such possibility from the field of the Statute itself and of the Order, I am quite prepared to put £10,000 into the Bill while retaining £50,000 in the Order, and also of course retaining the power to vary the £50,000 limit from time to time by Order, although as I have explained on previous occasions in the judgment of the Government £50,000 is about right. As the £10,000 limit falls well below this, it does not work against the scheme of control as laid down in the Order, but merely gives a lower level of assurance against interference with the borrowing of quite small sums in circumstances to which we could take no objection.

§ Mr. I. J. Pitman (Bath)
We have had a great deal of discussion on this question of the amount of money on which the Bill itself could enforce control and the position which the Order would give, and I must confess that I have not fully understood what the Chancellor has said in that connection. Am I right in saying that the result of this concession of his is that he has brought down the amount nearer to the sixpences and odd quids that he mentioned, and that as a result the Bill will not enable control to be operative upon the smaller amounts between £50,000 and £10,000?

§ Mr. Dalton
In any given year, yes.

§ Mr. Pitman
I am not quite sure if it is so. The Order can stand at £50,000, thereby controlling amounts between £10,000 and £50,000. I should be very 476 grateful if the Chancellor would clear that point up, so that the House may really understand it. To my mind it is a little complicated, and I am not quite sure where I stand.

§ Mr. Gallacher (Fife, West)
There is one thing that the House will understand, and that is that when' we get an Amendment from the other place it means that the Tories, having failed in the Committee, are using the last bastion in order to get their desires to come true. Those of us who have been sitting here all afternoon realise that. I only want to say this. While I would be prepared to oppose the Lords Amendment—any Amendment—I am not prepared to force the matter to a Division. It is my sincere and final word on this question: I know that the Lords who have presented this Amendment——

§ Mr. Speaker
We do not talk about "the Lords"; we talk about another place.

§ Mr. Gallacher
I know that that "other place" is a little boxlike arrangement, and I hope that one of these days when they are all gathered there, we will go round and put the lid on them.

§ Mr. Assheton (City of London)
I did not expect that the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) would be an enthusiastic supporter of this Amendment which has come down to us from another place. None the less, this Amendment, and others with which the House has been dealing this afternoon, have, I think, once again shown the great advantage that there is in having a revising Chamber. Not only can mistakes be remedied, but second thoughts can be given by the Government to matters to which, perhaps, they did not give sufficient attention on the first occasion. The hon. Member for West Fife did not have the advantage that I had of sitting through the Committee stage of this Bill, because he was not a Member of that particular Committee.

§ Mr. Gallacher
I sat through the Committee stage on the Coal Industry Nationalisation Bill, and I saw what happened here this afternoon.

§ Mr. Assheton
The hon. Gentleman has far greater knowledge of what happened on that Bill. When we were discussing this matter in the Committee stage on this 477 Bill, a very large number of reasons was put forward by the Solicitor-General why the Government could not accede to a request that the £50,000 which was in the Order should be written into the Bill. I pressed him, after he made that speech, to say what was the sum of money he considered was substantial. He said the Government did not wish to interfere with borrowing, except of substantial amounts, and I pressed him on that question. He did not, in fact, indicate to us then what it was. I asked if he would think £10,000 would be an appropriate sum? The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in winding up the Debate, did not feel ready to give way. I think the House is being very wise indeed in accepting this Amendment. It would be ridiculous if we were to give to the Treasury power—I almost hope to have the hon. Member for West Fife with me in this argument—by Order to restrict the borrowing of any sum of money whatever, of 10s., or £1 or £5. I think that even the hon. Member for West Fife would agree with me there.

§ Mr. Gallacher
It would depend on who was the borrower.

§ Mr. Assheton
Exactly. But it would be quite impossible to put into the Bill all the limitations on the borrowers which the hon. Gentleman the Member for West Fife would like to put in. It was, therefore, obviously desirable that some sum should be put in, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer has come to the conclusion that £10,000, which was suggested in another place, is the appropriate sum, and we on this side of the House are grateful to him.

§ Mr. Blackburn (Birmingham, King's Norton)
May I, with great respect, say that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen speaking for the Opposition might have been a little more generous in congratu- 478 lating the Chancellor of the Exchequer upon having accepted this Amendment from another place, and having this limitation of, £10,000 in the Bill? I have at all times agreed with the view that the right hon. Gentleman has put forward, that there is no value in trying to control borrowing when the aggregate amount in any one year is less than £10,000. I want, however, seriously, to offer one observation. Words which are uttered in this House, or outside, by distinguished gentlemen are echoed round the world. It is rather important that we should remember that. Not only the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bournemouth (Mr. Bracken), but, in some kind of pale imitation, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden), and even the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Assheton) who has just spoken, are suggesting that the freedom of this country, the great traditional freedom of this country, is being impaired by the conduct of this Government. I raise this point only because it has been specifically alleged, not once, but on many occasions, in respect of this particular Bill. I do desire to make the point that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been extremely reasonable, and has been prepared to take what is a somewhat unwelcome course for anybody sitting on these benches, namely, to accept an Amendment from the Lords. I put this argument with all sincerity, that we should remember that magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom, and that this country has a proud record for moderation in Parliament, on both the Government and the Opposition Benches. We should be well advised to maintain that record for moderation. If we do not, may the consequences be on the heads of those responsible.