HC Deb 21 April 1948 vol 449 cc1943-52

The provisions of this Act relating to persons entitled to be registered and vote as Service voters shall apply to any British subject of full age and not subject to any legal incapacity to vote who is resident outside the United Kingdom by reason only of any ser- vice of himself or his spouse in respect of which payment is made out of moneys provided by Parliament as they apply to a member of the Forces, and for the purposes of the said provisions membership of the Forces shall be deemed to include such service as aforesaid:—[Mr. Keeling.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

10.30 p.m.

Mr. Keeling (Twickenham)

I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."

Whatever may be said about the democratic quality of the last new Clause proposed, there can be no question about the democratic quality of this one. The Bill gives a vote to the fighting Forces abroad but denies it to British Government servants abroad. It even denies it to members of the Control Commission, although they had a vote at the last General Election, when they were put on the same footing as the troops. The result is an anomaly which is exceedingly unfair to the civil servants. The disfranchisement of the staff of the Control Commission is contrary to the unanimous opinion of a committee, which the Home Secretary set up, representing all parties in this House and a number of outside experts. The disfranchisement of other Government servants produces a not less striking injustice—namely that attaches—naval, military and air—and their staffs of all ranks at foreign embassies and legations get the vote, while the civilian staffs of the embassies, who are working side by side with them do not.

It is undemocratic to differentiate between classes of Government servants. These civil servants are serving their country and, I might add, are paying British Income Tax, no less than members of the fighting Forces, and I have a number of letters which show that they feel their disfranchisement deeply. This new Clause enfranchises not only the Control Commission staffs and the Diplomatic Service, but also consuls, representatives of the Ministries of Supply and Food and of other departments, and dockyard artisans abroad. They are all to be on the same level as the fighting Forces, and they are all to be subjected to the same condition contained in Clause 6, which deals with the fighting Forces. That says that a member of the Forces must make a declaration, first, that he is a British subject; secondly, that he is 21 years of age; and thirdly, that he resides, or but for his Government service would reside, at a stated address in the United Kingdom.

Three objections may be, and have been, raised to the principle of my new Clause. The first is that the fighting Forces ought to have preferential treatment because their service is compulsory. There is absolutely nothing in this point, because most of the compulsory service is now to end before a man is 21, and it is only the volunteer long-service men who will qualify for a vote at all.

The second objection raised is that if the franchise exerciseable abroad is extended from the fighting Forces to the Civil Service we cannot deny it to private people abroad. My reply is that there is a clear distinction between Government servants, whether military or civil, on the one hand, and private persons on the other hand, because all Government servants abroad pay British Income Tax, whereas the private person usually escapes it. Payment of Income Tax has never been a qualification for a vote, nor does my new Clause seek to make it so; but surely the principle of "no taxation without representation" ought to be applied wherever possible. It therefore seems reasonable to draw the dividing line between Government servants and private persons.

The third objection was made by the Home Secretary himself some time ago in reply to a question by my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg). My hon. Friend said: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that all servants of the Crown, like members of the Forces, ought to be qualified to vote? The Home Secretary replied: The difficulty is to associate them with a territorial constituency. That is difficult enough with regard to members of the Forces, and it would be quite impossible in some of these cases."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th November, 1945; Vol. 416, C. 1515.] But the difficulty is no greater with civil servants than with members of the fighting Forces. The procedure is quite simple. All that a member of the Civil Service abroad would have to do would be to make a declaration and give his home address. If he has no home address, he will not get a vote.

Finally, the number of people who would be enfranchised by the new Clause is not great. Eighteen months ago the Chancellor of the Exchequer informed me that the number of civil servants paid by the Treasury who were living abroad was 15,000, including 8,500 servants of the Control Commissions for Germany and Austria. Some of those 15,000 are not British, and therefore would not get the vote. Also, the staffs of the Control Commissions have, I believe, been reduced; so that it would be a fair guess to say that not more than 10,000 would be enfranchised by the new Clause; and about half of them might not want to exercise their right.

My proposed Clause gives the vote to the spouse. On a previous Amendment this evening the Home Secretary said that he was favourably disposed—I am not sure if he accepted the principle—to giving the vote to the wife of a member of the fighting Forces abroad. In stating that he reserved his opinion on the word "spouse" in my Clause. If that is all there is between us I am prepared to drop the word "spouse." If my Clause is accepted civil servants abroad will, for the purposes of this Bill, be deemed to be members of the fighting Forces, and as the wife of a member of the fighting Forces is covered in principle by what the Home Secretary said on a previous Amendment, the wife of a civil servant must likewise be covered. That leaves only the husband of a civil servant—a rarity abroad. Therefore, I am prepared to drop the word "spouse." I hope with that modification the Home Secretary will accept my new Clause.

Mr. Quintin Hogg (Oxford)

I hope the Committee will allow me to add one word to the excellent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling) since it is a matter, as my hon. Friend said, in which I have hitherto in, terested myself. My hon. Friend has stated his answers to the arguments which have been put forward by the Government against the Clause, and I associate myself with them. I would only add that I cannot myself see any force in the arguments put forward by the Government against a Clause of this sort which could not equally in peace-time be advanced against the registering for voting purposes of members of the Forces, because the great majority of Armed Forces in peace-time, in so far as they are beyond the seas, are volunteers serving for a term of years. Whatever difficulty there may be associating civil servants and their wives with any constituency in this country must equally apply to members of the fighting Forces serving abroad unless it happens to be the limited class of person—the National Service man. With the Armed Forces that difficulty has been surmountable, but with the Diplomatic Service there is apparently an insuperable objection.

I can but feel that if the Home Secretary had only had to deal with a more numerous class of person who could speak through a number of advocates in this House he would have been a great deal m re sympathetic to these points. I beg of him now to accept this Clause, or at least its principle, in order that we may be able to implement the principle to which he has stated himself to be attached, namely, one man one vote. I am not impressed by the argument that this Clause tends to admit the claim to be registered of large numbers of private persons not in the service of the Crown, for the reason which my hon. Friend gave and which relates to taxation.

10.45 p.m.

The criterion is this. We ought to give a vote to every part of our home community so far as it is reasonably practicable. The Diplomatic and the Civil Services, have members abroad; they are resident there by reason of their service, and they are just as much a part of our home community as the civil servant in Whitehall. It does not disenfranchise a man—or it ought not to do—because he is posted to Baghdad or the Control Commission in Germany. One is, to some extent, dealing with people semi-detached from the home community; they may have formed ties elsewhere which would be difficult to associate with the voting system in this country, but with the limited class of persons in the service of the Crown resident outside this country by reason solely of their service, the case is, I should have thought, overwhelming.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke (Dorset, Southern)

I do not know to what extent my hon. Friends on this side are pressing against an open door and if the Home Secretary is going to concede this Clause. May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he realises the extent of the feeling on this subject in Germany, for example? I had the honour to present a petition to this House last October on behalf of several thousands of wives in Germany, but, like all petitions, it found its way to the green bag. So far as I know it has never been taken out. [HON. MEMBERS: "How do you know?"] Well, petitions go into the green bag; there is some procedure by which they get back to Government Departments, where Ministers consider them, and hon. Members get some sort of answer, but one must presume that they rest in the green bag.

Does the Home Secretary know what is the feeling in Germany? Wives in scores have written to hon. Members, including myself, on this subject. They want to vote, and I would ask the right hon. Gentleman why they should not. Can he give one reason why they should not? Business people are in a different category. They come and go; they may be in this country or abroad, and their wives and families may be with them while they are abroad. But these are people stationed abroad in the service of the Crown, people who are recompensed by the Crown through Government funds. Why should they be treated in a different category from people here? Why should General Robertson's wife not have a vote, or why should not the wife of a private soldier stationed in Mulheim have a vote?

My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling) said he did not insist on the word "spouse," but I take it that the Home Secretary—although I was not in my place at the time—has accepted it. My hon. Friend says the Home Secretary has accepted it, but we shall get the truth in a moment.

Mr. Ede

I resent the insinuation of the noble Lord that I was not telling the truth. He said "We shall get the truth in a moment." The hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling) was careful to say that I had not accepted the spouse with regard to the soldier I have not accepted it in that regard. What I said earlier today was that I would reconsider the matter and reserve my judgment until I had heard the arguments on this Clause.

Mr. Keeling

Is the right hon. Gentleman referring to civil servants?

Mr. Ede

I had not accepted the position of the spouse with regard to the soldier. I said I would reconsider that.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke

I would not dream of accusing the Home Secretary of not telling the truth. He has stated that he is not accepting the suggestion that soldiers' wives should be given the vote. Why not? We ask that wives of soldiers in Germany and the wives of members of the Control Commission resident in Germany should be given the vote. I am not sure that we seek so strongly that the husbands of women employed by the Government in Germany should be given the vote, but that is a point we might consider later.

I beg the Home Secretary to give a favourable answer on this Clause. It is surely a proposal that would commend itself to the Committee on all sides. Hon. Members opposite can have no complaint about this matter. Socialism is spreading overseas quite as effectively now as it did under former Conservative administrations. They are responsible for maintaining large armies of administrators and civil servants overseas. We gave them the vote in 1945, in fact many more got the vote in 1945 than now, but these people are servants of the Crown overseas and I do think they justify some consideration from the right hon. gentleman.

Sir Richard Acland (Gravesend)

Opposition speakers were so unreasonable on the last Clause that it is a pleasure to find them being so reasonable on this Clause. There is an argument against this Clause that has occurred to my mind, and I hope the Home Secretary will see his way to show sympathy to its general principles even if amendments have to be made to the wording. I have reason to be aware of one argument against the Clause which I do not think has been referred to. It is suggested that the Clause would allow people to vote who for reasons of very long absence have no idea about conditions in this country at all. There might be diplomats who have been abroad for years and years and who are entirely out of touch with conditions here, and I think there is something unreasonable in allowing such people to vote. I would, however, be prepared to take a chance. It would not worry me very much because I imagine that the majority of such people would be inclined to vote for the party opposite.

I would like to put to those who moved the Clause that if this point is felt to be a strong argument against it, would they consider saving the principle of the Clause by including in it some words which would limit its effect to those who have been out of the country for not more than, say, five years? I do not insist on that figure. If that condition had to be conceded for getting the principle of the Clause through, would those who moved it see their way to accept it? I hope the Home Secretary will accept the principle of the Clause.

Mr. Ede

I have listened with considerable interest to the arguments that have been used in favour of this Clause. My difficulty is largely the one mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Sir R. Acland). There are some people who would come under this Clause who have been out of this country for a very long time and, as far as I know, may not ever return to it. Those are the kind of people about whom I have misgivings. I regret that the noble Lord the Member for South Dorset (Lord Hinchingbrooke) should have said that General Robertson's wife has not got a vote but the private soldier has. That is the kind of argument which I hope will not be adduced in favour of this Clause. I recall ladies of five or 20 years ago saying, "It is iniquitous that my gardener should have a vote but I have not got one." If it comes to a single vote, the private soldier is as much entitled to a vote as General Robertson's wife, although I would not say he was more entitled to a vote if the circumstances were such that I could put both of these people on the register.

I think that the case for this Clause has been made out, but I want to make it quite clear that I must not be pressed after this on a later stage of the Bill to say that any British subject abroad has the right to make this claim, think the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling) would agree that at a very early stage of this controversy this claim was made—not by him, but it was advanced by those who advocate this principle, which is to be very limited. My difficulty is to associate these people with a territorial constituency in this country. The kind of man whom my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend mentioned is a case in point. It may sometimes be very difficult, after he has been abroad for a great number of years, legitimately to associate him with any particular constituency in this country. A man who is abroad for only a couple of years probably still regards himself as in the constituency in which he resided when he left, or where his family home is. But when people are abroad for a great number of years, the head of the family dies, the family home is broken up, and it is very difficult definitely to associate them with that territorial constituency.

However, I will accept the Clause on the understanding that this deals with persons in the employment of the Crown and the wife of a person in the employment of the Crown. If the Clause will need any tidying up between now and the Report stage I will see the hon. Member for Twickenham before I proceed any further.

Mr. Keeling

I am very much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.