HC Deb 23 May 1950 vol 475 cc1855-62

Lords Amendment: In page 1, line 10, leave out "references to" and insert "words".

3.32 p.m.

The Minister of State (Mr. Younger)

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

This is a purely formal and drafting Amendment.

Mr. Manningham-Buller (Northants, South)

May I ask the hon. Gentleman for a little more explanation of this Amendment which he says is purely drafting? He will remember that during the discussion of this Bill in Committee we went through it with the greatest care and we suggested a large number of Amendments. The hon. Gentleman now asks us to agree to this Amendment without any explanation of the reason why it has been found necessary. I think we are entitled to some explanation.

Mr. Younger

Both this and the next Amendment in line 13 are purely drafting points. I do not think there is any difference in the sense, but I should have thought the hon. and learned Member would prefer to have words of this kind as simple as possible. What this Amendment does is to take out the words "references to" from the following phrase in Clause 1: … for the references to His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom … there shall be substituted respectively references to the United Kingdom. and so on. It is simpler to say: … for the words His Majesty's Government… there shall be substituted the words. It is just as accurate; it is rather better English, and it is something which the draftsmen thought would be more appropriate.

Question put, and agreed to.

Lords Amendment in line 13 agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 1, line 26, at end insert: (3) In the proviso to subsection (2) of section one of the said Act of 1944, as amended as aforesaid (which proviso provides that an Order in Council relating to an organisation to which the said section one applies shall not confer any immunity or privilege upon any person as the representative of His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom or as a member of the staff of such a representative), for the words "shall not confer any immunity or privilege" there shall be substituted the words "shall be so framed as to secure that there are not conferred on any person any immunities or privileges greater in extent than those which, at the time of the making of the Order, are required to be conferred on that person in order to give effect to any international agreement in that behalf and that no immunity or privilege is conferred.

Mr. Younger

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

This Amendment was introduced in another place to implement the undertaking which I gave when the Bill was passing through the Committee stage that we would try to find a form of words which would limit the immunity or privileges granted under this Bill strictly to those which at the time of the making of the order are required to give effect to the international agreement which is under consideration.

Mr. Manningham-Buller

This is an important Amendment, and I recognise that the hon. Gentleman, by securing that it would be made in another place, has carried out the undertaking which he gave in Committee on 31st March. The effect of it will be this, as I understand it. The Order in Council conferring the privileges will now be limited to the conferring of privileges covered by the international agreement. That in itself, of course, would not really be sufficient because it would mean that this House would be giving up to a very large extent its power of control over these matters. In particular it might mean, taken by itself, that there would be an international agreement whereby all kinds of privileges and exemptions from taxes and rates were conferred upon British representatives, and then this proviso would merely mean that the Order in Council would not give any greater exemption from taxes and rates than was contained in the international agreement.

However, in view of a later Amendment which we shall be considering, I think there is adequate safeguard against anything of that kind happening, and therefore, I say on behalf of the Opposition that we welcome this Amendment, having regard to one which we shall be considering later, and we are glad that the hon. Gentleman has fulfilled his undertaking so fully.

Sir Herbert Williams (Croydon, East)

I am glad to see this Amendment not only for its own sake but also because the Minister of State and his colleagues in another place have realised that the time we spent some weeks ago was not entirely wasted.

Question put, and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 1, line 26, at end insert: (4) In accordance with the provisions of this Act, subsections (1) and (2) of section one of, and the Schedule to, the said Act of 1944 (as amended by the said Act of 1946 and this Act) shall have effect as set out in the Schedule (Subsections (1) and (2) of section one of, and the Schedule to, the Diplomatic Privileges (Extension) Act. 1944, as amended) to this Act.

Mr. Younger

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

This is a new subsection which is intended to govern the proposed Schedule which appears later on the Order Paper in the Amendment to page 3, line 22, to add a new Schedule "A," There is one other provision which I might mention at the same time. That is the Amendment on page 2, line 5, which is also related to the fact that we are now proposing to add the new Schedule "A."

This series of Amendments does not alter the sense of the Bill but it does carry a stage further what we did in the 1946 Act. We added at the end of the Bill a Schedule which showed the old Schedule as amended, and avoids the necessity of referring to anything other than this Schedule when one wishes to see the effect of the 1944 Act as amended by the 1946 Act and by this Bill. It is purely a matter of convenience.

Hon. Members may remember that when this matter was passing through the Committee stage I was asked by the Opposition to do something of this kind, and at the time I pointed out that we were proposing as soon as may be after this Bill had become law to have a consolidated Act. I suggested that therefore it was not necessary. However, there were further requests that it should be done, and while we still adhere to our intention to have a consolidated Act, which will do exactly the same as is done in this new Schedule, we are quite willing to do this. The House will see that the new Schedule has certain words in heavy type indicating where the changes occur.

Mr. Manningham-Buller

We welcome this Amendment, but I think it is a little belated. If the Schedule which is attached to this Amendment had been incorporated in the Bill as originally presented to this House, it would have made it very much easier for hon. Members to understand what this Bill was intended to do. The Bill as originally presented contained neither a Schedule of this character nor any Explanatory Memorandum. I am glad that the Government have at last thought it desirable that there should be a Schedule of this character, and I am quite sure that this Schedule will be of great use to those who in the future have to make reference to this Bill when it becomes an Act. In relation to any other Bills which emanate from the Foreign Office and which, like this, are of a complicated nature, I ask the hon. Gentleman to bear in mind the desirability of attaching to the Bill an Explanatory Memorandum and also a Schedule of this character, which, I think, is now commonly referred to as a Keeling Schedule.

Question put, and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: Line 26, at end, insert new Clause "A" (Provisions as to Orders in Council). (1) A draft of any Order in Council proposed to be made under the Diplomatic Privileges (Extension) Act, 1944, after the passing of this Act shall be laid before Parliament and the draft shall not be submitted to His Majesty except in pursuance of an address presented by each House of Parliament praying that the Order be made. (2) Any power conferred by the said Act of 1944 to make an Order in Council shall be construed as including a power to revoke or vary the Order in Council by a subsequent Order in Council made in accordance with subsection (1) hereof. (3) Neither subsections (1) and (2) of section two of the said Act of 1944 nor subsection (2) of section five of the Statutory Instruments Act, 1946 (which relate to the annulment of Orders in Council) shall apply to an Order in Council made under the said Act of 1944 after the passing of this Act, and subsection (4) of the said section two (which relates to the variation and revocation of Orders in Council) shall cease to have effect.

Mr. Younger

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

This new Clause introduces the affirmative resolution procedure for Orders in Council proposed to be made under the Diplomatic Privileges (Extension) Act, 1944, in place of the negative procedure. This was introduced in another place and we are quite willing to accept it. The hon. and learned Member has not been very gracious about the manner in which we have treated some of the other arguments brought forward and in which we have been willing to accept Amendments in another place, but I hope he will at least find it possible to welcome this Amendment.

Mr. Manningham-Buller

I am surprised at the hon. Gentleman's observations. So far, I have welcomed every one of these Amendments. I have pointed out that our task would have been much easier—the task of hon. Members on all sides—and time would have been saved if some of the Amendments had been made at an earlier stage. I do not think his remarks are, therefore, in the least degree justified.

So far as this Amendment is concerned, I should like to make it perfectly clear straight away that, of course, we welcome it. This Amendment has to be taken with one which we have just considered because it means that if, perchance, there was an international agreement giving exemption from taxation of one kind or another to British subjects and an Order in Council implementing that agreement, it would still be open to this House to say that they did not agree with it and it would still be necessary, now we are to have the affirmative resolution procedure, for the Government to make out the case for giving that particular exemption.

Since the Diplomatic Privileges (Extension) Act has developed so much since 1944, I am sure it is right that the affirmative resolution procedure should now be adopted so that this House, which should be concerned particularly with cases in which privileges are conferred upon British subjects and others, should have an opportunity of satisfying itself that the grant of this privilege is entirely justified. In conclusion, I must say that I cannot help thinking that if the Parliamentary Secretary had been more gracious and more conciliatory in the Committee Stage, then a great deal of time might have been saved in the passage of this Bill.

3.45 p.m.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter (Kingston-upon-Thames)

While, like my hon. and learned Friend, I welcome the Amendment, I think the Minister of State had no particular grounds for congratulating himself upon accepting it. It is a little difficult to understand why this provision was not in the Bill as introduced. If the Government had really wished to safeguard the rights of this House, then a provision of this sort would have been inserted when the Bill was originally drafted. We have had no explanation whatsoever from the Minister of State why that was not done nor, indeed, have we had an explanation why at the eleventh hour His Majesty's Government have changed their minds and decided to accept the Amendment.

In fact, only a provision of this sort gives to this House any effective control over these Orders. The negative procedure is wholly ineffective during the times when the House is in Recess and, as hon. Members know, it is also subject to the difficulty that the rights under it are generally exercised in the small hours of the morning. It is surely elementary that, where privileges of this serious character are being granted to people, Parliamentary control should be assured by the only effective means—the affirmative procedure. One might add that the action of another place in inserting this provision in the Bill goes a long way to support the admirable statement of the important rôle that another place make take in safeguarding the rights of the citizen which was made last week by the noble and venerable Lord, Viscount Cecil of Chelwood.

Sir H. Williams

I am delighted that we have this proposal in the Bill, and I agree with my hon. and learned Friend that we might have done better a couple of months ago if the missing Parliamentary Secretary had known better how to handle his job. I can quite understand why he is not here today. I am interested that we are adopting this procedure. As I understand it, the affirmative procedure is generally adopted in respect of anything which involves a charge on the subject, In all other cases, the negative procedure is adopted. The principles of the negative and the affirmative procedures are to some extent set down in the Donoughmore Report.

What are the fundamental principles? I have always thought that we had the affirmative procedure when any Order involved expenditure or a charge on the subject. As in this case His Majesty's Government have agreed to the affirmative procedure—and I know how rigid Governments of all parties have been in this matter—I take it. that the reason the affirmative procedure has been adopted is that it is intended to use the Bill to relieve certain persons of the taxation which they would otherwise attract. I should like to know whether that is the real reason why the Government have accepted this proposal. Will the Minister answer that?.

Mr. Speaker

Only with the permission of the House.

Mr. Younger

With the permission of the House, I am quite prepared to give the hon. Member the answer. As usual, he has totally misunderstood the purport of this Amendment. For all I know he may be prefectly correct in what he has said about one of the principles which distinguishes between the use of affirmative and negative resolutions, but it is certainly within my experience that the occasions upon which an affirmative resolution is used are by no means limited to cases where a charge is imposed. It is a matter partly of the likely importance of the Orders to be made and partly of the frequency with which they are likely to be made—whether it would be an intolerable burden upon the House always to have to consider affirmatively a large number of Orders in which it was unlikely that any objection would be taken. It is very largely a matter of sense of proportion and discretion.

Question put, and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 2, line 5, leave out subsection (2) and insert: (2) The provisions of the Diplomatic Privileges (Extension) Act, 1946, specified in the first column of the Schedule (Provisions of the Diplomatic Privileges (Extension) Act, 1946, repealed) to this Act are hereby repealed to the extent specified in the second column of that Schedule.

Mr. Younger

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

I have already mentioned this Amendment which is, as it were, consequential upon the new Schedule "A" which we are about to consider.

Question put, and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 3, line 22, at end add new Schedule "A":

SUBSECTIONS (1) AND (2) OF SECTION ONE OF, AND THE SCHEDULE TO, THE DIPLOMATIC PRIVILEGES (EXTENSION) ACT, 1944. AS AMENDED