UNIVERSAL POSTAL UNION (IMMUNITIES AND PRIVILEGES) (Hansard, 24 October 1950)

§ The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Ernest Davies)
I beg to move, That the Order [19th July], for presenting to His Majesty an humble Address, That the International Organisations (Immunities and Privileges of the Universal Postal Union) Order in Council, 1950, be made in the form of the draft laid before this House on 12th July, be discharged. The House will recall that on 19th July a Motion was made, a Question was put, and a draft Order was approved by this House in connection with the granting of international organisation immunities and privileges to the Universal Postal Union. After some Debate, in which some points were raised on the other side of the House which the Government took into consideration, the Motion was carried and went to another place. There, by similar action, further matters were raised, discussion took place, and the Government then decided to withdraw the Order and to give further consideration to the matter.
The question of privileges and immunities for other organisations also arises in this connection, and, in view of the approaching end of the Session and the fact that the correspondence as regards these other organisations is still continuing. I have to request the House to discharge this Motion as it was originally put forward and approved by the House. That is subject, of course, to the matter being raised again when the policy of the Government is decided in view of the further circumstances mentioned above.
I therefore ask the House to approve the discharge of this order, to enable the discussions which are now taking place to be concluded and for a further order to be introduced should the Government so decide.

§ Mr. Manningham-Buller (Northants, South)
We are really being asked to agree to something which is without precedent in this Parliament. On 19th July the Government sought to obtain consent to a Motion without making any explanatory speech giving the reasons for it—in our usual language, trying to get the order "on the nod." They were stopped from doing that by an eloquent speech 2739 made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell), who raised a number of points with regard to his Order.
Then the Minister of State arose and gave an explanation, but it was not a satisfactory one. The Debate continued and, in spite of many requests from this side, no information was given to us as to what had happened since the start of the Universal Postal Union to make it necessary, after that body had been in existence for 75 years, to confer upon it and upon its officials a wide range of diplomatic privileges.
It was only after considerable pressure that we received a further statement from the Government with regard to that order. Then, as the hon. Gentleman has said, the matter came up for discussion in another place, where the same points were raised as were raised from this side of the House during the discussion here.
The hon. Gentleman, in moving this Motion today, said that some points were raised in the discussion here; he said that they were taken into consideration by the Government then. All I can say is that there was no indication that they were taken into consideration by the Government then at all.

§ Mr. Henry Strauss (Norwich, South)
Hear, hear.

§ Mr. Manningham-Buller
Then the hon. Gentleman went on to say that further matters were raised in another place. They were not—they were the same points. The difference between this place and another place was that the points when raised in another place had consideration given to them by the Lord Chancellor, with the result that the Government withdrew this order for further consideration.
Considerable Parliamentary time has been occupied in discussing this order which the hon. Gentleman now asks us to agree should be discharged. How much better it would have been had the Government given more consideration before introducing any order of this sort; if they had thought out a little more this question of granting diplomatic privileges to members of organisations which had existed for so long and without experiencing any need whatever for them. Not only did the Government, apparently, not 2740 think the matter out before introducing the order to this House, but even when objections were raised and points were asked which required an answer, it does not appear, judging by the sequence of events, that proper consideration was given by the Government to the points that we raised from this side.
The Lord Chancellor has made it clear that it is his view that we should look with careful and watchful eyes to see what ought to be done in the way of granting further extensions of diplomatic privilege. We on this side have continued to do that and I am glad that this Motion has now come forward. I hope that before we are asked to approve any other order conferring any further diplomatic privileges on any organisation, or on any officials of any organisation, the matter will be more fully considered in all its aspects than has been the case with regard to this particular order.

§ Mr. Henry Strauss (Norwich, South)
I agree with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northants, South (Mr. Manningham-Buller), that the Opposition very much welcome the discharge of this Order. When the Government invited the House to make this Order, at least a dozen Members spoke from this side against it. The Minister who is in charge today was not in charge on that occasion, and in those circumstances the House is always inclined to be merciful to a Minister who has to withdraw the mistakes made by another Minister, even if that other Minister belongs to the same Department.
The hon. Gentleman is asking the House to believe rather much, however, when he says that the Government took into consideration the objections made to the Order from the Opposition benches. The Government did nothing of the sort. What actually happened was that the Minister of State said that there was nothing whatever in any of the points we had taken. That is a rather curious way of taking into consideration the objections which we were putting.
Let me read just two sentences of what the Minister of State said on that last occasion: All hon. Members who have looked at the privileges and immunities sought to be granted 2741 will realise that it is necessary that some provisions of this kind should be made if international organisations are to function adequately. He said a little later: It will be remembered that, when the 1950 Diplomatic Privileges Act was passed through the House, it was agreed that, in Orders which might subsequently be made, the privileges and immunities granted should not go beyond what it was necessary to grant for the carrying out of the international obligation. That is what we are seeking to do in this case. …" [OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th July, 1950; Vol. 477, c. 2401.] Member after Member from these benches pointed out that there was no reason whatever to give the diplomatic privileges which it was sought to give by this Order, which the House is now invited to discharge.
The same arguments were produced in another place and on the excellent advice of the Lord Chancellor the Minister there in charge took the Order back. The Lord Chancellor said that he would invite his noble Friend to take it back so that we can consider where we are. That was very good advice by the Lord Chancellor. What the Government discovered was that every argument put forward from the Opposition benches was correct and that every argument put forward in favour of the Order from the Government benches was wrong. That is why the Minister comes here today to ask for the Order to be discharged. I think that the House will discharge it eagerly, because the Order which was passed was complete nonsense.