HC Deb 15 November 1951 vol 493 cc1290-4

Motion made, and Question proposed.

That a Select Committee he appointed to whom shall be referred all Petitions presented to the House, with the exception of such as are deposited in the Private Bill Office, and that such Committee do classify and prepare abstracts of the same in such form and manner as shall appear to them best suited to convey to the House all requisite information respecting their contents, and do report the same from time to time to the House; and that the Reports of the Committee do set forth, in respect of each Petition, the number of signatures which are accompanied by addresses, and which are written on sheets headed in every case by the prayer of the Petition, or on the back of such sheets, provided that on every sheet after the first prayer may he reproduced in print or by other mechanical process; and that such Committee have power to direct the printing inextensoof such Petitions, or of such parts of Petitions, as shall appear to require it:

That Mr. Dryden Brook, Mr. Carson, Mr. Grey, Mr. Hector Hughes, Dr. King, Mr. Lambert, Colonel Lancaster, Major Legge-Bourke, Commander Maitland, Mr. McGhee, Mr. John Morrison, Mr. Pargiter, Mr. Raikes, Colonel Thornton-Kemsley and Mr. Watkins he members of the Committee:

That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers and records:

That Three be the Quorum.—[Mr. Drewe.]

9.44 p.m.

Mr. Leslie Hale (Oldham, West)

I always speak in this House with reluctance and diffidence, but I submit that we cannot allow this important topic to go without debate at all. The question is whether we should appoint a Committee to examine Petitions presented to the House? Some of us for many years have urged the importance of the rights of petitioning the House and the great value attached to this privilege which is first recorded in the Commons Journal—

Mr. Speaker

We have passed that point. We are now on the Question, "That Three be the Quorum." If the hon. Member can direct his remarks to that Question, he will be in order.

Mr. Hale

With great respect. Mr. Speaker, you have read out the whole Question as one clause. No voices were collected upon it, and thus we were considering the Question as a clause, whether we shall appoint a Committee to examine petitions, the final words of which are, "That Three be the Quorum." The Question was read out on the Motion of the hon. Member for Honiton (Mr. Drewe), and that Motion is now being submitted to the House. I do not want to waste any time, but it is an important matter and it is a matter on which the House is entitled to some information. I think it is the first time in the six years I have been in the House that this question has been debated and it is, therefore, singularly appropriate that it should be debated and that we should have some information about the functions of the Committee and about what duties they are expected to perform.

All of us, in our early days on constitutional law and practice, were told that this was one of the treasured rights of the people—the right to petition the Commons House of Parliament about any grievance: and that that right was a privilege they ought to prize and esteem. The first point I have to make is this. I have been looking up the records—there have not been a great many Petitions—and in November, 1946, Mr. Speaker made a few observations on the matter and said that every petition which had been presented up to then had been out of order. Of 911 petition signatures submitted, only four pages were correctly topped, and the other pages were out of order and therefore could not be subject to any consideration even if Parliament had thought fit at any time since 1675 to provide an opportunity for consideration—which, so far as I have been able to gather, they have not.

The functions of this Committee are limited to counting the signatures. An hon. Member of this House gets up and reads the petition and believes that some really important process is being performed. He reads out the basis of his petition and gives an indication of the number of names—sometimes a singularly inaccurate observation, because in the last Report from this Committee, in March. 1951, it was said that there were five signatures whereas the hon. Member who presented the petition said there were 100,000. It is fair to say that the error of 99,995 was due to this irregularity rather than to any attempt to deceive the House. The signatures were not in the proper form. The petition is handed in to the Table, and one hon. Member in one debate in 1948 was good enough to suggest that it might go into the wastepaper basket, but Mr. Speaker gave a formal Ruling that the place for the petition is not the waste-paper basket but is in the bag.

Nothing happens. It is taken from the bag, passed to the Committee, if we appoint it, and the duty of the Committee is to count the signatures and nothing else. [Laughter.] This is a serious topic, because I find increasing evidence in the North-West of great anxiety and a great desire to use the petitioning procedure. They have had no occasion to use it in the last six years but they may well have occasion to do so in the period immediately ahead. It is right, therefore, that I should be able to tell my constituents what attention will be paid to a petition, and so on.

There appears to be no limit to the people who can petition. I observe that there was a petition during the last Parliament for the impeachment of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), which was signed by one person only, whose address was given as Wandsworth Prison. Again, in the last six years, in the way of the tailors of Tooley Street, we have been petitioned on behalf of the inhabitants of Great Britain. The Committee reported that the number of inhabitants of Great Britain who had signed a petition was, in fact, nine. What they did not know, although there was intrinsic evidence to show it, was that they all resided in the district of Orping- ton, Kent, and that the petition had been presented by their indefatigable Member.

I have no desire to delay the House at this time. I am not clear whether the discussion can go beyond ten o'clock, and I have no desire for it to do so. All I ask the hon. Gentleman to do is to tell us what the Committee are for and what they are going to do, because they have stopped counting the votes. In every Report we have had recently they have said there has been so much evidence of duplication of handwriting that on the whole, they have given up counting. [An HON. MEMBER: "No."] Indeed they have. Frankly, I do not blame them.

Is it now suggested that if petitions are brought to the House somebody will consider them, and they will be sent to the appropriate Ministers and the appropriate Departments? Can the Committee be empowered to do something with a petition other than print a perfectly worthless piece of paper saying there are so many signatures on it or saying that they have not counted the signatures? Those are the questions and I should be very glad indeed if we could have them answered.

Hon. Members

Answer.

Mr. Speaker

Whatever may be said about the general conduct on Petitions in this House, it is clear, I think, that the House may be the better for having a Select Committee, whose operations the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale), will be able to criticise if he feels so inclined. I do not think that at this moment his argument goes to show that there should not be a Select Committee, which is the only point before us.

Mr. Hale

I am very grateful for your guidance, Mr. Speaker, and I wonder if you will be good enough to tell me how a Member of the House can approach the Committee to get its powers enlarged so that it may perform a useful function for this House?

Mr. Speaker

The hon. Member can put down at any time a Motion to the effect that the constitution of the Committee be altered or enlarged after, I hope, he has given mature thought to the subject he puts before us.

Mr. Hale

I am much obliged, Mr. Speaker. However, it is really a little discourteous for an hon. Member to come before this House to move a Motion and. when asked to explain the facts about it, to decline to say a word. If he is inarticulate, he ought not to be here. If he is not inarticulate, he should say why he is desirious of moving this Motion.

Mr. Speaker

I had got as far as the words, "That Three be the Quorum." and I will now conclude the Question.

Question put, and agreed to.