HC Deb 27 November 1952 vol 508 cc950-2

Adjourned Debate on Question [7th November]: That a Select Committee be appointed to consider every Statutory Instrument laid or laid in draft before the House, being an Instrument or Draft of an Instrument upon which proceedings may be or might have been taken in either House in pursuance of any Act of Parliament, with a view to determining whether the special attention of the House should be drawn to it on any of the following grounds:—

  1. (i) that it imposes a charge on the public revenues or contains provisions requiring payments to be made to the Exchequer or any Government Department or to any local or public authority in consideration of any licence or consent, or of any services to be rendered, or prescribes the amount of any such charge or payments;
  2. (ii) that it is made in pursuance of an enactment containing specific provisions excluding it from challenge in the courts, either at all times or after the expiration of a specified period;
  3. (iii) that it appears to make some unusual or unexpected use of the powers conferred by the Statute under which it is made;
  4. (iv) that it purports to have retrospective effect where the parent Statute confers no express authority so to provide;
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  5. (v) that there appears to have been unjustifiable delay in the publication or in the laying of it before Parliament;
  6. (vi) that there appears to have been unjustifiable delay in sending a notification to Mr. Speaker under the proviso to subsection (1) of section four of the Statutory Instruments Act, 1946, where an Instrument has come into operation before it has been laid before Parliament;
  7. (vii) that for any special reason its form or purport calls for elucidation;
and if they so determine, to report to that effect.

Question again proposed.

8.40 a.m.

Mr. Bing

I really think I must make this last protest now. It is quite scandalous that hon. Gentlemen opposite, who have said they thought Statutory Instruments ought to be discussed, and who were sent back to see that Parliament had a proper scrutiny of Statutory Instruments, should, when the very Committee set up to deal with them had a number of flaws in its composition, flaws noticed by the Members of that Committee itself, allow no adequate time at all for debating the Motion to set up the Committee. Hon. Members of this House have been placed in the position that they could either debate this Motion or lose tomorrow's business. That is a complete abuse of the method of conducting the business of the House, and I only wish the Leader of the House were here so that I could say it to his face.

Committee nominated of Mr. Blyton, Mr. Harold Davies, Mr. Eric Fletcher, Mr. Higgs, Mr. Hector Hughes, Mr. Jennings, Dr. King, Mr. J. Enoch Powell, Mr. Renton, Sir Harold Roper and Mr. Spence: To have the assistance of the Counsel to Mr. Speaker: Power to sit notwithstanding any Adjournment of the House, to report from time to time, and to report the Minutes of their Proceedings from time to time: Power to require any Government Department concerned to submit a memorandum explaining any Instrument or Draft which may be under their consideration or to depute a representative to appear before them as a Witness for the purpose of explaining any such Instrument or Draft: Three to be the Quorum: Instruction to the Committee that before reporting that the special attention of the House be drawn to any Instrument or Draft the Committee do afford to any Government Department concerned therewith an opportunity of furnishing orally or in writing such explanations as the Department think fit: Power to report to the House from time to time any Memoranda submitted or other evidence given to the Committee by any Government Department in explanation of any Instrument or Draft: Power to take evidence, written or oral, from Her Majesty's Stationery Office, relating to the printing and publication of any Instrument.—[Mr. Wills.]

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