HC Deb 29 March 1955 vol 539 cc267-71

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.

6.54 p.m.

Mr. Glenvil Hall (Colne Valley)

The Financial Secretary will remember that on Second Reading we gave general approval to this Bill. I then indicated on behalf of my hon. Friends on this side that we should, in all probability, be raising certain queries when we reached the Committee stage.

As this is a new departure and there are certain points which, to me at least, are not clear, even though they may be clear to other hon. Members, it is, I think, well to get them on the record. I should, therefore, like to put one or two questions to the hon. Gentleman and I hope that he will be good enough to let us have a reply. I understand that up to now, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer makes certain changes to the Customs duties in his Budget, they are later, by a resolution of Tynwald, applied to the Isle of Man, and we then pass an Act in this House which gives them statutory authority.

That procedure is to be changed. In future the resolution of Tynwald dealing with changes in Customs duties will be validated by an Order in Council. I understand that that Order will, in fact, be a Statutory Instrument which will be presented to this House. I should like to know whether the Statutory Instrument, the Order in Council, is to require the affirmative or only the negative procedure.

The hon. Gentleman, on Second Reading, was pleased to indicate—and we share his pleasure—that the Isle of Man will now be in a position to fix its own Customs duties. What does that mean? Does it mean that, although it has a right to fix the duties, it will, in effect, always fix them at the same rates as the Imperial Parliament does. Will they, as they now do, follow the opening of the Budget by the Chancellor of the Exchequer?

Are we also to understand that the Order in Council, when it is presented to the House—whichever procedure is to be adopted with regard to it—will be presented in draft? Otherwise it would appear that Parliament would be nothing more than a rubber stamp. It would be interesting to have the views of the hon. Gentleman on these points and such others as my hon. Friends may wish to put on this Clause.

7.0 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Henry Brooke)

I am glad to reply to the questions of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall). He asked about the procedure. He indicated that after the Chancellor of the Exchequer had presented his Budget in this House there might be resolutions passed by the Tynwald, and he asked whether those resolutions might depend on what the Budget contained.

I think he will agree that the interesting case is the one where there are changes in the Customs tariff of this country. It is normal for Tynwald then to pass resolutions which may not precisely repeat the changes in the United Kingdom Budget, because the Isle of Man tariff is not identical with ours, but which, in the past, have broadly followed those changes.

Under the 1887 Act, the Tynwald resolution could be given provisional effect so that a change in the tariff of this country might, if the Isle of Man authority thought fit, operate immediately in the Isle of Man and thereby not give rise, for instance, to the temptation of smuggling if there had been a sharp change here and no change there. I ought to explain that the Tynwald resolution, if it is to be given provisional effect under the 1887 Act, must receive the approval of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury here, and this Bill makes no change in those arrangements for a Tynwald resolution securing provisional effect.

What the Bill does is as follows. Hitherto, every Tynwald resolution has had, within a certain time, to be validated by an Act of Parliament here. In future, validation will not be done by Act of Parliament but by Order in Council. When Tynwald passes a resolution of any sort relating to Customs tariffs it will, in the normal course, be validated by an Order in Council made over here. That is the plan, but I want to make it quite clear to the Committee that this Bill in no way alters the arrangements by which the Tynwald resolution to make an immediate change in the Isle of Man tariff will have provisional effect pending further validation.

The right hon. Member asked about the right of the Isle of Man to fix its own Customs duties. The Isle of Man has a tariff it has fixed itself in the first instance, but which is incorporated in Acts of Parliament, and that tariff is not identical with ours. In future, the Customs tariff of the island will get transferred from being embodied in Acts of Parliament here to being embodied in a series of Tynwald resolutions which will have been validated by Order in Council.

The right hon. Member asked about the form of the Order in Council. As laid down in subsection (4), the Order must be laid before Parliament, but that does not include either the affirmative or negative procedure here. I should like to explain that there is a very sound and logical reason for that, as all the other legislation of Tynwald affecting the Isle of Man is given effect by a similar procedure. It is not customary nor statutory that Tynwald resolutions concerning matters far away from Customs operation or procedure should be confirmed by Orders in Council subject to Parliamentary procedure. In this Bill, we are simply following the broad precedent the House of Commons has accepted and enacted in other Isle of Man legislation.

Mr. Ede (South Shields)

The statement of the Financial Secretary might be read as meaning that in future the resolutions of Tynwald with regard to Customs and Excise become effective when, as he says, they are validated by the Privy Council without this House being able to intervene.

I imagine that that is not really what the hon. Gentleman intended to convey, for is it not a fact that these resolutions are not sent direct from Tynwald to the Privy Council but to the Privy Council through the Secretary of State for the Home Department? In this case, and in the case of the Channel Islands—which sometimes are facetiously alluded to in the Civil Service as " The Home Office Colonies "—the Home Secretary has to assume some responsibility for recommending the resolutions to the Privy Council.

On occasions when he has found it rather difficult so to commend them, whether in respect of the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands, he has made representations first to the authorities of the island concerned that unless the resolutions are modified in a certain way he will find it difficult to submit them to the Privy Council for validation.

I take it that it will be the responsibility of a member of Her Majesty's Government—presumably still the Secretary of State for the Home Department, but possibly in the matter of Customs either the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or the Home Secretary after consultation with the Chancellor—to examine these resolutions to make quite certain that they are not so outrageous as to offend the susceptibilities of this House.

I do not want to suggest that such a thing is likely to happen at the moment, but, after all, here we are dealing with a constitutional principle that goes back very far into the mists of antiquity and stretches forward into what the Prime Minister this afternoon described as " the obscurity of the future." I think that the Committee will want to be assured that there is still some power of making representation to the islands, both before and after the resolutions of Tynwald have been passed, should the necessity arise. I hope we can have an assurance from the hon. Gentleman that that is the case.

Mr. H. Brooke

I should like to clarify this matter. As regards representations made before a resolution of Tynwald is passed, it is a little difficult to define the situation. I think that perhaps what the right hon. Member is most concerned about is that a situation should not arise in which Tynwald was seeking to do something which, on the face of it, appeared thoroughly unacceptable to the United Kingdom and yet it might appear from this Bill that it had to be automatically validated by the Privy Council. I am sure the right hon. Member will agree that in view of our past experience and friendly relations with the island it is to be regarded as most unlikely that such a situation would arise.

I entirely recognise, however, that the possibility exists and I think it is right that I should state what would happen in such circumstances, even if it is an entirely theoretical contingency. For instance, to take a simple case, it might be that Tynwald, completely inadvertently, passed a resolution which would seek to alter the island tariff in a way inconsistent with our international obligations. I think that that is as good an example as one could imagine.

Let me tell the Committee clearly that there is nothing in this Bill which would compel the Government of the United Kingdom to advise Her Majesty to confirm any particular resolution by Order in Council. A position might conceivably be reached—I emphasise " conceivably " —where the Government felt unable to advise that such an Order in Council should be made. Further, as I explained on Second Reading, nothing in this Bill derogates from the right of this Parliament, if it thinks fit, to pass legislation on any Isle of Man matter. But we all hope that these difficulties and differences will not arise.

We all hope that matters will go as smoothly and amicably in the future as they have gone in the past. I hope that now I have explained the situation as fully as I can, the Committee will agree that United Kingdom rights are safeguarded and we can properly take this step, which I am sure the right hon. Member will support me in saying will be a source of pride to the island.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.