Clause 7.—(ABOLITION OF DEATH PENALTY FOR OTHER MURDERS.) (Hansard, 24 January 1957)

§ Mr. Anthony Greenwood
When the Committee passes Clause 7 we shall be putting the seal upon this rather unpleasant compromise that the Government have reached upon this issue. We shall be almost bringing to an end a period which does not really reflect great credit upon either the Government or the House.
In Clauses 5 and 6 we have decided the classes of homicide for which the death penalty is still to be regarded as the appropriate penalty. They are the cases which are set out in the Bill. In Clause 7 we shall be declaring that No person shall be liable to suffer death for murder in any case not falling within section five or six of this Act. 524 So that it may be on the record, I wish to remind right hon. and hon. Members opposite of the absurdity which they will be perpetrating when Clause 7 follows Clauses 5 and 6. I wish to remind them—I think they should realise this—of some of the cases in which, in the view of the Government, capital punishment is no longer the appropriate punishment, although it is the appropriate punishment for the homicides set out in Clauses 5 and 6.
The cases I am going to quote to the Committee are from the Report of the Royal Commission. First, there was the case of the sailor who stabbed twice a woman with whom he had been living, and to whom he was bigamously married. Because of his brutal treatment of her she gave herself up to the police for bigamy. When she was released on bail the sailor killed her to punish her for having owned up to bigamy. That man 525 would not be executed under the proposals of the Government although, of course, Ruth Ellis and other people, who in the eyes of the public would be held to be less culpable, would be executed under the proposals of the Government.
Another case is that of a woman who carried on a nursing home as an enterprise of profit and persuaded a patient to make a will in her favour and then poisoned her with morphia. The Royal Commission said: It was a deliberate murder for the purpose of gain. That woman would not be executed under this Measure.
Case No. 15, quoted by the Commission, was the case of: Three soldiers, one of whom was acquitted, were involved in the murder of a woman in the course of rape. They met her at an hotel and she accompanied one of them to a secluded spot with the intention of having intercourse. The others followed a short distance behind. The woman became alarmed and resisted the soldier's advances.
In overcoming her resistance they battered her to death. Both soldiers were executed, but, of course, they would not be charged with capital murder under this brilliant compromise which the Government have achieved.
There is case No. 20. A married man, with four children of his own, poisoned the woman with whom he was living and also her illegitimate child. He buried the bodies in the garden. He would not be charged with capital murder under this Bill.
There is also the case of the labourer who killed a little girl aged 8 or 9 by asphyxiating her by putting severe pressure on her chest in the act of raping or attempting to rape her. He would not be charged with capital murder and would not be liable to be executed under this Bill.
There is another case—No. 24. A man struck his wife on the head with a pickhammer and strangled her. According to the Royal Commission, the murder had been carried out in a cold-blooded and determined manner. In spite of that, of course, this man would not stand in peril of his life under this Bill.
526 Most of us on this side of the Committee want to get rid of hanging completely because we do not regard it as the appropriate punishment for any of these offences of homicide, but it really is making a mockery of the law for the Government seriously to be considering retaining capital punishment for the list of offences shown in Clause 5 and then to be abolishing it in respect of the offences to which I have referred.
I know the Government's reason. I know that they are retaining it for these offences and abolishing it for others because they are following this principle of retaining it for offences which are offences against law and order, but I want the Committee to realise—and this is perhaps the last appeal we shall make to it on this point—how foolish we are going to look in the eyes of the public and what an ass we are making of the law if we are seriously placing upon the Statute Book of this country a hotch-potch of absurdities and illogicalities of this kind.
When we made another attempt at compromise in 1948, an attempt which I think was very rightly rejected in another place, it was strongly opposed by the noble Lord the Marquess of Salisbury, and I should like to remind hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite of what Lord Salisbury said on that occasion. Speaking of the new Clause, which was described as a compromise, he said: It is not, in fact, really a serious proposal at all. It is a mere pis aller, introduced not because of its intrinsic merits but because it has been hoped, perhaps over-optimistically, that it would satisfy someone and get the Government out of the jam in which they find themselves. I do not think that is an unfair way of putting it; everyone knows that to be the position. We must all sympathise with the Government in their difficulties, even if some of them are, perhaps, of their own making. But I would assure them that it is not by such devices as this that they will restore their credit, either with the electorate or with their own supporters."—[OFFICIAL RFPORI, House of Lords, 20th July, 1948; Vol. 157, c. 1064.] The Government have introduced this Bill with this absurd kind of compromise in order to circumvent the will of the House of Commons expressed when my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) brought a Private Member's Bill before the House and secured indeed the support of a substantial majority of hon. Members. 527 They have introduced this Bill and compromise in order to circumvent the will of the House. I think it is a wholly discreditable incident in the history of the Government, that it reflects no credit at all upon the House, and I am sorry that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite have persisted in it up to this stage.

§ Mr. R. A. Butler
I beg to move, That the Chairman do report Progress and ask leave to sit again.
I think it would be advisable, in the interests of business, if I moved this Motion. We have reached the end of a certain part of the Bill and I understand that it would be for the convenience of the Committee if we started the new part, Part on Monday. We have made quite reasonable progress with the Bill, and I understand that it would suit right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite if I moved to report Progress now. We hope to make progress with the Bill and to conclude it in the days which I designated in my previous statement earlier this afternoon.

§ Mr. Anthony Greenwood
I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for what he said, particularly for his ready admission that we have today, on the whole, made good progress in a reasonably good-humoured and tolerant way. I agree with him entirely that it would be for the convenience of hon. Members to 528 adjourn the debate at this point so that we may start on Part III of the Bill on Monday. I hope, however, that I have not misunderstood what he said. When he spoke on business earlier today, I understood that he proposed that we should conclude the Committee stage by Tuesday night. I hope that he is not now saying that we must get rid of all the Bill by then, because I do not think that would be possible.

§ Mr. Butler
I adhere to the statement which I have already made in relation to the Committee stage.

§ Mr. S. Silverman
I do not wish to delay the Committee. I concur in the Motion which the right hon. Member has moved; we have now reached that point in the Bill at which, as far as my right hon. and hon. Friends are concerned, the question of leaving it to a free vote of the House comes to an end. I think it has already been made clear that for the rest of the Bill our proceedings will be continued in the usual way and according to the usual conventions.
The right hon. Gentleman has said that we have made satisfactory progress. If he means that we have completed this part of the Bill, I agree with him, but I will not concur in his choice of words, because I cannot conceive how any man with any knowledge of this controversy, or its history or its merits, can consider what we have done as either satisfactory or progress.