Clause 3.—(LEGAL REPRESENTATION OF CERTAIN PERSONS.) (Hansard, 19 July 1957)

§ Mr. Simon
I beg to move, in page 4, line 43, after "prescribe," to insert: and any solicitor or counsel so assigned shall be entitled to be paid by the Secretary of State out of moneys provided by Parliament such sums in respect of fees and disbursements as the Secretary of State may by regulations made by statutory instrument prescribe. This is a purely formal Government Amendment. The words to be inserted were omitted by the House of Lords to avoid questions of Privilege over a money matter.

§ Miss Joan Vickers (Plymouth, Devonport)
I wish to welcome this Bill and to say how delighted I am that the Conventions to which it refers should now be ratified. There are eight Clauses in the Bill and we have had to wait eight years for it.
I have worked in this country and overseas on behalf of the Red Cross for many years and I am particularly glad that this Bill is to become an Act before the great meeting of all the Red Cross Societies which is to be held in Delhi in the autumn. Britain is the last major Power to ratify the Conventions, and I hope now that we shall be followed by Australia, New Zealand and Canada who, I understand, have been waiting for our lead.
The work of the Red Cross has proved invaluable not only in war, but also in peace, and I should like particularly to address some remarks to a side of the work in which I have been most interested, and that is the work for civilians. It is extremely important that these Articles which apply to civilians 1613 should be borne in mind, particularly in time of peace.
I wish to refer to Article 100 of the Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, which states: The disciplinary régime … shall in no circumstances include regulations imposing on internees any physical exertion dangerous to their health or involving physical or moral victimisation. Identification by tattooing or imprinting signs or markings on the body, is prohibited. I hope that this Article will be noted because, unfortunately, people in civilian camps, even in these days, are submitted to these practices which are prohibited by the Convention.
I have had an opportunity in rather exceptional circumstances of working for the International Red Cross, and I therefore realise that that body, which co-ordinates the various Red Cross societies, is performing a very valuable function in protecting people in war and peace. On behalf of the many Red Cross workers in this country and overseas, I welcome the Bill and hope that it will fortify them in carrying on their great work.

§ Mr. Elwyn Jones
On behalf of hon. Members on this side of the House, I, too, wish to welcome the Bill. I am bound to say that it would have been lamentable if the Government had failed to ratify these Conventions before the International Red Cross meeting which is being held in India this year.
Without engaging in carping criticisms, I should point out that we are about the last major Power to ratify these conventions. I have endeavoured to press the Government on this point on many occasions, as have other hon. Members on both sides of the House, and we were told time and again by the Home Office under its old dispensation, if that is the right way of describing it, that there was no time.
It has been proved that when this sort of Measure comes before Parliament it can go through very quickly. This Bill will shortly have gone through all its stages in a matter of hours. Yet in 1952, 1953, 1954 and 1955 we were told that there was no Parliamentary time.
1614 A situation has existed in which the forces of our country have been twice involved in hostilities, in the Korean War and in the events in Suez where there was some element of doubt as to the extent of their protection under the terms of the Conventions and we had the humiliating spectacle of the Government having to make a special declaration in order to bring our troops within the protection of the Conventions.
I am not in any way attacking the hon. and learned Gentleman the Joint Under-Secretary of State, who is shortly to reply for the Home Office, but I put to him this question. What other Conventions are there which the British Government have signed, but not ratified? Would the Government look into their cupboard please? The experience of these proceedings has shown that, when matters of this kind come before Parliament. Members of Parliament are only too willing to speed their progress.
We are now at the end of this story so far as Parliament is concerned. I wonder what would have happened if Lord Woolton had not, in the other place, turned the screw on the Government in regard to this Bill. He succeeded where Members of Parliament in this House, apparently, failed. I ask the Government to search their consciences, and I ask the Home Office to search its cupboards, to see whether more help could not be given to the House in these matters.
I commend the Bill to the House. I pray that our troops will never need its protection. The only way to eliminate the horrors of war is to eliminate war itself.

§ Mr. Glenvil Hall (Colne Valley)
I add my thanks to the Government for, at long last, implementing the Bill. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Ham, South (Mr. Elwyn Jones) has said, they have been a good many years about it. These Conventions were signed eight years ago, and it was surely more than time that the House passed the necessary Bill. It has gone through with the utmost ease, as all of us realised who knew anything about these Conventions and remembered when they were made so many years ago.
1615 If I may say so, the hon. Lady the Member for Devonport (Miss Vickers) put the case for the Bill or, at least, for a certain part of it, very properly when she referred to the work of the Red Cross. Looking through the Schedules, one wonders whether, in this atomic age, if war ever came, the Conventions made with so much hope would ever have a chance to be put into operation. Nevertheless, it is essential that some sort of humanity should be brought into war if we can possibly bring it, and in this Bill we have the regulations for that purpose.
On behalf of my right hon. Friend the Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) who, as the hon. and learned Gentleman knows, has had to leave, and on behalf of all my hon. Friends, I welcome the Bill and I am glad that it is, at long last, about to reach the Statute Book.

§ Mr. Simon
I do not propose to detain the House for long, but there are three things which I wish to say. First, it seems to me particularly felicitous that one such as my hon. Friend the Member for Devonport (Miss Vickers), who has herself worked not only for the Red Cross but for the International Red Cross, should intervene in our debate to welcome the last stages of the Bill. The International Red Cross, of course, can be a protecting Power under the Conventions. I should like to associate the Government with the tribute which my hon. Friend rightly paid to the beneficent services rendered by the Red Cross over many years.
The hon. and learned Member for West Ham, South (Mr. Elwyn Jones) twitted us with producing the Bill at a comparatively late date before the forthcoming conference in Delhi, and he mentioned the years 1953, 1954 and 1955, saying that nothing was done. The only thing I need do in reply is to remind the House that these Conventions were signed in 1949, so that it is not only the present Government which is arrainged by the hon. and learned Gentleman. He asked me what other Conventions had 1616 been signed and not ratified. Fortunately, the rules of order, I think, preclude me from answering that question, even if I knew the answer; but I can assure him that, though he asks the Home Office to search its cupboards, our cupboards are frequently searched and there are in them neither skeletons nor dust-covered papers
The right hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) mentioned nuclear war. Of course, if there were nuclear war many of these Conventions might be very difficult of implementation as an administrative proposition owing to the breakdown of Government, but it would be some protection, at any rate, that they are now part of our code of law. The experience since Hiroshima and of recent years shows that one can have war falling short of nuclear war. It is essential that if such a lamentable state of affairs comes about, there should be means of ensuring humane treatment for the non-combatants and also for those combatants who are wounded, sick, or taken prisoner of war.
The last thing I have to say is that it is for this reason that I express my thanks to the House for the way in which it has received the Bill and has facilitated its rapid passage into law.

§ Mr. Eric Fletcher (Islington, East)
Before the hon. and learned Member sits down, would he be good enough to confirm, in the interest of the House, that the provisions of the Conventions will apply equally in nuclear war as in any other war?

§ Mr. Simon
Certainly, Sir.