HC Deb 03 June 1957 vol 571 cc1033-4

Considered in Committee: reported, without Amendment.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill he now read the Third time.

9.55 p.m.

Mr. John Mackie (Galloway)

I welcome the opportunity of catching your eye for a brief intervention, Mr. Speaker, and I assure you that my eye will be upon the clock the whole time. My only reason for intervening at this somewhat late hour in our proceedings is that I was unable to catch your eye on Second Reading.

As this Bill leave us for another place, I very well realise that we can only give it our final approval or condemnation, and I hasten to assure you, Sir, that I desire to give it my support. I only regret this. We are regularising the position of St. Cuthbert's, the West Church of Edinburgh, and it would have been very wrong to deny to a single parish in Scotland, however much one may disapprove of the standard of worship there, any benefit which is obtained by the Church of Scotland as a whole, and that is why I want to make my position abundantly clear.

I wish it could have been any other parish than St. Cuthbert's, because I think that there, so far as public worship is concerned—I think I am strictly in order in saying thisߞthe normal standard of the Presbysterian form of worship has been departed from radically over the last forty or fifty years, and particularly, I am sorry to say, under the ministry of Dr. George McLeod. However, that is as may be. I only wish that by regularising the position regarding the endowments and benefits there, we could be regularising the standard of public worship there, but 1 think that that is unlikely to be the case.

We may describe St. Cuthbert's, or the West Church of Edinburgh, as the All Saints. Margaret Street, of Edinburgh. They have gone out of their way to depart from the normal standards of Presbyterian worship, and that is why I regret this Bill.

Mr. Speaker

I hope the hon. Member will stick to what is in the Bill. I do not see any reference in the Bill to these churches which he has mentioned.

Mr. Mackie

I was only expressing the hope that by regularising the endowments, we might also be regularising the standards of public worship, and I regret that that may not be the case. Anyhow, it is indeed a happy augury that the State Church, as the Church of Scotland undoubtedly is, has to come to this House for final approval and for Parliamentary sanction regarding its doings and actions. I hope that all those who are connected with the Church of Scotland in future—and I am a very humble member of it—will bear that very much in mind when we come to much more important issues in future months and years.

I apologise for trespassing on the time of the House. Mr. Speaker, but I certainly would not be a party to opposing the Third Reading of this Bill.

9.59 p.m.

Mr. James H. Hoy (Leith)

My right hon. and hon. Friends on this side of the House raise no objection to this Bill, but I must say, speaking on behalf of all my hon. Friends on this side, that we regret that the hon. Member for Galloway (Mr. Mackie) should have taken advantage of a Bill of this kind to make an attack on an old-established church like St. Cuthbert's and also on the newly-elected Moderator of the Church of Scotland. That is a thing which we very much regret indeed, and we are the more regretful that it should come from an hon. Member for whom we have such great respect.

Question put and agreed to

Bill read the Third time and passed, without Amendment.