RACIAL DISCRIMINATION BILL (Hansard, 10 May 1957)

§ Mr. Speaker
I think the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. R. Bell) was in possession of the House when the debate adjourned.

§ Mr. A. Fenner Brockway (Eton and Slough)
On a point of order. On the last occasion, the debate began at one minute to Four o'clock. I moved the Second Reading of the Bill and, in those circumstances, I naturally concluded my speech very rapidly indeed. In the last seconds the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. R. Bell) made an intervention, but I should have hoped that there would be an opportunity for me to put my point of view in this debate.

§ Mr. Speaker
I can quite understand the motives which made the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brock-way) shorten his speech to that extent, but the fact remains that the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South was actually in possession of the House when the debate was adjourned. I have no doubt that, if time permits on this or some other occasion, the hon. Member for Eton and Slough may, if he asks for it, get the indulgence of the House to speak a second time.

§ Mr. Ronald Bell (Buckinghamshire, South)
Speaking for myself and probably for most of my hon. Friends, I am sure that if the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway), either today or on some other occasion, should ask the leave of the House to make a second speech, I certainly would not object, and I do not think that any of my friends would.
It is desirable in the rather short time at our disposal this afternoon that we should hear a little of the case against the Bill. I hope that in the short time available of which I will not take too much, my hon. Friends and I will be able to put forward some considerations which the House has not hitherto heard 1426 in discussing the Bill. It is not only that in this Session the hon. Member for Eton and Slough introduced the Bill in a one-minute speech. I think that, although such a Measure has been before us before, we have not had a full debate upon it.

§ Mr. Brockway
Hon. Members have had the opportunity.

§ Mr. Bell
The hon. Member says that we have had the opportunity, but, of course, we did not have the opportunity or we should have had a debate.

§ Mr. Brockway
I introduced the Bill under the Ten Minutes Rule. It was not opposed. I suggest that if there had been opposition it could have been expressed.

§ Mr. Bell
The hon. Member is making a confusion, which is quite common, between a Motion for leave to introduce a Bill and a Bill itself. My own practice on these occasions has often been to vote in favour of leave to introduce a Bill, partly because one thinks that if a Member feels strongly about his subject he should have the right to have his Bill printed to let us see it, and also because one may feel that the matter can profitably be debated. Voting in favour of the Motion or not opposing a Motion for leave to introduce a Bill in no way expresses approval of the principle of the Bill or its details when printed. Of course, we have had no debate on the Bill as printed at all.
I find that when I began my speech on the Bill, I uttered only one sentence. I said that I was sorry to have to oppose the Bill. I am afraid that those words were spoken rather under the pressure of the moment, because, in fact, I am very glad to have this opportunity of opposing a Bill which I believe to be bad in principle, bad in intention, bad in method and bad in detail.

§ Mr. Barnett Janner (Leicester, Northwest)
In other respects, it is good?

§ Mr. Bell
As the hon. Gentleman says, in other respects it is good.
It is a wholly deplorable Measure. The hon. Member for Eton and Slough holds strong views about the treatment of coloured people, and he is quite entitled to hold those views. Indeed, my strongest feeling in approaching the subject is that everybody is entitled to 1427 have his own views about it. I am very sorry to see any attempt made by legislation to try to stop that and to ram the views of the hon. Member for Eton and Slough by Statute down the throats of other people.
It is quite easy for those who take an interest in particular aspects of the matter of the treatment of coloured peoples to build up for themselves and in the minds of others a belief that there is something specific, definable and wicked in a colour bar. It may be that in some parts of the world there is something so definable and specific, but this Bill relates to the United Kingdom, and there is certainly nothing of that kind in this country.
This is not a Bill to sweep away legal disadvantages and legal disabilities. It is a Bill to create for the first time in the law of England a colour law, and more than that, a law relating not only to colour, but to race and religion. There is probably no country in the world where there is less feeling on account of race than in Britain. The Jews have lived here happily at peace and enjoying full equality under the law for many generations. There is no country in the world where there is less feeling against them as a community than there is in Britain.
Is not that position due to the very fact that we have had the wisdom not to make specific laws enforcing that attitude on the part of our people because it is just the natural reaction which our temperament has, in fact, produced? How foolish it would be to try to formulate that in the terms of a Statute, to bring people to court for infractions of that law, and to fine them. What more effective way would there be than that to create exactly the kind of feeling which has never existed before in this country?

§ Sir Leslie Plummer (Deptford)
Is the hon. and learned Gentleman satisfied, then, that it is perfectly reasonable and proper that Jews should be refused admission to voluntary organisations, like golf clubs, and should be refused accommodation in hotels? Is he happy that hotels should say that Jews are not admitted at any time? Does he think that system should be continued?

§ Mr. Bell
The hon. Member is confused in at least two ways. The main 1428 purport of what I have been saying is that in these respects there is no happier land than this, and, secondly, that if we try to formulate that attitude into a law we shall create exactly the kind of feeling that is now so little in evidence in this country.

§ Mr. Bernard Braine (Essex, South-East)
Following on this point, is it not a fact that the law as it stands at the moment provides that hotel-keepers are under a legal obligation to provide accommodation to all? This question has already been thrashed out in the House, seven or eight years ago, when the Attorney-General of the Government of the party opposite was questioned about it. He made it absolutely clear that the legal duties falling upon an innkeeper—which includes a hotel-keeper— are not affected by the colour of the traveller, which presumably also means the race and religion of the traveller.

§ Mr. Bell
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. That is quite true, and I was coming to that point. At present, the keeper of an inn according to the custom of England—and that term covers the keeper of the ordinary public hotel-must offer refreshment and accommodation, if it is normally provided, to a traveller regardless of his race, colour or religion, if room is available. If he fails to do so he is guilty of an offence.
That matter was not only thrashed out in this House but was established in the courts, in the case of Constantine. The duty is not based upon race, colour or religion; it is the ordinary right of everyone to be put up if accommodation is available. That is as it should be. The hon. Member for Eton and Slough, however, is trying to alter that position. He is saying, "We will not rely upon your plain duty to all Her Majesty's subjects to give them refreshment if you can take them in. We will punish you specifically upon the ground that you have refused it to a coloured man or to a person on account of his race or religion.

§ Sir L. Plummer
What happens if he is not one of Her Majesty's subjects?

§ Mr. Bell
It makes no difference whether he is one of Her Majesty's subjects or not.
The only effect of the hon. Member's proposal in relation to hotels would be to change the ground upon which the 1429 action or the prosecution was brought, from the ordinary one with which we in England have been familiar for 600 years —that there was accommodation and that it should not have been refused—to this special one, that racial discrimination was exercised. 1 would regard that as thoroughly retrograde.
One of the strongest arguments against the proposal is that it is so artificial. It is bound to be so, since it proceeds by interfering in the ordinary daily lives of the people. Any attempt to do that is likely to defeat itself because of the complexity of the methods which would be necessary.
Clause 1 says that: … a person exercises discrimination where he refuses, withholds from or denies to any other person facilities or advantages … That is an extraordinary doctrine to introduce into our law—that anyone should be guilty of discrimination within the meaning of the Bill if he refuses some advantage to a person on the ground of his race, colour or religion.
Clause 2 says: No person shall be entitled to exercise racia! discrimination in pursuance of any of the following occupations: (a) Innkeeper. That is a very strange proposal. Apart from the argument which I have just mentioned, why should it be right for an innkeeper to exercise discrimination upon the ground of colour or religion, and an offence to exercise it on the ground of race? What sense does it make? That is what the hon. Member seems to be proposing. I should have thought from what I know of the hon. Member that he would be more concerned to prevent discrimination on the ground of colour, but for some reason or other when dealing with innkeepers he picks out racial discrimination as the only one which shall be an offence under the Bill.
The Clause then goes on to refer to a Keeper of a common lodging house. Of course, the keeper of a common lodging house at present may not be under the obligation to which we were referring just now. I wonder whether it is right for Parliament to intervene and prescribe the social attitudes of all people in the country. How do we know what is right as yet? The world is still young. We do not know to what extent it is right or not right to discriminate 1430 against people on those or other grounds. It may well be argued that a wise man discriminates on as many grounds as he can; that the peculiarly human quality is that of discriminating, and that what we want is more discrimination and not less.
All these matters are wide open. Everybody has got his view. One can set out in declarations standards of conduct in matters like this which one or the other person or perhaps the majority of the whole nation might think ought to be observed, but the enforcement of such standards by the criminal law should be reserved for those matters which are necessary to hold the community together—not as a method of clamping the ideas even of the majority upon their fellow countrymen and compelling them to carry out those ideas in the ordinary practice of their daily lives.
The Clause then refers to: Keeper of a restaurant, cafe or other place kept or used for the sale of food or drink to the public. Keeper of any place kept or used for public dancing, singing, music or any public entertainment of the like kind. What right have we by Statute to impose a particular attitude? Even were the views of the hon. Member for Eton and Slough held by the majority of the House, that still would not mean that Parliament would be right to put this proposal into coercive legislation.
Clause 3 states '' Any covenant or provision in any lease or agreement for or in consideration of or collateral to a lease… forbidding or tending to forbid the use or occupation of any premises on any such ground as aforesaid… —that is on the ground of colour, race or religion—shall be void. Why is that? Suppose that somebody wanted to grant a lease on premises with the provision that for twenty years the premises shall be used solely by Scotsmen for the purpose of Scottish cultural activities. Would that be a criminal offence? Of course, that would forbid or tend to forbid the use or occupation of those premises on the ground of race or possibly colour. I suppose Scots do have a distinctive colour.
There are so many examples that one can think of. Why must we put the whole community upon this bed of Procrustes merely because someone possibly in some other part of the world 1431 is behaving towards coloured people in a way of which we do not approve? I do not think it happens here. The case mentioned by the hon. Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer) about the golf club is not covered by the Bill. I should have thought that if there were one sphere of human life where this kind of thing is permissible, it would be in a private club, whether for golf or some other purpose. Surely someone can found and maintain a club with almost any discrimination. There are many clubs for bachelors. Is that wicked?
There could certainly be any number of private clubs founded upon a racial basis, and there are plenty of religious clubs. Why should there not be? Why should not someone start a Protestant club or a Catholic club? There are hundreds of them. I know that this is not referred to in the Bill, but the hon. Member for Deptford who intervened obviously wanted that. He should think again because there would be a gross and unreasonable—

§ Mr. Janner
There are two points in the matter with which the hon. Member is dealing upon which I should like to know his views. He said this does not happen here. But let us take the question of leases. As a lawyer, the hon. Member knows very well that there are leases which contain a covenant specifically excluding assignments to coloured people. What is his view about that?
The other point is that not so very far from here, at Southend, the Westcliff Golf Club, which was using public property at Southend, tried to restrict membership from people of the Jewish persuasion. Why is the hon. Member not prepared to give a Second Reading to a Bill and provide an opportunity to improve it in the Committee stage, but not to oppose the whole Bill on principle?

§ Mr. Bell
I will take the second point first. As I have said, clubs are not covered by the Bill, and that has nothing to do with giving a Second Reading to this Bill. I would never in any context approve of such a restriction as this on private clubs, and not even the hon. Member for Eton and Slough is willing to press for that.

§ Mr. Janner
It was a question of leasing public land.

§ Mr. Bell
If they are using public property, it may be a matter for the Corporation and ratepayers of Southend, and that would be the right way to deal with it.
Regarding leases, as I say, I do not see why people should not do it if they want to. It may be conduct that I would not approve of, but there are hundreds of things of which I do not approve, but which I would consider totally unsuitable for punishment by the criminal law. Like so many other people, the hon. Gentleman thinks that it is good enough if there is something which is disapproved of by the majority of people; that once that has been established, a case has been made out for passing legislation. But there is a great gulf between things which may be disapproved of and things which may bring people into conflict with the law.
Clause 4 of the Bill is a very good example of this nonsense. It states: No person who employs fifty or more persons… shall be entitled "— on one of these grounds— to refuse to employ or to promote or to terminate the employment or promotion of any person — I suppose that means to refuse to terminate the promotion of any person, I do not know what that really means. Anybody on the ground of colour, race or religion shall be entitled to refuse to terminate promotion—" entitled to refuse to terminate the promotion of any person ". Well, there be it— … to refuse to consent to such employment or promotion or to terminate the same. So therefore, we have that no one who employs fifty or more persons is to be entitled to refuse to consent to terminate promotion.

§ Mr. Brockway
I do not want to teach the hon. Member English, but the phrase here is: No person… shall be entitled on any such ground … to act in consort to refuse to consent to such employment or to refuse to consent … to promotion or shall be entitled … to terminate the same.

§ Mr. Bell
I am reading from Clause 4 of the Bill, which does not say anything about people acting in concert. It says, 1433 " act in consort." Presumably this means act in concert. I do not know what acting in consort is. The Bill says: ,No person who employs fifty or more persons in any industry, trade or business shall be entitled on any such ground as aforesaid to refuse to employ. Then we get the next alternative which is: or to terminate the employment or promotion of any person. What all that means I do not know, but I suspect it means the opposite of what the hon. Gentleman thinks it means. This is the kind of length to which we have to go in a Bill in order to ram these ideas down people's throats, in connection with all the multifarious activities of their ordinary life. Have we to proliferate provisions like these to try to cover everything? If that is the object of the Bill, I very much prefer our present method of getting along. It causes a great deal less offence and. what is more to the point, it causes a great deal less colour, race or religious feeling than this Bill would stir up if it became law.
I should be extremely sorry if the Bill were given a Second Reading. There is much more I could say, but I will give way to some of my hon. Friends, who are anxious to speak.

§ Mr. Bernard Braine (Essex, South-East)
I rise to oppose the Bill on much the same grounds as have been stated by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. R. Bell).

§ Mr. G. R. Mitchison (Kettering)
On a point of order. I fully realise, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that the selection of speakers is entirely in your hands, but is it not customary in the House to select speakers alternatively from the various sides of the House? I observed that some of my hon. Friends rose.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Charles MacAndrew)
I beg pardon. I made a mistake when I called the hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine). Who rose?

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
Sir Leslie Plummer.

§ Mr. Braine
On a point of order. May I point out that I had already started to address the House. I should have thought—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I apologise to the House. I made a mistake. I will call the hon. Gentleman next. Sir Leslie Plummer.

§ Mr. Braine
With great respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, and further to my point of order. I realise the difficulty in which this situation places you, and I wish in no way to be discourteous. May I point out that I rose to my feet, that you did me the honour to call me and that I started to address the House. The hon. Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer) rose to his feet after I had opened my mouth.

Hon. Members
No.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I can explain the position perfectly clearly. I saw three hon. Members rise, but I did not catch anyone on the Opposition side of the House. If I had, I would have called one. I am doing so now. I apologise for it. I cannot do more than that. Sir Leslie Plummer.

§ Sir Leslie Plummer (Deptford)
The hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. R. Bell) has made a speech that would have done credit to a Southern senator. He expressed a racial point of view which is held only by a minority of the people of this country.

§ Major H. Legge-Bourke (Isle of Ely)
I distinctly heard my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. R. Bell) say that we ought to take pride in this House and in this country from the fact that this sort of issue rarely arose in this country at all. He would not have said that if he had wanted to play the role of a Southern senator.

§ Sir L. Plummer
Whether he wanted to play that part or not, in my view he did play the part of a Southern senator without the accent. He went further even than that. He advanced the absolutely novel point of view that if the majority of people in this country want something and ask Parliament to produce it it should be the duty of Parliament to refuse 1435 to produce it. I must suggest that the hon. Member should read HANSARD tomorrow. He will find there an expression of a political philosophy in which he argued that because a majority of people want something that is no reason why Parliament should produce it.

§ Mr. R. Bell
This is a gross misrepresentation of what I said. What I said was that a majority of people might happen to disapprove of some practice but it would not necessarily follow that that practice should be then forbidden by this House.

§ Sir L. Plummer
I must recommend the hon. Member to read his own words. I think they will produce for him a sense of shame when in cold blood he reads them. As an hon. Member who has expressed an interest in the affairs and happiness of colonial peoples, he will find that—whether deliberately or not—he has now suggested, by inference, that those people should be treated differently from other citizens of the British Commonwealth because he does not want them to have certain laws to protect them.

§ Mr. Bell
No.

§ Sir L. Plummer
I suggest that the hon. Member has a look at HANSARD tomorrow and that the whole purpose of his speech—[Interruption.]—

§ Mr. Braine
I was hoping that, having caught the eye of Mr. Deputy-Speaker, and having made this monstrous charge, the hon. Member would permit me a few moments in order to answer it.

§ Sir L. Plummer
I am quite prepared to consider any suggestion of that kind from the hon. Member, provided he undertakes not to talk the Bill out. If he proposes to do what his hon. Friend did on the last occasion and to use his Parliamentary rights and privileges to talk the Bill out, under no circumstances will I surrender my privilege to continue to address you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker.
The Bill my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough has introduced is born out of necessity. The fact is that there is racial and colour discrimination being practised against our fellow citizens in this country to an extent which demands that Parliament should now come 1436 to the protection of people who are to a very great degree unable to help themselves. The hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South has said that this country leads all other countries in the freedom which is granted to people of different colour and different race from the majority of the population. Why should we be so particularly proud of that? Is it not our responsibility and our duty, is it not part of our pride that we lead the world in colonial and racial liberty and freedom? This is a purely negative argument—

§ Sir L. Plummer
The hon. Member may shake his head in a state of almost juvenile hysteria. All I am saying is that what is happening is that we are now performing the functions which are our functions and which ought to be performed. We ought not to stop there. When we see an injustice being done to people we ought not to say, "This injustice must continue because we are better than other people". Surely our responsibility, because we are better than other people, is to take the necessary steps to see that that injustice ceases, and ceases immediately. The hon. Member is satisfied with the present position and doubtless supports the racialism expressed this afternoon. He does not want to see us progressing in the development of a better and more humane attitude to people who, because of religion or race or colour, which they cannot help, are subject to a great many social and economic disabilities which other people do not suffer.
The hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South said there was no necessity for this Bill because there was, in fact, no significant evidence that racial discrimination existed in this country. My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, North-West (Mr. Janner) quoted the golf club. I want to quote the case of colonial students who could not get into a club in Waterloo Road or in Victoria.

§ Mr. Braine
And trade unions.

§ Sir L. Plummer
I am not arguing this from a political attitude. When a trade union says that it does not want a man in the union because of the colour of his skin, I believe 1437 that trade union is guilty of as gross a piece of inhumanity, as is the hon. Member who argues that everything in this country today is perfectly all right. Whether it comes from the hon. Member or from a trade union, I object to discrimination being made. I object to it whether it comes from a trade union, from an employer, from a society or from an hotel.

§ Sir L. Plummer
I have not enough time to give way, for I want to leave a little time for the hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine). I shall be interested to hear a denunciation of racialism by him if he is fortunate enough, Mr. Speaker, to catch your eye.
Many people in this country who are suffering the disabilities which this Bill is designed to review are victims of the most gross and horrible tyranny which has taken place in the world in the last 2,000 years. They have been driven out of their own land and they have come to this country. They have benefitted this country by their contribution to our economy, our science, our literature and our music. It is intolerable that, because they are refugees and because they happen to be Jews, these people are denied access to hotels and to social gatherings of people in this land.
In addition, there are coloured people from our Colonies Who are driven here because of the lack of economic development of the countries in which they live and who, because they are coloured, are treated in restaurants and hotels here in a way which this Bill opposes. I had hoped that the conscience of the House would be outraged into supporting the Bill not only by the conditions in this country but also by the speech of the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South.

§ Mr. Bernard Braine (Essex, South-East)
I oppose this Bill but not on the grounds which have been adduced by the hon. Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer). I oppose it not because I am 1438 in favour of any kind of racial or religious discrimination. I think that I can speak for all my hon. Friends when I say that we hate every form of racial and religious intolerance. I judge a man not by the colour of his skin, not by his race or religion, but by the quality of his manhood. The British Commonwealth would have no meaning unless we accepted that.
I oppose the Bill because it goes the wrong way about dealing with a situation which I frankly admit exists. The Bill is half-baked. It nibbles at the problem. In some respects it makes provisions for which existing laws already provide.
This is a Bill to make an offence certain behaviour which is offensive to the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway). It is a badly drafted Bill. It is a Bill entitled, To make illegal discrimination to the detriment of any person on the grounds of colour, race and religion in the United Kingdom. In fact, it goes much further than that. Clause I gives what purports to be a definition of discrimination. It reads, For the purpose of this Act, a person exercises discrimination where he refuses. withholds from or denies to any other person facilities or advantages on the ground of the colour, race or religion of that other person. What is meant by the words "facilities or advantages"? How are these to be defined?
The next Clause deals with innkeepers and keepers of common lodging houses. As my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. R. Bell) said in his most interesting speech, "innkeepers," a term which includes hotel keepers, are under a legal obligation to feed and provide accommodation for travellers. That point has been raised in the House before, as hon. Members will see if they turn to HANSARD of 16th May, 1949. They will see from Vol. 465, c. 2, that the Attorney-General of the day said that—