HC Deb 03 February 1959 vol 599 cc339-48

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

10.20 p.m.

Mr. Harold Wilson (Huyton)

I beg to move, That the Chairman do report Progress and ask leave to sit again.

I do not know whether you will accept this Motion, Sir Gordon, but I should like to give my reasons for moving it. The Bill, the relevant part of which is Clause 1, is for one purpose only: to give statutory authority for the provisions required to carry out the European Monetary Agreement, signed in Paris on 5th August, 1955, Cmd. 9602 of 1955. All hon. Members who have studied the Bill, as, I am sure, every hon. Member has done, with great care and attention, will recognise that the Bill of itself does nothing except to provide certain limited machinery to give effect to this Agreement. Therefore, the whole essence of the Bill is in the Agreement. The Financial Resolution makes plain—

Mr. Ellis Smith (Stoke-on-Trent, South)

My right hon. Friend was good enough to say that we have all studied the Bill. I have been to the Vote Office to study it, but am not able to do so.

Mr. Wilson

That is the point I was about to raise.

The Bill asks the House, in effect, to commit £31 million of the taxpayers' money to the European Monetary Agreement. I cannot understand how it would be possible to debate the Bill without the White Paper. I have been, and so have some of my hon. Friends, to the Vote Office, but no copies of it are available. An elementary blunder has been committed by the Treasury. If the House were to rush the Bill through with the indecent speed for which the Treasury is asking—its Second Reading was only last week and we are expected to complete Committee, Report and Third Reading tonight—the Treasury should have taken the trouble to ensure that all hon. Members have the White Paper.

It is true that the White Paper was laid on the Table of the House in 1955, when the Agreement was signed during the Parliamentary Recess, but I do not know how many hon. Members opposite, for example, can remember the details of that White Paper. I am sure that they studied it with great care in 1955, but even the noble Lord the Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Hinchingbrooke) looks rather ill-informed on the details of the White Paper. Tonight, however, on behalf of his constituents, as with all of us, he is being asked to vote £31 million to give effect to a scheme of which even the noble Lord may not remember the details, because it is four years since he read the White Paper.

It is only common courtesy by the Government to withdraw the Bill and bring it forward again. We shall be reasonable about trying to get it through speedily when we have it before us with the White Paper. The Treasury has no right to press the Committee this evening to facilitate the Bill if we cannot read the European Monetary Agreement. It is, I understand, an Agreement of many Clauses and highly complicated. It is available in both English and French. Many of us have deep reservations about some of its effects, as we made clear last week.

I repeat that it is the duty of the Treasury to ensure that we have the White Paper available before we can debate the Bill. Accordingly, I move this Motion. I hope that the Economic Secretary will tell us that he is prepared to hold over the Bill until another night, by which time we will have the White Paper and an opportunity of studying it.

10.23 p.m.

The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. F. J. Erroll)

If this request had been made on the occasion of Second Reading of the Bill, the case would have been much more powerful. If, as the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) says, it is impossible to understand its details without the White Paper, knowing how carefully the right hon. Gentleman prepares his subject matter I am surprised that he did not take the necessary steps to obtain a copy of the White Paper prior to his interesting but provocative speech on Second Reading. It is a very different story if there do not happen to be copies of a three-year-old White Paper in the Vote Office for subsequent stages of the Bill, because there was full opportunity for Members who were interested to obtain copies, either before Second Reading or, if they did not think of it then, in the intervening period. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where from?"] From the Vote Office, which points out in a circular issued to all hon. Members in September, 1956—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—and the necessary details could always be obtained orally on application—that Daily Hansards, Public Acts, Command and House of Commons Papers of the current and the two preceding Sessions are normally available at the Vote Office on demand. The final paragraph of the circular places the onus fairly and squarely on hon. Members on both sides of the House. It says: When an hon. Member considers it necessary to have, for the discharge of his Parliarnentary duties, any older Act of Parliament or Parliamentary Paper, he may order one copy free of charge through the Vote Office. All hon. Members should have done that before the Second Reading or, if they wished to get it immediately after the Second Reading, they could have done so. I do not think that there is any substantial reason for accepting the Motion to report Progress in view of the ample opportunities which have been afforded to all hon. Members. I hope, therefore, that the Committee will not accept the Motion.

Mr. H. Wilson

With respect, this is treating the House of Commons with contempt. It is making a farce of our proceedings to trot out that old circular of September or whatever date it was of 1956 and to say that hon. Members can get a three-year-old Bill or a document of any kind. It is really no answer to this occasion, because the point is that when this was signed in 1955 it was not a reality. There was no suggestion at that time of debating it, because as long as the European Payments Union was continued the European Monetary Agreement did not come into force. But now that the Treasury, by its own action, has ended the life of the European Payments Union and brought the Agreement into force the White Paper, which was quite useless to us three years ago, because it was in suspended animation, would have been relevant to our proceedings and it was the duty of the Treasury to have ensured that copies would be available.

As to the Economic Secretary's point that some of us made speeches on Second Reading and how could we do that without having a copy of the White Paper, I will tell him the position as far as I was concerned. I was speaking in favour of a reasoned Opposition Amendment to say that we declined to give a Second Reading to a Bill—and I paraphrase—which was associated with a domestic act, namely, that of convertibility. The Committee will remember that we spent practically the whole day debating the issue of convertibility, and not the details of the European Monetary Agreement.

It was therefore possible for a number of hon. and right hon. Members on that occasion to make speeches, however controversial, which were regarded as relevant to the subject without having to go into the details of the Agreement. The position is quite different tonight, because we have been asked to finally pass the Bill and all we can discuss on Committee, Report and Third Reading, I would remind the House, subject to your Ruling, Sir Gordon, are the very narrow points of the Bill; and that cannot be done without the White Paper being available.

I was shocked to hear the Economic Secretary say that since one or two of us knew about the European Monetary Agreement it did not matter about other hon. Members. I should certainly be prepared, without the White Paper, to enter into a debate with the Economic Secretary, the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Paymaster-General at any time on the issue of the European Monetary Agreement and the European Payments Union, but our debates are not a matter of a duel between the Front Benches. They are a matter for the whole House. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Hon. Members opposite who are saying "Hear, hear" are being asked to pay £31 million of taxpayers' money in this manner, without having the White Paper available. If the rôles were reversed and we were in office, there would not be one among hon. Members opposite who would not be on his feet protesting. I recall occasions when this matter has been raised and when a Bill has been withdrawn in order that the House or the Committee could properly debate it.

I will not complain of the absence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and of the Paymaster-General, because it was courteously explained to me last night why they could not be here. I hope, however, that at some stage they have been given a copy of the White Paper before they introduced the Bill. I am sorry that I gave the Economic Secretary only short notice that I intended to raise this matter, but I think that it is unfair of his colleagues—and there is a Cabinet Minister present on the Front Bench—to leave him to carry the burden. I ask that the Leader of the House be sent for so that we may ask him, in his rôle of custodian of the rights of all hon. Members, whether it is proper to ask the House to pass the Bill when the White Paper is not available.

10.30 p.m.

I hope the deputy Patronage Secretary, the sickness of whose chief we regret—we hope to see him with us again soon, until the General Election—will at any rate send a message that the Leader of the House ought to be here, because the Motion I have moved raises a vital principle for this Committee and the House. I am quite sure that no hon. Gentleman in any part of the Committee can happily vote £31 million of public money without knowing what it is he is voting about.

Mr. Ellis Smith

This is more serious than appears on the face of it. I hope that the deputy Chief Whip, the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Economic Secretary will consider now whether it would be advisable to withdraw the Bill for the time being, or postpone further proceeding upon it, until copies of the White Paper are available again in the Vote Office. That would be preferable to our forcing a Division now. I am afraid that, unless that is done, we shall be obliged to force a Division.

The Economic Secretary is well known in the locality where he did his early work for his very high standard of integrity, and I want to suggest to him that he did not do himself or his important office justice by making the kind of explanation or apology he did just now, when he read out that statement from that circular which had been carefully prepared for him.

The reason why I say this is serious is that if hon. Members who have the Bill before them will turn to paragraph 6 of the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum they will see that more than £31 million is at stake, for it states that the maximum charge on public funds under Clause 2 will be £31 million approximately except to the extent that payments are required to help cover defaults by other countries under Article 12 of the Agreement. I have purposely read that out because the Bill gives the Government the right to make instalments towards covering these charges and to find them out of the Consolidated Fund. It means that millions and millions of pounds can be used in this way, in addition to the £31 million. This is a very serious situation.

I hope it will be accepted in the spirit in which I am saying it, which is not in any political party sense, when I say that it is generally admitted that the time has arrived in Britain when we should be cutting down expenditure whenever we can. We are all looking for ways of reducing expenditure, and looking for them wherever we can.

For years I have been concerned about the misappropriation by the use of virement by the authorities in this country. Those who have shared this concern and I have had very little support up to now, but now, as a consequence of growing interest in the matter, we are gathering support. A number of reports have been published supporting us in a very strong way, and, in a fashion condemnatory of the spending authorities, supporting the line we have been taking for some time. We are encouraged by that.

Now here is another illustration of the laxity which exists. Here is a proposal to spend a large sum of money, and an ill-estimated amount of money, and we are asked to approve the expenditure while not being able to get details of the matter. This Committee and the House must Abe on guard against this kind of thing. This Committee, every Member present, has a serious responsibility in this matter. Our proceedings will be watched by the Press, and, therefore, by the people outside.

Now we have an opportunity to do justice to our duty to safeguard the expenditure of this country. Therefore, I suggest that the Economic Secretary, in collaboration with the Secretary of State for Scotland and the deputy Chief Whip, should consider—as it seems they are collaborating and considering—the withdrawal of the Bill. I think that that is the best course.

Let me make this clear—I am glad that I have thought of it. We make no reflection on the officials of this House, particularly those in the Vote Office. The responsibility for this situation lies on the officers of the Treasury. They should have seen that the White Paper explaining the Bill was in the Vote Office this evening. This is another example which shows that if the elected representative of the people allowed their officers to continue in this way there is no knowing how far it would go. Therefore, I hope that the Economic Secretary will withdraw the Bill. That would involve no loss of face on his part and, in the circumstances, it would be a courageous thing to do.

Mr. Erroll

Let me say at once that there is no question of my withdrawing the Bill. We are now considering the Motion before the Committee. I appreciate the situation confronting hon. Members on both sides of the Committee. I am quite sure that the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) could take me on without the assistance of the White Paper. But hon. Members on the back benches on both sides of the Committee cannot be expected to be up to date with legislation to that extent.

The Government appreciated the need for a White Paper when the Bill was discussed on Second Reading last week. We think it would be fair to the Committee as a whole were we to defer the consideration of this Bill until tomorrow evening. In the meantime, we shall take the necessary steps to ensure that copies of the White Paper are available in the Vote Office tomorrow.

I wish to assure the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith) that no fault attaches to the officials. If it was the fault of anyone, it was my fault. It is, I believe, the duty of the Minister to think of what are essential Parliamentary points. The officials do their best to remind the Minister of Parliamentary points within their knowledge, but in the last resort it is essentially a matter for the Minister to think of these things.

I hope the Committee will agree with what we propose, namely, that after agreement through the usual channels we should tomorrow move the suspension of the Rule at 3.30 for the purpose of taking the Committee and remaining stages of this Bill tomorrow night in what, I hope, will prove to be an amicable manner.

Mr. H. Wilson

I wish to thank the hon. Gentleman for the answer he has just given. I am sorry that I could not give him longer notice of the point which has been raised, but I think that the hon. Gentleman has responded to what I am sure is the will of the whole Committee by so quickly recommending that this Motion be accepted. We have no desire to hold up the passage of this Bill. Once it had received a Second Reading, against the wishes of hon. Members on this side of the Committee, but by virtue of the majority which hon. Members opposite can, for the moment, command, there was no purpose in delaying the Measure. Had we thought it possible to move Amendments, we should have done so. But this Measure relates to an international treaty and, whatever reservations we may have about the matter, it would make nonsense of that Treaty were we to move Resolutions concerning only one country.

We shall do all we can to facilitate the passage of this Bill. I do not want to appear in any way ungracious, but I am worried about the suggestion of the Economic Secretary that this matter be dealt with tomorrow evening. I am not competent to deal with that aspect, and I doubt whether the hon. Gentleman is. I think that essentially the matter should be discussed through the usual channels before the House is asked to decide to deal with this Bill tomorrow evening. It will not make any difference whether the Bill is taken tomorrow or on Thursday, or early next week. But I suggest that the hon. Gentleman should round off a good night's work by conceding that the question of the timing of the further stages of the Bill should be discussed in the proper manner and through the usual channels.

Mr. Erroll

As we have been so forthcoming, we feel that the Opposition could meet our point about moving the suspension Motion tomorrow afternoon without the necessity for discussion through the usual channels on what, after all, is a very small point.

Mr. Douglas Jay (Battersea, North)

Could the hon. Gentleman at least assure us, if the Bill is to come up for discussion tomorrow, that copies of the White Paper will be in the Vote Office?

Mr. Erroll

Of course, if we had a calamity and found there were no copies in the country we should obviously have to think again, but if copies are available they will be made available in the Vote Office as early as we can arrange it, and I imagine that hon. Members will find two hours sufficient time in which to study it.

Question put and agreed to.

Committee report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow.