PRIVATE MEMBERS' BILLS

HC Deb 12 June 1959 vol 606 cc1349-55

11.5 a.m.

Mr. Stephen McAdden (Southend, East)

On a point of order. I am sorry to raise a point of order before business has really started, Mr. Speaker, but what I have to say is important in the interests of the rights of private Members. It will be within your recollection that on the last Friday devoted to Private Members' Bills we were discussing the Wills &c. (Publication) Bill and I was addressing the House when, at four o'clock, the debate was adjourned, and we were told that the debate would be resumed on Friday, 12th June.

On that occasion, the sponsor of the Bill was not present, but, nevertheless. We were clearly advised that the debate would be resumed today. I have looked very carefully through the Order Book lo make sure that it would be resumed, and I went to some trouble, together with some of my hon. Friends, to seek to prepare such information as might be of assistance to the House for better progress with the Measure. However the Bill does not appear on the Order Paper and the promoters of the Bill have not taken the trouble to inform me about that, although I was the hon. Member who was addressing the House when the debate was adjourned.

Is there not some way in which private Members can be protected and informed of what is being done in their name, so that they are not put to unnecessary trouble in preparing material which they hope will be of assistance to the House, only at the last moment to find that the debate is transferred to some other day when it may be inconvenient for them to attend? I should be very grateful for your advice, Mr. Speaker.

11.7 a.m.

Mr. Leslie Hale (Oldham, West)

Further to that point of order. I myself had observed that the hon. Member for Southend, East (Mr. McAdden) had just embarked on a speech, which was most interesting, when the debate on the Wills &c. (Publication) Bill was adjourned. I usually see him on television, or something like that.

Members have made a special journey to the House to discuss a Bill which has occupied two full days in Standing Committee and two full Fridays on the Floor of the House, but the matter goes a great deal further. Many efforts have been made to improve the Bill. Many of us thought that it was a poor Bill to start with, but many Amendments were put down and discussed and some of them were carried. The horse was getting nearer to the post and there was a chance that it would be sufficiently presentable to be acceptable to the House after the constant grooming to which it had been subjected.

Then it was quietly nobbled in the stable without a word. If you refer to the "Parliamentary Racing Calendar", Mr. Speaker, you will find that its death is not even reported, the nobbling is not reported and the illness is not reported. When I inquired at the Vote Office, I was asked for information and not given it. I was asked, "What has happened about the Wills Bill?"—or "Bill's Will"; I forget which it is. We are left without information.

It is not fair to hon. Members to ask them to attend to discuss a Measure and then to say, "We are sorry that you have travelled from your constituencies or your homes to discuss the matter which was under discussion previously; but the whole thing has been altered and we do not even propose to make an explanation".

Surely it is the rule that the hon. Member should attend to ask the leave of the House to withdraw his Measure, if that is what has happened, or to adjourn its consideration, if he desires to do so, and to make a formal Motion for adjournment of further consideration if discussions about the Bill are to take place. The Bill has just disappeared from the Order Paper. I do not know how it can do that. I respectfully confess that I never quite know what happens when someone says that a Bill is to be taken on a Tuesday or Wednesday. A certain amount of alteration of business has taken place, but I submit that this is a matter on which we should have some information.

11.9 a.m.

Mr. Eric Fletcher (Islington, East)

I support this point of order, because this matter goes even deeper than the Bill to which reference has been made. Many hon. Members feel very aggrieved about the way they have been treated over the Wills &c. (Publication) Bill, but the matter does not rest there. There is another most important Bill over which an equally serious situation has arisen, the Domicile Bill [Lords].

That is a Bill of very great importance. It passed through all its stages in another place and it has been admitted on all hands that the law on the subject should be reformed. Many hon. Members were anxious to discuss that Bill and gave much thought to preparing speeches about it. There was considerable correspondence in The Times about it, and then one day we read that the Bill had been withdrawn.

What I hope will emerge from these two most unsatisfactory events is that in future we shall be able to devise some procedure whereby it no longer resides in the quite arbitrary whim of one hon. Member, who happens to have his name as the first sponsor of the Bill, to be able to withdraw it capriciously at any time without the leave of the House. One frequently finds that Amendments cannot be withdrawn without the leave of the House, yet we find that Bills which have advanced through several stages, in either or both Houses, are suddenly, and without warning, capriciously withdrawn without the leave of the House and, I should have thought, contrary to the wishes of the House, at the whim of one hon. Member.

That is a most unsatisfactory state of affairs and I very much hope that, now that the subject has been ventilated, you will be able, Mr. Speaker, to give us some guidance on how we can deal with it.

11.10 a.m.

Mr. Speaker

I have not had any notice of this point of order. Two Bills have been mentioned. One is the Wills &c. (Publication) Bill, which has had a fairly long discussion in this House. The complaint is that whereas when the debate was adjourned on the last occasion when the Bill was debated it was put down for this Friday and now it has been further postponed. Hon. Members complain that they have had no notice of this. I gather that that is the gist of the complaint of the hon. Member for Southend, East (Mr. McAdden).

In fact, if the hon. Member for Southend, East had scrutinised the Votes and Proceedings of the House with that care which is necessary, he would have found on the Votes and Proceedings of the House of Commons for Thursday, 4th June, Item 16: Wills, &c. (Publication) Bill,—Adjourned debate on Amendment proposed on further consideration, as amended (in the Standing Committee) [8th May] further adjourned from Friday 12th June till Friday, 19th June. That is actually in the Votes and it was for anyone to see. I can realise that a small item like this in the Votes and Proceedings may easily be overlooked, but it seems that the information was there to see.

The Domicile Bill is, of course, a Lords Bill and, therefore, cannot be withdrawn. The simple fact is that the hon. Member in charge of that Bill in this House gave no instructions for a day on which it was to be further considered, and I learned myself the fact that it would not be proceeded with by a letter in The Times newspaper, signed by the noble Lord in charge of the Bill in another place and the hon. Member who is in charge of it here, giving their reasons for not proceeding further with the Bill.

The plain fact is that neither of these two Bills has been withdrawn. It is merely the case that the hon. Member in charge of the Wills &c. (Publication) Bill has further deferred its further consideration and a notification of that appeared in the Votes and Proceedings for 4th June, 1959. That is all that I can say on the matter. Hon. Members who are interested in the Bill must exercise vigilance to see what has happened to it.

11.12 a.m.

Mr. McAdden

I fully appreciate the right which you, Mr. Speaker, have exercised to chide me for not more carefully scrutinising the Votes and Proceedings. May I point out in defence of myself that Friday, 12th June, is the last Friday set down for the consideration of Private Members' Business and that it is surely reasonable, in those circumstances, for me to presume that the promoter of the Bill, knowing that Friday, 12th June, was the last day on which Private Members' Bills could be considered, would not depart from that.

If, in fact, for some reason he had decided to take a different view, one would have thought that in courtesy he would have taken the trouble of addressing himself to the person whom he knew had the Floor of the House at the time in order that he should not be further inconvenienced. Surely it is going a little far if we have to rely for news of the progress or otherwise of a Bill on such an unreliable newspaper as The Times. A more definite way of informing Members of the conduct of the business of the House ought to be devised.

Mr. E. Fletcher

I am much obliged, Mr. Speaker, for your observations on the Domicile Bill. It seems to produce an extraordinary position. Are we to understand that if a Bill is passed in another place two hon. Members can then make themselves responsible for it in this House and, having done that, can write a letter to The Times and withdraw it. Is it possible for some other hon. Members, notwithstanding that letter to The Times, to take responsibility for the Bill and ensure that it is passed or, at any rate, considered in this House?

Mr. Speaker

I am not saying that at all I am saying that by the practice of this House, hon. Members in charge of a Bill here can set down a day for it and that is what has happened in this case. I merely mentioned The Times to show the way in which the matter came to my notice. It is nothing whatever to do with the practice of the House. The Times has nothing to do with us.

Mr. Hale

With all respect, Mr. Speaker, may I say that the Domicile Bill was a Bill subject to international discussion. I myself was called into consultation at The Hague, while I was there on another purpose, by people deeply concerned about the conflict of law that might result from the new interpretation of domicile, and I engaged in the long discussion about it.

No one has been informed about this step; no one knows anything about it. I never read The Times, for two reasons—one is that I cannot afford it and the other I will not mention. We know nothing about it. The Votes and Proceedings is a very useful document to those who live within two miles of the House. I live six miles away and, although it comes with all speed, it arrives at my house long after I have left to begin the next day's business. No doubt one can see it in this House but, after all, the Votes and Proceedings is normally a record of what has been done. It would not have been possible for us to take steps had we observed this note at the time. No information is given and no one knows what is going on.

I understand that the hon. Member for Southend, East was actually addressing the House and that the recognised courtesy of the House is that the hon. Member who has the Floor of the House must attend to complete his speech or apologise to the House. If the hon. Member for Southend, East had not come here today, he could rightly have been accused of great discourtesy to the Chair. Those of us who have had to come here on a Friday to do that have had to make great sacrifices to come here and comply with the normal courtesy of continuing one's speech, if only for a moment, rather than stay away and leave one's name to be called and that comment to be made.

I suggest that this adjournment to 19th June is a form of withdrawal and that it is a more objectionable procedure than that, because it is a misuse of the procedure to kill one's own Bill—it is infanticide, statutory infanticide. I hope that the hon. Member in charge of the Bill will attend on Friday, 19th June, to explain what he meant by it.

Mr. Speaker

May I say—and I hope that it will conclude this matter—to hon. Members who have complained about the action of other hon. Members in not notifying them of the change in the date for further consideration of the Bill, that that is a matter between hon. Members; it is not for me.

With regard to the machinery of the House for notifying hon. Members of the progress of Bills, may I call their attention to the list which comes out every Saturday and is in the hands of hon. Members on the following Tuesday. When I was active and in circulation in the House I used to read this document, whatever else I missed of the voluminous papers with which we are provided. If hon. Members look at the last copy, which was printed on Saturday, 6th June, they will see, Domicile Bill [Lords]. Brought in by Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth. Second Reading [Dropped]]. The reference to the Wills &c. (Publication) Bill reads, Wills, &c. (Publication) Bill. Brought in by Mr. Kimball. Adjourned Debate on Amendment on Consideration, as amended in the Standing Committee, Friday, June 19. As far as the House is concerned, I do not see what more we could do to notify hon. Members of the position, which is notified to us by the promoter of the Bill. If hon. Members think that the hon. Members in charge of the Bills should have taken further steps in the matter, they must take it up with those hon. Members. As far as we are concerned, I think that the proper steps have been taken to notify hon. Members on the progress of the Bill. I commend this most useful paper to hon. Members.