OUTLAWRIES (Hansard, 1 November 1960)

§ Mr. B. T. Parkin (Paddington, North)
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Before the House proceeds to the notional reading of the Outlawries Bill, may I make certain submissions to you about the Bill?
There is, of course, a note in the current edition of Erskine May to the effect that the First Reading of the Bill is not debatable. That is not the subject of my submission to you, because I expect that you would rule that that note adds nothing to the understanding of the rights and privileges of the House in connection with the formal business that it chooses to do before considering the Address. It is no more than a reference to the fact that no First Reading of any Bill is debatable.
What I wish to submit to you, Sir, is that the undoubted right and privilege of the House to do what business it likes remains, and will remain, and that the convention of reading a Bill for form's sake is intended to keep that right alive. There is precedent for the House choosing to do both things.
You will recollect, Mr. Speaker, that in 1763 the late Mr. Wilkes returned to the House in a state of some indignation because he had spent part of the Recess in prison and he wished to raise his case as a matter of Privilege before the debate on the Address.
After considerable discussion the House decided, on a Division, that it would still like to read the Bill first and then give Mr. Wilkes his chance before the Address was debated. Thus, the House could, if it wished, do both things and, apparently, do them on an ad hoc decision.
4 My difficulty is that there is another rule that a Bill introduced in the House cannot be introduced a second time the same Session. I wish to submit to you that it is no longer seemly that we should read the Outlawries Bill for form's sake only. In 1938, our predecessors were misguided enough to remove from the conception of English justice the idea of an outlaw, an outlaw being a person who, having defied the Queen's justice, should have his lands forfeit to the Crown. My constituency—I dare say that there are some examples in your own, Mr. Speaker—is infested with outlaws who have exploited their ownership of property in defiance of the Queen's justice at all levels, from the Companies Act—

§ Mr. Speaker
I wish to hear the hon. Member on his point of order, but I must understand what it is and I must not be treated to extraneous matters. It would appear—the hon. Member does not wish to urge the contrary—that there is no question that the Outlawries Bill is not debatable. I do not know whether he is asking me to substitute some other Bill. I do not know what he is doing.

§ Mr. Parkin
It is very difficult to make clear to you, Mr. Speaker, the reasons one has in mind for asking for a Ruling or far a piece of procedure to be carried out without encroaching on the arguments one would have deployed on the Bill itself. I am seeking to make the point that it is not seemly to pass for form's sake a Bill which ought to be introduced—indeed, I have it in mind to introduce it myself—to be seriously taken through the House so that the forfeiture of lands to the Crown in the case of those who have defied the Queen's justice could be brought back into the practice of this country.
The House would be in this difficulty, that we should need advice from the Leader of the House as to whether, on this occasion, he would take the Outlawries Bill seriously later on, or whether it is to be for form's sake only. It is intolerable that I should have to go back and say to my constituents that I cannot proceed with the matter because it has been dealt with.
Can we, therefore, decide, as the House has the right to decide, to take some other Bill for form's sake only, a Bill which need not be proceeded with 5 because it has no material in it which could be developed? I was going to suggest to the Home Secretary that we might read a Bill entitled the Civil Population (Defence against Nuclear Attack) Bill for form's sake only.

§ Mr. Speaker
I am obliged to the hon. Member for his courtesy in writing to me to indicate that he intended to take this point. I regret that I just did not have time to write to tell him that he is out of order in asking me to do it. Should the House be interested, the matter is directly covered by a Ruling of my predecessor, Mr. Speaker Clifton Brown, on 12th November, 1946.