ADJOURNMENT (CHRISTMAS) (Hansard, 20 December 1961)

§ Mr. Sydney Silverman (Nelson and Colne)
On a point of order. Mr. Speaker, you will appreciate that the Motion we are about to debate appeared on the Order Paper for the first time today. There was, therefore, no previous opportunity to table an Amendment to it. I should like to move an Amendment to delete "23rd" and insert in its place, "9th". I ask your leave to move a manuscript Amendment to that effect.

§ Mr. Speaker
If the hon. Gentleman will bring his Amendment to me in writing, I will think about it and let him know. For the moment I have proposed the Question.

§ Mr. George Brown (Belper)
I rise to invite the House to oppose the Motion, in the light of the developments of the last 24 hours. It must have been quite apparent to you, Mr. Speaker, as it has been to us, during the exchanges of the last half an hour, that there is a feeling on the other side of the House, not least in the mind of the Leader of the House, but also given expression to by other hon. Members opposite, that there is some form of discussion in Parliament which they are prepared to tolerate as being proper, to use a word which has already been used, and other forms of discussion which they are not prepared to tolerate because they regard them as improper. The Government have made up their mind that they are entitled to lay down conditions and circumstances in which we may debate two important Bills, namely, the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill and the Army Reserve Bill.
We take the view that, unless there is very great urgency, a Guillotine Motion ought not to be moved when we return after Christmas. Very great urgency means great urgency relative to the amount of time available. The Government are, on the one hand, proposing to guillotine two Bills, presumably because they are very urgent, and, on the other, proposing a Motion that 1370 the House should go into recess until 23rd January, thereby taking from itself time that it could use. We submit that these two proposals, taken together, whatever the merits of either of them separately are, do not make sense, unless there is a prior determination by the Government to prevent free, open and full discussion.
I am not clear, even now, what is the urgency for these Bills. The Leader of the House has again declared himself to be of the view that the Government could not get them if they allowed free and full discussion of them, the amount of free and full discussion which we presumably could have if we came back earlier and had more time for it. By what right does the Leader of the House claim to decide whether it is possible to finish discussions of Bills? By what right does he claim to decide the only circumstances in which a free Parliament can do its job?
The real point is that, so far, we have not had sufficient time to do the job. On the basis of our progress so far, it is impossible to say that these two Bills could not be got through in sufficient time. What we have had so far are days on which the Government have successfully obstructed their own business. If we come back early and devote more time to the Government's business for the purpose of enabling the Government to have their business, but to have it under proper terms of Parliamentary debate, there will have to be an absolute condition that the Government give up obstructing their own business and that Ministers cease to move to report Progress before a debate starts and spend three hours explaining, rather unsuccessfully, what they thought they had explained the day before. If that were to go on, even if the House came back earlier, it would obviously still be very difficult, even if my right hon. and hon. Friends displayed all possible good will, to prevent the Government successfully preventing their own business going through.
Equally, the Leader of the House, without showing the anger he showed last night and seemed to be showing again today, would have to begin to understand both the rules of the House and the part the Opposition are entitled to play in the House. If we returned 1371 early and offers were made from this side of the House, as they might again be made, with a view to getting more progress than the Government could by their own efforts get, the Leader of the House would have to prevent himself being so upset and so out of humour with himself and the House as to refuse even to discuss them.
It is a fact that some Amendments which could have been disposed of last night were not disposed of because the bad temper of the Leader of the House prevented him from accepting our offer. It equally prevented him from making a counter offer to us and suggesting further progress. It would have to be a condition of our return that those things did not happen again, because if the Leader of the House is determined not to make progress but to shut the House down there is nothing the Opposition can do to save him, because he has a majority at his disposal. If he decides to shut the House down, it is a corollary of that decision that no more business is obtained.
We contend that the failure to make greater progress with the Army Reserve Bill and the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill rests on the shoulders of the Government and not on our shoulders, and that if we returned early this factor would have to be changed. It may be in the right hon. Gentleman's mind that we do not now need more time because he can provide all the time necessary under a timetable. Indeed, he said at one stage that we would find that the time provided would be—I think that he used the word "adequate", but it was, in any case, a word indicating that our time would not be cut unduly short.
If there is sufficient time for us adequately to discuss the Bills it might be a case against us coming back earlier, because we would not need any additional time. But if we do not need any additional time, neither do we need a timetable—except that some hon. Members and, apparently, the Leader of the House himself, prefer to have Parliamentary discussion in circumstances where it is "cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd" rather than to have it in our time-honoured traditionally free way.
1372 That is the rake's progress to dictatorship. It is the rake's progress to a Reichstag. Once one gets to the state of mind of saying, "The only kind of discussion I, as Leader of the House, could really permit is one where I know that the chopper will fall at a given time and where, therefore, it does not matter how much time is wasted or by whom, or whether Ministers are competent or incompetent, or whether things run properly or improperly; that does not matter to me or to anybody, because the chopper will fall at a given time and the Bill will go through," we are well on the way to going further and saying that we do not need Parliament at all or that we can work by other methods. That is an extremely dangerous path on which to embark. To impose the Guillotine is something which, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has said, a Government should do rarely, and then only because it is clear that they lack time or have been obstructed.
In this case, the obstruction has come from the Government side. The Leader of the House did his best to avoid giving a straight answer either to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) or to me, but the fact is that we did accept the Government's own offer on the first day. They could have asked for more, but did not. We made no objection to finishing at the point they wished, even though many of us had expected to go much later. Again, last night, we made an offer, to which the Government did not respond at all, either by asking for more, by commenting on it, or in any other way. The obstruction has been theirs.
If we come back earlier, more time will be available. I do not want to see either of these Bills come under the Guillotine. It is shameful to put either of them through the House in that way. The long-term effects of the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill and the vital principles involved in it ought to be accepted by this House—because of their impact on the Commonwealth and on our people at home, and because of our own ages-old traditions—only after the fullest discussion.
Equally, I think that the Army Reserve Bill, the "National Service Bill", as I believe it to be ill-named, should not be allowed to go through—affecting as it does, and unjustly as many think, 1373 but certainly very harshly, the liberties, rights and family lives of a group of young men who have no redress at all—without the fullest and most open discussion in this House. It is a unique Bill. National Service is not unique, but it is unique to say that only 20,000 men, out of the total population, shall bear the whole burden. We should not do that without full debate and discussion.
Discussion under a Guillotine is not full and free debate, because it is impossible to arrange it in that way. All sorts of things happen in the course of full and fair debate. Things crop up in its course, and should be answered, but that is impossible under a Guillotine. It is no use saying, "We can control that. You can choose which things you want to talk about." The answer is that in full debate one cannot do that, because no one can foresee what issues will arise. That is what debate is for—that issues should be dealt with as they arise. That cannot be the case with a Guillotine. However much time the Leader of the House provides, it will not be a full and fair debate.
The merits and demerits of the Guillotine will be fully debated when we return after the Christmas Recess, but, inevitably, the steam-roller majority on which the Leader of the House relied so heavily when showing his muscles half an hour ago will be relied on again. We therefore have to see what we can do now, and the only thing we can do, inconvenient as it would be to many hon. Members, and to many of us who have political duties in the country in January, is to oppose the Guillotine Motion so as to make it perfectly plain that, rather than have the Guillotine imposed on these two Measures, we would prefer to come back sooner and so provide the Government with more time for really full discussion, only asking that the Government make better use of time than they have in the past, and not to obstruct.
I beg the right hon. Gentleman to listen to this argument a little more free from the prejudice, irritation and bad temper that he showed last night. He may take what view he likes of me as a political opponent, but the fact is that we cannot conduct the business of this 1374 House if leading Ministers are to get so quickly out of humour with their opponents—

§ Mr. Speaker
The rules that I apply to the right hon. Gentleman must affect all the debate, and he is getting rather far, at the moment, from the proposition that we are at present discussing.

§ Mr. Brown
I hope not, Mr. Speaker; but I take your point, and will move on.
I make the offer to come back earlier in order to provide more time, in a fair, frank and, I believe, a Parliamentary spirit, without any calculation of its party advantage or personal inconvenience. That offer, if accepted, would provide the Government with more time. If they were willing to respond in the same way it would enable them not to proceed with the Guillotine Motion. I think that many hon. Members on both sides of the House will feel it a rather bad thing if the Leader of the House does not respond to this approach today. If he does not, many people outside will be very much aware that it is not the Opposition who are trying to prevent full and frank discussion, but, on the contrary, that it is something inherent in the present Conservative majority in the House that does not wish it.
I hope that the Leader of the House will now feel able not to proceed with his time-table Motion. I hope that he will try again, with more time at his disposal, to do the job mare competently; and if he resists us today, I ask the House—and not only my hon. Friends but all those on the other side of the Chamber who care for Parliamentary discussion—to divide with us against it.

§ Mr. John Biggs-Davison (Chigwell)
My contribution to the debate will be rather shorter than that of the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown); and I only ask the indulgence of the House for a few moments because I think that there are more than the conventional reasons of Parliamentary dingdong why, before the House passes this Motion, it should receive very definite assurances from the Government about its being called together before 23rd January should the national need so require.
1375 We are to go away until 23rd January at a time when the state of the world continues to worsen, when international law and order is being more widely trampled underfoot, and when British interests are in ever-growing danger and decline. Indeed, the West as a whole is in disarray, and the Commonwealth is in disorder. That same Indian Army that many of us learned to admire is at this moment engaged in two acts of aggression—one of which may, we hope, be drawing to a close.
There is what the Prime Minister described as the United Nations war on the Katanga people and, more recently, there has been the rape of Goa, which, for centuries longer than the existence of a single Indian nation, has been a Portuguese province, and recognised as such in the judgment of the International Court of Justice at The Hague in the case of the two enclaves of Dodra and Nagar Haveli. And now, following suit, President Sukarno is rattling his sabre. The enemies of Europe are closing in on her.
It is the duty and the right of the Executive to carry out diplomacy and hon. Members do not always serve the national interest best by calling, at every turn, for explanations and statements. But in recent days we have seen the democratic Parliamentary process really working. We have seen the vigilance of private hon. Members—at least on this side of the House—succeed in diverting the Government from a course of acquiescence in United Nations enormities in the Congo at the sacrifice of our principles as well as our interests.
I believe that in so doing my hon. Friends, who have been smeared by hon. Gentlemen opposite as members of the Katanga lobby—though, speaking for myself, and others of my hon. Friends, I have not one penny of personal financial interest in the whole Continent of Africa—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. The difficulty about this is that we are discussing how long the House should adjourn. The fact that some hon. Members have been called members of the Katanga lobby does not seem to relate to that question.

§ Mr. Biggs-Davison
I was just drawing attention, Sir, to the very desperate state of the world and of our interests.
1376 I urge hon. Members to consider what might have happened if we had been in recess when it was proposed that Royal Air Force bombs should be contributed to the raining down of death and devastation on the civilian population of Katanga? I do not expect that hon. Gentlemen opposite will agree with my views on Katanga, but many of them will agree that British foreign policy and, indeed, the conduct of government, should not be an esoteric dialogue between the two Front Benches.
Those hon. Members who have put their point of view forcibly in recent days have been expressing the views of their constituents and my belief is that my hon. Friends and I are more in touch with our constituents than are some hon. Gentlemen opposite. We have expressed to the Government the feelings of our constituents; their abhorrence that Elisabethville should have been turned into a Budapest.

§ Mr. Speaker
The hon. Gentleman cannot, on this point, debate Katanga. It is right for the hon. Member to address his remarks to the reasons why hon. Members should or should not go away for a given period, but otherwise the debate would be going too wide.

§ Mr. Biggs-Davison
I apologise, Mr. Speaker.
We are glad that the Prime Minister's appeal has been harkened to. Many of my hon. Friends are, however, alarmed lest what is now happening in relation to President Tshombe's meeting with Mr. Adoula—my fears on this may be unjustified; I certainly hope so—may be the preparation of a Munich. It was an ill-omen that Thursday's debate ended with a piece of paper.
I therefore ask the Government to given firm assurances that if the situation both in Africa and the world as a whole continues to deteriorate, whatever inconvenience may be caused to hon. Members, we shall be called back without delay.

§ Mr. J. Grimond (Orkney and Shetland)
While I do not agree with all the views expressed by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison) on all the matters he raised, I agree that there are matters which must be of great concern to all 1377 hon. Members. We are going away at a time when we see considerable disagreement between the leaders of the West about Berlin. No doubt we shall hear more on this subpect this afternoon. We are going away when we certainly do not know the outcome of events in the Congo, when we have just witnessed the attack of India on Goa and when a further attack is threatened in the Dutch East Indies.
I appreciate that the Lord Privy Seal may touch on many of these matters later this afternoon. I do not want to delay the House, but I must impress on the Lord Privy Seal that we shall require to have the views of the Government on all these matters and the most up-to-date information on how they stand. The position of the United Nations is an overriding matter. Grave disquiet has been expressed by Mr. Adlai Stevenson, among others, about the effects of these events on the United Nations.
There is also the question of the finances of the United Nations. I hope that we shall hear more from the Lord Privy Seal about the instructions given to our representatives there and that as soon as we return after the Recess he will make arrangements for a full discussion to take place on the United Nations and of our policy towards it.
As soon as possible after we return, we should discuss again the various aspects of foreign policy. I join with the hon. Member for Chigwell in hoping that the Government will give something more than the usual formal assurances that should anything serious happen hon. Members will be recalled. Unfortunately, it so often happens that we are not called back until the events have made our return too late.
I hope that the Government will think again about the Guillotine Motion on the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill. There have not been great complaints about any undue delay or filibustering during the passage of the Bill. Many hon. Members opposite have already expressed great anxiety about the proposed curtailment of the debate, particularly regarding the Irish question. It is surely unusual for a government, after, presumably, prolonged considertion, to introduce a Bill which they say is of great importance but when it 1378 comes before Parliament to say that on one of the most pointed aspects of it—its effect on Ireland—they must change their mind completely. That is itself a reason for prolonged debate, especially since we are sure that even the Government do not know the effect the Bill would have on Ireland, should it be enforced.
I will not discuss the other Bill, except to say that it has been the custom, as far as possible, to treat any subject affecting the call-up of men as a non-party matter. On the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill, however, there are special considerations and I hope that the Leader of the House will either think again or, if necessary, find some means to provide extra time to discuss the matter. Only then, if really necessary, should the Guillotine be used.

§ Mr. Charles Pannell (Leeds, West)
I hope that the House will not adjourn on a very narrow point—while the present Leader of the House holds his position. He has shown a curious insensitivity to the House since he was appointed to that post. I do not necessarily think that that is a denigration of him. There have been great predecessors to that post who have also not been good Leaders of the House. Someone said to me earlier that the present Leader of the House is the worst since Sir Stafford Cripps. His mind is too intransigent.
The present occupant of that office might have been a great Departmental Minister, but he is certainly not great in his present job. It certainly is not synonymous with the chairmanship of the Conservative Party. That is the hon. Gentleman's dilemma, and we cannot go away knowing that in office is a Leader of the House who thinks that his one object is to win the next General Election for his party. It has often been said—

§ Mr. Speaker
I appreciate the ingenuity of the hon. Member, but he must explain to me how that affects the period of time for which hon. Members should adjourn.

§ Mr. Pannell
I think that will be fairly easy to do, Mr. Speaker, if you will allow me to continue.
1379 I wish to recall some recent House of Commons history which has brought us to this pass, when it is suggested that we adjourn with the Order Paper in the most hopeless mess at this time of the year that I can ever remember. This has been brought about by a series of errors on the part of the Government themselves. If I may recount this history, it will, I think, show why we are short of time, why a Guillotine is necessary for two Bills, and why it is necessary to have a new Leader of the House.
First, we had the matter of the B.B.C. Charter, when the appropriate documents were not put before us. We had the question of the Mace. Only this week, we had the question of the Swiss loan, when it was said that this country was so hard-up that it must have f18 million within three days. We have not knocked at the Government. They are knocking at themselves. They say, in effect, that they can do away with the Ponsonby rule and do away with protocol which has stood for thirty-eight years because there is complete contempt towards the House by the Government and, particularly, by the Leader of the House. There is no question about that.
Things cannot all go wrong like that. It is no use Conservative Members mentioning in the Lobby the name of Sir Charles Harris, who has recently left the Whips' Office. The responsibility rests on the Government Front Bench to order the business of the House. The Government have slipped up in every possible way. Anyone watching the Leader of the House during recent times has seen how he has behaved. He has not had a clue. All he has been doing is swotting up the precedents. He has spent far too long out of the country to know what has been happening in the House. He is a bad choice for the job. There is no doubt about that. The House does not work in that way. Consider the way in which the right hon. Gentleman started. He did not occupy the proper room of the Leader of the House.

§ Mr. Speaker
It is essential to address these observations to the Question, which, in substance, is: how long do we go away for, if at all? I am listening to the hon. Gentleman with great care, 1380 but, with respect, I do not follow how exchanges of rooms have a bearing on the matter.

§ Mr. Pannell
I think that they do, Mr. Speaker, if I may address you quite seriously on the subject. If the right hon. Gentleman places himself so far away from the Chamber that he gets breathless coming up the stairs to us, he will not know what is happening inside the Chamber.

§ Mr. Speaker
Is it the argument that hon. Members must come back earlier to give them more time to go up or down stairs?

§ Mr. Pannell
I am not being facetious when I say that you have made quite a point there, Mr. Speaker. The point is that we have not had from the Leader of the House the service which should have been given in the way it ought to be given. He is completely insensitive to the House, and we really cannot go away for the Christmas Recess if someone so insensitive is in that position.
I wish to keep in order, of course, and I shall finish on this note. Whatever nature intended the right hon. Gentleman to do—to be an able Colonial Secretary, or whatever it may have been—nature never intended him to be Leader of the House. He has shown himself completely insensitive to the demands of the House and the values which it places on many matters. A Departmental Minister can say, "I have made up my mind". The House of Commons will not have its mind made up for it by the Leader of the House in the authoritative sort of manner we have seen today. For the good of the House, it is time that we had another Leader.

§ Mr. Leslie Hale (Oldham, West)
It is not often that I agree with the hon. Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison), but I agree with nearly every argument that he put. The views he holds on many questions are very much opposed to mine, but no one doubts that he holds them with sincerity, and no one doubts that the issues he raised are world issues of real importance.
Those of us whose faith has been pinned to the United Nations have seen 1381 things happen in the last few days which give us very grave anxiety, real concern and doubt about whether the organisation in its present form, at least on its security basis, is likely to function well in the future. The Prime Minister is at present in Bermuda. Perhaps his conference there with the President of the United States may be postponed for a time because of serious personal reasons which we all deplore, but, in the sixteen years in which I have been a Member of the House, there has never been a time—I am not saying this for political reasons—for more anxiety, day-to-day anxiety, about foreign affairs and about economic affairs.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) said, only yesterday we heard that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is going round with a begging bowl trying to restore our depleted finances. There is a state of complete uncertainty in industry. What is more important, the reputation of Parliament as a whole is involved in this Motion.
It is only eight weeks since we were recalled, after a ten-week Recess which would have been eleven weeks but for the action of the Leader of the Opposition and those who supported him in this party in demanding the recall of Parliament. Indeed, I think that it was first brought up by the Leader of the House.

§ Mr. Jeremy Thorpe (Devon, North)
The Liberals.

§ Mr. Hale
I am quite sure that there was some support from the Liberal Party. I think it fair to say of the Parliamentary Liberal Party that there has never been a Motion during the last few years which it has not supported on both sides.
No one looking at the position seriously today would say that the reputation of the House stands as high as it did in the past. I do not think that anyone would say that the deliberations of the House of Commons command the attention that they used to do. People just cannot understand our saying that we will sit here for eight weeks, discuss a few matters formally, put down a few Amendments, and then go away again for five weeks.
1382 A few moments ago, Mr. Speaker, if I may venture to say so, you made a slight emendation of some importance in what you said as to the purpose of our debate. Previously, you had said that we were discussing for how long the House should adjourn, and a little later you said that the question concerned how long it should adjourn, or whether it should. Why should the House adjourn? People in Oldham will go on working until the eve of Christmas and they will resume work the day after Boxing Day. Is there any reason at all why Members should go away for five weeks, an exceptionally long adjournment?
Perhaps not all hon. Members will accept that, but I ask them to consider carefully. Everyone recognises that the exigencies of Parliamentary debate and discussion, getting business through on the Floor of the House, upstairs in Committee and in our own various committees, impose a certain need to bring issues to a conclusion. Even the Parliamentary Labour Party has recently had to make some decisions about the limitation of debate—which I hope were taken reluctantly by those concerned; I voted against them. The exigencies are there.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) put the point perfectly fairly. The Leader of the House says, "I must get these Bills through. Therefore, I propose an adjournment for five weeks while we do not discuss them". It is really monstrous. Then the right hon. Gentleman says, "The moment you come back from your five weeks' holiday, I shall table Motions which will effectively prevent your discussing them". Let there be no doubt about that. No one has yet seen a Guillotine Motion which presented fair possibilities of debate. Everyone knows that the House, which has a certain amount of collective conditioned reflex in its composition, will probably spend more time discussing a Guillotine Motion until the Closure is accepted than it is likely to spend discussing any other Question.

§ Mr. Emrys Hughes (South Ayrshire)
Is not this the first occasion on which a Guillotine has been offered to anyone as a Christmas present?

§ Mr. Hale
That I would not know. My hon. Friend will recall that in the end the inventor of the guillotine benefited from its curative powers.
Surely the Leader of the House should at least say one or two words on this subject and tell us why he makes this proposition. My hon. Friend, or ex-hon. Friend, the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) tabled an Amendment to the effect that we should reassemble fourteen days earlier than is proposed. That is a reasonable, sensible and proper compromise. It permits hon. Members, who can afford it, to go home for Christmas and to spend Christmas in the bosom of their families and enables us to reassemble at an earlier time.
We are in a situation of chaos. One of my hon. Friends mentioned the Post Office Charter. I have not seen it yet. I do not know what has happened to it. Possibly whatever has happened to it occurred while I was at home in the bosom of my family. Has it been discussed? This was an urgent matter. It was tabled as a matter of business. I challenge any hon. Member on either side of the House to tell us what is really the intention of the Secretary of State for War on the Army Reserve Bill. Does he propose to table Amendments to Clause 7? Does he propose to table Amendments to the Money Resolution? Will they be in order if he tables them? Will a Guillotine Motion be tabled—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Gordon Touche)
Order. The hon. Gentleman is getting rather far from the Motion.

§ Mr. Hale
I am obliged to you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. The last thing that I wished to do was to range over too wide a field. I am merely expressing general uncertainty and, indeed, with respect, Sir Gordon, suggesting that the House should not adjourn until it has had elucidation of some of the problems which confront us.
I do not often emerge into the West End of London, but even there the activities of Her Majesty's Ministers are becoming really alarming. No one I meet knows what is the law at any given moment of the day or how soon the Minister of Transport will amend it. When the Minister of Transport and the Home Secretary co-operate in their 1384 efforts—the Home Secretary in cleaning up London and the Minister of Transport in regularising London—the results are doubly destructive. I was invited—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I find it difficult to relate what the hon. Gentleman is saying to the Motion about the Christmas Recess.

§ Mr. Hale
I apologise, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. The trouble is that I was trying to be brief and, therefore, perhaps did not explain in detail the relevance of what I had adumbrated in my remarks.
We should not adjourn for Christmas unless we have an undertaking from the Minister of Transport that he will not publish a new series of parking schemes for London, a new series of regulations and make a new series of one-way streets on the day that we rise. I could give in detail the evidence of this sort of thing happening if the House wished it.
Every time that we adjourn for a Recess, all the dirty little controversial Measures that can be put through by Statutory Instrument are "bunged" through on the day after the Adjournment on the principle that if they fail they can be withdrawn and rescinded before we reassemble. If they succeed all is well. In any event, with a bit of luck, they will be forgotten if they are not of very great importance before the House reassembles.
I made one of my very few visits to the West End a few days ago. I was invited by my publishers to go to a lunch to celebrate the publication of a book. I always find it difficult—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I am sorry to interrupt this lunch, but it does not seem to have any relation to the Christmas Recess.

§ Mr. Hale
I was not going to advertise it at all, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I was only going to describe the effect on me of this situation. I was driving with my wife, following all the signs that the Minister of Transport had put up. I found myself two or three times back in the same place.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
The Motion is concerned with when the House should adjourn.

§ Mr. Hale
I really could not hear what you said, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, but I will leave the subject in case I gathered that it was some expression of dissent from the relevance of my observations. Although I did not hear your precise words, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I will leave that subject with pleasure, although it was a rather sad story. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about the book?] I would not think of mentioning the book.
The Leader of the House should tell us why he wants to impose a Guillotine on two vital Measures, one of which will cause grave hardship to all our constituents and both of which have excited the reprehension of the great majority of decent-thinking people in every constituency. There is the feeling that something is wrong, the feeling that we are abrogating principles about which we have been able to boast over the centuries. Why does the right hon. Gentleman say that we must adjourn for five weeks, come back and shorten discussion on important Measures? Why cannot we return a week beforehand and discuss them freely and frankly and produce the Amendments and improvements, or even rescind the intention, which are necessary?
Finally, will the Leader of the House tell us why the Army Reserve Bill is urgent? The Secretary of State for War has said time after time that he intends to take no steps about it for many months. We were told that it arose out of the situation in Berlin. That situation has been altering constantly day after day. Dr. Adenauer has taken quite different measures concerning the German forces since the Bill was introduced. It may well be that the Bill will never be enforced. I ask the Leader of the House to make a statement on these important matters.

Mr. R. H. Tartan (Thirsk and Malton)
I should like to reinforce the request of my hon. Friend the Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison) for an assurance that, if the situation in Central Africa deteriorates during the Recess, the House will be recalled. I can understand the attitude of the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) and that of the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), who has 1386 not yet moved his Amendment, but I find it hard to understand the attitude of the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown).
What would happen if we voted down this Motion? It would mean that we would be sitting on Friday with no business and again on Christmas Day with no business, which might be enjoyable for some right hon. and hon. Members, but would be highly inconvenient for the staff who serve us here in the House of Commons. I should like further consideration to be given to the question of the Recess. Like the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond), I do not like the idea of a Guillotine being applied to the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill if it can possibly be avoided.
The right hon. Member for Belper gave an undertaking which, I think, requires a little clarification. I understood him to say that if the Government would reduce the period of the Recess the Opposition would co-operate in securing the completion of the Committee stage of the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill and, possibly, of the Army Reserve Bill. If the right hon. Gentleman can clarify his undertaking in that way, I hope my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will consider the matter. Certainly, there are different views about the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill on both sides of the House. For instance, I do not entirely share the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Louth (Sir C. Osborne).
It would be helpful—and I should have thought that this was a way in which Parliament could rise to the occasion—if the Opposition said that if we came back a week early they would guarantee that in that week they would assist in getting the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill through the Committee stage. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] If they did that, they would show that they were genuine in their attitude on this Motion. It would be very much appreciated in places like the West Indies, where the Guillotine on the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill would be regarded as a rather obnoxious process. If the Opposition do not do that, then it means that they are really not quite sincere in their attitude on this Motion and in their opposition to the Commonwealth Immigrants 1387 Bill. I hope that before this debate is concluded we shall hear from the Leader of the Opposition the kind of offer he can make to secure the completion of the Committee stages of those Bills.

§ Mr. S. Silverman
I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman thinks that he is quite fair to my right hon. Friend in the comment which he has just made. It does not necessarily follow that because we ask to come back earlier we therefore alter our attitude to the Bills that we wish to discuss. [An HON. MEMBER: "There was an offer."] I know that an offer was made, but the point is that if we came back a little earlier the Guillotine would be unnecessary and we could have full discussion without resorting to an anti-democratic device.

§ Mr. Turton
As I understood the right hon. Member for Belper—I am sorry that he is not now present—he gave a sort of undertaking about the passage of the Bill. It was not at all clear. I recognise that the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne perhaps did not understand what the right hon. Gentleman was saying, as I did not. I ask the Leader of the Opposition, when he intervenes, to make the position clear.

§ Mr. Arthur Lewis (West Ham, North)
It was last evening that my right hon. Friend asked the Leader of the House whether he would discuss the matter or suggest what he wanted, when the Opposition would be prepared to discuss it. The Leader of the House, however, walked out.

§ Mr. Turton
The hon. Member probably was having tea and was not here when the right hon. Member for Belper, in opening the debate today, gave his vague sort of undertaking.

§ Mr. R. H. S. Crossman (Coventry, East)
I support my right hon. Friends on the Opposition Front Bench on the issue of the Army Reserve Bill. Their position is perfectly clear. We say that we do not want to adjourn because we object to the Government's Guillotine proposal and we are prepared to come back earlier, if necessary, for adequate discussion of the Bill.
Since we were warned of this late last night, some of us have been enabled to 1388 look up the precedents. I do not know whether the House realises how unusual it is to have a Guillotine Motion on an Army Bill. I cannot find a single case since 1945. In the time from 1885 to 1939, I have been able to find only two occasions when any kind of Bill to do with the Services has been guillotined in this way.
We must be given overwhelming reasons if the Government are to guillotine a Service Bill, but I have not heard from the Leader of the House any suggestion of a special reason for breaking the convention under which we in this House discuss important Service matters without interruption and are allowed to say our fill on Service matters. We all know that traditionally on Vote A we are allowed to go on to a finish. I should have thought that on a Bill of this nature that precedent should be observed. This in itself is full justification for refusing to grant the Adjournment of the House.
On the Army Reserve Bill, it is difficult to explain to the Leader of the House why some of us feel the degree of indignation that we do. It is not as though the delay was due to us. We all know that the Bill was awkward for the Government and that it was a half-prepared Bill spatchcocked into the Queen's Speech, and we know the pressure from outside which made the Government do it. They spatchcocked it into the Queen's Speech; we did not. They have not adequately prepared it.
The Secretary of State for War made a mess and wasted three hours of our time yesterday and had to be caught out and told his business by back benchers on this side. We are almost to blame, apparently, because my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) had to point out the inadequacies and the ignorances and the way that the Secretary of State had misled the Committee so as to prevent us putting down Amendments on the vital issues of the bounty, which, we believe, should be paid to National Service men who have to serve the extra six months. All that had been prevented.
After that degree of muddle from the Government side we had a debate in which twelve Amendments were taken together. We did not squabble and waste time by demanding, as legitimately 1389 we could have done, extra Divisions on at least four of those Amendments. We took them altogether and had an admirable debate. That debate was closured before it was finished, and then we had a discussion about progress. After that, we were suddenly told about the introduction of a Guillotine Motion. Having walked out, the Leader of the House came back half an hour later, having been instructed to announce a Guillotine on the Bill.
The Bill was not being criticised in a party manner. The striking fact about the discussion of the Bill was how cross-bench it was. There are genuine differences in the House about it, not all of them from one side or the other. Whatever we do, we know that although this is a small Bill, it is a Bill with important principles. It is a Bill by which people are to be called up selectively, overtly for the first time. It is a major departure. It also includes transferring to the War Office responsibility previously held by the Ministry of Labour for many of the facets of the Bill, which, however small, even though only 15,000 men are being called up—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I hope that the hon. Member will not go too far into the merits of the Bill. We are discussing the Adjournment Motion.

§ Mr. Crossman
Our opposition to the Adjournment and our belief that we should come back earlier is largely due to our conviction that the Bill needs adequate discussion. I am going through the Government's behaviour to see whether their Guillotine can be justified or whether we are not right in saying that we should come back earlier.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
There will be an opportunity later for discussing the Guillotine Motion.

§ Mr. Crossman
It seems to me, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that on the question of the date of the Adjournment of the House we have a right to put forward these views. I am merely following up the reasoning given from the Opposition Front Bench that instead of adjourning now and having a Guillotine Motion when we return we should come back earlier to have discussion without the Guillotine. I am stating why, in my view, this is not a party issue. It is an 1390 issue for the House of Commons and for the nation, for this little, miserable, pettifogging Bill involves the principle of 15,000 young men being called up selectively, without adequate classification, by the arbitrary decision of the Secretary of State for War.
Last night, we were trying to write into the Bill classifications that would enable us at least to know the principles on which the selective call-up would take place. The debate was closured. After the Closure, the Leader of the House announced that there would be a Guillotine Motion. He said that hon. Members on this side were simply obstructing. I do not know how any human being who sat through yesterday afternoon's debate, when hon. Members on both sides had a passionate interest in the Bill, can suggest that they were concerned with obstruction.

§ Mr. A. Lewis
Is my hon. Friend aware that at five o'clock yesterday, before the debate on the Bill had started, I was informed by members of the Government that they had already prepared to have the Guillotine Motion before, in fact, discussion had begun?

§ The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Iain Macleod)
May I say straight away that that is not true.

§ Mr. Lewis
That is what I was told.

§ Mr. Crossman
I dare say that five o'clock was a little early, but 6.15 was not.

§ Mr. William Yates (The Wrekin)
Would it not be correct for the hon. Member who made that statement about the Guillotine having been decided before the Leader of the House mentioned it now to withdraw?

§ Mr. Lewis
On a point of order. You will recollect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that what I said was that I was told at about five o'clock yesterday by one of the members of the Government that they had already prepared to bring in the Guillotine. I was told that there would not be an all-night sitting, because the House would be getting up at about twelve o'clock. I was told that and I will not withdraw it.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
There is no occasion for the hon. Member to withdraw it.

§ Mr. Crossman
My hon. Friend has confirmed the rumour which I also heard.

§ Mr. Lewis
It turned out to be true.

§ Mr. Crossman
My view is that when the Leader of the House had to walk out of the debate and have his mind made up within half-an-hour, he got confirmation of something which had been previously decided.
It would be a mistake to misjudge the House in the way that the right hon. Gentleman's speech implied. It is wrong to suggest that the debate yesterday was a filibustering or obstructive debate, or that those of us who were present to discuss the Bill were concerned to delay proceedings, when I have seldom heard a debate that was more serious and, because it was serious, prolonged, largely by right hon. and hon. Members on the Government side.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I should be grateful if the hon. Member came back to the Motion before the House.

§ Mr. Crossman
I do not need to come back, because I am on it. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] The cheers of my hon. Friends show that I am expressing reasons why we on the back benches support our Front Bench in opposing the Adjournment. We want a full discussion of the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill and of the Army Reserve Bill on their merits as a serious House of Commons, and we resent the lies told about us that we were filibustering and obstructing.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I must ask the hon. Member to withdraw the word "lies".

Hon. Members
Withdraw.

§ Mr. Crossman
I withdraw the word "lies", but I cannot withdraw the feelings with which I have spoken.

§ Mr. Jeremy Thorpe (Devon, North)
There is one reason why I believe that we should not adjourn for five weeks. I confess that it is a reason which I thought I would hear widely canvassed from the Conservative benches, but the only Member opposite who put forward this reason from the whole of the Tory 1392 Parliamentary Party, and he did it to his credit, was the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton). He referred to the proposed Guillotine measures which will be applied to the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill. The Leader of the House has told us that if we come back on 23rd January it will be necessary to have a Guillotine in order to get the Bill through.
It is not in order to discuss the merits of the Bill, but I think that it is in order to say that I think it is a Bill which departs from all previous precedents in the matter of our policy towards our Commonwealth and our Colonial Empire, and it is a Bill which has aroused acute controversy not merely across the Floor of the House but throughout the ranks of the party opposite. For 17 years my grandfather sat on the Tory benches opposite. [HON. MEMBERS: "Shame."] The greatest honour that he had at the hand of his fellow Tory Members was to be called "Empire Jack". The reason for that was that he believed passionately in an Empire, belonging as he did to a party which always claimed to be the great party of Empire. Today we are faced with the proposition—[Interruption.] If the hon. and gallant Member for Northern Ireland would wait—

§ Captain L. P. S. Orr (Down, South)
Not the whole of Northern Ireland.

§ Mr. Thorpe
Fortunately not. If the hon. and gallant Member for Down, South will wait, he will see the relevance of this. If we come back on 23rd January it will be necessary to have the Closure. The Leader of the House said, and the hon. and gallant Member for Down, South should remember this, that the Government would decide for how long it would be proper to discuss any series of Amendments. If previous practice be any precedent, it means that Amendments as important as those, touching the whole future of the Colonies, which were dealt with on the first day of the Committee Stage will be dealt with in four to five hours. It means that Amendments touching the whole future of the relationship of this country with the Commonwealth will be disposed of in a day. It will mean that matters as important as those relating to the Irish, on which the party 1393 opposite had three opinions—they were in, then they were out and then they were in again—will be disposed of as a result of the Closure, which is so severe in its application that it drew violent opposition from members of the party of the Leader of the House himself.
This is the procedure which we are invited to follow because if we come back on 23rd January, Her Majesty's Government will not be able to provide time to have adequate discussion of the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill. There was a significant remark by the Leader of the House which was taken up by the Leader of the Opposition, and this touches on the relevance of our return on 23rd July. [HON. MEMBERS: "January."] Perhaps if the Government were put into cold storage until July it might lead to some result. The Leader of the House said that unless the Guillotine were applied the Government would probably have to drop the Bill. I do not know whether that was recognition of the likely opposition from the Opposition benches or of the potential danger from his own side if his hon. Friends had adequate opportunities to oppose the Bill. Perhaps we shall never know.
I should like to suggest, particularly to hon. Members opposite who have paraded not only their patriotism but their imperialism year in year out, that it would be preferable to spend an extra fortnight debating a Bill which will vitally affect the future relationships of this country with its Commonwealth and Colonial territories than that we should take five weeks vacation in order to come back for a Guillotine to be applied and the Bill rammed through in the teeth of opposition from all quarters of the House.

§ Mr. S. Silverman
On a point of order. It is nearly one and quarter hours since I asked Mr. Speaker's leave to move a manuscript Amendment, which would not have the effect of limiting the debate, because the argument whether the date of our return should be 9th January is obviously just as wide as the argument whether it should be 23rd January. Mr. Speaker was good enough to say that he would give me his Ruling a little later on when he had had time to consider it. Would it be possible, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, for you to indicate 1394 whether it is the intention to call the Amendment and, if so, at approximately what stage in the debate? You will have seen that there has been considerable support for the Amendment, including the exact date, even before it has been moved, and this might perhaps influence you in deciding at what hour it should be moved, if at all.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
Mr. Speaker has decided to call the Amendment and he has suggested that I should call the hon. Member after some others have spoken.

§ Sir Cyril Osborne (Louth)
I want to make two points, if I am allowed, on the Motion, which I support. In the sixteen years in which I have been in the House I have heard Oppositions almost every time say that the Adjournment was too long and that we ought to come back sooner, and it has been the function of respective Governments to say that the Adjournment was necessary and the function of the Opposition to say that it was not necessary. To that extent history is repeating itself, and I think it fair to say that if the suggestion made from the benches opposite were accepted, that we should have practically no Adjournment at all, nobody would be more shocked than hon. Members opposite. [HON. MEMBERS: "Try us."]
My second point is that the Deputy-Leader of the Opposition said that unless some great emergency arose the Guillotine should not be used. During the discussion many references have been made to the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill, and one of my hon. Friends said that the Bill ought not to be pushed through because of feeling in the West Indies. I want to bring the House back to the feeling of the people in this country and especially of the homeless in London, who feel that to allow unlimited immigration into this country—

Hon. Members
Rubbish and humbug.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I would remind the hon. Member for Louth (Sir C. Osborne) that we are discussing the length of the Christmas Recess.

§ Sir C. Osborne
This has to do with the length of the Christmas Recess. The 1395 Deputy-Leader of the Opposition said that to have a long Recess and then to apply the Guillotine was unfair and unwise. As for "humbug" from a white-livered Liberal, I reject it.

§ Mr. C. Pannell
rose—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I must ask the hon. Member for Louth to withdraw that phrase.

§ Sir C. Osborne
I will withdraw that remark, and I beg your pardon for having used it.

§ Mr. C. Pannell
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Can you enlighten the House why you asked the hon. Member for Louth (Sir C. Osborne) to withdraw the expression "white-livered Liberal"? So long as the word was "white" and not "black" surely the expression cannot be offensive in this context?

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
In my view, it was unparliamentary.

§ Mr. F. A. Burden (Gillingham)
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Is it in order for the hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) to call one of my hon. Friends a wicked little man?

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I did not hear that observation.

§ Sir C. Osborne
I was trying to urge the point that while I agree that views about the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill are held deeply overseas, hon. Members opposite shout me down when I try to make a point about the English people. They do not want to hear about the English people. I submit that the people in London and in the Midlands who are most directly affected by unlimited immigration regard the Bill as a great benefit—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I must ask the hon. Member to keep more within the context of the Motion before the House. It deals with the Adjournment of the House.

§ Sir C. Osborne
May I remind you, Sir, if it is in order, that the Deputy-Leader of the Opposition—I wrote the words down as he uttered them—said that unless some great emergency arose the Guillotine ought not to be used when 1396 we return and that the length of the Recess is too long. It is with that point that I am trying to deal.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
That is a legitimate argument, but the hon. Member is going much further than that.

§ Sir C. Osborne
I am trying to rebut the argument. If the Deputy-Leader of the Opposition was in order in advancing his argument, surely I am in order in rebutting it? All I am saying is that whilst hon. Members opposite say that the Guillotine ought not to be applied to the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill, people outside this House who are mostly affected by it feel that it ought to go through as quickly as possible.

§ Mr. A. Lewis
Then let us come back earlier.

§ Sir C. Osborne
If the hon. Gentleman came back earlier and had a shorter Christmas Recess he might lose some weight.

§ Mr. Sydney Silverman (Nelson and Colne)
I beg to move, to leave out "23rd" and to insert instead thereof "9th".
I agree with the hon. Member for Louth (Sir C. Osborne) that for a number of years it has been common form to oppose the Adjournment Motion at Christmas, Easter and, indeed, in July in order to have a general debate about the state of public business, and that on those occasions those hon. Members who have formally opposed the Adjournment Motion were not intending to be taken seriously or literally, and—the hon. Gentleman is right—would have been rather appalled if the opposition to the Motion had been successful.
However, I think that the hon. Gentleman, who has been a Member of the House for a long time, will also agree that on those occasions there has never been a proposal to substitute another date, and that has usually been one of the factors in the debate, because hon. Members have said, "What do you intend? You are not really serious because you are not making any alternative proposal". The reason that they made no alternative proposal was that they were merely using a Parliamentary occasion in a traditional way for a perfectly legitimate objective, but without 1397 intending the vote to be carried in the sense which they were apparently supporting in their speeches. There is nothing unusual about that. The Secretary of State for War did that very thing yesterday afternoon. There is nothing very surprising or dramatic about it.
On this occasion there is such an Amendment, and I am moving it, with Mr. Speaker's leave, because I really cannot believe that the state of the country or of the world as it is today justifies the House in laying down its responsibilities and retiring to the country on holiday for five weeks. I hope to explain why in a few minutes, and I hope that the House will have patience with me. I shall be as brief as possible, but it may take a few minutes.
My right hon. Friend the Deputy-Leader of the Opposition spoke very strongly against the Motion. If the Motion were debated there would be one of two results. Either the House would not adjourn for Christmas or the House would never come back. As we have already decided by the previous Motion, which was accepted without a Division, that we shall adjourn at five o'clock tomorrow, the first of those alternatives is probably, though not certainly, not open to us. Therefore, my right hon. Friend must be interpreted as merely taking part in what has become this traditional exercise to which I have referred.
I am moving to substitute 9th January because I think that in existing circumstances that gives a long enough period for the House to adjourn at this time. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) has already pointed out that it is barely eight weeks since we finished a ten or eleven weeks' Recess. We are now proposing, if the Government's Motion is carried, after a period of eight weeks' session in twenty weeks, to adjourn for a further five weeks. As I say, I can see nothing in the condition of the country, and certainly nothing in the state of the world, which justifies us in doing that.
If my Amendment were accepted, the House would adjourn for Christmas—and why should it not? The House would have a reasonable pause in its labours—and why should it not? Members would have a sufficient opportunity of going to their constituencies and con 1398 sulting their constituents on a variety of problems on which the Government do not seem able to make up their minds at all. Why should they not? In addition to all that, in the twenty days that my Amendment will allow, there would also be sufficient time for reasonable rest and recuperation in anticipation of the Guillotine Motions and the business on which we are to embark when we come back.
I ask any responsible Member of this House—and I am not making any kind of party point—why, in this situation, should three weeks not be sufficient for the House to adjourn? Is it because we have not enough to do? We only have to listen to the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House telling us the business for the first week when we come back to realise that not merely is it not true that we have not enough to do, but that we have so much to do that we have not time to do it properly. That is why he is moving his Guillotine Motions. There can be no other reason for moving a Guillotine Motion, can there? One does not move a Guillotine Motion for spite, does one, or for revenge or to recover one's lost self-esteem? A person does not do it because he is afraid of the opposition that is raised against his proposals, does he? Surely not. It is not because the Government do not want the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill or the Army Reserve Bill to be properly examined Clause by Clause and properly amended, if Amendments are necessary. It is common ground that there is anxiety on both sides of the House on both these Measures.
If what I have suggested as not being the reasons really are not the reasons, then what are the reasons? I am quite aware that all Governments move Guillotine Motions from time to time. I am well aware that all Oppositions, whatever their party colour, oppose Guillotine Motions whenever the Government of the day move them. I am not prepared to say—I am too old a hand—of any Government that there are not or may not be times and occasions when, however objectionable, a Guillotine Motion may, nevertheless, be justified. My right hon. Friends did it in their day, and I have no doubt that when—I hope it will be soon—they 1399 have the opportunity of doing it again, they will do it again when they are so advised.
But there is only one legitimate reason for moving a Guillotine Motion, and that is that one has not the time to give the Measure proper discussion and proper amendment. That is what the right hon. Gentleman is saying—that we must have the Guillotine Motion because we must get the Bills through earlier than we could without the Motion. It is not, therefore, that we have not enough to do. By the right hon. Gentleman's confession—indeed, it is the basis of his case—we have more to do than we can properly do in the time.
Therefore, how can one justify two weeks beyond the three weeks proposed by my Amendment for the Christmas Adjournment? Why? What for? Who else gets five weeks' holiday at Christmas? I know of nobody among what one might call the working-class professions. If the teachers do not mind my including them in such a description, I think that the longest holiday that they ever get is five weeks in the summer.
We, however, are proposing to take five weeks at Christmas only two months after we have finished an eleven-weeks' holiday. We do not need it. Most of us do not want it. It is convenient only to the Government, because the longer they can get rid of the House of Commons the more justification they will have for abbreviating its time to discuss things when it comes back. By shortening the time, they provide themselves with what would otherwise be lacking—a legitimate justification for the Guillotine Motion. In principle, it seems to me that, even if nothing else were involved, there is a very powerful case, which would be accepted by three-quarters of the House if it were put to a free vote with the Whips off, for limiting the Christmas vacation to three weeks, which most of us would regard as ample.
But the argument does not stand there. I am sorry to take a little time about it, but I think that this is important. I suppose that, both domestically and in international affairs, no Christmas adjournment has come at a time when our affairs were in so precarious a condition. I shall have something to say 1400 about international affairs in a moment. I must add that I endorse and agree with all that has been said about the state of domestic affairs in the debate so far as it has gone.
I want to make one additional point about domestic affairs at this point in my argument. I do not see the Home Secretary present, but I took care to let him know that I would make this point, and I think that the Leader of the House is aware of what I am about to say. There are today in our prisons a number of young people. Though I am not seeking to give a judgment upon it—that is not my function, and I am not qualified—I have very serious doubts indeed, for reasons which I have communicated, whether they are even legally detained.
If they are not legally detained, the Home Secretary is responsible for their illegal detention. I am not saying anything about the courts or criticising them in any way. That is not my business. It would be out of order, anyhow. Also, our penal system provides rights of appeal, and one can—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I find it difficult to connect what he is saying with the date of the Recess.

§ Mr. Silverman
I hope, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that you will have a little patience with me. I have given considerable thought to this and hope in the next few sentences to persuade both the Government and you that my remarks are strictly in order.
I repeat that if there were anyone illegally in any gaol in this country, not in the sense that judgment was appealable, but in the sense that the sentence was beyond jurisdiction, then a writ of habeas corpus could be directed to the Home Secretary as being the person responsible for the detention. Indeed, the Home Secretary, quite apart from that, has ample powers under the Royal prerogative to release anybody on a recommendation to mercy. Therefore, I think it is perfectly proper for me to address the appeal which I am about to make to the Home Secretary in these circumstances.
As to the circumstances, I am concerned not with the generality of the cases but only with those who are a 1401 little more than children. I think the House realises that I am talking about young people now imprisoned as a result of their participation in various demonstrations over the weekend of 9th December. Many of them were charged—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman again, but I hope that he will help me by showing how his remarks are connected with the Adjournment Motion.

§ Mr. Silverman
What I am saying, in short, is that I am not willing that the House should adjourn at all while these people are in prison.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
The hon. Gentleman cannot, on those grounds, debate the case in detail.

§ Mr. Silverman
I am saying to the Home Secretary, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that he is responsible and that he can bring their detention to an end by the exercise of the Royal Prerogative, if by nothing else, at any moment that he likes. With very great respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, it seems to me that there cannot be anything objectionable in my making that plea.
I make that plea, and I explain the circumstances not by way of criticising anybody but so that the Home Secretary shall know what it is that I have in mind. I am talking of young people between the ages of 17 and 20 charged with offences for which the maximum penalty is 40s. Some of them refused to pay, and when they refuse to pay there is an alternative of imprisonment, and in many cases the alternative has been fixed as high as twenty-five days—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
Order. The hon. Member cannot go into all this detail on the Adjournment Motion.

§ Mr. Silverman
Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I cannot ask the Home Secretary to release somebody without tell him all the details.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
The hon. Member cannot make that plea on this Motion.

§ Mr. Silverman
I hope that I am not going beyond the Motion at all, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I am giving the reasons 1402 for saying that I am not prepared to vote for so long an adjournment as the Government have proposed, and one of my reasons is that I do not want, at a season of peace, to go home and celebrate the season of peace and think of the Prince of Peace while children are in prison for no greater crime than their devotion to peace. It would be most unworthy if the House were not ready to listen to such an argument.
In 1948, we passed a Criminal Justice Act—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
Order. The hon. Member is going far beyond the Adjournment Motion.

§ Mr. Silverman
In 1948, we passed a Criminal Justice Act—

Hon. Members
Oh.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I am surprised at the hon. Member. He is going far beyond the Adjournment Motion. Does he intend to speak to his Amendment?

§ Mr. Silverman
With great respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I say that it is not possible to judge whether my argument goes beyond the scope of what is permissible until the argument has been stated. I will be very short about it. What I am saying, and I hope you will allow me to put it to you, even as a point of order, to you and to the Government, if they will listen, is that by Section 17 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1948, it is provided that nobody shall be sent to prison before the age of 17, and that up to the age of 21 no one shall be sent to prison if there is any other reasonable course.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
Order. That goes far beyond this Adjournment Motion.

§ Mr. Silverman
It you would be good enough, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, to explain to me why I am not entitled to use this imprisonment—to which I object and which the Government can end, as they have complete administrative powers to end it—why I am not entitled to use their neglect or refusal to do so as an argument for no adjournment until they do, I will bring this part of my argument to an end. At the moment, I am utterly unable to see—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
The hon. Gentleman can argue as a reason against 1403 the Adjournment that this matter has not been debated, but he cannot debate the merits of this matter now.

§ Mr. Silverman
With respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I accept that fully. I am not seeking at all to debate the merits of it one way or the other. I quite appreciate the merits of the conviction are not debatable, in any case, and I would not seek to offer any arguments for or against or make any comment whatever about what any court has done in a criminal case, and I am not doing it. I am saying that mercy begins where justice stops, and—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I hope that the hon. Member will confine himself to the Motion.

§ Mr. Victor Goodhew (St. Albans)
On a point of order. Is it not a fact that it has already been agreed by this House that we adjourn at five o'clock tomorrow? Therefore, are we not in the position that, as we have already agreed to that, the question at issue is merely on what day we shall return—

§ Mr. Silverman
With great respect, that is what I was talking about.

§ Mr. Goodhew
Further to that point of order. The hon. Gentleman himself said earlier that the House had already agreed that we should adjourn tomorrow, and that, if we did not accept this Motion to return on 23rd January, we should not came back at all. If he has accepted that we have already agreed to adjourn tomorrow at five o'clock, surely there is no question now of suggesting that we should not adjourn.

§ Mr. Silverman
I am sure that I would be out of order, and certainly extremely unpopular, if, for the benefit of the hon. Gentleman, who either was not here or was not listening, I were to repeat the whole of my speech so far. I have no intention of doing that. I suggest—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
Order. I understand that the hon. Member has moved an Amendment to leave out "23rd" and to insert "9th". I cannot connect the hon. Member's observations with that Amendment.

§ Mr. Silverman
Then, I must make myself clearer, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I 1404 think that most hon. Members did understand, and if I have not made myself clear to you, I must make another attempt. It seems to me that I have sufficiently made, perhaps over-laboured, the point I was making—that one of the reasons why I am not willing that the House should agree to be away far five weeks instead of, as I am proposing, three weeks, is that if I were to agree to that, I would have to wait another two weeks longer before I could raise the point again, unless the Government are prepared to deal with it now. It is, therefore, directly addressed to my proposition that we should not adjourn for five weeks, but only for three.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
The hon. Member is entitled to say that he wishes to vote for his Amendment because the matter has not been debated, but he cannot debate it now.

§ Mr. Silverman
I am not debating it, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Surely, there must be a difference between asking the Government to do something and telling them what are the circumstances in which they are being asked to act and debating the rights and wrongs of something outside the Question before the House?
The Question before the House is whether we shall adjourn until the 9th or the 23rd January. I am giving reasons for preferring the 9th, and one reason is that I want the Government now—not to wait until the 23rd January, but now—to deal with a situation, which I think most hon. Members, whatever their opinions and whatever views may be taken on the merits, about which I have not said one word and do not propose to say one word, would regard as quite intolerable, in which children of this age, contrary to public policy, should remain in prison over Christmas in these circumstances. That is the point I am making.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I hope that the hon. Member will confine himself to the Amendment.

§ Sir Derek Walker-Smith (Hertfordshire, East)
The hon. Gentleman says "remain in prison over Christmas". May I remind the hon. Gentleman that if his Amendment is carried it would merely mean that instead of being able to raise this matter, at the earliest, on 1405 23rd January, he would be able to raise it at the earliest on 9th January, and, therefore, that proposition at least does not seem to be a valid one.

§ Mr. Silverman
The right hon. and learned Gentleman has not followed the point. I want to raise this question, not on 23rd January and not on 9th January, but now. That is what I am doing. It is one of my arguments for resisting the Government's Motion. I have no desire to labour the point, because I have drawn the Minister's attention to it and I hope that he will be kind enough to say a word about it, because I know that he understands the point. I think that he appreciates that there is no politics or malice in what I am saying. I am saying that, in the interests of what is commonly accepted public policy on both sides of this House, and has been for almost a quarter of a century, every effort should be made to keep young people out of prison, even when they are criminals, and, a fortiori, when they are not.

§ Mr. C. Pannell
Especially at Christmas.

§ Mr. Silverman
I leave the point now. I have said enough, and I have directed the right hon. Gentleman's attention to it. There is another side to it, but I will not prolong this part of my speech by dealing with it.
I want now to deal with the state of international affairs. I cannot imagine that any hon. Member of this House can be easy in his mind about what we have been told for a dozen years or more now—that the safety of Western civilisation depends upon the unity of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. I do not know that I ever accepted that view, but a majority of Members of this House did accept it.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
Order. I do not see how that affects the Motion that we should adjourn to 23rd January, instead of 9th January, as is proposed in the hon. Gentleman's Amendment.

§ Mr. Silverman
What I was about to say in my next sentence, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, shows that it directly affects the Motion, only, of course, I have to say it before anyone can understand it.
1406 At present, as a result of the recent meeting in Paris, N.A.T.O. is in complete disarray, and, therefore, on the Government's own showing, we are being asked to adjourn for five weeks at a time when the last bulwark of Western civilisation has been destroyed. I am saying that if N.A.T.O. is not what is claimed for it, and if it has broken down utterly, with complete disagreement on every major point of policy, we ought not to tolerate adjourning at all. We are not to have, this afternoon, a general foreign affairs debate, a wide ranging tour d'horizon, but an Adjournment Debate without any specific question.
I am saying that I, for one, take altogether too serious a view of the international situation, contributed to, if not brought about, by the vagaries and vacillations and infirmity of purpose of the Government until we have more assurances about what is being done for our safety, and this, particularly in view of the fact that, without consulting his colleagues, without consulting the country or consulting anybody, the Foreign Secretary has just told his colleagues in Paris that the British people have made up their minds to allow themselves to be blown into atomic dust—his words, not mine—unless we can get our way in Berlin, although he did not know what our way in Berlin is.
It seems to me that this was a fantastic statement for the Foreign Secretary to make. It does not represent the feeling in the country, or in any part of it, and if the Government are really conducting their policies on the lines solely indicated by the Foreign Secretary then we ought to sit here all day and all night until we get a new Government, a new Foreign Secretary and a new policy. [Laughter.] I do not quite understand what hon. Members opposite are laughing about.

§ Sir D. Walker-Smith
We thought that it was the hon. Gentleman's peroration.

§ Mr. Silverman
I should have thought that that would have led hon. Members to heave a sigh of relief rather than burst into laughter.
May I ask hon. Members to come back to the point which I am trying to make? I am sure that they appreciate its seriousness and importance. I am sure that when the Foreign Secretary made his speech he would not have said 1407 what he did lightly, or without consideration. I am sure that he would not have said it without appreciating what the results of it would be if people took him at his word. This is not a laughing matter. Either the Foreign Secretary was really declaring the policy of the Government, in which case I repeat that we ought not to allow ourselves to adjourn while the Government remain in office and in power, or he was not declaring the policy of the Government, in which case we ought not to adjourn until the Government have openly and publicly declared that the Foreign Secretary is not, at any rate in that respect, expressing any policy of theirs.
This is all the more true when we look at other parts of the world—I am not proposing to debate them, or even to refer to them—but Goa and Katanga have been mentioned. Indeed, the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton, in a sincere and impressive speech, made the point that we ought to have an assurance about the recall of Parliament in certain eventualities. I say that a recall would not be enough, because, by then, the damage would have been done. Surely hon. Members opposite must agree that, even in matters about which they have more anxiety than I have, matters in which they are more opposed to the Government's policy than I am and even though they do not agree with the other points I have made, they, too, would prefer to come back on the 9th and resume their criticisms, arguments and representations rather than wait another fortnight.
Although we look at these matters in different ways and have different views about them and would like different policies with regard to them, nevertheless we are at one in regarding them as serious matters and in deploring the attitude of the Government towards them, and we are at one in wanting much more opportunity for the House of Commons to bring adequate pressure to bear on the Government until either we persuade them to change their policy or to give up office.

§ The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Iain Macleod)
You, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, have just read an Amendment which has been moved to 1408 the original Motion, and I think that it would probably be for the convenience of the House if I expressed a view on the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) and on some of the points raised.
The original Motion before the House is to the effect that at its rising tomorrow—and that we have agreed—the House should adjourn until Tuesday, 23rd January. A suggestion was made for a short while by the Deputy-Leader of the Opposition that we should not accept the main Motion at all. I do not think that that is a proposition that would commend itself to the House. What we are discussing now is a matter which one can reasonably debate.
I should like to put forward reasons why I do not consider, in spite of the arguments advanced, that 9th January is a more appropriate date than 23rd January. First of all, on the question of the length of the Recess, the length proposed—that is, to 23rd January—is thirty-two days. That is exactly in accord with precedent over a great number of years, examples of which I have here but will not quote. So the real question is that, granted in normal circumstances we would adjourn for thirty-two days, are the circumstances sufficiently abnormal to justify us taking a fortnight off that time?
If the suggestion of the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne were adopted, with Easter as it is at 22nd April—extremely late this year—we should then have a period between the Christmas Recess and Easter of fifteen Parliamentary weeks.
Before I come to the two main streams, as it were, I wish to make reference to two more or less side issues which have been raised. First of all, the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) made some amiable remarks about me which I took in good heart, as I am sure he meant them. But I am bound to say that his facts, from beginning to end and almost without exception, were quite wrong. He produced, first, as an instance of why, as he put it, we are in this position, the question of the B.B.C. Charter.
With great respect, if the hon. Gentleman would read the very generous statement which Mr. Speaker made on 12th 1409 December he would see that Mr. Speaker made it abundantly clear that the Minister, the Postmaster-General, and, therefore, the Government were not at fault and had, in fact, carried out precisely the procedure laid down by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, if my memory serves me right—and I think it does—on 17th July, 1956. The hon. Gentleman is wrong.
The other instance which the hon. Gentleman gave was of the Swiss Loan Agreement and the Ponsonby Rule. But the hon. Gentleman is wrong on that, too, as the Lord Privy Seal will say later in the day. All I want to say to the hon. Gentleman is that the facts show that the basis of his case is wrong.

§ Mr. Richard Marsh (Greenwich)
rose—

§ Mr. Macleod
Is it important?

§ Mr. Marsh
The right hon. Gentleman said that my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) was wrong. I was present during the debate on the B.B.C. licence. Can the right hon. Gentleman explain why it was he who originally decided that the House should not adjourn but who, subsequently, moved the Adjournment himself?

§ Mr. Macleod
It was, of course, because Mr. Speaker thought that the B.B.C. Charter of 1952 should be in the Vote Office. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will see this perfectly clearly from Mr. Speaker's statement made a day or two ago. In fact, the obligation on Ministers laid down was to reprint and this was done in the case of the B.B.C. Charter. With respect, it was really the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends who were at fault in not following the procedure. [HON. MEMBERS: "No.''] That is so, and the statement from the Chair makes it perfectly clear.
There are two main parts to this discussion which suggest that we should not have a Recess of the length proposed. One of them we could call the broad international issues, and that was brought forward, first of all, by my hon. Friend the Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison), by my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) and by the Leader of the Liberal Party and others.
1410 They asked for an assurance in relation to the recall of the House. The words of Standing Order No. 112 are, I am sure, familiar to the House, but I should like to read them for they are of great importance at this time: Whenever the House stands adjourned and it is represented to Mr. Speaker by Her Majesty's Ministers that the public interest requires that the House should meet at any earlier time during the adjournment, Mr. Speaker, if he is satisfied that the public interest does so require, may give notice that he is so satisfied, and thereupon the House shall meet at the time stated in such notice. Naturally, in such representations made by the Government the wishes of hon. Members in the whole of the House are given the fullest possible consideration.
Before I come to the main point to which hon. Members asked me to reply perhaps I could say one word, trying hard to keep in order, to the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne, who did me the courtesy to give me notice. I was prepared to reply to him in great detail on this matter, but I think that all I can say within the bounds of order is that, as he knows, it is not for Ministers to express an opinion on a matter of law or to comment on the validity of the action of the court; and any question of the power to make a particular order can be determined only by a superior court, and if any persons consider the court has acted in excess of its jurisdiction the ordinary channels of appeal are open. That is all I can say. If I try to say any more I should be stepping—

§ Mr. S. Silverman
The right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that I was not asking him to comment upon the matter or to come to any judgment about any legal question. I was asking about the administrative powers of the Home Secretary to intervene so as to apply what is accepted as public policy by the exercise of his own powers, not the court's.

§ Mr. Macleod
I understood that, and if I cannot reply in detail because of the Rulings of the Chair I will represent it entirely to my right hon. Friend.
Let me take up the main argument, which really concerns the announcement made at business today. The right hon. Gentleman the Deputy-Leader of the Opposition started it. He and I have debated many times and 1411 said a lot of rough things to each other. He will allow me to say that, really, for him to accuse me of irritation is a little like Satan rebuking the Archangel Gabriel.
On the argument as to whether it would or would not be right to take a different course from the one which is proposed, let me direct my attention to some of the remarks of the hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman). I tried to deal with them in reply to the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) last time. I know how much he cares about the Army and that he wants to see the Army Reserve Bill debated in full and in the proper way with all the people really concerned about it taking part. That I entirely accept. I do not accept that that is a process which is impossible under an Allocation of Time Order.
Indeed, I am certain that the House can remember examples. I recall one with particular vividness upon almost the first debate of any importance in which I took part in the House, in the Session 1951–52. There was a Guillotine on the National Health Service Bill when after weeks no progress whatever had been made—on about two lines at the most. [HON. MEMBERS: "After weeks."] That allocation of time Order was introduced, and from then on the matter was discussed by those whom we may call the "health Members of the Club". [HON. MEMBERS: "After weeks."] Hon. Members opposite say "after weeks". That is perfectly true. The debate went on under the Guillotine. There is an example of a Guillotine set up by their own side of the House, which sets a precedent for introducing the Guillotine before a Standing Committee has begun to meet. These questions of procedure can be tossed backwards and forwards. We all know one another's speeches on these matters.
I want to take up the point of the hon. Member. Of course, the allocation of time is not decided by the Government. The outline is decided by the Government, but the detail is decided by the Business Committee, which is a rather different thing. I do not accept that any such discussion is necessarily inadequate in any way, and it will be necessary, I am afraid, for the hon. Member for Coventry, East to study the Allocation 1412 of Time Order when it is available. I will try to see that it is decided as soon as possible.

§ Mr. Crossman
I put a second point, which I thought a serious and important one. The whole custom of the House has been that whatever else we Guillotine we do not Guillotine Service Bills. Such Measures have been left outside that procedure. I should like to know what the hon. Gentleman says about that.

§ Mr. Macleod
Yes. The hon. Member said there were two precedents. I count three, but we will not argue about that. The general sense is the same. Taking up that point, and linking it with what the hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. A. Lewis) said, I assure the House—and I give my personal assurance on it—that when we started business yesterday I had no plans for a Guillotine. That is, in fact, true, and it was the progress of business yesterday which convinced me that this had become necessary.

§ Mr. Crossman
I want the right hon. Gentleman to understand this. What he has now said makes the situation far, far worse. What he is saying is that the sole justification for the Guillotine was what happened yesterday afternoon and evening when for three and a half hours yesterday afternoon the business was entirely held up owing to the inadequacy of the Secretary of State. Then we had one group of Amendments. There was no kind of delay. Then there was a period of discussion on reporting progress. Which part of all that does the right hon. Gentleman say justifies his almost unprecedented decision to guillotine the debate on the Bill? Was it the first three and a half hours?

§ Mr. Thorpe
And we took twelve Amendments together. Was it that?

§ Mr. Crossman
Was it the time spent on the group of twelve Amendments taken together? Or was it the one hour sixteen minutes in the course of which the right hon. Gentleman walked out and lost his temper? Now that he has said it was only yesterday afternoon's business which convinced him, we really want to know which part of the business he means.

§ Mr. Macleod
The hon. Gentleman is very adroit, but I did not say it was only yesterday's business at all. What I said was yesterday's business taken together with previous progress convinced me, as, I think, it convinced the whole House—I really do think so—that it was necessary.
The immediate Question before the House is raised by the hon. Member for Nelson and Caine, that we should come back two Parliamentary weeks earlier—on 9th January. I suppose we should take that with what the Deputy-Leader of the Opposition said, that we could well spend the intervening time debating those two Measures. Nobody, of course, would accept that the duties of a Member of Parliament are entirely within the Palace of Westminster. We all have many duties in our constituencies, and abroad as well, which hon. Members wish to carry out.
However, I do not think that my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton was right—indeed, he was contradicted by many Members on the other side of the House—when he suggested that the Deputy-Leader of the Opposition had given an undertaking that we would complete that business. I would not accept that, but I think that my right hon. Friend misunderstood, to some extent, what was said. The proposition was that if we met we could talk on, and, no doubt, in course of time some progress would be made.

§ Mr. Turton
I made quite clear that I asked the Deputy-Leader or the Leader of the Opposition to clarify what appeared to be a vague sort of undertaking.

§ Mr. Macleod
Yes, I was trying for some clarification. I think that if the right hon. Gentleman will reply he will make the position clear, but that is how I understood it: he thought we should meet and take matters onwards, but without an undertaking from him.
I agree that if the Opposition bitterly detest one or two Bills, it is their business to oppose them by all the ordinary Parliamentary methods at their disposal—and this is a matter which arises on every Guillotine Motion. Nor is it the business of the Opposition to help Government business on—and on that I agree with the doctrine of the Leader 1414 of the Opposition who, when a Guillotine Motion last came before the House, said: It is not the business of the Opposition to reach agreement for facilitating Government business which, in our view, is extremely unpopular and quite unjustifiable as a matter of policy."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd March, 1961; Vol. 635, c. 1753–4.] I agree with that as a matter of doctrine, and it is a fair statement of the ordinary point of view of an Opposition. But, having that in mind and having the progress so far made with the Bills in mind, I cannot think that it would be a profitable exercise for the House to accept the Amendment. Therefore, I think that this period of recess, which we propose exactly in accordance with precedents over the years, should be accepted and that we should reject the Amendment.

§ Mr. Gordon Walker (Smethwick)
The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House started by asking what there was abnormal in the situation which would justify our returning earlier than the Government propose. What is abnormal is that we are now to come back to a Guillotine on two major and, constitutionally, extremely important Bills. The right hon. Gentleman spoke almost as though a Guillotine were a little thing which convenienced the House and did not stop debate, and so on. That is not the way to talk of these things. A Guillotine on Measures of this kind is extremely abnormal, as I will try to show. In the one case it is very nearly unprecedented in modern times and in the other, affecting Commonwealth opinion as well as opinion in this country, it is excessively unwise.
The right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) misunderstood what my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) said. My right hon. Friend did not offer any sort of deal. What he was saying was that to go away for so long as the Government propose and then to return to a Guillotine was quite wrong, and that we ought to come back early in order to be able to have time to discuss these things and so avoid the Guillotine. That is sensible and that is what we are arguing.
The two Bills which the Government propose to guillotine are Bills which should not be guillotined. Let us take, 1415 first, the Army Reserve Bill. As my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) said, in modern times it is unprecedented for Service Bills to be pushed straight into the middle of party politics in this way. The only precedents are to be found in the time of Liberal Governments and Lord Haldane's Measures, when there was a Tory Opposition, of course, and when Service Bills were three times obstructed and there was a Guillotine. Since then, under both Labour and Conservative Governments, that has ceased to be the practice. We have prided ourselves on not using the Guillotine on Service Measures, because we wanted to keep the great Service Issues out of politics.
The right hon. Gentleman made one extraordinary statement. He said that he had not made up his mind to impose the Guillotine, at any rate on the Army Reserve Bill, until late in yesterday's proceedings. If that is what he now tells us, he has no case for imposing the Guillotine. We were not holding up the Bill, and the evidence for that is overwhelming. Through some confusion—and we are getting used to this kind of procedural confusion—the Secretary of State for War himself had to move to report Progress in the middle of his own Committee stage to enable my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) to get him out of trouble. That was extraordinary and we took three hours over it.
The right hon. Gentleman will agree that on the first night of the Committee stage we reached a mutually satisfactory agreement with the Government. On the second night, my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper proposed that we should get ahead with the next batch of Amendments, which we would certainly have reached by the time we finally broke off last night but for the Motion of the Secretary of State for War. There is no evidence whatever that we have been holding up the Bill, or that we intend to hold it up.
If the right hon. Gentleman tells us that he made up his mind after listening to yesterday's debate, I could understand his being impatient after listening to the three hours' debate which was launched by his right hon. Friend, but he has abandoned any proper argument for taking an unprecedented action, to which 1416 many hon. Members opposite object and which will not be understood and accepted in the country. Now he tells us that he made up his mind only late, apparently in a sort of fit of temper.

§ Mr. Iain Macleod
indicated dissent.

§ Mr. Gordon Walker
I cannot understand how else the right hon. Gentleman could have done it. He could not have done it from a rational consideration of what we had done in Committee. He practically told us that he got into a fit of temper and decided to clap on a Guillotine, maybe having already decided to guillotine the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill. Having done that and realising that the Guillotine Motion for the two Bills could be taken on the one day and that he would not lose any more time, he decided, without a proper reason, to slap the Guillotine on a Service Bill, thus making a major departure from modern precedent which was not in the least necessary.
The Commonwealth Immigrants Bill should not be guillotined for different reasons. As the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton said, to guillotine it will be misunderstood in the West Indies and elsewhere in the Commonwealth. Rightly or wrongly, the Bill makes a major departure—which will affect all Commonwealth citizens, from Australia, Canada, the West Indies and elsewhere—from our traditional policy, a policy which we have never altered ever since there has been a Commonwealth. The Government should not guillotine a Bill which alters our policy towards Commonwealth citizens and Commonwealth Governments and Commonwealth countries, publishing to them that we cannot find time to debate the Bill in the House without a Guillotine because of the way the Government have muddled their own programme. The Government are giving the impression of turning against the Commonwealth in a rather shabby way.

§ Mr. Turton
The point I was making, and to which the right hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker) is not addressing himself, is that in the past, when we had important Bills affecting the Commonwealth, the Opposition have co-operated with the Government so that there could be a voluntary arrangement of time. If my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is saying that 1417 he has not made sufficient progress, it is for the Opposition to give an undertaking so that business can be done—and it is that undertaking which I thought the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) was giving.

§ Mr. Gordon Walker
I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman can quote me a precedent for this kind of Bill, for it is wholly unprecedented. Because the Government allege that we are not going fast enough does not mean that there is an obligation on us to consider a voluntary agreement. We have been discussing a Clause of vital and radical importance in that Bill, and we are about to come to another to which the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton himself has put down a very important Amendment, which may not be properly discussed because of the Guillotine.
if we came back a week or two earlier, we could get through all this discussion. Even if we were obstructing—and we are not—it is fairly exhausting to sustain a whole week's debate. We would unquestionably get along and the Government would probably save time in the end by having a whole week's debate in that way. I do not think that we can be asked to come to an agreement merely because the Government say that we are not going fast enough.
I think that the right hon. Gentleman is making a grave error of judgment. I can understand that things have not been going too well for him. Grave errors have been made, and I do not think that he carried the House with him when he tried to persuade us that these errors had not been made. The Government are like a Harry Tate car—something falls off every day of the week. We can forgive this. This is the kind of thing which happens. One runs into a patch of bad luck, but it is a major error of judgment to decide to keep us away for all this time and then to bring us back to guillotine these two Measures.
I did not like the arrogant way in which the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House intervened last night and waved aside my right hon. Friend. This is not the way to lead the House. It is not an easy House to lead. The right hon. Gentleman has not yet hit on the right way of doing the job. Since he has been Leader of the House, I can- 1418 not remember him gracefully bringing off anything that he has done.

§ Viscount Hinchingbrooke (Dorset, South)
What has this to do with Christmas?

§ Mr. Gordon Walker
It is an example of the right hon. Gentleman's lack of tact, and a lack of the feeling of the House that he is asking us to stay away for all this time and then to come back to guillotine these two Measures. One has to take these two things together. This is a grave error of judgment on his part, and I hope that he will think about it again.
The Amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) mentions a specific date for our return. We hope that he will not divide the House on this Amendment. We do not feel that it is for us, as an Opposition, to fix a particular date.

§ Mr. Michael Foot (Ebbw Vale)
Is there to be an act of grace towards those who support us in the Division Lobby? My right hon. Friend has said that hon. Members must not support the Amendment.

§ Mr. Gordon Walker
I said that I hoped that my hon. Friend would not divide the House. We shall divide the House when the main question is put.

§ Mr. S. Silverman
I thought that my right hon. Friend would welcome my Amendment. If one does not mean business, one should not vote at all. But if one does mean business it surely is a little unrealistic to vote against the Government's proposed date and not propose an alternative one? To do this is an unrealistic way of approaching the matter. Surely the realistic way is to say, "You are going away for too long. Let it be shorter," and make a proposal.

§ Mr. Gordon Walker
I can understand that my hon. Friend thinks that his suggestion is the right one. I do not think that it is. I do not think that my hon. Friend is as innocent as he said he was. He said that he was approaching this in all innocence. The truth is that we as an Opposition have no way of telling whether the 7th, the 8th, the 9th, or the 2nd is the right date.

§ Mr. S. Silverman
rose—

§ Mr. Gordon Walker
I can put my argument if my hon. Friend leaves me alone for one second. It is logical, sensible, and proper to say that the Government have decided on too long a Recess. The evidence for that is that they have decided that when we come back they will guillotine two important Bills because they have not the time in which to discuss them. We therefore say that we should come back early enough to avoid the Guillotine. The Government must decide what date is early enough to avoid the Guillotine.
It cannot be done by means of an Amendment which seeks to specify the date. [Horn. MEMBERS: "Why?"] Because we think that we should come back early enough to avoid the Guillotine, and we cannot determine—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] There is only one person who can answer this question. The Government alone know what would be the proper time to come back to avoid the Guillotine. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House can easily work this out and tell us whether we should come back five days, seven days, or nine days, earlier than is proposed, to avoid the necessity of the Guillotine. It is impossible for private Members or the Opposition to determine, so to speak, out of the air, what is the proper date to come back. That is why we do not think that the Amendment before us is a sensible one. That is why we will oppose the Government Motion.
We think that it is monstrous to bring us back to guillotine two major Measures when the Government, by altering the date of our return, could avoid the necessity for it. This procedure is undesirable in the interests of the House, of the Army, and of the Commonwealth. The Government ought to say that we shall have a shorter Recess, and that they will call us back in time to avoid the use of the Guillotine.

§ Mr. William Warbey (Ashfield)
I oppose the Motion, and, I regret to say, the Amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), not because I do not want to see us come back 1420 earlier—I do—but because I want to cut the Recess short at the other end.
I do not think that the House ought to adjourn tomorrow. I do not think that we ought to adjourn until Friday or Saturday. Most of my constituents will be working Friday, and many of them will be working on Saturday. I do not see why we should not work a similar period.
I am astonished at the way in which the right hon. Gentleman has handled the business of the House and has rejected the perfectly reasonable offer by the Opposition Front Bench. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House has so far surpassed his predecessor in only one respect, that is, in getting the business of the Government so congested and so jammed up that he is unable to relieve the log-jam without taking exceptional measures. We have given him the opportunity of getting out of his dilemma by suggesting that the House should come back a week earlier so that we can have adequate discussions on these important Bills.

§ Mr. S. Silverman
My hon. Friend said that the Opposition's proposal was that we should come back a week earlier. Where did he get that from?

§ Mr. Warbey
I thought I heard the suggestion made that it might be a week earlier. I do not care whether it is a week, ten days or a fortnight. I do not want to enter into this private quarrel between the Opposition front bench below the Gangway and the Front Bench above the Gangway. The issue is too serious for that. The real issue is whether or not the House has adequate time in which to discuss Bills of major importance; whether the Leader of the House is trying to find adequate time for discussion of Government business or is trying to inflict a punitive measure on the Opposition. His behaviour this afternoon has demonstrated clearly that the latter is the truth.
He was given his opportunity; we offered him adequate time for discussing the Bills. He rejected that, and wants to retain his Guillotine Motion. In so doing he has demonstrated that he is trying to take revenge upon the Opposition for the way in which he has distinguished himself as a mismanager of 1421 Government business in the last two or three weeks.
I want to say a word about this end of the Recess. It would be quite improper for the House to adjourn tomorrow—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Gordon Touche)
That point does not arise on the Amendment.

§ Mr. Warbey
With great respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I am speaking to the main Motion, as amended. As far as I know, the debate which we are having is taking place on the main Motion, as amended. Is not that so? We have not yet dealt with the main Motion.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
That is quite correct.

§ Mr. Warbey
In that case, I am quite in order in arguing why we must not adjourn tomorrow.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
We are now on the Amendment.

§ Mr. Gordon Walker
Is not the Question before us, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question"? If that is so, we must surely be able to discuss them.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
The Question is, "That '23rd' stand part of the Question."

§ Mr. S. Silverman
Is not the real point that the decision to adjourn tomorrow at 5 o'clock has already been taken, on the Resolution relating to sittings of the House, and that what we are now discussing is the question when we should come back, and not when we should adjourn?

§ Mr. G. Brown
I rise to support my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Mr. Warbey). Surely the position is that on the Motion concerning the sittings of the House, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) has referred, what we decided to do was to adjourn at 5 o'clock tomorrow, that is to say, we fixed the hour of adjournment. We did not fix the period of Adjournment. It is the Motion relating to the Adjournment which reads: That this House, at its rising Tomorrow, do adjourn … 1422 Therefore, I submit that my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield is quite in order in discussing the whole question of what period of Adjournment, if any, there should be after the House rises tomorrow afternoon.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
At the moment we are on the Motion for the Adjournment, and the Question before us is to leave out "23rd" and insert "9th".

§ Mr. Warbey
Now that you have resumed the Chair, Mr. Speaker, may I submit that the Motion that we have already carried earlier affects only tomorrow's business, and nothing else. It has nothing to do with the adjournment for the Recess. Secondly, the Motion which we are now discussing is still debatable, because it can be put to the House. In any case, the Amendment as moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne proposes only to delete "23rd" and not the words: at its rising Tomorrow, do adjourn … It is those words to which I am objecting. Although you were not in the Chair, Mr. Speaker, when the point was raised, I am saying that I think that the House should not adjourn for the Christmas Recess tomorrow. There are many extremely important matters, of both domestic and international concern—

§ Mr. Speaker
I understand that the Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) has been moved, in which case the only matter for discussion would be the Question whether we insert "9th" instead of "23rd", namely, the date on which we should return.

§ Mr. Warbey
With great respect, Mr. Speaker, I rose in my place when the main Question was put by you at the beginning of the afternoon, and I have risen in my place at every opportunity since then. I have been called, however, only after the Amendment has been moved.

§ Mr. Speaker
That has the effect of enforcing upon the hon. Member the rule as I have just stated it.

§ Mr. Warbey
Since you have ruled that at this moment we can discuss only the date on which we should return, 1423 would I be in order in suggesting that when the Amendment has been disposed of we may return to a debate on the main Question, and that I may then be given the opportunity of addressing the House on the main Question?

§ Mr. Speaker
I cannot forecast what will happen. All I am doing at the moment is stating the rule as it applies to the hon. Member, as he is now speaking.

§ Mr. Warbey
May I ask for a Ruling on this point, Mr. Speaker? If I participate in the debate on the Amendment, may I take it that I am not thereby debarred from participating in the debate on the main Question?

§ Mr. Speaker
No, certainly not by that debarred.

§ Mr. Warbey
In that case I will continue very briefly, because I am debarred from raising a number of very important matters to which I had wished to call attention, about which we should have had statements in the House and elucidations from the Government. I am now debarred from doing that, although a number of other hon. Members were able to do so. Nevertheless, I accept your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, and I will conclude simply by making a further plea to the Leader of the House to recognise that what we have had from the Opposition in this debate has been a quite genuine offer to facilitate the proper discussion of two of the most important and controversial Bills that have ever been submitted to the House. [HON. MEMBERS: "Rubbish."] Did an hon. Member say "Rubbish"? Is it rubbish to say that these Bills are important or controversial, or that we have not made a quite genuine offer to discuss them?
The right hon. Gentleman knows that we have made this offer. He knows that we have made every attempt to facilitate the proper discussion of these Bills. It is not because we like them but precisely because we detest them that we want them to be properly discussed. If the right hon. Gentleman persists in refusing to accept the offer that has been made he will only be demonstrating to the House and to the world that he does not care in the least whether there is a full democratic discussion, according to 1424 Parliamentary principles, of matters of great constitutional significance and that what he is concerned with is being not the Leader of the House but the leader of his party.

§ Mr. C. Pannell
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It refers to the Ruling you have given to my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Mr. Warbey). I have been in the Chamber for most of the time and it must have been within your recollection that the speakers who preceded my hon. Friend were two Front Bench speakers, the Leader of the House and my right hon. Friend the Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker). They both spoke after the Amendment had been moved and they did address themselves to the main Question. I feel sure, Mr. Speaker, that had you been in the Chamber then you would have thought that the Ruling you gave—I am sure in good faith—against my hon. Friend must, of its nature, be discriminatory.
Speakers from both Front Benches have addressed themselves to the main Question and not to the Amendment. If I may say so, the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) himself referred to it. I am sure that in the exigencies of moving to and from the Chair that fact has been lost sight of and that the Ruling discriminates against my hon. Friend, which I am sure is something you would not wish to do.

§ Mr. Speaker
I do not want to. The point is that I am bound by the rules of the House and our rule is that when an Amendment has been moved we can discuss only the Amendment. That is my difficulty. I have no power to waive the rules of order.

§ Mr. Tom Driberg (Barking)
But Mr. Deputy-Speaker waived them.

§ Mr. S. Silverman
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I think, perhaps, that I ought to let you know what I did say to Mr. Deputy-Speaker on this point when he was in the Chair. I submitted to him that this was not a limiting Amendment in that the arguments for and against the date of 9th January must be of the same nature as the arguments for and against the date 23rd January and, therefore, the proposal to substitute one date for the other did not have the power of narrowing the debate.

§ Mr. Speaker
I follow the argument. What it does, of course, is to narrow the debate as to the terminal date. It does not give rise to a discussion about the beginning date. That is the difficulty.

§ Mr. Emrys Hughes (South Ayrshire)
I wish to support the Amendment moved by my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) because I think it concise, logical and definite. If the Amendment were accepted, the House would meet on 9th January instead of 23rd January. That has the advantage of giving English Members the opportunity of going home for Christmas and Scottish Members the opportunity of being home for the New Year.
I heard with some dismay the proposal of my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) that we should meet a couple of days after Boxing Day because his constituents would have finished celebrating Christmas on that date. In Scotland, of course, we celebrate Christmas in a perfunctory sort of way and then we celebrate the Hogmanay holiday, which is on 1st January. The Amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne makes it perfectly clear that we could allow festivities in England and in Scotland to be over and have a week to recover and then we could go—

§ Mr. Hector Hughes (Aberdeen, North)
The hon. Gentleman knows that there is a very great difference between England and Scotland, yet he talks about "1st January". Why does not he use the Scottish expression "Hogmanay".

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. Our rule is that the House should be addressed in English.

§ Mr. Emrys Hughes
I am not proposing to deal with that point, Mr. Speaker.
In suggesting a later date, the Leader of the House argued that it was necessary for hon. Members to be in their constituencies for the full length of time of the Recess. I think that the right hon. Gentleman exaggerated. It is, of course, a time of the year when hon. Members go to parties for old folks and 1426 parties connected with Christmas Day and the New Year. But surely that period is finished by 9th January. I do not know whether the Leader of the House really thinks that the constituents will be anxious to see their Members of Parliament between 9th January and 22nd January. Even if there are big meetings of people interested in politics at this time of the year—which is contrary to my experience—and if questions are asked of Members of Parliament, inevitably, the first question will be, "Why are you not at Westminster, doing your job?" So I suggest that 9th January is the reasonable and logical date for our return.
I could not follow the argument of the right hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker), who devoted his speech to explaining why he had very little confidence in the judgment of the Government in this matter and then said that he would rely on the judgment of the Government regarding the exact day on which we should return. I believe that the House should try to avoid looking upon the Amendment with a certain amount of prejudice simply because it is moved by a combative and persistent hon Member, my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne. If we reject the Government's proposals—and overwhelming reasons have been given why we should condemn the actions of the Government—the logical thing is to fix a date and carry it to a Division.
There are a large number of reasons which I cannot enter into why we should come back on this date. The argument of my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne seems to be absolutely conclusive. There is no section of the community, neither the miners nor the railwaymen nor the teachers, who need this very long holiday at Christmas time. The miners in my constituency would certainly ask why there was a need to continue the Recess from 9th January to 23rd January. They would, of course, give a certain amount of latitude, say, between 1st January and 4th January, because one of the usual questions asked at this time in Scotland, two or three days after the New Year, is, "Have you sobered up?" Surely we shall all have sobered up by 9th January and be able to return to the House of Commons having rested ourselves and come in contact with our constituents.
1427 There is a special reason why I, as a representative of a Scottish constituency, am anxious that the return date should be fixed and that it should not be a later date in the month. We in Scotland are concerned about pit closures and the closing of railway branch lines. My constituents will certainly ask me what need there is for me to be at home for a fortnight when no one goes to public meetings and when the festivities are over. They will want to know why the House of Commons is not talking about the things which are principally affecting their lives. I therefore suggest that we could profitably employ the time of the House between 9th January and 23rd January in discussing the various subjects which are pertinent, both in the national and the international sphere and, especially so far as Scotland is concerned, to the whole economic future of our country.
The Leader of the House, when pressed recently on the question of pit closures, was asked to refer the matter to the Scottish Grand Committee, and that would be one way out of his difficulties. Unfortunately, the Committee cannot sit when the House is not in session, and so, Mr. Speaker, I am driven to the conclusion that the Amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne should be supported. I shall have very much pleasure in joining him in the Division Lobby.

§ Mr. Richard Marsh (Greenwich)
I intervene very briefly, but I want to say that one of the impressions given by recent events is that the Government seem determined to filibuster and restrict their own business. The discussion that we have had this afternoon arises, almost in its entirety, on the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House earlier in the afternoon. Had he not made that statement, the points that have been raised would not have been made.
I would not normally oppose the idea of the length of this Recess just because I think that it would be a pity that it should go out from the House that hon. Members just bowl off for a longer holiday in comparison with people out- side, because that comparison is not entirely accurate. There are many hon. 1428 Members of this House—I am not one of them because I have a London constituency and a London home—who spend the whole of the Session living in "digs", some of which may not be of a particularly salubrious character, or in hotel rooms, and they are perfectly entitled, during the Recess, to go back to their families for as long as they possibly can. They have also other work to do in their constituencies. But that is not the issue. We are complaining this afternoon that a Recess of this length is unjustified in the circumstances in which the House finds itself at the present time, circumstances which are not normal and not usual.
In the course of his remarks, the Leader of the House made a number of comparisons, with precedents, as is sometimes done on these occasions. There were occasions when the Labour Government in 1950 and 1951 also introduced Guillotine Measures. There is, however, a very serious difference between a Government with a majority of six and a Government with a majority of 112 introducing a time-table Motion—