HC Deb 09 February 1961 vol 634 cc642-53
Mr. Gaitskell

On a point of Order. I wish to question part of the record of our business last night which is set out under Votes and Proceedings, page 193. No. 49, under the heading "Thursday, 9th February, 1961."

I do not question the first paragraph in this record regarding the Motion moved by my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown), the part relating to the Closure Motion moved by the Patronage Secretary, nor the part which deads with the putting of the Closure Motion 'by the Chairman of Ways and Means. It certainly is the case that he put that Motion. We heard him put it and he took the voices of the Committee. However, I do question the record from there onwards.

I have consulted a large number of my right hon. and hon. Friends and I have not found a single one that heard the Chairman put the main Question, the Ways and Means Resolution itself. I have not heard a single hon. Member say that he collected the voices on either of the two occasions on which he is required to do so. We are bound to be guided by the evidence of our own ears. We do not believe that his Question was ever put and, even supposing the Chairman did put it in a low voice—muttering, so to speak, to those around him—we regard it, frankly, as an abuse of the proceedings of the House.

It is surely necessary that the Question be put in a manner that it can be heard and so that the voices can be properly collected. We are, therefore, bound to challenge the whole record as being incorrect. In our opinion the Ways and Means Resolution was never put correctly and, therefore, never carried.

Mr. Warbey

I gave notice that I wished to raise the same point and, also, a related one, Mr. Speaker. I wish only to say that it is within the recollection of hon. Members in these benches that, as far as we were concerned, we heard nothing of the Chairman of the Committee putting the Question or collecting the voices.

I wish, also, to raise the accuracy of the record in paragraph 12 in Votes and Proceedings on page 194, where it says: Adjournment,—Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. Grave disorder having arisen in the House, Mr. Deputy-Speaker adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 24…. I wish to convey my own impression, and, I believe, that of many right hon. and hon. Members, that that is not what actually happened. I am, moreover, fortified in this by the typescript of the OFFICIAL REPORT that has been placed in the Library. According to the OFFICIAL REPORT, the Motion for the Adjournment was made at 1.15 a.m. and about 1.20 a.m. my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) was speaking and said: I persist in claiming my right to move that you send for Mr. Speaker and do not purport to carry the House on some private conversation of your own that you have—[Interruption.]

MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKER

NO such Motion is in order and I declare the House adjourned.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-one minutes past One o'clock."

That was six minutes after the Motion for the Adjournment was proposed.

There is no reference in the OFFICIAL REPORT to Mr. Deputy-Speaker adjourning the House because of grave disorder. While I would freely admit that, owing to the disgraceful behaviour of the Patronage Secretary, there may have been a certain degree of turbulence, nevertheless I submit, first, that there was no grave disorder and, secondly, even if there was, Mr. Deputy-Speaker did not, in fact, use that as the reason for adjourning the House.

Therefore, in saying, at 1.21 a.m., six minutes after the Question was proposed, that the House was adjourned, and in leaving the Chair and calling upon the Serjeant at Arms to remove the Mace. he was depriving hon. Members—

Mr. Speaker

Order. The hon. Member is out of order at that point. That is what he cannot say on rising to a point of order. I understand what he is saying. He disputes the proposition that the House was adjourned pursuant to Standing Order No. 24.

Mr. Warbey

Yes, Sir. I wish to say that it could have been adjourned only pursuant to Standing Order No. 1 (6), under which hon. Members on their feet at the time, and seeking to catch the eye of Mr. Deputy-Speaker, were entitled to raise any matter suitable to the Adjournment Motion and were entitled to go on speaking for another 24 minutes, and were deprived of that right by the action of Mr. Deputy-Speaker.

Sir Richard Pilkington

Is it not a fact that if the Opposition had behaved themselves and not made such an appalling noise, this matter would not have arisen?

Mr. S. Silverman

May I submit a further point to you, Mr. Speaker, in connection with the same matter and which might conveniently be considered with the others which have been put to you?

I do not think that anybody who was here last night would deny that there was considerable turbulence and that it might very well have amounted, in the opinion of the Chair, whatever might have been its cause, to grave disorder. But that grave disorder, if there was grave disorder, did not arise at the point that the official record says. If there was grave disorder at all, it happened long earlier than that, and if it were the case, as it may well have been, that the fact that certain Questions put by the Chair were not heard, and if it were the fact, as is suggested, that that was due to too much noise being created, perhaps on this side of the House, it would have been quite wrong to attempt to force through the business of the House in those circumstances.

The right thing to have done would have been to suspend the sitting at that point and not at the point where the official record wrongly says that it was through grave disorder.

Mr. Speaker

I should explain that the point which can be taken with me is that the official record is wrong, but what cannot be done on this occasion is to criticise the Chairman of Ways and Means.

I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition and other hon. Members for raising this matter with me. Long ago, when the House banished the Speaker from Committees of the whole House, it did not confer upon him any appellate jurisdiction, as it were, in relation to what happened in Committee. I do not officially know what happened in Committee, for I was not there and I could not know. My official guide, as I understand it, is not something which appears in the OFFICIAL REPORT, but is, in fact, the Minutes drawn up by the Clerks. I have a duty to the House to compare the Votes and Proceedings, before they are printed, with those Minutes and I have to satisfy myself that they correspond at that point.

I do not think that I have any power to do anything myself as Speaker to amend the Minutes as opposed to the Votes and Proceedings or to cause any correction in them. So far as I know at present, I must be guided by what the Minutes report. I am bound so to take them. I was not here and I cannot act as a court of appeal about it.

I then asked myself what it was that the right hon. Gentleman and others had to do if they wished, in the time available, to take the point that this purported Resolution as a nullity. After examining the position, I believe that their right and only course, as I cannot be a court of appeal in the matter, is to vote against the proposition that the House agrees with the Committee in the Resolution when it be reported. I cannot find any other remedy for them and that, I believe, is the right course.

The hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Warbey) will appreciate that I cannot judge—I have no knowledge of what happened at that moment—but on the face of it it looks as though it would be a misinterpretation of the Standing Order mentioned to suppose that it required any recital by the Chair that in the mind of the Chair there existed a given degree of disorder.

After saying all that, I hope that the House will forgive me if in its service I say one word more; that is to be allowed to express my extreme personal distress at hearing what the right hon. Gentleman and others had to put to me. It has long been a rule, accepted by all of us and our predecessors, that when the Chair addresses the House, or rises to address the House, whether to put a Question or otherwise, it is the duty of all hon. Members to sit down if they are standing and to maintain silence.

It is very important that everyone who has a mind to this House, and who loves it and respects it and our way of Parliamentary democracy, should remember that it must be in the general interest to uphold the Chair and always to see that that rule is followed. If not, if they were so minded, just by shouting, hon. Members could obviously frustrate the business of the House altogether. I am not saying that anybody did that. I am saying that the circumstances described distressed me, because I cannot believe that silence was kept when the Chair rose to put Questions.

Mr. Gaitskell

With very great respect, I appreciate the difficult position in which you find yourself, Mr. Speaker. You were not here last night and you do not know what took place. If I say that we do not entirely agree with some of your remarks at the end of your statement, it is solely because we think that you are not aware of what exactly happened. I will not pursue that matter further, because, otherwise, I should be trespassing on the question of the Chairman's conduct, about which I have already given notice that we shall put down a Motion.

On the other point, it seems that we are also in great difficulty. You have advised us that our only remedy when we think that the Journal is wrong and that the Minutes are wrong is simply to vote against the Ways and Means Resolution on Report. I do not doubt that We should have done that anyhow, so it is not a remedy. It is not a remedy for a situation in which we believe that the Ways and Means Resolution was never carried in Committee. It certainly is a most extraordinary position that it should not be open for any hon. Member, apparently, to challenge the Minutes with any hope of getting any satisfaction.

I must ask you to look at the matter again. It carries very grave implications because, if it can appear that Resolutions and Motions have been carried when they have not been carried and if it can be so recorded and if that is just taken as something final, that strikes at the root of our Parliamentary system.

Mr. Speaker

Of course, I will look at it further. I may have mis-stated it in the sense that I myself, mero motu, can do nothing to assist the right hon. Gentleman in this case.

As to other methods, I suppose that the right hon. Gentleman can censure the Minute keeper for keeping inaccurate Minutes and decide, on another Motion of censure, what did happen, in fact, and whether the Minutes were accurate or not. But apart from remedies in the form of a substantive Motion, I have not been able to invent any machinery to assist the right hon. Gentleman. I had asked, because, obviously, it is desirable that there should be some in these circumstances. That is all I have been able to find that I myself could do. No doubt the House could find a method by substantive Motion to challenge the Minutes. That is as far as I can think of at the moment to help.

Mr. J. Griffiths

I understand the Leader of the House announced that tonight we are to take the Report stage of the Ways and Means Resolution. May I ask whether it is possible for the House to consider whether it accepts the record as a true record of what took place before we are asked to consider the Report stage of the Resolution which, in our opinion, was not carried by the Committee?

Mr. Speaker

I cannot help much about that because, by Standing Order. the Question on Report is not debatable, as the right hon. Gentleman knows.

Mr. Griffiths

I understand that, Mr. Speaker. Therefore, the position will be that formally in the House this evening the Report stage will be taken although we say that the Report stage has not been reached because the Resolution has not been carried through the Committee.

Mr. Speaker

The right hon. Gentleman will understand that the only answer I can make to that is that all that someone in the frame of mind the right hon. Gentleman indicates can do is to vote "No" to the proposition and say that he does not agree with it.

Mr. G. Brown

Mr. Speaker, I heard what you said about your view of the attitude of those who should respect and love this House. With respect, I take second place to no one in that sentiment. I hold it now, and I held it last night.

This is our problem. If a Motion is validly reported out of Committee to this House, we are free to vote for or against it on its merits on the Report stage. What do We do, though, if we think that it is not validly reported out of Committee? We have two things here. First, we have the opposition we would normally have had to it on Report. Secondly, we have the opposition to its procedurally coming before us quite invalidly.

I heard you say that you could not believe that, had we shown proper respect to the Chair when the Chair was standing up and addressing the House, we could be in this difficulty. I hope that you will accept it from me in the same sense, the same spirit, and the same seriousness, that our problem was that it was impossible to know when the Chair neither stood nor made any coherent remark to us.

Mr. Speaker

I accept entirely the sincerity and sentiment of the right hon. Gentleman. I rose because he passed into a criticism of an occupant of the Chair, which he is not allowed to do on this point. I said some words to that effect. What I find it difficult to believe—and, of course, I was not there and am not entitled to comment on the matter when I was not present—is that if hon. Members kept silent when the Chair rose to its feet to say something they would not have heard what was said.

Mr. Brown

Had you not said that you found it impossible to believe, I would not have been led into—I did not want to be led into—trespassing on a ground we can discuss only on another Motion, but this I must say in our defence. Had you been here, it was so obvious that you could not but have believed it. I will leave it there, except to press you that you will cause somebody to inquire into the remedy for what is to us an obvious defect. It is not that we want to vote against this Resolution on Report because of what happened last night. We might or might not want to do that, but that is an entirely different thing.

We feel that this Resolution was not, in fact, validly reported out of Committee last night. Two votes recorded as having been taken were, to our certain belief, never put. The voices, to our belief, were never collected.

Mr. Speaker

I have the point, as I am sure everybody has, of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition and the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown). What we must not do is to trespass into a matter of criticism of the Chairman of Ways and Means on this point of order. That I cannot allow.

Mr. Ede

Mr. Speaker, I gather from your reply to the first speech of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition that this great House is in a worse position than a parish meeting of the smallest rural parish in this country if we cannot confirm or dispute the drafting of the Minutes of our previous proceedings. That is the point about which I think we are concerned. I would not in any way question the Ruling you have given on the matter, but I suggest that if that is the case it is high time that the rules and procedure relating to this were altered.

Mr. Paget

One has to realise that, on your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, if there were a mere clerical error in the record—and that could quite easily occur because often a Second Reading comes immediately after the Financial Resolution—and some time after it was found that what we had done was invalid because of a clerical error in the record, apparently it would be uncorrectable.

In my submission that really cannot be so. What ought to happen is that there ought to be a Motion for the House to go back into Committee, and the Committee should then consider, as the Minutes are challenged, whether those Minutes ought to be corrected. That seems to be the way in which we ought to deal with them.

Mr. Speaker

I confess that I shall have to look at that suggestion, if and when a Motion of the kind is submitted, to see whether it is in order. I did not say either that the Votes and Proceedings could not be amended; merely that it could not be amended by me in relation to a Committee. That is the point.

Mr. G. Brown

On the same point of order, Mr. Speaker. This, I gather, gets reported out of Committee to us tonight as part of our usual business for this day.

Is there any way in which a Motion might be submitted, leaving out what would happen to it to recommit this Resolution to the Committee? Is it open to us now to submit such a Motion at this stage of the day and make it effective?

Mr. Speaker

As at present advised I do not think so, but if anybody likes to submit a Motion in that form I will look at it. It looks as though the Standing Order is clear. It would appear, on looking at Standing Order No. 86 (2), that that is an impossibility.

Mr. Chetwynd

Is there not a precedent for all this, Sir? It is not a very respectable one, and not one that I want to follow myself. When a Stuart King disagreed with something in the Journal, he tore the page out. Would not that be the best way of dealing with this, so that we can get back to the position which existed before?

Mr. Mitchison

On page 268 of Erskine May there is this entry: On 16 May 1833, a motion was made by Mr. Cobbett, impugning the conduct of Sir Robert Peel. Lord Althorp moved 'That the resolution which has been moved be not entered in the minutes', but the Speaker put the question thus, 'That the proceedings be expunged' on the ground that the minutes had already been entered in the Clerk's book. With respect, Sir, is that not a case in which Mr. Speaker exercised a power to correct the Minutes?

Mr. Speaker

I do not think that that is quite right, with respect to the hon. and learned Member. I will look at this point again, but the fact is that these are Minutes taken in Committee of the whole House, where I am not present.

Mr. Gaitskell

I am obliged to you, Mr. Speaker, for saying that you will look at this matter again. I would particularly draw your attention to the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), in regard to the very unsatisfactory position of the House of Commons when it cannot even correct its own Minutes. I hope that you will consider the possibility of a Motion to correct the Minutes being laid, as well as the other suggestions that have been made.

We are still in some difficulty, because on the Order Paper for tonight is the Report stage of the Committee Resolution. I therefore ask the Leader of the House, in view of the situation which has arisen, whether he will agree to withdraw that Motion from today's business. There is no need for it to be carried today; it does not affect tomorrow's business at all. That would give you time to consider this matter further, Sir, and it would also give us time, in the light of whatever decision you may give, to decide upon our own course of action.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. R. A. Butler)

I should have to consider that proposal, because we want to bring in the Bill, and we cannot give notice to bring it in until we have the Report stage of the Ways and Means Resolution. If the right hon. Gentleman will allow me to consider his request, I will see what can be done about it.

Mr. Oram

I wish to revert to the opinion which you expressed earlier, Mr. Speaker, that in your view the Chair was under no obligation to give a recital of the reasons for suspending the Sitting of the House if it was being done under Standing Order No. 24. I submit that there is a precedent in this matter, in that your predecessor, when suspending the Sitting of the House on the occasion of the Suez orisis, did two things. First, he gave the House very adequate warning that he would take action under that Standing Order and, secondly, when he took that action he made it clear that he was doing so in that way. When you consider these matters, will you take (that into account as well?

Mr. Speaker

I shall not consider that. In view of the notice given in regard to a Motion of censure perhaps we had better not pursue that point now; it is a matter which may arise on the Motion of censure.

Mr. G. Brown

May I take further the exchange between my right hon. Friend and the Leader of the House, when the Leader of the House agreed to think over the implications of my right hon. Friend's request? We are not unwilling to provide the right hon. Gentleman with time to consider the matter, but I would ask him whether we can expect to have a statement from him at some time during the late afternoon, so that we would still know in advance of ten o'clock what his intentions were. The Bill is not down for Second Reading until Wednesday, according to the business as he announced it. Is there not quite a little time between now and then?

Mr. Butler

I know how difficult it is to interrupt business, because I have often tried before and the Chair has found it difficult to permit me to do so. The correct time for me to do so is when we come to the Ways and Means Resolution, when I could make a statement. The House must realise that I shall consider this matter very seriously. The only sacrifice I would ask of hon. Members, if we put this matter off, is that since we cannot take it on Friday it will have to be put off until Monday—which will give Mr. Speaker a further opportunity for the researches which he requires—in which case I would ask hon. Members to realise that they may have less notice of the Second Reading of the Bill, which is a short one.

I would, therefore, ask them to make that sacrifice, so that I may give this matter consideration in the favourable light that I have indicated. I could notify the House when we come to the Resolution. I do not think that that would be a hardship to the House.