HC Deb 06 July 1961 vol 643 cc1660-76
Mr. Healey

I have given you notice, Mr. Speaker, that I would raise with you at today's sitting your Ruling in yesterday's debate on Angola, consequent on my point of order that in quoting what he called a short portion of a telegram which he had received from the Consul-General in Luanda the Minister of State was contravening the rule of the House which is set out on page 460 of Erskine May.

May I ask you whether you have had an opportunity of consulting the precedents and reconsidering your Ruling on the point which I raised?

Mr. Speaker

I have. I am much obliged to the hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey). If the House will allow me, I had better restate the very good statement of the rule which my immediate predecessor gave on 11th December, 1957. I abstract from his Ruling, his statement of the rule: For the House to be able to demand that documents should be laid upon the Table, three conditions must be fulfilled. In the first place, the Minister must have quoted from the document; it is not sufficient that he should have referred to it or even to have summarised or paraphrased it in part or in whole. Secondly, the document must he a 'despatch or other State paper'; the rule cannot be applied to private documents. Thirdly, the rule cannot be applied to documents which are stated by the Minister to be of such a nature that their disclosure would be inconsistent with the public interest."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th December. 1957; Vol. 579, c. 1266–7.] I hesitated yesterday because the Minister was reading from a telegram passing between the Consul-General in Luanda and the Minister. I confess to being momentarily puzzled as to whether that could properly be described as a despatch, a word about which there is a kind of eighteenth century solemnity. But, pondering the matter and looking at the precedents, I think that it is. After all, on these days most despatches would, suppose, be sent by telegram.

I could not resist noticing, when studying the use of the English language, that there is a valuable precedent, namely, that on 18th January, 1945, when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) said: Let me now read an extract from a despatch from our Ambassador … and, after being pressed to lay the telegram on the Table, he concluded with the words: With regard to this document, I think I should be quite right to lay the telegram …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th January, 1945; Vol. 407, c. 408–9.] Reflecting on that use of language, I thought that it would not be right, in modern times, to distinguish between a telegram and a despatch in these circumstances.

My conclusion, therefore, on consideration, is that the Minister is bound to lay the telegram from which he quoted, unless he says that he is within the third limb of the rule, namely, that the document is of such a nature that it would be inconsistent with the public interest to disclose it.

Mr. Healey

I thank you very much for your Ruling, Mr. Speaker. May I take it that the Government will lay the document on the Table?

The Minister of State, Foreign Office (Mr. J. B. Godber)

Perhaps I might make a short statement on this, Mr. Speaker. I quoted from this document because I thought that the information which I gave would be of use to the House. Unfortunately, in doing so, I failed to foresee that there would be a demand for the publication of the document in full.

I now freely admit that I should have given the sense of the information, and that I was quite wrong to quote it verbatim. I trust that the House will accept my full apology for this error, and my regret that I have to say that I am advised that it would not be in the public interest to publish the telegram in full.

Hon. Members

Oh.

Mr. Healey

I appreciate very much the apology which the hon. Gentleman has made, but may I ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether the House can be permitted to leave the matter there? After all, the quotation which the hon. Gentleman made from this document received very wide publicity today both on the radio and in the national and international Press. Indeed, in many cases it was the only quotation made from the hon. Gentleman's speech.

The whole purpose of the rule is that the Government should not be permitted to mislead public opinion by partial and selective quotations from documents. Is it really within the rules of the House that the Government, having already made a partial and selective quotation, should be permitted to evade the rule n this way?

Mr. Speaker

The hon. Gentleman addressed me. I read out in full the rule as stated by my predecessor so that there should be no misunderstanding. As I conceive it, when the Minister says that the document is one the contents of which it would not be consistent with the public interest to disclose, he takes responsibility for that statement. I cannot, from this angle, carry the matter further.

Mr. G. Brown

I am sure that the whole House will understand and sympathise with the Minister of State in his personal difficulty, and that we all appreciate the emotion under which he made his statement. However, that does not seem to end the matter. The statement which the Minister made must have been made for the Government as a whole.

The Leader of the House is here, so may I now put a question to him on the claim made by the Minister that the Government regard this despatch as containing information which makes it impossible for them to lay it on the Table. The Leader of the House will recall that yesterday we were given a very lengthy quotation indeed. It therefore can only appear to the country and to us that if it is claimed that the rest of the telegram makes it so confidential that it cannot be disclosed, there is a prima facie case for believing that the rest of the telegram contains information which makes that part of it which was quoted out of keeping with the context.

In those circumstances, the unfortunate mistake, if the Minister of State likes to put it that way, having been made, would it not be very much more in keeping with everybody's standing in this, and in keeping with the desire not to leave the country with the feeling that it has been misled about this, if the Leader of the House went the whole hog and laid the telegram on the Table?

Mr. S. Silverman

The Leader of the House has been asked a question which, I hope, he will answer, but may I put a further point of order to you, Mr. Speaker, in relation to what the Minister said? This is a document from which the Foreign Office and the Government must have decided to quote yesterday. They must, at that time, have considered all the consequences, including this consequence.

The Minister of State and the Lord Privy Seal did not yesterday claim to be protected from laying the document on the ground which is now claimed. Is it really open to the Minister at this stage, having been defeated on the first defence, to withdraw that and put forward something else in view of the Ruling which you gave today which he did not anticipate yesterday?

Is it not an abuse of the rules for him now, 24 hours later, to claim a protection which was open to him yesterday, if it is open at all, and which he did not then make? The document has gone out. It has been the subject of debate. It has been the subject of world-wide report. Is he now entitled to claim that the document is protected in the way that he would now like to rely on?

Mr. Speaker

Yes. I think that on the rule that I read out to the House he may assert this at any time. I do not want to put this with any implications on it. On the face of the assertion which the Minister makes on his own responsibility, on one view it is his duty to make it.

Mr. Woodburn

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the implications of what has been said in regard to this rule?

Mr. Speaker

This is not a point of order, is it? I think that the right hon. Member is asking whether a right hon. Member will consider something. I do not think that that can be for me.

Mr. Woodburn

I am asking whether the rule as stated by you, and by your predecessor, does not make nonsense of what was previously understood to be the implications of this rule, namely, that if a Minister quoted from a document it ought to be read in full? Obviously, any Government would consider the public interest to be the interest of the Government at the same time.

Mr. Speaker

I believe the rule to be stated correctly by my immediate predecessor, and I adopt it in its entirety.

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

I am sure that the House will sympathise with my hon. Friend the Minister of State, who has stated clearly the position in which he found himself, and has expressed regret for quoting from the document.

The point made by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), in a point of order to you, Mr. Speaker, can, I think, be answered by the fact that my hon. Friend the Minister of State was under the impression that a Ruling had been given by you and, therefore, did not pursue the matter last night. Since then there has been an opportunity of considering this matter, and I can say that the statement made by my hon. Friend the Minister of State represents the views of the Government.

The Government examined this matter this morning. We have not relied on your immediate predecessor's Ruling, which I have here, namely, the third limb, that the rule cannot be applied to documents which are said by the Minister to be of such a nature that their disclosure would be inconsistent with the public interest.

We rely on the Ruling given on page 461 of Erskine May by Mr. Speaker Peel on 10th August, 1893, when he ruled that confidential documents or documents of a private nature passing between officers of a department and the department, cited in debate, are not necessarily laid on the table of the House, especially if the Minister declares that they are of a confidential nature. I am declaring, on behalf of the Government, that we regard this as being of a confidential nature.

This whole matter was raised in a debate in column 1865 on 31st May, 1938, by the then Mr. Wedgwood Benn. He quoted the same Ruling of Mr. Speaker Peel, and the then Chairman, Sir Dennis Herbert, in supporting the Ruling, supported generally the lines of Mr. Speaker Peel's Ruling in 1893.

I have to state, on behalf of the Government, that we consider that we are fully covered by the statement in Erskine May, by the statement, in particular, by Mr. Speaker Peel, and by the statement of your predecessor. It would not be in the public interest to publish this document, as it is a document of a confidential character. Moreover, I think that it would be impossible to conduct the business of the House or of Parliament if private and confidential docu- ments from emissaries overseas were laid before the House.

My final remark is in relation to the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown). I agree that there must be an element of doubt in any issue such as this, but my hon. Friend has made a full apology for quoting from the document. I deny that there is anything in the document which is in any way contradictory in the form to which the right hon. Gentleman referred.

Mr. Healey

Mr. Speaker, I fully accept your Ruling in regard to the Government's right to invoke this rule to defend their action, but may I put it to you and to the House that the Government's refusal to publish the document as a whole, after making a tendentious quotation from it, will confirm the view which, I think, is held by all of us on this side of the House, that this quotation was introduced in this shoddy and underhand way to give a completely false impression of the situation in Angola?

Mr. S. Silverman

Has not what the Leader of the House said just now made confusion worse confounded? Having yesterday claimed protection on one ground, and having been driven from that today to another ground, stated by the Minister of State, the Leader of the House now states a third ground, quite different from the other two. He appears to have assumed that a document of a confidential nature is necessarily one which should not be disclosed, because it would not be in the public interest to do so. That is a complete confusion.

The House is now in the position of having been offered three different and to some extent mutually exclusive reasons for non-disclosure. Does not what the right hon. Gentleman has said impugn the accuracy of any claim such as the one made by the Minister of State before the Leader of the House intervened?

Mr. Speaker

That is not a point of order. As I have explained, assuming that a Minister takes the responsibility of stating that a document is of the kind the contents of which it would not be in the public interest to disclose, that is, as I understand it, under the rule a reason for non-disclosure. There would be an additional reason if the document were one which fell within the class described in the Ruling of Mr. Speaker Peel, which the Leader of the House cited. I did not know that the document was of that class until the Leader of the House took the responsibility of saying that it was, but under the Ruling of Mr. Speaker Peel—which I would desire to follow—that would be an additional reason for saying that the Ruling which my immediate predecessor laid down applied in the circumstances.

Mr. Thorpe

Is not this an extraordinary position, Mr. Speaker? As I see it, you were asked whether you would give a Ruling, which you gave, and which the House, naturally, accepts. The Leader of the House then rose and gave what, in effect, was his own independent ruling. Apparently, he decides which cases are in pari material with the present one. He gave a series of precedents quite different from those which you have sought to rely upon for your judgment, and which are the grounds upon which, if I heard him aright, the Government base their case. Is not this an extraordinary state of affairs, in which your judicial duties, laid upon Mr. Speaker by the House, are being arrogated by the Leader of the House to himself?

Mr. Speaker

I do not think that that is fair. I do not so regard it. I told the House the Ruling upon which I was going, which was applicable to what I knew about the document, in so far as I knew anything, which is what the House knew. Had I known of this additional feature I should have taken account of the additional Ruling. I do not think that there is any impropriety in the Leader of the House quoting the other Ruling. I had looked at that Ruling; indeed, I have it recorded in my note here. But I did not know that it was of importance in the context of this document. The Leader of the House knows what is in the document, and I do not.

Mr. G. Brown

So many different statements are being made by the Government that we do not know which leg they are standing on. Among others, the Leader of the House has slipped in his definition of the standing of a consul-general and what an officer of the Department is. I wanted to put one point to the right hon. Gentleman. Does he realise the impossible situation in which he is putting us? Nobody wants to hound a Minister who has made a mistake—which can happen to any one of us—for which he has fully apologised to the House. The sense of other Members is to leave that in an understanding and friendly way. But if the Leader of the House then persists in claiming all kinds of afterthoughts for the non-fulfilment of what, in the ordinary way, should have followed that slip, we are in the situation when we must either seem to be hounding an unfortunate Minister or losing rights of the House which have been protected for a very long time.

The Leader of the House has said that he considers this document to be one whose disclosure would be inconsistent with the public interest. Will he reconsider that statement, with every intention of erring on the side of laying it this time, if he possibly can, in order to help the House through its difficulty? If he persists in his present attitude, will he tell us what issue of public interest is involved? [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] For this reason, that the quotation had to do with conditions in Angola and their effect on Portugal. If it was in the public interest for that part to be quoted or referred to, it cannot be against the public interest for another part of the telegram, which also deals with conditions in Angola, to be quoted.

I therefore ask the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider this matter and to realise that the House cannot let this matter go like this. We shall have to consider returning to it if the right hon. Gentleman persists in his view. It places the House and the Minister of State in an uncomfortable position. Will the right hon. Gentleman have another look at it and do his utmost to lay this document, unless there is an overwhelming reason against it—which I doubt?

Mr. Butler

I am following a well-established precedent which is well known to Governments, including the Government in which the right hon. Member served, namely, that if a document is confidential it is not suitable to lay it. This document, which was from an agent of Her Majesty's Government, is confidential, and is covered by the Ruling of Mr. Speaker Peel in 1893. This is a locus classicus for deciding whether a document should be published. It is not usual for Governments to give reasons why they consider a matter is not in the public interest, or is confidential. I am sorry that I cannot go further. I am not being discourteous to the right hon. Gentleman or to the House, but I am following a well-established precedent and preserving the prerogative of the Government in a matter of this sort.

Mr. Gordon Walker

I hope that you will not allow a change in this Ruling to be smuggled in by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House, Mr. Speaker. In effect, he has argued that a consul-general comes under the category of officials of a Department communicating with the Department. If that were true, and allowed to go without challenge, the quotation that you made from a statement of the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill), applying to a despatch or telegram from an ambassador to the Foreign Office—which is exactly corresponding to a despatch from a consul-general to the Foreign Office—would naturally apply.

Mr. Speaker

I can probably save time. I am not in this instance ruling—I will rule when the occasion arises—that this document falls within that class. I do not know enough about it. I do not desire to give a Ruling on it at the moment. I have ruled, in what I said formerly, exactly in the terms of the Ruling stated by my immediate predecessor, which, in its practical result, is the same for this purpose.

Mr. M. Foot

What are the precedents in a case where the Government have grossly abused the procedure of the House? That is what has happened in this case. The Government have quoted a document which they now say they should never have quoted. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] That is what the Leader of the House said. Can you say, Mr. Speaker, whether in such a case—where the Government have so grossly abused the procedure of the House—they have not on previous occasions made an effort to explain why they will not publish the rest of the document? They themselves decided to publish so much of it.

Mr. Speaker

I do not know of a case in which, a Minister having said that it was not consistent with the public interest to publish a document as a whole, it has not been accepted by the House. I know of no such instance.

Mr. Fletcher

On a point of order—

Sir Harmar Nicholls

Quite apart from the technical point whether or not this is a comprehensive document, can yqu say a further word about one of the points made by the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown)—

Mr. Speaker

I will hear the point of order first.

Mr. Fletcher

Can you help the House in this very difficult situation, Sir? I have heard all the interchanges, and it seems to me that there is a complete inconsistency between what the Leader of the House has said this afternoon and what the Minister of State said yesterday. Today, the Minister of State is alleging that this is a confidential document. The Minister of State made use of this document in asking the House to come to a certain conclusion yesterday, and he not only quoted a lengthy extract from it, but he went on to say—

Mr. Speaker

Can the hon. Member indicate the point of order on which he is addressing me?

Mr. Fletcher

The point of order, Sir, is that I should like to know how the House can deal with a situation in which, on the face of it, there is a complete inconsistency in the statements made by the Leader of the House and the Government in making the claim that this is a document which it is not in the public interest to disclose. In support of my point of order, I would draw your attention to the fact that yesterday, having quoted from the document, the Minister of State said: This is a factual report from our representative in Angola and it is entitled to the respect of this House,"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th July, 1961; Vol. 643, c. 1525.] They were the Minister's words.

Mr. Speaker

That is not a point of order. To ask how the House should deal with something cannot be a point of order.

Mr. Fletcher

If it is not a point of order, may I put it in this way, that it would seem to be a point on which the House is entitled to a further explanation from the Leader of the House?

Mr. Speaker

That means that it is not a point of order, does it not?

Mr. S. Silverman

In considering what reasons are offered by the Government for not following what otherwise would be accepted as the rule, namely, that there is something against the public interest in publishing the document, we must, of course, accept that the protection claimed was claimed in good faith. If it was not, it would lose all validity.

We have, as has been pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher), the Minister's own description of the document yesterday before we had the advantage of listening to your Ruling on the point today, Mr. Speaker. On that occasion he was saying: This is a factual report from our representative in Angola and it is entitled to the respect of this House."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th July, 1961; Vol. 643, c. 1525.] It would seem, therefore, to follow that he disclaimed expressly yesterday either anything confidential—because he was saying that it was entitled to the respect of the House—or anything that ought to be withheld in the public interest—because he said that it was a factual report which the House ought to respect.

It seems, therefore, that on his own statement yesterday, which is entirely inconsistent with what he said today—and entirely inconsistent with what the Leader of the House said today—he expressly waived every one of the grounds of protection on which he is now relying. I submit, with respect, that it is impossible to exclude from our consideration of this matter the fact that the claims now being made—and the claims now being made are not the same—are all made after you have reconsidered the Ruling that you gave yesterday, and are obviously so framed as to claim the benefit of exception to which you have drawn their attention.

Is it not clear that the claims are made now not in the public interest at all, and not on the ground of any confidential need, but because it is incon- venient for the Government to disclose the whole report? Is that the right way to interpret the Ruling?

Mr. Speaker

Suppose that on a suitable Motion that kind of proposition were to be debated, no doubt the hon. Gentleman and others could assert their views and be answered. It is not a matter for me. I accept that a proposition is put forward in good faith. I have no other alternative.

Mr. G. Brown

Would you, Mr. Speaker, allow me to put one short question to the Government which might help to clear up this matter? Will the Lord Privy Seal tell the House, did he know of the intention of his hon. Friend the Minister of State to quote this document before his hon. Friend rose to make his Speech? Did he—the Lord Privy Seal—know that that was to be done?

Hon. Members

Answer.

Mr. Speaker

Order. I do not think that I should be performing my duty if I allowed that question, or that kind of question, to be asked now. We are long past Question Time. I have ruled, and the House has heard the claim made, and it knows its consequences on the basis of my Ruling. Points of order I should be willing to hear, of course, if they help, because I must. But I do not think that I should be in order in allowing further cross-examination of Ministers.

Mr. Brown

On a point of order. This did not begin, nor is it wholly concerned with, a point of order arising out of a Ruling by you, Mr. Speaker. We have a statement by the Minister—

Sir K. Pickthorn

This is not a point of order.

Mr. Brown

Yes.

We had a very weighty statement made by the Leader of the House, in which he told us of the Government's consideration this morning and of the stand taken by the Government as a result of that; and he offered a statement of Government policy on this matter. The subsequent conduct, it is true, has become mixed up between questions arising out of the Minister's statement and points of order arising out of a Ruling by you. Both have been running. There has been no point at which one stopped in order that the other might go on—

Mr. Speaker

Order. I think that there ought to be, if that is so. We must try to preserve the distinction between matters for me and matters which otherwise arise.

Mr. Brown

May I finish my point, Sir?

With respect, my submission to you is that, having had the Government statement, and no distinction between that and the other, we ought to be able to ask supplementary questions arising out of that as to which Minister, in fact, takes responsibility here—if I may finish my submission before you rule.

There is a great difference in whether or not the senior Foreign Office Minister present—we have no Foreign Secretary in this House, which is part of the problem—knew in advance that the quotation was to be made. If so, the defence of an accident by a less important Minister is no longer open to the Government. I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that to help us to judge this you ought to permit one of the Ministers to answer, and say whether this was known by the Lord Privy Seal in advance.

Mr. Speaker

I think, with respect, that there is a little confusion. The Minister makes his claim on a public requirement that he should not disclose —senior, junior, any Minister, he makes it. From my point of view, I have to accept it as made in good faith, and operate the rule. Once that has happened I see no opportunity at all for conducting a discussion on what somebody knew about before or since; or who is responsible. It is on that declaration by the Minister that the third limb of the rule is brought into operation. I cannot escape from that so far as I can see.

Mr. Mitchison

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I fully appreciate that on the statement by the Minister you could not inquire into the question whether or not it was in the public interest to disclose the document in question. And the Minister, in making that statement, as I think you yourself indicated, was speaking on behalf of the Government. He was, however, followed by the Leader of the House, who really put the claim not to disclose the document on a different ground and a different Ruling.

The Leader of the House said that this was a Departmental document of a confidential nature; that is to say, that it was the character of the document and not the contents of the document on which he relied. In those circumstances, surely we are entitled to be told what is the position about confidential documents of this kind. Is it open to the Government to waive the right to hold back a document, or are they in every case bound to say, "This is a confidential Departmental document, and on that ground alone we cannot disclose it"?

I ask the question because there was an apparent inconsistency between what was said on behalf of the Government by one Minister, who said it was the contents of the document and the public interest that mattered, and the statement of the other Minister, who said that it was not the content of the document, that it was the fact that it was a Departmental document of a confidential character which is the right basis.

Mr. Speaker

I am a little wary of relying on my recollection of what has been immediately said on these occasions. I discovered the other night that I had used the word "trickery" when I did not know that I had—in some other context. Therefore, I do not want to quarrel with the hon. and learned Gentleman's recollection.

Standing here at the moment, I should not be prepared to say that the case which the Leader of the House was developing was not that there was additional ground for objection rather than a different ground for the statement of objection. On that basis—I do not wish to use a discourteous word—it is something which is academic from the point of view of the Chair; because one answer appearing to be sound must be sufficient for the Chair under the rule. I cannot take the matter further at this stage. Hon. Members must take other steps.

Mr. Dugdale

In view of the great importance of this matter which you, Mr. Speaker, have said we cannot discuss by means of question and answer, and in view of the importance of the Minister making a statement, I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, the refusal of the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs to lay upon the Table a document from which he quoted a portion in the House of Common".

Mr. Speaker

The right hon. Member asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, the refusal of the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs to lay upon the Table a document from which he quoted a portion in the House of Commons". I am wholly precluded by precedent from acceding to that application. Refusal of information is not a ground for moving the Adjournment under Standing Order No. 9.

Mr. S. Silverman

While it is no doubt the case that you, Sir, cannot question, and should not question, the good faith of the claim made by the Government so that the refusal to lay the document on that ground is now supported by your Ruling, the House itself is not so compelled. If there are hon. Members who wish to question the good faith of the claim made by the Government, there ought to be a method by which that good faith can be challenged. Is not the Motion which my right hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich (Mr. Dugdale) sought leave to move an appropropriate way for the House to express the view—if it holds the view—that the Government's claim has not been made in good faith and ought not to have been made?

Mr. Speaker

I have already ruled on that application. I do not express agreement with the view expressed by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman).

Mr. Thorpe

On a point of order. I beg to give notice that I shall seek to raise this matter on the Adjournment. May I make this submission to you? [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I take my rulings from you, Mr. Speaker, and not from the Government benches—

Mr. Speaker

Order, the hon. Member has given notice that he will seek to raise the matter on the Adjournment. He has given me notice to that effect.