BROADCASTING (B.B.C. LICENCE AND AGREEMENT) (Hansard, 29 November 1961)

§ Mr. Charles Loughlin (Gloucestershire West)
I had hoped for some explanation of this Agreement from the Government. It would appear to supersede the Agreement arrived at in 1952. This Agreement is not simply supplementary to the 1952 Agreement, but, so far as I can see, entirely replaces it. One of its significant features is the change in the period of time of the application of the provisions from ten years to two years. In the terms of the new Agreement, that appears to be the only substantial change.
Since 1952, we have had a series of supplementary Agreements making slight variations. The attempt by the Minister to try to avoid any explanation of this Agreement simply by remaining in his seat instead of introducing it to the House appears to me little short of trickery. I do not want to be un-Parliamentary in saying this, but it seems to be sharp practice. I wondered why the Minister was so eager to get this Motion through without discussion of any kind.
The Agreement covers almost the entire field of activities of the B.B.C. It does not merely change the period of time from ten to two years, but it re-endorses the whole of the Agreement which ends in June, 1962. It may well be that the conditions under which the provisions of the Licence were agreed to by this House in 1952 have somewhat changed. It might well be that it is essential for the House to look at the whole of the provisions of the previous Agreement which are to be incorporated in this Agreement and examine them in the light of the changed circumstances existing now.
Perhaps the Minister can tell us why it has been necessary to change the amount of money which the Corporation is likely to receive under this Agreement as distinct from that which it re- 566 ceives under the Agreement which has existed from 1952 and will continue until 1962. We are under some difficulty. If the Minister had given us an explanation, we might have been saved from possibly being wrong in our reading of this Agreement. I have some difficulty in reading the ordinary newspaper, quite apart from reading agreements of this kind. [Interruption.] It is possible that the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. W. Yates) does not have that difficulty. He may take one of the "quickies" whereas I take a newspaper with more reading matter in it. Does the hon. Member want to intervene?

§ Mr. William Yates (The Wrekin)
We are trying to follow where the hon. Member is having difficulty.

§ Mr. Loughlin
I am coming to that. I should like to know why 100 per cent. of the net licence receipts are to be paid as distinct from the 95 per cent. paid previously. There may be good reasons for this. Perhaps he will give some reasonable explanation.
Paragraph 11 of the Licence and Agreement of 1952 deals with the employment of persons by the Corporation. It states: Persons employed by the Corporation in the conduct of the services who are not, or are not deemed to be, British subjects, shall be so employed on and subject to such conditions as may from time to time be prescribed in writing by the Postmaster-General. Paragraph 11 goes on to state: Any person who is so employed and is not subject to any restriction under the Aliens Order, 1920, as to the period of his stay or the employment in which he may engage in the United Kingdom may, if the Corporation think fit, be employed by the Corporation in an established capacity. Thus the paragraph deals with the employment of aliens. As hon. Members know, the Agreement under discussion must be entered into by the Government and the B.B.C. for the next two years. We must be assured, therefore, that in attempting to arrive at an agreement of this kind each party can carry out its terms. I should have thought that both parties should be quite clear that they are in a position to enter into the full terms and provisions of the Measure before it is 567 entered into—and, naturally, it cannot be entered into until we have passed it tonight. I therefore ask the Minister how far the provision I have quoted may be affected by the legislation now before the House?

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Gordon Touche)
That goes beyond the Motion at present before the House.

§ Mr. Loughlin
If the Agreement is not accepted tonight, the existing Agreement, which runs from 1952 to 1962, ceases to exist at the date of its termination. Hon. Members are tonight being asked to accept or reject the Agreement which is outlined in the document before the House. But that Agreement incorporates the provisions of the existing Agreement. If we are to consider the full implications of this, we cannot do so without being allowed to deal in detail with all the provisions involved. We are not merely changing or accepting a supplementary Agreement. We are being asked to accept a measure which, in effect, incorporates all the terms of the Agreement which is in existence until 1962. If we are not allowed to discuss the provisions of that Agreement we shall be in an impossible position. If any of those provisions in the Agreement of 1952–62, which is to be incorporated in the new Agreement, are likely to be of such a character that it is impossible of fulfilment, this House ought to be concerned about it.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
We cannot anticipate future legislation or other Measures at present before the House.

§ Mr. Loughlin
If we cannot anticipate future legislation, let me go on to another provision of this Agreement—

§ Mr. Arthur Lewis (West Ham, North)
May I ask my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) what he is quoting from? At the Vote Office I have been able to get only Command Papers 1536 and 1537. I assume my hon. Friend has got the original Charter. He is in a favourable position. So far as I can trace, he is the only hon. Member who has a copy. Could he advise us exactly what he is quoting from so that we 568 may ask Mr. Deputy-Speaker if we may be supplied with copies?

§ Mr. Loughlin
Before coming into the Chamber, I took the precaution of securing a copy of the Licence and Agreement dated 12th June, 1952, between Her Majesty's Postmaster-General and the British Broadcasting Corporation.

§ Mr. Lewis
Mr. Deputy-Speaker, may I raise a point of order with you? As I suspected, my hon. Friend is quoting from the original Agreement and, so far as I can trace, he is the only hon. Member with a copy of it. There are no other copies available. If we cannot get a copy of it, how can we take part in the debate on matters which my hon. Friend is raising, and which the Minister has not attempted to deal with? So far as I can see, he has no copy either. Could you see to it, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that copies are available for our use?

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I do not know whether copies are available or not. We have certain documents which have been provided for this debate.

§ Mr. Lewis
If there are no copies of this Agreement available to enable us to take part in the debate and understand what is going on, is it not ludicrous that my hon. Friend should quote from a document which no other Member has got? With great respect to you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, how can you know or how can the Minister know whether my hon. Friend is, in fact, quoting from the document from which he says he is quoting? How can we verify whether he is quoting from it? Will you accept a Motion, That the debate be now adjourned, to enable us to obtain copies of the document? Otherwise we are here without the relevant papers.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
No, I could not accept that Motion.

§ Mr. Lewis
I am sorry to follow this up, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, but I feel that the House is being treated with contempt. We cannot obtain the document from which my hon. Friend is quoting.

§ Mr. John Hall (Wycombe)
Go to the Library.

§ Mr. Lewis
I have been to the Library. Perhaps the hon. Member, instead of reclining in his seat, will go there and see whether he can find a copy. I am asking that you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, who are the custodian of the privileges of hon. Members, particularly back bench Members and especially Opposition Members—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Yes, it is the job of the Chair to protect the rights—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
Order. Is the hon. Member rising to a point of order or giving a lecture on the duties of the Chair?

§ Mr. Lewis
I am rising to ask you to ensure that hon. Members present who want to take part in this debate are able to obtain the relevant papers and documents which they are at present unable to get either from the Vote Office or from the Library. If we cannot do that, may I borrow the copy from my hon. Friend, when he is not reading from it, so that I may take part in the debate? If I may not do that, how can be proceed?

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
That is not a point of order. The hon. Member has the information which is available, and if he wants any further information he can ask about it.

§ Mr. Lewis
I am sorry to continue, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, but that is what I am doing. I am asking about it. I am asking you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, whether you can tell me where I can obtain a copy. I cannot find one in the Vote Office. I cannot find one in the Library. I cannot get anything from the Minister. I can only get it from my hon. Friend. My hon. Friend is using it and is in possession of it. There are several hon. Members here who, I am sure, are interested and wish to have a copy, but we cannot obtain a copy of the original agreement.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
That is not a point of order.

§ Mr. Edward Short (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central)
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. We are in great difficulty here. I wish to raise a very substantial local matter in the debate. The Order Paper informs us that we are called upon tonight to approve the 570 Licence and Agreement dated 6th November, 1961, and so forth. One document we have states quite clearly, at the bottom of page 2, that the objects of the Corporation are the objects stated in Article 3 of the Charter. Presumably, the Agreement continues the Charter for an additional two years.
I cannot obtain a copy of the Charter. I wish to see whether the local point I wish to raise is covered by Article 3 of the Charter. How on earth can I discuss the matter coherently or intelligently if I am unable to obtain a copy of the Charter? If the Government wanted a debate of this kind, they ought to have made the relevant documents available to the House. We can obtain a copy of the Agreement and of the supplemental Charter, but we cannot obtain a copy of the Charter which is referred to. We are in a difficulty. With great respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, we look to you for help in the matter.

§ Mr. Marcus Lipton (Brixton)
Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I am wondering whether the Postmaster-General can help us. It is he who is asking us to accept something on the basis of certain documents. If he could give us guidance as to where the documents on which he bases his application to the House now can be obtained, that would be of some help to you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, and to hon. Members. We are in a very real difficulty and I hope that we may have the co-operation of the Postmaster-General or someone speaking on behalf of the Government to put the House in a position to discuss the matter intelligently and with relevance to the very important considerations relating to documents of which we do not at the moment know the whereabouts.
I suggest, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that, perhaps, the Postmaster-General, subject to your Ruling, be asked to clarify the position to help you and the House as a whole.

§ The Postmaster-General (Mr. Reginald Bevins)
rose—

§ Mr. Loughlin
Well, now—

§ Mr. Richard Marsh (Greenwich)
It is an intervention.

§ Mr. Loughlin
Is it a point of order or an intervention? The Postmaster-General has now resumed his seat. I am not sure what is going on this evening. Mr. Deputy-Speaker. When the Minister had an opportunity to make a statement on this matter, he tried to avoid it. When the series of legitimate points of order ceased, he tried to nip in and take the floor from someone who already had the Floor.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I thought that hon. Members had asked for information from the Postmaster-General, and I understood that the right hon. Gentleman then wished to give a reply.

§ Mr. Loughlin
That was your impression, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, but it did not appear to be the right hon. Gentleman's intention.

§ Mr. Lewis
Further to my point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. You will recollect that I originally raised this point with you and I asked you to help the House by telling us where we might obtain copies of the relevant documents necessary for the debate to continue.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I have explained to the hon. Member that that is not a point of order for me.

§ Mr. Lewis
Then may I recall to your mind, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that on a previous occasion when Mr. Speaker was in the Chair, when I raised a similar point of order, Mr. Speaker said that if the papers were not then readily available he would accept from me a Motion to report Progress and ask leave to sit again. If we do not have, and cannot get from the Library, the Vote Office or yourself, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, advice about where these papers are obtainable, I suggest that we cannot continue the debate. How can we debate the matter when, apart from my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin), we do not have the relevant documents?
The Chair should seriously consider whether to accept a Motion to report Progress and ask leave to sit again to enable the Minister to ensure that the House is properly provided with all the documents necessary for the debate to continue. Therefore, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I trust that you will now accept the Motion. If so—

§ Mr. Loughlin
On a point of order—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I can deal with only one point of order at a time.

§ Mr. Lewis
I had understood, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, as you had not stopped me, that you were accepting my Motion.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I am not accepting it. It is not my responsibility whether the documents are available. In 1952, it was ruled by Mr. Speaker that the B.B.C. Charter could not be debated except for such references … as are necessary to make an argument which is relevant to the Licence intelligible."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd June, 1952; Vol. 502, c. 1921.] It seems scarcely necessary to have the Charter available.

§ Mr. Loughlin
On a point of order. We are not at this stage discussing the Charter itself; that is a separate document over and above the Licence and Agreement. We are dealing with the Licence and Agreement, which is a smaller document. Therefore, the question of the Charter does not arise. I have copies of both the Charter and the Licence.

§ Mr. Lewis
We still come back to my point of order. My hon. Friend is fortunate. He has both the Charter and the Licence. He is the only Member who has them. Not even the Minister has copies. Mr. Deputy-Speaker does not have them, nor does my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew), who is leading the debate for the Opposition. My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, West is the only hon. Member who is able to debate and argue this subject intelligently.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
The hon. Member has pointed that out several times and I hope he will discontinue doing so.

§ Mr. Christopher Mayhew (Woolwich, East)
Nevertheless, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, it is plain that the House is in complete confusion. It arises, as my hon. Friends have said, by the strange fact that the Minister, who had the courtesy to inform me that he would make a statement on this matter, and the Assistant Postmaster-General, who had the courtesy to inform me that she would wind up the debate, sat in 573 their places while you proposed the Question. If that is the attitude of the Government to the House and to the Opposition, confusion inevitably arises. It is now the Minister's duty to clarify the important points of order raised by my hon. Friends, to supply the papers which we wish to have and to inform us that he will make a full statement in explanation of the documents which he is asking us to approve.

§ Mr. Loughlin
On a point of order. Before that is proceeded with, I should like clarification of the position in which I now find myself. I have possession of the Floor and I do not see that the Minister can supersede my right to continue—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I understood that the Minister was about to reply to a point of order.

§ Mr. Loughlin
On a further point of order. How is it possible for the Minister to reply to a point of order which is addressed to the Chair?

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
The Minister was rising to reply to a point which had been raised in an interjection.

§ Mr. Lipton
The Postmaster-General seemed to indicate that he wanted to help the House out of its difficulty, without prejudice, of course, to my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin), whose speech is not yet concluded. If, therefore, it is possible for permission to be granted to the Postmaster-General to make some kind of intervention to clarify the queries which have been raised in these points of order, it would be for the benefit of all hon. Members. That would be without prejudice, of course, to my hon. Friend who still has the Floor.

§ Mr. Michael Foot (Ebbw Vale)
Would it not assist the House, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, if you accepted the Motion moved by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, North (Mr. A. Lewis) for the Adjournment of the House, for then, in debate on that Motion, the Minister would be—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
That was not the suggestion, and, in any case, I refused to accept the proposition the hon. Member put.

§ Mr. Short
Further to the point of order. You referred just now, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, to a 1952 Ruling in which it was said that it was not possible to debate the Charter except in so far as that was necessary to make the Agreement intelligible. As I pointed out to you, at the bottom of page 2 of the document there is a reference to an Article of the Charter. How can we make the Agreement intelligible unless that Article is available?

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
That is not a point of order for me.

§ Mr. Loughlin
May I make it clear that I am allowing the Minister to intervene in my speech?

§ Mr. Bevins
I had every intention, as the hon. Member knows, of rising in my place at the outset of this debate when—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) was rather quicker than I was—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—but I think it may help both sides of the House if I say what I intended to say at an earlier stage. Perhaps I may at this point move, That the Licence and Agreement—

Hon. Members
No.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
Order. The Question has already been put.

§ Mr. Foot
On a point of order. Are we to understand that no Motion has been moved and that the House is not debating anything?

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
The Question was put by Mr. Speaker before I took the Chair.

§ Mr. Loughlin
I gave way to the Minister because I thought the Minister was going to give some clarification to this House. Now he charges me with having superseded him in this debate. Mr. Speaker was in the Chair, and if the Minister says that he is making a criticism of Mr. Speaker—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—because Mr. Speaker was going to put the Question, and only when he was going to put the Question did I rise in my place. If that is the type of intervention which the Minister is going to make to help us, then the fewer interventions he makes in this debate the better.
575 I want to come to the point—if I can remember precisely what was the point I was at before this altercation took place—that it is not my responsibility that I happen to be the only Member of this House who has the requisite documents with him.

§ Mr. Marsh
Take them to the Table.

§ Mr. G. W. Reynolds (Islington, North)
I am glad someone has got them.

§ Mr. Loughlin
I agree that hon. Members ought to have the documents, but if the implication of the statements is that I have by some nefarious deed secured an unfair advantage over my hon. Friends and the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster-General, I refute it in every possible way.

§ Mr. W. Yates
The hon. Member is trying to help us. On page 2 the document says: A Supplemental Agreement dated the 19th February, 1954, relating to the execution of certain defence work is extended until 29th July, 1964. I hope the hon. Member can deal with that, because I do not know about it.

§ Mr. Loughlin
If the hon. Member seeks to present to me an insoluble problem he is going down the wrong alley, because there is more than one supplementary Agreement. If he wants to do a deal on the whole of the supplementary Agreements since 1952, then I will gladly do so, but perhaps I may now return to the point we were discussing before the interventions.
There is the question of the provisions of the Agreement that relate to the employment of aliens by the B.B.C. and the difficulty that will arise if we accept the Agreement. Although I do not want to discuss legislation that may be before us shortly, it is reasonable to assume that the Agreement will be impossible of fulfilment by the Government of the day. If we are to enter into agreements that it is reasonable to assume we cannot possibly fulfil, then we should ask ourselves where we are going.
There is another question I have to ask the Postmaster-General—though how on earth, without this Agreement in front of him, it will be possible for 576 him to answer any questions I do not know. What an insufferable position the House is in! If the right hon. Gentleman has not this Agreement before him, how can we discuss its provisions, ask him questions on it and expect to get substantial replies?
In the Agreement there is a slight variation in the power of the Postmaster-General. I had better quote it: The expression 'net licence revenue' means the broadcast receiving licence revenue as defined in Section 3 of the Post Office Act, 1961, less a sum equal to the expenses (including the cost of collection of sums payable in respect of the issue of broadcast receiving licences, the cost of investigating complaints of interference by electro-magnetic energy affecting broadcast programmes and the cost of administration) incurred by the Postmaster-General or on his behalf in relation to broadcasting services within the British Islands. In the existing Agreement there is provision for consultation with the B.B.C. before the Postmaster-General determines the degree of expenses.

§ Mr. Marsh
On a point of order. I apologise to my hon. Friend for intervening. It is obvious that the Chair cannot be held responsible for the absence of these documents. With respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, many of us want to get home as quickly as possible, but we also want to discuss this subject. Does it not reduce our proceedings to a farce when only one person in the House—excluding the Minister—has got the documents?

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I have dealt with that point already.

§ Mr. Marsh
May I make a submission, Mr. Deputy-Speaker? Would it not be possible, not so much for the Postmaster-General to make an intervention, but for the Leader of the House to see whether he can help us out of our difficulty? The House is in the position of discussing something which none of us has but which we can can see being referred to by one hon. Member, and so hon Members on both sides of the House have to keep asking him if he will quote from the book he has.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
Whatever statements are going to be made by Ministers is not a matter for me.

§ Mr. William Ross (Kilmarnock)
Further to that point of order. In the 577 section from which my hon. Friend is quoting, the final paragraph reads: Clauses 16 and 27 of the said Deed shall be deemed to be omitted. If we ask the Postmaster-General what they say, as soon as he starts quoting from the Deed, will he not be bound to lay these papers before us? Otherwise we shall not be in a position to be able to verify these facts. In the circumstances, would it not be much wiser for the Postmaster-General to agree to adjourn the debate?

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
The hon. Member is mistaken. The 1952 Licence has already been laid before the House. It does not have to be laid again if the Minister refers to it.

§ Mr. Reynolds
This is causing considerable consternation to many hon. Members who are not able to obtain these documents but wish to take part in the discussion—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I am afraid that the hon. Member is dealing with the same point. Mr. Loughlin.

§ Mr. Reynolds
But when this point arose on a previous occasion in connection with a Private Bill the Chairman of Ways and Means arranged for copies of the relevant material to be duplicated.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I am not going into that now.

§ Mr. Loughlin
I feel very much like what I imagine a yo-yo must feel—constantly bouncing up and down. I am beginning to think it is not quite the advantage I thought it was when I secured for myself these documents. My point is that in the Agreement before us there has been a variation in the Clauses relating to the net licence revenue provisions, in which the Postmaster-General is now given full powers in determining the extent of the expenses to which the Bill refers, whereas previously he could do that only after consultation with the Corporation. I would like to know—because this is obviously a question that the Minister can answer—precisely what the reason is for the extra power given to him in the Clause.
Clause 21 of the original Agreement, which will become part of the new Agreement, refers to the payment of 578 rates of wages and the observance of hours and conditions of labour both by the British Broadcasting Corporation and by the contractors to the Corporation under certain circumstances. It is very—

§ Mr. A. Lewis
Can my hon. Friend tell me—this is the only way we can find out what is happening—whether in that Clause, of which I have not a copy, there is any reference to television? While I am speaking, perhaps he will take the opportunity of studying the Clause; I will speak for a few moments to enable him to look at it. There are some hon. Members who want to raise matters concerning television, and unless we find out from my hon. Friend whether television is or is not mentioned in the Clause, we shall not know whether or not we shall be in order.
Mr. Speaker, may I put this to you on a point of order? We are now discussing a matter without the relevant documents being available to us, with the exception of my hon. Friend, who has a copy. The rest of us are in the invidious position that we cannot obtain copies of the relevant papers from which my hon. Friend is quoting. I do not know, and I am sure that the Chair does not know, whether or not my hon. Friend is or is not in order in quoting from a document when he is the only one with a copy.
We have tried to get the documents from the Vote Office and the Minister, but we cannot obtain what are referred to in the Order as the various documents upon which the debate is taking place. I asked Mr. Deputy-Speaker about this, but he said that it was not his prerogative or job to make the papers available. It appears that it is not the job of the Minister. It certainly is not the job of my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Opposition Front Bench. It appears that it is not the job of the Leader of the House. May I ask whose job it is to ensure that the relevant documents are available when hon. Members want them in order to take part in the proceedings?

§ Mr. Bevins
Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I think that hon. Members on both sides of the House recognise that Command Paper 1536, the draft of the Royal Charter, has already been laid during the last day or two. 579 So also has Command Paper 1537, the copy of the Licence and Agreement dated 6th November. These are the only documents which require to be laid before the House at the present time, I submit. I would add that of the earlier documents, notably the earlier Charter for the B.B.C. and the earlier Licence and Agreement and the Supplemental Licence and Agreement, were laid before the House, at the appropriate time. I submit that, constitutionally, it is not necessary to re-lay them this time.

§ Mr. Lipton
Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. It may well be that from a purely technical point of view what the Postmaster-General has said is correct. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the two Command Papers, 1536 and 1537, make reference to a number of deeds, charters and other documents, copies of which are not available to hon. Members.
In these circumstances, I and some of my hon. Friends submit that we are placed in an impossible situation, because it is unreasonable to expect the House to accept the two Command Papers now before us which make reference to a number of other documents if those official documents—it is true, as the Postmaster-General said, that they may have been laid years ago—are not available to us to enable us to take an intelligent part in discussing the matter before us.
That is the substance of the grievance that we are trying to present to you. Mr. Speaker. We feel that as ordinary Members of the House we are placed at an impossible disadvantage if the Government ask the House to accept documents of the kind before us which make reference to a large number of other important papers which may have been laid but of which copies are nevertheless not available to hon. Members at the present time.

§ Mr. Speaker
The House will appreciate that I am at some disadvantage in the sense that I have just resumed the Chair and do not, in fact, know at this moment with reference to what document this trouble arises. I will indicate what I think is the fair principle. This is my own view without reference to authority. In practice, we—that is, the Chair and the Vote Office; 580 the machinery of the House of Commons—carry in the ordinary way, I think, responsibility for having available documents which would be relevant for debate in the ordinary way arising from the last two Sessions. One cannot carry more than that in any practical manner. Documents which would be relevant in debate—a proposition which I shall endeavour to define in a moment off the cuff—otherwise depend on the responsible Ministry or Department, which has to make sure that they are available, roughly speaking.
Although it might be relevant to a debate, it is clear from a commonsense point of view that one could not provide every document which might be referred to, every paper laid before the House, or every licence agreement laid before the House. Different considerations might arise where a document which the House is asked to approve purely and simply amended a document previously laid before the House. In this case, that would be limited to the change of provisions which I see indicated in paragraph 4 of the Licence.
Beyond that point, I must at the moment invite the House to help me, without undue occupation of time, because I do not know, having just resumed the Chair, at what point in what I have been indicating to be the general rule this discussion arises.

§ Mr. A. Lewis
May I thank you very much for your kind and considerate reply, Mr. Speaker? I appreciate that it was rather unfortunate that you came into the Chair after the submissions had been made. What we attempted to do was to help the Minister and the Chair by suggesting that as these documents, which are not mentioned once or in passing, but which are amended by these Orders, are not available—

§ Mr. Speaker
The hon. Member said, "these Orders". I do not understand him.

§ Mr. Lewis
The original Charter and the amending Orders to the Charter which are referred to and of which only one copy is available, which my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) has. I was suggesting that as they are not available and as we want to discuss them and as my hon. 581 Friend was quoting from them and we have not been able to check his quotations, it would be helpful to all concerned if the Leader of the House, or you, Sir, were prepared to accept a Motion to report Progress and ask leave to sit again.
You would then have an opportunity to see whether it was necessary for you to give a Ruling about what papers should be available and to what extent the Government, or the Departments which you were kind enough to mention, ought to make them available. Of course, we do not expect to have copies of Acts which may go back for hundreds of years. But my hon. Friend was quoting from a document and we had no opportunity of knowing whether he was quoting correctly. I do not cast any aspersion on his honesty, but he might genuinely have quoted only a part of a relevant passage and not that in which we were interested.
Before you resumed the Chair, Sir, I was asking whether the passage which my hon. Friend was quoting mentioned television, because I wanted to speak about television when taking part in the debate. I am not sure whether television is mentioned and hence I do not know whether I would be in order in referring to it. With great respect, therefore, I ask you seriously to consider accepting a Motion to report Progress and ask leave to sit again. [HON. MEMBERS: "Adjourn."] No; adjournment of the House would not give you, Mr. Speaker, an opportunity of giving a decision on this question.

§ Mr. Marsh
Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker.

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. Perhaps the hon. Member would allow me to answer the point which has been put to me.
I do not know, because nobody has told me what is the document that was referred to, what its date was, and what was the reference that was made to it, whether I can discover whether it is relevant to the discussion. If the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) referred to the document, perhaps he could help me.

§ Mr. Loughlin
I made reference in the first instance to the Licence and Agreement dated 12th June, 1952, which 582 this Licence and Agreement dated 6th November, 1961, supersedes, and which expires in June, 1962.
The Licence and Agreement presented to us this evening incorporates many of the provisions contained in the Licence and Agreement of 1952. This is the only document from which I have been quoting. The other document to which reference is made in this Licence and Agreement is the Charter of the B.B.C.
Those are the two documents about which questions have been asked during the course of these hour-long submissions. I appear to be the only hon. Member who has both documents.

§ Mr. Speaker
I am not concerned about the Charter. Is the substance of this that the document which this new Licence and Agreement purports to amend is dated from 10 years ago, and is not available for hon. Members?

§ Mr. Christopher Mayhew (Woolwich, East)
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I think that both sides of the House agree that this is an important subject. We have to debate the whole question of the continuance of the B.B.C. It is already eleven o'clock, but because of the muddle caused by the Government Front Bench, the debate has not yet begun.
I appeal to the Leader of the House to see whether we can have a proper debate on this vitally important subject, perhaps at an earlier hour, when the documents are available. We shall then be able to do justice to an extremely important subject.
If we go on now without the documents, having made this bad start we shall not be able to do justice to a subject which hon. Members on both sides of the House consider to be important. In fact, I scarcely feel that it is fair to the Corporation if the whole debate is mismanaged in this manner. I appeal to the Leader of the House to accept the Motion for the adjournment of this debate.

§ Mr. Marsh
rose—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. I think that the hon. Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew) began his observations by addressing me on a point of order. They wandered off into a precatory appeal to the Leader of the House.

§ Mr. Lipton
The Leader of the House can help us if he wants to.

§ Mr. Speaker
I do not think that it would be appropriate for the right hon. Gentleman to answer a point of order addressed to me.
I would be assisted if I knew that the Ministry would accept responsibility under our procedure in the ordinary way for seeing that some document specifically amended by a document before the House, and more than two years old, was available to hon. Members. I think it fair to hear the Minister about that, if he wishes to say something.

§ Mr. Lipton
There is a further point, Mr. Speaker. In addition to the Charter, or deed, or Licence, or Agreement, of 10th June, 1952, there are Supplemental Agreements of the 1st February, 1957, and 2nd June, 1960, which may also be relevant, and which we ought to have.

§ Mr. Speaker
I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman about that. There must be a sensible limit.

§ Mr. M. Foot
Further to that point of order—

§ Mr. Speaker
For the moment, I am on my feet. The general principle which I think we follow on such matters in quite a lot of instances is that where a specific enacting document as it were addressed to the House amends, and, according to the date rule which I have been stating, is subject to reference, then I think that the document to be amended should be available to hon. Members.

§ Mr. Bevins
Mr. Speaker, may I with respect say that I have already laid a copy of the Licence and Agreement dated 6th November, 1961. As I said before, I have already laid a draft of the Royal Charter. The two are the principal documents which are varied by these two contemporary documents and were laid before this House ten years ago. In fact, I think that in both cases it was in July, 1952, which is almost ten years ago.

§ Mr. Lipton
What about the supplementary Agreements?

§ Mr. Bevins
With respect, I should not have thought that after that long time it was necessary to re-lay these 584 documents at the present time, especially as they are available in the Library.

§ Mr. Speaker
I did not make myself plain. The point is not the re-laying but that copies should be available for the use of the House in the course of a debate which is to discuss the process of amending. That is the point I had in mind. I do not know whether the Minister desires to speak about that.

Hon. Members
Answer.

§ Mr. Michael Stewart (Fulham)
Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker—

Hon. Members
Answer.

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. I am being addressed and I want to hear the hon. Member.

§ Mr. Stewart
I deliberately delayed rising to see whether the Minister was going to rise. If the right hon. Gentleman gives the slightest indication of being willing to do so, I will sit down immediately.

§ Mr. Bevins
I am only too anxious to help the House. I should like to make clear that many of the provisions of the 1952 Licence remain and continue to run, despite the new Licence and Agreement.

§ Mr. Stewart
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You have been extremely helpful to us in this matter, and to the whole House, and I think that the judgment that you have just given is of considerable importance. It is because the Minister seems so unwilling to follow the clear implication of what you have said, Mr. Speaker, that I think it would be reasonable for us to ask whether you would consider that a Motion, That the debate be now adjourned, would be reasonable at the present time.
May I develop that argument? You have told us, Mr. Speaker, that when there is a debate in which there is bound to be considerable reference to a document and that document is more than two years old, we should normally regard it as the responsibility of the Government to see that copies of the document were available to hon. Members. I think I am right in saying that that was the substance of your Ruling. Those are clearly the conditions in this case. 585 It is quite impossible to discuss Command Paper 1537 without constant and repeated references to the documents known as the Licence and the Agreement which are so described in inverted commas at the bottom of page 3 of Command Paper 1537. That is the point. This is not a case of a document which is referred to casually once. We cannot discuss this without constant reference to the Licence and the Agreement.
The Minister has said that he did not think it necessary to make available again a document laid so long ago. But, in saying that, he shows a complete misconception of the nature of your Ruling. If the document which was needed for the debate had been laid in the last two years the Minister could reasonably say that hon. Members could obtain it under the ordinary procedure for documents laid as recently as two years ago.
It is exactly because it was laid as long as ten years ago, and is not therefore available in the Vote Office in the ordinary manner, that a special responsibility rests—as you have just told us, Mr. Speaker—on the Minister to see that copies of it were available to hon. Members for the purposes of this debate. Since that responsibility has clearly not been discharged, it surely is not reasonable to ask hon. Members to continue the debate now? I therefore wish to ask you whether you would be willing to accept a Motion, That the debate be now adjourned?

§ Mr. Speaker
I will come to the hon. Member's last remarks in a moment, but I hope that the actual words which I uttered off the cuff—because this will apply in other instances—will not be expanded beyond what I said. I hope that I made the position plain; that what I was thinking about was that if a document submitted to the House for its decision expressly made amendment to a given other document, then sufficient copies of that other document should be available. I did not extend it to other matters that may be referred to. That would be much too vague and wide a class of documents.

§ The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Iain Macleod)
In this matter I am anxious, of course, to avoid all possible embarrassment, particularly to the Chair.
586 The position, as the House knows, is that we have before us Command Papers 1536 and 1537. The House is asked in a Motion standing in the name of my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to approve the Licence and Agreement dated 6th November, 1961—which is Command 1537—and which makes some reference to Command 1536. There are other references which go back to 1926 and to other Charters, particularly to 1952.
I have always understood the sense of the Ruling over the last two Sessions to mean that these documents were not necessarily made available, but if there is any doubt, and it is clear from what you have said, Sir, that there is doubt, I am very ready, if I may, to ask your leave to accept a Motion to adjourn the debate. Therefore, I beg to move, That the debate be now adjourned.