HC Deb 14 February 1963 vol 671 cc1455-7
2. Mr. Healey

asked the First Secretary of State what decisions he has reached concerning the publication of pledges made by Her Majesty's Ministers in 1953 on the conditions under which the Federation of Central Africa might be dissolved.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Iain Macleod)

I have been asked to reply.

I would refer the hon. Gentleman to the White Paper (Cmnd. 1948) published yesterday.

Mr. Healey

While welcoming publication of the White Paper, may I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman would agree with the judgment of The Times this morning that the Government's argument fails lamentably and that the pledges cannot be denied? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that what concerns us on this side of the House is not so much that Her Majesty's Government should now have broken pledges made in secret by earlier Ministers which contradict constitutions presented to Parliament and ratified, but that these pledges should ever have been made by Her Majesty's Ministers, limiting as they do powers which are vested in this House, and that they should have concealed these pledges from the British Parliament and people until they were revealed in another place 10 years later? Does the right hon. Gentleman really think that this sort of conduct is compatible with the responsibilities of Her Majesty's Ministers?

Mr. Macleod

I do not accept that. I have no direct knowledge of these matters, but I have studied them very carefully indeed. I do not accept what is said in The Times this morning. We always quote The Times when it happens to agree with our own point of view. I entirely disagree with it. I think that the White Paper which has been published makes entirely clear that the discussions related, and only related, to the review and what amendments might be brought about through the review, and it has never been suggested at any time, either to Parliament to anywhere else, in the whole of these 10 years, that a pledge of the nature which the hon. Gentleman suggests existed.

Mr. Healey

But is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the three ex-Ministers concerned all stated in another place in a recent debate that they had made pledges with the same significance as was given to them by Sir Roy Welensky? How can the right hon. Gentleman possibly maintain the position he has just put to the House in view of the statements made in another place by the noble Lords, Lord Chandos, Lord Boyd and Lord Swinton?

Mr. Macleod

There is to be a debate in a few days in another place in which my noble Friends Lord Chandos and Lord Swinton will speak. I cannot anticipate what they will say.

Hon. Members

They have already said it.

Mr. Macleod

That was before the publication of the White Paper. I am certain that at no time has any pledge been given, nor could one have been given, that would limit the freedom of this House.