HC Deb 13 December 1966 vol 738 cc397-415

10.48 p.m.

Mr. Iain Macleod (Enfield, West)

I beg to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Temporary Restrictions on Pay Increases (20th July 1966 Levels) (No. 2) Order 1966 (S.I., 1966, No. 1380), dated 4th November 1966, a copy of which WAS laid before this House on 4th November, be annulled. I must take a few minutes of the time left to protest at the way the Government have conducted business today. This is the last day on which it is possible to move this Prayer, it cannot be postponed, and the debate has to stop at 11.30. In so far as business was in the control of the Opposition, we gave the Government, exactly on schedule, the Third Reading of the London Government Bill at 7 o'clock, even though many hon. Members on this side still wanted to speak. As compensation for that, they have put down three affirmative Resolutions, have talked on them at interminable length, and have made quite certain that this Motion does not get the attention tonight that it deserves.

I spoke to the Leader of the House across the Floor of the House and asked that Prayers which relate to Part IV of the Prices and Incomes Act should be taken as first Order of the Day, at 3.30 p.m. He was sympathetic at the time, although he has felt himself unable to meet this request. I would say, in his absence—no doubt, he will take the opportunity of reading it—and in my mildest manner, that if the Opposition, on matters like this, are to be treated with such discourtesy, we will take our own methods, which are open to an Opposition to ensure that these matters are properly discussed.

I turn from that, because of the short age of time, to outline the story which lies behind this Order. I am glad that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour is to reply to the debate. I spent a large part of the summer complaining that the Ministry of Labour was doing things that it ought not to do and not doing things which it ought to do. Because the Ministry and the Minister have had such an important part to play in this, it is right that the Parliamentary Secretary, whom we very much welcome to the debate, should reply.

I will give the story, as I understand it, as quickly as I can. The Order affects the pay of 25,000 national newspaper workers and about 4,500 distribution workers in London and the provinces, or, in round figures, about 30,000 people. The agreement was made in the early months of 1964, to run to September, 1967, and, as the Parliamentary Secretary will agree, an agreement which runs for 3½ years is very much welcomed by the Ministry of Labour because it imports an element of stability—if the agreement is kept, anyway—into the wage negotiations for that industry.

There were two parts to the agreement, first, that the basic pay should go up by 10 per cent., which it did on 1st April, 1964, and second, that there should be cost-of-living quarterly increases based on movements of the Retail Prices Index. I will not bother the House with the calculations, but the net result was that a bonus of 2s. 0d. per week became payable to most workers—I think it was 6s. 0d. to some—from 1st September, 1966. What we are considering, therefore, is a normal cost-of-living bargain. In all, there are, perhaps, something like 2½ million workers whose wages are linked either directly or, as in this case, for a subsidiary part of their income, to the Retail Prices Index, popularly called the cost of living.

It is perfectly true that the Prices and Incomes Board, in August, 1965, looking at this and allied problems, recommended that such agreements should be abandoned, but the wishes of Mr. Aubrey Jones are not the law of the land any more than are the wishes of Ministers, a point to which I shall return later.

To resume my account of events, the Minister of Labour, on 23rd August, said that this agreement, sealed, signed and, beyond argument, enforceable in the courts, was inappropriate, even though a clear contractual obligation existed, and he invited the unions to meet him to discuss the matter. The unions refused to meet the Minister of Labour, and I am bound to say that I sympathise with the unions. Things have come to a pretty pass when unions in this country, should be summoned to St. James's Square to have it explained to them why a properly negotiated wage agreement would be broken. The unions declined to take part in any such charade. The Newspaper Proprietors' Association and the unions concerned suggested they should pay the amount which would arise from this bonus into a special fund which could be used for charitable or for training purposes.

I should have thought this to be a convenient way out. The Minister of Labour, as I understand it, almost incredibly, rejected this as being against the spirit of the standstill. Finally, under pressure from the unions, and, no doubt, with the case in mind which was decided in the Edmonton County Court, the N.P.A., on 30th September, agreed to pay, and at the same time, it issued a statement accusing the Government of failing to implement Part IV to protect the employers.

Normally, almost any accusation against this Government has my warm and partisan support, but I greet this particular comment with a good deal of cynicism, first, because more than one of the newspaper proprietors concerned had been pressing very hard in their own papers for the implementation of Part IV and, secondly, because I am sure they found it extremely convenient not to have to pay the wages which they had contracted to pay at an earlier date.

The Newspaper proprietors found it convenient to pull this lever themselves, and the Government, obediently enough, danced to their tune. In due course, after what I can only regard as a farce of consultation and considering representations, the Government made the Order, which came into force on 4th November. The employees were, in effect, pinned to the level of wages as at 20th July this year, the date of the Prime Minister's statement.

It is worth noting that two house agreements with the London Evening News have been exempted from the Minister of Labour's fiat, or, rather, the First Secretary of State's fiat, and exempted for a rather curious reason. They were exempted because they were introduced in good faith, and the N.P.A. was told on the telephone, shortly after 20th July, that the increases would qualify for exemption on the ground that they raised output.

I do not doubt that this extremely sensible civil servant of the D.E.A. has been suitably reprimanded, because everyone knows that it is not the Government's intention to raise output, and he was probably wrong in giving that undertaking. But, be that as it may, these two agreements, and these two alone, escape what the Parliamentary Secretary will, no doubt, in due course recommend.

I think that that is an accurate account of the history. We must be quite clear as a House of Commons that this is a story of a breach of faith forced by this Government. We are not considering tonight the whole of Government policy. We are not considering even the 6 million workers who are alleged to have had some hope of future reward when the chopper came down on 20th July. We are considering, in respect of 30,000 workers, whether a legally enforceable agreement entered into before 20th July should be met, or whether we should authorise employers to break their word and breach their agreements. This is the issue.

In my view, it is immaterial whether the number of workers affected is 30,000, as it is here, whether it is 120, as it was last week when we considered the Order made in respect of the Thorn Electrical supervisors and A.S.S.E.T., or even whether it is a single man—if the First Secretary of State ever does anything like this—whose remuneration the right hon. Gentleman, for reasons which seem good to him, wishes to hold back. If it be a breach of faith, it is not an answer that either a small or a large number of people are involved. The House must make up its mind whether this is or is not a breach of faith. The evidence seems to me o be overwhelming that, in fact, it is.

The answer always beloved of the Ministries concerned is that, if one lets this one through the net, there will be repercussions. Ministers ought never to accept this argument provided that they are satisfied that it would be right in any given instance to accede to the request put before them.

In short, my case is that agreements should be kept, and I still find it incredible that it should be the Ministry of Labour, of all Ministeries, which is leading the hunt to break that sort of agreement. It is often said that there are differences between the present standstill and the pause of, say, 1961 or 1962. But during that pause, or indeed any other during the 13 years of our power, we never broke agreements, and we never encouraged people to break agreements. That is one of the major distinctions between the exercise in pause or standstill which I recognise that all Governments may well have to indulge in from time to time and the one before the House in this particular form at the moment, which is a deliberate encouragement to a breach of faith.

There is a widespread illusion, referred to by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Sir J. Hobson) in the debate on the Thorn Order a week ago, that in some curious way the Government have instituted a legal freeze upon incomes. Of course, that is not true. The position is that it is perfectly legal to raise any salary, any wage, any dividend, any price. The risk is that the First Secretary in his wisdom, or lack of it, may then chastise one with an Order. It is then the right of the Opposition, which as we can see from the passage of time can be almost taken away from them, to use their Parliamentary methods to protest against it.

I have been asked many times these past weeks what people should do in a particular instance. Sometimes it is the case of one man who may have an agreement about Christmas bonuses, sometimes it is a much more important matter. I have always given the same answer, "Act as a good employer". Before tonight, I would have thought that that doctrine was incontestable on either side of the House. It is a fantastic state of affairs that the Ministry of Labour, again, of all Ministries, should be mobilised to contest that proposition.

The standard explanation for an Order like this is that it is in some way fair that people should be blackguarded for asking for their legal rights. The Government's position is that it is fair that legal agreements should be broken. I very much hope that the House would reject not only the Order, but the thinking that lies behind that proposition, because the Government seem to me to be both quixotic and irrational in this. Some agreements escape the net and others—this, the Thorn agreement, the blast furnacemen, and those on the Order Paper—do not. Why should we single them out when agreements, for example, made by the Morgan Crucible firm, Acrow and others have—in my view absolutely rightly—escaped with, at the most, a word of reprimand.

It seems to me very strange that the Ministry of Labour should do even that, because it is a very odd state of affairs when the Minister of Labour stumps up and down the country urging people not to pay higher wages for higher productivity. That is the inevitable result of Part IV of the Prices and Incomes Act, and the subsequent Orders that are before the House.

Therefore, I ask the Parliamentary Secretary: why do the Government always attack only agreements made by the unions? Why should not agreements made by others than union members be affected by the Government's policy, unless of course—and this may be so—the deliberate encouragement of non-unionism is now a new item of the Government's policy?

The whole range of salary earners is left untouched by the legislation and by the Orders which we have been considering and that which we are considering. Where the labour force is under 200 people the Minister of Labour is not interested. Indeed, provided those concerned neither go to law nor make a public fuss about it, the odds are that the Ministry of Labour and the First Secretary will never hear about it. I do not doubt that thousands of such agreements are being made and many of them, on my good employer thesis, properly so.

Tonight we must decide the particular case, not the general. What we have to decide is whether we as a House of Commons, should throw our shield over some of the wealthiest owners and proprietors in the country and allow them, indeed order them, to break their word. This seems to be a very odd piece of Socialism, and is a very bad piece of legislation. I hope that the House will reject it.

11.0 p.m.

Mr. J. J. Mendelson (Penistone)

I want to put two points to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary before she replies. I have followed this matter with care and looked at some of the papers involved, and I find that one of the most difficult items in the sequence of events is the kind of discussions which went on during one of the meetings which were attended by the representatives of the unions, the employers and the Minister.

Apparently, and my hon. Friend will correct me if I am wrong, although I think that my source is quite accurate, at some time during the discussion a majority of employers—they were not unanimous, and to that extent I do not accept the facts as stated by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Enfield, West (Mr. McLeod) —were in favour of either paying the cost of living payment or setting up a special fund. They were told that they could do neither.

This refers back to one of the debates that we had late at night in the House, when I asked my right hon. Friend, the then Minister of State for Economic Affairs, why it was not possible, in the case of the railwaymen who had their 3½ per cent. increase stopped, or in the case of other groups of workpeople, to say that the Government could not allow the money to be paid now in consideration of the policy that they were pursuing, but that they would see to it that from the appropriate day, those sums, very important to the people concerned, would be paid into a special fund and at some time would be released to them.

I made the point then, and I repeat it now, that it seemed to some of us to be a very grave injustice that there should be the posssibility of other people, not in a similar position as these workpeople, enjoying increases during the period of standstill, while, for these workpeople, the money was lost for ever. This is particularly important, bearing in mind the previous experiences of unemployment and short-time working that these people have had. How can my right hon. Friend the Minister, and the Government defend what is happening now in view of the fact that the Government have declared that nothing can be done about dividends?

In passing, I would say that any reference to dividends was a notable absentee from the detailed and comprehensive speech of the right hon. Gentleman. [Interruption.] Hon. Members must bear with me. I do not want to speak too long. There was a deafening silence from the right hon. Gentleman when he failed to make any reference to dividends. He made other comparisons, but dividends are the most important of all, because, at the present time, the Government say that they cannot control them. The Opposition support that. They do not want dividends touched.

Mr. F. A. Burden (Gillingham)

On a point of order. Is it not quite wrong to refer to dividends when the Order makes no mention of them?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: (Sir Eric Fletcher)

I do not think that, so far, the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson) is out of order.

Mr. Mendelson

I intend to return to my main point, but I was saying, in passing, that there was a notable absence of reference to dividends in the right hon. Gentleman's speech, and this shows the hollowness of the Opposition's case.

They have no right to talk about this at all. They must come with clean hands if they want to join this argument. The point about dividends is relevant, because, if the Government say officially that they cannot control them, obviously people receiving dividend increases will be able to get away with it. But this is not where the story ends.

We know that there are certain salary groups which have annual increments. If I had stayed in my previous profession —I know that some hon. Members may wish me to return to it—I would have benefited by these arrangements. I should have had annual increments. It is noticeable that this argument was also absent from the right hon. Gentleman's catalogue. Considerable numbers of people are involved. They will have their increments paid to them, but the railwaymen, or the printers, involved in this Order, will not get their modest increases. The money lost will be gone forever and there will be no redress.

My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary should have the longest possible time to reply to the debate and there is a serious case to be answered. I therefore conclude by saying that I know she will reply that this is Government policy. I do not put this criticism at her door personally. This is a major policy decision of the Government. It has grave consequences for all those who have to carry it out, but I cannot understand how, in this situation, when that meeting took place at the Ministry, my right hon. Friend could have accepted this advice from the Government and could have given the advice he did to the employers —that in no circumstances must they create a special fund.

My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary gave me no reply when I put this question to him before. I hope that, tonight, my right hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will do so, because, as she knows, not only the 30,000 work-people involved in this Order, but the whole of the trade union movement will be interested in her answer.

My hon. Friend must not be persuaded otherwise by the votes taken at the T.U.C. or other conferences. I remind her that all the T.U.C. did was to acquiesce reluctantly in the policy she has to defend tonight. [Interruption.] I am not interested in interventions from Members who have so clearly shown that they are very easily provoked into hostility to the trade union movement on so many occasions. I am addressing my argument not to the Opposition, but to my hon. Friend. The answer which my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary failed to give me on that previous occasion she must give tonight.

11.10 p.m.

Mr. Angus Maude (Stratford-on-Avon)

I hope that it will not be considered too digressive and irrelevant, following the speech of the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson), if I talk for a moment about the wages of printers and people concerned with newspapers. It is sometimes difficult to remember, when one is talking in general terms about the prices and incomes freeze, that one is dealing, when an Order comes up, with specific people who are affected in specific ways.

I felt emboldened to speak because I have been a journalist of one sort or another for very many years. I started my working life as a young journalist working side by side with printers and compositors. I have in my time been a newspaper editor and employed both journalists and printers. There is no doubt that restrictive practices and the inflationary pressure of printers' wages have been a problem in journalism for many years. We all know that it is a problem, but it will not be solved by the means which the Government seek to apply.

This has been the case with every one of the Orders which the Government have produced under the Prices and Incomes Act, and it is likely to be so if the number of Orders stretches on to the crack of doom. This is simply not something which the Government can take away from the normal bargaining machinery. It is not something which the Government can remove from employers and trade unions. It is not something which can be dealt with by a blanket nonselective measure of this kind.

However unsatisfactory the results of the bargaining machinery may have been in the specific cases, the Government will only make them worse if they try to intervene in it. We have seen innumerable cases of this kind. We know that there are grave dangers of inflation whenever a wage claim is put forward, whenever employers are forced, by force majeure, to give way to it. But the fact remains that if the Government try to take out of the hands of the two sides to whom the employers, on the one hand, and thousands of trade unionists, on the other, have been content to give the power to bargain, the result will be, in the long run, not merely more inflationary than the situation we had before, but will result in a deteioration of industrial relations and confidence over the whole field.

Take the case with which we are dealing. Newspapers are perhaps one of the industries most at risk from an industrial stoppage, a dispute of any kind, not merely because they depend to an enormous extent on the good will of the public and advertisers, but because, however great may be the divergence of opinion between the two sides, whether it be the proprietors and journalists, or the proprietors and printers, there is underlying all this a basic feeling among proprietors, management, journalists, printers, distributors, drivers—everyone who makes up the complicated business of producing a newspaper—a kind of esprit de corps which survives.

I remember, when I was a very young journalist, working as a sub-editor. It sometimes occurred to me that if a crisis occurred at two o'clock in the morning and I had to stay until six o'clock in the morning, it was perhaps a bit hard that the compositor or stone-hand who worked beside me was getting heavy overtime for staying until six o'clock while I was getting nothing and he was earning £11 a week and I was getting only £6. Nevertheless, he and I both knew that we were producing a newspaper which was more important than either of us and that we had a duty to the public which we were both, in our own ways, serving.

Whatever may be the divergences, whatever may be the industrial disputes that go on in newspapers, somehow or other they are surmounted, the newspapers go on coming out, and in the end it is better to leave it to the proprietors, the journalists and the printers, than for any National Board for Prices and Incomes, or any Minister, or any economist, or any sociologist, or whatever it may, to think that they know better than those who are engaged in this operation.

Mr. William Price (Rugby)

I speak as a member of the National Union of Journalists, which, I suspect, the hon. Gentleman is not. Would he explain why, if managements are so well able to look after their affairs, so many newspapers are closing down?

Mr. Maude

I find it a little difficult to see the relevance of that question to what we are discussing. If it were to be relevant or in order, it would presumably follow that the hon. Gentleman is trying to show that Government intervention to break an agreement between management and workers, whether professional or manual, in the newspaper industry will somehow keep newspapers alive. The only result which is likely from this is to accelerate the demise of a number of newspapers which are precariously hanging on at the moment.

Mr. William Price

Incompetence.

Mr. Maude

When the hon. Gentleman reads this exchange in HANSARD tomorrow he will find that he is arguing on precisely the wrong end of the argument.

In view of the general problem which the Government have landed themselves with in Part IV of the Act, there is not the slightest doubt that all that they will do is to pile up for themselves in the future an increasing amount of trouble, and the more Orders that they succeed in forcing through the House in the meantime the greater the trouble they are likely to pile up for themselves in the future.

Taking one by one the sorts of things which the Government might be trying to do in the national interest, one finds inevitably that the results which are likely will be absolutely the reverse of what the Government purport to be doing. For example, what they purport to be doing, presumably, in the first place, is to halt a cost inflation—to halt at least a wage inflation. If the Government really wanted above all other things to halt a wage inflation, to prevent inflation spreading from wages through prices into the cost of living, what they should have done was to select the really inflationary wage increases and try to impose a stop on them.

It cannot conceivably be argued by any stretch of the imagination that the wage increments and increases specified in this Order are inflationary in that sense. We know that they are not. There are some wage increases which spread inevitably and by progression in an inflationary way throughout the whole of the economy. My constituents write to me practically every day about gas increases, electricity increases—numbers of such increases are inflationary, and the results spread throughout the economy. But it cannot be argued that these increases are in the same class. It cannot be argued that it is necessary on any except the most egalitarian, philosophical grounds that because one wants to stop one inflationary increase here one has to stop every non-inflationary increase throughout the economy.

If we really wanted to do this, is this the way to do it? I hope that the hon. Lady will carry out the simple task of telling us precisely what sub-paragraphs (3) and (4) of paragraph 4 of the Order mean. I do not know whether any hon. Member opposite, or any of my hon. Friends, has read those sub-paragraphs with care—if any one of them can lay his hands on his heart and says that he knows what they mean, I shall be very grateful to him. In fact, either of those sub-paragraphs, if presented to any one who is actually involved as an earner or as a wage or salary payer in these industries, would know without the slightest doubt that the whole thing is nonsense. This provision would not make sense to anyone who had to try to interpret it from the point of view of the ordinary man and woman.

The Government are getting themselves, through the Orders they are bringing forward under the Act, into progressively increasing difficulties, and I hope that they will have the sense to realise that the amount of industrial disaffection, the amount of disagreement, not only between Government and industry but between employers and employees, which will result from all this are becoming increasingly serious. I hope that my hon. Friends will decide to divide against the Order.

11.23 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mrs. Shirley Williams

I notice that the hon. Gentleman the Member for—

Mr. Kenneth Lewis (Rutland and Stamford)

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We have had insufficient time in which to debate this matter tonight. Is it within your province to permit the House to continue its discussion or another day, so that we can have a proper debate, and a proper reply from the Minister?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

I am afraid not.

Mrs. Williams

I was anxious to give the fullest amount of time I could to speakers on both sides of the House, but it will be clear that it will be impossible, in the few minutes left, for me to answer all the points that have been raised.

I should like to thank the right hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. lain Macleod) for having told me in advance that he would not be raising legal points. I should also like to express a personal apology to the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Sir J. Hobson) who, in an earlier debate of this kind, raised a number of legal points. I am afraid that, in answering one case clearly, as I thought, I used a phrase that meant something different to him, as a lawyer, than it did to me.

First, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Enfield, West referred to the fact that there had not been sufficient consultation on the particular case that is before the House. Not only was there constant consultation with both sides by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and my right hon. Friend the First Secretary, but the making of the Order was directly held up by the First Secretary for several days to enable the unions involved to consult their own executive committees.

It has been said by the right hon. Gentleman that there were a great many breaches of the standstill and that it was a very unfair policy. In fact, there has been a very large degree of support for the standstill, voluntary support. If the right hon. Gentleman cares to look at the index of wage rates he will see that they have not moved between July and November, and this is directly due to the considerable degree of loyalty being shown by both sides of industry during this difficult period.

In reply to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson), I would point out that dividends are subject to the freeze of 20th July, and, therefore, it is not correct to say that they are not covered at all. Moreover, one of the effects of either allowing the increase which has now been stopped by the Order, or allowing payment to a charitable fund, would be the creation of substantial inflationary pressure which would vitiate the whole purpose of the standstill.

The hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude) referred in a philosophical spirit to the grave dangers of inflation, an approach which I share with him. It is worth pointing out that although the Opposition in this debate, and in the debate on 5th December, have mounted a great case against the Government's prices and incomes policy, they have at no point suggested what they would do in a similar situation. They have not done so in this debate. I have just read the debate on the 5th December and, quite clearly, it was not done on that occasion.

The right hon. Member for Enfield, West has raised all the questions of principle that were discussed in detail at the time of the Prices and Incomes Act and subsequently. On this occasion, perhaps, the best thing to say is that the gravamen of his case was that there should not be a standstill at all. He did not make out his case in much detail, if at all, given that there was a prices and incomes standstill—I accept that there can be great differences in the House about that—on what action the Government should take regarding the minority who refuse to take any notice of the standstill.

I suggest very strongly, that where we have a situation in which the standstill is being voluntarily kept, as this one is, by the great majority on both sides of industry—my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone is prepared to agree that there was reluctant acquiescence to use his phrase, on the part of the Trades Union Congress in this policy—it would be an impossible state of affairs if this policy could be broken by a handful of either employers or unions, as the case might be.

Part IV of the Bill was fully debated in the House. It has been made quite clear—and I repeat—that Part IV falls on 11th August, 1967. There has been much argument about what should succeed the prices and incomes standstill, but it has been made absolutely clear that Part IV falls on that date.

I shall now deal as quickly as I can with one or two of the other points which were raised. I take, first, the suggestion made by the unions and the N.P.A. that there should be payment into a charitable fund. Such a payment of money, charitable fund though it might be, would be a charge on the industry reflected in its labour costs and, without doubt, if the same policy were followed with the other 6 million workers who had pay increases due to them, the final effect would be a substantial inflationary pressure at the end of the prices and incomes standstill period. For this reason, my right hon. Friend felt obliged to tell both sides, on 5th September, that he could not accept this alternative.

No one who criticises the prices and incomes standstill should do so other than against the background of the situation of this country not just in the last few months, but over many years, a situation which has been marked by inflation. The effects of inflation on those living on fixed incomes, on pensions or on low wages are, without doubt, serious. The industry which we are considering tonight is, in fact, one of the highest paid in the country, with average weekly earnings of £28 6s. in April, 1966, for adult male workers compared with an average of £20 19s. a week in manufacturing industry.

We are not, therefore, talking of a case in which the Government have brought in an Order against an industry which could argue that it fell under the criteria for the period of severe restraint. Accordingly, I ask the House to reject the Motion.

Mr. R. Gresham Cooke (Twickenham)

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We have had only a very short debate of three-quarters of an hour on the Prayer. Is there not a procedure whereby you can give a certificate for the debate to be transferred to another day?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

I am governed by the Standing Orders, and, in particular, by Standing Order No. 100 and Standing Order No. 2. Standing Order No. 100 enables Mr. Speaker to adjourn a Motion of this kind if, owing to the lateness of the hour at which consideration of the motion was entered upon, or because of the importance of the subject matter of the motion, the time for debate has not been adequate. There might well be circumstances in which I should feel obliged to exercise my discretion under Standing Order 100, but, on the other hand, I have to consider the effect of Standing Order No. 2, which provides that certain business is exempted business. A Prayer of this kind is exempted business, being a poceeding in pursuance of an Act of Parliament, and the provisions governing the matter enable a Prayer to be put down within 40 praying days.

As today is the last of those days, even if I were to exercise my discretion under Standing Order 100, it would be impossible for the House to debate the matter within the terms of Standing Order No. 2 at any other time. Therefore, I feel that the right course is to put the Question now in order that the House may come to a decision.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell (Wolverhampton, South-West)

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I submit to you that Standing Order No. 2 refers to the moving of the Motion and does not exclude a continuance of debate upon the Motion on a subsequent day consequent upon your exercising your discretion under Standing Order No. 100.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

The difficulty is that, as far as I understand the Standing Orders, there is no machinery which would enable this debate to be resumed as exempted business on any subsequent day. The House would, therefore, be

deprived of the right to come to a decision unless I put the question now.

It being half-past Eleven o'clock, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER put the Question, pursuant to Standing Order No. 100 (Statutory Instruments, &c. (Procedure)).

The House divided: Ayes 111, Noes 170.

Division No. 227.] AYES [11.33 p.m.
Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash) Gower, Raymond Morrison, Charles (Devizes)
Baker, W. H. K. Grant-Ferris, R. Murton, Oscar
Batsford, Brian Gresham Cooke, R. Nabarro, Sir Gerald
Biffen, John Grieve, Percy Neave, Airey
Black, Sir Cyril Gurden, Harold Nott, John
Blaker, Peter Hall-Davis, A. G. F. Onslow, Cranley
Body, Richard Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye) Osborn, John (Hallam)
Brinton, Sir Tatton Hastings, Stephen Page, Graham (Crosby)
Brown, Sir Edward (Bath) Hawkins, Paul Pearson, Sir Frank (Clitheroe)
Bruce-Gardyne, J. Heald, Rt. Hn. Sir Lionel Percival, Ian
Bryan, Paul Heseltine, Michael Pink, R. Bonner
Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N&M) Higgins, Terence L. Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch
Burden, F. A. Hirst, Geoffrey Pym, Francis
Carlisle, Mark Hobson, Rt. Hn. Sir John Quennell, Miss J. M.
Chichester-Clark, R. Holland, Philip Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey
Clegg, Walter Hordern, Peter Roots, William
Cooke, Robert Hornby, Richard Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)
Cordle, John Hunt, John Russell, Sir Ronald
Costain, A. P. Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford) Scott, Nicholas
Crosthwaite-Eyre, Sir Oliver Johnston, Russell (Inverness) Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby)
Davidson, James (Aberdeenshire, W.) Jopling, Michael Smith, John
d'Avigdor-Coldsmid, Sir Henry Kimball, Marcus Steel, David (Roxburgh)
Dean, Paul (Somerset, N.) Knight, Mrs. Jill Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M. (Ripon)
Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F. (Ashford) Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry Taylor, Edward M.(G'gow, Cathcart)
Digby, Simon Wingfield Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland) Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)
Drayson, G. B. Longden, Gilbert Tilney, John
Eden, Sir John Lubbock, Eric Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.
Errington, Sir Eric MacArthur, Ian Walker, Peter (Worcester)
Eyre, Reginald Mackenzie, Alasdair (Ross&Crom'ty) Weatherill, Bernard
Farr, John Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)
Fisher, Nigel Maginnis, John E. Winstanley, Dr. M. P.
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles Marten, Neil Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick
Fortescue, Tim Maude, Angus Worsley, Marcus
Foster, Sir John Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J. Wylie, N. R.
Gibson-Watt, David Mills, Peter (Torrington) Younger, Hn. George
Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.) Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Glover, Sir Douglas More, Jasper TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
Glyn, Sir Richard Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh) Mr. R. W. Elliott and Mr. Anthony Grant.
NOES
Albu, Austen Crawshaw, Richard Forrester, John
Allen, Scholefield Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard Fraser, John (Norwood)
Anderson, Donald Cullen, Mrs. Alice Fraser, Rt. Hn. Tom (Hamilton)
Archer, Peter Dalyell Tam Freeson, Reginald
Armstrong, Ernest Davidson, Arthur (Accrington) Galpern, Sir Myer
Barnett, Joel Davies, Dr. Ernest (Stratford) Gardner, Tony
Baxter, William Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.) Garrett, W. E.
Bence, Cyril Dairies, Ednyfed Hudson (Conway) Gourlay, Harry
Bennett, James (G'gow, Bridgeton) Davies, Harold (Leek) Gray, Dr. Hugh (Yarmouth)
Binns, John Davies, Ifor (Gower) Grey, Charles (Durham)
Bishop, E. S. Dempsey, James Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Blackburn, F. Dewar, Donald Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)
Blenkinsop, Arthur Doig, Peter Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Boardman, H. Dunnett, Jack Haseldine, Norman
Braddock, Mrs. E. M. Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth (Exeter) Hooley, Frank
Bray, Dr. Jeremy Dunwoody, Dr. John (F'th & C'b'e) Howarth, Robert (Bolton, E.)
Brooks, Edwin Eadie, Alex Howell, Denis (Small Heath)
Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan) Ensor, David Howie, W.
Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, W.) Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.) Hoy, James
Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn) Evans, Ioan L. (Birm'h'm, Yardley) Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.) Faulds, Andrew Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green) Fernyhough, E. Hunter, Adam
Coe, Denis Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston) Hynd, John
Coleman, Donald Fletcher, Ted (Darlington) Jackson, Colin (B'h'se & Spenb'gh)
Concannon, J. D. Foot, Sir Dingle (Ipswich) Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Craddock, George (Bradford, S.) Ford, Ben Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham) Mitchell, R. C. (S'th'pton, Test) Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)
Judd, Frank Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe) Slater, Joseph
Kelley, Richard Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw) Small, William
Kenyon, Clifford Moyle, Roland Steele, Thomas (Dunbartonshire, W.)
Kerr, Dr. David (W'worth, Central) Murray, Albert Swingler, Stephen
Lawson, George Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon) Taverne, Dick
Leadbitter, Ted Norwood, Christopher Thornton, Ernest
Lestor, Miss Joan Oakes, Gordon Tinn, James
Lever, Harold (Cheetham) Ogden, Eric Urwin, T. W.
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle) O'Malley, Brian Varley, Eric G.
Lomas, Kenneth Oswald, Thomas Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)
Loughlin, Charles Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, S'tn) Walker, Harold (Doncaster)
Luard, Evan Owen, Will (Morpeth) Watkins, David (Consett)
Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.) Page, Derek (King's Lynn) Wellbeloved, James
McCann, John Palmer, Arthur Wells, William (Walsall, N.)
MacColl, James Parker, John (Dagenham) Whitaker, Ben
Macdonald, A. H. Parkyn, Brian (Bedford) White, Mrs. Eirene
McGuire, Michael Pentland, Norman Whitlock, William
McKay, Mrs. Margaret Price, William (Rugby) Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Mackenzie, Gregor (Rutherglen) Probert, Arthur Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)
Maclennan, Robert Rhodes, Geoffrey Williams, Alan Lee (Hornchurch)
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.) Roberts, Albert (Normanton) Williams, Clifford (Abertillery)
MacPherson, Malcolm Robertson, John (Paisley) Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)
Mahon, Peter (Preston, S.) Robinson, W. O. J. (Walth' stow, E.) Willis, George (Edinburgh, E.)
Mallalieu, J.P.W. (Huddersfield, E.) Rogers, George (Kensington, N.) Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)
Manuel, Archie Rose, Paul Winterbottom, R. E.
Mapp, Charles Ross, Rt. Hn. William Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.
Marquand, David Rowland, Christopher (Meriden) Yates, Victor
Marsh, Rt. Hn. Richard Rowlands, E. (Cardiff, N.)
Millan, Bruce Sheldon, Robert
Miller, Dr. M. S. Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton, N.E.) TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Milne, Edward (Blyth) Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford) Mr. Neil McBride and Mr. Alan Fitch.
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