Clause 1.—(LONDON BOROUGH ELECTIONS.)

HC Deb 13 February 1967 vol 741 cc235-97

Lords Amendments considered.

Lords Amendment: In page 1, line 7, leave out "1967 and".

9.43 p.m.

The Minister of State, Home Department (Miss Alice Bacon)

I beg to move, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

Mr. Speaker

It will be for the convenience of the House if we discussed all the Amendments to Clause 1:

In line 8, leave out "1968" and insert "1971".

In line 9, leave out "1968" and insert "1971".

In line 11, leave out from "1963" to end of line 12 and insert "after the words 'three years' there shall be inserted the words 'except as hereafter provided in this subsection', and after '1967' there shall be inserted the words 'in the year 1971'".

In line 13, leave out subsection (2).

In line 20, leave out "1967".

In line 22, leave out "1968".

In line 24, leave out subsection (4).

Miss Bacon

The effect of these Amendments is that the next London borough elections would take place in May of this year—[Interruption.]—one month after the G.L.C. elections. The borough elections after this will be in 1971 and each third year afterwards. The Act of 1963 provided that two sets of elections, the Greater London Council and borough elections, would eventually take place in the same year and on the same day, but that this year the elections would take place in the same year but at different dates.

As the Bill left this House, this year's London borough elections would have been postponed until 1968, thus providing that the two sets of elections took place in different years—in 1967 and 1968. The Lords Amendments would introduce the change after this year's elections. If they were accepted, there would be two sets of elections this spring a month apart. We believe that the change should be made this year, and in making provision for this we are carrying out the wishes of the majority of the London boroughs.

We have already spent a great deal of time on the matter in this House. The Second Reading of the Bill was passed by 330 to 219, representing the biggest majority of the present Parliament. In Committee, the same Amendment which we are now discussing was moved and discussed for over 7 hours, which was much longer than the Second Reading of the Bill. It is not necessary, therefore, to deal again in detail with all the arguments because the Amendment has been adequately discussed.

I am sorry that their Lordships have made this Amendment, but I feel confidently that the House will express its disagreement in as decisive a manner as in rejecting the Amendment in this House in the first place.

Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter (Kingston-upon-Thames)

The Minister of State has dealt with the Amendments made in another place in a sigularly perfunctory manner. Whether she likes them or not, they raise serious constitutional issues. The right hon. Lady correctly stated their effect. They would preserve the borough elections in London which, under the existing law, are to take place on 11th May this year, when the councillors elected in 1964 to come out of office on that date would have come out of office.

For the right hon. Lady merely to grumble at the length of time taken at earlier stages of this Measure and then, in only a few moments, to commend the rejection of the Amendments which were made after long and careful debate in another place is to show a complete failure to understand the importance of the issue.

I must protest, too, at the extraordinary attitude of the Home Secretary. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where is he?"] He knows perfectly well the constitutional issues which arise. [Interruption.] I am glad to see the Home Secretary arrive and to be able to tell him that such is the perfunctory manner in which his Minister of State has moved the rejection of the Lords Amendments that he has not even had the privilege of hearing her.

I am sorry that the Home Secretary has not himself thought fit to move the rejection of the Lords Amendments and to show that he at least understands that to deprive 5½ million electors of a vote to which they are entitled under the present law is a serious matter. To put up a junior Minister to move the Motion in half-a-dozen sentences is completely to disregard the seriousness of the matter.

The right hon. Lady is the proper object of sympathy in being asked to do the Home Secretary's dirty work for him.

I recall the words of Lord Birkenhead that, To a man of spirit, the receiver of stolen goods is a more contemptible figure than the original thief.

Mr. Marcus Lipton (Brixton)

That is irrelevant.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

To have a suggestion of irrelevancy from the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) is a tribute, because he is a master of that art.

This is the moment of truth for the Government. The Lords Amendments do not—and the right hon. Lady did not dare suggest that they did—affect the purported object of the Bill. That object, as we were told by the Home Secretary in a very long speech on Second Reading, was to separate the elections from 1970 onwards when, under the present law, they would have fallen on the same day. That, which the Government spokesman in another place also said was the main object of the Bill, is not affected at all by the Amendments made in another place. All that is done is to effect that change by another method which has the manifest advantage of not extending the mandate of elected persons, due to expire on 11th May, for a further year.

The action of the Government in moving to reject those Amendments shows that they are prepared deliberately to use Parliamentary time, as the right hon. Lady herself complained, in order to achieve their claimed purpose by the one method which denies to local government electors the right to vote this May which otherwise inures to them under the present law.

The Government are selecting deliberately the one method of separating the dates which has that result. That makes it clear that all the argument which we heard about the Committee of Town Clerks and the inconvenience of elections on the same day is a smoke- screen and that the real undisclosed object of the Bill is to do what the Lords Amendments would have prevented them from doing; that is to say, to postpone the elections due in less than three months' time. The persistence of the Government makes that absolutely clear.

The objects are obvious. The House will recall that, when the present councils were elected in the spring of 1964, support for hon. Gentlemen opposite was at its peak. The decline which led to the virtual stalemate of the General Election in 1964 had not begun.

As hon. Gentlemen know perfectly well, it is equally clear that, if there were elections this May, the results would be very different. Hon. Gentlemen will have studied the recent survey undertaken by the Evening News showing a swing of some 5 per cent. in London from the position when the borough council elections took place in the spring of 1964. That is a swing which would be enough to deprive the party opposite of control of at least half a dozen boroughs.

That that is the object of rejecting the Lords Amendments is now plain. It can be the only object of supporting a method of separating the election dates which involves that postponement, and of rejecting methods which avoid it. That seems to us to be wholly wrong, and precisely the kind of thing which another place exists to rectify.

All constitutional students will say that one of the major purposes of having a second Chamber is that attempts to "fiddle" elections by a temporary party majority in the lower House can be checked and restrained. In my opinion, the other place was right to take the action which it did in making Amendments which, I stress, do not frustrate the declared objects of the Bill but, at the same time, protect the rights of electors.

Mr. Stanley Orme (Salford, West)

Does not the right hon. Gentleman think it extraordinary that he should be eulogising the merits of the other place with regard to elections when they have none themselves?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

If the hon. Gentleman has studied seriously the constitutional textbooks, if he likes to study the one which the Leader of the House is rewriting, he will know that one of the main purposes of having a second Chamber, non-elected itself, is to prevent abuse of power by a temporary majority in the elected Chamber rigging elections in order to continue its power unconstitutionally. This is one of the major purposes—perhaps the major purpose—of a non-elected revising Chamber, and I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to bring that out perhaps a little more fully than I should otherwise have done

Dr. David Kerr (Wandsworth, Central)

Would the right hon. Gentleman please explain to the House why the other place failed to fulfil that job when the London Government Act was still a Bill before it?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

Certainly. To which London Government Act is the hon. Gentleman referring? [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker

Order. The debate must proceed properly.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

Is the hon. Gentleman referring to the 1963 Act?

Dr. David Kerr

Yes.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

If the hon. Gentleman applies his undoubted talents to that matter, he will see that there are two fundamental differences in the situation. One is that there were structural and administrative changes—indeed, hon. Gentlemen opposite complained of the extent of them—which created a strong physical necessity for postponement. Secondly, and more important, there was all-party agreement on it.

What is objectionable about this proposal is that there is no administrative reorganisation necessitating it in any shape at all. There is no reconstruction, and no reorganisation, and there is no party agreement about it either. I think the hon. Gentleman will agree that those are two profound distinctions, and if he wants to study precedent I ask him to study the precedent of Mr. Chuter Ede, as he then was, in 1948. At the time of the Representation of the People Bill he did not show an unusually meticulous disregard for the interests of the Labour Party. No one would accuse him of that, but he did provide in that Measure precisely what another place has provided in this Measure, that the de-synchronisa- tion of elections should be achieved by providing that the borough councillors to be elected in future should be elected for four years.

Miss Bacon

rose—

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

The Minister of State did not give way to me on the previous occasion, but I shall show her greater courtesy.

Miss Bacon

Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that the London Government Act of 1963 was an agreed Measure?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

I suggested nothing of the sort, nor did the right hon. Lady understand me to do so. I made it clear that the postponement of elections in so far as it was effected in the outer areas was not a disputed Measure in this House, and the right hon. Lady knows that perfectly well.—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker

Order. I am interested in this argument, and I want to hear it.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

My hon. Friends are wronging the right hon. Lady. She is quite capable of understanding it, and I must stand up for her in this respect.

There are one or two further points about this and the action of the other place. No one will contend that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite have a mandate for this. Did they put it in their election addresses at the General Election that one of the first things a Labour Government would do would be to deprive the borough council electors of London of voting for a year? They have not a scrap of mandate for it, and they know it.

Secondly, I would commend in particular to the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) the fact that the Amendments now in the Bill were supported in another place by those who speak for his party there. I cannot quote what Lord Ogmore said, since he is not a Minister, but his reasons were sincerely and clearly stated in another place on behalf of the Liberal Party. So both Opposition parties in another place objected to this method of postponing the borough council elections, which the Bill as it came to them embodied and of which, as it left them, it was clear.

10.0 p.m.

I ask the House and the right hon. Lady to consider the position of councillors of all parties in London borough councils if the Amendments are rejected and the elections are postponed. Councillors know, as their electors know, that at the time of their election they were elected to serve until 11th May, 1967, and that if they continue in office after that date they will be continuing beyond the term for which their electors elected them. Many of them, for reasons that I have given, will know that had there been an election their services would have been dispensed with. They will know that they have been kept in office against the wishes of the majority of the electors in their constituencies because the Labour Government decided to use the overriding power of Parliament to impose them on their constituencies.

They will have no popular mandate and no popular authority; they will be there to administer local government functions, imposing rates on their fellow citizens not because those fellow citizens have elected them but often against the wishes of those fellow citizens; they will know that they are there because they are the kept creatures of the Labour Home Secretary and the political manipulators of the London Labour Party.

I beg hon. Members opposite to reflect for a moment: if these proposals go through in the shape which the Government wish will they not be setting a very dangerous precedent for the future? It is a classical technique of a dictator—[Interruption.] If hon. Members opposite doubt that, are they forgetting that Hitler was elected in Germany at an election at which he obtained a majority and which he took good care should be the last election. It is very dangerous to begin postponing elections because they are inconvenient. If the Government get away with this they may proceed similarly to postpone the implementation of the recommendations of the Parliamentary Boundary Commission, because they know, too, that the implementation of its recommendations would be harmful to the interests of the Labour Party.

If the Government, already showing authoritarian tendencies and a disregard for the liberty of the citizen and the electorate, are permitted to get away with this and to hold certain London boroughs not by popular election but by Parliamentary vote, we shall have established a sad and unhappy precedent.

Mr. Arthur Lewis (West Ham, North)

On a point of order. Mr. Speaker, when a question has been fully and adequately discussed is it not the case that a Member is not allowed to indulge in tedious repetition? In the Second Reading debate and on all the stages of this Bill the argument now being adduced has been put forward ad nauseam. That being so, is it in order now to put forward the same argument and debate the same subject? Will you consider a Motion, "That the Question be now put", in view of the fact that this subject has been dealt with repeatedly?

Mr. Speaker

If the end purpose of the hon. Member's point of order is that the Question be now put, then my answer is that I am not prepared to accept that Motion. If the hon. Member is calling my attention to the fact that at various stages of a Bill, including this one, arguments are repeated, then that is not unknown in the history of Parliament. I have to judge when repetition becomes tedious or when a speech becomes tedious repetition. It must be tedious and repetitive before I can interfere.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

I take seriously any implied rebuke by the hon. Gentleman, whose diligence in his Parliamentary duties has been so admired, sometimes from a distance.

Mr. T. L. Iremonger (Ilford, North)

On a point of order. Since my right hon. Friend seems to be so well informed, who is the hon. Gentleman who just raised that point of order? [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker

Order. The hon. Member knows that that is not a point of order.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

I will tell my hon. Friend afterwards. I certainly plead guilty to consistency in arguments on this matter, because the House knows, and I make no apology for it, that my hon. and right hon. Friends and I have at every stage fought a proposal which we believe to be anti-democratic, to be a denial of the rights of the electors and to be a dangerous precedent for the future. I am glad to have the endorsement of the hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis) on this matter, for the Conservative Party will fight the authoritarianism embodied in this Measure as my hon. Friends and I will fight every similar action on the part of hon. Gentlemen opposite.

Mr. Lipton

If there was ever a demonstration of artificial thunder and fury signifying nothing, we have just had one in that display by the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter). [HON. MEMBERS: "Go on."] There is no need for me to go on for very long to dispose of the right hon. Gentleman's case.

The Opposition is in desperate need of an issue with which to set on fire the electors of the London boroughs. Hon. Gentlemen opposite have tried desperately to build up this campaign, but even the Conserative newspapers have taken no notice of their efforts. It must be a terrible experience for them. Their histrionics and polysyllabic polemics are having no impact whatever on the great mass of London electors. I have not had one letter from my Conservative constituents—of whom there are still a few thousand—protesting against the postponement of the borough council elections.

Hon. Gentlemen opposite must accept that the people of London are, by and large, well satisfied in their respective boroughs with their present administrations. The only people with whom I have some sympathy are those who reside in Conservative-controlled boroughs and who will be denied the opportunity of creating Labour majorities in those boroughs for another 12 months. But we are patient people. We are willing to wait for another 12 months before capturing all the other Conservative-controlled boroughs in the Greater London area. Although we are patient—[Interruption.]—I urge hon. Gentlemen opposite not to press us too far; and despite their obvious dislike of these remarks—

Mr. Speaker

Order. We cannot debate in noise.

Mr. Lipton

I am used to this kind of unintelligent noise from hon. Gentlemen opposite. It does not worry me and I am sorry that you are having to worry on my behalf, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker

I am not worried on behalf of the hon. Member. I am worried on behalf of Parliament.

Mr. Lipton

The right hon. Gentleman complained that the speech of my right hon. Friend the Minister of State was perfunctory. That is all that this debate merits. The Opposition have chewed this thing until it is a disconnected piece of rag in which no one is any longer interested. I shall therefore try to be as perfunctory as my right hon. Friend and say that the argument adduced by hon. Members opposite is a lot of nonsense, not worth a pinch of snuff.

Mr. Eric Lubbock (Orpington)

It is rather interesting to note that as we have gone through the various stages on this Bill, Second Reading, Third Reading and now when the Bill comes back from another place with certain Amendments, the temperature has gradually risen. I think this must be due to the closer proximity of polling day and elections. The fury worked up on the Conservative benches about this Bill is in direct proportion to the closeness with which we come to that date.

I think your tolerance, Mr. Speaker, is massive, because I found the speech of the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) tedious and repetitive in the extreme. I have sat through every debate on this Measure and I do not think there is any shred of merit in the case made by the official Opposition. I was not going to intervene and to make the same speech as I made on various stages on the Bill, but the right hon. Gentleman provoked me by mentioning the speech of my noble Friend Lord Ogmore in another place. If my noble Friend had done me the honour of reading the speeches I made in this House, he would have come to another conclusion.

Mr. Speaker

Order. I sympathise with the hon. Member, but it is not in order to refer to speeches in another place unless they are speeches by Ministers making Ministerial pronouncements.

Mr. Lubbock

In that case, the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames was out of order. I shall not pursue this and incur your displeasure, except to say that my noble Friend made up his mind on the merits of the Second Reading speeches in another place and not on the merits of speeches in debates in our House. I think he would have come to a different conclusion if he had studied the arguments put forward at great length here, not only over seven hours as the Minister of State said—I was under the impression that we spent a great deal longer on the Bill, but perhaps the right hon. Lady was referring to only one Amendment—

Miss Bacon

I said we spent seven-and-a-quarter hours on this Amendment.

Mr. Lubbock

That illustrates my point. I am certain that we spent a great deal longer than seven-and-a-quarter hours on various stages on the Bill. If there has not been filibustering from the Conservative side of the Chamber, those hon. Members have come pretty close to it at various stages of this discussion.

The only criticism I make of the right hon. Lady's speech is that it was much too long. I think she could have put everything that has to be said in very much fewer words. I would remind her of the advice which I gave to the Government at a quarter to midnight on 29th November, 1966, when I suggested that we should carry on throughout the night on various Amendments under discussion and by that means—

Mr. Speaker

Order. We are discussing only one issue now, not the history of the Bill.

Mr. Lubbock

Parliamentary time could have been saved and perhaps we could have reached this stage of the Bill without considering Amendments—

Mr. Speaker

We are not even discussing this stage of the Bill. We are discussing whether the House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

Mr. Lubbock

I shall just say one or two words, if I am allowed to by the noisy hon. Members who have come into the Chamber from somewhere else and have not been paying attention throughout the debate—[HON. MEMBERS: "Has the hon. Member?"] Hon. Gentlemen have been off somewhere in the country—

Sir Douglas Glover (Ormskirk)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it in order for an hon. Member to cast aspersions on hon. Members for having been absent when the debate has been going on for only half an hour?

Mr. Speaker

I have never thought before that such aspersions in the House were out of order.

Mr. David Webster (Weston-super-Mare)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it in order for the Liberal Chief Whip to cast aspersions on some of the members of the Conservative Party in their temporary absence from this Chamber when there is not another Liberal Member in the House?

Mr. Speaker

The hon. Member knows that that is not a point of order.

Mr. Lubbock

The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Webster) knew perfectly well that that was not a point of order, and I was surprised that he should try to intervene when he is a citizen of a city which is very far distant from London.

Sir Harmar Nicholls (Peterborough)

That has nothing to do with it.

Mr. Webster

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am a ratepayer of the City of London.

Mr. Speaker

Order. I think it would help the House if we came to the Question which is before us.

Mr. Lubbock

rose—

Hon. Members

Withdraw.

Mr. Lubbock

It is plain from the conduct of the Tories who are in the Chamber at the moment that their whole purpose is to delay the Bill and prevent it from getting on the Statute Book. They will not listen to any serious arguments about the merits or otherwise of the Amendment made by another place.

I would remind the House of what I said in previous debates about the views of electors in Greater London concerning the delays which the Conservative Opposition in this House and also another place think are desirable. I agree entirely with the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) that, in spite of the fact that at various stages the Bill has been drawn to the attention of electors in Greater London and questions have been raised concerning the constitutional implications of it in the most violent terms—as they were by the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames, who talked about the "beginnings of dictatorship", that kind of violent and extreme language—no one has written to us. The right hon. Gentleman did not quote a single letter—

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that in a previous debate I quoted a letter not from an individual but from the elected town council of my constituency, protesting against the Bill and asking to be excluded from it?

10.15 p.m.

Mr. Lubbock

The right hon. Gentleman would not allow me to finish my sentence. I was going to make that exception, to which he drew my attention in the Committee stage. I said at that time, if he remembers—I dare say that he has forgotten those discussions because they were several months ago—that the views of one London borough were not necessarily indicative of those of the electors who put them there. The right hon. Gentleman may not receive many letters from his constituents for all I know. Perhaps he gets letters only from his borough council.

The one example that was given from the Conservative Front Bench of a letter that came from an individual elector was one quoted in the speech of the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg), who said that he had heard from one of my constituents. I think that this letter was a figment of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's imagination, because when I asked him about it afterwards he said that he could not recall the individual from whom the letter came. I was always under the impression that when we got letters from each other's constituents we forwarded them so that the Member of Parliament concerned could make a reply. The right hon. and learned Gentleman never sent me the letter that he got from my constituent. I can only suppose that his recollection was at fault since I have mentioned the matter on numerous occasions in the House and it has been reported in the Press.

I should like to tell the House that I have had only one letter from any person in the whole of Greater London, and that was from a constituent of the right hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod), whose views on this subject are well known. He has stirred his constituents up. So, in all parts of Greater London, no one is more likely to write to a Member of Parliament than somebody who lives in the constituency of the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Roy Roebuck (Harrow, East)

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Conservative Council of Harrow supported postponement of these elections and that the leader of the Harrow Council has dissociated himself from the extravagant remarks which the hon. Member for Harrow, Central (Mr. Grant) made in this House about this proposal?

Mr. Lubbock

I am only too delighted to hear that sense prevails in some centres of the Conservative Party.

Mr. Anthony Grant (Harrow, Central)

rose—

Mr. Speaker

Order. I am not prepared to allow an intervention upon an intervention.

Mr. Lubbock

Quite frankly, all this is a storm in a thimble, as I think the Home Sceretary said on one occasion; it is not even a storm in a teacup. The most interesting thing of all is that the Conservatives did not make a protest when it became clear in April, 1966, that the Government had given serious consideration to the postponement of the borough elections, on the representations which had been made to them by the London Boroughs Committee.

I had a Question down about this in the House in April, 1966, and there was not a peep out of the Conservatives until the beginning of August, when suddenly, for a reason which I cannot fathom at the moment, they woke up and said, "This is a political issue; we must get stuck into it and try to make some capital out of it." I think a clue was given by something which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames said this evening, when he said that at elections this May the results will be very different indeed in comparison with 1964 when the first set of elections for the Greater London Council were held. The Conservatives are under the impression now that they would take control of the G.L.C. at the elections— [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—and, if they were given a chance in the boroughs as well, many of the marginals would swing their way. I think that this is the reason for the change in their attitude as between April, when the first indication of postponement of the borough elections was given to them in the House, and August, when indications were given of the probable result.

One other thing which the right hon. Gentleman said, and which worries me more than somewhat, was that, in relation to these Lords Amendments, we are dealing with precisely the kind of thing which the other place exists to rectify. I think that this is very dangerous doctrine indeed, if I may say so to the right hon. Gentleman—that when a Bill of this sort is sent by the overwhelming authority of this House up to the other place it should be returned mutilated in the form in which we receive it back from them today. It is obvious that when we have considered these Lords Amendment we shall reject them and have reasons stated, in the phraseology of the House for disagreeing with the Lords in the said Amendments. I should like to warn the other place—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—that if they persist—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—with these Amendments it will be a very dangerous course of conduct—

Mr. Frederic Harris (Croydon, North-West)

Unmitigated cheek.

Mr. Lubbock

—for this is the elected House and we are responsible entirely for dealing with matters of this kind.

Mr. Quintin Hogg (St. Marylebone)

It is elections we want.

Mr. Lubbock

If the other place in their unwisdom were to see fit not to accept the Bill in its original form, when we ultimately send it back to them, as we shall do, it would be a very dangerous course and an unhappy day for the other place.

Dr. David Kerr

One can but admire Orpingtonian man. He exists, of course, in a climate of Piltdown man, and we learned a long time ago that Piltdown man was a fake.

I have a certain interest in the debate and must declare it. I am a London borough councillor—a joy and a privilege which is shared by very few hon. Members on either side of the House. I served on the London County Council for a number of years until right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite decided to break up that very great authority. Of course, I accept their assurance that they did so without a political thought in their minds. I accept that assurance for what it is worth because they have so few political thoughts in their minds at any time.

The right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) was at great pains to indicate that there was all-party agreement about the postponement of election dates. I accept that. It would be a pity, however, if we were not at equal pains to remind him and the House that there was no all-party agreement about the underlying principles of the London Government Act, and it is worth emphasising that that Bill was fought right through the House by the Labour Party, then in opposition. It is proper, I submit, to trace the present debate to the consequences of that London Government Act.

I must apologise to my colleagues who come from provincial constituencies and who have their minds on higher things; it is a pity, to put it at its kindest, that they have been subjected to what I can only describe as the casuistry of a mini-mind tonight. I cannot help feeling, when we are talking in terms of elections, that the kind of argument which has been developed by the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames has some curiously in-built contradictions to it. I have heard of rose-tinted spectacles and of crystal balls. The right hon. Gentleman based much of his argument on a whole load of crystal balls. If he is predicting that in May, 1968, the Labour Party would do significantly as well at the polls as they are likely to do in May, 1967, this is a display of quite justifiable lack of confidence in the future of his own party over the next 18 months. I can only suggest that if, after consulting Old Moore's Almanack, he comes to the conclusion that we have decided to postpone the elections for a year because we expect then to do better, and he agrees with us, then this does not say much for his hope for his own party in the London borough elections.

I take a certain amount of comfort from that, but I am bound to say, too, that he genuinely seems to overlook the fact that nobody is depriving London of elections. As he and his party are very sensitively aware, we have an election coming up. They most courteously declined the challenge of a debate last Friday on London housing. They are anxious, it seems, to enter the elections for the Greater London Council fortified by an Evening News poll which does much to restore the confidence which has been so effectively destroyed by the Daily Telegraph opinion polls. They are basing their confidence on a rather hollow instrument. Nevertheless, I can see the point.

During the last three years—and I remind the House that I speak as a borough councillor—the borough councils of London have been tackling the potentially dangerous results of the London Government Act, 1963, with a care and concern for the people of London which was never displayed by the then Conservative Government when they were putting the Bill before the House. It is quite clear that the work which has gone, particularly in the Inner London boroughs, to re-establishing the children's service, so carelessly destroyed by that London Government Act; the care shown in the Inner London boroughs to establishing the health and welfare services—

Mr. Speaker

Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will link what he is saying with the Amendments before the House.

Dr. Kerr

I will gladly do so. I am emphasising that the care and concern which has gone into laying the basis for these services is justification in itself for a further extension of authority in order to maintain the continuity in building up these services. Hon. Gentlemen opposite speak as though there were no Conservative-controlled councils. The right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames spoke of the councils as the kept creatures of the Labour Party. But this includes Conservative-controlled councils like his own unanimous one. To speak as though there were a unanimity of council view is to speak as though the wishes of all of us on this side had been fulfilled. But they will not come near fulfilment until at least May 1968. The right hon. Gentleman and his friends ought to be thankful about this and not complain.

10.30 p.m.

We are facing the Greater London Council elections. Had the Government proposed to delay these and not the borough elections, the right hon. Gentleman might have had a political point—we are very sensitive about this—but we have not sought to do that—

Mr. Speaker

We have enough to debate without debating what we have not sought to do.

Dr. Kerr

I was making the point only for contrast, and I accept your Ruling, Mr. Speaker. I merely wanted to emphasise that the challenge thrown at us by right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite that there is some curious political involvement in this amendment of the London Government Act does not go unanswered. I would fling the challenge back at them and ask whether the London Government Act was not a piece of precisely the kind of political juggling which they are attempting to pin on us.

I endorse the words of the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) that action like this by the other place is fraught with danger for the future of an amending chamber. Many of us on this side are very concerned at the implications of a constitutional Amendment of this sort. I share the hon. Member's misgivings.

Mr. Charles Doughty (Surrey, East)

The speech of the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr), apart from being largely out of order, confirmed my worst fears that the Bill is a political Bill. There have been taunts—as there are entitled to be in the House—about whether the Bill would affect the chances of either party for good or evil, but we are discussing something much more serious—a change in the Constitution brought about by the party in power, with no independent inquiry like the Herbert Commission before the London Government Bill. For reasons best known to themselves, they wished to change the voting system, they used their majority to pass the Bill—

Mr. Speaker

Order. We are not discussing the Bill in general but the very narrow issue of whether the House doth disagree with the Lords in the Amendment.

Mr. Doughty

I will seek to do so. By their Amendments, the Lords have done something which they are rightly called upon to do, and something which the House ought to accept.

I was surprised that the spokesman for the Liberal Party, with whom I have agreed up to now, should have made the disgraceful speech to which we have listened.

Mr. Lubbock

I am grateful for the hon. and learned Gentleman's wonderful compliment.

Mr. Doughty

If that is what the hon. Member thinks is a compliment he will have a lot more. I thought that the Liberal Party was a firm supporter of the Constitution. Now I know better. The Lords have restored the rights of 5½ million London electors to have their borough council elections next year. We can agree or disagree with them. The Socialist majority will use their votes to disagree.

Many countries have a written constitution. If a change in it is proposed, complicated machinery like a referendum has to operate. We are spared that only because it is the unwritten part of the Constitution that the party in power does not abuse its majority to change it. The other place exists to correct any irregularities that take place here, and that it has done and we should agree with its Amendments.

It is ridiculous to say that the G.L.C. and borough council elections would be too close together. In my constituency, we have the Surrey County Council election a few days after the G.L.C. election and the same people will be working in both. The district council elections for Surrey take place in May, a short time afterwards. This gives the lie to those who say that these people would not be able to carry out the work.

The Lords were right. They have stood by our unwritten Constitution, and it is the Labour Party which is using its majority to gerrymander the situation. I hope that this is not a precedent for the future. I hope that, the Government having made this mistake, they will never make it again.

Mr. William Molloy (Ealing, North)

Listening to the speeches, one would think that the Conservative Party over the past century has been in the van advocating the case for democracy at all levels. I have never heard such an appalling lot of hypocrisy since I came to this House. I hope that we—and I hope that some hon. Members at least will have the courage to join us—will chastise the other place for its arrogance.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin (Wanstead and Woodford)

rose—

Mr. Molloy

I will give way in a moment.

Hon. Members

Give way.

Mr. Molloy

The hon. Member who sits for a Northern Ireland constituency has the nerve to tell me to give way. He can spend more of his time trying to wipe out the religious discrimination and gerrymandering in Northern Ireland. [Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Sydney Irving)

Order. We are discussing the Lords Amendments, not Northern Ireland.

Sir Knox Cunningham (Antrim, South)

On a point of Order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Have I your protection from an utterly untrue statement made by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Molloy)?

Mr. Molloy

Before I leave that, it might be as well if—

Sir Knox Cunningham

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Have I no protection from you against an untrue statement?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. That is not a point of order.

Mr. Molloy

Before I leave that point, I would just say to the hon. and learned Member for Antrim, South (Sir Knox Cunningham) that I will go further and say that if he—

Mr. Hogg

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Have you not already ruled that the hon. Member for Ealing, North is out of order in pursuing this matter? Will you permit him to do so or not?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

The hon. Member for Ealing, North must keep to the Lords Amendments.

Mr. Molloy

It is perfectly obvious, when we get to the quintessence of this matter, that the Opposition's anger is phoney. I was about to say that I think that it is quite proper in debate, on Amendments sent down from another place, that the Lords would have been doing this Parliamentary system of ours some sort of service if they had tried to put an end to some of the gerrymandering and religious discrimination which take place—

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. The hon. Gentleman is getting very wide of the Amendments. I must insist that he come back to them.

Mr. Molloy

There is one thing which you have contributed to the debate, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You have saved the Conservative Opposition from being so appalling consistent. They claim, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) claims, that they have shown themselves to be the hall-mark of consistency all the way through the debate. Never before has the old adage that consistency is the last refuge of the un-imaginative been so well demonstrated. The fact of the matter is that all the great indignation of hon. Members opposite, with their terrible paucity of political thinking, makes some contribution to filling the vacuum.

There is no great feeling in the London boroughs about this issue. I am sorry that no hon. Member has mentioned that during the first year the new boroughs were running, so to speak, two administrations. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr), I have served for many years on a London authority. I am bound to say that I have seen more responsible behaviour from Tory councillors, whether in opposition or in majority, than I have seen from Tory M.P.s in the House. During the first 12 months when we were running two authorities there was a sensible tolerance between the two sides of the council chamber, irrespective of which was the majority party, and efficiency was maintained. It is regrettable—and people outside might like to look at this situation—that there is far more responsibility among Tory councillors than among Tory M.P.s. Many of them have demonstrated this time and time again.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

The hon. Gentleman must relate his remarks to the Amendment.

Mr. J. J. Mendelson (Penistone)

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. In your absence the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames was allowed to range all over the world and compared Her Majesty's Government to Hitler and referred to elections in 1932. I submit with great respect that my hon. Friend should have the same freedom.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

The debate must be related to the Amendment. I have already allowed some latitude to the hon. Gentleman. The House must allow the Chair to decide what is in order or out of order.

Mr. Molloy

All I was trying to say is this. It is pretty thick of another place to put down some of these Amendments.

I said on Second Reading that there were some Labour councillors who were not too happy about some of the proposals and there were many Conservative councillors who were not happy at the line their party was taking. The fact is that they had a difficult job to do without having a daily allowance which, I understand, is obtained in another place. They had the heavy responsibilities of making work legislation which the Tory Party rashly rushed through Parliament.

Mr. Doughty

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I notice that you are extremely tolerant and so are we on these benches. I submit that it is entirely out of order to debate the 1963 Act and the behaviour of Labour and Conservative councillors elsewhere on the Lords Amendments.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

The hon. Gentleman must allow me to decide. It is correct that there has been a certain amount of latitude allowed to previous hon. Members who have spoken in the debate.

Mr. Molloy

The origins of what we are discussing now are founded in the 1963 Act. Therefore it is almost impossible to make any reference to what is being proposed without referring to that Act. If I am out of order in referring to the 1963 Act, then the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames was out of order in bringing in Hitler, Mussolini and grabbing power. I am grateful for your Ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If the hon. Member opposite has aspirations to sit where you are sitting he must take some time to study the Constitution of this country.

Mr. Hogg

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The only issue, as I understand it, is whether the Lords Amendment should be accepted. How long is the hon. Member to be allowed to go on, without the smallest attempt at relevance, insulting hon. Members on this side? We must ask for your impartial protection as occupant of the Chair.

10.45 p.m.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

I shall endeavour to give every hon. Member the protection which the House should give to hon. Members, but the Chair must be allowed to decide on matters of order. Latitude was given to hon. Members previously. On more than one occasion I have drawn the attention of the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Molloy) to the need to relate his remarks to the Amendment. I am sure that he will bear that in mind.

Mr. Hogg

Further to that point of order. I was not in the least seeking to dispute your Ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but surely it is the undisputed right of hon. Members to appeal to the Chair when they feel that they are being subjected to irrelevant and insulting language.

Mr. Roebuck

Further to that point of order. Can I draw your attention, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to the fact that hon. Members on this side of the House were subjected to the most appalling attack by the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter), who accused us of being dictators cast in the Hitler mould? If hon. Members opposite cannot take what they are prepared to dish out, they ought to pack up and go home.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

The House cannot debate by points of order. Hon. Members must relate their remarks to the Amendment and it would be better if hon. Members allowed the debate to proceed.

Sir Knox Cunningham

On a point of order. You have told the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that a certain latitude was given earlier in the debate. I was present during that earlier period when Mr. Speaker was in the Chair. How is it possible to assess how much latitude was given by Mr. Speaker and how much latitude you are now giving?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

It would be most improper for me to answer that. It is a matter of judgment and great difficulty and delicacy. The hon. and learned Gentleman must allow the occupant of the Chair to rule on matters of order as they arise at the time.

Captain Walter Elliot (Carshalton)

On a point of order. If I should catch your eye during the course of the debate, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will it be in order for me to discuss the 1963 Act, as the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Molloy) has been doing, and the behaviour of Socialist and Conservative councillors on various borough councils?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

I shall endeavour to give the same consideration to the hon. and gallant Gentleman which I am endeavouring to give to the hon. Member for Ealing, North. I have reminded the hon. Gentleman of the need to relate his remarks to the Amendment and I shall continue to do so as long as it is necessary.

Mr. Molloy

I would have thought that the majority of hon. Members opposite would have found nothing wrong with any hon. Member commending the work of councillors of all political persuasions, particularly those in the Greater London area. Equally, I would not have minded if some hon. Members opposite had risen in high dudgeon, but I was annoyed—hurt rather than annoyed—when the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) criticised us so vehemently. He has a remarkable propensity for dishing it out. What a pity it is that he has not the same propensity to take it!

The hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) spoke of the manner in which the other place dealt with these Amendments which are causing concern to people outside, who are asking about the other place "Who are these people?".

I am not suggesting that the ordinary Londoner is an authority on the British Constitution, but he has a remarkable knack of coming to the truth without a great deal of circumlocution. When we are told that there is a great danger of us emulating Hitler or Mussolini, in grabbing power, and when we have a look at the backgrounds of some of the people in the other place who are trying to impose their will upon us, it is a little bit more than thick. It raises a grave and serious issue.

I would have thought that all of us, as Members of the House of Commons, would have been concerned at the manner in which a constitutional Measure has been mangled and mutilated in another place, when not one Londoner or Briton went out on one evening to place a vote so that they could sit in their House. These are very serious matters. It seems, and this goes for my own Front Bench as well as the Opposition Front Bench, that the result of this long-ranging debate might be to make us all think seriously and look closely to see if we need another place.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin

This is the first occasion on which I have had the honour of addressing this House on this particular Bill, because during its earlier stages a number of hon. and right hon. Members on both sides were immured upstairs considering another matter. I am very happy to have the chance of adding my words of support for the Amendments moved in another place. I am not surprised that the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Molloy) should have seen fit to try to defend this shabby Bill in the way that he has and to support the Motion moved by his hon. Friend the Minister of State.

He knows that he sits for a seat in a borough which would go Conservative if there were an election next May and he knows perfectly well that he has to postpone the election if he is to keep the borough councillors in office long enough for them to be able to put their beastly comprehensive system through. The hon. Gentleman disclosed the paucity of his arguments by constantly having to be ruled out of order. It is an impertinence to the House that the hon. Gentleman should have seen fit to defend in the way that be did—

Mr. Molloy

I want to point out that I do not recollect being ruled out of order—not by the official Speaker, only by a bunch of "phoney" speakers opposite.

Mr. Jenkin

Perhaps the hon. Gentle-man will read the OFFICIAL REPORT tomorrow and he will see then. The hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr) produced what seemed to be an astonishing argument. What he said was, "We are only fiddling one election, we might have fiddled two." To put that before the House as a serious defence of this shabby Bill is a remarkable proposition.

I believe that the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, to his ever-lasting shame and discredit, has been guilty of a grave departure from the high standards that have hitherto illuminated his great office. The fact that he yielded to pressure from the London Labour Party to postpone these borough elections this year seems to be utterly disgraceful. I say this representing one of the only two constituencies in Greater London which at the borough council elections in 1964 returned 100 per cent. Conservative councillors to its council.

Every one of them would have his seat put to the test if these elections were held according to the law, as they ought to be. I do not claim to have unique experience, but from speaking to councillors I know that they do not want to fight elections. No councillors do. They are very happy where they are, but their electors expect them to fight the election. They elected them for three years and after three years they should jolly well stand up and answer for the conduct of the affairs for which they have been responsible.

Mr. W. O. J. Robinson (Walthamstow, East)

Would the hon. Member not accept that I was elected as a councillor for his constituency, declared elected for a period of three years, but that a Conservative Administration cut that down to two?

Mr. Jenkin

The hon. Member has the unique distinction of having been the only Labour councillor on the former Wanstead and Woodford Council who was elected mayor of that borough. He knows—my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-on-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) made the point earlier—that when there was a major reorganisation—[Interruption]—and when both sides of the House agreed that it would be impracticable to hold the elections in accordance with the law then in existence, it was right that the date of the elections should be changed. To try to draw any parallel—the hon. Member, as a lawyer, should know better—between the events of 1963 and the miserable, shabby manoeuvre in which the Home Secretary is now engaged is sheer humbug.

When right hon. and hon. Members opposite say that there is no great tide of pressure resisting the Bill, they are quite right, because the vast majority of Londoners do not begin to understand what is happening. They simply do not know. I find, however—and I know that in this I speak for my right hon. and hon. Friends—that when the issues are put clearly, as I have been endeavouring and am continuing to endeavour to put them, to our constituents, they begin to see the true enormity of the gerrymandering in which the Home Secretary is engaged. Then they begin to realise what the issues are.

They realise it in boroughs such as the London Borough of Redbridge, which, I am happy to say, enjoys a comfortable Conservative majority. When one points out that in boroughs such as Ealing, Enfield and Hillingdon, Labour majorities are hanging on by the skin of their teeth, having been elected in 1964 at a time when there was an unprecedented swing in favour of the Labour Party, they begin to realise the shabby manoeuvre in which the Home Secretary is engaged. Then, indeed, there is indignation because honest citizens are being deprived of their vote by the unilateral decision of a temporary elected majority in this House.

Although there is never any wild enthusiasm to vote in local elections in London—or, I suggest, anywhere else—the fact is that between 40 and 50 per cent. of the inhabitants of most boroughs, and a higher proportion in boroughs where the elections are marginal, take the trouble to turn out and elect their councillors every three years. If this Measure is allowed to go through as the Government wish, they will be deprived of that right. This is a deplorable thing, and it is to the shame of the Government that they should have done it.

When this debate has finished, the Government will wield their majority—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh"] Will they not? Is it a free vote for right hon. and hon. Members opposite? [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Sir C. Black), who is knowledgeable about these things, tells me that the Government have put on a three-line Whip. More shame on them.

If the Government use their temporary majority in this House and the Bill goes back to another place so that their Lordships may decide what they should then do, I hope and I urge that they should use their power to amend the Bill again in the terms of the Amendments which we have before us tonight.

11.0 p.m.

Mr. Mendelson

Mr. Deputy Speaker, may I ask if the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) is in agreement with his hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Patrick Jenkin) in urging the other place to overturn the decision of the House of Commons? I do not think—

Mr. Jenkin

The hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson) is a knowledgeable enough hon. Member to know that he had no right to intervene in my speech to ask my right hon. Friend that question. If he wishes to know the answer, no doubt he will ask my right hon. Friend when he is in order.

I urge the other place to fulfil its traditional function of protecting the liberties of the people. That is the function for which the second Chamber exists, and their Lordships would be failing in their duty if they surrendered weakly to the Government on such an issue. They would be entirely justified in returning the Bill a second time to this House with these Amendments.

Dr. David Kerr

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. This is raising an interesting situation in which hon. Members of this House are not allowed to refer to speeches which have been made in the other place, yet the hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Patrick Jenkin) is pleading a speech which ought to be made in the other place. Is that in order?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. All that I can say is that nothing which I have heard the hon. Gentleman say is out of order.

Mr. Jenkin

I am grateful for your protection, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Mr. Roebuck

May I ask if the hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Patrick Jenkin) is arguing for elections in the London boroughs, or for an elected second Chamber?

Mr. Jenkin

I will treat that intervention with the contempt it deserves.

The Government made no mention of this matter either in their manifesto or in the election address of a single Labour candidate in Greater London on the occasion of the election which took place on 31st March last year. It was not a matter for which they could claim to have one iota or vestige of a mandate. It was an entirely new matter, raised since the election, for which they cannot claim to have any tacit or overt support from the people. Furthermore, it is a Measure to alter the law to the detriment of the electors of Greater London.

It seems to be exactly the sort of issue where a revising second Chamber which is not held in any thrall to any Government at any time can justifiably use the power which the Constitution has vested in it to compel a postponement of the Bill for 12 months.

Mr. Lubbock

Can the hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Patrick Jenkin) quote me one single instance of a Tory Bill which has been sent back to this House mutilated in this way?

Mr. Jenkin

I am sure that the House will forgive me if I do not follow the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) down that devious path.

This is exactly the sort of issue which the House of Lords exists to decide. I recognise that if their Lordships exercised their powers they would succeed in frustrating the whole object of the Bill. That is what should happen. From the outset, it was seen to be a mean, miserable Measure which was brought in with no other intention than to preserve the dubious, slender Labour majorities of a number of borough councils in Greater London. As such, the Measure deserves universal condemnation, and I hope that their Lordships will take the hint.

Mr. Winnick

When the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) was making his remarks he was getting so excited that I mistook him for the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg). I am not sure whether this is because they tend to look alike or because they are the same height. I rather tend to regard them as Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

References were made to the dictatorial behaviour of the Labour Party, the possibility that a General Election would be postponed, and so on, and it rather reminded me of the Gestapo speech made in 1945. It seems to me that the Opposition have not really learned their lesson. These smear attacks on the Labour Party do not work and are not attractive. It is a pity that the Opposition did not learn the lesson more than 20 years ago. The right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames was preaching to us about the virtues of democracy, yet two rows back from him there sits the hon. Member for an area which is part of a province which is notorious for electoral abuse and which is being run by the Conservative Party.

Sir Knox Cunningham

rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. Before the hon. and learned Member for Antrim, South (Sir Knox Cunningham) intervenes, I must point out to the hon. Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Winnick) that that is very far off the Amendment. I hope that he will keep to the Amendment.

Hon. Members

Withdraw.

Sir Knox Cunningham

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?—[Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker

It is quite clear that the hon. Member for Croydon, South is not giving way.

Hon. Members

He did give way.

Sir Knox Cunningham

On a point of order. The hon. Gentleman gave way to me and sat down. May I now put to him the point that I wanted to make?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

I think that the hon. Member for Croydon, South thought better of it.

Sir Knox Cunningham

Further to that point of order. Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the hon. Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Winnick) to smear my constituency and my representation and to say something which is absolutely untrue? I am sent here by the electors on the basis of one man, one vote, and universal franchise, and I have 114,000 electors—

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. I think that the hon. and learned Member is going too far. I drew the attention of the hon. Member for Croydon, South to the fact that he was out of order in what he was saying and I think it would be wise if the hon. and learned Member did not pursue it.

Sir Knox Cunningham

Mr. Deputy Speaker, may I have your protection?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. Every hon. Member is entitled to my protection, and I am doing my best to give it. I hope that the hon. and learned Member will allow me to get on with the job.

Mr. Winnick

I trust that I did not say anything controversial.—[HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw."]—It is no good hon. Gentlemen opposite braying at me. [Interruption.] This sort of braying will not do any good.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. We must allow the debate to proceed in an orderly fashion.

Mr. Winnick

When reforms take place in Northern Ireland, then will be the time—

Sir Knox Cunningham

Mr. Deputy Speaker—

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. I am afraid that the hon. and learned Gentleman will not get my attention by shouting.

Sir Knox Cunningham

I did not ask for your attention.

Hon. Members

Name him.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

I have deprecated references to Northern Ireland by the hon. Member for Croydon, South. I have ruled them out of order. I hope that the hon. Member will take that as enough.

Mr. Winnick

References have been made during the debate—

Sir D. Glover

On a point of order. I do not want to get the House over-heated, but you ruled that you deprecated what the hon. Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Winnick) said about Northern Ireland. When he rose the hon. Gentleman repeated what he said. I think that he ought to be asked to withdraw it.

Mr. Hogg

Further to that point of order. When an hon. Member deliberately repeats an affront which you have ruled out of order, is it not customary for the Chair to order him to resume his seat?

Mr. Winnick

I wish that the Opposition would not get so heated. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Molloy) said earlier—

Mr. Hogg

Further to that point of order.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. I had hoped that the hon. Member for Croydon, South was going to pour oil on the troubled waters. I thought that he was going to withdraw his remarks. I think that it would be most appropriate if he did so.

Mr. Winnick

Obviously, if I have caused offence, I will withdraw. If the cap fits, as they say, so be it—

Hon. Members

Withdraw, withdraw.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

I did not catch the hon. Member's remark, but if it was a reiteration of the point he had already withdrawn, I must insist that he withdraws it again, and with some grace.

Mr. Winnick

I did say that if I had caused offence, then I withdraw the remark. Then I said something else, which again hon. Gentlemen opposite seem to dislike. I withdraw that as well.

During the course of the debate we have had tonight, references have been made to the Amendments passed by another place which we are discussing at the moment. What is somewhat disconcerting—and one of the reasons why I am speaking at this moment—is that it seems to me that here we have the position where an elected assembly like the Commons have decided on a course of action and a non-elected assembly have decided to undermine what we have done.

Mr. Arthur Lewis

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. Is it not even worse than that, because the leader of this campaign in the non-elected House himself failed to get elected when he sat for election to this House?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. The hon. Member must confine himself to the Amendments.

Mr. Winnick

If the point raised by my hon. Friend is out of order, then of course I cannot pursue it.

Mr. Lewis

On a point of order. Am I to understand that my interjection, which was to ask my hon. Friend whether he was aware of the fact that the lead in the other place for this particular Amendment was by none other than the person rejected by the electorate in Hampstead for election into this House—

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. I was not clear about all the implications of the hon. Member's remarks, but it does seem to me that dwelling too much on this particular aspect of the argument is hardly relevant.

Mr. Lewis

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I want to get your Ruling clear. My hon. Friend was making the point that it is rather undemocratic for a non-elected House to try to impose its will on the elected House. I was asking him if he was aware that it was even worse than that because the lead in the non-elected House was taken by a person who could not get elected to this House and who was rejected as Member of Parliament for Hampstead and then went—

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. This may be interesting, but it is not relevant to the Amendment.

Sir D. Glover

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it not a longstanding tradition of this House that we do not make personal attacks on people in the other House when they have not the opportunity to defend themselves? I think the hon. Member should be asked to withdraw.

Mr. Lewis

I made no personal attack; I stated the facts.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. The hon. Member's remarks may not have been relevant, but I do not think they were a personal attack.

Mr. Winnick

If I could intervene in my own speech, the point made by the hon. Gentleman who just sat down—it seems a long time ago now—is a very important one. He suggested that if the House of Commons decided to reject these Lords Amendments, the Lords should repeat their impertinence by sending it back again. [Interruption.] I did describe it as an "impertinence" because this is the elected House of Commons. There are, no doubt, able and distinguished people in the other place, but we have been elected and, to the best of my knowledge, none of those in another place have been elected. Indeed, I gather that some of them—I will not name them—were once elected to this House but lost their seats. We must not allow them to undermine what we in this democratic House have decided. I suggest that in this matter—

11.15 p.m.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. The hon. Member ought not to pursue this matter in too much detail.

Mr. Winnick

I do not wish to come into conflict with you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We are tonight discussing certain Amendments which have come from another place. Hon. Gentlemen opposite have referred to those in another place and I am merely doing the same, but from another angle. It is a piece of impertinence for the Lords to reject what we have decided, and to suggest that they should do the same again would be a double piece of impertinence.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin

Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that his argument, if taken to its logical conclusion, would deprive the other House of any function whatever.

Hon. Members

Hear, hear.

Mr. Winnick

Some of my hon. Friends cry, "Hear, hear." This may come as a shock to the hon. Gentleman, but I assure him that if it were decided, as a result of some revolutionary action, that the other place should be abolished—which is possible, just possible—I would not lose any sleep over it.

It seems to have been suggested that a repetition of the struggle which took place earlier this century between the Lords and the Commons should occur. We may have many weaknesses in this Chamber. A point which we have over the Lords is that at least we have been elected by the majority of the electors.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

It will not happen next time.

Mr. Winnick

Would the right hon. Gentleman like a General Election now? According to the opinion polls, we would get back with an even greater majority.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. The hon. Member must address his remarks to the Amendment.

Mr. Winnick

I must learn not to be provoked by hon. Gentlemen opposite.

It was said when we last debated this subject that there was a great deal of anxiety because the local government elections were being postponed for one year. I said at the time that I had not received one letter from my constituents, not even from my Conservative constituents, saying that the action taken by the Labour Government was wrong. Since that time I have still not received one letter saying that the Government are wrong. Who is expressing all this concern and anxiety? Who is saying, "This is dictatorial action by the Labour Party"?

If it had been decided by the Government to postpone the Greater London Council elections, there might have been some political point for hon. Gentlemen opposite to make. But they have no grounds for objecting to the present proposal. I believe that it is sensible and logical to hold two separate elections, one in one year for the Greater London Council and one the following year for the borough councils.

Mr. Iremonger

That is what the Amendment would do.

Mr. Winnick

Hon. Gentlemen opposite are suggesting that there should be two sets of elections in one year. That was their original suggestion and the point at issue between the parties.

Sir D. Glover

Why does the hon. Gentleman think that the London electorate is so inferior to that of Lancashire? In Lancashire we shall have a county council election and the local elections separated by one month.

Mr. Winnick

It is remarkable that the hon. Gentleman, a non-Londoner—if I may so describe him without offence—should intervene in our debate. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] It is true that he has every right to do so.

Sir D. Glover

I am a voter.

Mr. Winnick

It is remarkable that he is a voter, and we are very pleased that he is, I am sure, but it does not alter the fact that, unwilling to concede—[Interruption.] I may well be wrong, but it happens to be my personal point of view that the elections should be held in separate years, and I am entitled to my views. There have been accusations about our being dictatorial, but it seems to me that it is hon. Gentlemen opposite who are somewhat dictatorial. But I am entitled to my view that the elections should be held in separate years, and that is why I support the Government's attitude.

This was raised as a great political issue by the Conservative Party, but it has become a damp squib, a non-starter. I speak not only for myself but for my constituents, who have not sent me a single letter on this issue. There is no concern over this issue outside this House. If hon. Gentlemen opposite believe that there have been votes in this matter, I believe that they will be proved wrong. If they were honest with themselves, they would tell us how many letters they have received from their constituents against the elections being postponed.

Basically, this has become a damp squib. No one is particularly interested in it. We all know that the Greater London Council elections will be held this year and the borough elections next year, and I believe that is the right course.

Mr. F. P. Crowder (Ruislip-Northwood)

There has been a certain amount of heat and give-and-take in the debate, and I hope the House will forgive me if I try to keep away from that type of argument. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Roebuck) says "You pompous ass" because I have merely suggested that a matter which, after all, affects the democratic rights of the voters should be seriously considered. The hon. Gentleman can only think with his blood; he has no brain. Would it not be worth while considering this matter seriously and conscientiously when one thinks of the number of people who are involved? Does the hon. Gentleman remember the remark of the Socialist Attorney-General in 1946, "We are the masters now"?

We are told that it is impertinence for anybody to disagree with hon. Members opposite. It is a great pity if hon. Members opposite, however strongly they may feel, take a thoroughly arrogant point of view in this matter. I should have thought it only right that arguments on this side of the House should be listened to and considered. To sweep them away saying that they are utterly wrong and impertinence will not help in our discussions.

I hope that I may be allowed to speak from a purely constituency point of view, and do what is traditional in this House, and that is merely inform other hon. Members of the views of my constituents about this matter and how they feel about it. They may not be the views of hon. Gentlemen opposite; I accept that, of course, at once; but they are entitled to be heard in this House of Commons through their Member of Parliament. I do not put their views forward more strongly than any other hon. Members have put their constituents' views, or, indeed, their own views, but I do say that the constituents of Ruislip-Northwood in the Borough of Hillingdon, which is a marginal seat, are entitled through their Member of Parliament to have their views put. I shall try not to exaggerate them or to put them too strongly, but my constituents are upset indeed that the will not have the opportunity this year of getting rid of the present council of Hillingdon.

Their main reason for that is that we are about to have a new system of education forced upon us in that borough. There has been a debate, which I initiated in the House by way of the Adjournment, on the comprehensive schools. A lot of people want them; a lot of people do not want them.

Mr. James Wellbeloved (Erith and Crayford)

On a point of order. Do I take it, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that other hon. Members, following the hon. and learned Member, will be allowed the same opportunity of discussing that system of education, if they wish to do so?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

I cannot rule on what will be in order in the future. That is hypothetical. I hope the hon. and learned Member will relate his remarks to the Lords Amendment.

Mr. Crowder

I should be very grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if I could have your advice on this matter. We are debating the date of the elections, and what in my constituency is causing controversy about the problem of the date happens to relate to comprehensive education. May I ask this of you, Mr. Deputy Speaker? As that is the root and cause of my constituents' interest in this Lords Amendment, am I out of order in raising it? I think I should ask your guidance on that.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

A reference to comprehensive education as one of the arguments adduced is in order. What would be out of order would be to dwell on the matter.

Mr. Roebuck

Further to that point of order. Would it be in order to hon. Members on this side of the House who are regular attenders to welcome the hon. and learned Member on one of his rare appearances?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

That is not a point of order.

Mr. Crowder

I am much obliged for the intervention of the hon. Gentleman. Of course, one is always delighted to be welcomed here. It is very nice indeed. I have already made three speeches on this matter, but I do not think the hon. Gentleman was present at any of them. Had he been present he might not have spoken in the way he did, because he might have learned something.

To come to the problem, I apologise for taking up the time of the House, but I do hope the House of Commons will sit tonight till breakfast time, because these are matters affecting the liberty of the subject. So do not let us have any nonsense about that. I know that many hon. Members like short, easy days, but I do hope that on a matter of this sort they will do the House the courtesy not only of listening to my ideas—

Mr. Deputy Speaker

It would help the House if the hon. and learned Member would relate his remarks to the Lords Amendment.

Mr. Crowder

I am much obliged. Returning to the Lords Amendment, the problem is this, and this is how the vast majority of my constituents are thinking and feeling about this Lords Amendment tonight. What the parents are saying in regard to the children is this, that if the House of Commons accepts the Lords Amendment we shall have an election this year, which, after all, was something they thought they were going to have in any event, until the last minute change. The argument follows that if they have an election this year they can defeat the Labour Council. Of course, it is difficult to tell what the consequences of an election will be, but the Borough of Hillingdon is very much a marginal seat and—I may be wrong, and I am sure that hon. Members opposite will be the first to say that I am wrong—I believe that if there were an election this year, the practical result would be that the Labour majority would be defeated in Hillingdon and we should not have this comprehensive education forced upon us.

11.30 p.m.

It would not be in order to argue the merits of comprehensive education, but I have hundreds of letters from constituents on the subject and there have been many meetings at which constituents have spoken on behalf of their children, from which it is clear that they feel very strongly about the subject. That is why they feel so strongly about the Amendment. If the Government refuse to accept the Lords Amendment, then those people who live in Ruislip-Northwood within the Borough of Hillingdon will have comprehensive education forced upon them. I am not arguing whether comprehensive education is a good thing. But hon. Members opposite will be the first to agree that there is heavy opposition to it. Surely in those circumstances, if that is the position, we should put the matter to the test. Why not let it be shown at the polls?

Mr. William Price (Rugby)

Is it not fair to point out that this has been put to the test at least twice in the last few years, and possibly more often?

Mr. Crowder

I do not agree.

Mr. Edwin Wainwright (Dearne Valley)

On a point of order. Is it in order for an hon. Member to be reading a newspaper?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

It is out of order to read a newspaper in the Chamber, and if the hon. Member for Southgate (Mr. Berry) is doing so I must ask him to desist.

Mr. Anthony Berry (Southgate)

I was under the impression that it was in order to do so if one is preparing a speech. The headlines of this newspaper are, "Hopes for borough elections recede. Denial of democracy."

Mr. Lubbock

On a point of order. I was about to ask, Mr. Deputy Speaker, whether you could blame any hon. Member for reading a newspaper during this speech.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

That is not a point of order.

Mr. Crowder

I have always wondered whether the hon. Member who made the intervention could read or write, but—

Several Hon. Members

rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. That remark may be correct or incorrect, but it is certainly not relevant to the debate.

Mr. Crowder

The hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. William Price) has been most courteous and understanding. Does he not agree that, whether comprehensive education is good or bad, it is a subject predominantly in the minds of the electors of my constituency? If that method of education is to be introduced this year, and if it will be very difficult to alter it subsequently, surely in the interests of democracy it is right that such a burning question in the constituency should be decided at the polls? There can be no argument but that that is a fair approach to a normal problem. I speak on behalf of my constituents—[Interruption.] This rabble-rousing is no good. This is what they feel—

Mr. William Price

I apologise for interrupting an interesting speech, which I do not claim to understand. He has not followed my point. He was arguing that the electors ought to have the right to decide whether they wanted comprehensive education. I said that they had that in 1964 and 1966 and they made the choice.

Mr. Crowder

That is not so. The hon. Gentleman says that comprehensive education was a predominant issue in the General Elections of 1964 and 1966, but it was not in Hillingdon, which was concerned with greater national issues, The ordinary voter in Ruislip and Northwood would not have voted mainly on that issue. But if elections were held this May, now that the matter has reached boiling point, it would become pre-dominant in Hillingdon—

Sir D. Glover

Surely the point is that, while those elections may have decided the principle, local authorities are responsible for individual schemes, and the electors should be able to vote on them.

Mr. Crowder

I am obliged.

Suppose that, in 1971, our negotiations with Europe were in a crisis, could the Prime Minister postpone the General Election? Would we have another septennial Act? Is that not what is happening now? We have heard little from the Government Front Bench—

Mr. Edwin Wainwright (Dearne Valley)

On a point of order. Is the hon. and learned Gentleman in order to mention the Common Market and 1971?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

I am listening to the hon. and learned Gentleman's remarks carefully and will tell him if he is out of order.

Mr. Crowder

I was seeking only to draw an analogy between the postponement of general and local elections. If some negotiations were in a tricky stage, surely a General Election could be postponed. On the basis of this principle, could not the Government say that, because of the delicacy of some negotiations with Europe, it would be in the public interest to postpone the election for one or more years? Is it the sort of principle we are introducing by way of this Bill?

Mr. Winnick

rose—

Mr. Crowder

I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not give way. He has been bobbing up and down like a cork and he has been very kind, but I have given way to practically everyone in the House, although I am only too glad to do so.

The only real argument I have heard in the House for the postponement of the borough elections is that the G.L.C. elections would coincide and muddle the borough elections. But I remind the House of what happened in 1955. The General Election was held within three or four weeks of the local elections. [AN HON. MEMBER: "Within a fortnight."] I am told that it was within a fortnight. We were victorious in both. What utter nonsense and hypocrisy it is to suggest that it is impractical from an administrative point of view for the G.L.C. elections to be held with the borough elections. The answer is, of course, that the Government dare not face the borough elections. I give them these words: He either fears his fate too much, Or his deserts are small, That puts it not unto the touch, To win or lose it all. And lose they will.

Mr. Laurence Pavitt (Willesden, West)

The hon. and learned Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Crowder)—

Mr. Iremonger

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It will not have escaped the notice of experienced Members of this House that hon. Members opposite are getting up one for one, and that means one thing and one thing only—that sooner or later the Patronage Secretary will try to close the debate. Can we have an assurance that he will not be allowed to do so?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

The Chair is not responsible for the Patronage Secretary. The Chair is carrying out the traditional procedure in the selection of hon. Members.

Mr. Arthur Lewis

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Would I be in order in defending the Patronage Secretary, who is not here?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

The hon. Gentleman would not.

Mr. Pavitt

The hon. and learned Member for Ruislip-Northwood quite rightly informed the House that he was going to take the heat out of the debate, and he succeeded. My only regret is that he did not shed a little more light upon it and help us. I accept his contention that he has to try to represent his constituents and put forward his interpretation of the mind of the people of Ruislip. I accept that perhaps he knows better than I know what they think. For my part, I can speak for the people of West Willesden, and I am certain that they would disagree with the Lords Amendments. They do not want a situation where we have a second election immediately after the G.L.C. election and, for all the various arguments put forward tonight and on many other occasions on this Bill, they would prefer us not to agree with the Lords Amendments.

The hon. and learned Member used as part of his argument the question of whether or not there was pre-empting of the issue of comprehensive education in his constituency. I can speak with a little more authority, because I am certain that the people of my constituency are anxious that there shall be maximum speed towards comprehensive reorganisation within the borough. Fortunately, we have been able to put this to the test. Late last year three by-elections arose on Brent Council. They were contested heavily by the Conservative Party and in the election campaign the question of comprehensive education was made the prime issue. In all three cases Labour candidates were returned. This is a clear indication that in my constituency this operates in precisely the opposite direction from the way in which it operates in Ruislip.

11.45 p.m.

Sir D. Glover

The hon. Member has conceded out case. He said that they were fortunate enough in West Willesden to have three by-elections and the electors were able to say what they wanted. All we are saying is that all electors should have a full opportunity to say what they want.

Mr. Pavitt

Certainly it is fortunate, but it does not enhance the case of the Opposition. I was dealing with the point made by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Ruislip-Northwood who said that comprehensive education was likely to have an effect in his constituency. It would not make any difference in mine.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin

The hon. Member is supporting his case by reference to by-elections which were held recently. Will he inform the House what the swing to the Conservatives was in those three by-elections?

Mr. Pavitt

It is entirely irrelevant to the case. The fact remains that the elections were fought largely on the question of comprehensive education and the Labour candidates were returned.

I want to turn to the contribution made by the hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Patrick Jenkin). I was rather surprised that the hon. Member, whose constituency is noted in this House for having a certain amount of political sagacity, should raise a major controversial constitutional issue between this House and another place and should have shown such a lack of political sagacity.

This Amendment may expedite some decision which may have to be taken if another place proves intransigent in trying to force this Amendment on an unwilling House of Commons. It would be foolish if hon. Members opposite were to try to create a situation where there was a great constitutional conflict between us and another place on this issue, which, although important, affects only one-sixth of the population.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin

The hon. Member has referred to the main point of my argument. I will repeat what I said earlier. Does he refute the provisions of the Parliament Act which gives another place power to delay legislation for up to one year? If so, is he supported by his Front Bench?

Mr. Pavitt

The debate would be much too long if we went wider into the constitutional issues between this House and another place. The hon. Member, by the contribution he has made, is inciting another place to make this a constitutional issue. He is encouraging us to agree that it is time to review the relationship between this House and another place if the co-operation which it has accorded to other Governments is denied to this one.

Wing Commander Sir Eric Bullus (Wembley, North)

The hon. Member has said that there were three by-elections in predominantly Labour areas. The swing against them was so great that had it been reflected in elections all over Brent the Tories would be in power there now and there would be no comprehensive education in Brent.

Mr. Pavitt

I envy those mathematicians who can, with a by-election with a low percentage poll, analyse the figures, multiply the number they first thought of and say that this would have resulted in victory for them. The only way hon. Members opposite can win elections is by having hypothetical cases.

I am not sure how far the rule of tedious repetition applies, but this debate has gone on at every stage of the Bill and six or seven major points have come up time and time again. I have heard precisely these arguments, in many cases put by precisely the same hon. Members, again and again. Surely it is time that we got past that stage and had no need to rehash and to come back, like dogs to their vomit, to arguments which we have been through time and again.

I had the privilege of speaking on earlier stages of the Bill. The arguments were advanced on Second Reading and during the Committee stage and we have all heard them. I suggest that the House has heard enough. I do not propose to redeploy them. I simply urge the Government to reject the Lords Amendments.

Mr. Berry

The hon. Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt) has referred to repeated arguments from this side of the House, but it is refreshing to have a new audience for them, for earlier stages of the Bill were distinguished by the absence of hon. Members opposite. I particularly welcomed the intervention, if not a speech, of the hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis), although one of my hon. Friends was unkind enough to ask whether the hon. Gentleman was a Member. I can vouch for him. He is my constituent, and I would very much like him to give his views on the Bill and the Lords Amendments. His views would be of great interest in the area in which he lives.

I was very disappointed with the speech of the right hon. Lady the Minister of State. I was hoping that she would change her mind and make a different speech later, when I would have been delighted to send her a Valentine. Alas! She is not worthy of that tonight.

Although the arguments about the Bill have been repeated several times, the trouble is that hon. Members opposite are still repeating their old objections and saying that elections should not be held within a few weeks of each other. I would have thought that the numerous examples from London and other parts of the country would have made it clear that that argument is now irrelevant. In any case, the Lords Amendments would allow elections in London in future to be held in different years.

There is no doubt that the Government have played down the Bill and tried to keep down public interest in it. That is why hon. Members opposite have reacted so strongly to our criticisms. Comprehensive education has been mentioned. As hon. Members will be aware, the borough in which my constituency lies is very marginal, with a Labour majority. We have a system of comprehensive education half of which was turned down by the Secretary of State and the other half of which was put together at very short notice and approved. I would like to hear the views of Labour Members who represent the borough. The hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. John Mackie), who is a Minister, has been present for part of the debate but, understandably, has not spoken. However, I would very much like to hear the views of the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu), who made a brief incursion into the Government and who might have let his constituents know his views.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not pursue this line too far. He has the Floor to express his own views.

Mr. Berry

I do not think that I shall hear those views and so I will leave that thought with the House.

The hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) insists on returning to the issue of the letters. He has made the argument before and I have answered him before. I have quoted HANSARD at him, but he goes on repeating it. [An HON. MEMBER: "He is stupid."]

He knows that there were a number of letters, and since the earlier debate I have had many more. My constituents are genuinely concerned about this delaying of the elections. The hon. Member for Dearne Valley (Mr. Edwin Wainwright) referred to a newspaper which I had, and I am happy to refer to it. I thought that the hon. Lady the Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Joyce Butler) sitting next to him would have recognised it, because it is the Wood Green Weekly Herald, a newspaper circulating partly in my constituency and partly in hers and partly in that of my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey (Mr. Rossi). Far from the people in the area not being interested in the Bill, it was the "lead" story in this paper last weekend.

That typifies the interest in my area in this Bill. If I may quote one sentence from the editorial in the paper, referring to the election of Councillors, it says in an excellent phrase: That term expires on 31st March, 1967, but the intention is that the elections be postponed until 1968, and some shimmery-shammery excuse about the administrative difficulty of holding two elections in one year is put forward as a reason. This is a negation of democracy. The hon. Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Winnick), who I am not surprised to see is not in the Chamber at the moment, referred to the possibility of another place delaying this Bill further and said that it would be an impertinence. The House of Lords has that right under the Constitution. It can delay a Bill for twelve months, and that I hope that it will delay this Bill for that period. If it does, and if this Government wish to cause a constitutional crisis and bring about legislation to change these rules and remove the delaying powers of the House of Lords, they will have to explain to the people of this country what it was that another place delayed in this Bill. It has delayed and is delaying nothing. It is the party opposite which is delaying elections, and the electors will not forget it.

Mr. Ivor Richard (Barons Court)

I am very glad to be following the hon. Gentleman the Member for Southgate (Mr. Berry). As I said before, it seems that there is no one quite so good at elevating electoral motives into a constitutional principle as hon. Gentlemen opposite, and tonight we have had two so-called constitutional principles put before the House which, frankly on examination, are absolute nonsense. This debate is about votes. At least the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Crowder) had the grace to admit this, implicitly at any rate. He knows this and people on this side of the House also know it.

Mr. Crowderindicated assent.

Mr. Richard

The hon. and learned Gentleman shakes his head in agreement. I am glad to see one person on the benches opposite who is honest about the opposition to this Bill. It is based upon the belief of the party opposite that it could win votes on the comprehensive schools issue in the borough council elections if they were held this year. Hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench opposite know this and the hon. Member for Southgate knows this. I do not believe for one moment that the party opposite would have been so active in bringing this opposition forward, nor do I believe that its massive majority in another place would have been quite so ready to put down these Amendments if the position had been reversed.

Does anyone really believe that if the Conservative Party felt that it would lose votes on comprehensive schools in the borough elections in London this year it would have spent this inordinate length of time discussing this comparatively simple and clearly advantageous Measure?

Mr. Geoffrey Wilson (Truro)

rose—

Mr. Richard

If the hon. Gentleman will allow me to continue, I will give way later. I should like to deal with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Southgate, who talked about the principle that it was right for the other place to assert in this dispute. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Patrick Jenkin) the tail end of whose speech I heard—I am afraid that was all that I heard, but I did hear him interrupt on three occasions later, and I gather from them that the tone of his speech was as irresponsible as his interruptions—

Sir Knox Cunningham

Where was the hon. Gentleman?

Mr. Richard

I am sorry that I did not hear the hon. Gentleman's speech. I would have liked to, but unfortunately, as the hon. and learned Gentleman who has just interrupted me from a sedentary position knows, one does not have the advantage of knowing who is speaking from an annunciator. Had I done so, I can assure the hon. Member who is interrupting that I would have stayed out for his speech and I would have come in for the speech of his hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford.

12 m.

The principle, apparently, which is now being put to the other place is that it is necessary for them, as the guardians of the constitution, to assert in defiance—I use the word advisedly—of the will expressed by the elected majority in the House of Commons, not once, but three times, that it is right for a massive unelected Conservative majority in another place to overrule the will not only of an elected Labour House of Commons, but also of the majority of the elected boroughs of London, some of which are Conservative.

Mr. Geoffrey Wilson

I understand the hon. Member's argument to be that the Conservatives want these Amendments because they think that they will get more votes. The hon. Member wants the delay because he thinks that his party will not get the votes.

Mr. Richard

I am obliged for that intervention. I could not have put his case better.

This whole Measure concerning London started on an agreed basis. It was agreed among the London boroughs, Conservative and Labour, that it would be administratively desirable for the elections to be postponed. For a long time—[Interruption.]—if hon. Members opposite like to check the record, they will find it so. That was the way this matter proceeded for some time, until hon. Members opposite awoke to the fact that they thought that votes could be obtained on the subject of comprehensive schools in the Outer London area. It is precisely because Tory hon. Members decided that there might be votes in what had been agreed to be a matter of administrative convenience that the House of Commons has spent so much time in discussing this comparatively simple Measure.

Some hon. Members opposite are inciting the other place to assert that they are the guardians of the constitution. The principle that the other place is being asked to assert is that a Conservative non-elected House of Lords, should be entitled as a matter of constitutional principle to overrule the will not only of an elected Labour House of Commons, but also of the elected majority of the boroughs of London, some of which are Conservative. To elevate that sort of squalid electoral motive to the heights of a constitutional principle seems to me to be absurd.

Mr. John Page (Harrow, West)

I followed carefully the hon. Member's answer to the intervention by my hon. Friend. He said that the Opposition were opposing the Bill because they thought that they would gain votes if an election were held now. Does the hon. Gentleman accept the corollary that the Government have introduced the Bill because they feel that if there were elections now, they would be short of votes?

Mr. Richard

The hon. Member obviously heard his hon. and learned Friend's interruption but did not listen to my answer. He can read it in HANSARD, as can the remainder of his hon. Friends who are not present.

Mr. Iremonger

The hon. Member has made the point about the unelected Chamber thwarting the will of the elected Chamber. Is not the unelected Chamber having regard to the elected principle which this Chamber is denying?

Mr. Richard

Again I say to the hon. Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Ire-monger) that I have made the point twice. I am sorry that hon. Members opposite do not appreciate it. The point is that some hon. Members opposite are asking the other place to assert the non-elected will of a Conservative majority not only over the will of an elected Labour majority in this House, but, what is in some ways far more important since this is a London Measure, to assert its non-elected will over the will of the majority of the Metropolitan boroughs, some of which are Conservative. That is the point which hon. Members opposite must face. This is no great constitutional principle, but a scramble for votes which has been initiated by the Tory Party.

The hon. and learned Member for Ruislip-Northwood said that it was necessary to test the issue of comprehensive schools, and I agree with him. He said that neither the 1964 General Election nor the 1966 General Election was a fair test.

We are to have elections this year for the Greater London Council. I find it impossible to believe that in Ruislip and Northwood, in the London Borough of Hillingdon, in my own Borough of Hammersmith, or in all the outer London boroughs, some of whose Members of Parliament I see opposite, comprehensive schools will not only be an issue but one of the major issues on which the Conservative Party will fight the Greater London Council election. At the end of the day, when the electorate has voted, the Conservative Party having made comprehensive schools one of the big issues, the electors of London will have had an opportunity in 1967 of judging whether they want comprehensive schools for London.

I reiterate what I have said in a number of previous debates on this Measure. Some hon. Gentlemen opposite have said that they speak for their boroughs. I am not so arrogant as to think that I can speak for the whole of my constituency, let alone for my borough. I have no means of divining its collective will. However, if an issue in London was creating political foment to the sort of level that hon. Gentlemen opposite pretend, I should expect it to give rise to some kind of agitation on the part of my constituents.

I can divine what some of my constituents feel on such issues as Vietnam, the Common Market, and on an issue like abortion. I have a vast file of letters on any issue concerning animals, whether it be hare coursing or the export of live animals to the Continent for vivisection. I get a stack of letters whenever such a Measure is nearing the Bar of the House. On the present Measure, which hon. Gentlemen opposite are trying to elevate into the great constitutional principle of the 1960s to rival the Parliament Act debates of 1910, what do we have? Nothing. The hon. Member for Southgate has a unique petition signed by a large number of people, a fair proportion of whom, I gather, do not even live in the London area, anyway. Apart from that, the common experience is that we have not had any letters, and we have not been besieged by electors. I have not had a queue of irate voters demanding to see me in the Lobby, asking for their constitutional rights and saying that they want to vote in the borough elections this year.

This whole opposition is a complete sham from start to finish. All that it is doing is to expose the views of hon. Gentlemen opposite for what they really are.

Mr. Hogg

The hon., and I believe learned, Member for Barons Court (Mr. Richard) addressed the House with great volubility and a maximum degree of gesticulation. He appeared to be unaware of the fact, since he argued that Greater London Council elections were somehow a substitute for borough elections, that at any rate in the outer boroughs, which he does not represent, the issue of education is not one which can be raised in these elections, because the only constituencies in the Greater London Council elections in which educational issues can be raised at all appropriately are those for the Inner London Education Authority.

His principal argument, however, appeared to be that anyone who did not accept his rather idiosyncratic view of the difference between the two sides of the House on this Amendment was not, as he put it, honest. So far as I am concerned, this opposition is not a sham, and is based on what I regard as a principle. It is not just about votes. Obviously one hopes that if elections are held in the London boroughs this year one's own party will win, and no doubt one tends to think rather more optimistically than one's opponents that it is likely to win, but one cannot really conduct political arguments on that sort of principle.

The point in this case is not that we want an election this year, which no doubt we do, nor that we think we will win, which we do. The point is that the borough councils were elected for a certain period of time under the Act of Parliament, and that period of time expires this year.

The only issue in this Amendment is whether the desynchronisation of the borough council elections and the G.L.C. elections, about which there has been no controversy, should take place by postponing the borough council elections for this year, or by arranging that the borough council elections for this year, which will on any view take place on a different day from the G.L.C. elections, shall be for a period of time which will arrange the desynchronisation at the next legitimate elections.

That is the real issue raised by the Amendment. When one hears hon. Gentlemen opposite argue about whether Conservative borough councillors are better than Conservative Members of Parliament, or whether the House of Lords is elected or non-elected, or whether the issues of the Parliament Act have been resurrected by this important Amendment, one tends to lose sight altogether of the only point which really merits discussion at all, and that is whether the desynchronisation of the two sets of elections should take place so as to prolong the life of an elected authority for one year beyond the term for which it was elected, or whether they should do it by the process of arranging that the new elections should effect the desynchronisation at the end when the new boroughs in the new G.L.C. meet with the term for which they are elected.

The House of Lords may be unduly simple-minded. The House of Lords had the misfortune to take the Government at their word. The House of Lords, unlike almost everybody in this House, including hon. Gentlemen opposite, believed the Government to be in good faith. This is the folly which it has committed. This is the only error of which it has been guilty. This is the only criticism which can be levelled against the House of Lords.

I well remember the speech with which the right hon. Gentleman introduced the Bill some months ago. The Government said "We want to desynchronise the dates of the two sets of elections." "Very well," said the House of Lords, "we will do that", and there is no doubt about it, this Amendment does it.

12.15 a.m.

The Government said "We will follow the precedent of 1948", and I can well remember the right hon. Gentleman citing the precedent of 1948 and saying that this Bill was designed to pursue it. "Very well", said the House of Lords, "we will follow the precedent of 1948. We believe that this Government is an honest Government; we believe that the Home Secretary is an honest man. We take him at his word. We will pursue the precedent of 1948, because the precedent of 1948 was that when one wants to desynchronise the elections, one does it by arranging that the elections should be for a desynchronous term."

But the House of Lords was wrong. The Government have not been honest. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary has defiled himself. Sir Galahad has been found with his fingers in the till; he has been caught cheating at cards, and the Holy Grail is not for him any more. He has lost his political virginity, because, you see, Sir Galahad did not really mean what he said.

Sir Galahad, although he pretended that he did not know what was going on upstairs while he was strumming his piano down here, knew very well he was prolonging the life of an elected body beyond the time for which it was elected. And throughout the whole of these discussions no reputable argument has been presented for doing that thing.

Attempts have been made, of course, to swim a whole shoal of red herrings into the stream, and they have wriggled about in various directions, some of them offensively accoutred and some less offensively accoutred.

It has been said that the Act of 1963 has some kind of bearing on the subject, but the Act of 1963, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, has no bearing on the subject at all. In the Act of 1963 it was quite clear that if one was going to elect members to a dying authority for only a year, and that their constituencies were going to be shot from under them, one would not get the candidates. Therefore, one had to postpone the election, and this was agreed between both sides after adequate consultation.

Of course, the cat was just let out of the bag by the speech of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr), who is not now, I think, in his place. During the course of our discussion this evening he blew in, blew off and blew out, and he made it very clear why it was that he thought the borough elections should be postponed, as did an hon. Member who was roosting in the back seats opposite, in an interjection. They thought it was right that the borough councils—and I took down almost the exact words of the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central—that the care displayed by the children's service alone justifies another year's authority.

In other words, the doctrine now is alleged to be that because a Labour borough council has done so well, a Labour borough council shall be prolonged in office by the authority of a Labour majority in Parliament which regards any Interference with its authority as impertinent because they say they have got a majority at a General Election on a different subject rather less than a year ago.

If that is democracy, I am a Dutchman. This is gerrymandering of the worst possible kind and the right hon. Gentleman has defiled the reputation which I know he values. The other person who has defiled it worse still is the hon. and absent Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) whose interest in letters rarely exceeds his interest in democratic principles. He accuses people of imagining that they have received letters from his constituencies. He twitted me with not having sent him one such letter. True I did not retain the letter, but I remember well what was in it. [HON. MEMBERS: "Ah."] The writer said that he could hope for nothing from his own hon. Member but that he hoped the Conservative Party would object to what was being done by the Labour Government—and we do.

Miss Bacon

With the leave of the House, I will reply to the points made during this discussion. I pay the right hon. Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) this compliment; his speech, more than any other from the benches opposite, was to do with the Amendment.

Mr. Iremonger

On a point of order. Why should the right hon. Lady have the leave of the House to speak again when the Home Secretary is here?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

The right hon. Lady does not require the leave of the House and it was unnecessary for her to seek it. She is in charge of the Amendment from the Government's point of view and has every right to reply to the discussion.

Miss Bacon

The debate has ranged far and wide, from Hitler's Germany to Mussolini's Italy and from the Common Market to Northern Ireland. I regret having missed the speech of the hon. Member for Southgate (Mr. Berry) because I am told that he promised to present me with a Valentine card if the debate went after midnight.

Mr. Berry

I said that only if the right hon. Lady accepted the Lords Amendment would she deserve one.

Miss Bacon

I regret to learn that I shall be disappointed.

It has been said that we did not mention the introduction of the Bill in our election manifesto. It comes ill from hon. Gentlemen opposite to raise that as an argument in favour of the Amendment.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

Why?

Miss Bacon

Because I remember many Measures being introduced when the right hon. Gentleman was in power, and no mention of them—[Interruption]—for example, the Rent Act, 1958—had been made at previous General Elections.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

I made the point that there was no mandate for this Measure and no mention of it at the last General Election. I said that in the context of the right of another place to insert the Amendment. Perhaps the right hon. Lady will now address herself to that point.

Miss Bacon

I did not gather that the right hon. Gentleman was adducing that argument. I thought him to be saying that we had no mandate for the Bill.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

That is correct.

Miss Bacon

The hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Patrick Jenkin) said that my right hon. Friend has yielded to pressure from the London Labour Party to introduce the Bill. In fact, we were first urged to introduce the Measure by the London Boroughs Association. It had a special committee which considered this very question. We heard a great deal about this special committee when we were debating the Bill in Committee, but we have not heard anything about it tonight, and I will tell the House why we have not.

The special committee of the London Boroughs Association was unanimous in recommending this course of action, and there were Conservative members sitting on it. The right hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. lain Macleod), who is not with us tonight, made many allegations about this during the passage of the Bill in this House. When we were considering a similar Amendment previously, the right hon. Gentleman said that the special committee had not made the decision unanimously. So the Chairman of the London Boroughs Association, Mr. Norman Prichard, decided to call a meeting including members of the Conservative Party in order to settle whether this had been a unanimous decision. When the meeting was called, the leader of the Conservative Party on the London Boroughs Association wrote to Mr. Prichard saying that there was no need to call the meeting because he was able to confirm the fact that the decision of the special committee which included Conservative members was unanimous.

Mr. Richard Sharples (Sutton and Cheam)

Was the person who wrote the letter a member of the special committee when the Minister decided?

Miss Bacon

I do not want to waste time at this late hour, but I can read the letter. It is from Alderman A. G. Taylor, the leader of the Conservative Party on the London Boroughs Association, and Deputy Chairman of the Association. He wrote: I understand that the meeting of the special committee which has just been arranged for 29th December is solely to deal with the allegation made by an Opposition spokesman in Parliament that the special committee's recommendation at its meeting on 29th January last that the borough elections should be postponed from 1967 to 1968 was not unanimous. As you know, I was not myself a member of the special committee at that time, but I have made inquiries and am satisfied that the recommendation was, in fact, unanimous, and I have the authority of all the Conservative members present at that meeting to say this. The special committee of the Association then circularised all the members of the Association, and 20 out of 32 were in favour of the change being made this year, including three Conservative boroughs. Therefore, it is very wrong indeed for hon. Gentlemen opposite now to say that this was just pressure from the Labour Party.

As has rightly been said, the issue on this Amendment is whether or not there should be two elections this year, those

elected to the boroughs then holding office for the next four years according to the Amendment, or whether we should make the change now. I remind the House that, although the present members of the London boroughs were elected in 1964, they did not really become operative until 1965, and there have been only two effective years of government since they were elected. It has been mentioned that in the provinces we manage to have two elections within a month or so of each other. I live in the provinces and know that this is true. But the difference here is that there are annual elections for the urban district councils and the rural district councils.

I must say that there is not a very great deal of enthusiasm shown for the elections which come within a few weeks of the previous ones. If we look at the poll in the Greater London Council elections and in the London borough elections in 1964 we see there were these results: the poll for the Greater London Council elections in 1964 was 44.2 per cent., compared with only 35.7 per cent. for the London borough council elections a month later. We believe, therefore, that it is right to make this change now. Mention has been made of the powers of the other place, and it was said in another place that this was being treated as a matter of principle. I hope the House will reject this Lords Amendment.

Question put, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment:—

The House divided: Ayes 232, Noes 151.

Division No. 269.]	AYES	[12.35 a.m.
Abse, Leo	Bray, Dr. Jeremy	Dempsey, James
Albu, Austen	Brooks, Edwin	Dewar, Donald
Alldritt, Walter	Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.	Diamond, Rt. Hn. John
Allen, Scholefield	Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)	Dickens, James
Anderson, Donald	Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, W)	Dobson, Ray
Archer, Peter	Buchan, Norman	Doig, Peter
Armstrong, Ernest	Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)	Donnelly, Desmond
Atkins, Ronald (Preston, N.)	Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)	Driberg, Tom
Atkinson, Norman (Tottenham)	Cant, R. B.	Dunn, James A.
Bacon, Rt. Hn. Alice	Carmichael, Neil	Eadie, Alex
Bagier, Gordon A. T.	Coe, Denis	English, Michael
Barnett, Joel	Coleman, Donald	Ensor, David
Baxter, William	Concannon, J. D.	Evans, Gwynfor (C'marthen)
Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood	Crawshaw, Richard	Evans, Ioan L. (Birm'h'm, Yardley)
Bennett, James (G'gow, Bridgeton)	Grossman, Rt. Hn. Richard	Fernyhough, E.
Binns, John	Dalyell, Tam	Fitch, Alan (Wigan)
Blackburn, F.	Davidson, Arthur (Accrington)	Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)
Blenkinsop, Arthur	Davidson, James (Aberdeenshire, W.)	Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Boardman, H.	Davies, Dr. Ernest (Stretford)	Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)
Booth, Albert	Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)	Ford, Ben.
Boston, Terence	Davies, Harold (Leek)	Forrester, John
Braddock, Mrs. E. M.	Davies, Robert (Cambridge)	Fowler, Gerry
Bradley, Tom	Delargy, Hugh	Fraser, John (Norwood)
Freeson, Reginald	Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson	Redhead, Edward
Galpern, Sir Myer	McCann, John	Rees, Merlyn
Gardner, Tony	MacColl, James	Reynolds, G. W.
Garrett, W. E.	MacDermot, Niall	Rhodes, Geoffrey
Gourlay, Harry	Macdonald, A. H.	Richard, Ivor
Gray, Dr. Hugh (Yarmouth)	McGuire, Michael	Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Gregory, Arnold	Mackenzie, Gregor (Rutherglen)	Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)
Grey, Charles (Durham)	Mackintosh, John P.	Roberts, Gwilym (Bedfordshire, S.)
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)	Maclennan, Robert	Robertson, John (Paisley)
Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)	MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)	Robinson, W. O. J. (Walth'stow, E.)
Hamilton, James (Bothwell)	McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)	Rodgers, William (Stockton)
Hamling, William	McNamara, J. Kevin	Roebuck, Roy
Harper, Joseph	Mahon, Peter (Preston, S.)	Rose, Paul
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)	Mahon, Simon (Bootle)	Rowlands, E. (Cardiff, N.)
Haseldine, Norman	Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)	Shaw, Arnold (Ilford, S.)
Hattersley, Roy	Mellalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)	Sheldon, Robert
Heffer, Eric S.	Manuel, Archie	Shore, Peter (Stepney)
Henig, Stanley	Mapp, Charles	Short, Mrs. Renée(W'hampton, N. E.)
Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret	Marquand, David	Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)
Hooley, Frank	Marsh, Rt. Hn. Richard	Silverman, Julius (Aston)
Horner, John	Mayhew, Christopher	Skeffington, Arthur
Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas	Mellish, Robert	Slater, Joseph
Howarth, Robert (Bolton, E.)	Mendelson, J. J.	Small, William
Howell, Denis (Small Heath)	Miller, Dr. M. S.	Steel, David (Roxburgh)
Howie, W.	Milne, Edward (Blyth)	Steele, Thomas (Dunbartonshire, W.)
Hoy, James	Mitchell, R. C. (S'th'pton, Test)	Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael
Hughes, Roy (Newport)	Molloy, William	Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.
Hunter, Adam	Moonman, Eric	Swain, Thomas
Hynd, John	Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)	Swingler, Stephen
Jackson, Colin (B'h'se & Spenb'gh)	Morris, Alfred (Wythenahawe)	Taverne, Dick
Jackson, Peter M. (High Peak)	Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)	Tinn, James
Janner, Sir Barnett	Morris, John (Aberavon)	Urwin, T. W.
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)	Murray, Albert	Varley, Eric G.
		Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)
Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)	Neal, Harold	Walker, Harold (Doncaster)
Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)	Newens, Stan	Watkins, David (Consett)
Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)	Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)	Watkins, Tudor (Brecon & Radnor)
Judd, Frank	Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip (Derby, S.)	Weitzman, David
Kelley, Richard	Oakes, Gordon	Wellbeloved, James
Kenyon, Clifford	Ogden, Eric	Whitaker, Ben
Kerr, Mrs. Anne (R'ter & Chatham)	O'Malley, Brian	White, Mrs. Eirene
Kerr, Dr. David (W'worth, Central)	Oram, Albert E.	Whitlock, William
Kerr, Russell (Feltham)	Orbach, Maurice	Willey Rt. Hn. Frederick
Lawson, George	Orme, Stanley	Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)
Leadbitter, Ted	Oswald, Thomas	Williams, Alan Lee (Hornchurch)
Lee, John (Reading)	Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, S'tn)	Williams, Clifford (Abertillery)
Lestor, Miss Joan	Page, Derek (King's Lynn)	Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)
Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)	Parker, John (Dagenham)	Winnick, David
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)	Pavitt, Laurence	Winstanley, Dr. M. P.
Lipton, Marcus	Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)	Winterbottom, R. E.
Lomas, Kenneth	Pentland, Norman	Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.
Loughlin, Charles	Perry, George H. (Nottingham, S.)	Woof, Robert
Luard, Evan	Price, Christopher (Perry Barr)	Yates, Victor
Lubbock, Eric	Price, William (Rugby)
Lyon, Alexander W. (York)	Probert, Arthur	TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)	Randall, Harry	Mr. Edward Bishop and
		Mr. Neil McBride.
NOES
Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)	Chichester-Clark, R.	Glyn, Sir Richard
Astor, John	Clegg, Walter	Goodhart, Philip
Atkins, Humphrey (M't'n & M'd'n)	Cooke, Robert	Goodhew, Victor
Awdry, Daniel	Cooper-Key, Sir Neill	Gower, Raymond
Balniel, Lord	Cordle, John	Grant, Anthony
Batsford, Brian	Corfield, F. V.	Grant-Ferris, R.
Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)	Crawley, Aidan	Gresham Cooke, R.
Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos. & Fhm)	Crosthwaite-Eyre, Sir Oliver	Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)
Berry, Hn. Anthony	Crowder, F. P.	Gurden, Harold
Biffen, John	Cunningham, Sir Knox	Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Biggs-Davison, John	Currie, G. B. H.	Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)
Birch, Rt. Hn. Nigel	Dalkeith, Earl of	Harris, Reader (Heston)
Black, Sir Cyril	Dance, James	Harison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)
Blaker, Peter	Dean, Paul (Somerset, N.)	Hawkins, Paul
Body, Richard	Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F. (Ashford)	Hay, John
Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John	Doughty, Charles	Heseltine, Michael
Boyle, Rt. Hn. Sir Edward	Eden, Sir John	Higgins, Terence L.
Brewis, John	Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)	Hiley, Joseph
Brinton, Sir Tatton	Errington, Sir Eric	Hirst, Geoffrey
Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)	Eyre, Reginald	Hogg, Rt. Hn. Quintin
Bryan, Paul	Farr, John	Hordern, Peter
Buck, Antony (Colchester)	Fisher, Nigel	Hunt, John
Bullus, Sir Eric	Fortescue, Tim	Hutchison, Michael Clark
Carlisle, Mark	Foster, Sir John	Iremonger, T. L.
Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert	Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)	Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)
Channon, H. P. G.	Glover, Sir Douglas	Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)

Jopling, Michael	Morrison, Charles (Devizes)	Scott, Nicholas
Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith	Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles	Sharples, Richard
Kaberry, Sir Donald	Munro-Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh	Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby)
Kershaw, Anthony	Nabarro, Sir Gerald	Sinclair, Sir George
Kimball, Marcus	Neave, Airey	Smith, John
King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)	Nicholls, Sir Harmar	Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M. (Ripon)
Kirk, Peter	Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael	Summers, Sir Spencer
Kitson, Timothy	Nott, John	Tapsell, Peter
Knight, Mrs. Jill	Onslow, Cranley	Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)
Lambton, Viscount	Osborn, John (Hallam)	Teeling, Sir William
Langford-Holt, Sir John	Page, Graham (Crosby)	Temple, John M.
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)	Page, John (Harrow, W.)	Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret
Longden, Gilbert	Peel, John	Van Straubenzee, W. R.
MacArthur, Ian	Percival, Ian	Wall, Patrick
Maclean, Sir Fitzroy	Peyton, John	Walters, Dennis
Maddan, Martin	Pike, Miss Mervyn	Weatherill, Bernard
Maginnis, John E.	Pink, R. Bonner	Webster, David
Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest	Pounder, Rafton	Wells, John (Maidstone)
Maude, Angus	Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch	Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.	Prior, J. M. L.	Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)
Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.	Ridley, Hn. Nicholas	Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)
Mills, Peter (Torrington)	Ridsdale, Julian
Miscampbell, Norman	Roots, William	TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)	Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)	Mr. Francis Pym and
Monro, Hector	Russell, Sir Ronald	Mr. R. W Elliot.
More, Jasper	St. John-Stevas, Norman

Remaining Lords Amendments disagreed to.

Committee appointed to draw up Reason to be assigned to the Lords for disagreeing to their Amendments to the Bill: Miss Alice Bacon, Mr. Boyd-Carpenter, Mr. Quintin Hogg, Mr. Gordon Oakes, and Mr. Dick Taverne; Three to be the quorum.—[Miss Bacon.]

To withdraw immediately.

Reason for disagreeing to the Lords Amendments reported and agreed to; to be communicated to the Lords.