HC Deb 24 January 1967 vol 739 cc1350-8

7.8 p.m.

Mr. Quintin Hogg (St. Marylebone)

I beg to move, Amendment No. 29, in page 1, line 16, to leave out from "of" to "and" in line 17 and to insert: Addresses from both Houses of Parliament". I must first apologise to the House if I propose the Amendment in a cursory form, but I am sure that the House will forgive me when it hears that I do so owing to the temporary illness of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington, South (Mr. Roots) who has managed to come here, but has not felt able to move the Amendment himself.

The object of the Amendment is to place the Parliamentary Commissioner in the same position as other officers whose appointments are determined only on Parliamentary Resolution, and to substitute for the Resolution of one House in this respect, the Resolution of both Houses. I shall come back to the analogies and precedents in a moment, but there is one reason for moving the Amendment which I am sure will appeal to the House, or at least so much of it as hears the Amendment proposed.

When the Amendment was proposed in Committee, the Committee divided, and the result of the Division was a tie. The result of the Division therefore remained to be determined by the Chairman of the Committee, who, in the mysterious and almost religious way in which Chairmen have to cast their votes, decided to vote against the Amendment in order to achieve a debate on the Floor of the House on the Report stage, as the HANSARD Committee proceedings duly records. Those who proposed the Amendment in Committee would be lacking in duty if they did not give effect to the wish of the Chairman of the Committee when he exercised his right in the event of a tie on a Division.

Even more intriguing than that incident—which was in accord with precedent and rule—was the fact that the Minister, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, strongly supported the Audit in a carefully worded and well thought out speech. Having most seriously considered the matter, he voted for the Amendment in the Division which resulted in a tie. I feel sure that the Financial Secretary and his right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, who is seated beside him, will stick to their guns and not allow themselves to be frightened out of their manly support of what the Financial Secretary believed to be right in Committee.

I will be disappointed if the Financial Secretary, the Leader of the House, and perhaps other occupants of the Front Bench opposite do not join us in the Lobby if the Amendment is taken to a Division. It would be a pleasure, although an unusual one, to welcome them to that Lobby, but we will extend that welcome because we know that they are men of principle and courage and are not afraid of some of their own supporters, who are never wearied of restraining them. As they have expressed their opinions on the Amendment—certainly the Financial Secretary, who voted for it —I trust that his colleagues will not abandon him now or compel him to vote against his opinions.

The basis of the Amendment is, first, that the precedents are with us. The Parliamentary Commissioner is not a Commissioner of one House but a "Parliamentary Commissioner". He is, by definition to be wholly independent of the Executive. Ex hypothesi in this House the Executive have certain disciplinary powers over the working majority—which we recognise, although they are seldom acknowledged in the legal terminology of our legislation.

If the Parliamentary Commissioner is, in truth and in fact, to be independent of the Executive, his appointment should be not merely subject to the will of the majority of this House but to the will of Parliament. This has been done not only with the judges of the High Court, who must deal with the rights of the subject—as has the Parliamentary Commissioner—but also, I understand, with the Comptroller and Auditor General. He provides a very close analogy with the Parliamentary Commissioner, not merely by reason of the personality of the first appointment but because throughout, in their advocacy of this scheme, the Government have founded their case and argument on this precise analogy with the Comptroller and Auditor-General.

I should have thought that the precedent and analogy of the Comptroller and Auditor General applies, a fortiori, to the proposed Parliamentary Commissioner, since the former is precisely concerned with the Government expenditure of money from the Consolidated Fund, to see that it is not misused. This is and always has been, not merely by convention but by immemorial convention, the prerogative of this House, to the exclusion of another place. Yet when the appointment of the Comptroller and Auditor General is considered and the circumstances in which this appointment is to be terminated are defined by Act of Parliament, then I understand that a Resolution of both Houses is necessary.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the Financial Secretary, when he came to reply to this Amendment in Committee, found the arguments compelling to such an extent that he felt bound to rehearse them in some detail in the case of the first, the independence of the Executive, and summarily in the case of the second, of the analogies.

Let us consider the arguments advanced on the other side. They were, I suggest, based on a misunderstanding of the situation. The first was adduced by the hon. and learned Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman), who said that the Parliamentary Commissioner was, in effect, an official designed to deal with complaints made by the constituents of hon. Members and made through hon. Members. That is an error. He is a person who will deal with complaints of maladministration, whether or not they are from constituents. It is true that they must be channelled through an hon. Member, but they do not need to come from that hon. Member's constituents. Nor does the possession, of a vote in a constituency, or a vote at all, constitute a right to make representations to an hon. Member. As I understand it, there is nothing to prevent a peer, an alien, a bankrupt or a convict from making representations to an hon. Member from quite outside the constituency in which he lives. It is the prerogative of any hon. Member, as I understand it, to approach the Government in this respect.

It is, therefore, wholly wrong to suggest that the Parliamentary Commissioner is the servant of individual hon. Members to give effect to the complaints of their individual constituents. To suggest that is misunderstanding the position. Moreover, although it is not apparent from the terms of the Bill, I have understood from the debates on the subject that although, in the first instance, the Bill provides that the complaints should be channelled through hon. Members—perhaps to sift them, give priority and not to take away the prerogative of the House —it was supposed in the end that, as in other countries, the complaints should come direct from members of the public. At any rate, this is something which may or may not be the case, but the first of the two arguments must be valid.

The second reason adduced came, perhaps not surprisingly, from the ingenious mind of the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Sydney Silverman). He was so zealous of the reputation of another place and its good relations with this House that he was afraid that, if it were provided that a Resolution of both Houses was necessary before the appointment of the Parliamentary Commissioner could be terminated, this might give rise to some dissension between the two Houses. From the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne, that was welcome news indeed. He was so zealous for the good relations between the two Houses that he was anxious at all costs to prevent the possibility of dissension between them—a laudable objective.

Mr. Sydney Silverman (Nelson and Colne)

Since we are dealing with a quite serious matter, perhaps we should get the point clear. What is basic to the Parliamentary Commissioner doing a satisfactory job is that he should not be dragged into any kind of political controversy. If one found the continuance of his occupation in his post dependent on a Resolution of this House and also on a Resolution of another place, one must envisage the possibility of the two Houses coming to different conclusions. If that occurred, there would be a contest between the two and it is of the nature of such a contest that it would be conducted in political terms. The impartiality and objectiveness of the Parliamentary Commissioner would obviously be called in question in such a debate, and, if there were finally disagreement between the two Houses, the continuance of his Department might depend on a constitutional conflict between the two Houses, which we would all wish to avoid. [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker

Order. Interventions ought not to be speeches.

Mr. Hogg

I do not know why the hon. Gentleman found it necessary to remind the House that this is a serious subject. Of course it is. But I found his argument rather less well-phrased than I did when I read it in the OFFICIAL REPORT of the Committee's proceedings, and less convincing because he did not frame it as well.

Tht answer—which, had the hon. Gentleman not intervened, I would have given him at once, and which I hasten to provide—is that it would be a convincing argument if we did not have 250 years' experience of the appointment of judges who are, for this purpose, in exactly the same position, and if we did not have nearly 100 years' experience of the appointment of the Comptroller and Auditor General, who is certainly in this position. If it is said that for the serious and proper discharge of such offices they should be detached from party politics and from all suspicions of controversy, then this applies to the judges preeminently, but it has never been found in 250 years' experience that it was necessary to confine the termination of the appointment of the judges to one House to the exclusion of the other.

Indeed, I believe that if it were desired to do so, the judges themselves would think that an important safeguard by which they could be kept out of public controversy had been removed from their appointments. The same thing would be true of the Comptroller and Auditor General. Thus, I do not know why the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne should be offended when I reminded him that, admirable as his desire is to prevent dissension between the two Houses, his fears ought to have been founded on two and a half centuries of experience of analogous appointments.

Mr. David Weitzman (Stoke Newington and Hackney, North)

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is making a completely fallacious analogy when he compares the position of the Parliamentary Commissioner with that of the judges. As I understand it, the Parliamentary Commissioner is an officer who receives complaints through hon. Members, which is completely different from the position of the judges.

Mr. Hogg

The hon. and learned Gentleman is not following my argument. I had already dealt with that point, which was a bad one when he made it in Committee. I was engaged on answering the point made by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne. The analogy is exact and I was taking the argument of the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne seriously, as he asked me to do, and that hon. Gentleman was trying to say that, because of the need for the Parliamentary Commissioner to operate in a detached atmosphere, it was important not to involve him in any possible dispute between the two Houses.

That applies exactly to the judges. As I said at the outset, it is true that under the Bill the Parliamentary Commissioner is a servant of this House, as is the Comptroller and Auditor General. However, we have passed from that, because I had answered that point and I will not weary the House with repetition, even though the hon. and learned Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North does not seem to have appreciated the relevance of what I was saying.

The only other argument put forward was adduced by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) who said that it would be unfortunate should the Parliamentary Commissioner turn out to be a peer and then take part in a debate in the House of Lords on a Resolution demanding his dismissal. I have dealt with all the other arguments, and if that is the only one left—and it must be, having, dealt with all the others—in opposition to the Amendment, then I do not take it very seriously, in spite of the danger of incurring the wrath of the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne because, as everyone knows, public servants who are in another place—and there are a few—are restrained by strict rules from taking part in debates relating to their offices. The possibility of the Parliamentary Commissioner being a peer in the foreseeable future—at any rate, under this Administration—depends entirely on hon. Gentlemen opposite, and that would depend on whether they advised Her Majesty to issue a patent of peerage to the present incumbent. Therefore, that is not a serious point.

This is a wholly reasonable Amendment. It commended itself to the Financial Secretary in Committee and if the Government have any sense of the preponderance of argument they will now accept it.

Mr. Leslie Hale (Oldham, West)

I have no observations to make in this discussion, but I was about to interrupt the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg), who said that we did not follow his argument. He was right about that. Knowing the right hon. and learned Gentleman, I am sure that he would not wish to leave uncorrected his unwitting discourtesy to Her Majesty in his concluding words. He said that the question of who was a peer was a matter for hon. Members on this side. It is a matter entirely of the Royal Prerogative exercised on the advice of the Prime Minister. Nobody else can interfere.

Mr. Hogg

I thought I had made it plain that I was talking about the possibility of the present incumbent becoming a peer. I take it that this could not be done without the approval of the Government. I certainly was guilty of no discourtesy to the occupant of the Throne, nor would I have been in order had I been so.

Mr. Weitzman

The right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) has stated so clearly the arguments which I put in Committee that I do not want to repeat them. The only answer that he has given to them is that he says he does not agree with them. I do agree with them. They are perfectly sound arguments. For that reason, the Amendment should be rejected.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Richard Crossman)

The right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) moved his Amendment with his usual good humour but said one thing which was misleading to my hon. Friends when he said that the name "Parliamentary Commissioner" should imply that the Commissioner is not for the House of Commons but is for Parliament as a whole. I was not on the Standing Committee but I have read the report of the debates. If that was the impression that the right hon. and learned Gentleman gained by reading the debate—and I have read it, the same as he has done—he has misread it, because great attention was paid to removing any idea that the Parliamentary Commissioner was in this sense responsible to both Houses of Parliament.

Mr. Hogg

I made it plain that I accepted that. I said that the Parliamentary Commissioner was in the same position from that point of view as the Comptroller and Auditor General.

Mr. Crossman

That is the nub of my argument. He is, in fact, in the same position as the Comptroller and Auditor General. We use the word "Parliamentary" in the title in the same way as we use the title "Member of Parliament". It is important to emphasise, although this is not a very profound point, that the Parliamentary Commissioner is a House of Commons person who works only for Members of Parliament.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman talked gaily about that being a mere formality, but to us on this side it is an important part of the Bill that the Parliamentary Commissioner is an instrument of investigation which can be brought into action only through a Member of Parliament. As we shall be discussing later, we are to have a Select Committee of our own which will operate and conduct his proceedings. It should be clear that the use of the word "Parliamentary" means no more than when we use the title "Member of Parliament" about ourselves. He is a servant of the House of Commons.

It would have been possible to give the Parliamentary Commissioner wider responsibility and to say that any Member of the House of Lords would have the right to ask the Parliamentary Cornmissioner to work for him. That was discussed at an early stage in Committee but the suggestion was dropped. It was made clear by the Government that we were not prepared to consider any kind of Amendment which would widen the work of the Parliamentary Commissioner into his being somebody who could serve not only Members of Parliament, but also members of the House of Lords.

On balance, I think that my hon. and learned Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury was quite right in saying that simply because of the analogy of the Comptroller and Auditor General and to make assurance double sure, it is better to have the same routine. I doubt whether it will be used much in this Parliament by the recall of the two Houses but we want to put the Parliamentary Commission in the strictest sense comparable with the Comptroller and Auditor General. That is what the Clause does. It states that he shall be as independent as the Comptroller and Auditor General. He will be that kind of person.

Because we want to emphasise that his office will be as dignified and independent and, at the same time, linked equally with the House of Commons, we should have the same procedure in this case. Therefore, solely for that reason, I advise that we should accept the Amendment.

Amendment agreed to.