Clause 11.—(SHORT TITLE AND COMMENCEMENT.) (Hansard, 30 June 1967)

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

§ Mr. Bryan
I repeat my request once again for the Postmaster-General to tell us exactly what he means by accepting the Amendment.

Mr. Short
There is little that I can say. I am rather resentful that the hon. Member should accuse me of deceit in this matter. I should have thought that the hon. Member knows me well enough now to know that this is the last thing of which he could accuse me. In this matter there are few people who have been more forthright and straightforward than myself from die very word "go", so I hope that the hon. Member will think again about his accusation of deceit.

§ Mr. Hamling
Withdraw.

§ Mr. Bryan
I would be only too willing to withdraw as soon as I have this explanation. On the face of it, I must honestly say that to accept an Amendment knowing that one is not going to honour the meaning of the Amendment and knowing that one has already made up one's mind on what the date is when obviously the Amendment presupposes one has not yet decided, appears deceitful.

§ Mr. Hamling
Withdraw.

Mr. Short
The Amendment does not presuppose anything at all. The Amendment means that I can make an Order, or that an Order can be made, any time after one month has elapsed from the Royal Assent. Their Lordships made this Amendment and that is their affair. However, my noble Friend, Lord Sorensen, made it crystal clear to their Lordships that we had no option in the matter. We have international obligations and we have to make the order as soon as possible.
I have no objection to the Amendment being made—indeed, I have moved that we agree to it—but we have been perfectly straightforward about it. We have said that even if the Lords make the Amendment we regard ourselves as morally and legally bound to our friends abroad, to our sailors and people in our lightships and lighthouses and so on, to bring the Bill into force as soon as possible. There is no deceit about it. This is a perfectly straightforward point of view. The hon. Member may regard it as honouring the Amendment in the letter and not in the spirit if he wishes, but we have been straightforward and have made our position clear.

§ Mr. Stratton Mills (Belfast, North)
I should like a little more explanation of the Government's intentions in this matter. I start by referring to what happened in another place. I shall not weary the House with quotations, but it is clearly set out in HANSARD that on several occasions Lord Sorensen said that he wanted time to consider these points which had been brought up when the Amendment was moved, and that then the Lord Chancellor, with the full weight of his office, intervened to say that the noble Lord who had moved the Amendment had made a very long speech and raised a number of interesting and novel 1163 matters. The Lord Chancellor went on to say: The Government should have an opportunity of considering what the noble Lord has said". I think that I am correct in saying that the points which the noble Lord was making in another place had been discussed in Committee in the Commons, so that it was clear what was behind the Amendment. I would not have thought that it was a new matter which needed considerable attention or considerable thought after the speeches. I would have thought that the straight thing to do would have been for Lord Sorensen to say that the Government had considered the matter, but were categorically not able to accept the Amendment. Although we would have disagreed, we could not have had any complaint.
However, we had all this business about asking for the Amendment to be held back to provide time for consideration and then, after the Division, Lord Sorensen made the rather angry comment: it will be their intention"— that is, the Government's intention— if the Bill is enacted in this form"— that is, with the Amendment— to advise Her Majesty to make an Order bringing the Act into operation on the day after the expiry of one month from the date on which the Bill receives the Royal Assent."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 1st May, 1967; Vol. 282, c. 734–7.] My hon. Friend the Member for How-den (Mr. Bryan) used the word "deceit". If for the time being we are to suspend judgment on the matter, we ought to have an explanation about how this matter arose. There may have been a genuine misunderstanding and, of course, we would accept that but that would seem very odd when this matter had been considered in Committee of the Commons. When it went into Committee in the Lords, not one but two Government Ministers said that the matter should be put aside while the Government considered it further and yet, as soon as a Division was taken, they said that the Government had already made up their minds. My hon. Friend used the word "deceit" and I would have thought that prima facie that was a fair assessment of the events.
1164 I want to clear up a couple of other matters. Yesterday, the Postmaster-General said that Radio 247 would be coming into operation on 30th September. If the Bill gets the Royal Assent, as no doubt it will, within the next week or 10 days, roughly speaking the Bill will come into force about the middle of August, so there will be a gap of about six weeks before Radio 247 gets on the air. I understand that the Postmaster-General intends to bring the Bill into force at the earliest opportunity. When he replies to the debate—with the permission of the House—perhaps he will make it crystal clear again that there will be this gap of probably six weeks.
The right hon. Gentleman emphasised earlier that the pirates must go. Most of us agree with that sentiment and our main difference concerns what is to be the alternative. I have argued that the pirates will not go until the new programme gets under way, or some other genuine alternative takes their place. I am reinforced in this view by The Times of 29th June which reports a pitched battle at Roughs Tower, the abandoned fort off Harwich. It reported that Mr. Ronan O'Rahilly is to use the old tower for a 'health farm' for exhausted show business people and wealthy insomniacs' and to use the lower part for a mushroom farm. That is totally absurd and it is obviously to be used as some form of supply base for one of the pirates. All this pitched battle business is rather distasteful.
It seems perfectly clear that the pirates will not accept the Bill. Unless the right hon. Gentleman is very careful to get Radio 247 started in the best possible time to coincide with the end of the pirates he will not be doing a service to Radio 247 and, what is more serious, he will be helping the pirates, the very people whom he is trying to force out of business.
I do not want to take the matter further, but those matters should be borne carefully in mind. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman can give a clear answer about when he will bring the Bill into operation.

§ Mr. Robert Cooke
This will be the briefest of brief interventions. I see that the Postmaster-General is to cope with the Adjournment debate, so he must not 1165 feel too upset if he has to stay in the cool shade of the Chamber instead of enjoying the countryside outside.
I want to take the action of their Lordships a little further. I have looked at the Division lists and I have seen among the Contents no less persons than Viscount Dilhorne, a former Lord Chancellor, Baroness Hylton-Foster, the widow of our late Speaker, Lord Grimston of Westbury, who used to occupy with such distinction the Chair which you now occupy, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Lord MacAndrew, who is of similar calibre, various other distinguished gentlemen of a non-political nature, including descendants of two Viceroys of India, and a former chairman of the Arts Council.
If that is not an indication that their Lordships took the matter seriously and meant what they said and believed that the Government should have this flexibility, I do not know what is, and I hope that the Postmaster-General will take it seriously.

Mr. Chanson
I make no apology for detaining the House. This is the last Lords Amendment which we have to discuss and it is very important. I hope that the Postmaster-General will think fit to answer my hon. Friend's question about his intentions concerning making the Order after the Bill receives the Royal Assent. The right hon. Gentleman owes that to tile House. Personally, I think that the House has been treated shabbily by the Government on this issue. The right hon. Gentleman has accepted the letter of the Lords Amendment, but not its spirit. My hon. Friend the Member for Howden (Mr. Bryan) was right to point that out.
An indication of this treatment was the way in which this business was originally put down for a morning sitting. It was thought to be non-controversial and it was accepted by nearly every hon. Member taking an interest in these matters that the Government would accept the spirit as well as the letter of the Amendment. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor) and I have slightly more suspicious minds than some hon. Members and we foresaw that that might not be the ease, which is why I moved an Amendment to the Lords Amendment.
It is my view that as it stands the Lords Amendment, which provides that 1166 the Government can take powers to make an Order one month after the Bill receives the Royal Assent, is hardly worth having in the Bill, because, as drafted, the Bill comes into operation one month exactly after the date on which it is passed.
If I am to be the last speaker in this debate, with the possible exception of the right hon. Gentleman, I want to say, in conclusion, that this is a very sad day, in this last debate on the "Pirate Radio" Bill, for many millions of listeners in this country. Not only are they to be deprived of their favourite listening, but they are to be deprived of it in a way which will cause them the maximum inconvenience. There will be this enormous gap between the closing down of the pirate radio stations and the introduction of Radio 247.
I share the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills). If Radio 247 is to be the success that hon. Members wish it to be, although I doubt whether it will be, and I agree that this is unfair, it could not have been given a worse start in allowing this gap. This is a sad story. It began with the scandalous delay which the hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Hamling) said was our fault. Yet his own Government delayed three years until after General Election. The Government have allowed this great market to—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not go any further on that.

Mr. Chanson
Of course I will not, and I apologise for being led astray. [An HON. MEMBER: "Time-wasting."] I am not time-wasting. The 10 million listeners, or whatever the figure may be, who will be angry and disgusted at the Government's introduction of the Bill will have every right to feel that way towards the Labour Government, and I hope that they will remember this in the years to come.

§ Mr. Hamling
I had not intended to intervene in this debate until I heard my right hon. Friend described as deceitful. I have had much correspondence about this matter with my right hon. Friend, and on every occasion have found him to be absolutely straightforward and honest. I can think of no one, inside this House 1167 or outside of it, who has been more forthright and straightforward in his approach to this question than my right hon. Friend.

§ Mr. Bryan
May I say that I agree with every single word that the hon. Gentleman has said so far. What I am saying is that the whole conduct of this affair, from the other place to here, seems to be an operation that has been entirely deceitful. I certainly do not mean anything personal against the right hon. Gentleman.

§ Mr. Hamling
That will not do. The attack was made on my right hon. Friend If the hon. Gentleman wants to put down a Motion of censure on the other place, let him try to find a constitutional way of doing it, but not upon my right hon. Friend.

§ Mr. Bryan
I am merely saying that the right hon. Gentleman has continued the operation begun in another place. We can all see this, there is no denying it.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
I do not think that we can pursue this. We had better leave it.
The Question is—

Mr. Hamlin
On a point of order, I gave way to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Howden (Mr. Bryan). I was in the middle of my speech.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, he was not addressing himself to this Amendment at all. I understood that he had concluded his speech.

§ Mr. Hamling
Further to that point of order. I was pursuing this debate, in the tone of the debate, and I was speaking of some of the things said about my right hon. Friend by hon. Members opposite. I submit with great respect that we are entitled, on these benches, to defend our right hon. Friends.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
The hon. Gentleman, if I may say so, had effectively made that point. We have now concluded that matter.

§ Mr. Ronald Bell (Buckinghamshire, South)
On a point of order. I did not think that you had finished collecting the voices of hon. Members. You asked how 1168 many of that opinion would say Aye, but you did not invite the Noes to express their opinion, Mr. Deputy Speaker.