PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSIONER BILL (Hansard, 15 March 1967)

§ Mr. Speaker
I understand that it would be for the convenience of the House if we were to take together Amendments Nos. 1 and 9; Amendments Nos. 2 and 3; Amendments Nos. 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8; and Amendments Nos. 10, 11 and 12.

§ The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Niall MacDermot)
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
This Amendment is to leave out the existing subsection (4) of Clause 5 and Amendment No. 9 which we are discussing with it is to insert a new subsection in Clause 12—in page 9, line 28, at the end to insert: () It is hereby declared that nothing in this Act authorises or requires the Commissioner to question the merits of a decision taken without maladministration by a government department or other authority in the exercise of a discretion vested in that department or authority. The intention behind the Amendments is to remove the risk of any possible misinterpretation of subsection (4) of Clause 5. The Government's intentions in respect of the powers of the Parliamentary Commissioner in relation to Ministerial discretion have been the same throughout the history of the Bill, and they have been made clear throughout.
The original White Paper of October, 1965, said in paragraph 11: The Commissioner will be concerned with faults in administration. It will not be for him to criticise policy, or to examine a decision on the exercise of discretionary powers, unless it appears to him that the decision has been affected by a fault in administration. When the Bill was introduced, it did not deal explicitly with that point, as the Government took the view that it was inherent in the word "maladministration" itself. But the Lord President dealt with the matter again in his Second Reading speech, when he said: 626 What about the definition of maladministration? In the first place I can define it to some extent negatively. It does not extend to policy, which remains a matter for Parliament. Nor do we include under maladministration that whole group of discretionary decisions which Sir John Whyatt treated separately in the first part of his Report. Discretionary decision, properly exercised, which the complainant dislikes but cannot fault the manner in which it was taken, is excluded by this Clause."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th October, 1966; Vol. 734, c. 51.] He was referring there to Clause 5.
When the matter was considered in Standing Committee, we went into it in greater detail, and again I reaffirmed the Government's position. But it was strongly argued that the position in respect of discretionary decisions ought to be made clear on the face of the Bill, and so it was that the Government introduced on Report in this House the present subsection (4) of Clause 5.
When I moved that Amendment, I said explicitly that it was a drafting Amendment making clear once again the stated intentions of the Government. There was a tendency among some hon. Gentlemen opposite and subsequently in the Press to suggest that the insertion of the subsection represented a change of policy and a deliberate emasculation of the whole scheme by the Government. That was wholly untrue, as anyone who has studied the record dispassionately would have known.
The matter was considered in another place and, as a result of the debate there, the Government have accepted that the wording of the subsection and, more important, its position in Clause 5, which has the marginal note, "Matters subject to investigation", might lead to misunderstanding. It might be argued that the effect of the subsection in that position would be to preclude an investigation altogether where there was a discretionary decision. I do not myself take that view, because it is clear from the words, "review by way of appeal", that the subsection was limited in the way that I said when I moved it. However, others have thought otherwise, and the Government are anxious only to achieve the purpose that I stated before, which is to put the matter beyond doubt.
Accordingly, these two Amendments were moved in the Lords on Report by the Government. The placing of this provision in Clause 12 rather than in 627 Clause 5, together with the slightly revised wording which now appears on the Order Paper, make it abundantly clear that the right of the Parliamentary Commissioner to investigate maladministration is not being restricted in any way.
He may investigate an allegation of maladministration in relation to a decision irrespective of whether or not the decision is in the exercise of a discretionary power. But if he finds that there is no maladministration, he cannot then review the proper exercise of that discretionary power, because to do so would be setting himself up as a court of appeal, and almost all of us are agreed that that is not a power which we wish to confer upon the Parliamentary Commissioner.

§ Sir John Hobson (Warwick and Leamington)
I desire only to say that we are grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman for the explanation he has given. I entirely concede that the Government have always made it clear that they intended the Bill to be a very emasculated one, and the power of the Ombudsman to be strictly limited. We pointed out, on Second Reading, that the Bill itself did not make that clear, and for that reason we put down two Amendments in Committee, one to say that discretionary decisions should be or could be investigated by the Ombudsman, and one to say that they could not. It was from this that the Government eventually realised that whatever they may have thought the Bill meant, it did not, as originally drafted, clarify what was the Government's declared intention. That the Bill has made the position clear, is a claim which the Government cannot advance, because at this last minute they are having another shot at drafting what was their intention.
I am bound to say that this Amendment achieves the purpose which they have always declared, of limiting very strictly, and to a miniscule number of cases, the power of the Ombudsman, and we are grateful for the Government for getting it right in the end.

§ Sir Lionel Heald (Chertsey)
I associate myself with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Sir John Hobson) in welcoming this Amendment, but we shall spend a moment or two on it because I do 628 not think that the hon. and learned Gentleman who moved the Amendment has done nearly sufficient justice to another place and to the Lord Chancellor, because after the matter had been raised here and brushed aside by the hon. and learned Gentleman, as well as the Lord President, it went to another place, and the Lord Chancellor, after giving the matter the usual careful consideration one would expect, associated himself entirely with the views which have been expressed from this side of the House—in which I had the honour of playing a small part—that as it stood it was strongly argued that part of the Clause which is now to be struck out would have the effect that it would be sufficient to show that there was an exercise of discretion in order to exclude the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman.
It may be said that it was agreed that that was not the intention, but, after all, we are concerned with the wording of Acts of Parliament. What is said by Ministers is of no value whatever in the courts. One has only to look at the wording as it is now to see the difference.
I will not read the wording, but the essence of the difference is that the words "without maladministration" have been inserted. That is to say, not a question of the merits of any decision taken in the exercise of discretion, but only if it is without maladministration.
That is exactly what we wanted, but as it stood it was certainly open to argument. If we refer to the actual words used by the Lord Chancellor we find that there is, between the hon. and learned Gentleman who moved the Amendment and the Lord Chancellor, apparently complete difference of opinion, because the Lord Chancellor said that he appreciated that there was a real danger that someone in authority might say, "You must read this wording strictly", and the Ombudsman would have no business whatever to consider this particular thing at all.
We now have the situation that the Ombudsman is left in the position of deciding whether there is maladministration or not. I think that all of us had some doubt. Certainly much more learned people than myself had doubts about it in another place as to whether the word "maladministration" was capable of definition.
629 I think we would probably agree, certainly as regards the future occupant of the important position of Parliamentary Commissioner, that it would be quite safe to leave it in his hands to decide whether he considers that there has been maladministration or not, which is, I suppose, really a question of fact, or a question of opinion, at any rate. Therefore, I feel that we should accept this with gratitude. The Lord Chancellor made another important point in relation to drafting instructions.
9.45 p.m.
He said that the point which I have been repeating, I hope at not too great length, had additional strength owing to the position of the subsection in the Bill. He said that as it was in Clause 5 which is headed "Matters subject to investigation", it was the kind of thing which would be likely to be looked at and construed very strictly, and therefore this was an additional reason for making the change which we now have.
I venture to suggest that before we part with this we should realise that this is one of those occasions when the other place has performed a very important function, because the Government adopted a dictatorial attitude which they have so often adopted recently with regard to legislation, and in this case it was the Lord Chancellor in another place who was able to put the Government in their proper place.

§ Mr. Michael English (Nottingham, West)
With respect to the right hon. and learned Member for Chertsey (Sir L. Heald) I think that in his last remarks, perhaps unwittingly, he was speaking nothing but a considerable amount of rubbish. It seems to me that the House of Lords has merely served the useful function of being an extra stage in the passing of legislation so that what was always intended to be in the Bill could be inserted in it. There is no criticism by the House of Lords or by hon. Gentlemen opposite which calls for congratulations.
I would have thought that this was a simple, straightforward issue, and had the right hon. and learned Member been on the Committee he would have realised that there were genuine difficulties, on both sides, over the best way of putting into legal form what the Committee wanted 630 in the Bill. At one point hon. Gentlemen opposite made great play of the word "maladministration". I, of course, exempt the right hon. and learned Gentleman from that. He knows better than most hon. Members that many phrases which have been inserted in Statutes by this House have subsequently come to have a technical meaning, although they did not have such a meaning originally.

§ Sir Douglas Glover (Ormskirk)
Disgraceful.

§ Mr. English
It is not disgraceful. This is what the House is for. It is here to create new techniques in a legal sense. It is here to legislate.
In this instance there were genuine difficulties in Committee. By a majority, which could not possibly fail to include hon. Members from both sides, the Committee took out certain portions of the Clause and left it so wide that the Parliamentary Commissioner could have acted as a court of appeal from the House of Lords and indeed from any other court in the land. It was therefore necessary to put something back, and this was done on Report in this House and again subsequently, in an improved form, in the other place. It was not then, and is not now, a party issue, and it is a bit much for hon. Gentlemen speciously to congraulate themselves on this provision now being in the Bill.
However, I did not really stand up to say that. I have one question to ask my hon. and learned Friend about the Amendment. Can he, with his legal knowledge, assure us that it will be possible within the terms of this restriction for the Parliamentary Commissioner to state in his report who made the decision which was the exercise of the discretion on whose merits he may not comment? It seems to me that there is an important point here. If the question complained of is taken with a degree of maladministration, obviously in his report the Commissioner will say whether it was so, either in the process leading up to the discretionary decision or in the process following from it. He will be able to say so, which is what we wanted in Committee. This is highly desirable, but there is something else which is desirable.
Perhaps the Commissioner, who is an officer of Parliament, should not comment on the merits of a discretionary 631 decision. The Amendment forbids him to do that. Such a discretion is a political decision—though not necessarily in party terms—and the proper people to question about it and to question it are in the House. I want to be sure that the proper person will be questioned and that the Commissioner will not be prevented from doing what he exists to do, namely, removing some of the secrecy which shrouds Government and administration in this country—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Hon. Members opposite agree, but I notice that they did not introduce this Measure to remove secrecy while they were in office. But I do not want to make party points.
In a system of Government as complex as ours, discretionary decisions may be technically vested in a Department, a Minister or a body like the British Railways Board but such decisions are, in fact, exercised by one or more of many thousands of people. It may interest the House to know the exact level—even if it was not desired to reveal the actual people—at which such decisions were taken.
I should like to be assured that the Commissioner could do this. If he decided that, although he could not inquire into the merits of a decision because there was no maladministration, but the case occurred at, for example, the level of Assistant Secretary and not of Minister, could he say so?

§ Dame Irene Ward (Tynemouth)
Having listened with interest to both sides of the argument, I would say "Thank God for the Lord Chancellor". Perhaps I am unduly suspicious, but, surely, if he had defined what we are now putting into the Bill when it was first drafted, the Amendments could have been avoided. I suspect, as I always have, that, having decided to appoint a Parliamentary Commissioner, the Government got "cold feet", because they have reduced—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. The hon. Lady must not generalise on this Amendment.

§ Dame Irene Ward
It is very tempting, Mr. Speaker, when I could not take part in the original—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. The hon. Lady must resist temptation.

§ Dame Irene Ward
Still, I think that it has some relevance to the Amendments that the Bill was weak before it reached another place. It has come back to us just a little stronger, which is of great advantage. I do not think that to say that would be out of order.
When the Commissioner reports on any cases—I say this because I had the good fortune, at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association meeting in New Zealand in 1965, to move a resolution about the establishment of an Ombudsman or Parliamentary Commissioner—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. The hon. Lady really must come to the Amendment.

§ Dame Irene Ward
It relates to the Amendment, Mr. Speaker, if I may be allowed to say this. I went deeply into the matter, naturally, because I had to move a Motion about it. The Parliamentary Commissioner will, it seems, have to report on every case with which he deals and presumably—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. With respect, this has nothing to do with the Amendment.

§ Dame Irene Ward
The hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) referred to the report which the Commissioner will make. I therefore thought that I would be allowed to refer to it.
I merely want to know whether, when the Commissioner reports on matters of maladministration, discretion or whatever it may be, he will, as a result of this Amendment, be able to draw attention to a weakness in the law relating to the case which he has been called upon to investigate. It will be important for the Commissioner to present a full picture and to say whether a weakness in the law has caused the maladministration, or whether it was maladministration to begin with—in the sense that somebody maladministered, through a lack of understanding, the law as it stands. I would like to know how far the powers of the Commissioner will be involved in a case of this kind.

§ Sir D. Glover
My hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) came to the nub of the problem in her closing remarks, although I agree 633 with you, Mr. Speaker, that she got rather wide of the Amendment earlier in her speech.

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. I think that the Chair needs no support from the hon. Gentleman.

§ Sir D. Glover
I was making a friendly and uncontroversial remark, but I accept your rebuke.
As I was saying, my hon. Friend came to the nub of the problem when she asked whether the Commissioner will be able to deal, even if we accept the Amendment, with certain matters. Will he merely be able to say, "This occurred as a result of maladministration," or is it the case as adduced by the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English), that the Commissioner will be able to say that because of the inefficiency of Parliament, which produced legislation which was so verbose or opaque that it was unclear to those who had to administer it, that the difficulty arose? In other words, will the Commissioner be able to say that the hon. Member for Nottingham, West or the hon. Member for Ormskirk had not done their job properly to ensure that the legislation was crystal clear?
When I said "disgraceful" when the hon. Member for Nottingham, West was speaking, I was not making a personal remark. I meant that I sometimes believe that we in Parliament do not realise the enormous importance that lies on our shoulders to ensure that, when we allow a Bill to leave this place, it is clear not only to erudite lawyers and Q.C.s, but to the ordinary man in the street so that he can decide the course of action best suited to him. When I said "disgraceful" I was indicating that all too frequently we allow Bills to pass without ensuring that they can be clearly understood by all concerned.
I welcome the Amendment, although I have little enthusiasm for the Bill. The Government have performed a miracle of medical science in that they have produced a eunuch without any medical activity, and—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman must come to the Amendment.

§ Sir D. Glover
With great respect, Mr. Speaker, I had got only half way through 634 a sentence when you pulled me up. Even if the Amendment is accepted, it is doubtful whether the Parliamentary Commissioner will be able to inquire into cases of departmental maladministration deeply enough to satisfy hon. Members who, in any case, already have considerable powers and influence in delving into departmental affairs. We must, therefore, wonder whether this gentleman will be able to do any more than we can do already.
If the Parliamentary Commissioner cannot achieve any more than hon. Members can already achieve then, although the Amendment is acceptable and improves the Bill, I still believe that it leaves the Commissioner with such attenuated powers that it is very doubtful indeed whether he can provide any real buttress to the activities of the individual Member of Parliament.

§ Mr. MacDermot
With the leave of the House, Mr. Speaker, may I say that I am very glad of the reception which these Amendments have had from hon. Members on both sides; and that hon. Members opposite appear satisfied that we now have it right. I certainly think, and the Government think, that the present wording is an improvement on the previous drafting, otherwise we would not have moved the Amendment. I quite agree with the right hon. and learned Member for Chertsey (Sir L. Heald) that we are indebted, as we have been on many other occasions, to the Lord Chancellor for his contribution, and indebted in respect of the opportunity we have had to improve Bills in another place, as we have done on this occasion.
All I sought to do in my introductory remarks was to refute the misleading suggestions made in the Press and elsewhere that there had been some change of intention or change of mind on the part of the Government in relation to these matters. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Sir J. Hobson) again trotted out the argument that it was the intention of the Government to produce an emasculated Bill.
I am delighted to see the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) coming to join us again, because he fervently advanced that as one 635 of his arguments at various stages of the Bill. I do not wish to disrupt the harmony of our proceedings, but I would remind hon. Members opposite that it was this precise proposal that they considered would put such a fetter on the working of the Executive that it should be rejected, and they did reject it on that ground.
My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) asked whether with the amended wording it will be possible for the Parliamentary Commissioner in making his report to identify who had made the decision, and I think that my hon. Friend was more particularly concerned at the level at which the decision had been made. It would certainly be within the Commissioner's power but, as a matter of practice, as has been stated before, one would hope that only in exceptional circumstances would he want to identify by name particular civil servants. We want to preserve the anonymity of the Civil Service. But he might think it important to draw attention to the level at which the decision had been taken, particularly if he thought the matter was of such importance that it should have been referred to a higher level. That would be within the scope of the Commissioner's powers.
I can also give an affirmative answer to the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) on a matter that was raised in Committee. I have already given the assurance that the Commissioner would be able, in his report, to draw attention to what appeared to him to be any defect in the law which was leading to a situation which could be described as maladministration.

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. Perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman will decide to whom he is giving way.

§ Mr. MacDermot
To the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth.

§ Dame Irene Ward
I thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way, and also for what he has said. Does his assurance extend to injustices in the law as well as to weak law?

§ Mr. MacDermot
The aspect of injustice with which the Commissioner 636 is concerned is an aspect arising from maladministration. If he thinks that some administrative procedures are leading to injustice as a result of a statutory provision or a Statutory Instrument or other legislation, he would be entitled to draw attention to it, and I imagine that he would de so.

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. The right hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington (Sir J. Hobson) has exhausted his right to speak, but may intervene before the hon. and learned Gentleman sits down.

§ Sir J. Hobson
Before the hon. and learned Gentleman sits down, Mr. Speaker, I want to ask him for a little help on the point raised by the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English). It concerns whether these provisions will not now enable the Parliamentary Commissioner, in a case where there is some maladministration, however small, to embark on a consideration of the exercise of the discretion. Under the Amendment, if he finds any maladministration, can he go into the whole matter of how the discretion was exercised?

§ Mr. MacDermot
If the Parliamentary Commissioner finds that there has been maladministration, he will then direct his mind to the question of whether injustice had been caused by it in his view and I do not see how he can do that without considering the merits. I agree that he would have to consider the merits if only for that purpose. If he thought that injustice had or might have resulted, he would presumably so report and suggest to the Department concerned what action he thought ought to be taken.

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

§ Mr. Speaker
I suggest that we discuss, at the same time, the following four Amendments.

§ Mr. MacDermot
The effect of the first three Amendments is to provide that the three types of report which the Parliamentary Commissioner will publish should be laid before both Houses of Parliament and not just before the House of Commons, and the other two Amendments are consequential. I should make it clear that these Amendments have no effect upon the ordinary report in an individual case which he will make to the Member of the House of Commons who has referred the case to him.
All we are concerned with here are the other reports which the Parliamentary Commissioner will make under the provisions of Clause 10(3) and (4). There will, first of all, be the special report which will arise in a case where he is in disagreement with a Department about whether sufficient action has been or will be taken to correct what he conceives to be injustice arising out of maladministration.
In such circumstances, the Minister responsible might be a Member of the House of Lords and not of the House of Commons. Equally, an ex-Minister might have taken the decision concerned and now be a Member of the House of Lords. Accordingly, it appeared to the Government right that reports of this nature, which are, after all, public documents—there is nothing confidential about them—should be laid before both Houses because, clearly, they could involve a matter which might arise for debate in the other place.
Having taken that decision, it appeared equally right that the reports dealt with in subsection (4)—in particular, the annual report—should also be laid before both Houses. On the Report stage here, we made an alteration in the Bill to provide that the Parliamentary Commissioner could be removed only in consequence of an Address from both Houses. The point was raised in another place that, in view of this, it was right that the Parliamentary Commissioner's reports should be laid before both Houses so that the House of Lords could be equally appraised of the progress of his work and of his office. That appeared to us to be reasonable; hence these Amendments.

§ Sir J. Hobson
When the Bill was before the House, we pointed out that, in the form in which the Bill would leave the House, it appeared that the Commissioner, although he was called a Parliamentary Commissioner, would be a House of Commons Commissioner only, because he was linked almost exclusively to the House of Commons throughout the Bill.
Therefore, we greatly welcome these Amendments. They will at any rate mean that the House of Lords, which has an equal interest in the liberty of the subject and in the rights of citizens and which has always been closely associated, by its judicial nature, with that type of work, will have some part in debating and considering the reports of the Commissioner.
As this will affect the House of Lords and this House, may I ask when it is expected that the House of Lords and we ourselves will begin to get the reports and when the Commissioner will begin to operate?

§ Mr. English
I am not surprised that—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. I should be grateful if the hon. Gentleman would speak up. I find great difficulty in hearing him.

§ Mr. English
I am not surprised, Mr. Speaker, that the right hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington (Sir J. Hobson) concurs with the Amendment, because in Standing Committee the whole of the Opposition voted against the Amendment which the Committee made and which has been partly nullified by these Lords Amendments. Government back bench Members defeated both the Opposition and the Minister in Committee and deleted all reference to the House of Lords from the original Bill. I accept that this reference has not been replaced in other parts of the Bill, but it is replaced here. [An HON. MEMBER: "So what?"] An hon. Members says, "So what?" The point is of some importance, and I shall be glad to attempt to explain what the point is.
In this case—I am dealing strictly with these Amendments only to stay within the rules of order—the Ombudsman will lay his report before both Houses of Parliament. What is unstated in the Clause but what is based upon the Clause 639 and what has been known throughout all our debates is the Select Committee to which the Reports will go in this House, and presumably now also in the other place. It will be extremely difficult for the Parliamentary Commissioner to serve two masters instead of one. That is the point which arises on these Amendments.
I rather regret that the Government have accepted these Amendments, but I see their point. The argument which my hon. and learned Friend advances is, I take it, that, since the report is to be published anyhow, there will be no harm in formally laying it before the House of Lords as well as the House of Commons. The only difference between publication, in the normal sense of the word, and laying it before the House of Lords is, presumably, that now this will give the House of Lords the right to do what it cannot do initially under the terms of the Bill as it stands, although it could under the terms of the Bill as originally introduced. Peers cannot raise complaints in the House of Lords or as Members of the House of Lords, although they can do so as ordinary citizens through their Member of the House of Commons.
What they will now be able to do is presumably exactly what it is proposed to do in this House, namely, to consider in a Select Committee all the possibilities and details, to bring forward and, indeed, to suggest procedures to the Commissioner. Throughout the Committee stage it was asserted that the Commissioner would no doubt frequently consult the Select Committee; no doubt he would listen to its opinions and its suggested methods of conducting inquiries, and so on. He would not be bound by the Select Committee, but no doubt he would listen to it. This was said in Standing Committee.
Now the Commissioner will presumably have two such bodies to listen to, and these will often no doubt be in conflict. This will make the position of the Commissioner that much more difficult. In all conscience it is surely difficult enough already. I rather regret that the Government have gone back on the situation which their back benchers created in Standing Committee. The majority of the Committee struck out the reference to the House of Lords in both initiation and subsequent consideration, and I think 640 it possibly disadvantageous that that principle, which was decided by this House, has not been adhered to.

§ Dr. M. P. Winstanley (Cheadle)
I welcome the opportunity to offer the broad support of my right hon. and hon. Friends on this bench for this group of Amendments. Perhaps I may say, in passing, that we should have offered even more enthusiastic support for certain other Amendments which their Lordships considered, but which, unhappily, have not appeared on the Notice Paper with these.
It has been argued that the need for an Ombudsman or Parliamentary Commissioner has been caused by certain deficiencies which have arisen in this place, in other words, because it has been impossible in many ways, for perfectly good reasons, for Members of the House of Commons to do certain of their jobs. In a way, we have proceeded in a typically British fashion. Finding something wrong with an institution, instead of putting it right we have put another institution on top.
That is what we have done, but this group of Amendments improves the situation considerably. If there is a deficiency in this place—I make no criticism of hon. Members; the process of events and the way things have evolved have given rise to the problem—the more the other place can be brought into the matter the better.
I happen to be one in this Chamber—perhaps there are not many—who believes that there will come a time when the Labour Party will honour its election pledge of 1929 to give us a democratic and representative Second Chamber.

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. That is very interesting, but it cannot be discussed now.

§ Dr. Winstanley
With great respect, Sir, I believe that the time will come when the other House will be reformed and that, when it is reformed, it will be necessary for the Second Chamber to be brought into these proceedings at every possible stage. It would be most regrettable if it were left out of this Bill.

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. We are not at that stage now. We are considering whether the report should be presented to the other place as well as to this. The 641 hon. Gentleman must keep to the Amendment.

§ Dr. Winstanley
I am glad that the report is to be presented to the other House. Even at this time, this will be very useful, but I am certain that the time will come when it will become even more useful. I offer the general support of my right hon. and hon. Friends, therefore, for this group of Amendments, which will go a long way to improve the Bill as a whole.

§ Sir D. Glover
I was appalled at the speech of the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English), who wants the Parliamentary Commissioner—I emphasise that his title is Parliamentary Commissioner—to be restricted to the House of Commons and not to serve Parliament as a whole.
When the hon. Gentleman says that Members of another place can make representations through their Members of Parliament, he forgets that Members of the other place have no vote, so that they have no Members of Parliament. Moreover, we in this House are the Lower House of Parliament. Parliament is one whole. There is the House of Commons, the Lower House, and there is the House of Peers, the Upper House. At some stage, this House, or Parliament as a whole, may decide that it would like to alter that position, but we are dealing here—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. This may be an interesting excursion into constitutional problems, but the hon. Gentleman must discuss the Amendment, which is that the report shall be submitted also to the other House.

§ Sir D. Glover
I had finished my historical reference, Mr. Speaker, and all I was about to say when you intervened and brought me to order was that the present position is that we have Parliament as we understand it, the Lower House and the Upper House, and I regard it as an enormous improvement—

§ Mr. Anthony Royle (Richmond)
Is not Parliament the Lower House, the Upper House and the Sovereign together in one Assembly?

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. The hon. Member should not tempt the hon. Gentleman who has the Floor.

§ Sir D. Glover
To show you the virtues I have in my heart, Mr. Speaker, I nearly said that earlier, but realised that it would have been more out of order and restricted myself to the two Chambers.
In fact, the two Chambers are Parliament. We in this House are not Parliament; we are the Lower House of Parliament. If there is to be a Commission dealing with deficiencies of the governmental machine it seems to me only logical that the members of the other half of Parliament should have access to the reports in the same way as a Member of this House.
Therefore, I do not understand the attitude of the hon. Member for Nottingham, West, who thinks that that should be restricted to the Lower House, the House of Commons. He said that there might be administrative difficulties. Because the Parliamentary Commissioner would be serving two masters, the reports would have to go to two Select Committees. That is what is known as an administrative difficulty and is not something which we in this House or in Parliament as a whole should concern ourselves with. If it is right that the report should go to both Houses of Parliament the administrative difficulties can be overcome.
I accept that there is a problem, but if we accept that Parliament is made up of both Houses I consider that both Houses have an equal right to get the Commissioner's report and we should not try to put ourselves in an advantageous position.

§ Mr. MacDermot
Perhaps I can first allay the fears of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English). There is no question of there being two Select Committees to which the Parliamentary Commissioner will report. I understand that there is no intention by the other House to seek to set up a Select Committee. I think that it is accepted by them that the Parliamentary Commissioner will basically be an Officer of this House and will report to a Select Committee of this House.
A situation might arise when a member of another place would be criticised in one of the reports. He might choose to appear before our Select Committee or to defend himself in debate in the 643 other place. For that reason, we thought that these were appropriate Amendments.
I was asked when the Parliamentary Commissioner would be able to begin work. We hope that it will be at the beginning of next month.

§ Mr. English
Would my hon. and learned Friend explain how he can prevent the other place setting up a Select Committee if it wishes to do so?

§ Mr. MacDermot
There is no need for me to do so because there is no such intention.

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

§ Mr. Speaker
It might be for the convenience of the House to consider with it the following Lords Amendments, No. 11, in page 12, line 36, leave out "Ministry of Land and Natural Resources" and insert "Land Commission"; and No. 12, in page 13, line 3, at end insert "Social Survey".

§ Mr. MacDermot
The three Amendments are consequent upon the dissolution of the Ministry of Aviation and the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources, the establishment of the Land Commission and the creation of the Social Survey as a separate Department, which has already been announced.