HC Deb 29 April 1968 vol 763 cc921-5

9.50 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury and Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Silkin)

I beg to move, That the Orders [25th April] relating to Scottish Standing Committees be discharged. I ought perhaps to explain how this Motion arose. It was originally the intention that this Motion, and the Motion on the Committee of Procedure, should be taken on Monday—today—and that the Motions originally put down for last Thursday should be deferred. Unfortunately, as the House may be aware, a rather disturbing incident took place during that evening, an incident of a sort which, I gather, has not taken place for 50 years, and, as a result of that, business was somewhat disrupted.

In the confusion this and the subsequent Motion went through on the nod. I hope that the House will accept that there was no intention on the part of the Government to take advantage of hon. and right hon. Members who had views to express upon this matter. I can assure them that, on the law of averages, it will be the year 2017 before we have a like occurrence.

However, I feel it may be as well if I state why it is the intention to recommend to the House that a second Scottish Standing Committee should be set up. There is nothing unusual in this idea. Indeed, during last Session such a Committee was set up; the proposal went through on the nod; and during the Session before a similar Motion was moved, and, again, went through unopposed, on the nod. The basis of it arises on this consideration. The Scottish Standing Committee itself is extremely congested; it has a large number of Government Bills, and those Private Members' Bills which you, Mr. Speaker, certify as devoted exclusively to Scotland are at the end of the queue. It seemed unreasonable to many hon. Members that these Bills should be excluded from discussion simply because of the wealth of legislation going through the Scottish Committee. As a result, and as in the previous Session and the Session before, the Government were asked to set up a second Scottish Standing Committee. This we propose to do.

Of course, it is a matter for the House; it is urely for the convenience of back benchers. However, if there were a strong feeling against it—there was not last Session, there was not in the Session before—neither I nor my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House would wish to resist the desires of the House in this matter. However, it does seem to me that it is something of considerable importance to the House that there are useful Private Members' Bills which the Scottish Standing Committee would like to discuss.

Having explained how this Motion came into existence today, I would ask the leave of the House to withdraw this Motion at a later stage. The effect then would be, of course, that the Motion passed inadvertently on Thursday would be agreed by the House in the full knowledge of the circumstances.

9.54 p.m.

Mr. David Steel (Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles)

We are in the rather peculiar position that the Government Chief Whip might be somewhat embarrassed tonight if anyone were to support the Government. I think that is the summing up of the situation which he has just described. Since the incident which occurred occurs only once in 50 years, I think that we may allow the Government an occasional slip up—one in 50 years. The right hon. Gentleman was kind and courteous enough to write to me last week and let me know that it was not the intention to move that Motion on Thursday night. I was, therefore, horrified that that Motion went through. The right hon. Gentleman knows my interest in it. I now wish to speak to this Motion so that I may press the Government Chief Whip for further assurances.

When the Motion first appeared I raised the matter with the Leader of the House, and he, following my representations, decided to withdraw the Motion for further consideration. I am not opposed to the idea of setting up a second Scottish Standing Committee, but the Government's Motion, which it is now moved should be discharged, involved setting up a Committee of between 20 and 50 Members.

As I understand, it is the accepted practice in the House during the lifetime of this Parliament that if a Committee consists of 30 or more Members the Liberal minority is entitled to a member on it, but if a Committee is of only 20 or 25 Members we do not qualify to nominate a member to the Committee, because the Standing Order states that the Committee of Selection has to have regard to the composition of the House. I think that I quote the Standing Order correctly.

The point I made to the Leader of the House was that here we are dealing not with a Standing Committee consisting of Members of the House, but a Standing Committee consisting of Scottish Members of the House, Members selected from the Scottish Grand Committee. I submitted to him that the representation of the Liberal minority in that Scottish Grand Committee consisting of 70 Members is one-fourteenth of the seats, a very much higher proportion than in the House generally. I thought that it was a reasonably fair point to make that on any Scottish Standing Committee, even one of only 20 Members, we were on that basis entitled to a seat, and that we could not, as a party, justify to the electorate of Scotland our exclusion from any Committee of 20 Members dealing exclusively with Scottish matters.

There are two ways in which the Government can get round this, and I hope that the Chief Whip will give an assurance on one or the other. The first is that he will assure us that the second Standing Committee that he proposes to set up should consist of at least 30 Members, which would at least ensure that we had a Member on the Committee, and that we would accept without further ado. This is not a satisfactory solution in the long term. At the moment there are about 21 Committees of the House and it is clearly undesirable that more Members than are strictly necessary should be recruited to a Committee.

The Bills which it is proposed to remit to this Standing Committee are, as far as I understand, not contentious Bills. They are not Bills in which 30 Members would wish to participate. They are Private, Members' Bills, no doubt worthy Bills, but they are of limited interest in the House. I would think that 20 Members would be quite adequate to discuss these Bills, and it seems sad that we should have to dragoon 30 Members into a Committee in order to get correct representation.

I hope, therefore, that the Chief Whip may satisfy me on this occasion. I hope, also, that he may be able to say something about looking at the Standing Order to see whether or not there might be an instruction to the Committee of Selection to select the Members of Scottish Standing Committees with some regard to the composition of Scottish seats.

9.59 p.m.

Mr. Emrys Hughes (South Ayrshire)

I welcome the assurance of the Chief Whip that he is giving consideration to the injustices to Scotland, especially in regard to Bills coming before the Scottish Grand Committee. I understand that there will be a further Motion on the Order Paper, and that the Chief Whip will consider a wider Motion than that one which was discharged.

I will not go into detail, but I wonder why, for example, the Scottish Standing Committee cannot be given power to meet in Scotland. The suggestion is taken by some hon. Members as being revolutionary, but other Committees of the House, for example the Select Committee on Agriculture, had power to go to Brussels, and I understand that the Sub-Committees of the Estimates Committee travel all over the world. Yet the Scottish Grand Committee does not have the power to sit in Scotland.

I ask that this suggestion should be given serious consideration before the further Motion appears on the Order Paper, because there is a great demand in Scotland for the method of dealing with Scottish business to be modernised—

Mr. Speaker

Order. The hon. Gentleman may discuss that when we come to the second Motion which he hopes to see on the Order Paper some day. At the moment, we are discussing whether a certain Motion shall be discharged. He must link his remarks to that.

Mr. Emrys Hughes

I shall make only one further point—

It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.