HC Deb 08 March 1971 vol 813 cc201-7

Ordered, That the Report of the Select Committee on Standing Orders (Revision) be now considered.—[Mr. Whitelaw.]

Report considered accordingly.

11.40 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. William Whitelaw)

I beg to move, That the repeals of, and Amendments to, the Standing Orders of this House relating to Public Business and the new Standing Orders, recommended by the Select Committee in their Report and stated in the first Appendix thereto, be made, subject to the following modification, namely, in the new Standing Order No. 18 (Business of Supply), paragraph 5(g), leave out 'Estimates' and insert 'Expenditure', and to the omission of all reference to Standing Order No. 80 (Estimates Committee). In bringing forward this Report, I think I should first express on behalf of the House generally our gratitude to the members of this Committee for the thoroughness and rapidity with which this important tidying-up operation has been done. The need to arrange our Standing Orders in the most systematic and lucid way possible is a complex and detailed task; it is also a very necessary one. I am sure, too, that the Committee would also like me to express on its behalf its appreciation of the comprehensive memorandum prepared by the Clerk's Department which served as the basis of its consideration.

There is one particular point which I should emphasise about this Report. That is simply to underline that, as the Committee itself points out, none of its proposals is intended to alter existing practice in any way, but merely to remove a number of inconsistencies and oversights, to improve some of the drafting, and to set out our Standing Orders in a more logical sequence.

In certain instances also, summarised at paragraph 9 of its Report, the Committee has sought, I believe successfully, to interpret in several detailed instances the intentions of the House where their literal meaning at present leads to anomalies. I do not believe, for example, that it was ever the intention of the House under Standing Order No. 3 that affirmative Orders might be debated until 11.30 p.m. on a Friday. I believe the Committee has correctly interpreted in those instances the intentions of the House.

It is only to be expected that over a period of years—it is about seven years since the last revision—a number of minor errors and points of doubt will creep into our Standing Orders, particularly in a period of very substantial procedural changes. I realise, however, that there are Members who seek the opportunity for much more fundamental changes in our procedures and Standing Orders to be considered.

It is, of course, the function of the Select Committee on Procedure to consider and recommend to the House alterations of substance in the rules of procedure. I would only say, therefore, to those seeking wider procedural changes that we are tonight dealing with a much narrower and, I hope, less contentious issue: simply that our existing procedures should be expressed in Standing Orders as clearly and logically as possible. I believe the changes recommended by the Committee in this Report will work towards this aim.

Once again I should like to thank the Committee for its work, and I recommend the changes which it proposes to the House.

11.43 p.m.

Mr. Fred Peart (Workington)

I should like to endorse, I hope in a short speech, what the Leader of the House has said. I associate myself and my hon. Friends with what he said about the Committee. I think the Committee did an excellent job. It has suggested certain amendments, and I am sure there is no opposition to them.

The Committee was appointed in July, 1970—as the right hon. Gentleman said, seven years after the last revision of Standing Orders on the recommendation of the Select Committee. Indeed, the basis of the work has been a memorandum prepared under the authority of the Clerk of the House. The Committee has suggested some rearrangement of the numerical order in which the Standing Orders relating to Public Business appear. More important, it has suggested amending a number of them for a variety of reasons.

The Select Committee has tried to put into a framework of words what has been the real intention, and this was not an easy task. I do not disagree with any of the Committee's recommendations. One can go right through the Report—Standing Order No. 2, and the need for flexibility about that; Standing Order No. 3, and the argument about exemption relating to 5.30 and 11.30; Standing Order No. 18, Standing Order No. 29, which is very important, Standing Order No. 30, Standing Order No. 62A, which deals with an amendment to provide that all Members sitting for constituencies in Wales and Monmouthshire should be included on any Standing Committee to consider any report of any Bill relating exclusively to Wales and Monmouthshire, and so on.

So one could go on. These are details. This Report from the Select Committee, backed up by a memorandum from the Clerk of the House and his colleagues, enables us to do something which is sensible, so I hope that, without further ado, we may accept it.

I am sure that there are hon. Members on both sides who may have different views, who may wish to elaborate, or suggest that we should do more. That may well be, but I hope that, in the end, my hon. Friends will accept that this is a sensible step forward. It is a tidying-up process. Perhaps hon. Members can be pedantic about it, but, on a reading of Appendix I to the Report which finalises the views of the Committee, I feel that the House must accept that the Committee has done a fine job in a practical fashion.

I hope that my hon. Friends will not be too pedantic but will allow the Motion to go through, accepting what the Leader of the House has suggested. Hon. Members may want to speak about wider issues, but, at this stage, I hope that we may accept the Committee's Report, and congratulate those hon. Members whose task it was to produce it, while taking note of what may be said by others in the debate.

11.47 p.m.

Mr. Michael English (Nottingham, West)

I join in what has been said about the work of the Select Committee. In so far as its terms of reference permitted, it has clearly done an excellent job of tidying up our Standing Orders. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Peart), I have no intention of opposing the Report now, and I thank the Leader of the House for allowing us a short time to debate it.

Nevertheless, I cannot allow the Leader of the House to get away with what he said earlier. He said that the Committee had done a restricted job of tidying-up. Its terms of reference were, to consider and report upon the rearrangement and redrafting of the Standing Orders so as to bring them into conformity with existing practice". Simply because he is Leader of the House, the right hon. Gentleman was responsible for those terms of reference. Seven years ago, as he said, there was another Committee to revise Standing Orders. Such Committees are appointed at somewhat irregular intervals, and have been for years. But I think that I am right in saying that, with perhaps one other, this is the most restricted set of terms of reference that any such Committee has had.

Within its deliberately limited function, limited by the Leader of the House himself, the Committee has done an excellent job. It has changed old phrases like "of the clock" to "o'clock".

Mr. Arthur Lewis (West Ham, North)

That is progress.

Mr. English

But that is not what we are here for, surely. If I went through all the things I should like the Committee to have done, you would rule me out of order, Mr. Speaker, I am sure.

Perhaps I may mention by way of illustration the whole guillotine procedure, which we have so recently experienced. Does anyone think that it increases the repute of the House in the country if we are busily voting, dividing like perpetual amoebas, until five o'clock in the morning? That is what our present guillotine procedure forces us to do. It means lengthy debates on the first items that come up after the guillotine has fallen and no debate, or very short debates, on the last items to come up before it falls.

Yet it is so simple to alter this without affecting the time of the Opposition or Government under the guillotine Motion. We could adopt the practice of the American Rules Committee and ask the Business Committee to do little more work, telling it to consult Mr. Speaker or the Chairman, find out what Amendments will be called, and allocate to them and Clause stand part Motions an amount of time—

Mr. Speaker

I apologise for interrupting the hon. Gentleman, but he seems to be suggesting a change in existing practice. This debate should be restricted to the arrangements and redrafting of the Standing Orders in conformity with the existing practice. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman can go beyond that.

Mr. English

I accept that, Mr. Speaker. You will recollect that I was using some illustration. I thank you for your courtesy in allowing me to get to the end of it.

Clearly there are things in our Standing Orders that the Committee could have considered, and under the terms of reference of nearly every previous Standing Orders Revision Committee they would have been considered. The suggestions of hon. Members on both sides could have been considered by the Committee. It was not so in this case, and the debate is limited, because the Committee's report is limited, as a result of the Motion the Leader of the House originally put down. That limitation is presumably his own decision, and it is precisely because I want him to explain why he deliberately restricted the Committee's terms of reference that I wanted the debate.

Mr. Whitelaw

Perhaps it will help the hon. Gentleman if I tell him that the reason is that I believe that changes in Standing Orders and our procedures are properly a matter for the Select Committee on Procedure.

Mr. English

That would be all very well if the Select Committee on Procedure did not have the enormous task of considering the whole legislative process, which I grant involves a very large number of Standing Orders, but not all of them.

Mr. Whitelaw

The hon. Gentleman gave an illustration before you thought that he should not go any further, Mr. Speaker. That reference is just one of the matters the Select Committee on Procedure can properly consider in its review of legislation.

Mr. English

I entirely grant that, but there are others which were listed in the Amendments in my name some time ago, that I should probably be out of order to list in detail. There are many other items in the practice of the House, small items that do not affect the basic issue of the time of the Opposition or the Government, that would improve our procedure in a modest, simple way, and which I should like to think would be considered rather sooner than the Select Committee will be able to consider them, given the enormous task upon which it has just embarked. If it is doing its present task adequately, it would probably take it not one but possibly two Sessions to do the whole job.

Meanwhile, we still have no immediate, quick procedure. One of the things I suggested is already in a Report. It has been suggested to the House by a Joint Committee of both Houses. It is still floating around with nothing being done about it. That does not need to be referred to the Select Committee on Procedure or any other body. It could be done forthwith.

Mr. Speaker

Order. The hon. Gentleman is going beyond the limits of the debate. He is not entitled to discuss the terms of reference of the Committee. He has simply to restrict his comments to the Committee's proposals for the rearrangement and redrafting of the Standing Orders in accordance with existing practice. I do not think that he can put forward these other ideas.

Mr. English

I bow to your Ruling, Mr. Speaker. I think that in any case I have made my point. I have said that I should like to thank the Leader of the House for the opportunity to make it, but I hope that the next time any Committee of this character is appointed it will be remembered that it had wider terms of reference in the past, and that the practice on this occasion will not be a precedent.

11.55 p.m.

Mr. Tom Driberg (Barking)

I promise to speak for less than two minutes. Since you allowed my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) to proceed for some time with his illustrative point, Mr. Speaker, I hope that you will allow me to make a much briefer illustrative point, which is topical, because it arises from something that happened tonight. Debate on the sort of Order that we had tonight does not—as was surely at first intended—last for one-and-a-half hours when it is delayed by three Divisions, as was the case tonight. It lasts for little more than one hour.

You may recollect, Mr. Speaker, that some years ago—perhaps it was even before your time, in the dim past—the half-hour Adjournment debate was seriously eroded because it started from Ten o'clock and not from the end of the previous business. Similarly, this kind of debate ought to last for one-and-a-half hours from the end of the previous business, including Divisions, as the half-hour Adjournment debate does now.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered, That the repeals of, and Amendments to, the Standing Orders of this House relating to Public Business and the new Standing Orders, recommended by the Select Committee in their Report and stated in the first Appendix thereto, be made, subject to the following modification, namely, in the new Standing Order No. 18 (Business of Supply), paragraph 5(g), leave out 'Estimates' and insert 'Expenditure', and to the omission of all reference to Standing Order No. 80 (Estimates Committee).

Ordered, That the Standing Orders, as amended, be printed. [No. 308.]