§ Mr. ThorpeI beg to move, in Clause 2, page 1, line 17, at end add:
(2) This Act shall expire one year after its passing.I make this proposal in what I hope will be seen to be a helpful spirit and I hope that the Government will feel able, for the reasons I shall adduce, to accept it, for by doing so they would allay many of the fears and worries which have been expressed by hon. Members. Although the Attorney-General said that the Bill is declaratory, what it declares is that a judgment of a court in Northern Ireland is inaccurate and that the view which it took of the law is not the view which this House takes of the law.It is a somewhat unusual piece of legislation, and I doubt whether there is a precedent for it. If there is a precedent, I suggest that there are not many pieces of legislation which have been rushed through with such speed as this Bill. I recall the case of Prince Rupert which was debated in this House, when the decision of the Privy Council was reversed and a statutory instrument was introduced for the purpose. It is a rare legislative occurrence and therefore the House requires to look carefully at what it is doing.
We are not merely declaring something, but we are reversing the judgment of one court which happens to conflict with the judgment of another court. In a declaration by this Parliament we are saying what the law is, what it was and what it ought to have been considered to be for the last 50 years. That is a sweeping legislative proposal.
We understand why this legislation is being rushed. We all accept—or certainly the majority of us in this House accept—that our troops must have freedom from civil and criminal actions, and for that reason it is of the essence that we should be speedy in our deliberations. But we in this House are very jealous when we are giving powers or declaring the nature of powers to be exercised by this House, by the Government or by anybody else. We shall have a debate next week on this matter, but by then this House will have no legislative power over this Bill.
1436 I will not reopen the arguments which I put forward on Second Reading, but I must confess that on certain aspects of this Bill I was not entirely convinced either by the Attorney-General or by the Home Secretary on whether we are delegating powers to Stormont which Stormont did not have under the 1920 Act and which they did not believe they had under the 1922 legislation. I will not press that argument further, save to say that it has been put to me by lawyers whose advice I respect and whose advice I know the Attorney-General would respect.
We are producing speedy legislation to give immediate protection to our troops. This is right and proper, but what we are also doing, unless this Amendment is accepted, is to give this Bill a permanent legislative force. That is the danger. For a long period of time we had annual debates on the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, which no longer takes place because many of its provisions are incorporated in permanent legislation; we have an annual debate on immigration; and we also have a periodic debate on sanctions in regard to Rhodesia. Therefore, it is not unknown for this House to say that powers which we have granted must be subject to periodic review. I am not saying that we shall not require such powers in the future, because we shall. The point I am making is that I am not satisfied that those powers have been conferred in the best possible way and that we have the best possible legislation with which to do it.
If this House accepts, as it obviously does, the need for speedy protection for Her Majesty's Forces in the United Kingdom, it is surely not unreasonable to say that we shall give that protection by this Bill for a period of one year and that, long before that one year expires, we shall expect Her Majesty's Ministers to have considered the situation, in a way in which they might have liked to consider this matter had this legislation not been rushed through. I shall be surprised if, after due reflection and consultation, they do not produce a Bill which is very much more acceptable to this House and to the vast bulk of lawyers.
This is not a delaying tactic. It is a recognition of the necessity for this legislation, but it is a plea to the Government that we do not turn rushed legislation 1437 into permanent legislation and that we shall have an opportunity to review it at a later stage. In that spirit I move the Amendment and I hope that the Government will accept it.
§ Sir Elwyn JonesWhile my hon. and right hon. Friends and I fully sympathise with and understand the motivation of this Amendment, it presents in my view one fundamental difficulty. That is that if the Amendment is agreed to the indemnity which the Bill proposes for the members of our Armed Forces and the legal protection which the Bill proposes to give to them would terminate in a year's time. It also would have effect on previous actions that could be made the subject of proceedings. In those circumstances, we see that as a great difficulty.
The view that I certainly form is that tonight the Home Secretary has given very important and specific assurances—first, that the Bill will not be used to impose criminality retrospectively; secondly, that no civil claims will be jeopardised by the Bill; and, thirdly, that no additional powers are conferred by the Bill on Stormont. If the Home Secretary will now give an undertaking that if it is found that any of those assurances cannot be or are not fulfilled he will bring the proposals back to the House for reconsideration, we shall not find it necessary to support this Amendment.
§ Mr. McNamaraMr. Chairman, I very much regret what my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Ham, South (Sir Elwyn Jones) has just said, but—
§ The Chairman (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris)Order. It is the practice to address me when in the Chair as Sir Robert.
§ Mr. McNamaraThe first time I spoke in this House I nearly said "Comrade Speaker".
§ Mr. Russell KerrMy hon. Friend has come a long way since then.
§ Mr. McNamaraWhen my right hon. and learned Friend was making his first point, I thought of the arguments which had gone before which some hon. Members said were lawyers' arguments. The arguments were met in full by the Leader of the Liberal Party. He said that by the end of the year we shall have worked 1438 out what all this has meant. My right hon. and learned Friend paid particular attention to the three undertakings which the Home Secretary gave—the first about retrospective criminality, the second about no effect on civil proceedings and the third that the Bill confers no extra powers on Stormont. That might not be so in the letter of the law, but it certainly does in the spirit of the law. We are in fact saying, "For all your failures, your ineptitudes, your stupidities"—[AN HON. MEMBER: "Treacheries."]—" yes, indeed, treacheries, we are going to put our troops under your control."
10.45 p.m.
My right hon. and learned Friend must recall that it is the policy of our party that control for security should be transferred from Stormont to this Parliament. By imposing a time limit making it necessary for this House to look again at this matter, without it having to be pushed through in this short time without all the documents being available and without an opportunity to refer to all the cases, we as a party are presented with a positive opportunity to support our party policy in the Division Lobby.
While we are concerned to protect the rôle of British troops in Northern Ireland, we have no intention of giving Stormont a blank cheque for whatever emergency regulations it might occur to it to introduce in the future. We have had no undertakings that there will be no further emergency regulations of a more sweeping nature introduced under these powers, and we have had no undertaking that existing regulations will not be amended in such a way as to make them even more regressive.
§ Mr. Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Ardwick)Does my hon. Friend also agree that, if the Government were to accept this Amendment, which is only a temporary one, it would be possible in the next few months to put before the House legislation which it could consider in the detailed way that the Government would wish to see if it were not for the stresses and strains of this emergency? That being so, should not the Amendment be acceptable to the Government?
§ Mr. McNamaraMy hon. Friend has put much more succinctly than I could what was to be my final point. A number of hon. Members have pointed out what 1439 a pity it is that Parliament is being rushed in this way. If the Government were prepared to accept this moderate, considerate Amendment, we should be able to deal with this legislation in a more detailed manner at a later date.
If the Government will accept the Amendment, I shall be quite happy. If they refuse to accept it, I shall urge my hon. Friends to go into the Division lobby with Liberal hon. Members.
§ Mr. John MendelsonI did not seek to speak on Second Reading because I accepted fully what was said earlier today by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition when he assured the Government of our co-operation in facilitating the passage of this legislation. However, I think that the Government should consider whether it is not their constitutional duty to meet the desire which has been expressed by a number of hon. Members. The Home Secretary has obtained from the House the very unusual agreement to pass legislation in a few hours. The right hon. Gentleman needs no teaching from anyone about the extraordinary nature of this procedure. He knows that it is normally only at the outbreak of war that a Government asks this House for such a procedure to be adopted, and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition had fully in mind the considerations which have impelled the Government to ask for this procedure.
There is no reason to show any impatience when the House is asked to accept this kind of procedure. There is every reason for listening to the contributions of my hon. Friends. The point at issue is substantial. The Home Secretary has made declarations—my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Ham, South (Sir Elwyn Jones) calls them assurances—dealing with three points. I prefer to call them declarations because the evidence of the debate is that these points will remain in doubt. The right hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) and some of my hon. Friends remain unconvinced. If there were more time, if only Second Reading took place tonight, as is usual, with Committee Stage in eight or ten days' time, we would have the opportunity to consult experts and the opinions that have been expressed could be tested and resolved. It is because the House has 1440 agreed to take all stages tonight that there is no such opportunity and the problems remain unresolved. It is therefore reasonable to ask the Government to agree to bring this Measure back to the House.
I do not disagree with my right hon. and learned Friend when he says that a useful alternative method to this Amendment would be a form of assurance from the Treasury Bench that after a certain period, say six months, the Government would bring this Measure back to the House and give us another opportunity to review it. If it is merely a debate, I agree with the right hon. Member for Devon, North, that that is not enough. I appreciated the immediate assurance by the Leader of the House that there would be an early debate. If that had not been given, this would have been a much longer debate, in which my hon. Friends would have wished to introduce wider considerations. We need a definite agreement by the Government that after a time—although no Amendment may be made—they will respond to the request of my right hon. and learned Friend. Then it would not be necessary to vote for the Amendment.
§ Mr. Alexander W. LyonI wonder whether my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Ham, South (Sir Elwyn Jones) would pursue his argument a little further. I can see that the Amendment, if carried, would limit the indemnity which we are giving to the Forces in Northern Ireland to a period of 12 months. I cannot understand why that is fundamental. It is implicit in the Amendment that there should be some further enabling legislation giving further, possibly permanent, indemnity. All we ask is for time to reconsider the position with greater calmness, when we have had an opportunity of looking at the many flaws which have been discovered—and examining those which have yet to be uncovered. The Government could reasonably accept the Amendment and return, if they were still of the same mind, with exactly the same legislation in 12 months' time. They might find on reflection that it would be better to have the kind of permanent legislation for which I was arguing earlier. I hope my right hon. Friends will consider whether their attitude is what is required at this moment and 1441 whether they could not support this Amendment.
§ Sir Elwyn JonesMy hon. and learned Friend asks me to take my argument a little further, but I must confess that I see nothing explicit or implicit in the Amendment to suggest that alternative legislation is to be brought forward.
§ Mr. ThorpeCome off it.
§ Sir Elwyn JonesI am not coming off or on, but just endeavouring to answer this question. I have said clearly that we on this side of the Committee require reconsideration of the whole position of this House in regard to Stormont and the exercise of security powers and authority over security forces in Northern Ireland. I have said that these matters of fundamental importance should be made subject to urgent consideration by Parliament and I should have thought that that would be an occasion for thrashing out the kind of permanent future legislation we want, rather than this Amendment which I submit has a fundamental defect. I submit that it has the fundamental defect of exposing our Armed Forces in 12 months time to the risk of civil action.
§ Mr. Patrick Cormack (Cannock)What the right hon. and learned Member for West Ham, South (Sir Elwyn Jones) has just said is entirely reasonable. Although the Leader of the Liberal Party made a good speech in moving this Amendment, it is a wrecking Amendment and would place a time bomb under British troops in Northern Ireland. I sincerely hope that it will be vigorously resisted by my Front Bench. There is nothing to preclude the House from looking at the problem of Northern Ireland at any time, or introducing legislation at any time, but now is not the time to put a wrecking Amendment into this Bill.
§ Mr. Clinton DavisI am sorry that the hon. Member for Cannock (Mr. Cormack) has brought a very emotive note into this debate. This is not a wrecking Amendment and his remarks are unworthy of him.
To suggest that it is placing a time bomb under British troops is arrant nonsense. This Amendment would enable the House to debate the matter coolly within the period of a year. This is a subject which the House has not had an 1442 opportunity to debate tonight. We have rushed through this legislation. We have a number of points of view which are in diametric opposition to each other. I do not know who is legally right, whether it is the Leader of the Liberal Party or the Attorney-General, because we have not had adequate opportunity to consider these matters. I have a high regard for my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Ham, South (Sir Elwyn Jones) and, normally, I am absolutely delighted to take his leadership, but not tonight, because I cannot see the logic of his argument. How does he think it will imperil the position of our troops if we consider the matter within 12 months?
In these circumstances, I hope that it the Government are not prepared to accept the Amendment, the Leader of the Liberal Party will divide the House on the matter, and I shall be pleased to support him.
§ 11.0 p.m.
§ Mr. George CunninghamIt has been suggested that if the Amendment is passed there will be plenty of opportunity to reconsider the matter over the next year.
I suggest that the House, understandably perhaps, considering the rush, is in danger of making an awful ass of itself—and the Government even more than the House. We all know in the House that these powers will be conferred, one way or another, and will be extended beyond a year. If the present Government are in power, they will do it, and if we on this side are in power, we shall do it. Everyone in the House knows that there are only two or three hon. Members who will vote against the extension of the powers. I am in favour of the Army having these powers in present circumstances. It is absolutely right and necessary that they should, so let us not talk about the effect of the Amendment being that the Army is under sentence of death after one year. One might as well say that the Army cannot look forward to having its pay at the end of one year.
On the other hand, if the Amendment is passed, we know that there will be a debate probably at the end of a year, but that legislation will not be changed because there will be no sufficient reason 1443 to change it; and we on this side, perhaps wanting to change it, will be in the same position of complaining about the 1922 arrangements generally. That is not desirable.
There are many faults or potential faults in this legislation. I am not at all satisfied on the point about the Schedule, and there are many other points on which the legislation is at least doubtful. If Parliament is to pass legislation of this kind in four hours flat and then not accept a very moderate and modest Amendment like this—which says that we shall, not possibly but definitely, have another look at this within a year—then Parliamentary democracy has reached an even lower pitch in this country than we all know it has. For once in its life, Parliament is doing something real, having a real debate. My own Front Bench are making an awful mistake in denying the House the right to review the Measure in one year, and then to extend it, perhaps in a different form, when the House has had a better opportunity to consider the matter.
§ Mr. Leslie HuckfieldI support my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. George Cunningham), and want to rebuff some of the comments of the hon. Member for Cannock (Mr. Cormack). I was amazed when he said that we are putting some kind of political time bomb under the Army's activities. Is not this precisely how the Commonwealth immigrants legislation, the Army Act and the Rhodesian sanctions legislation were introduced? They, too, were fundamental matters of principle which the House should not treat lightly.
I cannot help feeling that all this will look very different come Friday or Saturday. This honourable House, this Mother of Parliaments, is being judge and jury in four hours flat. Around the world it will now be said that, if the British House of Commons does not like the way the judiciary interprets the legislation it passes, it can always change the Act. Is this the example that we want to set around the world?
In passing the Bill, particularly in this rushed way, we are proving what the I.R.A. has always said—that the British Army is in the hands of Stormont. We are endorsing that, without giving the House the chance to reconsider the matter 1444 in 12 months. To that end, surely we can accept this relatively harmless Amendment.
§ The Attorney-GeneralThe hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Huckfield) has distorted the spirit in which the Leader of the Liberal Party moved the Amendment. I fully understand the spirit in which the right hon. Gentleman moved it. I ask the Committee to examine the Amendment in the context of certain matters; first, in the context of the undertaking given by my right hon. Friend the Lord President that there will be a debate upon the wider matters and wider issues, involving all the great issues of policy and differences of view held about this matter. It is in that debate undoubtedly that all the great matters, part of which have come into this debate, will be introduced.
Second, this is a short Bill which declares the law. In that sense it is a Bill which, if it becomes an Act, will say, "This is what the law is and this is what we declare it to be." In such a Bill it is very difficult to say, "We declare it to be and it shall be—but only for a year." What the Bill does, although hon. Members have criticised it, in the form of its declaratory nature, is to declare the law to be, as I have said several times today, what it was thought to be prior to today and what it has been held previously by an English judge to be.
Third, in the context of what I said earlier, I repeat that on behalf of the Attorney-General of Northern Ireland I give the undertaking that any prosecution now pending which would follow if the judgment of today stood will be abandoned or stopped, and that no new prosecution of that kind will be initiated in relation to the past. That is a categorical undertaking that I have given on behalf of the Attorney-General of Northern Ireland. It deals with the point about criminality, with which my right hon. Friend dealt.
On the point about no extra powers for Stormont, both my right hon. Friend and I have repeated time and again that the Bill is to put the position back to what it was believed to have been this morning, namely, giving the power to Stormont to use their special powers and to apply them to the Army so that the Army can exercise the duties it is called upon to perform.
1445 With regard to civil claims, we must make it perfectly clear—I think that my right hon. Friend made it clear—I think that my right hon Friend made it clear —that the Bill will not act retrospectively affecting civil claims based on any matter other than the technical defect in the powers of the troops, as affected by the Bill. In other words, in respect of this defect, as revealed by this judgment and put right, as it were, by the Bill—only in that sense are claims affected. Civil claims will be unaffected if they are claims about an excess of power which has been used, if it ever has been used. Those claims would remain exactly as they were before the introduction of the Bill.
Hon. Members must look at what the right hon. Gentleman intends. He is right to bring it to the attention of the House. But what he seeks to do is to make a very substantial Amendment to the Special Powers Act. He wants to make the addition of those special powers temporary. But the Bill is merely the vehicle of putting back the law into the position in which it was always thought to be.
§ Mr. Kaufmanrose—
§ The Attorney-GeneralThe hon. Gentleman has not been present during most of our debate, and many other hon. Members have been in the Chamber the whole time.
If one does that with a declaratory Act of Parliament, and then one looks at the Statute Book thereafter, one sees that the Bill would set out to say that the law shall have had effect and has always had that effect, as is provided, so as not to preclude the provisions of these particular powers—and then at the end one would say that it will last for only one year. To that extent it does not make sense of this form of provision in the law.
In these circumstances while, as I have said, I well appreciate what the right hon. Member for Devon, North, said in moving the Amendment, having given the assurances about the criminal law and about the extra powers, which it is denied will be given to Stormont, and in respect of civil claims. I advise the Committee to resist the Amendment.
§ Mr. HoosonWhat the Leader of the Liberal Party is seeking in the Amendment is quite simple. We have been given certain assurances by the Government, but we have not had the assurance 1446 that the Bill, which we are asked to pass in a very short time with little or no consideration, can be guaranteed to have further consideration by the House within a year.
The Amendment was drafted originally with the words
unless renewed in pursuance of affirmative resolution of the House of CommonsThat was held to be out of order and that part of it had to be dropped if the Amendment were to be considered at all. The House has clearly expressed its view that the cloak of legality should be extended over what our soldiers have been doing because they have been doing it in our name. But we do not know the constitutional implication of the Amendment to the Special Powers Act. I have expressed my view in a speech, but how often have we known right hon. and learned Gentlemen to assure the House about the effect of legislation only to find that the courts have ruled later that they were wrong and that the effect has been totally different.I am astounded at the right hon. and learned Member for West Ham, South (Sir Elwyn Jones). He suggested that the fatal objection to this Amendment was that the troops would be uncertain at the end of the year. It is conceivable that the House of Commons, feeling as it does, would not approve legislation to put that matter right within a year? The right hon. and learned Member has stood at the Dispatch Box on a number of occasions and introduced important matters such as sanctions and Acts concerning the Services which have to be renewed from year to year. He surely knows that here we are seeking the same kind of assurances in quite exceptional circumstances.
The House had no idea at 2.30 p.m. today that it was to be asked to pass the Bill. It is a very important Bill, otherwise the Government would not have brought it forward. Hon. Members in all parts of the House consider that the protection of our troops is very important. But equally, the protection of the rights of the House, the protection of our constitutional position, is very important.
We are being asked to pass a piece of amending legislation which has a tremendous retrospective effect and we are asking for the right to seek the guarantee that we should be allowed to consider 1447 it afresh within a year. On this issue, at least, I hope that the Chief Whip of the Labour Party will allow a free vote for his party.
§ Mr. George CunninghamWe are all in a difficulty, and I want to make a suggestion, if I am in order to do so. Given the difficulty of making Amendments, I hope that I shall be permitted some elasticity.
As it stands, the Clause achieves two quite different objectives. First, it corrects the position as it has been in the past and, second, it creates a situation for the future. For the past, no one would surely wish in a year's time to have the validation of the previous position terminated. But for the future people may well want a different arrangement than that provided in the Bill.
§
I appeal to the Attorney-General to consider the possibility of himself bringing forward an Amendment which would be similar, basically, to that of the leader of the Liberal Party. It might say:
Save in respect of Acts and regulations made after February 1973 the Bill will lapse.
§ That would get round the difficulty of a declaratory provision apparently ceasing to be on the Statute Book, unless continued, but would give the House the right automatically to reconsider the new provision giving to Stormont a power which it was thought to have had, but which it has turned out not to have had. That would be an extremely attractive compromise.
§ Question put, That the Amendment be made:—
§ The Committee divided: Ayes 20, Noes 158.
1449| Division No. 64.] | AYES | [11.17 p.m. |
| Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.) | Kaufman, Gerald | Sandelson, Neville |
| Cunningham G. (Islington, S.W.) | Kerr, Russell | Stallard, A. W. |
| Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.) | Kinnock, Neil | Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery) |
| Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove) | Lamond, James | Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy |
| Devlin, Miss Bernadette | Lyon, Alexander W. (York) | |
| Duffy, A. E. P. | McNamara, J. Kevin | TELLERS FOR THE AYES: |
| Hooson, Emlyn | Milne, Edward | Mr. David Steel and |
| Huckfield, Leslie | Orme, Stanley | Mr. John Pardoe. |
| NOES | ||
| Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead) | Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton) | Kitson, Timothy |
| Astor, John | Fookes, Miss Janet | Knox, David |
| Atkins, Humphrey | Fortescue, Tim | Lane, David |
| Balniel, Lord | Foster, Sir John | Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry |
| Batsford, Brian | Fowler, Norman | Le Marchant, Spencer |
| Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay) | Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.) | Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland) |
| Benyon, W. | Goodhart, Philip | Longden, Gilbert |
| Biffen, John | Gray, Hamish | Loveridge, John |
| Biggs-Davison, John | Green, Alan | Luce, R. N. |
| Boscawen, Robert | Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds) | MacArthur, Ian |
| Bossom, Sir Clive | Grylls, Michael | McLaren, Martin |
| Braine, Sir Bernard | Gummer, Selwyn | McMaster, Stanley |
| Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher | Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley) | McNair-Wilson, Michael |
| Brown, Sir Edward (Bath) | Hall-Davis, A. G. F. | Maddan, Martin |
| Buchanan-Smith, Alick(Angus, N&M) | Hannam, John (Exeter) | Maginnis, John E. |
| Buck, Antony | Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye) | Mather, Carol |
| Carlisle, Mark | Haselhurst, Alan | Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald |
| Chapman, Sydney | Havers, Michael | Mawby, Ray |
| Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher | Hawkins, Paul | Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J. |
| Chichester-Clark, R. | Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward | Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.) |
| Churchill, W. S. | Hicks, Robert | Miscampbell, Norman |
| Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe) | Hill, John E. B. (Norfolk, S.) | Mitchell, Lt.-Col. C. (Aberdeenshire, W) |
| Clegg, Walter | Holland, Philip | Moate, Roger |
| Cooke, Robert | Hornby, Richard | Molyneaux, James |
| Coombs, Derek | Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame Patricia | Monro, Hector |
| Cormack, Patrick | Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.) | More, Jasper |
| Costain, A. P. | James, David | Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh) |
| Crouch, David | Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford) | Morrison, Charles |
| d'Avigdor-Goldsmid.Maj. -Gen. James | Jessel, Toby | Mudd, David |
| Dean, Paul | Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead) | Murton, Oscar |
| Digby, Simon Wingfield | Jopling, Michael | Nabarro, Sir Gerald |
| Drayson, G. B. | Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine | Normanton, Tom |
| du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward | Kershaw, Anthony | Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally |
| Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke) | King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.) | Osborn, John |
| Emery, Peter | King, Tom (Bridgwater) | Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.) |
| Eyre, Reginald | Kinsey, J. R. | Page, Graham (Crosby) |
| Fenner, Mrs. Peggy | Kirk, Peter | Parkinson, Cecil |
| Percival, Ian | Sharples, Richard | Waddington, David |
| Pink, R. Bonner | Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby) | Walder, David (Clitheroe) |
| Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch | Shelton, William (Clapham) | Wall, Patrick |
| Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L. | Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington) | Walters, Dennis |
| Proudfoot, Wilfred | Soref, Harold | Ward, Dame Irene |
| Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis | Spence, John | Weatherhill, Bernard |
| Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James | Stanbrook, Ivor | White, Roger (Gravesend) |
| Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter | Sutcliffe, John | Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William |
| Redmond, Robert | Tebbit, Norman | Wiggin, Jerry |
| Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.) | Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret | Wilkinson, John |
| Rees, Peter (Dover) | Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth) | Winterton, Nicholas |
| Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon | Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.) | Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard |
| Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.) | Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.) | Worsley, Marcus |
| Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks) | Tilney, John | |
| Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey) | Trew, Peter | TELLERS FOR THE NOES: |
| Russell, Sir Ronald | Vaughan, Dr. Gerard | Mr. Keith Speed and |
| Scott, Nicholas | Vickers, Dame Joan | Mr. Victor Goodhew |
§ Amendment accordingly negatived.
§ Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
§ Bill reported, without Amendment.
§ Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 56 (Third Reading), and agreed to.
§ Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.