TRADE UNION AND LABOUR RELATIONS BILL (DIVISIONS) (Hansard, 15 July 1974)

§ Sir Geoffrey de Freitas
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. There has been much public discussion about the circumstances in which a right hon. Member was nodded through a Division on Thursday night. Should not the House have all the facts before it, and would a reference to a Select Committee be appropriate? If not, what can be done to get all the facts?

§ Mr. Fell
Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I had heard that the Government Chief Whip and my right hon. Friend the Opposition Chief Whip were to discuss this matter later this afternoon. Unless this House on the whole can gel by these sort of difficulties, it is finished. It is absolutely essential that people should not cheat, and I am not in this context suggesting that anybody—anybody—has cheated over this issue—[HON. MEMBERS: "Sit down."] It is absolutely essential that the House should have some sort of agreement in this sort of situation and that an agreement between the Whips and hon. Members as to what may be done in various circumstances shall be absolutely clear. I hope—[Interruption.]—that the discussion that will come about this afternoon will reinforce the authority of the House and the agreement, since hon. Members have to live here together whether they like each other or not.

§ Mr. Skinner
Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. In your endeavour to establish the full facts will you take into account that this practice has carried on for a considerable number of years under successive Governments, and that it would be as well to make clear not only the number of times during those years that people have been nodded through but the persons concerned? Perhaps it would be helpful to establish which Members of the Opposition were Chief Whips at the time that hon. and right hon. Members were nodded through. If we establish all those facts we shall be in a much better position to know precisely what the offence was last week.
Will you take into account, Mr. Speaker, that there is a theory that the Opposition wanted to lose the Divisions 39 anyway, albeit on your casting vote, because the right hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Chataway) was missing on one occasion, and it is suggested that in order to make sure that the Opposition did not win on the second occasion the Tory Chief Whip sent him back to his dinner engagement?

§ Mr. Atkinson
Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. So that we can assess the position correctly, will you tell us what Standing Order enables this sort of thing to be done, and what it says?

Several Hon. Members
rose—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. I will, if I may, intervene. This is not really a matter for the Chair at all. As far as the Chair is concerned, if there is a disagreement between the Tellers and that is reported to the Chair, it takes certain action and in the appropriate circumstances orders the Division to be repeated. But these matters now raised really are matters of custom, convention and courtesy and have nothing to do with the Chair. If the House decides to have some inquiry into what happened or what should happen in the future, that is a matter not for the Chair but for the House as a whole. I have no jurisdiction to rule on what is a courtesy or a convention.

§ Mr. Peyton
Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I understand what you have said, but you cannot be unaware of the practice, whether right or not, that many points are raised as points of order for you but with the hope that the Leader of the House might overhear. In the hope that the Leader of the House has been listening to this discussion, can we go back to the simple point raised by the right hon. Member for Kettering (Sir G. de Freitas), without any of the surrounding flummery which has occurred since, and ask him whether he will say something?

§ The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Edward Short)
I have listened to all that has been said. I understand that my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) and the right hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Atkins) are to talk about the matter later this afternoon. I think that we should see how they get on and consider the matter in the light of 40 their talk. The whole matter is complicated because the Bill has now gone on its way. It is no longer in the possession of this House and it cannot be brought back until it has been dealt with by another place. That complicates the whole situation.
But perhaps I may add that this process has gone on for many years and has worked very amicably. I remember it from my own days as Chief Whip, and I am sure that others remember it too. It went on without checking up or snooping of any kind. There was a genuine mistake the other night.
I think that the simplest way out of the difficulty now would be for the Opposition to put down identical amendments in another place, but that is for them to decide. The two Chief Whips are to discuss the matter and I suggest that we see how they get on. Afterwards, I will consider the matter again.

§ Mr. Heath
We are grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for what he has said, but perhaps I may revert to the point raised by the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner). I suppose that I am the senior ex-Whip in the House at the moment. I am a former Chief Whip. As the Leader of the House has said, this system has worked perfectly satisfactorily for a very long time, certainly for the 24 years in which I have been a Member of the House. To my recollection, on no previous occasion on either side has it ever been necessary, by evidence available to the Whips, to question the validity of the "nodding through" procedure. This is the first occasion on which it has happened. I do not think, therefore, that one should criticise the procedure, which I think is acceptable to both sides of the House—indeed, to all parts of the House.
As the right hon. Gentleman has pointed out, the Bill is now in another stage in another place, As the responsibility for the misunderstanding rests on the Government side, would it not be right for the two Chief Whips in their consultations today to adopt the procedure I put to the Prime Minister—that the Government should themselves move the amendments in another place so that this House can have an opportunity, when the Bill comes back to us, to settle them? The responsibility of the right hon. Gentleman is wholly accepted; the 41 responsibility, therefore, for giving this House an opportunity for deciding these questions again rests with the Government.

Several Hon. Members
rose—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. I am not certain how far we can debate this matter now.

§ Mr. George Cunningham
I apologise for extending the discussion, Mr. Speaker, but there is nothing more fundamental to a legislature's affairs than the question of what constitutes the passage of a vote. While fully understanding the circumstances in which it occurred, it seems that what happened is that a vote which should have gone one way, according to the number of valid votes cast, in fact went a different way. As a back bencher who is obliged, having no other friend, to look to you for protection of back benchers' interests, I find it surprising that it should be the case that you feel that you have no rôle in the matter.
As I understand it, the practice of "nodding through"—which, like many other things we do in this place, has no place in the order book of the House and it is high time that we placed it on the order book—is referred to in "Erskine May". Because the House does not have any other order book, I take it that the reference in "Erskine May" to "nodding through" is the procedure of the House.
It is clear that the person being "nodded through" must be within the precincts of the House. Therefore, as I see it, this vote was as invalid as it would have been if there had been a simple arithmetical error. I therefore, simply on that basis, ask that we should severely question whether it is right that you should not be in charge of what is to happen about the vote. What people care to do in another place to fix it up informally is another matter. I ask you not necessarily to respond now but to consider whether it is not right that you should—perhaps tomorrow—make a statement about whether this vote is valid. I am sure that I am not alone in saying that I should find it curious if the validity of the vote, and not just what is to happen afterwards, were to be decided between the two Front Benches. Very few back benchers would trust the two Front Benches, especially when they are agree- 42 ing with each other, to determine the proper procedures of the House.

§ Mr. Michael Stewart
Speaking as the person who actually is the senior ex-Whip in the House, may I say that the suggestion made by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House seems to me the most sensible suggestion so far?

§ Mr. Atkinson
Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. The Leader of the Opposition says that the validity of this process has never been challenged before. That is not true. It is, I am sure, within your recollection that on one occasion many of us believed that the death of one our comrades was caused through this archaic business of bringing people from hospital into the yard of the Palace in order that they can be identified by the Chief Whips for the purpose of "nodding through". This so-called rule has, therefore, been challenged before, and some of us demanded that it should be ended because of the tragedies it has caused in the House.
It is of great concern to many of us. Mr. Speaker, that you should now say that it has nothing to do with you and that it remains a purely private arrangement between the Chief Whips for the purpose of convenience and some arithmetical calculations. May we, as back benchers, appeal to you to intervene and insist that these things should be spelt our very clearly indeed as to the basis and the rules of the procedure? [HON. MEMBERS: "They are."] There are no rules governing this business of people voting in their absence. Therefore, it is high time that we stopped the utter nonsense of the archaic procedure of, on some occasions, bringing people from hospital when they are seriously ill while allowing some Member to trot off to a dinner engagement and nodding him through as though it were a normal procedure.

§ Mr. David Steel
Without commenting on the validity of the procedure, which will be considered again, I think that we have to accept that the Bill has now gone to the other place. That being so, it -nay be helpful to the House to know that any noble Friends have every intention of introducing the Liberal amendment in another place so that it might come back `o this House, when we shall have a chance to vote on it again.

§ Mr. Speaker
I am grateful to hon. Members for the points they have put, which are serious House of Commons points, but I must make it clear that I am the servant of the House, not its master. I cannot say what should happen apart from the Standing Orders. With regard to the Standing Orders, I rule and there it is, but as the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) said, there is nothing in the Standing Orders about this. This practice is a matter of convention, custom and tradition. If the House wants to put something in the Standing Orders about it, it is for the House, not the Speaker, to say so. I cannot order something to be put in the Standing Orders.
This discussion has shown that this is a matter which the House should seriously consider. I think that there should be discussions—perhaps going even wider than the two distinguished Chief Whips—about how it should be handled. There is some point in what the hon. Member has said, but I cannot issue a diktat that something should happen. I am the servant of the House and the House must decide.

§ Mr. Cunningham
I beg your pardon for intervening again, Mr. Speaker, but may I just put one point? Surely it would not be the case that the Chair would be indifferent as to whether a procedure which is stated in "Erskine May" but not in Standing Orders is obeyed. 44 Most of our procedures are not in the Standing Orders, but, as I recall, you have frequently ruled on points of procedure, basing yourself upon "Erskine May" as the recorded, authoritative and accepted statement of the rules of the House. May I simply ask you to consider that point further?

§ Mr. Speaker
I will certainly consider it, but there does not appear to me to be much doubt about it. I would have thought that there was a general opinion that it is not in accordance with the convention that a Member should be nodded through in his absence. I should have thought that that was the general view, judging from the questions which have been put. "Erskine May" states that the convention is that a Member should be nodded through when he is on the premises. There it is—and, of course, I support that convention. But it is for the House to decide whether there are to be new rules or different rules.