AIRCRAFT AND SHIPBUILDING INDUSTRIES BILL (STANDING ORDERS)

HC Deb 27 May 1976 vol 912 cc632-81

3.32 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Industry (Mr. Eric G. Varley)

I beg to move, That, in view of the serious consequences to the industries concerned and for those employed in them of further delay and uncertainty, in relation to the proceedings on the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill, any Standing Orders relating to Private Business, and consideration of the application of any such Standing Orders, are dispensed with.

Mr. Speaker

I have selected the amendment in the name of the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition, to leave out from 'That' to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof, 'this House endorses Mr. Speaker's ruling of 26th May 1976, which confirmed that the rights of private citizens might be affected by the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill, and considers that the normal procedures to defend such rights as laid down in Standing Orders should be followed'.

Mr. Varley

On 31st July 1974 my right hon. Friend, now the Secretary of State for Energy, made a statement to this House announcing the Government's intention to bring the shipbuilding industry into public ownership, and accompanying that statement he issued a discussion document. That paper, under the heading "Mobile Offshore Drilling Rigs", stated: The Government does not intend to take into public ownership Marathon Shipbuilding (UK) Limited, makers of offshore drilling rigs. So, from the outset, nearly two years ago, the Government made it clear that they had no intention of nationalising Marathon.

On 30th April 1975 the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill was published. Schedule 2 was drafted to exclude Marathon and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer), who was a Minister in the Department at the time, made clear in the House yesterday, the drafting took full account of the need to avoid hybridity; and it appeared to have been drafted successfully from that point of view, since it was cleared with the House authorities as not being hybrid.

What is more, none of those opposed to the Bill—either hon. Members of this House or the assiduous lobbyists to whose activities we have become so accustomed—brought forward a charge of hybridity. Yet they had ample time to study it, and we know from their representations and from amendments put forward that they examined it line by line and comma by comma for errors and flaws.

There was not sufficient time for the Bill's passage in that 1974–75 Session, so it was reintroduced at the beginning of the new Session on 20th November. The opportunity was taken to make a number of amendments, but the definition of a ship given in paragraph 6 of Part II of Schedule 2 remained precisely as it was. Once again it was cleared with the House authorities, once again it was found not to be hybrid, and once again nobody inside or outside the House challenged its credentials as a public Bill.

The Bill was brought up for Second Reading on 2nd December. Again, no challenge. No charge of hybridity.

The Bill began its Committee stage on 11th December. Standing Committee D considered the Bill during 58 sittings—the greatest number of sittings in the history of this House of Commons. The Bill was examined in the minutest detail so that at times Ministers in charge of the Bill had the feeling that they were even being required to explain the reasons for the spaces between the words.

The Committee sat as long as the Opposition wanted it to sit. There was no guillotine. Yet during 140 hours of debate no challenge of hybridity was made against the Bill. [HON. MEMBERS: "There was."] One and a half sittings, as recently as two weeks ago on Tuesday 11th May, were devoted to considering Schedule 2—the focus for the controversy that has arisen.

The hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop), who was a member of the Committee for all the 58 sittings and the 140 hours, made six speeches during the debates on Schedule 2. Yet neither he nor anyone else on the Opposition side raised the question of Marathon or alleged that the Bill was a hybrid. [HON. MEMBERS: "They did."]

You yourself, Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday of this week twice firmly rejected contentions that the Bill was a hybrid.

Sir Derek Walker-Smith (Hertfordshire, East)

rose——

Mr. Varley

I will not give way just now.

I recount this history not in order to challenge the good faith of anybody involved but to demonstrate that the many hundreds of people who had studied this Bill with such care for parliamentary, governmental, party political, industrial, financial or propaganda purposes all missed the apparent significance of the phrase which led you, Mr. Speaker, yesterday to rule that this Bill was prima facie hybrid.

Mr. Speaker, I want to make absolutely clear, that none of us on this side of the House is in any way seeking to challenge the ruling that you gave yesterday. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] You were good enough to confirm to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House that you did not regard anything in his statement yesterday as a challenge to your ruling and that the motion we are now to debate is in order.

Now I give way to the right hon. and learned Gentleman.

Sir Derek Walker-Smith

I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for his courtesy. I think that the House would like to know the exact point he is making by these lengthy references—[Interruption.]—ample references to the proceedings in Committee. Does he accept that the onus is on the Government to establish to the satisfaction of Mr. Speaker the facts of the case for him to be able to arrive at a correct judgment about hybridity, or does he assert that there is some duty on the Opposition to establish the exact state of the Bill? Does he accept that the onus on the Government is not reduced or discharged by what happened in the Standing Committee?

Mr. Varley

I shall have something more to say about that point, but I say to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that I do not impugn anyone's good faith and I do not challenge the ruling that you, Mr. Speaker, gave yesterday. All I am saying is that the Bill was submitted on two occasions, in the formal processes, to the authorities of the House, and was cleared as a Bill which was not a hybrid Bill. That is all I am saying. It is not that your Department, Mr. Speaker, is in commission to any Department of State. You take your own independent advice. That is the only point I am making.

This controversy that has arisen, in the opinion of the Government, concerns at most a hairline hybridity—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—and it is ludicrous that a major legislative measure should face frustration on the narrowest of technicalities which apparently no one noticed for more than 13 months. Throughout, the Bill was in the Vote Office, there for people to collect. I have already recounted for how many hours it has been considered. The Stationery Office has sold about 7,000 copies of the Bill, I think. At no point was hybridity questioned.

As my right hon. Friend the Lord President stated yesterday, if the House accepts this motion today, the Government will move at Report stage an amendment to remove the tiny area of doubt that remains.

Mr. Hugh Dykes (Harrow, East)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is not the Secretary of State's phrase "hairline hybridity" a direct challenge to your solemn and considered ruling yesterday?

Mr. Speaker

No, it is not a direct challenge to my ruling yesterday. I do not wish to enlarge on that ruling, but I did have a statement prepared in which I was going to indicate to the House that it was the area of doubt that led me, following the ruling of Speaker Hylton-Foster some years ago, to decide that because of the doubt I must come down on that side.

Mr. Robert Adley (Christchurch and Lymington)

Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. As the motion to which the Secretary of State is now speaking is based upon your assessment that the Government may put down any motion and it is not for your judgment, but for the judgment of the House, whether the motion is suitable, is it not, therefore, quite possible for any Government at any time to put down a motion totally eliminating all the rights of the Opposition in this House?

Mr. Speaker

I am not taking part in the debate, and that is a debating point rather than a point of order for me. Speculation about motions in the future will only hold up the debate.

Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson (Newbury)

Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. May we expect a ruling from you as a result of what you said, as reported at column 460 of Hansard for 26th May, when you were asked whether it was right to change the rules in the middle of the passage of a Bill so that those who were affected by it would be dealt with in one way in Committee and dealt with in another way on Report and Third Reading? You seemed to say that you would give a ruling today. I wonder whether this is the moment at which you would wish to do so.

Mr. Speaker

I said to the House, in reply to the hon. Member for Barry (Sir R. Gower), that if I thought it necessary I would make such a statement. I have taken advice, and, as I said yesterday, the House is its own master in regard to procedures. Rules which are made by the House may be varied by the House after debate, if desired, at any time. The motion is in order.

Mr. Varley

The question is whether the Marathon shipyard builds ships, and it revolves around the structure of the "Key Victoria"—raised by the hon. Member for Tiverton—which was under construction at Marathon on 31st July 1974, the relevant date. The hon. Member for Tiverton submitted that this structure is a ship within the definition of paragraph 6 of Part II of Schedule 2. On Tuesday, in supporting his contention, the hon. Member for Tiverton quoted the American Bureau of Shopping as saying that the "Key Victoria" is a vessel having the characteristic hull form of a barge. I have to tell the House that that same American Bureau of Shipping, on 17th October 1974, issued a certificate for the "Key Victoria" classifying it as Maltese Cross Al mobile self-elevating drilling unit as a major part of the structure—namely, the drilling legs—is non-integral with the platform, which floats only when the structure is being moved from one location to another.

It is a very great pity that Hansard does not publish illustrations, because I have in my hand a photograph of the "Key Victoria"—[Hon. MEMBERS: "Order."]—in its normal operating position. [Hon. MEMBERS: "Order."] I am making copies of this available in the Library and Vote Office this afternoon so that hon. Members may look at it.

Mr. Peter Tapsell (Horncastle)

Is it not clear—whether or not it is his intention—that everything that the right hon. Gentleman has said so far in his speech is intended to challenge the authority of Mr. Speaker's ruling? Mr. Speaker ruled that this is a hybrid Bill, and nothing that the right hon. Gentleman says can alter that fact.

Mr. Varley

I am only saying that I want to put all the evidence that I can before the House of Commons, and it is quite right that the House should have it. That is the reason I am making this illustration available to hon. Members.

Mr. Cranley Onslow (Woking)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. If the right hon. Gentleman is seeking to put information, in this slightly irregular fashion, at the disposal of the House, will you rule that it is right that he should make full and not partial information available? In other words, if that device moves by using its legs, it may be relevant to show it standing upon them, but if it is mobile in some other way, we must be shown a picture that illustrates in which way it moves.

Mr. Varley

The only thing that I am trying to say is that in my view it is very difficult to construe that structure as a vessel within the natural meaning of that word.

Several Hon. Members

rose——

Mr. Speaker

Order. I think that the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) has risen on a point of order.

Mr. David Crouch (Canterbury)

I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for calling me on a point of order. My point of order is that I think that the Secretary of State is embarking on an entirely wrong approach this afternoon. My point of order to you, Mr. Speaker, is that yesterday you ruled that the House had adopted an inappropriate procedure in the matter of dealing with the Bill. I do not think that the House is suggesting that we should question you on that ruling for one moment, and I hope that the Secretary of State will not try to mislead us in this matter. Nor are the Opposition suggesting that we should have another 58 sittings on the matter. Would it not have been better for the Leader of the House to concede yesterday that you were right, Mr. Speaker, and not to suggest, and even imply this afternoon through the Secretary of State for Industry, that you were wrong, as he is now so doing?

Mr. Speaker

Anything that challenges the ruling that I made yesterday would not be in order in this debate. That is quite clear. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State began by saying that he had no intention of challenging my ruling yesterday, and he will no doubt keep to that.

Mr. Varley

The American Bureau of Shipping——

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg (Hampstead)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have just been to the Vote Office and the Library to get a copy of the photograph to which the Secretary of State referred. It is not available. Will you please do your best, Mr. Speaker, to see that hon. Members who want a copy may get it, so that we may refer to it during the Minister's excellent speech?

Mr. Varley

I said that during the course of the afternoon I would make the photograph available. I understand that steps are being taken for that to be done.

Mr. Ian Gow (Eastbourne)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Will the Secretary of State tell the House on what date, by whom and at whose expense this photograph was taken?

Mr. Varley

rose——

Mr. Speaker

Order. I hope that we shall not have bogus points of order. We want to debate the matter properly and we cannot do that if there are continual interruptions.

Mr. Michael Heseltine (Henley)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As the only purpose of producing such a photograph can be to invite the House to reach a different conclusion from that which lay behind your ruling yesterday, is it in order for the Secretary of State for Industry to refer to the photograph for the purpose of undermining your decision yesterday?

Mr. Leo Abse (Pontypool)

Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. What is being adumbrated is the weight of evidence which we all require to enable us to determine whether your ruling, which is clear, should or should not be altered by the House. Is it not desirable that the Secretary of State should continue to give us all the information he has to enable us to reach a decision?

Mr. Speaker

The House is not considering whether my ruling is to be altered. The House is considering the motion proposed by the Minister which contains the procedure which the Government propose in view of the ruling I made yesterday. Anything else would be out of order today.

Mr. Heseltine

Would you rule on the point I put to you, Mr. Speaker, before the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse) followed my point of order? I was putting to you, Mr. Speaker, that the Secretary of State was seeking leave to introduce a photograph in evidence in the House so that hon. Members might be invited to question the ruling that you gave yesterday. As the Government's motion in no way questions your ruling, Mr. Speaker, what possible virtue can there be in allowing the Secretary of State to produce evidence which must have that point behind it?

Mr. Speaker

Evidence that the Government put in the Library is their concern. My concern is that my ruling yesterday is not open to debate today.

Mr. Abse

Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. As you have indicated, it was unfortunate if I addressed myself to you in a way which suggested that the motion sought to alter your decision. The motion seeks to relieve the House from the consequences of your decision. Therefore, is it not in order, proper and correct that all the evidence should be given to enable the House to come to a decision whether it should be relieved of the consequences? I hope that you will rule that the Secretary of State may continue to give the weight of evidence which we all require.

Mr. Speaker

What the Secretary of State and everyone else must do until an amendment has been proposed is to speak to the motion, which indicates to the House the steps that the Government believe should be taken arising out of my ruling yesterday. The House has to

decide whether it wishes to take those steps,

Mr. Robin Maxwell-Hyslop (Tiverton)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Something has happened which I have not known during the 15 years in which I have been a Member of the House. As well as the Secretary of State addressing the House, which is a verbal process, he is purporting to exhibit photographs to the House. If there are contrary photographs which the House ought to be able to see, for instance, a photograph of a ship called the "Key Victoria" at sea, as appears in the Financial Times this morning, what is the procedure whereby conflicting photographs can be circulated? Instead of confining ourselves to verbal statements, as has been the custom during my time in Parliament, we now have exhibited a photograph of visual effects. The Secretary of State held up the photograph in an endeavour to show it to hon. Members. Are hon. Members permitted to walk round the House with opposing photographs so that other hon. Members may see them?

Mr. Speaker

I hope that we can get back to the debate. Anyone who has any pictures may put them in the Library.

Mr. Varley

I have referred to the American Bureau of Shipping, which the hon. Member twice quoted——

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I raised with you earlier a point of order, and you subsequently expressed the hope that there will be no bogus points of order. If you feel that my point of order was bogus, of course, I withdraw it. When I went to the Library and the Vote Office, no photograph was available but it has just been delivered to me. The point of order was genuine when I raised it.

Mr. Speaker

I had no intention of treading on the hon. Gentleman's corns. I do not want to say whom I had in mind in case that provokes another point of order.

Mr. Varley

I have referred to the American Bureau of Shipping, which the hon. Member twice quoted——

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The words you uttered to the effect that anyone who had photographs could place them in the Library were scarcely out of your mouth when a cascade of photographs arrived in the Chamber. That recalls the substantial point I made to you a few moments ago. If photographs are to be distributed through the House in the course of the debate they must not be confined to showing a ship when it is ashore but should also show it when it is performing the function of a ship on the water.

Mr. Speaker

I do not know how the pictures are distributed, but there is nothing disorderly about it. If the hon. Gentleman seeks to distribute some of his photographs, or if anyone else wishes to do so, let him do it. I suggest that we get on with the serious business.

Mr. Adley

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker——

Hon. Members

Name him.

Mr. Speaker

Order. I shall hear the hon. Gentleman's point of order, but I must tell the House that it is wrong to prevent orderly debate by continually raising points of order.

Mr. Adley

I am sorry to refer to my, earlier point of order, but will you please give a ruling, Mr. Speaker, if not now, after the Whitsun Recess, whether it is in order for the Government to put down on the Order Paper anything they wish—for instance, that non-members of the Labour Party on the Opposition side of the House may not vote or speak? Would you not be able to say that such a motion was out of order?

Mr. Speaker

I cannot rule on speculative issues. I deal with the motions on the Order Paper, and this motion is in order.

Mr. Varley

I was referring to the American Bureau of Shipping, which the hon. Member twice quoted in his support. The American Bureau of Shipping is not alone. Lloyd's Register of Shipping has been quoted in the controversy. Today's Financial Times says the following about it: Lloyd's Register of Shipping would not be drawn into the argument yesterday, although Lloyd's regards ships and oil platforms as sufficiently different to warrant separate technical staff.

Mr. Norman Tebbit (Chingford)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I draw your attention to the fact that the motion on the Order Paper reads: in view of the serious consequences to the industries concerned and for those employed in them of further delay and uncertainty". It also refers to the application of any such Standing Orders which it says, should be dispensed with. Admittedly with constant interruption, the Secretary of State has been speaking for some time but so far he has said nothing which is in any way relevant to that motion.

Mr. Speaker

Order. While I am glad of assistance at any time, if I found that the Minister was out of order I would pull him up.

Mr. Varley

I want to place before the House all the information that we have. We are entitled to do that. We are informed by the Inland Revenue that it does not regard self-elevating rigs as ships for capital allowance purposes and it has informed the General Council of British Shipping of this. It was never——

Mr. Onslow

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of what you have just said, the credulity of the House is being tested if the Inland Revenue view that self-propelling rigs are not ships is to be argued.

Mr. Speaker

Anything that disputes the ruling that I have given is not relevant. I have to tell the House that we are not discussing the question whether this was a ship or whether it was not a ship. [Interruption.] I am telling the House what we have to turn our minds to, and that is the steps that the Government propose to take arising out of my decision.

Mr. Varley

I can well understand——

Mr. William Ross (Kilmarnock)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You are in charge and exercise your authority over order in the House. You have stated that the motion is in order. Has anything been said by the Secretary of State which is out of order?

Mr. Speaker

He is getting very near. [Interruption.] Order. I do not need support when I am making statements. It becomes near to being out of order if the issue of this vessel, ship or barge is put in question. I have given a ruling, and we have to decide whether the House will dispense with the Standing Orders.

Mr. Varley

rose——

Mrs. Judith Hart (Lanark)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Would I be right in assuming that the Secretary of State has been trying to tell us that, on the absolutely accepted ruling that you have given, the motion on the Order Paper is to be understood and accepted in the light of the great technical problems that confront us?

Mr. Speaker

I suggest that we hear the Minister out.

Mr. Varley

If at any time——

Mr. William Ross

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I asked you whether you had heard anything from the Secretary of State that was out of order.

Mr. Speaker

Maybe the noise in the House prevented the right hon. Gentleman from hearing my answer, but I did answer him a moment ago.

Mrs. Margaret Thatcher (Finchley)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have two specific points to raise. Is not the Secretary of State adducing the sort of evidence that should go to the examiners for them to assess it at a time when evidence from the other side can also be advanced and a decision made whether it is a hybrid Bill? It is not for the House to undertake that examination.

In all my years in the House I have never known photographs to be passed around by one side of the House without notice first being given. Is it now in order to use photographs as a means of debate?

Mr. Speaker

On the right hon. Lady's first question about examiners, I believe that the question of the ship is not one that can be settled here. I have given a ruling after long consideration. We have to decide what the House is to do arising out of that decision. I have not come up against the question of the circulation of photographs before, although this practice might have taken place without my knowing. I should like to consider it. The fewer changes that there are in our procedures, the better it is for orderly debate.

Mr. George Cunningham (Islington, South and Finsbury)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. We shall be in difficulties not only in the Minister's speech but in the speech of any hon. Member speaking later in the debate about exactly the point at which you have suggested that the Minister might be straying out of order. For the purposes of the rules of the House we must accept that that thing is a ship. You have so ruled. But may I put this to you, Mr. Speaker? It may be a ship for the purposes of the rules of the House—there is no doubt about that—but some of us might want to argue that in common sense, by the rules of the Inland Revenue or for other purposes relevant to whether we pass the motion, it might not be regarded as a ship—although not for the rules of the House. That would be a legitimate distiction for us to draw and it would be wholly relevant to the motion that we are being asked to consider.

Mr. Speaker

Order. Niceties of that sort are not acceptable. Anything that challenges my ruling yesterday will not be acceptable. The Government will make their case for the motion and it is irrelevant to argue that which has been decided on the question of the ship.

Mr. Varley

The Government are entitled to put their views and all the evidence that they have before the House. The question in dispute——

Mr. Ivor Clemitson (Luton, East)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As I understand the situation, you have given a ruling that the Bill is prima facie a hybrid Bill. A prima facie ruling presumably means that somebody or other has finally to decide whether it is a hybrid Bill. Are you ruling that the Bill should go to the examiners for that final decision? If so, may I ask you which Standing Order is the basis for that reference?

Mr. Speaker

The hon. Gentleman must be aware that I have given no such ruling. The House will decide, if the debate is allowed to continue, what procedure it intends to follow. I have given no other instructions.

Mr. Varley

All I am seeking to do is to give all the evidence to the House, and the House is entitled to have that evidence. The issue in dispute is the meaning of paragraph 6 of Part II of Schedule 2. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I think that the Government are entitled to put those views before the House.

Mr. Patrick Mayhew (Royal Tunbridge Wells)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The Minister has now referred to the issue being in dispute. What can that be other than a challenge to your ruling?

Mr. Speaker

The issue in dispute before the House is the motion on the Order Paper, and no other.

Mr. Varley

There is other evidence that I want to give the House, and I think that I am entitled to give it. If you rule me out of order, Mr. Speaker, I shall of course accept your ruling, but I am certainly not taking rulings from the Opposition. If you at any time decide, Mr. Speaker, that anything I say is out of order, I shall observe your ruling straight away, but I will not be bullied by Opposition Members.

I have already referred to the fact that the Inland Revenue takes a similar view to that of the American Bureau of Shipping. These two authorities are not alone.

Mr. Onslow

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker——

Mr. Speaker

I shall hear this point of order, but I appeal to the House and to individual hon. Members who become anxious about whether the Minister is straying to trust my judgment in the matter, so that we may have fewer points of order and the speech may come to its conclusion.

Mr. Onslow

That was very much the point of order that I hoped to put to you, Mr. Speaker. [HON. MEMBERS: "Then sit down."] I feel sure that if the Minister cited any purported authorities which disagreed with your ruling he would be instantly and properly ruled out of order. I hope that he will be able to get to the motion, that the House can hear him on that, and that some of us can speak to it.

Mr. Varley

There is another piece of important information that I need to put to the House about this matter. It concerns the good faith of the last Conservative Government and members of it. The Industry Act 1972 distinguished be- tween a ship and an offshore installation for eligibility for ship construction grants. The Act has the following definition: 'mobile offshore installation' means any installation which is intended"—

Mr. Churchill (Stretford)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is not everything we have heard from the Secretary of State this afternoon not only a hairline challenge but a direct challenge to your ruling yesterday?

Mr. Abse

Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. As I understand it, the House must decide whether it will dispense with the existing Standing Orders. That is the issue. Therefore, surely we should know whether your ruling is based upon serious and weighty matters—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—or whether the unchallengeable ruling you have given is based on trivial matters. Surely the House is entitled to know the evidence to enable us to decide whether we should avoid the serious consequences.

Mr. Speaker

The hon. Gentleman is not correct. The House is not considering whether I was on good grounds.

Mr. Abse

I was not saying that, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker

That is how it seemed to me.

What the House is considering is whether, in view of the ruling I gave yesterday—[Interruption.] Order. The House is considering the motion on the Order Paper. I must say this, and I hope that it will be hearkened to: anything that seeks to discuss the merits of whether the ship was a ship is a challenge to what I said yesterday. What we must deal with is the motion.

Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)

On a point of order——

Mrs. Winifred Ewing (Moray and Nairn)

rose——

Mr. Speaker

Mr. Skinner, on a point of order.

Mrs. Ewing

rose——

Mr. Speaker

Order. I have called the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) on a point of order.

Mr. Skinner

You said yesterday, Mr. Speaker, in that supposedly historic ruling—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—that prima fade the vessel was a ship. What we are doing today, I presume, is to listen to all the various comments and arguments from both sides. I have no doubt in my mind, either inside the Chamber or outside it, that my view about this matter if I had to give an opinion——

Mr. Speaker

Order. The hon. Gentleman is not required to give an opinion. I thought that he was raising a point of order. But for his information I can tell him that I did not mention the word "ship" in my ruling yesterday. I merely said that the Bill was prima facie a hybrid Bill. That is the ruling. The House is not discussing it now but is discussing its consequences.

Mr. E. Fernyhough (Jarrow)

Further to that point of order——

Mr. Skinner

I was coming to my conclusion. I was saying that in my opinion——

Mr. Speaker

Order. The hon. Gentleman is not entitled in the middle of somebody else's speech to give his opinions. If he is raising a point of order, I am quite willing to deal with it, but I am not willing to allow hon. Members to rise just to express opinions when the Secretary of State is addressing the House.

Mr. Fernyhough

Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it not clear that so far all that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has done is to show that when the Government commenced with the Bill they felt that it complied with every rule of the House, although yesterday you decided that it did not? My right hon. Friend is merely trying to indicate the steps which the Government took, and the advice which they took, before they made the decision that it was a Public Bill. Surely any man in the position of my right hon. Friend today is entitled to convey to the House all the steps he took to comply with the rules of the House so that the Bill would be in order.

Mr. Speaker

Of course, the right hon. Gentleman is quite right. That is in order. I call the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mrs. Ewing), and then I hope that we can return to the debate.

Mrs. Winifred Ewing

My point of order, Mr. Speaker, is this: is there not a lack of order in this House and would you not advise 11 of our faithful Members of this Chamber to attend a much more important occasion than this, namely the Scottish National Party annual conference at Motherwell?

Hon. Members

No.

Mr. Speaker

Order. That shows the extent to which we are becoming disorderly.

Mr. Varley

I need make only one other point at this time before passing on to some other matters which the House wants to hear. That is the question of the 1972 Industry Act, which is absolutely relevant to the subject under discussion. That Act defines a mobile offshore installation as meaning: any installation which is intended for underwater exploitation of mineral sources or exploration with a view to such exploitation and can move by water from place to place without major dismantling or modification, whether or not it has its own motive power; 'ship' includes every description of vessel used in navigation". I have to tell the House that under the Tory Industry Act the "Key Victoria" was not awarded a construction grant as a ship. Instead Marathon applied for and received construction grants for it as an offshore installation, and it was the Conservatives' own Act, the Act put through by those same hon. Gentlemen who have been spluttering and howling me down, and howling down my right hon. Friend the Lord President like a gang of illiterate yahoos——

Mr. Tom King (Bridgwater)

rose——

Mr. Speaker

Order.

Mr. Varley

All this would be cause for satire from the pen of a modern Swift if the consequences were not so inherently disastrous for both the aircraft and the shipbuilding industries and for hundreds of thousands of workers whose livelihoods depend upon them. Under private ownership the aircraft industry has not brought forward a single new civil project in more than two years. The HS 146 would be dead today had it not been for the holding contract placed by this Government. Increasingly in recent years shareholders of existing companies have avoided their responsibilities for the future work of these com- panies and have expected the Government to provide the necessary finance.

The Department of Industry currently has before it three proposals of this kind where the companies expect the Government to provide all the funds. In anticipation of nationalisation, things are beginning to move at last. Scottish Aviation has been offered some of the RAF Jetstreams to modify at Prestwick for possible United States sales. That would give new confidence to the workers there. The Organising Committee for British Aerospace at long last brought Hawker Siddeley and the British Aircraft Corporation together, and last week held constructive talks with their French counterparts about possible collaboration on the Airbus and HS 146.

If this Bill does not proceed rapidly, the important relationships being built up between British Aerospace and potential European partners will evaporate. The nationalised French airframe industry will lose confidence in us as a partner and will turn firmly and irrevocably to the Americans. Today's diverting parliamentary ploy could mean the dole queue before long for tens of thousands of skilled British aircraft workers and could mean Britain declining into being no more than a client sub-contractor. Without speedy nationalisation the stakes are as high as that, and no hon. Member can turn his back on those facts.

But if the delay in nationalisation faces the aircraft industry with a crisis, it faces the shipbuilding industry with a catastrophe. The shipbuilders know it. That is why so many of them have begged me to get the industry into public ownership as quickly as possible. Hon. Members opposite know it, too. That is why so many hon. Members on the opposite side of the House, while opposing this Bill publicly, have privately been lobbying me to get the headquarters of British Shipbuilders into their own area. Indeed, the hon. Member for the City of Chester (Mr. Morrison), in his capacity as Chairman of the North-West Group of Conservative MPs, has written formally to me pressing Merseyside as the headquarters of British Shipbuilders.

Mr. Peter Morrison (City of Chester)

Does the right hon. Gentleman not realise that my hon. Friends in the North- West area and I would be deserting our constituents' interest if we did not push for the headquarters of British Shipbuilders to be on Merseyside? Does he also realise that, for the sake of our constituents and those involved in the shipbuilding industry, we are totally and utterly opposed to the nationalisation of that industry?

Mr. Varley

Of course I agree entirely that the hon. Gentleman would not be acting in the interests of his constituents if he were not asking for the headquarters of British Shipbuilders to be placed on Merseyside. But I will say to him that he will be acting against the interests of his constituents if he votes against this motion tonight. In another letter, the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North (Sir W. Elliott), a former Vice-Chairman of the Tory Party, has eloquently stated the case for the Tyne.

Sir William Elliott (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North)

Would the Secretary of State accept that the reason for my writing that letter was an approach by the North-East Development Council, which body told me that it had been strongly suggested to it that, despite the facts before the House, a decision had already been taken to establish the headquarters at Merseyside? I was asked to impress upon the right hon. Gentleman that the biggest concentration of shipbuilding and advisory services in the country was on Tyneside, which I told him. But I violently oppose nationalisation of the industry.

Mr. Varley

What the hon. Gentleman has said will be noted in the North-East, too. Members of the Conservative Party have written to me. I have the hon. Gentleman's letter in my hand. I will not bore the House by reading it out. But today I have had another letter from Admiral Sir Anthony Griffin, Chairman of the Organising Committee for British Shipbuilders. He says: I am writing on behalf of the Organising Committee to assure you of our unanimous support for the Government's efforts to bring the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill quickly into law.

Several Hon. Members

rose——

Mr. Speaker

Order.

Mr. Varley

I am very surprised that hon. Gentlemen on that side should scoff at that letter and scoff at someone such as Sir Anthony Griffin, who has given service to both Governments when Controller of the Navy and was in fact appointed by the then Conservative Government to that post. It is utterly disgraceful that they should laugh and jeer in that way. Conservative Members who laugh should be utterly ashamed of themselves—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker

Order. This Chamber believes in the right of free speech. Even when hon. Members disagree with what they hear, they have to listen.

Mr. Varley

Admiral Griffin went on to say the following—[Interruption.] It is important that the House should have this information, and I do not know what Conservative Members are frightened of. He said: Our wide-ranging examination of the industry during the past five months leads us firmly to the view that nationalisation offers the best chance of creating a stable, profitable, competitive shipbuilding industry, and that any further delay in achieving this objective would be seriously damaging. That is the considered statement of Sir Anthony Griffin.

The world recession and the oil crisis have created a famine in orders which has brought our shipbuilding and ship-repairing industries to the verge of disaster. I say frankly, as one who has to face a new crisis in the shipbuilding industry on practically every working day, that we are hard put to it to hold the line. Only a co-ordinated strategy backed by the workers in the industry can save the situation.

The Organising Committee for British Shipbuilders has made a fine start. It must be given a chance to get on with the job quickly—otherwise there will be yards that may not live through next year.

It is my duty solemnly to warn the House that after six months in Committee any further delay in the passage of this Bill could deal a death blow to the prospects of the shipbuilding and shiprepairing industries in some of the areas of most intolerable unemployment. I refer to Tyneside, Wearside, Teesside, Merseyside and Clydeside. I deliberately mention Clydeside because I understand that the SNP has decided to vote against our motion.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis (Rutland and Stamford)

rose——

Mr. Varley

No, I cannot give way. The SNP will be fully aware of its responsibilities.

Mrs. Winifred Ewing

We want an election.

Mr. Varley

Some 20 per cent. of the shipbuilding industry lies in Scotland, and some of the shipyards which face most imminent crisis lie in Scotland. Any delay in the passage of this Bill could mean the dole queue for thousands of Scottish shipbuilding workers.

Mr. Gordon Wilson (Dundee, East)

In view of the fact that the effect of nationalisation and centralisation will mean a loss of thousands of jobs, what case can the Minister put forward for saving shipbuilding jobs in Scotland when the present Bill is intended to centralise the control of the shipbuilding industry elsewhere and to take that control outside Scotland, without any Government policy aimed at securing that shipbuilding orders are placed with industry in Scotland?

Mr. Varley

The Bill is not a centralising measure. It aims at bringing about a nationalised strategy for the shipbuilding industry. The SNP carries a heavy responsibility. Already hundreds of telegrams are pouring in. The shop stewards of the Clydebank Engineering Shop Stewards Committee urge the SNP members to take their responsibilities seriously. That is also the attitude of the Clydeside Shop Stewards Committee.

I understand that SNP Members leave for their annual conference shortly and that they intend to vote against the Bill. If they vote for the Conservative motion and against the Government motion, they will bear the responsibility of throwing thousands of ship builders out of a job. If that happens, it will be held against them for ever.

This debate is not about a jolly jape or some small parliamentary strategem. It relates to two vital industries, That is the reason why I have no hesitation in urging the House to support this motion and to sustain the hopes of hard-pressed communities and tens of thousands of workers who are profoundly anxious about the future.

Mr. Martin Flannery (Sheffield, Hillsborough)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have received a sheaf of telegrams from the organised workers of Sheffield. I hope that it is in order to place those telegrams in the Bag at the back of your Chair.

Mr. Speaker

Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that that is not a point of order.

4.37 p.m.

Mr. John Peyton (Yeovil)

I beg to move to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof: this House endorses Mr. Speaker's ruling of 26th May 1976, which confirmed that the rights of private citizens might be affected by the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill, and considers that the normal procedures to defend such rights as laid down in Standing Orders should be followed. The Secretary of State for Industry has made a remarkable speech—particularly in one respect. I think that the only attempt to explain the contents, meaning and reasoning of the Government's motion was made by you, Mr. Speaker. I hardly heard the Secretary of State for Industry refer to the motion or say anything about what will happen as a consequence of it.

At one stage the Secretary of State said that nobody was seeking to challenge your ruling. He went on to make it fairly clear that what he and his colleagues were seeking to do was to dispose of the matter tidily in the nearest wastepaper basket. He then kindly said that he was not impugning anybody's good faith. In present circumstances, nobody's good faith is in question today except that of the Government.

The Secretary of State then produced a phrase which deserves to be characterised as the phrase of the debate—namely, the concept of "hairline hybridity". My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) was heard to mutter that it was "such a small baby".

We then had a helpful intervention by the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse), who made it clear that the one thing he was anxious to do—and, indeed, thought he was in order in doing—was to debate your ruling, Mr. Speaker. The hon. Gentleman used words such as these: "We want to inquire whether your ruling is based on serious or weighty evidence."

Mr. Abse

Since we are debating a motion to decide whether we should take action to deal with the serious consequences which flow from Mr. Speaker's ruling, does not the right hon. Gentleman think that it is right for all the evidence relating to the matter to be placed, as the Secretary of State has placed it, before the House?

Mr. Peyton

I am content with the words I used, which came out of the hon. Gentleman's speech, that we were seeking to inquire whether Mr. Speaker's ruling was based upon serious or weighty evidence. Whatever else we are doing, that is precisely what we are not meant to be doing today.

In order to enliven the debate, photographs were circulated. I very much hope, Mr. Speaker, that you will follow up the serious point made subsequently by a number of my hon. Friends as to the circulation of photographs——

Mr. Robert Hughes (Aberdeen, North)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Everything that the right hon. Gentleman has said so far has been about whether points of order were points of order and whether you were dealing with them properly. Surely he should get down to the subject.

Mr. Peyton

There are times when one is infinitely grateful to hon. Gentlemen opposite, and there are times when their advice is not quite as valuable as it may seem to them to be. On this occasion, I must say that I can get on without them.

The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. John Morris)

Get on with it.

Mr. Peyton

I have all the time in the world. I quite realise that the occupants of the Government Front Bench and others want to get their own back, and I am not in the least bothered if they wish to do that. We wish only to conduct a proper parliamentary debate. That does not worry me.

The point to which I was addressing myself—it is a perfectly reasonable one—is that sooner or later we must have some settled ruling as to whether it is in order for the Government, or anybody else for that matter, to circulate photographs without notice and consultation.

The right hon. Gentleman, at the height of his anger——

Mr. Fernyhough

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it not correct to say that my right hon. Friend is prepared to how any photograph but that if a demand is made that the photographs should be laid upon the Table he will comply with that?

Mr. Speaker

Order. Perhaps I can clear this matter up by referring again to "the good book". It is quite clear that hon. Members have been permited to display articles—but not weapons—to illustrate an argument in a speech. Mr. Peyton.

Mr. Peyton

rose——

The Minister of State, Department of Industry (Mr. Gerald Kaufman)

Why did you not say that before?

Mr. Speaker

Order. May I say to the Minister that I take a very poor view of anyone who makes remarks at me when I am in the Chair. The reason why I did not say that before was that I did not know it until I looked up "Erskine May".

Mr. Kaufman

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. If I have offended you in any way, I fully and unreservedly withdraw my remarks.

Mr. Speaker

I am very much obliged to the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Ron Thomas (Bristol, North-West

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As one who represents an aircraft workers' constituency, may I say how appalled I am that thousands of jobs are at stake and that all that the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) can discuss is whether——

Mr. Speaker

Order. The hon. Gentleman must know that those are points which he can make if he has the advantage of being called in the debate.

Mr. Peyton

If I may say so, Mr. Speaker, with great respect, these seem to be heavily camouflaged points of order.

The Secretary of State made much of the fact that delay in nationalisation would cost jobs and so on. He should read the Press today, particularly the article in The Guardian, which makes it quite clear that in the opinion of that newspaper at any rate—an opinion which I fully endorse—nobody would be the poorer if the Bill were to die tonight.

The right hon. Gentleman, at a loss, then criticised my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Mr. Morrison) for having said that his constituency might derive some benefit from nationalisation if the Bill were passed. I do not think anyone can seriously suggest that there was anything at all wrong in what my hon. Friend had done. We were then told about Sir Anthony Griffin—poor man; I think he will have an unhappy time in the future now that he has been dragged in to support the right hon. Gentleman's case.

The real point which characterised the Secretary of State's remarks was his total failure to deal with the motion which he himself moved on behalf of the Government. This debate could well have sunk into a competition to see who could find the best precedent. I am advised that there are no precedents whatever for the situation in which we now find ourselves. Our concern with precedent is not to find either an excuse for the Government's conduct or condemnation for it in circumstances which are more or less comparable, because in my belief there are no such circumstances. We have some concern for precedent, however, because one might well be giving a respectability to this kind of conduct which would help it in future, which we would deem reprehensible and odious.

Rules are necessary to govern all forms of human activity, otherwise one is left with the attractive statement that might is right. Rules are particularly necessary to govern the activities of the strong, and by that I mean Governments. Indeed, much of the history of the Labour Party has been concerned with the struggle to bring rich and powerful people and interests within the limitations of known rules. When that does not suit the Labour Party, however, as with yesterday's ruling, a motion is put forward without a moment's hesitation to sweep that ruling aside. No pause whatever was taken by the Leader of the House to consider the reactions of Parliament, Press or public. The Government proceeded headlong in their determination to get their measure, no matter what the cost in terms of violations of the rules of this place.

Parliament, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said yesterday, is not and should not be an instrument of government. It is a source of government and it is a means of checking the Government. It has, or used to have, great powers for that purpose over money and legislation. But of the two Chambers that constitute Parliament, one has been virtually filleted and the other has had its wings clipped by a series of procedural devices—devices against which none has been more vehement than the present Leader of the House.

Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will recognise these words: I say quite seriously that I think that when this House is debating as it is today, or as it claims to be debating today, the procedures of Parliamentary democracy, hon. Gentlemen, and even more right hon. Gentlemen, on both sides of the House should recognise that Parliamentary democracy is being debilitated by many of the operations which they conduct and by many of the methods by which they conduct the House of Commons."—[Official Report, 6th March 1961, Vol. 636, c 154–5.] Those were the words of the right hon. Gentleman on 6th March 1961.

Mr. Tom King

He has come a long way since then.

Mr. Peyton

Indeed. The House of Commons has not only been greatly curtailed in its powers; it has been dwarfed by the huge growth of modern government. My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop), in raising with such skill the point that he did, was not making any tricky use of rules. He was discharging his duty in ensuring that a Government invested with a great panoply of power did not cut corners with a tricky and unpleasant measure.

Mr. Robert Hughes

rose——

Mr. Peyton

No, I have given way quite enough.

Mr. Robert Hughes

On this point——

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern)

Order. Is the right hon. Gentleman giving way?

Mr. Peyton

Very well.

Mr. Andrew Faulds (Warley, East)

Go on, Bob, do the job for him.

Mr. Robert Hughes

Does the right hon. Gentleman recall the Northern Ireland Act of 1972, which was brought in at less than 24 hours' notice and passed through all its stages in one day to have the effect of setting aside a decision of the High Court of Northern Ireland and declaring that the law was to be regarded as it always had been regarded since 1920?

Mr. Peyton

Do I really need to tell the hon. Member that whereas that was not a contentious measure, this one is?

Mr. Robert Hughes

That is not what the Tories have been saying.

Mr. Peyton

There is no concealment about this. This measure, in our view, is a bad one. It will subject other industries, quite unnecessarily, to the thraldom of nationalisation. Those other industries will follow in the wake of the ones already in State ownership, which have proved millstones around the neck of the national economy.

Mr. Kevin McNamara (Kingston upon Hull, Central)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Peyton

No, I have given way enough.

Mr. McNamara

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way on this point?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. If the right hon. Gentleman does not give way, the hon. Member must resume his seat.

Mr. Peyton

The hon. Member interrupted me at just the point when I was coming to another interruption in this matter, that of Sir Barnett Cocks. Sir Barnett Cocks, lately retired as the Clerk of this House, has seen fit to intervene in this dispute with the judgment that Mr. Speaker's first ruling was right and that his second one was therefore wrong. I should like to take this opportunity of saying that I think that the Chair in this place and the Clerks of the House have a very difficult task indeed, but I cannot believe that under any Government their tasks would be made easier by the repeated intervention of people who have had great knowledge but who can no longer be informed about the necessary details.

In the view of all of us on the Opposition side, my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton has done a notable service to Parliament.

Mr. Varley

What about freedom now?

Mr. Peyton

What about freedom yesterday, when, at an impressive ceremony in Westminster Hall, the Prime Minister spoke in moving terms of freedom and the great charter of our liberties? I wish that the Prime Minister would get hold of that speech and read it again now, and ask himself whether or not he is acting up to the high principles that he there enunciated.

It would be quite wrong to pick only upon the Leader of the House and say that he is solely responsible for this shabby manoeuvre. The Government as a whole are guilty; the Government as a whole must take responsibility. But it is particularly the Leader of the House who must take especial blame. He cannot have had much satisfaction from even a cursory reading of the Press this morning. The article "Guilty Man" in the Daily Telegraph—[Interruption.] It is always interesting to note the total derision with which any quotation is greeted from any journal with which Labour Members do not agree.

The article says: Mr. Foot has not till recently been thought of as one of these. His devotion to and respect for Parliament and its procedures has been often and fervently proclaimed. All the greater then is the shock and sense of betrayal when, in his zeal to see the aircraft and shipbuilding industries nationalised, he is prepared to 'get around' what the Speaker has ruled, to throw standing orders out of the window and. in effect, to reduce MPs of all parties to mere rubber-stamp cyphers". The article then goes on to comment on how rickety and frail are the structures and fabrics which protect our liberties—[Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman is perfectly well aware of this, even if some of his more loud-mouthed colleagues are prepared to ignore it.

I am sure that any mention of The Times will also—[Laughter.]—there we are, as always—elicit the same derision from the Labour Party, whose members do not like any view that is expressed against their interests. Only those who agree with them are right. There is a quotation that I still mean to make from today's leading article in The Times: The measure is ideologically inspired, not urgent, primitive in its ideas of State intervention in industry, unwanted by the mass of the people, a matter for private apology by some ministers and Labour MPs. By steaming on with it the Government have acted as if they had behind them a clear electoral mandate, when in fact they are a minority government, all along and very much so in terms of votes and now in a minority in the House of Commons also.

Hon. Members

Now give us the Daily Mail.

Mr. Peyton

Perhaps that would be better. I was about to quote a similar item from the Scotsman, but as I imagine that would give Labour Members equal pain, let me go to a better source, to someone who has made this place echo to the sound of his acclaimed convictions. It is the right hon. Gentleman himself: I have respect for the history of this House. There is nothing reprehensible in people recalling that some of the liberties of the people of this country enshrined in this House go back not merely to the conflicts of the seventeenth century, which will certainly apply to many of the matters with which we have to deal—the power over taxation which resides, or is still to reside, in this House—but to the controversies which prevailed in the House of Commons during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. If people say to me that all these are remote, old-fashioned ideas, I reply that they are as up-to-date as the ideas that brought the Labour Party into being".—[Official Report, 17th February 1972; Vol. 831, c. 741.]

Mr. Fernyhough

rose——

Mr. Peyton

No.

Mr. Fernyhough

rose——

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. The right hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough) knows the rules of the House.

Mr. Fernyhough

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry gave way a score of times. I think it is very cheap of the right hon. Gentleman to be so mean when he is quoting my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, when at the time that speech was made the right hon. Gentleman denied every principle that——

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. The Chair has enough trouble, as has already been pointed out, without having the additional difficulty of ordering Members to give way to someone who wants to intervene.

Mr. Peyton

The right hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough) only does damage to the quite good reputation that he otherwise enjoys. It is a pity that he should be trying to make another intervention of this kind this afternoon.

This is the motion of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House, and therefore we are entitled to remind him of views that he once most strongly held. In a debate concerning the European Communities Bill, the right hon. Gentleman said: What the Government and the Prime Minister, in particular, are doing is to show full-hearted contempt for the democratic processes of this country; full-hearted contempt for the normal legislative processes of this House of Commons. The stain will remain indelible on the right hon. Gentleman for ever."—[Official Report, 2nd May 1972; Vol. 836, c. 235.] I should like to end—[Interruption.] I have no intention of prolonging my remarks, so long as I am not persuaded to do so by those hobgoblins on the Government Benches. They have it in their power to do this, though not to persuade me of the reason of their case.

I should like to end, Mr. Deputy Speaker, with these words: 'I should like to have an honest job again.' This business of being Leader of the House does not suit him at all."—[Official Report, 25th January 1962; Vol. 652, c. 454.] Those words were spoken by the right hon. Gentleman, who is now Leader of the House, of the then Leader of the House. They are back again alive to haunt him today.

5.4 p.m.

Mrs. Judith Hart (Lanark)

The primary purpose on this occasion is to discuss the parliamentary issue before us. I begin, perhaps a little unexpectedly, by congratulating the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) and the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) on their very genuine and effective piece of research and their very well carried through parliamentary performance. It is a real success for them, and we should not dispute that. What they have done is to prove that a mistake has been made by the Government in defining the character of a Bill, and I genuinely and sincerely congratulate them.

I certainly accept—and, as far as I know, everyone on the Government side, certainly my right hon. Friends, totally accept—Mr. Speakers' ruling. I say that at the outset in order to set the context of the rest of my remarks.

The question is, having accepted Mr. Speaker's ruling, what is now the most sensible way to deal with the problem that then arises? That is the parliamentary issue before us.

It ought not to be seen, in the strict sense of the word, as a normal political issue. It is a matter of the way in which the sensible Members of this House of Commons address themselves to a genuine problem. Whatever may be the views of many hon. Members on the Opposite Benches about the merits of the Bill on which this question has arisen, the issue before us is the House of Commons issue of how we now deal with the consequences of Mr. Speaker's ruling.

As Mr. Speaker has told us himself, we are the masters of what we do. This obviously is unchallengeable. Therefore, if the House of Commons this evening decides to take a certain course of action, as I hope it will, and accepts the motion that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has moved, that will be totally within the prerogative of the House.

We have the right to determine how we deal with the situation. There is nothing improper, no threat to freedom, no threat to democracy, involved in this House exercising its right to act upon the motion put before it today. This will represent our considered, sensible method of dealing with the essentially parliamentary problem with which we are now confronted as a result of Mr. Speaker's ruling.

The problem of hybridity is always a terrifying one. I remember that in Cabinet and in Cabinet committees, whenever it was suggested that a proposal to legislate might involve the problem of hybridity, everyone took fright. People went white and cold, and said "We cannot possibly cope with it." It is a very terrifying problem when it emerges.

About 14 years ago—I am indebted for this recollection to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Kelvingrove (Mr. Carmichael)—Mr Emrys Hughes moved from these Benches, I think in a Ten-Minute Bill, a motion to nationalise The Times. He was told by the Government of the day that it would cost far too much, because it would mean having a Private Bill. He was told that it would cost about £200,000 to go through all the procedures, but that if he chose he could quite simply, without any cost, move to nationalise the whole of the newspapers.

I also remember serving on a Committee dealing with a Private Bill, the Esso Petroleum Bill. I am very familiar with the perfectly correct exercise of Private Bill procedure, under which private individuals and companies affected by legislation have their rights within this House of Commons. I am familiar with all of that.

Somewhere along the line, with this Bill—I suppose it was before its introduction—some officials responsible for giving advice made some kind of mistake. Clearly, all hon. Members appreciate that, in all fairness. We know that somewhere there was a mistake. It must have occurred before First Reading, because that is when the whole question of subjecting a Bill to the Public Examiner arises. The mistake went through that stage, before the Bill was given its First and Second Readings. We cannot really be surprised that it went thereafter through its 58 Committee Sittings without the mistake being discovered, since it had not been discovered at the earlier stages, when it should have been.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop

Is the right hon. Lady seized of the point that, however carefully the Bill is read through, by clerks or anyone else, reading through the Bill does not tell a person whether there is a new ship in the course of construction in a given shipyard on a given day, or how many thousand tons had or has not been produced in a shipyard? It is these facts, external to a Bill, which cannot be comprehended by merely reading it but which either make it a hybrid Bill or do not.

Mrs. Hart

I accept that. I am not putting any particular responsibility on any particular group of officials. All I am saying is that, somewhere along the line, full account was not taken of the circumstances that the hon. Gentleman has effectively drawn attention to. He has been able to discover it. Presumably, it should have been discovered at an earlier stage but was not. That is all I am saying.

There are precedents. I was discussing with my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) the Rolls-Royce (Purchase) Act 1971, which was put through this House in 24 hours. It was a hybrid Bill and it was put through by the Conservative Government. We did not object, because it was clearly necessary and urgent. One should not regard the question of hybridity and what the House does about it as totally unacceptable to the House. In certain circumstances, as Mr. Speaker has said, the House is the master of what it does.

In the case of the Rolls-Royce Bill, we decided that we were masters of what we did and that that Bill should go through, no matter that it had implications that could have been challenged by us, as the then Opposition, as the hon. Member for Tiverton has challenged this Bill. I am not arguing the merits of the Rolls-Royce Act; we supported it. I merely say that circumstances can arise in this House when it is necessary for the House to decide what is the sensible and best procedure to adopt in relation to a new problem and a new situation.

As I understood him, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry was trying, valiantly amid all the excitement, to say that, while the Government accepted Mr. Speaker's ruling, the circumstances in which the mistake had been made about the hybrid nature of the Bill were understandable. He tried to explain the complications and the complexities—indeed, had there not been complexities, had there not been a difficult question of interpretation, surely the hon. Member for Henley and the hon. Member for Tiverton would not now be receiving the congratulations of their colleagues on the cleverness that they have demonstrated in discovering the mistake. If it were a simple matter, the mistake would have been discovered long ago.

So what are the complications? When is a vessel a ship? When is it not a ship? One almost feels oneself in the province of idealism in philosophy—I see a table, so there is a table: I see a ship, so there is a ship. The key definitions come from the American Bureau of Shipping and the Merchant Shipping Act 1894. My right hon. Friend has made reference also to Lloyds, the Inland Revenue and the 1972 Industry Act. One also notes that the whole procedure under discussion concerning hybridity was established by Mr. Speaker's ruling in 1962.

In 1962, and certainly in 1894, this House was not familiar with the precise technological ingredients of oil rigs—that I think we can all accept. I do not believe that when the 1894 Act was going through the House there was a deep and profound discussion of when was a ship a ship and when was a vessel with a hull a ship—or, at any rate, the words that the hon. Member for Tiverton gave us on Tuesday. I cannot believe that these were matters of full consideration when the 1894 Act was going through the House.

Nor can I regard it as reasonable to assume that Mr. Speaker's ruling in 1962 bore in mind the certainty that his ruling would be applied about 14 years later to a situation of oil rigs, of which we in Great Britain then had no experience whatever.

Mr. Tom King

The right hon. Lady's submission and the Secretary of State's submission about the 1972 Act are irrelevant, because this Bill itself provides the key definition. Schedule 2, paragraph 6 specifically says In this Part of the Schedule … and then defines what a ship is. Section 12 of the 1972 Act says In this Part of this Act … and then gives a definition. There is a distinction between the categories. The Government have set their own definition in the Bill. We do not need to go back to 1894 or 1972.

Mrs. Hart

I am certain that the hon. Gentleman is aware that definitions tend to move on from previous definitions into a new Bill unless there are clear reasons for doing otherwise. All T am suggesting is that the definitions which have been involved in Mr. Speaker's ruling are scarcely sanctified by tradition, history or test cases. The new ruling poses a new situation which relates to the new technological character of certain vessels used in the oil rig industry. It is a new situation. Indeed, the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) said that there is no precedent. There are no comparable circumstances. He himself agrees that it is a new situation. We are not, in what we decide to do tonight, throwing overboard traditions or precedents which have previously been set by the House in relation to a similar situation, because there has not been a similar situation in the past. The right hon. Gentleman himself said it—no precedent, no comparable circumstances.

Mr. Peyton

What I did say was that what we do tonight might set a perfectly odious precedent for the future and excuse the most unpleasant conduct in the future.

Mrs. Hart

I take the point, but I suppose that the most we would be doing tonight in accepting the motion would be saying "On the whole we had better get a rather better definition of what a ship is in the new oil age." We would also be saying "The circumstances of this Bill are such that we feel that the House in all good common sense would be ill-advised to throw the Bill back to its beginning and waste those 58 Committee Sittings and the rest."

The eccentricities involved in this situation are, first, that the definitions on which we have been resting have been obscure and unrelated to modern technological developments, and therefore it is understandable that things may have gone a little wrong and that the hon. Member for Tiverton has been able to catch the Government out. Secondly, the definition used is apparently an American phrase because the Americans are more familiar with oil rigs. Thirdly,—and this is fairly unprecedented—the Bill has already gone through 58 Committee Sittings and its hybridity was not challenged at the correct point in time, namely, before Second Reading.

The fourth eccentricity is that the situation centres around one company—Marathon. I am not sure whether the House is aware of developments at Marathon during the last two or three weeks. I do not produce these arguments as being relevant to the procedural and legal question, but they are part of the background that should be considered by sensible people who are trying to find the right answer to this situation.

On 11th May the Financial Times reported that the Chairman of Marathon had told shareholders that the company would have to cut employment in the yard unless it could negotiate new orders in the next four months. This caused great concern in Scotland. The Scottish National Party is, of course, totally un-concerned about this. It is concerned only with elections, not jobs on Clyde-side. Some of us received a telegram today saying that all the Clydeside shop stewards have contacted the leader of the Scottish National Party demanding support for the nationalisation Bill. It is signed by a shop steward of Govan Shipbuilders.

On 13th May there were discussions between the shop stewards, the workers, and Marathon, and I now quote from a report in the Scotsman: And at Marathon in Clydebank shop stewards were given an assurance that the president of Marathon had been misinterpreted at the company's annual general meeting in Houston on Tuesday when he stated that the yard would close in January. The stewards were told that there are no plans to close the yard and Clydebank executives are negotiating for work to keep the yard in business when their two current orders run out early next year. It goes on to say: At Marathon, the management said yesterday that they were looking at not only oilrig orders but other kinds of steel fabricating to keep the yard occupied beyond January. Today I had a telephone conversation with the shop stewards at Marathon and I now have an up-to-date picture of the position there in terms of prospects and employment. The company has not yet succeeded in negotiating any new orders. The two oil rigs under construction will be completed by the end of this year. There are active negotiations going on possibly for repair and conversion jobs, which I think are unlikely to involve a vessel or ship as defined here.

Mr. Tebbit

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We are having some difficulty in making sure that all that is said relates closely to the matter. You will be aware that there is no proposal in the Bill—nor has the Secretary of State mentioned any proposal—to include the Marathon yards in this nationalisation measure. Therefore they cannot be among those yards which, in the opinion of the Government and in terms of the motion on the Order Paper, are gravely concerned by any uncertainty. Therefore, the right hon. Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) is introducing matters that are extraneous to the terms of both the motion and the Bill—unless, of course, the Secretary of State is proposing to bring Marathon into the schedule of companies for nationalisation——

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. I appreciate the point. I was allowing the right hon. Lady to make just this reference and I was about to conclude that if she developed it to any great extent it would be, strictly speaking, out of order.

Mrs. Hart

Of course I accept that, Mr. Deputy Speaker. But it seemed to me that since the whole pivot of the dispute, which followed Mr. Speaker's ruling, arose from a vessel being constructed at Marathon, there was some relevance. Perhaps I can finalise the matter by saying that if no further orders are negotiated for Marathon in the next four or five weeks there will be a very difficult situation in the next two or three months. That is the point, and the outstanding eccentricity of this whole situation.

If the present Bill cannot complete its progress by the House taking the opportunity to accept the motion tonight, the very incident which has created the problem of hybridity conceivably could be a good deal less relevant or totally irrelevant in a few months' time. This matter should be considered against the background of the employment needs of the shipbuilding industry, particularly that part of the industry with which I am most familiar, more so than members of the Scottish National Party—Clydeside.

If we are concerned about employment, and the need not to insist that this Bill goes back to the beginning, if the problem that has caused our concern this evening involves a firm whose search for orders is taking them into fields other than the construction of vessels, and if there is some shadow of doubt as to how far this firm might need Government assistance in future to preserve employment on Clydeside, we should be sensible about this motion now. If we are sensible—and sometimes we allow ourselves to be so—we are bound to conclude that in accepting the motion before us today we are not challenging any fundamental democratic rights of individuals or private companies. We are not seeking to change the constitutional processes of this House. What we are seeking to do is to find a rational way through an unpredicted, unprecedented situation. Therefore, I hope that we will accept the motion tonight.

5.28 p.m.

Mr. Grimond (Orkney and Shetland)

I am glad to speak after the right hon. Lady for Lanark (Mrs. Hart), although I am advised that her description of the Rolls-Royce Bill as hybrid is not accurate.

We all agree that it is the duty of Back Benchers in all parts of the House to scrutinse, check and criticise the Government. In my view this has never been more necessary that it is now.

Also, it is generally agreed that a mistake was made in this case by the Government. No one has suggested that the Opposition brought us into this situation by unwarranted and destructive tactics.

Mr. Fernyhough

rose——

Mr. Grimond

I shall give way later. The fundamental point is that the Government are changing the rules under which legislation is considered by the House, and they are doing so half-way through. There may be a case for changing the rules of the House in the light of new technological developments. Perhaps they should be looked at again. But it is totally indefensible to change them when legislation is half-way through, just for the convenience of the Government, and against bitter opposition of other parties in the House.

Further, we are changing the rules in a way that may affect the rights of individuals outside this House. That is a fundamental point. We are setting a dangerous precedent. The House should focus its attention on that.

Mr. Fernyhough

I think that the right hon. Gentleman drew a bad analogy in referring to Rolls-Royce. The whole of Rolls-Royce was not nationalised. The car-making sector was left in private hands.

Mr. Grimond

I am greatly obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. I give way to him on the Rolls-Royce point, if he is right.

Mr. Robert Hughes

Does the right hon. Gentleman remember the Education Act 1973, which was put forward by the Conservatives and which sought, in the light of a defect shown up by the High Court in Scotland, to provide that the situation should revert to what it had been in 1965? That Bill affected the rights of individuals but it went through without objection because everyone agreed with it. All that the right hon. Gentleman is saying is that since he and others disagree with this Bill, it is right to devise an ingenious method of stopping it.

Mr. Grimond

All I can tell the hon. Gentleman is that my party disagreed with the 1973 Act. The Government are acting like the footballer who is sent off. First, he says that he thinks the referee is wrong. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Hon. Members may disagree, but it is difficult to justify circulating a picture of the oil rig except as a method of criticising the ruling of the Chair. The footballer then says that he will not leave the field, but will remain until he can convene a meeting to change the rules. That would be unacceptable in football, and it is unacceptable in more serious matters in this House.

It is wrong that a majority in this House should have the right to change rules that are designed to protect minorities, ordinary Members and members of the public. It is damaging when there is a widespread disposition throughout the country, among various groups of people, to think that the law should he bent or altered to suit their particular needs at a particular time.

We are told that the Government have a mandate. They do not have a mandate; they have 38 per cent. of the votes, and they should take note of that. We have been told also that it will be disastrous if the Bill is not passed at once. All Governments, however, tell us that all their business is vital to the nation. That is the common excuse when they want to force something through. This legislation, however, could not be on the statute book for many weeks yet. There is a grave situation facing all industries, not only shipbuilding. The Government can take powers under existing legislation to help the shipyards. This nationalisation Bill is not necessary for assisting them.

I hope that it was noted at Question Time that the Prime Minister, with great honesty, said that there would be rationalisation in the shipbuilding industry. The idea that everyone in the industry will have his job guaranteed by nationalisation is untrue. We have only to study the history of the steel industry. Nationalisation of the Scottish steel industry has not meant a great increase in it there; neither has it prevented unemployment.

I do not complain that Governments behave in a doctrinaire fashion. People are perfectly entitled to say "This is what we believe in and we shall introduce legislation to give effect to it". I think that the House is sometimes not doctrinaire enough. For instance today's Honours List would be improved by some attention to doctrine. There would be greater honesty if the House were more doctrinaire. But those who do not be-live in this particular doctrine have a right to oppose the Bill.

The Bill presents a primitive form of nationalization—State Socialism, which will simply add bureaucracy on to industry. I find it difficult to believe that it will teach people like Sir Eric Yarrow to do their business any better.

The Government must know that the creation of enormous monolithic industries in steel, the Post Office, and so forth, has led to great difficulties and is a constant source of complaint, but the Government do not appear to have learned anything from them about the nature of nationalisation. If they plan to nationalise manufacturing industry they will run into this difficulty again and again. One cannot tell by looking at a Bill whether it is hybrid. It is true that no Government Department can possibly know what is being done in various parts of the country. There is, therefore, a case for looking at our procedures, but not in the middle of a Bill, and not simply for the convenience of the Government.

The Leader of the House said yesterday that the matter would be left to the House of Commons. The right hon. Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) said that we were masters of our own procedure. Those are very fine phrases. I do not believe that the motion is a proper one. But if, as the Leader of the House says, the matter is to be left to the House of Commons, there should be a free vote.

Mr. George Cunningham

They are all free votes.

Mr. Grimond

I am delighted to hear the hon. Member say that, because that is not the view of the Leader of the House. He once published a pamphlet called "Parliament in Danger", the whole theme of which was that we should get rid of the Whips and have free votes. He asked whether it was improper for a Minister involved to be called upon to convince the House of Commons of his case without the assurance that a heavy majority had been guaranteed to him by the Whips. He said: How much could such a genuine debate contribute to public understanding. Leadership is the great cement and discipline is the most shabby of substitutes. The right hon. Gentleman is the Leader of the House and he should speak for the whole House. He would have gained great sympathy and improved the standing of Parliament if he had said yesterday that he accepted Mr. Speaker's ruling, that this is a House in which minority views are respected and in which the rule of the Speaker is paramount, and that he would take the Bill away and submit it to examiners.

Mr. George Cunningham

We know that the public's faith in this place is not too high, but the people deserve to have some faith in it. Does the right hon. Gentleman not see what damage is done to that faith when one talks about free votes. Although my remark a few moments ago caused hilarity, in a real sense every vote in this place is a free vote, and every hon. Member is answerable to his conscience for how he votes tonight at 10 o'clock.

Mr. Grimond

I wish that I could send the hon. Member a copy of the pamphlet produced by the Leader of the House. The right hon. Gentleman pointed out the dire consequences that befall a Member of Parliament for not obeying the Whip. Unfortunately, the pamphlet is out of print. The right hon. Gentleman has played many parts in his time and he has not always been a dedicated upholder of the freedom of the Left. He was at one time an editor for Lord Beaverbrook.

But there are in the House the so-called Social Democrats. They have been making noises lately, to the effect that the public sector is too big already. They have been expressing doubts about further nationalisation. All these matters have come to a head in this debate, but will those hon. Members troop through the Lobby in support of the motion?

The point is simple. We do not have a written constitution, but we have certain firm understandings about the conduct of democratic government. Those understandings are being broken as they have never been broken before. This may create a precedent that the Labour Party will come to regret. The reasons for doing it are insufficient and the difficulties of the shipbuilding industry could be met in other ways.

5.40 p.m.

Mr. William Small (Glasgow, Garscadden)

I am grateful to be called to speak. I never take exceptionally long in addressing the House.

I am the first hon. Member to speak who sat on the Committee that considered the Bill through 58 Sittings. It is interesting to listen to all this talk of legal theory, parliamentary etiquette and what we mean by hybridity.

"Hybridity" is a great word. I have made many scholastic speeches on the Bill. Perhaps an hon. Member would like to print an anthology of my speeches. It must have been fascinating to people going to work in Tokyo this morning, wondering what was happening in Great Britain, when they read all about hybridity. The boys in Tokyo have taken over almost all the shipbuilding on the face of this planet. They will have been very interested in what has happened in this House. They will have said the Japanese equivalent of "Hallo, hallo", and then "Sayonara to the British ship-building industry". That will be their general reaction.

The hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) is an excellent scrutineer of the minutiae of parliament- tary business. I saw him on television last night in a discussion with my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer), telling the world about hybridity. The hon. Member for Tiverton spoke about a taxi analogy. I shall not go into details, but if that is the sort of man who wants to run Great Britain he ought to go to the nearest taxidermist and asked to he stuffed.

I speak for the people I represent—the untutored proletariat who lead crippling lives in areas of constant struggle. They need quantity and development in the British shipbuilding industry.

I am pleased to see the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) here. I pay tribute to him, because he treated the Glasgow shop stewards with dignity when they came to the House. That is a good part of his record.

I have received a number of telegrams from people on the Clyde. They are in favour of this nationalisation measure. The proportion of hybridity in this Bill is equivalent to the proportion of the British shipbuilding industry represented by a Meccano set.

I know quite a lot about the Bill. It is a decentralising measure of nationalisation and is not in the same style as previous nationalisations. Take industrial democracy, for instance. About 54 managements will have the opportunity to produce industrial democracy, yard by yard. The Government are not laying down the terms in the section of the Bill that deals with industrial democracy. If that is not decentralisation, I do not know what decentralisation means.

Industrial democracy started with an experiment at Fairfield's, on the Clyde. To the other shipbuilders in the country it seemed like an illegal regime, but people came from Gothenburg, Hamburg and all over the world to study the experiment. People who talk about industrial democracy should study the strengths and weaknesses of that experiment.

What is the position of Marathon? It is not covered by the terms of the Bill and the minutae of the details about hybridity. My friends Dan McGarvey and Jack Service went to America and promised, as trade unionists, that the yard would not be nationalised. In order to hold to that promise, I suggest that the yard should be included in the Bill. There is American and British investment in NATO. We have to make a contribution to the Alliance, and I suggest we can do it by building warships at the Marathon yard.

Mr. William Ross

Yarrow's would have a fit.

Mr. Small

This suggestion might cause some people to have a fit. I am not dealing with Yarrow; I am dealing with the necessity of job creation.

Let us consider New Clause 1 which has not yet been discussed.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. We are not discussing New Clause 1. We do not want to know about it at the moment.

Mr. Small

It will be an urgent matter if we proceed with the Bill. It provides that we should introduce a data centre. Perhaps I should not deal with it at present. I sometimes get terribly annoyed about the use of words. For instance, if we follow current fashions, we would be calling all the Chairmen in the House "Chairpersons".

There is no stronger supporter of this Government measure than I. We must make progress with it, and it must be supported tonight.

5.58 p.m.

Mr. Edward Heath (Sidcup)

The issue before the House is a simple one but certainly not a mean one. It is an issue of principle and one which the House should consider most carefully before the vote tonight.

The right hon. Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) said that the House could do whatever it liked whenever it liked. Technically that may be true, but it is also true that we have built up rules of conduct and conventions and we have established a situation in which they are not changed unless there is discussion first and general consent about the changes.

Reference has been made to the legislation we had to introduce to suspend Stormont in Northern Ireland. There was a precedent for that at the beginning of the Second World War in 1939, but it was such an exceptional precedent that it caused my right hon. Friends and me many hours of thought and worry before we approached the House and said we believed that the situation in Northern Ireland was of such severity that we had to ask the House to follow those procedures.

As has already been pointed out, there was common agreement and the House as a whole said "We are prepared to accept this exceptional procedure because of the seriousness of the present situation." Nevertheless, there was very full time, I remember, going almost right through the night when right hon. and hon. Members had the opportunity of discussing the legislation which was put forward, of tabling amendments and of discussing the whole matter very fully.

This is not just another parliamentary row, of which the public have heard all too many and are now all too tired. Nor is this just a procedural wrangle. Yesterday Mr. Speaker gave the lie to that when he gave his ruling. Nor is it simply a continuation of the debate on nationalisation on the Floor of the House. It is much more than that. I believe that it is even more than what the Leader of the Liberal Party has described as changing the rules in the middle of the game. No, it is a question of principle which concerns respect for the rights of the minority—first, the minority outside the House, and, secondly, the minority inside the House.

We have established our rules for hybrid Bills specifically to protect the rights of a minority. A hybrid Bill, by its very nature, makes an unequal arrangement. Therefore, the Standing Orders governing hybrid Bills set out a procedure which allows those who consider that they are being treated unequally as minorities to petition against that fact. The arrangement is made whereby their petition can be fully considered and taken into account. The effect of the motion of the Leader of the House in regard to the Bill, which concerns two great industries and many companies, is to sweep away the whole of the provision for safeguarding the rights of minorities. That is precisely what the right hon. Gentleman is doing.

Therefore, the House has to ask itself "Is this justified by the particular circumstances?". Moreover, is it justifiable to set a precedent for sweeping away rules which have so long been established to look after the rights of a minority? That seems to me to be the real point to which the House should address itself.

Mr. Robert Hughes

The right hon. Gentleman has mentioned minorities. Will he say which minorities outside the House would be affected by the Bill being classed as a hybrid?

Mr. Heath

What I can say is that there are many firms outside the general provisions of the Bill which may consider that they are affected. It is not for me to try to anticipate the minorities that will be concerned. If people do not consider that they are dealt with unequally, they will not petition. It is not for us beforehand to say that no one is affected or that no one will petition. The decision rests with others provided that we set up the procedure.

Nor is the Leader of the House or the Secretary of State for Industry—who has just returned to the Chamber—entitled to say that so far no one has petitioned, written to him or raised the matter until it was raised so skilfully by my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop). That is not the argument when there was no declaration of a hybrid Bill and no indication was given that it was the sort of Bill that gave people a right to say that they were being treated unequally.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop

Not only is there a petition in existence, which was placed before the House and put in the Bag, which means that this is not a hypothetical question, but at this moment there are workers and shop stewards in the Lobby from the Bristol Channel Ship Repair Company who want to petition against the Bill. This is an actuality and not a hypothetical question.

Mr. Heath

Yes, I am aware of that. I said that until this matter was raised yesterday by my hon. Friend there was no indication that it was the sort of Bill that gave firms or individuals the right to petition. That is the matter which the House has to consider as the real issue of principle.

The Secretary of State for Industry devoted a considerable part of his speech to providing various pieces of informa- tion. I ask him in passing whether any of the information he gave to the House was not placed before Mr. Speaker before he made his decision. If it was all placed before Mr. Speaker, the Secretary of State cannot have any justification for trying to indicate that there are other reasons than those placed before Mr. Speaker and that Mr. Speaker ought, perhaps, to reach another decision.

The plain fact is that Mr. Speaker and his counsel can reach a decision only on information placed before them by a Department. They have no resources of their own. Therefore, the Department must take responsibility for not providing information on which Mr. Speaker reaches his final decision. I hope that the Secretary of State will not in any way try to disown that responsibility.

I now turn to the protection of the rights of minorities—

Mr. Abse

Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that Mr. Speaker, notwithstanding the independent advice which he receives, provided as he is with public officials and his own counsel, is a cipher of a Department and does not have an independent rôle in certifying a Bill?

Mr. Heath

I was saying nothing of the sort, neither has the hon. Gentleman justification for so saying. I said that when Mr. Speaker and his legal advisers have to reach a decision on a question of facts, the only people who can provide those facts for them, should they ask for them or should they be volunteered, are the members of the Department. That is well known as part of the machinery of government. The Secretary of State and his Department, or the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor, are responsible for the information that was provided or the lack of it. However, Mr. Speaker having reached his decision on the information placed before him, I should have thought and hoped that everyone, including the Leader of the House and the Secretary of State, would accept the decision as being quite clear—namely, that there is prima facie a hybrid Bill before us.

I now move to the second aspect of minorities, which is that it is the responsibility of the Leader of the House to safeguard their position in the House. He knows that technically he is in a minority, but it is his job to safeguard the position of minorities. Mr. Speaker has already done so by his decision on the Bill. I suggest to the Leader of the House that it is his responsibility to safeguard the position of minorities by accepting the ruling of Mr. Speaker and carrying through the existing rules, procedures and conventions of the House. if the right hon. Gentleman came to the conclusion that the rules should be changed, as did the right hon. Member for Lanark, very well, let them be examined and let us consider whether they are up to date, but let us not say that because of the situation before us the rules should be changed now.

The last part of the Secretary of State's speech emphasised the necessity of carrying on with the Bill. I recognise full well all the pressures which are upon the Secretary of State and the Leader of the House. Of course, there are pressures from the Patronage Secretary. After all, I exercised those pressures myself for four years to get business through the House. There are also the pressures of the Department. I was once head of the Secretary of State's Department. I know full well the pressures from the Department, it having had to handle the Bill through 58 sittings in Committee, to get the Bill through. But I say to the Leader of the House and the Secretary of State that the thing which really matters is the principle of safeguarding the position of the minority outside and inside the House.

It is easy for the Department to say "We must get on. It is only a hairline hybrid. You should be able to get away with this, Secretary of State." It is all very well for the Chief Whip to say "Think of the horror of asking people to sit later in July and earlier in September if we are still to try to get the Bill through." What matters, however—I suggest that it matters just as much to everyone on the Government Benches as on the Opposition Benches—is that the rights of the minority should be protected.

There is an argument about jobs. I have every sympathy with those concerned. Anyone who is in the shipbuilding industry—and perhaps this applies to many in the aircraft industry—has every right to be anxious about his job at this time in particular but certainly for the future. There is uncertainty. The curse is that there has been uncertainty for a decade because of the threat of nationalisation hanging over the shipbuilding industry and, later, the aircraft industry. That uncertainty, that anxiety, is there. We ought to do everything possible to remove it as soon and as much as possible—it will not be entirely possible—or to allay it. I do not believe that at this moment that ought to override the issue of principle.

Moreover, as the Leader of the Liberal Party said, if the Secretary of State and the Leader of the House had said "This is the situation. We accept Mr. Speaker's ruling. We will now follow an alternative procedure of either referring the Bill as it is after Committee to the examiners or of withdrawing it." I think that the latter procedure is open to the technical objection that it was a hybrid Bill from the start; if the Government accept that, having got so far, having already violated the principle, they should withdraw the Bill and re-present it in its present form as it has been through Committee, I am sure that the House would be willing to take Second Reading quickly. I am sure that my tight hon. and hon. Friends would see no reason for delaying Second Reading when the Bill had already had a Second Reading and been through Committee. After that, however, the procedure can ensure that the rights of minorities both inside and outside this House are protected.

I hope that on such a vital question of procedure as that the Leader of the House willl consider the wishes of the whole House, not only the Government side—I know how strongly they feel about nationalisation—in getting the business through.

The Secretary of State spoke of necessity. No doubt we shall hear it again from the Leader of the House tonight. But I remind him of the words of William Pitt: Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. Not very long ago the right hon. Gentleman would have been standing here below the Gangway producing even more eloquent words of his own to that effect. I ask him to remember those words, to see the truth in them, to realise that he would like to be in a positon to say them himself, and then to take the action which follows those words—to withdraw the Bill and go through the proper procedure.