RENT (AGRICULTURE) BILL AND EDUCATION BILL (ALLOCATION OF TIME) (Hansard, 8 November 1976)

HC Deb 08 November 1976 vol 919 cc31-62 31

§ 3.38 p.m.

§ The Secretary of State for Education and Science and Paymaster General (Mrs. Shirley Williams)
I beg to move, That the Order of 20th July 1976 be supplemented as follows—

§ Lords Amendments

§ 1. The Proceedings on Consideration of Lords Amendments to either Bill shall be brought to a conclusion six hours after the commencement of the Proceedings.

§ 2. For the purpose of bringing those Proceedings to a conclusion—

(a) Mr. Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question which hase been already pro posed from the Chair and not yet decided and, if that Question is for the amendment of a Lords Amendment, shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House doth agree or disagree with the Lords in the said Lords Amendment, or, as the case may be, in the said Lords Amendment as amended;
(b) Mr. Speaker shall designate such of the remaining Lords Amendments as appear to him to involve questions of Privilege and shall—

(i) put forthwith the Question on any Amendment moved by a Minister of the Crown to a Lords Amendment and then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House doth agree or disagree with the Lords in their Amendment, of as the case may be, in their Amendment as amended.
(ii) put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in a Lords Amendment.
(iii) put forthwith, with respect to each remaining Amendment designated by Mr. Speaker, the Question, That this House doth agree with the Lords in their Amendment, and
(iv) put forthwith the Question, That this House doth agree with the Lords in all the remaining Lords Amendments;

(c) so soon as the House shall have agreed or disagreed with the Lords in any of their Amendments Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith a separate Question on any other Amendment moved by a Minister of the Crown relevant to such Lords Amendments.

§ Stage subsequent to first Consideration of Lords Amendments

§ 3. The Proceedings on any further Message from the Lords on either Bill shall be brought to a conclusion three hours after the commencement of the Proceedings.

§ 4.—(1) For the purpose of bringing those Proceedings to a conclusion Mr. Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question which has already been proposed from the Chair and not yet decided, and shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown which is related to the Question already proposed from the Chair.

§ (2) Mr. Speaker shall designate such of the remaining items in the Lords Message as appear to him to involve questions of Privilege and shall—

(a) put forthwith the Question on any Motion which is made by a Minister of the Crown on any item,
(b) in the case of each remaining item designated by Mr. Speaker, put forthwith the Question, That this House doth agree with the Lords in their Amendment, or other proposal,
(c) put forthwith the Question, That this House doth agree with the Lords in all the remaining Lords Proposals.

§ (3) So soon as the House shall have agreed or disagreed with the Lords in any of their Proposals, Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith a separate Question on any other Motion made by a Minister of the Crown relevant to the Proposal.

§ Supplemental

§ 5.—(1) In this paragraph 'the Proceedings' means Proceedings on Consideration of Lords Amendments, or on any further Message from the Lords on either Bill.

§ (2) Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith the Question on any Motion moved by a Minister of the Crown under Standing Order No. 57(1) (Lords amendments) that the Proceedings shall be considered forthwith.

§ (3) Paragraph 1 of Standing Order No. 3 (Exempted Business) shall apply to the Proceedings.

§ (4) No dilatory Motion with respect to, or in the course of, the Proceedings shall be made except by a member of the Government, and the Question on such Motion shall be put forthwith.

§ (5) If the Proceedings are set down on any day as first Government Order of the Day paragraph 4 of the Order of 20th July 1976 (Private Business) shall apply as if that day were an allotted day.

§ (6) If the Proceedings were interrupted by a Motion for the adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration), a period equal to the duration of the Proceedings on the Motion shall be added to the period at the end of which the Proceedings are to be brought to a conclusion.

§ The motion is necessary because the Opposition have made it clear throughout that they want to prevent the Education Bill and the Rent (Agriculture) Bill from reaching the statute book. The Government cannot allow that to happen to Bills 33 for which clear mandates were given by the electorate at the last General Election—

§ Mr. David Price (Eastleigh)
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I seek your guidance? The Secretary of State is moving a guillotine motion on two Bills. For one of the Bills we have all the papers—we have the Bill, the Lords amendments and the Government's proposals for consideration. However, on the second Bill in the motion we have neither the Lords amendments nor the Government's proposals on them. In view of the need to protect all hon. Members, is it right to proceed with the second leg of the right hon. Lady's motion in the absence of that information? Looking at it quite objectively, how can the House consider the amount of time we should allocate to consideration of the Lords amendments when we do not know what they are or whether the Government will invite us to agree or disagree with them? This situation applies also to subsequent motions which are to be moved from the Government Front Bench later tonight.

§ Mr. Speaker
I can only say to the hon. Gentleman that he has advanced a point of argument which no doubt he can use if he is called in the course of debate, but I have to follow the Order Paper, and we are now taking time out of the one-hour's debate on the guillotine motion.

§ Mr. David Price
Do I understand, Mr. Speaker, that you give no ruling whether the Government have to come forward with their views on their Lordships' amendments before we debate the time to be allocated? You will recall that the late Lord Kelvin said that to measure is to know, and we have no means of measuring how much time this House could reasonably spend on consideration of their Lordsips' amendments in default of the information that is normally available. We have the information on the Education Bill, therefore we could come to consideration of the Government's proposals on that Bill, but we have not the information in regard to the other Bills that we are asked to consider today.

§ Mr. Speaker
I am afraid that I cannot rule as the hon. Gentleman wishes me so to do. The business has begun and the Order Paper is before us.

§ Mrs. Williams
As the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mr. Price) was kind enough to say—

§ Mr. Nicholas Ridley (Cirencester and Tewkesbury)rose—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. I have just ruled on this matter, and the hon. Gentleman is aware that we have one hour for the debate that we are now embarked upon. We could be wasting time.

§ Mr. Ridley
Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. How can the House be expected to come to proper decisions about a matter if the guillotine papers are not laid before it? I remember that on previous occasions your predecessor helped the House when the Stationery Office was on strike and proper Order Papers had not been printed. I am sure that your predecessors have always felt that hon. Members should have the relevant information before seeking to debate a matter. We have not the relevant information. Surely, therefore, you should intercede with the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House to move this motion on a day when the House has been presented with the information.

§ Mr. Speaker
I had notice of the point of order, due to the courtesy of the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mr. Price), therefore I did not rule off the cuff. It was a considered reply that I gave to the hon. Gentleman. The House itself will decide. But the hon. Gentleman has advanced an argument which no doubt will play a great part in the debate this afternoon.

§ Mr. Hugh Fraser (Stafford and Stone)
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Surely this is a procedural matter and it would be proper that the Leader of the House should move it rather than the poor right hon. Lady, who has to do the executioner's dirty work for him. We realise that the right hon. Gentleman has been sick, but surely he is able to undertake this act of execution himself. It is extremely bad luck on the right hon. Lady that she has to undertake it.

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. The right hon. Gentleman knows that I do not select who speaks for the Government.

§ Mrs. Williams
I am always grateful for the commiseration of the right hon. Member for Stafford and Stone (Mr. Fraser), 35 but I think he will know that on a previous occasion, when these same Bills were under consideration, they were, of course, moved by the appropriate Ministers who were themselves responsible for the Bills. Therefore no precedent is being set on this occasion.
With regard to the point raised by the hon. Member for Eastleigh, I was attempting to reply to him a the moment at which the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) leapt into the gap. I was going to say that the point raised by the hon. Member for Eastleigh would be dealt with by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, when we come to his section of the debate, dealing with the Rent (Agriculture) Bill.
With regard to the Education Bill, on which the hon. Member was kind enough to say that the House has before it the Lords amendments, the indication of the Government's advice on those amendments, and the indications of what the Government will call on the House to do, I do not think his point arises.
I was about to say that the House will be clear that the Education Bill had a majority of 41 on Second Reading, and is therefore regarded by the Government as appropriately going ahead in its original form, as far as possible, towards the statute book.
I remind the House that a great deal of time has already been spent on the Bill. It is a 10-clause Bill. There was a day in February spent on the Second Reading, when, as I have indicated, the motion was carried by a substantial majority. It was then considered in Standing Committee between February and May. There was no timetable motion and almost no use of the closure. There were 35 sittings, taking a total of 86 hours. That is far beyond the amount of time spent on much more major education Bills in the past.
Some right hon and hon. Members have referred to how carefully statutes and Bills were vetted in the past by the House of Commons. But in the case of the Education Bill there can be no comparison. When the 1944 Education Bill—which had 120 clauses and 9 schedules—was debated by the House, it was 36 thought fitting to spend less time on it than has been devoted to the 10 clauses of the current Education Bill. The reason for that is quite simply that the then Opposition treated the 1944 Education Bill in a responsible manner. The same cannot be said of the current Opposition in regard to the Education Bill 1976. There were four full days on Report in June and July. There was a debate on Third Reading, when the majority was 34.
The Bill then proceeded to another place, where it was discussed for six hours on Second Reading, for 19 hours in Committee, for seven hours on Report, and was discussed again on Third Reading for most of last Wednesday. Altogether this Bill of 10 clauses, some of which are minor clauses, has had no fewer than 160 hours of parliamentary time in the two Houses of Parliament. I do not think that anyone could describe that as an inadequate consideration of the Bill.
In the Lords some 20 amendments have been made to the Bill. We have accepted some of them because we thought that they had a very substantial point to make. We have indicated that we shall seek to accept one or two others in this House. But I must make it clear that it seems to us that most of the other outstanding amendments simply go over ground which has been ploughed up time and again in Committee, on Third Reading and in the House of Lords, and that it is little more than filibustering to go over all this ground again. Indeed a noble Lord in another place indicated that the Bill had been exhaustively debated, and that it had been taken through to what he described as the end by his hon. Friend the Shadow Minister.
We believe, therefore, that there is every justification for this timetable motion. It allows six further hours for the discussion of these much-discussed amendments. I commend the motion to the house.
With regard to the Rent (Agriculture) Bill, 16 hours were spent on its Committee stage in the House of Lords and 29 hours in the House of Commons.
These two matters were discussed, therefore, at the greatest length and in the greatest detail by both Houses of Parliament. I will ask my hon. Friend 37 the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment to deal with any points that may arise in regard to the Rent (Agriculture) Bill when he winds up the debate.

§ 3.48 p.m.

§ Mr. John Peyton (Yeovil)
It was interesting that today of all days the right hon. Lady should have invoked once again the suggestion that the Government have a mandate for these motions. If they ever did, that mandate was made to look singularly flyblown by the events of last Thursday. I very much hope that the fact that the Leader of the House is not participating in the debates today does not mean that his recovery has been in any way arrested.
This is the last chapter in the saga of excessive and ill-conceived legislation. It also marks an unusually peremptory brushing aside of the views of other people.
It is not my intention today to burrow either into precedent or even into past speeches of the Leader of the House—rich mine as they offer for arguments much more respectable than those upon which he relies these days.
Although I am aware that only two Bills are dealt with in this motion, it is necessary to cast an eye over the whole of the Government's proceeding today to judge the enormity of their misconduct. We have had again from the right hon. Lady this argument about the manifesto. In the light of events, that manifesto is beginning to look more than ever like a noose round the neck of the country.
The Leader of the House made it very clear on Thursday afternoon that the Government did not know and perhaps did not care how many amendments would fall to be disposed of under this procedure; nor did he seem to be aware or to care how many of the amendments were Government amendments; nor were we given any estimate of the number of amendments which would be totally un-discussed during these guillotined proceedings.
As yet, there has been no Third Reading in the Lords of either of the two main Bills with which we are concerned. The Education Bill is due to receive a Third Reading today, with 22 marshalled amendments to be considered, some of them Government amendments. One Bill 38 has had only one day in Committee in the Lords. Another Bill has had 40 out of 59 Government amendments during its Committee stage. In the case of another Bill, there have been 20 out of 42 Government amendments on Report.
So it does not lie in the mouth of the Government to say that all the proceedings and the discussion have stemmed from the Opposition. Many of the Lords amendments are concerned with clauses and schedules which were guillotined here. Are we to have no assurance at all from the Government about an opportunity to discuss measures included in the Education Bill which have never been discussed on the Floor of the House of Commons, the amendments to which evidently are not to be touched upon here?
During the overspill, the House of Lords will have dealt with more than 200 Government amendments to the torrent of legislation which it has before it. I think that this House will agree that it would be hard to find a more eloquent condemnation by the Government of the poor quality of their own legislative product.
In The Daily Telegraph, Mr. Paul Johnson—[Interruption.] Always derision is reserved by Government supporters for people with whom they do not agree or for people who have departed from the strict party line. Whether they like it or not, Mr. Paul Johnson defined the issue very well in The Daily Telegraph last Saturday when he wrote: The issue is whether the Lords should join the Commons in passing bad laws and so bring the whole legislative process into disrepute. One of the arguments constantly put forward by Government supporters who are bereft of anything better is that the House of Lords is an anachronism. But under what Act does the House of Lords now operate? It operates under the 1949 Parliament Act passed by Mr. Atlee's Government.
If there is so much wrong with the House of Lords, why has there been so little attempt to reform it? Who has been the most consistent advocate of reform of the House of Lords? The answer is, none other than Lord Carrington. I need hardly ask who did most to prevent and frustrate reform of the House of Lords. We all know that no one did so more than the present Leader 39 of the House. Events have taught us that he and his colleagues want a single-chamber Government with a House of Commons which is prepared to become the lackey of the administration.
From Government supporters who sit below the Gangway, all that we have heard about the House of Lords is the rather unpleasant cry "Off with their heads". Hon. Members below the Gangway make one think of some nightmare endured by Lewis Carroll which somehow has come to reality.

§ Mr. John Lee (Birmingham, Handsworth)
The right hon. Gentleman evidently regards as important the continuation of the second Chamber for the purposes of revision. Will he tell the House, or ask his Leader to say if he does not feel able to do so, since there is a Conservative majority at present performing these revisory functions to Labour legislation, is it the Conservative Party's intention that there shall be a Labour majority in the House of Lords if and when we have another period of Conservative Government?

§ Mr. Peyton
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Mr. Lee) teaches one yet again how foolish it is ever to give way to another hon. Member. It would have been much more merciful to the hon. Gentleman if I had refused to give way to him.
The hon. Member for Handsworth, however, raises the question of the Labour content of the House of Lords, and that brings me on to the matter with which I was about to deal. What have Labour peers been up to? During the past two inglorious and ignoble years, the so-called Wilson creations, as they might be dubbed—

§ Mr. Lee
Hear, hear. I quite agree.

§ Mr. Peyton
—have contained no fewer than 40 or 50 people of quite staunch fidelity and loyalty to the Labour Party. I am the last person to question the zeal or the loyalty of those worthy men and women—

§ Mr. Russell Kerr (Feltham and Heston)
Permission granted.

§ Mr. Peyton
All that one can say about them is that they have had the prudence, 40 the judgment and presumably the discrimination to think ill of this rubbishy legislation. In any event, they have not been very active in the Division Lobbies. However, I do not wish to stir up bad feeling amongst Government supporters by making any more extensive references to patronage, especially the patronage spooned out by the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. Wilson), whom we so greatly miss today.
We are told that the conduct of the House of Lords is undemocratic. Who on earth are the critics of the other place to say that—they who are not prepared to give even a backward glance at the events of Thursday of last week and who pretend that Thursday never happened, when the public, given the opportunity to pass some judgment and to express an opinion on this rotten Government, did so with such striking results?
Sadly, we have all to face the fact that the House of Commons has gained no lustre in the past two years. It is far from being able to bask in the sunshine of popular approval. Ministers are provided by the House of Commons which is then content that those same Ministers should get their orders from elsewhere.
I do not wish to prolong my remarks on what should be a short but, I hope, still painful debate for Government supporters and certainly for those of them who still have some regard for parliamentary government. I know that there are a number of Government supporters who are much concerned about the damage inflicted upon our country by Left-wing extremists. Parliament and the nation will watch them today, not without sympathy, hoping that one or two of them—I am not referring to the nightmare figures below the Gangway—will, in the interests of moderation and tolerance, step back from these oppressive measures.
I hope also that those who represent parties other than mine on this side of the House will think that they would best do their duty today by rejecting measures which would have the effect, designed or otherwise, of wounding and damaging Parliament.

§ 4.0 p.m.

§ Mr. J. Grimond (Orkney and Shetland)
The reason for these guillotine motions is that the Government have overloaded Parliament. It is a travesty of 41 democracy that we should be asked to pass procedural motions on Bills that have not even reached us.
There is none of the usual excuses for these motions. There has been no filibustering. The Government certainly have no mandate—they attracted only 38 per cent. of the votes at the last General Election and would attract a lot fewer today. Nor is the passage of the Bills essential.
We face the gravest economic difficulties which have come upon us even though we have not suffered from war, pestilence or famine. They have come upon us because of the mismanagement of our affairs and too much and too bad government.
These Bills are at best irrelevant to the crisis we are facing and at worst positively damaging. The Government's only argument is that they were in their manifesto. I understand that the Secretary of State for Education and Science urged voters at Thursday's by-elections to vote for Labour candidates so that the Labour Government might succeed in carrying out their programme. That was a terrifying thought to most of the electorate. Even if the Government's programme had any relevance to our present situation, it is totally unnecessary for it to be carried out by next week, which is what we are being asked to do.
The House of Lords is primarily a revising Chamber and it is necessary, judging from the fact that the Government have tabled 200 amendments there this autumn. Peers have been performing their job and scrutinising these Bills, some parts of which were hardly touched on in this House. They have passed many amendments which were supported not just by Liberal and Conservative peers, but by Labour and Cross-Bench peers, and they have given serious consideration to the matters sent to them by this House.
Surely in return we must give serious consideration to their pronouncements upon these Bills. If eventually there is disagreement, this House will be in a very much stronger position if the Government have at least allocated adequate time for discussion of the Lords' proposals. Under this motion, not only will some proposals not be discussed, but some will be voted on en bloc and this will cut the ground from under any 42 criticism that the Lords are exceeding their proper authority.
If there is disagreement, the Lords have the right to hold up legislation for a limited time. They were given this right not by a Tory or Liberal Government, but by a Labour Government, so hon. Members opposite can hardly complain if their own statute is carried out.
We are now faced with a serious constitutional issue. The fact that we have no written constitution does not mean that we have no constitution at all. We have established constitutional practices which have so far been respected by leading statesmen of all parties. One is that Governments with a very small majority in the Commons and no majority in the country do not attempt to force through highly controversial legislation. Mr. Attlee did no such thing in 1950–51.
Another unspoken practice of the constitution is that Governments should look to the interests of the people as a whole and direct their minds to the basic troubles and needs of the country and not simply act as the political wing of certain organisations.
A reformed second Chamber may be necessary. I have long advocated that it should be elected. But at present it is there, under Labour legislation, carrying out its job and defending the essential unwritten constitutional practices of this country. If the Government are not careful, they will find themselves involved not in a battle of people versus peers, but in a battle of people and peers versus a Government who are on the way to a corporate State and becoming a dictatorship by a minority.

§ 4.6 p.m.

§ Mr. John Lee (Birmingham, Handsworth)
The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) is an inappropriate person to make a speech in defence of the House of Lords. His grandfather-in-law, in a similar position to that faced by the Government today and not even a member of the largest party in the House, rightly carried through some of the most contentious legislation this country has ever known. He did so in the face of the House of Lords after delivering a threat to that body that it would be reduced to a state of ridicule.
43 I hope that the Government will at long last have the guts to invoke the precedent of the example of the right hon. Gentleman's grandfather-in-law. I can hardly imagine any party that would face a General Election with more trepidation than the Liberal Party. My party might suffer a measure of defeat, but the Liberals would face not defeat, but extinction.
I should be sorry if that happened, because I regard the Liberal Party, for all its oddities, as, on the whole, a civilising and leavening influence in this House. So do not let us hear any calls from hon. Members on that Bench for a General Election. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland is the only one likely to survive an early election.
It is clear that we are moving towards a constitutional crisis. Whatever the merits or demerits of the Government's legislation and whatever criticisms are made of it, it is plain that no Government for the past 50 years have been treated in this way by the non-elected Chamber. No Government have been treated in this way since the Liberal Government before the First World War. Certainly no Conservative Government have ever been treated in this way.
There was none of this trouble over the European Communities Bill, or the denationalisation legislation of the 1950s. None of this took place when the Trade Disputes Act 1927—a contentious piece of legislation if ever there was one—was going through. Most of this sort of legislation was passed with hardly a Division. There have been more Government defeats in the past four or five months than in all the years since the Second World War.
To a considerable extent the blame for this lies not in the reasons advanced by hon. Members opposite, but in the cowardice of the right hon. Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson) in the way that he failed to face up to the challenge of the Lords and in the kind of people put there on his recommendation.
The right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) had a perfectly valid point when he made fun—

§ Mr. Cranley Onslow (Woking)
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is 44 it in order for the hon. Member to accuse the right hon. Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson) of cowardice? Should he not qualify that term in some way?

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton)
Order. I was unaware whether the hon. Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Mr. Lee) was referring to the right hon. Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson) personally or to his policy. There is a difference. Perhaps he will inform the Chair which he meant. If it was a personal attack, it is to be deprecated and must be withdrawn.

§ Mr. Lee
I shall refer to his policy then. My right hon. Friend's policy was singularly ignominious.
It is difficult for us to advance arguments in support of these motions and it is easy for the right hon. Member for Yeovil to pour scorn on them when we have had a large number of persons recommended for peerages in the past two and a half years—indeed, in the past 10 years—who do not bother to take their places. Even when they do, it seems to me that—and, of course, we must distinguish between non-attendance, on the one hand, and rebellion, on the other—they take up a position quite independent of their party. Looking at the people there, with the exception of Lord Paget, Lord Bruce of Donington and the late Lord Bradwell, hardly one of them is worth a bag of beans.
Many Labour Members, not only those below the Gangway—my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Magee), who is no Left winger, made the point in a recent article in The Times—have attacked the absurdity of inherited legislative rights. It is incredible that the House of Lords should have been used as an eventide home for clapped out political deadbeats—

§ Mr. Peyton rose—

§ Mr. Lee
I shall give way in a moment—retired directors of Odhams and non-speaking secretaries. Some of us have had enough of that.

§ Mr. Peyton
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. May I ask whether he proposes to circulate copies of his speech to those about whom he has been talking? I am sure that they would find it most interesting.

§ Mr. Lee
If they ever bother to turn up at the Palace of Westminster, they can read what has been said about them. Indeed, it might encourage them to attend.
I propose to take only a minute or two, because this is a short debate. I am glad that the Leader of the House is here, because I know that his heart is in the right place. I shall vote for the motions on this day, but I warn the Government, as I am now their majority of one, that they have between now and, I suppose, three months of the next Session to create sufficient Labour Peers to give us a majority in the other place.

§ Mr. Patrick Cormack (Staffordshire, South-West)
Is the hon. Gentleman going to the other place?

§ Mr. Lee
I have no doubt that the hon. Gentleman would be glad to see the back of me. In due course he will see the back of me, but not at a by-election.
If we are faced with this situation next year because the Government have not created enough peers to dispose of this absurd situation, I shall ask my hon. Friends to join me in refusing to vote for motions such as these in future. if we face defeat in the Commons on Lords amendments, that may force the Labour Government to face the absurd situation created by a non-elected Chamber which has never been occupied by any party other than the Conservative Party year in, year out.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science and the Leader of the House know that we have had about as much as we can take of this situation. It is one thing for the House of Lords to be used as a revising Chamber, but it is another for it to be used, as it is being used by the Conservative Party, as an instrument for trying to bring down this Government. While most of the blame lies with the Conservative Party for inciting their Lordships to this position, a great deal of blame also lies with the lack of guts of our own Government. Some of us have decided that we have had just about as much as we can take.

§ 4.15 p.m.

§ Mr. Patrick Mayhew (Royal Tunbridge Wells)
I shall not follow the hon. Mem- 46 ber for Birmingham, Handsworth (Mr. Lee) in his series of confidential reports on his colleagues. It would be an impertinence to intrude upon such public grief.
The amendments proposed by the Upper House have been in consequence of the exercise of powers given to it in the Parliament Act 1949, which was passed by a Labour Government. It is worth reminding ourselves of what was said on Second Reading of the Parliament Bill by the then Leader of the House. We had a Leader of the House then, not merely a Leader of half the House. On 20th September 1948 the then Leader of the House, Mr. Herbert Morrison, said: As a revising Chamber, the Upper House is entitled to ask that the Commons should be required to give time and consideration to the Amendments which they have proposed to Bills sent up from the House of Commons."—[Official Report, 20th September 1948; Vol. 456, c. 531.] The Prime Minister, in his much-heralded speech at Ruskin College the other day, placed great emphasis on the importance of mathematics. We might do some mathematics on the result of this motion if by some mischance it is passed tonight. We see that there are 16 Lords amendments with which the Government ask this House to disagree. There are to be 360 minutes for the Education Bill and the Rent (Agriculture) Bill to be debated. On the Education Bill, we shall have only 22½ minutes for each amendment. If there are, say, eight Divisions of 15 minutes each, that will bring down the time to 15 minutes for each amendment. Is that the degree of "time and consideration" that the Leader of the House, if he is Leader of the House, not leader of half the House, thinks appropriate for this House to give to those amendments?
Does he believe that there is any virtue in a revising Chamber? The truth of the matter is that he does not, and that he has not got one-tenth of the quality to bring to the office that he holds that his predecessor, Mr. Herbert Morrison, had. The great statesman, as he was by comparison with the right hon. Gentleman, sought to justify the Bill which he was then introducing by saying that it would enable the Commons to do that which it 47 was their duty under the constitution to do—namely, to give time and consideration to the Amendments which they have proposed to Bills sent up from the House of Commons."—[Official Report, 20th September 1948; Vol. 456, c. 531.] What will be thought by those in counties of England whose education authorities have not given way to Government by circular, and which have said that they will not submit plans for total comprehensive reorganisation under the Education Bill? For example, my authority in Kent has said that it is not against the principle as a whole but that, in certain selected areas where parents do not want it, it will stick to its selective schools. What will Kent say?
It will say that it wished that it had the opportunity which was given to Workington and Walsall because the Government have spat in its face, and that it looks forward to the day when retribution will come.

§ 4.18 p.m.

§ Mr. Martin Flannery (Sheffield, Hillsborough)
The Conservative Party has an infinite capacity for being disgusted, as we know. In fact, the opening speech for the Opposition by the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) sounded as though it emanated from the original disgusted of Royal Tunbridge Wells. From that I gather that there is a certain amount of anger on the Opposition Benches.
I am deeply ashamed of the Labour Government who passed the Parliament Act in 1949. The Socialist Party should be in the process of getting rid of that anachronism, that undemocratic body to which the Opposition look when they want undemocratic procedures carried out. The House of Lords will always be the obedient puppet of the Tory Party. It carries out the Opposition's behests and does everything that they want done. The immense propaganda machine at their disposal, because of the riches possessed by them, pumps it home as though it were democracy. [Laughter.] The Opposition may laugh if they wish.

§ Mr. Hugh Fraser
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

§ Mr. Flannery
No, there is not time. The right hon. Gentleman can go to his 48 friends in the House of Lords who can give him endless hours. We have little time to get through the democratic procedures that we want to go through.
The Opposition are again resorting to their infinite capacity for being disgusted. However, I should like to bring out one or two home truths about which they know, but which I shall reiterate because there are wider audiences than this one. Therefore, let us all listen to some home truths.
I served on the Committee considering the Education Bill, and I can report that it was the longest Committee stage that there has ever been on an education measure. Conservative Members wanted to go on for ever and ever and ever discussing the Bill. They wanted to filibuster and to stop this progressive measure from getting on to the statute book.
I speak as a former executive member of the National Union of Teachers. As the House knows, that organisation upholds the Bill which, unlike the undemocratic House of Lords, is another step in the process of the democratisation of the educational system in this country so that we ensure that large numbers of children do not go through that other anachronism, the 11-plus.
The purpose of the Education Bill is to allow children to go as of right into the comprehensive education system where they will have the opportunity to do what has been done since comprehensive education was introduced. The system has doubled the number of examination successes compared with the results that were achieved under the type of education that Tory Members still espouse, even though the official Opposition spokesman says that the Conservative Party agrees with comprehensive education. We welcome that statement, but let them carry out their professed belief by supporting the Education Bill.
Let me inform the House of the realities of the situation. There were 160 hours of debate, which means a longer period than ever before taken to discuss an education measure. How can anyone talk about a guillotine when there has been a longer period of debate on this measure than on any previous education legislation, including the 1944 Act? That is the democratic reality of 49 what has been happening on the Education Bill, and that is the reality which the undemocratic, out-dated geriatric ward of the House of Lords is trying to thwart in the name of undemocracy and anti-democracy.
Hon. Members on the Liberal Bench may be amused, but the fact is that if there were a General Election in the near future they would be removed totally from this place, and they know it. They would do well to support the Government on this issue, because they are liable to be removed in the event of the country being asked to vote at an election. The fact is that no one on the Liberal Benches wants a General Election.
Another reality of the situation is that for a short Bill of only 10 clauses we sat for hours in Committee and listened to absolute nonsense at unending length from the hon. Member for Brent, North (Dr. Boyson) and his hon. Friends. If Conservative Members want to go through a few hours of torture, I ask them to read the speeches of their hon. Friends in that Committee. It was in that Committee that we were regaled by Conservative Members with anecdotes front the distant past, because they want to restore the educational system that operated in those bygone days.
Members of my party will vote tonight for this motion because we want to put through measures that have been subjected to massive democratic debate but which the various parties on the Benches opposite want to continue to discuss endlessly because they are against these great progressive measures that are to become law in the near future.

§ 4.23 p.m.

§ Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas (Chelmsford)
It is extraordinary that the first fruit of the Prime Minister's conversion to an interest in education standards should be a curtailing of discussion of a major Education Bill. I am sorry that the Secretary of State for Education and Science has been put up, as has rightly been said, to do the Government's dirty work for them—

§ Mr. Hugh Fraser
Shameful.

§ Mr. St. John-Stevas
—because it is a fact that throughout the House we had entertained hopes for some kind of new deal in education with the advent of the right 50 hon. Lady to her present position. It is ominous that this curtailment of free speech should be the first fruit of her arrival at the Dispatch Box.
The Agriculture Bill has not even completed its stages in the House of Lords, so we do not know what amendments there are to it. We do not even know what the arguments are, yet the Government have decided to curtail discussion of it in this House.
We had hoped for a less political approach to education from the right hon. Lady. After all, she has had the courage to jettison straight away the idea of monster-sized classes, to which the Government have been wedded for so long, and she has jumped on the ill-thought-out proposal of the Schools Council to abolish O-levels and to have a common examination for the CSE and O and A-levels. We welcome that, too, but we are sorry that the right hon. Lady has lent her prestige to this manoeuvre today, and the feebleness of her arguments indicates that her heart was nowhere near the words that she was mouthing.
What were the arguments that the right hon. Lady adduced? First, she said that this Bill had had more time devoted to it than was given to the 1944 Education Act. There is a simple reason for that. It is that the 1944 measure was a good Act, whereas this is a bad Bill, and that is why it needed full and detailed discussion.
The right hon. Lady then said that it was a short Bill—a rather interesting adaptation of the old illegitimate baby argument, namely, that it was only a small one. Surely the right hon. Lady must realise that what is important about a Bill is not its length but its content. It is what it does that is important.
What does this Bill do? First, it destroys the 1944 settlement, which has lasted for so long and on which the education system has been built. It destroys the powers of local authorities over the organisation of schools, and it takes away for the first time in our history the power of voluntary schools and voluntary-aided schools to organise themselves in accordance with their own wishes. This is a major Bill. It may have only 10 clauses, but the effects of this measure if it passes into law will be felt for many years to come.
51 The right hon. Lady's third argument is equally irrelevant and erroneous. She said that the Bill was not discussed at length in the Lords, but of course it was, and that is why it should be discussed here. The Upper House spent six days discussing this Bill, and it can draw on a range of education expertise that is probably greater than even this House can provide.
My noble Friend Lord Eccles made an important contribution to the debate and Lord Alexander of Potterhill, whose name is respected throughout the education world, made many important and vital contributions to the discussion. Points were made in the House of Lords because they could not be made here as the Report stage had been so drastically curtailed by Government action. It is an insult to the Upper House to say that we can discuss in six hours all the matters that it took six days to discuss. It makes a mockery of having a bicameral legislature if this is to be the attitude of the Government to discussion in the other place.
The guillotine motion is wrong, because the Upper House has not attempted to thwart the will of the House of Commons over the Bill. It has not attempted to reject the principle behind the Bill and defeat it. Members of the other place have accepted it, but what they have attempted to do is to say "We do not like this principle, and we do not like this Bill, but we shall try to improve it; we shall try to make it educationally and practicably viable", and if one looks through the 18 amendments that the Lords have tabled one sees that every one of them fits into that classification.
The first amendment seeks to write into the Bill Section 76 of the Education Act 1944 which says that parents have the right to educate their children according to their wishes. That is what the Prime Minister was saying in his speech at Ruskin College on 18th October. This is a test of whether the Prime Minister meant what he said. If he meant that the opinion of parents should be retained, why not accept the amendment, instead of guillotining discussion of it?
I take at random Amendment No. 4, which provides that there should be an exception for special schools in mathematics. There already are exceptions for 52 special schools for music and dancing. Music and dancing are important, but even as a former Minister for the Arts I think that maths is more important than either for our future.
In his speech at Ruskin College did not the Prime Minister say that a new deal was needed in maths to supply the needs of industry? The right hon. Lady nods. Why does she not accept this reasonable amendment instead of guillotining it and preventing it from being discussed? All that is being proposed by Lord Eccles, supported by Cross-Bench, Liberal and other Peers, is that we should allow this exception because we have a mathematical crisis in our schools.
Amendment No. 13 provides for an inquiry into secondary education. Why cannot the right hon. Lady accept that? Why is she curtailing discussion of that? The inquiry is not to be in comprehensive schools only but in all secondary schools and with an impartial chairman. What possible objection can she have to that?
Amendments Nos. 14 and 15 provide that comprehensive schools shall not be imposed unless adequate resources are available. That is not Conservatism, Liberalism or Socialism or any other "ism", it is pure common sense. Why cannot the hon. Lady bring herself to accept that? These amendments are not political. They are reasonable and reasoned. They are not political in nature. they are educational. They are supported not only in the Lords but throughout the education world and the country by those concerned about the future of our education system.
By tabling these amendments the Lords are, not for the first time, much more in touch with political opinion than the Government. The House of Lords is speaking for the people on this. If the Government doubt it, let them put it to the test in a General Election.

§ 4.32 p.m.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Ernest Armstrong)
I should like to take the House away from the exaggerated language we have heard in the debate and back to the terms of the motion. In this motion provision is made for six hours' debate on the amendments to the Rent (Agriculture) Bill and so six hours' debate on the amendments to the Education Bill. The Bills have 53 been considered adequately and in detail in all their stages so far. The House is now being asked to order the remaining stages so as to ensure that the Bills, which have had critical examination on the Floor of the House, in Committee and in another place, shall be placed on the statute book in sensible form and within a reasonable time.
My right hon. Friend and others have made special reference to the Education Bill. There is nothing I should like better than to spend the remaining minutes talking about the merits of that Bill. I remind the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) that this Bill abolishes selection and prevents local authorities from organising their schools so that labels are placed on children at an early age in their school career. I was under the impression that that had the backing of education opinion throughout the country. To talk about curtailing discussion of a Bill on which we have already spent 100 hours is to stand logic on its head.
I wish to concentrate on the important Bill for which I have had some responsibility, the Rent (Agriculture) Bill. This deals with the agricultural tied cottages system, which has been the cause of a sense of grievance to agricultural workers for a great number of years. The Bill was considered by a Standing Committee of the House and the proceedings there were subject neither to a second sittings motion nor to any restriction of time in any way. The Committee sat for nearly 30 hours.
The contentious amendments to the Bill which have been inserted in another place fall into five distinct groups. I want the House to know this because of some of the things that have been said, especially by the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton), who referred to the House not having the opportunity to discuss certain issues and who said that the Government were preventing that discussion. The amendments cover topics on which the Opposition and the Government take markedly different viewpoints. All these topics were discussed during the passage of the Bill in Committee and on Report. No new ground is being covered. That is also true of the Education Bill.

§ Mr. Peyton
What chance are we to have to look at the 40 Government 54 amendments made in Committee in the Lords? There were 40 Government amendments out of the total of 59 amendments.

§ Mr. Armstrong
To compare the number of amendments with the time allotted is not a fair comparison, as anybody with any experience in the House would know. The amendments to which the right hon. Member for Yeovil refers are technical amendments and largely agreed. There is no contention about them. I cannot anticipate the results of Report stage in another place but I should be surprised if further substantial changes were made. The situation therefore is that six hours are being allocated in which time we shall be considering technical changes which are not contentious, and five or so issues which have already been subject to careful scrutiny and examination both here and in another place. [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman need not express his commiserations.
My right hon. Friend and I believe that the timetable motion is sensible, relevant and justified. During the whole discussion on the Bill—almost 44 hours in this House and more than 20 hours in another place with Report still to come—Opposition Members have continually conceded that the present system of tied cottages is often inhuman and creates hardship and misery for agricultural workers. They then support amendments which would have the effect of prolonging that system. This motion is a genuine move to forestall any attempt to prolong discussion beyond what is reasonable—

§ Mr. Francis Pym (Cambridgeshire) rose—

§ Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies (Thanet, West) rose—

§ Mr. Armstrong
I will not give way. The Opposition Front Bench has had rather more time than we have had.
To spin out arguments about the Bill—going over issues which have been seriously debated on the Floor, in Committee and in another place—is to threaten the freedom of farm workers to enjoy security in their homes, irrespective of the terms of employment included in their contracts. This is a freedom that most people take for granted. This is an 55 injustice which the Government are not prepared to tolerate.
The agricultural tied cottage has been an issue inside and outside the House for many years. To ensure that Parliament comes to a decision—far from denying free speech in Britain as the Leader of the Opposition has suggested—is an act of justice long overdue to a hardworking and vital group in our community. Ample time to complete the Bill is allowed in this motion.
On that basis I commend the motion to the House. No new ground is being broken. The Opposition have to make up their minds whether they are prepared to remove a long-standing injustice for

§ one of the most hard-working groups in the community, the agricultural workers. We are determined to do so.

§ 4.38 p.m.

§ Mr. Rees-Davies
I should like to try to set aside some of the claptrap we have just heard. First, Scotland does not regard such a Bill as necessary. Secondly—
It being One hour after the commencement of the proceedings on the Motion, Mr. SPEAKER proceeded, pursuant to Order [20th July], to put forthwith the Question necessary to dispose of them:—

§ The House divided: Ayes 312, Noes 296.

§ Question accordingly agreed to.

§ Ordered, That the Order of 20th July 1976 be supplemented as follows—