§ Lords amendment proposed: No. 49, 1, after "order" insert "or regulations' —[Mr. Archie Hamilton.]
§ Mr. BeithThe amendments touch on procedures of the House which are rightly of concern to hon. Members, not least my right hon. and hon. Friends, who, when unable to express their protests in any other way, are forced to press some amendments to a Division.
The amendments relate to statutory instruments dealt with by the negative resolution procedure. Regulations shall be
subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.That would sound a grand and impressive phrase to a layman. It would give him the feeling that the House has at its disposal procedures to ensure that any regulations made under the Bill will be subject to the most careful safeguards—that they cannot proceed without the House reaching a decision. That could not be further from the truth.The negative procedure is one of the ways in which the House has allowed power to pass into the hands of the Executive. We deeply resent it.
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The negative procedure operates as follows. The Government lay the order. Hon. Members can then, within 40 days, table a prayer against the order. When the procedure was first introduced, such prayers were automatically debated. Provision was always made for them to be debated on the Floor of the House, and there was no time limit on the debate. We could discuss the statutory instruments in detail, far into the night. However, as always, when Governments found that hon. members were making their protests too strongly, they curtailed the procedures and made it impossible for hon. Members to raise their grievances. They ensured that debates on such instruments as those made under this clause can last for only one and a half hours. They did more. They ruled that the debates must end at 11.30 pm.
If the debate nominally starts at 10 pm and there are two Divisions at 10 pm, the debate will only last for an hour. If a debate is to last for an hour, there will be a 20-minute speech from the Opposition Front Bench, a 20-minute speech from the Government Front Bench, and speeches from a couple of Labour Back Benchers and a couple of Conservative Back Benchers. At about 11.25 pm, we may be told that if the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) is very helpful, he may speak for two minutes.
From time to time, to the annoyance of the Labour party, it happens to be my hon. Friends who table the prayer first. That is more satisfactory for us, but it is still not fair. On a number of occasions—in the case of the student grants, for example—the Labour Opposition has had to sit back while my hon. Friends have prayed against the statutory instrument. That is not fair to the Labour Opposition or perhaps to other Back Benchers. The procedure does not allow a fair chance to minority groups in the House.
1360 There is no guarantee that there will be a debate on the Floor of the House. Most debates on statutory instruments take place in Committee. That was not always the case. I am sure that the Leader of the House will recall vividly how his predecessor, Captain Crookshank, guaranteed at the Dispatch Box that all such prayers would be debated on the Floor of the House if hon. Members wished to debate them. But that did not happen.
If an hon. Member were to pray against an order under this section, there is no guarantee that he even get a debate in a Standing Committee. He might — like my hon. Friends—support the principles of the Bill and wish it to come into effect so that householders could benefit from its provisions. But he might, for example, have reservations about the position of local authorities, whose housing investment programmes and housing repair funds will be drawn upon in order to meet costs incurred because the Government had persuaded local authorities to build houses which turned out to be defective. An hon. Member who wants to make a limited point off such a kind on one of the orders—instead of opposing the main legislation, as my hon. Friends have had to do on certain Lords amendments tonight—will find that he has no guarantee of a debate in Committee.
Let us suppose that the Government Whips are in an exceptionally favourable mood and allow an hon. Gentleman to debate a statutory instrument in Committee under the negative procedure. Let us say that some anxiety is expressed on the Government side as well as among my hon. Friends, and there is a vote. The Committee vote s, and the decision is taken that the Committee has not considered the instrument. However, there is no procedure for the Committee's rejection of the instrument ever to be reported to the House. The Clerk has to report to the House that the Committee has considered the instrument, because, manifestly, it has. He therefore reports to the House in defiance of the Committee's decision. That is a glaring example of procedures that prevent hon. Members from expressing their grievances in what might be the mast natural and appropriate way—voting against a proposal in Committee. The result of procedures such as this being applied yet again is that hon. Members in the circumstances that I have described will be obliged to vote against things that they might agree with, simply to register their protest, as my right hon. and hon. Friends have had to do tonight.
Some Conservative Members are new to the House and have not yet grasped some of the intricacies of its procedures. One day they will find themselves on a Statutory Instruments Committee and with a genuine grievance. There will be a Division and they will realise the enormous stupidity of this procedure as they cast a vote and think, "Good heavens". They think that they will rock the Government back on their heels and be forced to vote against them, only to discover that the procedures have no effect. When that day conies they might realise the frustration and indignation of my right hon. and hon. Friends on issues such as this, on the selection of Members for Select Committees and the dominance of the Labour party over Opposition time. Under the present procedures, hon. Members have no legitimate means by which to make a point, so we have to resort to others. I counsel Conservative Members that among them are at least two senior and experienced hon. Members who have sat on a Statutory Instruments Standing Committee and have had to record no substantive vote.
1361 When a Statutory Instruments Standing Committee records a vote againt something, the matter should come to the Floor of the House so that the House can record its decision. I understand why Government Whips would not want to regard as final a Division in a Committee on an off day because some hon. Members have been up late the night before, as is the case today, and have not turned up to the Committee in the morning. We all want to raise our legitimate grievances on the Floor of the House but, time and again, we are denied the opportunity to do so.
The tabling of prayers against Statutory Instruments is one way in which groups, which are not provided with the acres of time that are available to the Government and the 19 Opposition days that are available to the Labour party, can engage some of the House's time on issues such as those which arise from this Bill and that cause them concern.
If successive Governments continue to narrow the procedures of the House and to close their minds to improvements of our procedures and any accommodation of the views of groups which might have the support of 25 per cent. of the voters, they will find that hon. Members have to resort to late Divisions and speeches on a wide variety of matters to get over the point that the Government do not own the House of Commons. The House of Commons is the chamber of the Parliament of the people of the United Kingdom who sent us here, and we shall exert and assert our right to speak here.
§ Mr. GowIt is characteristic of the self-styled Chief Whip of the Liberal party to address the House on a consequential amendment to an amendment—No. 46— which the House debated long ago. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales gave a full explanation of the procedures proposed, but the Benches now occupied by the Liberals and the Social Democrats were totally empty at that time.
§ Mr. Alex CarlileOn a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Minister suggested that these Benches were empty on the occasion to which he referred. May I ask you to invite him to withdraw that remark. I was certainly here, and so was my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock).
Mr. Deputy SpeakerThat is not a matter for me. [Interruption.] Order. If the hon. Gentleman raises a point of order he should wait for the answer. Who was present is not a matter for the Chair.
§ Mr. GowSecondly — [HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw."] I have nothing to withdraw. [Interruption.] The former Chief Whip of the Liberal party, the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Smith), is in no position to challenge my assertion that the alliance Benches were deserted when my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State spoke because the hon. Gentleman emphatically was not here and he certainly could not be missed.
Secondly, it was extremely patronising for the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) to rebuke my hon. Friends who arrived here as a result of the historic Tory victory of 9 June last year. Unlike the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends, one thing that my hon. Friends have not done is to vote against something in which they believe. The hon. Gentleman's rebuke was an utter disgrace.
1362 In view of the characteristic disarray of the alliance Benches I think that I should be a bully if I proceeded any further
§ Question put, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment:—
§ The House divided: Ayes 108, Noes 16.
| Division No. 446] | [1.27 am |
| AYES | |
| Alexander, Richard | Marland, Paul |
| Amess, David | Mather, Carol |
| Ancram, Michael | Maude, Hon Francis |
| Arnold, Tom | Merchant, Piers |
| Ashby, David | Meyer, Sir Anthony |
| Aspinwall, Jack | Miller, Hal (B'grove) |
| Atkins, Rt Hon Sir H. | Montgomery, Fergus |
| Atkinson, David (B'm'th E) | Morris, M. (N'hampton, S) |
| Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset) | Morrison, Hon C. (Devizes) |
| Baldry, Tony | Morrison, Hon P. (Chester) |
| Berry, Sir Anthony | Neubert, Michael |
| Biffen, Rt Hon John | Nicholls, Patrick |
| Boscawen, Hon Robert | Norris, Steven |
| Bottomley, Peter | Page, Sir John (Harrow W) |
| Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich) | Page, Richard (Herts SW) |
| Braine, Sir Bernard | Powley, John |
| Bright, Graham | Raffan, Keith |
| Brinton, Tim | Rhodes James, Robert |
| Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thpes) | Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon |
| Browne, John | Roberts, Wyn (Conwy) |
| Bruinvels, Peter | Robinson, Mark (N'port W) |
| Burt, Alistair | Roe, Mrs Marion |
| Butterfill, John | Rowe, Andrew |
| Campbell-Savours, Dale | Sainsbury, Hon Timothy |
| Carlisle, John (N Luton) | Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb') |
| Cash, William | Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield) |
| Chope, Christopher | Soames, Hon Nicholas |
| Clark, Hon A. (Plym'th S'n) | Spencer, Derek |
| Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S.) | Stanbrook, Ivor |
| Conway, Derek | Stem, Michael |
| Coombs, Simon | Stevens, Lewis (Nuneaton) |
| Cope, John | Stevens, Martin (Fulham) |
| Currie, Mrs Edwina | Stewart, Allan (Eastwood) |
| Dorrell, Stephen | Stradling Thomas, J. |
| Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J. | Temple-Morris, Peter |
| Durant, Tony | Thompson, Donald (Calder V) |
| Fallon, Michael | Thorne, Neil (IIford S) |
| Fox, Marcus | Thurnham, Peter |
| Gale, Roger | Tracey, Richard |
| Goodlad, Alastair | Twinn, Dr Ian |
| Gorst, John | van Straubenzee, Sir W. |
| Gow, Ian | Waddington, David |
| Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom) | Wakeham, Rt Hon John |
| Harvey, Robert | Walden, George |
| Hayes, J. | Waller, Gary |
| Henderson, Barry | Wardle, C. (Bexhill) |
| Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm) | Watts, John |
| Howard, Michael | Wells, Bowen (Hertford) |
| Hunt, David (Wirral) | Whitfield, John |
| Lilley, Peter | Wolfson, Mark |
| Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham) | Wood, Timothy |
| Lord, Michael | Yeo, Tim |
| Lyell, Nicholas | |
| McCurley, Mrs Anna | Tellers for the Ayes: |
| Maclean, David John | Mr. Ian Lang and Mr. John Major. |
| Maples, John |
| NOES | |
| Ashdown, Paddy | Parry, Robert |
| Beith, A. J. | Penhaligon, David |
| Bruce, Malcolm | Skinner, Dennis |
| Carlile, Alexander (Montg'y) | Smith, Cyril (Rochdale) |
| Howells, Geraint | Steel, Rt Hon David |
| Hughes, Simon (Southwark) | Wallace, James |
| Johnston, Russell | |
| Marek, Dr John | Tellers for the Noes: |
| Nellist, David | Mr. David Alton and Mr. Archy Kirkwood. |
| Owen, Rt Hon Dr David |
§ Question accordingly agreed to.
§ Lords amendments Nos. 50 to 65 agreed to.
§ [Some with Special Entry.]