§ [The references are to Bill No. 188 as first printed for the Lords.]
§ Page 5, leave out Clause 6.
§ LORD PARMOOR:I beg to move that the House doth not insist upon its Amendment to leave out Clause 6. The other House has disagreed with your Lordships upon it. I ought to say that the reasons given by the Commons are these. They consider that it is desirable that the Minister should have power to require the Committee to consider a minimum rate in view of circumstances that may not 486 have been considered when the rate was fixed. I think there was a little misunderstanding when we were dealing with this clause here, because it does not give the Minister any power in reference to fixing the rate at all. It only gives him the power of referring a matter back to the local committee, should he desire to do so.
§ Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment. — (Lord Parmoor.)
§ LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM:My Lords, I moved this Amendment in Committee and the noble and learned Lord, representing the Government, agreed to it. I do not understand the procedure of the present Government. Here is a leading member of the Government in this House who agrees to an Amendment. It then goes down to another place, the other place throw over, not only your Lordships' House but the whole of the Front Bench sitting opposite to us, who agreed to the Amendment. The noble and learned Lord says that it is not intended that such things shall happen. That is all very well, but it is by the Bill, when it becomes an Act, that the Courts, the Minister and the wages committee will be guided. It is no protection for the noble and learned Lord to say here that he is of opinion that nothing will happen. It was only yesterday that the noble and learned Lord, after having put a provision in the Bill, said that he did not intend to act upon it. After having said that an offence was to be created, he went so far as to say that they did not intend to prosecute for that offence which they themselves had created.
The noble and learned Lord and his supporters may not be here after another two months, or perhaps even less, and what is going to happen then? I do not want to repeat the argument which I used in moving this Amendment, but I venture to say that the statement of the noble and learned Lord—I am sure unwittingly—is absolutely incorrect. The noble and learned Lord says that the Minister will have no power to do more than refer the question to the wages board. I have already shown your Lordships that he has a great deal more power than that. He can direct the two independent members nominated by him under the Bill to do certain things. He 487 will do that privately of course, and if those two members do not agree to do it, perhaps, when the time comes, they will be dismissed and two other members will be appointed. But even if they do not do that, consider the effect which will be created amongst the workers and the farmers by the Minister interfering.
This really is an attempt to get over the abandonment of the Central Wages Board. It is an attempt to carry out from London, and by the Minister, the functions of the local committees, and to say from London what the farmers are to do. I will not take up your Lordships' time at this hour, but I earnestly hope that we shall insist upon this Amendment. We have been brought here at very great inconvenience to consider this matter in a very short time, and it is impossible adequately to consider all these various Amendments to a number of Bills in so short a time. The insistence upon this Amendment will not in any way vitiate the principle of the Bill. The principle that there shall be committees consisting of employers and employed with two independent members to settle wages will still remain. All that will happen will be that the Minister will not have power to override the decisions of the localities to fix wages.
§ LORD PARMOOR:My Lords, I should like to say a word in answer to the noble Lord. I think he has shown quite conclusively that he has had quite sufficient time to study the question. Still, I think he has made a mistake, and I know how accurate he generally is in dealing with clauses. I think it was owing to a statement made on a former stage that perhaps I went wrong. The clause says: —
"The Minister may direct an agricultural wages committee to reconsider any minimum rate which has been fixed by them, and thereupon the committee shall reconsider the same and notify to the Minister the result of their reconsideration."
I do not agree with what the noble Lord has said with regard to the influence of the Minister. He simply asks that in the circumstances the matter shall be reconsidered. It is really a clause in the same form as in the Corn Production Act. I hope your Lordships will not insist upon the Amendment. I admit I was wrong when the matter was discussed before. It was my own fault and I am sorry.
THE EARL OF MAYO:My Lords, I have here a copy of the OFFICIAL REPORT from which it appears that the Lord President distinctly agreed to this Amendment.
§ LORD PARMOOR:That is what I have said. I do not deny it. It was a mistake on my part, and only shows that we cannot always be infallible. It was a mistake, but I do not think I misled any one.
THE EARL OF MAYO:There is a statement in the OFFICIAL REPORT which is very distinct, and it is all very well for the Lord President now to say that it was a mistake. He actually agreed to the Amendment without making any terms whatsoever. He said that he thought it was not a very important clause.
§ LORD CLINTON:My Lords, I do not know whether there is much reason to be surprised that the Lord President attaches so much importance to this clause considering the enormous powers which the Minister will exercise. What is surprising is that the Government should have such little confidence in the creatures of their own creation. They have great powers. Under the schedule they can nominate the representative members, although I understand they do not intend to do so. They can pack the committee with their appointed members. They can select their own secretary and appoint all their own officers, and in some circumstances may even appoint the chairman. It is really, therefore, unnecessary that they should take the further power of disagreeing with the decision at which their own people have arrived and refer it back for their reconsideration, with the only possible result that they will agree with what the Minister instructs them to do. I do not attach the same importance to this clause as the noble Lord. The Minister has great powers already, and I am not sure that this is a very great enlargement of them. As the Government have really found out that this is a matter of the greatest importance to them I suggest that your Lordships do not insist on the Amendment.
§ LORD GAINFORD:My Lords, many of us were prepared to support the Government in the retention of this clause in the earlier stages of the Bill and were 489 much surprised that they gave way and agreed to its omission. All I have to say is that, as a somewhat remote Cabinet Minister of past days, I understood that there was a principle in the constitution of collective responsibility between Ministers, that if one Minister committed his Government to a particular course it was expected that Ministers in another place would support him. I recognise the very difficult task that the Leader of the House has had in connection with this Bill and the way this House has been treated by another place in having these Amendments suddenly thrust upon us and being expected to deal with them without adequate notice. My friends and I will adhere to their previous intention of supporting the Government on this matter rather than jeopardise the Bill in connection with this clause.
§ EARL STANHOPE:My Lords, may I say that I should be sorry if this Amendment is abandoned and for a different reason from those which have been mentioned to your Lordships already? If this Bill is going to work at all, and many of us hope that it will, the whole essence' of it depends upon the confidence established by the local wages committees. Could anything undermine confidence in these committees more than a clause of this character? It means that at any moment matters may be referred to the Minister over their heads, and decisions which they have arrived at, perhaps with considerable difficulty, are then referred to them again. All the confidence in these committees, both among farmers and labourers, will be seriously undermined if the clause remains in the Bill and is put into operation by the Minister of the day.
§ LORD STRACHIE:My Lords, I agree with my noble friend Lord Banbury of Southam in being very glad that this Amendment was accepted by the Lord President, and in consequence I did not move another Amendment which w-as somewhat to the same effect. On the other hand, I had an opportunity of hearing the discussion of this question in the House of Commons in the course of which Mr. Buxton asserted most clearly that the National Farmers' Union were agreed that this clause should remain in the Bill. To my mind, if the National Farmers' Union take that line—and, 490 after all, they are the great employers of agricultural labour and the people most closely interested in this matter—tbeir view satisfies me completely, and if we go to a Division I shall certainly support the Government.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY:My Lords, on this Bench we have listened very carefully to the discussion which has taken place and we are placed in considerable difficulty by it. Personally, I should like to see this clause left out of the Bill if it could possibly be managed, but I think that your Lordships, before absolutely deciding upon the matter, should realise exactly what is the situation between the two Houses of Parliament. May I say with great respect—I am sure the noble Lord opposite, the Lord President, will allow me to say this—that I think it was almost a pity that when the Question was put from the Woolsack that the Message from the Commons should be now considered, he did not inform your Lordships—and no man could do it better than he—of the general effect of the treatment of your Lordships' Amendments by another place.
The general effect of that treatment is that the House of Commons have, I think, rejected five Amendments, but of those, I believe that we shall without difficulty restore the principal part of two of them which would leave only three Amendments which the House of Commons had definitely rejected. This reduces the matter to comparatively narrow limits, and all the rest of your Lordships' Amendments would then be accepted except those three. Of these, two have reference to the consultation with the agricultural wages committees before the secretary and officers are appointed, which is not a matter of first rate importance, so that what it really comes to is that this question of leaving out Clause 6 is the only matter of first-rate importance in which the House of Commons has differed from your Lordships. My noble friend Lord Clinton, who understands this matter better than I do, confirms, I understand, that which I have just ventured to say to your Lordships.
In those circumstances, what course ought we to take? There is a difference of opinion amongst noble Lords who have spoken. Lord Clinton himself recommended your Lordships to agree with the 491 Commons, and I understand that Lord Strachie takes the same view, while the Farmers' Union, apparently, have agreed, though really in the case of these outside bodies it is very difficult—
§ LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM:I do not admit that they have agreed voluntarily.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY:My noble friend has always very good information about almost everything. There is also my noble friend Lord Gainford, who has said that those in whose name he speaks are anxious to agree with the Commons. In these circumstances I am almost inclined to suggest that we should not insist upon this Amendment, this being the only really important difference of opinion between the two Houses of Parliament. I am, of course, taking great responsibility upon myself, and I hope your Lordships will 'have some sympathy with me, because this is a speech which ought to have come, if I may say so respectfully, from the other side of the House. It is the proper function of the Minister to explain what happens in another place, because he knows what has been done there, and I do not. In all the circumstances I thought it right to do my utmost to make the Constitution work and to prevent the possibility of this Bill being lost altogether, which might happen if we insisted upon this Amendment.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR:The Question is that this House doth not insist upon the said Amendment—I think the " Contents " have it.
§ LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM:But I said " Not-Content."
§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR:I thought the noble Lord did not insist.
§ LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM:Yes, certainly I did.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR:Then I have been under a misapprehension and I think I ought to put the Question again. Does the noble Lord insist?
§ LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM:I certainly said "Not-Content," but I understand I must accept the Commons decision.
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.