ARMY AND AIR FORCE (ANNUAL) BILL. (Hansard, 17 April 1930)

§ THE SECRETARY of STATE FOR AIR (LORD THOMSON)
My Lords, in moving that the Commons Reason be now considered I would like to make a statement. The observations made in this House during the debate on Tuesday, in view of the great authority of those who made them, will, I can assure your Lordships, be carefully considered by the competent authorities during the next twelve months. That is all I can say on the subject for the moment, but I hope it will satisfy noble Lords opposite. I therefore beg to move that the Commons Reason be now considered.

§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
My Lords, I desire to recognise at once the tone in which the noble and gallant Lord the Secretary of State for Air has moved his Motion. We are in a very specially difficult position, which I am afraid is not unprecedented in your Lordships' House, but still a very specially difficult position, because the House of Lords, of course, has no intention whatever of throwing out, or risking the loss of, the Army and Air 159 Force (Annual) Bill. We are quite aware of the consequences which would follow, not to your Lordships' House, for we have nothing to lose in these matters at all, but to the public service if such an event happened, and we have, of course, no desire that it should so happen. We did our very best to point out, when this Bill was before us, the formidable character of the change which had been made this year in the Army and Air Force (Annual) Bill. Of course in ordinary years the Army and Air Force (Annual) Bill is little more than a formality. It passes as a matter of course—it is a repetition of what has happened scores of times before—but on this occasion the Government thought it their duty, I am quite sure with every good intention, to make a profound modification in the Bill.
They did not accompany that by giving us a little more time to consider it. On the contrary, the usual course was followed. The Bill was brought up at a time when it was impossible to consider it adequately. And indeed we should, I think, have preferred very much to have had a little more time because it might have been possible to persuade the House of Commons, if there had been a little larger interval, that the course it was taking in making this alteration was one which it ought to reconsider. But as it has happened, we are not only deprived of the time which is necessary for that purpose, but we do not even thoroughly know the reasons for which the House of Commons has differed with your Lordships' House. We have, of course, the formal Reason which is on the Table, but, as the House is well aware, a formal Reason does not generally convey very much new matter, and as far as the present occasion is concerned it is merely a repetition in the baldest language of the view of the House of Commons. We are not to have even, the resource of turning to the OFFICIAL REPORT because the OFFICIAL REPORT is not yet printed—I mean that part of it which deals with this debate which came on late last night. Therefore we are very much in the dark -as to what exactly are the reasons which have dictated the attitude of the House of Commons.
There is in a very brief, hasty report in the Daily Herald something which I will refer to in a moment, but the speech of the noble Lord, I am glad to say, has 160 been in a very different tone from what appears in the Daily Herald. Because, according to the Daily Herald, which is the only report that I have available, it seems that a Member of Parliament committed himself to the observation that it was a piece of arrogance, impertinence and astounding audacity on the part of this Assembly to have taken the course which it did take. I do not know that it is really worth while for members of your Lordships' House to take notice of these phrases, which are happily very seldom used in another place, and if it had only concerned the ordinary political members of your Lordships' House, who are quite accustomed to have bricks thrown at them—they do not find that they hurt very much—I should not have referred to the matter at all. But this observation about impertinence and audacity was applied to your Lordships' House when it was following the advice of the two most distinguished living soldiers in this country, upon a matter upon which those two soldiers had a special right to speak.
They told your Lordships, in the phrase of one of them, that this change which we are called upon to agree to would prejudice the morale and also the high standard of discipline which has hitherto been a proud tradition of the British Army. Upon their responsibility as members of your Lordships' House, with that vast experience behind them and the notable culmination of that experience in commanding armies in the Great War, they told the House and the country and the House of Commons and the gentleman who has committed himself to the phrase which I have read, that it, would prejudice the morale and discipline of the Army. And this gentleman considered that that was an example of arrogance, impertinence and astounding audacity. I do not think it is necessary for me to describe in any language what I consider—and I am quite certain every member of your Lordships' House considers—to be the appropriate method of treating such language as that. I have the great pleasure and privilege of the friendship and acquaintance of many members of the Labour Party in another place. I am very proud of it, and I hope I may long continue to enjoy it. I am quite sure that every one of them would be ashamed of what their colleague has said in respect of this matter.
161 As regards what the noble Lord has said, I have only to say that I quite recognise the method in which he has approached the matter, and I am very much obliged to him for what he has said. The effect of his observations I gather to be this, that, although the Government are unable to accept the advice of your Lordships' House in this matter on the present occasion having regard to the great authority with which it was put forward they will consider it between now and the next occasion when the Army and Air Force (Annual) Bill comes before Parliament. That undoubtedly is a very conciliatory method of approaching this subject. I am grateful to the noble Lord, and on behalf of my noble friends who sit behind me I accept what he says in the spirit in which it is said. I earnestly hope that when the Government have the time and opportunity to consider this matter carefully they will agree with the noble and gallant Lords who sit on the Cross Benches and decide that the Army Act ought, in a measure at any rate, to be restored to its original form.

§ THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (LORD PARMOOR)
My Lords, I rejoice in the courteous language in which the noble Marquess concluded his speech. I must say I rather hoped myself that we could only have heard that part of his speech, and I think that in his heart he feels that the matter could not have been better left than it was left by my noble friend Lord Thomson. But there are two other matters which he has gone into which I want to mention, not in an argumentative spirit, but in order that they should be put in their right perspective. I think there has been a full opportunity of discussion in this House upon this question, and I am glad it has been so. Speaking for myself, I rejoice that the noble Field-Marshals, Lord Plumer and Lord Allenby, could tell this House their experience, as they did so admirably the other day. I find no fault whatever with anything that was said in this House. The noble Marquess, I think rather unfortunately, has referred to a matter that I have not seen myself, a statement made by an individual Member in another place. I have often thought that in our political controversies we pay too much attention to extreme language that is sometimes used 162 by individual Members, which possibly all Parties very much regret. We do not want that personal and invective element in our political life, and I hope we shall keep as free from it as possible in this House. But I am rather astonished that the noble Marquess should have thought it requisite even to refer to a matter of that kind. He knows that in all debates you can pick out a passage of an individual speaker which, if followed up, would lead to trouble.

§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
Do I understand that the noble Lord defends this language?

§ LORD PARMOOR
I am not defending it, certainly. What I am finding fault with is that the noble Marquess should have given any attention, under the conditions here, or indeed at any time, to language of an individual Member, whatever it may be. If we have to spend our time over that, we shall stir up all the dissidence of political life, which does not further political thought in this country, but, on the contrary, is a hindrance, and introduces the merely personal element. That I feel very strongly. I hope most of us at any rate will end up in the spirit which the noble Lord, Lord Thomson, has expressed, and feel that the matter has been fairly and honestly discussed, and that it is an important matter which will be open to reconsideration.