UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE (No. 2) BILL. (Hansard, 27 January 1930)

§ THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (LORD ARNOLD)
My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time. The Bill is, of course, now in a state of great confusion, but the Government have no responsibility for that. I only desire to say a very few words in moving the Third Reading. I understand it is possible that the Amendments to Clause 4 down in the name of the noble Lord opposite, Lord Cozens-Hardy, may be on certain grounds held to be not in order, but in any case I would take this opportunity of saying a word on the question of trade union regulations. There really is nothing in the contention that some of the trade union rules, so far as the wording is concerned, somewhat resemble the genuinely-seeking-work procedure. The answer to this, as I have pointed out in this House, on two occasions before, is that the administration of the said rules by the trade unions, whatever the words are, is in fact very different from what the administration of the genuinely-seeking-work procedure has been. I would say quite definitely that in practice—and that is what matters—the procedure of the trade unions in regard to unemployed men and benefit, whatever their rules are, will not be any more strict than, even if as strict as, the procedure under the Government's Clause 4 that your Lordships struck out. That really is the fallacy of all these attempts to embarrass the Government by quoting the trade union regulations. They are remote from reality and are only brought forward by those unfamiliar with the facts.
I would like to point out before I sit down something with regard to what the noble Marquess (Lord Salisbury) said in his speech the other night. Noble Lords 285 opposite pick out certain points from some trade union regulations, and are careful not to call attention to other regulations in the White Paper. The fact is that in many of the trade unions the regulations are, so far as words are concerned, a good deal less strict than Clause 4 of the Government. No one listening to the noble Marquess, who spoke of twenty-five out of twenty-six cases, would imagine for a moment that in this actual White Paper there are eighty-two other uses out of 108 whose regulations do not require the members to seek work. He did not tell you that. I do not propose to discuss the matter further unless the Amendments of the noble Lord opposite are held to be in order, in which case I shall have, on the details of his Amendments, some further observations to make. I beg to move.

§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
My Lords, I was unaware that the silence which beset the Government on the last occasion would, upon second thoughts, be found to be inopportune, and that the noble Lord would carefully get up something to say upon the Third Reading. It would have been better if he had made these observations at the time when your Lordships had the subject under consideration. I listened as far as I could, but I did not altogether follow what the noble Lord said. I simply took this White Paper in my hand and I looked at the first two unions which presented themselves to my eye. Here is the rule of the National Amalgamated Furnishing Trades Association:— No member who is suspended from his employment is entitled to this support unless he proves to his branch that he is searching for work. Then take the Wall Paper Workers' Union:— Any member out of work neglecting to apply for a situation when ordered to do so by the secretary, or not using reasonable efforts to obtain work.… The noble Lord will find it is exactly the same more or less, unless I am under a great mistake, in ail except perhaps one of the twenty-six instances which the White Paper gives.
But I do not rise to make another speech upon the Third Reading of this 286 Bill. Your Lordships have seen fit to make certain changes in the Bill, and they stand for better or worse. But I do rise upon rather an important matter of procedure. Since I came to the House, that is to say about half an hour ago, there has been put into my hands a printed Amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Cozens-Hardy. It purports to be an Amendment which he proposes to move after Third Reading to-day. I am quite sure the noble Lord will allow me to say there is no member of your Lordships' House whom I hold in higher respect than I do himself, and there is nothing in what I am about to say that is intended as a criticism of anything except the particular procedure which, I venture to think with great submission and respect, the noble Lord ought not to have pursued. The rule of your Lordships' House that no Amendment should be moved after Third Reading except with Notice is very rigidly applied. I have addressed your Lordships on the subject on many occasions, and I have had considerable experience, not merely in the general proceedings of your Lordships' House, but on this particular matter, and my experience is that no Amendment after Third Reading should be moved except after Notice.
The form in which it stands in the Standing Orders of the House in the "Companion to the Standing Orders of the House of Lords on Public Business" is:— The Bill having been read a Third time, the opportunity arises for proposing further Amendments. Previous notice should be given of them, if they be of any importance, and they are printed and circulated. That is the form in which it stands in this old "Companion," but, as a matter of fact, we apply it even more rigidly, and for the last ten years, I venture to say, no Amendment has been allowed to be put in after Third Reading—even an unimportant Amendment—except after Notice. Your Lordships will observe that not only must Notice be given, but the Amendment must be printed and circulated. This Amendment has never been circulated. Therefore, I think it would be very unwise of your Lordships, notwithstanding the respect we have for the noble Lord, if we entertained his Amendment at all—I mean wholly without reference to its subject matter, and merely as a matter of procedure.
287 And this is not merely one of those technical rules which have really no reason behind them. It is a rule founded upon experience and common sense. If your Lordships put in Amendments on the Committee stage, all right, there is an opportunity on the Report stage of putting them right if they turn out to be in any way erroneous. If on the Report stage an Amendment is inserted, then your Lordships again have an opportunity after the Third Reading of putting right any mistake. But if the Amendment is made after the Third Reading and a mistake takes place, your Lordships have no longer any power to put it right. Therefore we have made the rule—and it has been applied in my own period of membership of your Lordships' House very rigidly—that we will have no Amendments unless Notice has been given. It may be said that the fact that this Amendment has been printed is to some extent a compliance with the rule. Well, it is a compliance with part of the rule, but not with all of it, and it really is not sufficient, because the Amendment has not been in the hands of noble Lards so that they can consider it beforehand and attend your Lordships' House, if they think it is necessary to comment upon it.
As a matter of fact, in my own case, it was only by the kind intervention of a friend that I had the least idea there was going to be any Amendment of this kind moved on the Third Reading. I was in the country, and it was only by a hasty telephone message that I knew it was going to be moved. I will not tell again the story which I have often told in your Lordships' House of how, many years ago now, when a particular Government was in office, an Amendment was put in on the Third Reading without Notice against my protest, and within ten minutes of the Bill passing into law they found that the Amendment had been inserted in the wrong place. I will not detail what actually happened. There would have been—or there ought to have been—no means of putting it right after the mistake which had been made. Without reference altogether to the subject matter of the noble Lord's Amendment, I would invite your Lordships not to entertain it because sufficient Notice has not been given.

LORD COZENS-HARDY
My Lords, the Amendment which stands in my name 288 is practically to the same effect as that which I had placed on the Paper on Report but which, on the suggestion of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Parmoor, I deferred to Third Reading. If in my ignorance of the procedure of your Lordships' House I have not given sufficient Notice of the Amendment of course I must bow to the decision of the House; but I thought that having mentioned the matter on the Report Stage and having handed in the Amendment in time for it to be printed, the matter would be in order. If it is the view of your Lordships that the matter is out of order I do not propose to say more at this stage.

§ THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (LORD PARMOOR)
My Lords, I am bound to admit that the noble Marquess opposite has stated the rule of your Lordships' House with perfect accuracy, as there is no doubt he would, and has also stated very clearly the reason for it. If anything is put at the last moment into a Bill of which members of your Lordships' House had no Notice it would be unfair to them and to the expressed opinion of the House itself. I hope that the noble Lord is not in any way in error about what I stated to him the other day. I have looked at the actual words and what I stated to him is this, that the matter which he wanted to discuss could be equally discussed after the Third Reading and not at the Third Reading. I assumed in connection with that that he would take all the ordinary necessary steps to put himself in order. I do not wish to say anything more than that. Personally, I am sorry that the noble Lord has been deprived of this opportunity. The noble Marquess has stated the rule of the House quite accurately.