HL Deb 18 November 1941 vol 121 cc34-45

LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE had given Notice that he would call attention to the reference made by a Minister of the Crown to the opinions and activities of the Duke of Bedford; and also move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the interval which has elapsed since October 21, the date to which I intend to refer, has been occupied by a very brief Recess and by the necessary formalities for closing the last Session and opening the new Session of Parliament; otherwise I should have brought this matter to your Lordships' notice more promptly. On the date in question, October 21, a pronouncement was made in another place by a Minister of the Crown on behalf of His Majesty's Government. The particular matter which was being discussed was the refusal of permission to an honourable Member, the honourable Member for Shettleston [Mr. McGovern], to go to Ireland. The Secretary of State for the Home Department was chosen, as a very prominent Minister whose duties involved attention to such matters as these, to make a statement on behalf of the Government. In the Official Report I see that he occupied some twelve columns of his speech in preliminary matters, and then turned to the question in hand. He did not appear to be entirely comfortable.

Before he reached the point where he said "Finally, I come to the incident raised in the debate," he dragged in the name of the Duke of Bedford in a very disparaging reference. It was a reference which was wholly irrelevant; so much so that Mr. Speaker intervened and said, "It would be better not to refer to members of another place." The Secretary of State for the Home Department seemed quite unaware of the bad taste—to put it mildly—of dragging incidentally somebody's name into the debate with insinuations—no charge—which, owing to their vagueness, were capable of very damaging interpretations, which were taken up in the less reputable columns of the Press. I am not going to enter into the opinions of the noble Duke. I have referred to the incident because it seemed to me to be an example of a very unjudicial attitude on the part of a person in a responsible position who has to exercise a judicial function. I am not, as I say, going to enter into the noble Duke's opinions; but I have been acquainted with him for many years, and I know him to be a high-minded, disinterested and absolutely sincere man, jealous of the good name of his country and intent upon her future welfare. He may not use the language—or the jargon, as I would call it—of hypocrisy which has so much popularity in these days, but I do not think that that ought to be made a charge against him.

In some ways it is much easier to defend a dustman than to stand up for a Duke, but Dukes have their rights as individuals, and they should not be made the target—because, of course, the publicity which they receive is exceptional—of unsubstantiated aspersions. I do not dwell on the point that technically speaking the noble Duke is not yet a member of your Lordships' House, as he has not yet taken the Oath. I understand that he was intending to do so after the more or less usual interval had elapsed since he became the successor to his father. The Home Secretary thought that he was a member of your Lordships' House, and therefore I am going to ask my noble friend the Leader of the House, or the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack, who I understand is going to reply, to give us some protection against this method of insinuation and attack in a covert way. I hope to hear that the Government dissociate themselves from this particularly undesirable method of pointing out people to the public without actually charging them.

There are others besides the noble Duke, even in your Lordships' House, who may be the subject of one of the Home Secretary's remarks; in fact, he said in the course of his speech "There are plenty of people in this country whom we keep under observation." I feel fairly sure that the Home Secretary has got me under observation, and I want to throw up a defence as early as I can, before I find myself in Brixton. The Home Secretary seems intent on putting the finishing touches to his Gestapo and getting it more on the Himmler model. I think there is sufficient opinion in this country to show a great dislike of methods of this sort. Lettres de cachet are all very well to get people into the Bastille by the hundred, but lettres de cachet, on the unrestricted discrimination of a single Minister, in these days will not find favour.

I do not want to enter into the technical point as to the powers that have been conferred on the Home Secretary or into the method that he has of using them, but the recent Appeal case in the House of Lords showed by the dissentient judgment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Atkin, that there is a very keen feeling that the liberties of individuals here, of all ranks and all descriptions, should be safeguarded, and that there should be some satisfactory acknowledgment that their case, whatever it may be, should be heard. I rather think that the Advisory Committees were instituted in order to guide the Home Secretary in his decisions, and I have here the last Paper on emergency powers, stating the number of cases that have been dealt with. I refer to it only in order to show that there were a good many cases—I think somewhere about a hundred—in which the Home Secretary completely disregarded the recommendations of the Advisory Committees. He is, I understand, legally quite justified in doing that, but it does show that this absolutely unfettered discretion is in itself a danger; and the very fact that people can be removed by a nod from the Home Secretary is a danger which I think we ought to deal with before it goes any further. At any rate there is a good deal of difference of opinion on these powers which have been accorded to the Home Secretary, and the matter is likely to come up for discussion, certainly in another place if not in your Lordships' House, and I do not want to dwell on the technical point.

While there are differences of opinion about that, I have heard no difference of opinion at all on the undesirability of dragging in—the Home Secretary said that he felt himself on tempting ground when he mentioned the Duke of Bedford—dragging in somebody who, of course, was not present and could not answer and who, unfortunately, being a Duke, is subject to a great deal more publicity than other people; dragging in, one might almost say with a wink, insinuations of an undesirable character I think I am justified in hoping that that at any rate will not be tolerated again. The Home Secretary said that he was interested in the Duke of Bedford, and everybody pricked up his ears and thought, "This is a great opportunity, it will be quite a popular move to make out the Duke of Bedford is a traitor or ought to be put into prison." Well, if he is a traitor and ought to be put into prison and the lettre de cachet method is adopted, do it; but do not come and make a public speech and, with a sort of wink, say, "I know several of these people, and I have got my eye on them," and then mention them by name. I do not feel at all safe myself, I own. I am not at all sure that after the remarks I am going to make to your Lordships I shall not find at the door when I go out a Black Maria waiting for me.

My point is a narrow one, but I think it is really one that deserves consideration, because while he is within the law all the time—I do not say he is not—the particular method is a rather low-down one, which is not worthy of a Minister of the Crown. As to the very unfortunate opinion which I hold—I do not know to what extent it is considered to be treasonable—I think the Duke of Bedford holds it, and strangely enough, Mr. Morrison held it, and with far greater eloquence than I can command, he used to appear on platforms not many years ago as an upholder of the same opinion. I have an unalterable conviction that no nation whatever can gain a high or a good or a lastingly beneficial object by force and violence—force and violence ever extending, which to-day by wholesale massacre, by huge devastations, by famine, by bankruptcy and further ill; which we can only guess at, must undermine and destroy the foundations of the very civilization which humanity has reached after many centuries. I beg to move.

VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

My Lords, I do not want to detain the House for more than a moment, but I must say that I think the matter raised by my noble friend Lord Ponsonby is of vast importance, and I hope it will be so treated by the Government. I do feel a little anxious, I must say, about certain incidents that have recently taken place, as to whether, in exercising the very necessary powers which a Government must have during the war, full care is taken to preserve that supremacy of the law which is the real foundation of British liberties in this country. I should much welcome a very-precise statement from the Government that they recognize to the full the grave evils that accompany any arbitrary imprisonment—I say "arbitrary" not in a pejorative sense, but "arbitrary" in the sense of non-control by judicial authorities—and their absolute conviction that as soon as the emergency has passed all such powers will be abandoned once and for ever. One cannot shut one's eyes to the fact that in the history of the world it has happened more than once after a great controversy, after a war, the victorious Power has adopted some of the worst elements which that country has been fighting against. I am sure that that is not the intention of the Government in the least at the present moment. I do not want to go into the Liversidge case at this moment, That ought to be the subject, if it is debated at all, of a formal Motion and a formal discussion, but there are certain circumstances that seems to me to require the very careful attention of the Government, and I hope we shall hear that they are giving them that attention.

THE MARQUESS OF CREWE

My Lords, we always listen with pleasure to the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, who invariably imparts an atmosphere of freshness into our debates, but I cannot help expressing a certain degree of regret that he should have raised this particular question here. It seems to me to be divided into two entirely distinct parts. It might be supposed that, in making the statement he did in another place, the Home Secretary departed from the usual practice of abstaining from reference to this House, and that some question of Privilege might be considered to be involved. The observation, quoted by the noble Lord, which fell from Mr. Speaker on that occasion rather points to that conclusion. At the same time I have always, myself, imagined that any questions of breach of Privilege are confined to observations' made in the House itself, and that references made in another place or made here to the outside activities of a member of the other House would not in any case fall under the head of Privilege. But the second side of the question which has been rather unexpectedly pressed both by Lord Ponsonby and by the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil of Chelwood—that of the degree in which the exceptional powers entrusted to His Majesty's Government, and in particular to the Home Secretary, are being exercised with propriety, or whether the due line of propriety has been passed—does not appear to me to enter into this question at all.

The sole point, as it appears to me, is as to whether a Minister of the Crown took an undue advantage of his position in animadverting unfavourably upon the activities of the noble Duke, the Duke of Bedford. I have no wish to enter into the matter of the noble Duke's opinions, and I certainly should be very sorry in any way to condemn in general terms those who seek peace and endeavour to ensue it. I have always felt, and I am sure that most of your Lordships have felt, deep respect for the honest pacifist. We all respect the members of the Society of Friends, and we remember that in the last war there were many. Quakers who risked their lives in doing hospital work at the stations at the Front; but I take an altogether different view of those who suppose that it is possible now to come to any kind of terms with the slave-driving oligarchy that reigns at Berlin.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT SIMON)

My Lords, I would wish to intervene now in order, in the first place, to reinforce the distinction that has been pointed out by the noble Marquess who has just spoken. The question which has been raised by my noble friend Lord Ponsonby about a reference to the Duke of Bedford has nothing at all to do with internment or threat of internment, or with the exercise, wise or unwise, of any of these powers of internment at all. It has to deal, as I shall point out in a moment, with quite a different matter, as indeed is plain to anybody who considers the speech of the Home Secretary, though I am not sure that Lord Ponsonby's observations will have made this very clear to the House. As to this other matter, to which my noble friend Lord Cecil in particular referred, it is one of the most tremendous importance. I do not yield to any man alive in my profound conviction that our constitutional liberties and traditions make it an essential mark of our country that we have not only respected, but by the most practical means provided for, the preservation of individual liberty, apart, of course, from the cases where an individual is convicted of crime or is of unsound mind. I yield to no man alive in recognizing that that tradition is one of the glories of Parliament and that the defence of that proposition is one of the splendours of the Judicature.

I only point out, before I pass to the real subject of this debate, that while that has always been our firm constitutional position, in history, more than once, in time of crisis, Parliament has deliberately suspended the right of habeas corpus. It has not done so in the present war, but it has done so in previous times. And I would remind your Lordships further that there is not a single member either in the House of Commons or the House of Lords who is entitled to disclaim responsibility for an invasion of civic liberties in the present war. In the early days of this war, or rather the day before it actually broke out, members of all Parties, either consciously or unconsciously, without dissent, or practically without dissent, agreed to the passing of the Emergency Powers Act, which, not by implication but by the express terms of the Statute, conferred upon the Government the responsibility through Orders in Council of providing for the detention—that means the internment—of individuals without their having been convicted of crime. If and when we have a debate on this subject no doubt many noble Lords may have something to say. I would ask them to put those two things together—the principle of individual liberty and Parliament's modification of it during the war. What Parliament has done, Parliament can undo, but it is not right to cast blame upon Ministers as though they were engaged in abusing powers when those very powers, in the widest terms, by the express language of the Legislature, have been placed upon the responsible Executive. I say nothing at all about refinements or difficulties that arise. Nobody is more conscious of them than I am, and, as I have said, no one is more unwilling to admit that temporary exceptions have to be made, but, my Lords, with very great respect, it really is not right to treat this matter as though it was the wilful act of some Executive Department. It is the action of Parliament itself, and if Parliament says these powers are to be modified it is perfectly within the competence of Parliament to do so.

I venture only to add one other word upon this subject. It is not the subject of our discussion, though it has been mentioned by my noble friend Lord Cecil. Here I can speak with some knowledge of my own, both as a man who has twice been Home Secretary, and as a man who has seen at close quarters how these powers of internment are being exercised, I would assure you that, whether or not a mistake has been made in this case or that, this at least is not true, that anyone holding the office of Home Secretary regards this dreadful authority as something to be lightly or vicariously exercised. To my certain knowledge, the man, whoever he be, who holds this office of Home.Secretary—next to the duty of deciding whether a murderer shall be hanged—regards nothing which he ever undertakes with a greater sense of his personal responsibility than that of deciding whether he should or should not make an order that a fellow-subject, who had not been proved to have committed any crime, shall be detained. I hope I may be forgiven for making those observations, having first of all disqualified myself by saying that really this is not the question which was raised by Lord Ponsonby, but I did not like the very moving and powerful appeal of Lord Cecil to go by without some immediate observations on the subject.

Now, my Lords, when I saw this question of my noble friend Lord Ponsonby on the Paper, I confess I was in some doubt as to what was the nature of the point that he wanted to raise, but he has, of course, made that much clearer in his delicately phrased speech. I wondered, for example, whether this was raising a question of Privilege of the House, either perhaps because reference was made to the Duke of Bedford or perhaps because the statement was made by a Minister in the House of Commons. Of course, I well realize that I have no sort of authority to lay down the law about Privilege in your Lordships' House, but I would venture modestly to advance the view, the confident view, that no question of Privilege is involved at all. A Peer is as amenable to the law and administration that affects the safety of the realm as anybody else. If the Home Secretary has a right to make a reference to a commoner in such circumstances, I see nothing wrong in his making reference to a Peer. In fact, his reference was not even to anything any member of this House has said in this House or done in his character as a member of this House. As the noble Lord pointed out to us, in point of fact the Duke of Bedford, as yet, has taken no steps with the authorities of this House to prove his succession or to apply for a Writ of Summons, so that he cannot be here to take any part in our debates. Properly speaking, I suppose that he is potentially a Peer of Parliament but he has not made himself an actual member of the House of Peers. Of course it would be the height of folly to seek to inflate or extend the privileges of this House beyond their established and reasonable limits, for the privileges of this House are substantial and they are important. But no question of that sort arises here, and I therefore pass by that matter.

Secondly, if I have any sort of criticism of what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, in the matter of its presentation, I think it rather a pity he did not make clear to the House how this reference to the Duke of Bedford arose. It is exceedingly simple. It appears there was a debate going on in the House of Commons on the question as to whether or not the Home Secretary in discharge of his duty not to let any citizen leave this island and cross the seas without his permission was offending because he had thought he ought to refuse the exeat, if I may so call it, to a member of the House of Commons, and the debate was as to whether members of the House of Commons were not free or ought not to be free from any such possible restriction. Actually I think the instance that was being discussed was that of a Scottish member of the House of Commons, who was anxious to go to Ireland; and it was over that that the debate arose. The Home Secretary, in the course of the debate on that subject, pointed out that if indeed it was to be laid down as an abstract proposition without possible exception that every member of the House of Commons was free to go to Ireland whenever he liked and that the Home Secretary should never dream of considering that he should be stopped, then that must also apply to members of the House of Lords—an argument perhaps which had a more alarming air in the other Chamber than it might have had here. It was in that connexion that the Home Secretary made a reference to the Duke of Bedford.

My noble friend quoted, quite accurately, of course, that the Home Secretary proceeded to say that he had his eye on him and that as far as he was concerned, as long as the Duke of Bedford held and proclaimed the opinions which he had been proclaiming, he (the Home Secretary) would not think he was a suitable person to be given leave to go to Ireland. I have nothing to do with the merits of that. The question is, does it really raise a grave and serious question to debate in your Lordships' House? I confess I do not think it does. It may be rather difficult to determine exactly within what limits reference should be made in one House either to the members of the other or to what goes on in the other. I recall that there was a discussion in this House a few years ago, which I had occasion to read before I came here, in which my noble friend Lord Rankeil-lour took part and the noble Marquess beside me also took part on the very interesting question as to what are, if any, the restrictions which should be observed. I doubt very much whether it is wise for us to attempt to lay down a hard-and-fast rule. I cannot conceive that any member of this House would wish to claim exemption from the kind of comment which may reasonably be made about other people. It is perhaps undesirable to have what I may call a long-range exchange between the two Houses, if only because it is likely to be exceedingly ineffective. If we had a system by which Ministers of the Crown could speak in both Houses, we might fetch the Home Secretary here and put him through it. As it is, each House has its own methods —I speak as having been previously a member of the other House—its own sense of order, and its own atmosphere. I think we get on very well as we are and I would very humbly deprecate the laying down of strict rules.

The last observation I wish to make is this. I have already pointed out that my noble friend was really in error when he said that the Home Secretary's observations were wholly irrelevant. On the contrary, they were dealing with the exact point which was the subject of discussion. His other observation was that the Duke of Bedford was a man who was high-minded, disinterested and sincere, and I am certainly not seeking to challenge any of those propositions either about him or about anybody else, however unusual his views may be about the justification for the war or the conditions of the peace. But I must respectfully observe that the Duke of Bedford has been at great pains to circulate his opinions in quarters where they may be received. I am certainly not going to give those opinions any further advertisement. I have informed myself of some of them. We are all of us entitled to our own views. I am afraid I regard these opinions as utterly irresponsible and completely pestilential. The Duke, I think, is fortunate, and no doubt feels himself to be fortunate, in being a British subject. If he was a German and was in Germany and if he gave expression to the reverse opinions and denounced Hitler and all his works, and found excuses for Hitler's enemies in various directions, then indeed I think my noble friend Lord Ponsonby would be well justified in descanting on the Gestapo. On the contrary, this gentleman is at liberty. He unquestionably has attracted—inevitably attracted—a good deal of attention because of views which I must regard as very strange and very unusual. I do not think that the reference made to him in the House of Commons was out of place. On the contrary, it was an illustration entirely to the point. I hope that having had this matter out, your Lordships may agree with me that it is just possible to make a little too much of these things, and in time of war we had better get on with the essential work.

LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE

My Lords, I am very much obliged to my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack for having given such a carefully reasoned and courteous reply to my question on the Paper. With a great deal of what he said I was in entire agreement, and I am sure the whole House was. Certainly in the first part of his remarks, where he was dealing with the larger question of habeas corpus, with his usual very careful arguing he made out a case with which we all enthusiastically agree. I did not get to that part of the question in my remarks, nor did I enter into the question of Privilege. I think I should have made a speech perhaps not so appropriate in your Lordships' House as elsewhere if Mr. Jones of Peckham had been the person referred to by the Home Secretary, because it struck me at once when I read the reference that it was a method of dragging in a name in order that somebody could be pointed out as a traitorous and undesirable person to be free.

I still think that in his concluding remarks on what I agree is perhaps a narrow point, the noble and learned Viscount hardly saw the effect that this sort of rhetorical treatment of a very serious subject may have. It opens the floodgates to further speeches from the Home Secretary or Ministers of the Crown, casting aspersions on other individuals until at last there will be a considerable number of people in this country who will be in doubt as to whether and as to how lone they will be and remain free. I cannot help thinking that we are on the fringe of a very serious subject here, and that while we shout so much from platforms that we are fighting for democracy—I do not think that is being said quite so much just now—it might be as well to see if we can preserve the relics of democracy which still exist very jealously and without allowing a Minister, however able, to have unfettered discretion not only in sending people to internment but in referring to people in order that an ugly interpretation may be put on any remarks made by them. But I should like to thank the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor for having replied so fully, and I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.