COATBRIDGE AND SPRINGBURN ELECTIONS (VALIDATION) BILL. (Hansard, 23 October 1945)

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR

My Lords, in the recent election, Mrs. Jean Mann and Mr. John Forman were returned as members of the House of Commons for the Coatbridge Division of Lanark and the Springburn Division of Glasgow respectively. It turned out that these good people had been, for some years before the election, sitting as members of the tribunal to determine the rent to be paid for furnished houses under the Rent of Furnished Houses Control (Scotland) Act, 1943, and, that being so, it was thought that their election was invalidated by reason of Section 24 of the Succession to the Crown Act, 1707, by reason of the fact that they held an office of profit under the Crown. No one who has ever held the office of Attorney-General will doubt that I am speaking correctly when I say that the confusion and the ambiguity of this Act, and the anxiety which is caused to the Attorney-General when he has to advise large numbers of Members of Parliament as to whether or not their elections are valid or invalid, are really a source of great embarrassment.

What happened in this case was that, in another place, a Select Committee was appointed to inquire into the whole matter. I hold in my hand a Report which they made. They came to the conclusion that, technically, the election was invalid, and that these people were disqualified from standing for membership of the House of Commons. But they added this: 412 Mrs. Mann and Mr. Forman, in their evidence, both showed that the small remuneration which they had received on the rare occasions when the tribunal had met was, when set against expenses, a negligible amount, and that their work on the tribunal was undertaken as a public duty and not for profit. For that reason, the members of the Select Committee, drawn from all Parties, unanimously recommended that this Bill should be passed, and that we should, by this Bill, validate the election of these two persons. That is the object of this Bill.

The Select Committee append to their recommendations an extract from the Report of a Committee which was set up in 1942, which recommended that this whole matter should be brought under review, and that a member should be protected against acceptance of a disqualifying office by inadvertence. I should not conceal from your Lordships that in passing this Bill we are, in a sense, doing something which has not been done before, because at the time of this election, if the views of this Select Committee are right—and I think they are—these people were disqualified. At the same time, I think this is typically a matter for the other place. It was emphasized, I think, that it would be dangerous to treat this as setting a precedent, although, as in this case, it is clear to everybody that there was the most complete good faith, and that what took place, took place by mere inadvertence, and was due to a technicality. I would commend this Bill to your Lordships. I beg to move.