§ 4.10 p.m.
§ Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
§ Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.
§ House in Committee accordingly:
§ [The EARL OF DROGHEDA in the Chair.]
§ Clauses 1 to 8 agreed to.
§ Clause 9:
§ Provisions as to discipline and internal administration of certain Polish forces.
§ 9.—(1) The Polish forces mentioned in paragraphs (a) and (6) of subsection (1) of Section one of this Act shall be under the command of a person of British nationality appointed by the Secretary of State, being a person appearing to him to have a good knowledge, and to be experienced in the administration, of British military law, who shall be called the Administrator of Polish forces under British command and is in this section referred to as "the Administrator."
§ (2) Members of the said forces shall be under obligation to observe, in matters concerning their discipline and internal administration, the rules in force as to those matters under the law of Poland on the first day of January, nineteen hundred and forty-five, and a member of any of the said forces who contravenes or fails to observe any of the said rules in relation to which a punishment is thereby prescribed shall be guilty of an offence against this section and shall, on conviction thereof in accordance with the provisions of this section, be liable, subject to the provisions of this section, to the punishment prescribed by those rules:
645§ (5) The Administrator may delegate, generally or in particular cases, to such person or persons as he may think fit, power to do things that are within his jurisdiction or power under the two last preceding subsections, and any such delegation may limit the exercise of a jurisdiction or power so delegated as respects the measure of punishment that may be awarded thereunder or in any other respect, or make it subject to confirmation or review by another such person or persons or by himself or to any other conditions, and may include power to sub-delegate:
§
VISCOUNT SIMON moved, in subsection (1) to leave out "appearing to him to have a good knowledge, and to be experienced in the administration, of British military law" and to insert
holding or having held a rank not below that of Major-General in the Army or a corresponding rank: in another of the Armed Forces of the Crown.
The noble and learned Viscount said: I indicated on the Second Reading of the Bill that it appeared to me that in Clause 9 some small changes might be made which would be of advantage. The Amendment which I am moving, which is in slightly different terms from that on the Paper, is one of those which I think the House will accept and which I believe the Government are also willing to see made in its revised form. Your Lordships may possibly remember the comment which I ventured to make on the Bill as it came before us on Second Reading: that there was nothing at all on the face of the Bill to indicate who this Administrator should be, except that he was to be a person of British nationality, appointed by the Secretary of State, with a knowledge and experience of the administration of British military law.
§ It was made quite clear to us in that debate by the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, that what was intended was to appoint an officer of very high rank who was in, or had been in, the British Army. My proposal is merely to insert words which would show that that was the intention of Parliament. I thought, and I still think, that it is undesirable in an Act of Parliament so vaguely to describe a person who is to exercise what are really judicial functions; it is better to indicate what we all mean in regard to the kind of person who would be suitable. At the suggestion of the Government, I am not moving the words which I had proposed to move—"being a person appearing to him to have a good knowledge, and to be experienced 646 in the administration, of British military law," because if we state in the Bill that this administrator is to be "a person holding, or having held, a rank not below that of Major-General in the Army" or a corresponding rank in one of the other Services, it goes without saying that he will be well qualified in this respect. I beg to move.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 26, leave out from ("person") to ("who") in line 28 and insert ("holding of having hell a rank not below that of Major-General in the Army or a corresponding rank in another of the Armed Forces of the Crown.")—(Viscount Simon.)
THE LORD CHANCELLORI am very grateful to the noble and learned Viscount for raising this point and for moving the Amendment in this form. It is one which I am perfectly happy to accept, and I have no doubt that it is an improvement. In one sense it is unnecessary, because what we intend to do is to appoint somebody holding a rank not less than that of Lieutenant-General. However, your Lordships will say—rightly, perhaps—"Why not put it into the Bill?" This Amendment has the effect of putting it into the Bill. The only hesitation I have ever had about it was on the question of delay. It is vitally important that we should get this Bill through, because at the present time the whole situation is rather chaotic. We have here this large number of Poles who do not know quite where they stand; and further Poles will be arriving almost any day now. They are from the Polish Army in Italy, and they come here without any knowledge of our language or our traditions. They have been subject to Polish military law, and that is the only law of which they have any knowledge at all. However, I have made inquiries and I find that the fact that we accept this and the next Amendment but one will not prejudice the possibility—assuming that the other place agree with us, as I feel sure they will—of getting the Royal Assent next Thursday. That being so, I am happy to accept this Amendment.
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD FARINGDONI am in some difficulty here. I had understood that 647 the noble and learned Viscount was going to move his second Amendment, and if I had known that he was not doing so I should myself have put down a similar one. I do not quite know what the correct procedure is, now that the noble Viscount does not propose to move. Perhaps the Lord Chairman could help me.
THE LORD CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEESA manuscript Amendment may be put in by the noble Lord, even at this late stage.
LORD FARINGDONI wanted to support the Amendment which the noble and learned Viscount had on the Paper. It is a complete surprise to me that he does not propose to move it, and I do not see how I could have known that in advance. I do not know what the position is, but I understand that I can move the Amendment.
§ VISCOUNT SIMONMay I say that I would not, of course, willingly stand in the noble Lord's way at all? He is quite right when he says this Amendment was on the Paper, and I can well understand that he expected me to move it. However, on reflection, I came to the conclusion that I should not do so. I had not realized that I was thereby entrapping, unintentionally, anybody else.
THE LORD CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEESWill the noble Lord, Lord Faringdon, move the Amendment, with the leave of the House?
§ LORD FARINGDON moved, in subsection (2), to leave out "on the first day of January nineteen hundred and forty-five" and insert "as described or defined in an Order in Council to be made under this Act, or in any Order in Council subsequently substituted therefor." The noble Lord said: With the leave of the House I should like, very briefly, to move the Amendment which stands in the name of the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Simon. I had not expected to move it, but it is a point on which I feel very strongly. The House may be aware that I spoke on a measure which was passed during the war and which allowed the operation in this country of laws other than the English law. It may be within 648 the memory of some of your Lordships that at that time I expressed extreme disquiet; and that disquiet I feel about this particular suggestion in this Bill. It is a curious Thing that any law but the British law should be allowed to operate here. I understand the difficulty in which His Majesty's Government are placed in this respect—it was well outlined by the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, on the Second Reading—but I thought all the difficulties would be met by the proposal of the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Simon, which is contained in this Amendment.
§ It seemed to me that if this Amendment were adopted it would be possible to operate so much of the Polish law as was desired, and to abrogate it or to alter it by Order in Council without an Amendment to the Bill, which I understand would be necessary as the Bill stands at present. Moreover, there are, I believe, peculiar legal difficulties. The law which it is proposed should be enforced is the military law of Poland as it existed on January 1945. I am informed that in a similar case the law of England, for instance, of 1843, would in fact be the law of England as it existed then and as it had been interpreted by the Courts since then. Clearly, nothing of that sort is possible in the case of the Polish law of 1945. It could not, for example, be said that since 1945 the Polish Courts had given this or that interpretation of the Polish law of that period. That, I gather, could not be done under this Bill, and therefore a very peculiar position exists.
§ May I put it in another way? Suppose a man were married in France, came over to this country arid married another woman here. He could be charged in our Courts with bigamy, and convicted. If he then appealed in France; and the French Courts held that in fact his marriage in France was not a good marriage, he would, I understand, no longer be guilty of bigamy in this country, because there had been an interpretation by the French Courts of their own law, from whatever period it happened to date, which made his marriage in France invalid. It seemed to me, therefore, that this suggestion that the Polish law should be given to us as the law for the Polish Resettlement Corps was an undesirable one. I thought the suggestion of the noble and learned Viscount an eminently sensible one—and one by 649 which so much of the law as was convenient could be operated, and whereby the law could be varied easily and without difficulty. I have no doubt that there are good reasons why the noble and learned Viscount has thought better of his suggestion. I speak as a layman in these matters but as one who has been deeply disturbed by this proposal in the Bill. I beg to move.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 34, leave out ("on the first day of January nineteen hundred and forty-five") and insert ("as described or defined in an Order in Council to be made under this Act, or in any Order in Council subsequently substituted therefor").—(Lord Faringdon.)
§ VISCOUNT SIMONPerhaps I may be allowed to give a word of explanation. I have already said that I never for a moment imagined I was raising any difficulty for the noble Lord who has just spoken. Had I done so, I should have informed him earlier of my intention not to move. I put down the Amendment believing it to be a good one, and I still think that in an ideal situation, with plenty of time to argue everything out, there would be a good deal to be said for it, But what has moved me is the conviction that it is necessary to have immediately some definite and firm law of discipline for these Poles coming into this country. When I weighed the matter up I did not feel that I should take the responsibility of proposing an Amendment which, whatever its theoretical merits—and I am not denying that it has such—would be likely to postpone for some time the settlement of this matter and the clear establishment under a British Statute that there is a system of discipline for these people.
Just to illustrate how difficult this is to argue—not in the least to reprove the noble Lord—may I say that I could not agree with him about the illustration he gave of bigamy. Nobody could be convicted of bigamy in this country if he commits it abroad, unless he is a British subject. There are all sorts of complications, and I mention that, not to correct anybody, but to show what a difficult crossword puzzle everybody will have to solve. I am sure the Government will understand that I am not withdrawing my opinion, and my proposition might 'be a better one. But there is the necessity for getting prompt and unquestionable authority to administer discipline to 650 these people, and I feel that that outweighs other arguments which, in a different situation, I would have advanced.
THE LORD CHANCELLORI am grateful to the noble and learned Viscount. May I tell the noble Lord, Lord Faring-don, how I see the position? I have here the handbook of Polish military law. It is the military law of Poland as it existed at the outbreak of war, and it contains 530 pages. Of course, I cannot understand a single word on a single page, but that is the law. In addition to that, year by year—the last was the year 1944—emendations have come out which in some way have modified or altered that law. The last one for 1944 contains 53 pages, which again I do not understand. It is really quite impossible, as things are to-day, that we should contemplate setting out in an Order in Council a translation of the whole of the relevant Polish law. This applies to Poles, most of whom cannot speak a word of English, and this is the law they—unlike myself—understand.
That being so, the only practical thing one could do was to set out in the Schedule to an Order in Council the same words, or the same effect in words, that we have here. I agree that in that way theoretically we should have a more flexible instrument, and we could alter it not solely by an Act of Parliament but by another Order in Council. But there are practical disadvantages. As we know, these Poles are most gallant soldiers, but a very large number are also most ardent politicians. I would much rather not have to alter the law of Poland. The Administrator can modify the position as he likes. For instance, suppose (it is not in fact the case) that under the law of Poland a man can get five years' imprisonment for not saluting an officer. If a man is had up for not saluting and is sentenced to five years' imprisonment, this Major-General or Lieutenant-General would be able to let him off after five days or five minutes. He can deal with the matter in an administrative way, and I cannot see why there should be any necessity to alter the corpus of the law.
As the noble and learned Viscount mentioned, it is immensely important, in the interests of the men themselves and in the interests of the people of this country, that we should not bring to this country a large body of men who, up to this date, have been subject to a military law, and 651 who are so placed now that they do not know what their position is. It is not fair to them, it is not fair to the people of this country, and it is not fair to anybody. 1 have talked to Polish officers, and I have asked them all sorts of questions to find out whether there are any forms or degrees of punishment which our law does not allow. And there are not. All Polish soldiers sentenced to a considerable term of imprisonment are serving it in our prisons. There is nothing in the Polish law which cannot be dealt with in an administrative way, and I would advise your Lordships, in the interests of everybody, to leave this as we had it. I agree that it is less flexible, but for the reason I have given I think it is more satisfactory. That is why I cannot accept this Amendment.
LORD FARINGDONI am somewhat comforted by the statement of the noble and learned Viscount that in fact this law can be made rather more flexible by administrative action. I do not believe lawyers would think that this is the best way of dealing with such a problem. I would say, in passing, that the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Simon, must have misunderstood me. It surely cannot be the case that a married Frenchman can come to this country and marry again.
§ VISCOUNT SIMONI thought the assumption was that it was a foreigner.
LORD FARINGDONI meant a Frenchman who married again over here. I do not agree, either, with the statement of the noble and learned Viscount that this Amendment would cause delay. In point of fact, this point was strongly urged by His Majesty's Government in another place, and received a great deal of support. I have little doubt that if your Lordships passed it, it would not cause delay. However, the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, has comforted me in large measure, and, rather unhappily, I will, with the leave of the House, withdraw my Amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ VISCOUNT SIMON moved, in subsection (5) after "fit," to insert "being an officer or officers serving or having served in the forces of Poland or of His Majesty." The noble and learned Viscount said: This Bill, having now been navigated through any dangers or 652 unseen perils, my little Amendment at the end is the mildest thing that can be imagined. It is nothing more than to provide in Clause 9, page 1o, line 9, some definition of what is meant when it is said that the Administrator may delegate his powers "to such person or persons as he may think fit." I took strong objection to that on the Second Reading, because it seemed to me to be rather shocking to put in a British Act of Parliament, along with a provision conferring powers which are, to a large extent, judicial, and even where they are administrative have to be carried out in the judicial spirit, the further provision that those powers might be handed over to anybody else. Of course, that was not what was meant, but it was said.
§ Therefore, I hope the Government will agree that the person or persons referred to should be defined as an officer or officers serving or having served in the forces of Poland or in any of the Armed Forces of the Crown. That will, I think, express exactly what is the Government's declared intention, and it has the advantage to which I, at any rate, attach considerable importance, that we should not pass an Act of Parliament with enormously wide general powers accompanied with a mere assurance that those powers will be exercised in a particular and reasonable way. Undoubtedly such assurances would be given, but it is a question of the proper way in which to legislate. In my humble submission, wherever it is possible we ought to put on the face of the Statute Book what we mean, and we ought not to leave it to the Government—not even this Government—to give us assurances as to the way in which they will carry out these powers. I beg to move.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 9, after "fit" insert the said words.—(Viscount Simon.)
LORD SALTOUNA number of Poles have expressed to me a little anxiety, and I think it arises on this point. They say that they are going to be helped by various Government Departments, and they feel that, should a difficulty arise, while the ordinary citizen of the country can appeal to his Member of Parliament they cannot very well do so. Therefore they would very much like to have in liaison with the Departments persons of their own nationality to whom they could appeal. I suppose such persons would be the subordinates of the Administrator and would have powers delegated by him if 653 they were appointed. I wish to put that point to His Majesty's Government only as indicating something that is desired, and I hope they will be able to consider it favourably.
LORD FARINGDONOn this point of delegation, I would like to ask if His Majesty's Government can give a certain assurance. Some of us have been deeply disturbed by a case, which I think has been reported in the newspapers, of a certain Doctor Dering, who was surgeon in a Polish military hospital in Italy, and who was admitted to this country. He turned out to have been a deputy chief of Auschwitz concentration camp and was wanted as a war criminal by, I think, Poland, Czechoslovakia and France. It is very difficult to be quite certain who people are. The Poles themselves would not have wished a person of this kind to be an officer in their Army, but he was admitted after the war as a lieutenant in the Second Army Corps. That these things can happen is evident, and I ask His Majesty's Government to give an assurance that when these powers are delegated those to whom they are to be delegated will be most carefully screened.
THE LORD CHANCELLORI certainly give that assurance. I may say that I accept this Amendment at once. It is plainly right, and it is plainly what we intend to do. We want a British officer at the top, and I take it that he would probably want a small number of British officers under him; then, of course, the greater part of the delegation would be to Polish officers. I will certainly see that everything is done to enable any Pole who thinks himself in any way aggrieved to bring forward his complaint through his own officers. I think that would be the desire of all of us. I am grateful to the noble and learned Viscount for moving the Amendment and I accept it. It carries out exactly what we want. It is an improvement of the Bill, and I am most anxious that the Poles should know that in these very difficult circumstances we have to make all sort of arrangements of a sort quite unprecedented. The Poles may rest assured that we will see that each and all of them have a fair deal.
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ Clause 9, as amended, agreed to.
§ Remaining Clauses and Schedule agreed to.
654§ House resumed.
§ Then, Standing Order No. XXXIX, having been suspended, Bill reported with Amendments.
§ Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a. (The Lord Chancellor.)
LORD SALTOUNMy Lords, I should like to take this opportunity of thanking the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack for what he said on Second Reading on the favourable consideration to be given by the Government to the naturalization of Poles. In my opinion there will not be a large number who will avail themselves of this opportunity, but I think it is a generous and appropriate gesture. In fact, I personally think that it would be a great advantage to our own country if we could get over here the many fine people who are at a loose end in Europe. There is one other point I would put to His Majesty's Government. I hope they will be able to give favourable consideration to assisting Poles in this country who are trying to set up in business for themselves. I know there are great difficulties but I hope they will be able to do this.
LORD FARINGDONMy Lords, the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack said on Second Reading that he would answer a question about detention camps. I find there is no provision in the Bill to set up detention camps, and I conclude that individual members of the Polish Resettlement Corps, if condemned to detention, will serve in. British camps.
THE LORD CHANCELLORI am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, for what he has said about me. I agree that the Home Secretary should—and I am sure he will—do what he can to consider the particular aspect indicated by the noble Lord, if these: people make their homes over here and if they are unwilling to go back to their own country. Certainly we should not seek to force them to go back. We must go half-way to meet them, but they must come half-way to meet us. They must become useful citizens, and we should give them every assistance in becoming useful citizens of their adopted country. The answer to the question which the noble Lord asked me about detention camps is that, by the I application of the Billeting Forces Act, 655 persons can be detained in British camps, so they can be detained under this Bill in British camps if necessary. I do not anticipate any question of Polish detention camps.
§ On Question, Bill read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.