BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (Hansard, 31 July 1952)

§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS (THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY)

My Lords, I beg to move the first Motion standing in my name. In doing so I think I should inform the House of the gist of a message which the noble Lord, Lord Douglas of Barloch, has been good enough to send to me. He says that he had understood that the proceedings on the Defamation Bill would take place after the Motion on Foreign Affairs to-day, and that he put down the Amendments which stand in his name on that understanding. Unfortunately, on the assumption that the further stages of the Bill would be purely formal, I had in the meantime, by agreement with the Opposition, put off further discussion of the Bill until Friday morning. That, as your Lordships will see, would have been possible only if, in fact, the proceedings were to be formal. If there were likely to be further discussions, noble Lords would wish to be present.

But as many noble Lords, in all parts of the House, had already made other arrangements which would have made it impossible for them to be here on Friday, I arranged, again in agreement with the Opposition, for the House to meet to-day at 2.30, and transferred the Defamation Bill proceedings back to this afternoon, before the Foreign Affairs debate. I did that to meet the convenience of Peers. It now, most unhappily, appears that, owing to previous engagements which the noble Lord, Lord Douglas of Barloch, had made, he is unable to be here in the earlier stages of our discussion, and he has asked me to explain the situation. I am quite certain that the House will most readily accept his explanation. His absence is due to no discourtesy to the House, and I would add that of course in what I said yesterday I did not in any 492 way intend to imply that the noble Lord, Lord Douglas of Barloch, had not the right to table Amendments at the Report stage, even though he had not been here in the earlier stages. Of course he has every right—the right that every Peer has. I only commented on the fact that the noble Lord had taken no part in the previous stages of the Bill, and explained why we, and I think the House as well, had been somewhat taken by surprise and why we had altered our arrangements at the last moment. I beg to move.

§ EARL JOWITT

My Lords, I am certainly not going to oppose this Motion. May I say that, from my point of view, I have always found the noble Marquess the Leader of the House most considerate in meeting the wishes of any noble Lord? Of course, we are rather driven by the calendar and the fact of time, and I quite realise the noble Marquess's position. It is, if he will forgive my saying so, unfortunate—I am not making the smallest complaint—that we should find ourselves in this position. For instance, we are to have the Third Reading directly after the Report stage of this important Defamation Bill. One of the very few rules of order we have—and one to which I hope we shall adhere—is that we do not allow Amendments on Third Reading unless they are on the Paper. The noble Marquess, I am sure, would be the first to agree that that fact makes it desirable, if circumstances permit, that there should be reasonable time between the Report stage and Third Reading in order that we may survey the Bill as a whole and, if we so desire, put down Amendments on Third Reading. I confess that there is one very small Amendment which I might myself have moved on Third Reading.

So far as the noble Lord, Lord Douglas of Barloch, is concerned, the whole thing has been a chapter of accidents. As the noble Marquess has said, Lord Douglas had a perfect right to put down the Amendments which he did put down. It is just bad luck that things have worked out as they have. It would certainly be extremely inconvenient to have the House 493 coming back on Friday for a Report stage if that were not to be purely formal. A large number of your Lordships would doubtless have found it most difficult to attend on that day. In the circumstances, the noble Marquess did the right thing in taking the line which he has taken. I know that he regrets, as much as the noble Lord, Lord Douglas of Barloch himself regrets, the necessity for these changes. All this just shows haw difficult the whole situation is towards the end of the Session when we are trying to clear up outstanding business.