Lords Sitting of 26 April 1955

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers

  PRIVATE AND PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION BILLS
  2.35 p.m.
  THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF DROGHEDA): My Lords, the formidable-looking Motion standing in my name is needed to carry over to the next Parliament Private and Provisional Order Bills which have already been introduced into either House of Parliament. I beg formally to move.
  Moved to resolve,
  That the promoters of every Private or Provisional Order Confirmation Bill and petitioners for Personal Bills which shall have been introduced into or presented to this House in the present Session of Parliament, and which shall have passed this House and been sent to the House of Commons, or which shall be pending in this House, shall have leave to introduce or present the same in the next Session of Parliament, provided that notice of their intention to do so be lodged in the Private Bill Office not later than Noon on the last sitting day of the present Session; and provided that all fees due by them thereon, up to that period, be paid;
  That an alphabetical list of all such Bills, with a statement of the stages at which they shall have arrived, shall be prepared in the Private Bill Office, and printed;
  That every such Bill which has originated in this House shall be deposited in the Private Bill Office not later than three o'clock on or before the third day on which the House shall sit after the next meeting of Parliament for business other than judicial business, with a declaration annexed thereto, signed in the case of a Private Bill by the agent, and in the case of a Provisional Order Confirmation Bill by an officer of the department by which the Orders to be confirmed by such Bill
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  are made, stating that the Bill is the same in every respect as the Bill at the last stage of the proceedings thereon in this House in the present Session;
  That in case any such Bill brought from the House of Commons in the present Session, upon which the proceedings shall have been suspended in this House, shall be brought from the House of Commons in the next Session of Parliament, the agent for such Bill, or an officer of the department, as the case may be, shall deposit in the Private Bill Office after the Bill shall have passed the House of Commons and prior to the First Reading thereof in this House, a declaration stating that the Bill is the same, in every respect, as the Bill which was brought from the House of Commons in the present Session, with this modification that if any such Bill shall have been amended in this House in the present Session, such amendments shall be deemed to have been made in Committee;
  That such Bills shall thereupon be deemed to have been passed through every stage through which the same shall have passed in the present Session; and that no new fees be charged in regard to such stages;
  That the Standing Orders by which the proceedings on Bills are regulated shall not apply to any Private or Provisional Order Confirmation Bill which shall have originated in this House or been brought up from the House of Commons in the present Session in regard to any of the stages through which the same shall have passed;
  That every certificate from the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills given in respect of any Private or Provisional Order Confirmation Bill originating in the House of Commons, upon which the proceedings shall have been suspended in that House in the present Session, shall be deemed to have been given in respect of such Bill, if the same shall be brought from the House of Commons in the next Session of Parliament, and any notices published and served, and any deposits made in respect of such Bill, in respect of the present Session shall be held to have been published, served and made respectively for the Bill so brought

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  from the House of Commons in the next Session of Parliament;
  That no petitioners shall be heard before the Committee on any Bill unless their petition shall have been presented within the time limited in the present Session;
  That in case the time limited for presenting petitions against any such Bill has not expired at the close of the present Session, petitioners may be heard before the Committee on such Bill, provided that their petition shall be presented not later than the fourth day on which the House shall sit for business other than judicial business in the next Session.—(The Earl of Drogheda.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to: Ordered that a Message be sent to the Commons to acquaint them with the above Resolutions.

  CROFTERS (SCOTLAND) BILL
  Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS (THE EARL OF HOME): My Lords, I have it in Command from Her Majesty The Queen to signify to the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Crofters (Scotland) Bill, has consented to place the interests of the Crown at the disposal of Parliament for the purpose of the Bill.
  After the long debate on Second Reading, and the care with which Amendments were moved on the Committee stage, I do not think your Lordships will wish me to make a speech on Third Reading. The purpose of the Bill is to reorganise the crofting communities of the Highlands so that they shall play a full part in the modern economy. I think your Lordships have accepted that purpose, and I will, therefore, ask your Lordships to give the Bill a Third Reading. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a third time.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(The Earl of Home.)
  On Question, Bill read 3a, and passed.

  REQUISITIONED HOUSES AND HOUSING (AMENDMENT) BILL
  2.38 p.m.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (THE EARL OF MUNSTER): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. After a discussion through the usual channels, it was found more convenient to postpone the Second Reading of this Bill from Thursday last, April 21, until to-day. I am glad, as I am sure all your Lordships are, to see that the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, has returned to his place, and I trust that he has recovered from his recent illness.
  This Bill is divided into two parts. The first part seeks to amend the existing law on requisitioned houses, and the second part amends various Housing Acts affecting England and Wales, and Scotland. Although the war has been over for some ten years, there are still 60,000 houses held under requisitioning powers in which are dwelling to-day some 90,000 families. Of that figure just under 50,000 properties are situated in the Greater London area, so that to a large extent this measure deals with London. I think there can be no noble Lord in this House who would not agree that requisitioning was absolutely essential during the war years and, indeed, for several years thereafter; but it was never contemplated at that time that requisitioning under emergency powers should continue indefinitely or become a permanent part of our housing system.
  The House may remember that local authorities have held these requisitioned properties as agents for Her Majesty's Government, although in practice, as I understand, they are now treated as part of the authorities' general housing pool. I do not think it would be unfair to local authorities to say that some of them, at any rate, have found it very convenient to cling to properties which were bequeathed to them in an emergency, for this reason: that any losses which may have occurred from time to time, in handling such properties have been paid for by Her Majesty's Government. The net cost is in the region of £6¼ million per annum. I feel sure the House will agree with me that the time has come when the old system should come to an

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  end and a new system should be introduced; a system which will remove any hardships to owners who are in serious or urgent need of their houses and who have up to date been unable to secure their release, and at the same time avoid causing hardship to families at present living in these requisitioned properties. I am glad to tell the House that the broad principles contained in this Bill have been agreed by the local authority associations. The measure has three main objects. The first is to bring to an end the use of requisitioning powers for housing purposes within the next five years; the second is to avoid causing hardship to those families at present living in these houses; and the third is to enable owners of requisitioned premises to secure their early release if they have urgent need of them.
  With those few introductory remarks, let me turn to the Bill to explain its main clauses and to indicate how the Government's proposals will be implemented. Clause 1 transfers from the Minister of Housing to the local authority the right to possession of a requisitioned house until March 31, 1960. Clause 3 lays down that on the commencement of the Act, which will be one month after the Royal Assent has been given, any house which becomes vacant is to be released by the local authority unless the Minister grants them permission to retain it.
  Clause 4 is of particular importance, for it is the first method by which the interests of families living in requisitioned houses can be safeguarded. Under this clause the local authority will invite owners to accept the present occupants as tenants, but the rents which are payable will be controlled under the Rent Acts. Any owner who accepts the licensee as a statutory tenant will be paid compensation for forgoing his right to vacant possession. I think noble Lords who are interested in this subject will realise that if the owner of a requisitioned house did not wish to occupy it himself or, indeed, to sell it, but was willing, on the other hand, to accept the present occupants under rent-controlled tenancies, it might well be a major contribution towards reducing the number of requisitioned premises. I should add that many occupants of requisitioned houses are having their rents subsidised at the present time, and the Bill empowers local
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  authorities to maintain these subsidies for a period of ten years. In such cases as those, the local authority will pay to the owner of the requisitioned house the difference between the full controlled rent and the lower subsidised rent, and these payments in accordance with the clause will rank for a grant from the Exchequer.
  Clause 5 enables the owner of a requisitioned house to make application to the court for the release of the house if he requires it for his own purpose or for that of his near relatives. The clause gives owners exactly similar rights as the owner of a rent-controlled house, who to-day can apply to the court for possession for his own occupation. The application will, in this case, as in the other case, be considered by the court in the light of the relative hardships of the owner and the occupier. Clause 6 empowers the Minister to give directions to a local authority requiring them either to release a requisitioned house or to purchase, if the Minister is satisfied that the owner is suffering severe hardship. Clause 7 enables an owner who wishes to modernise his requisitioned house, or to convert it into flats with the aid of a grant under the Housing Acts, 1949 and 1954, and is prepared to offer tenancies to persons nominated by the local authority, to have his house released.
  I now turn to deal with the financial provisions of the Bill which are set out in Clauses 9, 10 and 11. As I think I have already mentioned and, indeed, as noble Lords will be aware, up to date Her Majesty's Government have met the whole of the expenditure in connection with requisitioned houses and will continue to do so until April 1, 1956—that is to say, April 1 next year. From that date, local authorities will be required to bear 25 per cent. of the cost, and the remaining 75 per cent. will be reimbursed by the Exchequer. Provision is made in Clause 10 of the Bill to enable the Minister to make additional grants to local authorities in those areas where the burden of rates might become excessive; but, of course, the Minister will have to be satisfied that the local authority has taken all reasonable steps to reduce the number of requisitioned houses. For this purpose, a formula has been worked out in agreement with the local authority associations.
  Under Clause 11 the Minister may make a grant to the local authority for

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  a house which is purchased or leased by them. The grant in both cases will amount to 75 per cent. for a period of twenty years on a purchase, or for ten years on a lease. I think the only other clause to which I need draw the attention of the House is Clause 16, which implements a recent recommendation of the Public Accounts Committee. In their Third Report for the year 1952–53, the Committee drew attention to the fact that no statutory limit had been laid down to the amount of advances which could be made from the Consolidated Fund to meet the operations of the Scottish Special Housing Association. Accordingly, this clause applies a limit on the advances which can be made. I have referred only briefly to the main clauses of the Bill and have endeavoured to give the House a description of each of those principal clauses. With that brief explanation, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Munster.)
  2.51 p.m.
  LORD SILKIN: My Lords, may I first of all thank the noble Earl for his kindly reference to me and for his courtesy in postponing the Second Reading from last Thursday until to-day. I hope it will be a comfort to him to know that I feel much better for those few days' respite. May I also thank him for the clear way in which he has explained what is a fairly complicated Bill. It is very significant that, at a time when a large number of measures are falling by the wayside on account of the forthcoming Election, this particular measure, which is for the relief of landowners, is one of the few to be saved. It is somewhat indicative of the approach of the present Government that a measure for the protection of landowners should have priority over, say, a measure like the Road Traffic Bill which was concerned with the safety of the citizen on the road. These are matters which will no doubt be discussed outside. We have to deal with the Bill as we find it before us.
  On the Third Reading in another place my right honourable friend Mr. Dalton said that this Bill was a very bad Bill when introduced, and that it left the Commons as a bad one; that although certain improvements had been made fundamentally it remained the same. I
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  should like to associate myself with that statement. The noble Earl described the three purposes of the Bill. I have no complaint with his description, although he laid equal emphasis on all three, and it seemed to me that that was not a correct description of what the Bill does. It enables owners of houses which were requisitioned both during the war and subsequent to the war to obtain possession of them at the latest within five years, but in certain circumstances somewhat earlier. The five-year period is certain. At the end of five years, the axe falls and every requisitioned house will go back to its owner.
  I say at once that I agree with the noble Earl that there must come a time when requisitioned houses must be returned to their owners. I should never suggest for a moment that requisitioning should go on for all time. I will admit at once that the fact of requisitioning may cause hardship to some owners and that, if it is at all possible, they should get their houses back. But what strikes me about this Bill is that, whereas the owner of a requisitioned house will certainly and inevitably get his house back by the prescribed date, March 31, 1960, there is nothing in the Bill which gives the tenant any protection or makes any suggestion how he is to get on when the axe falls and the accommodation is released, which may be even earlier than 1960 if there is severe hardship or hardship on the owner. There is nothing in this Bill which sets out what is to happen to the poor unfortunate tenant.
  I would ask the House to recollect for a moment—because in these matters public memories are very short—who these tenants or, as they are described in the Bill, licensees, occupying requisitioned houses, are. They are almost invariably people who have suffered as a result of the war, people whose homes were destroyed, who were rendered homeless. The emergency to which the noble Earl referred in the course of his speech was the emergency of hundreds of thousands of people having been rendered homeless by enemy action and something having to be done about it. I submit that this emergency still exists. If nothing is done for the licensees of these houses, these people will still be homeless and there is—I was going to say "nothing," but the noble Earl did refer to Clause 4 of the Bill—very little in the Bill which even suggests that the

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  problem of providing homes for these people when requisitioning comes to an end has been considered.
  What is the consideration that has been given? The noble Earl talked of Clause 4. I think he also mentioned that there were other clauses, but he never referred further to them. Clause 4 is the clause which provides the protection for the tenant. And what is it? It is that the local authority may enter into an agreement with the owner, and the owner may, if he wishes to, accept the licensee as a tenant. The matter is entirely in the hands of the owner. It is for him to say whether or not he will accept the tenant. If he accepts the tenant or licensee, then certain financial consequences flow. But if he does not, then what? Nothing. No provision at all is made for the unfortunate licensee or tenant in the event of the owner not desiring to accept the licensee as a tenant. If the owner looks at the matter entirely from the point of view of his own self-interest, as he is entitled to do, and as he naturally will do, why should he accept the tenant or licensee at a controlled rent, with all the difficulty thereafter of having the tenancy perpetuated and being subject to the Rent Restrictions Acts? Why should he, when he can get vacant possession of the house and sell it at the inflated prices which are still current to-day? This so-called protection to the tenant is just a will-o'-the-wisp. I cannot imagine one case in a thousand where an owner would be willing to accept a licensee as a tenant under the conditions laid down in the Bill.
  I do not want to deal with this matter at any length. My broad criticism of the Bill is that it gives no protection to the tenant or licensee during the five years in which it is possible for an owner to apply to the court or to the Minister to get possession. The owner has so many ways in which he can seek possession. He can, of course, go to court, and in many cases the very act of his threatening to go to court will be sufficient to frighten the licensee into giving possession. Incidentally, if the owner does go to court, and succeeds in establishing that his hardship is greater than that of the tenant, presumably the tenant will have to pay the cost of the proceedings, which is adding insult to injury: not only is he rendered homeless, but he also has to pay
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  the costs of establishing it. That will be the consequence. The owner can also go to the Minister: he can ask that his house should be acquired. There are no means by which the local authority can negotiate with an owner, but, as I understand the Bill, there are no powers of compulsory purchase if a local authority wish to acquire the property.
  Furthermore, as has been pointed out in another place, a great many of these houses are unsuitable for permanent occupation, and it would be foolhardy on the part of a local authority to acquire these requisitioned houses on a large scale; and many of them will not do so. I suggest that it is not practical politics for a local authority to acquire them all. So we are left with the position that, whenever during the five years, the owner of a house can establish that he is suffering greater hardship than the tenant, or severe hardship, then the tenant can be dispossessed and there is nothing in the Bill that ensures that he will be given other accommodation. Certainly the owner is not required to give him alternative accommodation; nor is the local authority. At the end of five years what will certainly happen is that the owner will get possession automatically and the licensees will be left "in the air." This Bill would have been much improved if it had included something giving the tenant definite protection, so as to let him know that whatever happens, even if his hardship is not as great as that of the owner, he will not find himself without a roof over his head. If that is the intention, there is no reason at all why it should not be stated.
  As the noble Earl has explained, some 60,000-odd dwellings, and 90,000 families, are involved. Most of them are in the London area, but a substantial number are in Birmingham. As I say, these are all victims of the war. The local authority find themselves in this difficulty: that in so far as they are able to provide alternative accommodation for families who become victims of this Bill, they are to that extent deferring the time when other families on the housing list, whose need may be equally great, can get possession of a house. I should have thought that the sensible thing would have been not to hurry this matter but to defer the date of possession until such time as the local authority are definitely

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  in a position to ensure that families who are dispossessed can get alternative accommodation.
  There was some discussion about this matter in another place, and I believe that the Minister was prepared—I admit that he said he was not convinced of the need—to extend the period for two years, over and above the five years, in those cases where the local authority could establish that they needed a little longer. But he attached a condition which seemed to me, with all respect, to be an unreasonable condition—namely, that there should be no voting against the Third Reading of the Bill. There are other features of this Bill to which some of my friends in another place objected, and it seemed to me that to impose a condition of this kind in exchange for accepting an Amendment was utterly unreasonable, and something which deprived Members of another place of their proper rights.
  We in this House are not going to divide against the Second Reading of the Bill, and we shall probably not divide against the Third Reading. In those circumstances, I should like to ask the noble Earl, Lord Munster, whether the extension of two years which the Minister in another place was prepared to grant, on certain conditions, might not be granted here. In any case it would have had to be done by way of an Amendment in this House, because the suggestion was made at a late stage in the proceedings in another place. If the noble Earl is prepared to give an assurance that that will be done on the Committee stage, it will go some little way towards meeting the fears of many people, particularly the local authorities in areas where there are a large number of requisitioned houses, that they may be faced with a crisis because they will not be able to provide the housing that is needed when requisitioning comes to an end. It will also remove the fears of tenants who are in a state of considerable anxiety and uncertainty about what will happen to them at the end of the requisitioning period. As I have said, we do not propose to divide against the Second Reading. We think it somewhat strange that this Bill, of all others, should have been rescued from the guillotine, but I hope that even at this late stage the noble Earl will be able to do something to make the Bill
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  a better Bill and one which will give less anxiety to those who are so deeply concerned about it.
  3.8 p.m.
  LORD MESTON: My Lords, it is always rather difficult to speak after the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, because he has such a profound knowledge of this matter in which everybody else appears to be a mere amateur. I should, however, like to congratulate the Government upon having introduced this Bill, which deals with a rather difficult subject. I do not think that the Bill will cause any profound satisfaction or achieve any profound objective, but that is not the fault of the Government; it is due entirely to the complexity of the problem. The difficulty is that the subject of requisition, like the subject of rent restriction, will be solved only by the erection of more dwelling-houses.
  I know that noble Lords have no jurisdiction over financial matters, but I am sorry to see that within a short time 25 per cent. of the cost of management of requisitioned premises will have to be borne by the local authorities. In my view, the present arrangement, under which the Exchequer carry the whole 100 per cent. of the expense, is far more equitable and should be continued. The burden of local rates is an absolute abomination of desolation. It has increased, is increasing and is likely to increase ad infinitum. Therefore, in the circumstances, what is going to be done should there be any great increase in local rates? Moveover, 80 per cent. of these properties are in the Greater London area, and a certain number of boroughs in that area are likely to suffer a considerable increase in the rates. I appreciate that, under Clause 10 (2) of the Bill, the Minister has power to make a special grant to a local authority; but that is a somewhat indefinite and circuitous way of dealing with the matter. It would be far more simple, and fairer, to say that the Exchequer will continue to pay the whole of the amount of the expense of requisitioned premises.
  Passing to Clause 4, which I consider is one of the most important in the Bill, I would say that here again Her Majesty's Government should be thanked for having materially amended the clause since the Bill was first introduced. It deals with a number of important matters, including liability for payment of rates. There are, however, a few comments which one may

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  still make upon it. The owner may receive a notice inviting him to accord to the licensee of the dwelling the status of statutory tenant. I should like to know, as a matter of interest, what will happen to an owner who does not accept that invitation. I recollect that a gentleman called Mr. Daniel once received an invitation to "Messrs. Lions"; but history does not tell us of any second invitation. I should also like to see a definition of "statutory tenant." Her Majesty's Government may say, quite correctly, that it is unnecessary to have any such definition because Clause 4 deals with that matter. But there are various types of statutory tenant. There are those who remain on after the termination of a contractual tenancy; there are those who become statutory tenants on the death of the previous statutory tenant by virtue of some relationship. Curiously enough, when one comes to Part I of the Landlord and Tenant Act, 1954, one finds there are statutory tenants who become statutory tenants at the termination of a ground lease yet who were not previously within the protection of the Rent Restrictions Acts. The position might be made clearer by a definition of a statutory tenant.
  In subsection (4) I see a reference to a statutory successor of a licensee. What happens when a statutory tenant dies before 1960 and leave no widow or other dependent who would otherwise be entitled to succeed him under the provisions of the Rent Restrictions Acts? In those circumstances a dwelling, which might be a flat or an entire building, may become vacant. Can an owner resume possession or is he bound to let the premises again to some other person who becomes a statutory tenant? That may be a rather extraordinary way of becoming a statutory tenant, but I assume that that is what will happen. In the circumstances I have mentioned, will the landlord be entitled himself to resume possession? If, in fact, the Rent Restrictions Acts applied in the ordinary way, the landlord would certainly be entitled to resume possession where the premises became vacant.
  In regard to repairs it appears that, under Clause 4 (2), paragraph (a), terminal compensation under the Compensation (Defence) Act, 1939, becomes payable when a local authority give up possession—that is to say, one week or there-
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  abouts after the owner accepts the invitation mentioned in that clause. I do not wish to say anything defamatory about licensees of requisitioned premises, but the bare truth is that the majority of requisitioned premises in this country are in a most deplorable state of repair and require a great deal to be done to them. In order to carry out the desired repairs it may be necessary for landlords to have very wide powers of entry and, if necessary, to be able to go to the county court and obtain possession in order to carry out those repairs. I hope that Her Majesty's Government will look at that point between now and the Committee stage to see whether it is covered by the Bill as at present drafted.
  With regard to terminal compensation payable under the 1939 Act, the extraordinary position is that an owner of premises may receive compensation but is not compelled to use it in carrying out any repairs. If he has let the premises to a tenant there may be some contractual arrangement made between him and the tenant as to what ought to be done with the money; but the ordinary owner-occupier who receives terminal compensation under the 1939 Act is not compelled, as far as I know, to spend that money on repairs to the premises. Last but not least, I should like to know whether the provisions of the Housing (Repairs and Rents) Act, 1954, are in any way excluded by the provisions of the present Bill. Suppose that an owner of premises complies with the requirements of that Act and spends the necessary money in carrying out repairs within the required time; will he be entitled to increase the rent of the statutory tenant? I consider Clause 4 is important. If I have raised any "red herrings" I hope they may be struck out; but if any suggestion of mine is considered worthy of consideration, I hope Her Majesty's Government will consider it.
  3.18 p.m.
  THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, it is hardly surprising that at this particular time in the fortunes of the country many issues should be conjured up in order that one or other of the Parties might make a satisfactory appeal to the electorate. I was not in the least surprised, therefore, to hear the opening observations of the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, that this measure might well have fallen by the wayside had it not been one which was

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  devised entirely for the relief of landowners. I thought that, once again, the noble Lord was drawing a red herring across the trail. There is no foundation whatsoever for the charge that, as the result of the passage into law of this Bill, many people will be homeless by 1960 or (in the words of the noble Lord opposite) will be living in a state of uncertainty or deep anxiety. I would suggest, subject to correction, that the noble Lord probably would never have made that charge without an ear to popular appeal. Perhaps he will forgive me for saying that it may be because he is bankrupt of all criticism of Her Majesty's Government. The noble Lord reminded me of that old story of the blind man who was searching in a dark room for a black hat which was not there.
  LORD SILKIN: The noble Earl says he speaks subject to correction and I should therefore like to take the first opportunity of correcting him. I had thought of making this same speech, apart from the reference to the Election, even had there been no Election impending.
  THE EARL OF MUNSTER: I naturally accept what the noble Lord says, but obviously he will not mind my observations as a result of his speech.
  What is the position of those now living in requisitioned houses? Are they threatened with wholesale eviction after 1960? Is their security of tenure seriously jeopardised? The 90,000 families who are living in these requisitioned properties are not all people who were suffering from enemy action. Let me remind the noble Lord that at the end of the war there were some 71,500 properties which had been requisitioned. After the war, some 52,000 extra properties were added; and since the end of the war, about 62,000 properties have been released. So it seems to me that this is not a matter of dealing merely with those people who were bombed out of their original homes by enemy action and had to move elsewhere. Of course, neither my right honourable friend the Minister of Housing nor, indeed, Her Majesty's Government ever contemplated releasing requisitioned houses without making adequate provision for the existing occupants. As I say, the Bill does nothing to make any one homeless at all.
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  I wonder whether the noble Lord opposite really believes that the local authority associations would have approved the proposals in this Bill if the noble Lord's fears were genuine. Let me remind the House what they said. They said this:
  "We consider that the proposals provide a reasonable and workable scheme for bringing emergency requisitioning procedure to an end."
  With due respect to the housing obligations of the borough councils, between now and 1960 many occupants of these requisitioned houses will move out of their present premises into council houses or elsewhere. In fact, moves of that sort, as the noble Lord knows better than I do, are proceeding continuously; and since the introduction of the Bill in another place the number of requisitioned properties has already shown a decrease. If the noble Lord will turn to the Bill, he will find that, under Clause 3, a local authority who find difficulty in providing alternative accommodation for the inhabitants of a requisitioned house may retain possession of that house by agreement with the Ministry——
  LORD SILKIN: Is that not only until requisitioning generally comes to an end, and not after that?
  THE EARL OF MUNSTER: I am coming to that. I am trying to deal with individual points. Local authorities can, subject to the Minister's agreement, retain possession of these premises.
  We go from there to Clause 4. There are, I am told, a number of owners of requisitioned properties who would be willing to accept the licensee as a statutory tenant where the provisions of the Rent Acts apply. It is believed—I think not without some truth—that many of the owners of requisitioned premises already have other houses in which they are living. They would, therefore, be prepared to let their houses in accordance with the terms of the Rent Acts, more especially as they have an opportunity of obtaining some compensation under Clause 4. Under Clause 5, if the owner, having appealed to the court for the release of his house on grounds of hardship, obtains it, then the local authority will provide the occupants with other accommodation. The noble Lord may well say: Where? Well, those individuals can be housed under Clause 3, which gives the local authority power to retain possession

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  with the consent of the Minister, of certain houses. And I have no doubt whatever that there will not be all that number of cases which will go to the courts, which will judge, as they are doing to-day, which is the greater hardship—that of the owner or that of the existing tenant. In any event, let me assure the noble Lord that the cost of proceedings may certainly be borne by the owner; they may certainly be borne by the local authority, but they will never, in fact, be borne by the tenant.
  We come next to Clause 6 which enables a local authority to make the owner an offer to purchase the house. Having obtained that house by purchase, the local authority will clearly be able to put into that particular property any tenants of the present requisitioned houses. Local authorities, as the noble Lord knows well, can also rent houses they need to retain after 1960. I am advised that there are a considerable number of owners of requisitioned properties who would be perfectly willing to let their property to a local authority for a period of ten or fifteen years. Again, in London (and this is primarily, as the noble Lord agrees, a London problem) a local authority may well have to provide alternative accommodation by purchase; and they already possess compulsory purchase powers under the Housing Act, 1936. It is true that we hope these compulsory powers will be used only in a last resort. From advice which I have received, I have reason to believe that there are many owners who would be prepared to offer their houses for sale at a reasonable and proper price.
  I hope that I have—I will not say persuaded, but moved, the noble Lord to believe me when I say that, under the terms of this measure, there is no reason whatsoever why tenants of requisitioned properties should, either before or after 1960, have any fear about finding themselves thrown out of their present houses. The noble Lord was good enough to give me some information which tended to show that he was thinking of putting down an Amendment at a later stage of the Bill, to see whether it would not be possible to extend the five-year period by a further two years. My immediate answer is that I do not think that that is really necessary. If it had been necessary,
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  I imagine that the local authority associations would have impressed that particular point upon my right honourable friend himself.
  I pass on to reply, very briefly, to one or two points which were made by the noble Lord, Lord Meston. He asked whether there was a definition of "statutory tenant" in Clause 4. There is no definition of the actual words "statutory tenant," because it was thought that those words themselves served to emphasise that the tenant will, in fact, have the protection of the Rent Acts. Then the noble Lord asked me what would happen where, under, I think, Clause 5, the owner accepted a licensee as a statutory tenant and that tenant vacated the property or died without a legal successor. What would happen to the house? I think it is clear that in those circumstances the landlord could occupy the property himself or sell it. In short, in those circumstances the house would revert to the owner under the ordinary arrangements of the Rent Acts at the present time. There were various other detailed points which the noble Lord put to me, and upon which I will let him have a reply in due course—no doubt, he will put down Amendments on the next stage of the Bill. In passing, he wished to know whether an owner taking advantage of Clause 7 (which enables an owner to modernise his house or to convert it into flats) would he be eligible to secure aid under the Housing Act, 1954. The answer is, that he would be able to secure aid under that Act, as well as under the Housing Act, 1949, and that his premises would then be derequisitioned on the understanding that he offered tenancies to those people who were nominated by the local authority.
  I hope that I have answered the main questions addressed to me. As it is now getting late in the Session, I wonder whether the House would allow me, in view of the fact that we have postponed the Second Reading of the Bill to have the Committee stage for Thursday, the day after to-morrow, in order that on that occasion the Bill may pass through its remaining stages in this House.
  On Question, Bill read 2a and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

  WEDGWOOD BENN (RENUNCIATION) BILL [H.L.]
  3.33 p.m.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  THE LORD BISHOP OF RIPON: My Lords, I rise to present a Petition to this House as follows:
  To the Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, the Humble Petition of the Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of the City and County of Bristol.
  "Sheweth, that the Letters Patent creating the Viscounty of Stansgate provide inter alia that the heir lawfully begotten shall succeed to the Title on the demise of the present Viscount,
  "That the Heir Male Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn is one of their Members of Parliament
  "And that if the said Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn succeeds to the said title the Burgesses of Bristol will then be deprived of one of their representatives freely elected according to law:
  "Wherefore your Petitioners most humbly pray that provision may be made by Act of Parliament enabling their Member the aforesaid Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn to renounce irrevocably the Name State Degree Style Dignity Title and Honour of Viscount Stansgate and all the Rights Privileges Pre-eminences Immunities and Advantages that would otherwise descend to him by virtue of the Letters Patent, so that he may be enabled to continue to serve Her Majesty's Loyal Subjects the Burgesses of Bristol as a Commoner in the Commons House of Parliament for so long as he may be elected as one of their representatives according to law.
  "And your Petitioners will ever pray et cetera."
  The Petition is signed by Gilbert G. Adams, Lord Mayor, and A. Pickard, Town Clerk, and affixed to it is the seal of the Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of the City of Bristol.
  I also have permission to read a statement from the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Bristol, as follows:
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  "My Lords, I trust that I may have your Lordships' indulgence in making this brief statement in connection with the Petition from the Lord Mayor and Burgesses of Bristol in support of Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn's plea to be allowed to resign his claim to the succession to his father's Peerage.
  "I have signed the petition, and I should have wished to speak personally if it had been possible for me to be present in your Lordships' House to-day. With the permission of the Lord Chancellor, I am asking the Lord Bishop of Ripon to make the statement on my behalf.
  "On the legal questions arising from Mr. Wedgwood Benn's plea I should not venture to express an opinion. But I hope I may be allowed to say that from personal knowledge I am entirely satisfied as to the motives which have actuated him in making it. And I may add that I believe that it carries with it the support of many of the citizens of Bristol who know his work in his constituency."
  LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, may I ask whether we are debating whether this Petition be received? It appears to me to be most improper to receive a political Petition from the Mayor and Corporation of one of our cities.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (VISCOUNT WOOLTON): My Lords, I am advised that the Petition is quite in order, but, if I may say so, it was a little unusual for a speech to be made by deputy, as the Lord Bishop of Bristol apparently has done in the latter part of the speech of the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Ripon. Otherwise I am advised that the presentation of the Petition is quite in order.
  LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, I beg the noble Viscount's pardon, but he has not answered my question. My question was whether it was in order to receive a Petition. A Petition may be presented, but are we obliged to receive it?
  EARL JOWITT: My Lords, it is the very foundation of our law that any subject of the Crown has the right to petition. I think that that is an immemorial right. We do not debate whether the Petition be received or not: we debate whether we will act upon it.
  VISCOUNT WOOLTON: My Lords, I do not think we shall further the Business of the House by dealing with this question. We have a difficult and contentious issue to face, and it may be for the convenience of the House if we go on with that part of the business.
  Ordered, That the Petition lie on the Table.
  3.36 p.m.
  VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, on one point, as it has suddenly arisen, may I say that I altered the date of this Bill especially to suit the convenience of the House. If the original date had been adhered to, the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Bristol would have been here. I should like to express my indebtedness to him for taking this opportunity of expressing his opinion through the agency of the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Ripon, who is perfectly in order in presenting the Petition. This is an unusual experience for me. It is the first time I have appeared in this House under episcopal auspices. In obedience to the practice of the House, I disclose at once my personal interest in this Bill. Everything I say and every argument I advance must be assessed in the light of my relationship to the Petitioner. On the other hand, if your Lordships seem to detect a feeling of father for son, that is, of course, a fortification of that hereditary principle on which so much of the foundation of this House depends.
  Perhaps your Lordships will allow me—I will do it briefly, but I am compelled to do it—to give the personal narrative which lies behind this Petition. In 1941, I was informed by the Prime Minister's Deputy that the Prime Minister wished me to say whether I would consent to the putting forward of my name for the honour of a Peerage. I was very proud. I thought it was a very great distinction and I intimated the same. When the Patent actually was published, it was accompanied by an unusual document which said it was not an honour or distinction—that is quite natural and I accept that—but it was a measure of State policy. I think one can detect the authorship of that fine phrase. I understood the statement to mean that I was sent here to do a certain job of work, which was, I understood, to strengthen and stimulate the elements of the Opposition in this House. Well, I have done my best. And, if your Lordships will permit me, I must say that in my judgment I have not always received the applause which my efforts deserved. The acceptance of that offer has given me thirteen years of happy friendship, courtesy and tolerance, which will always warm my heart.
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  I had three sons. The eldest boy, Michael, I consulted. He informed me that he intended to attempt to obtain Holy Orders, and he was not interested in the House of Commons. In any case, the Peerage and the priesthood would be a double bar. When he knew, he was as proud as I was about it, and he willingly accepted. The second son, the present Petitioner, was a schoolboy, rather a chatterbox, and I did not consider it necessary to consult him at all. I now wonder very much whether I was right or wrong. But it was difficult, and I did not consult him. I can remember that when the announcement was made in The Times, he was very angry and abused me. But in point of fact our minds were on something quite different; and that was the war. Both of these boys were thinking of one thing, and that was how they could manage to get into the Air Force, as volunteers, before they were called up. They both succeeded and became pilots. Unfortunately, and unhappily for me, my eldest son was killed.
  There is nothing unusual about that story; it must be a story that could be told of many families in your Lordships' House and in the country. But it had this result. It heaped on to the unwilling shoulders of this young man honours which were going to debar him from all the ambitions of his life. He wanted to enter Parliament, and he had most extraordinary good fortune, because when Sir Stafford Cripps resigned the Bristol constituency invited him to be their candidate. Bristol is a famous constituency—it has had connections with Burke and Cripps. The Petitioner was adopted and elected; he has twice been elected for Bristol and is now to present himself for a third time at the polls. His borough, as we have heard from the right reverend Prelate, to whom I tender my sincere thanks, is anxious to retain his services. What he wants to know is this: is there any way in which your Lordships' House can permit him to continue to render that public service? That is the sole purpose of this Bill.
  There were three methods open to him. He is a Member of Parliament, and he could have presented a Bill in the Commons House. I have the honour of being a Member of your Lordships' House, and I could have presented a Bill in your Lordships' House. But

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  he took a third course and presented a Petition to Parliament, like the Petition that the right reverend Prelate presented a moment ago, which is the right of every Member and of all lieges of Her Majesty—and I was somewhat surprised to see that right challenged to-day in debate. He took the course open to any one of Her Majesty's lieges and presented a Petition to this House.
  LORD SALTOUN: I did not challenge the right of anybody to present a Petition. I said that it was a question of whether the House would receive that Petition.
  VISCOUNT STANSGATE: I do not want to revive that matter. I shall follow what the noble Viscount, the Deputy Leader of the House, said, and I think it is better now to leave that issue. However, the Petitioner took the course of petitioning the House. That was, first of all, the most respectful course that he could take. But it had another advantage, because it meant that this issue was brought before your Lordships' House, and it is an important constitutional principle that questions affecting, the Peerage should be dealt with primarily in this House. Such a Bill could not have been offered in another House, and he put it before a Committee for examination. The Committee was set up, and it consisted of six distinguished members of your Lordships' House, including the Lord Chairman of Committees and three noble and learned Lords. They devoted a whole morning to a careful hearing and cross-examination of the Petitioner.
  Let me remind your Lordships of what the Petition was. It was not a Petition for the reform of your Lordships' House. It had nothing whatever to do with the reform of your Lordships' House. It was a personal Petition that he, Anthony Wedgwood Benn, should have permission to continue in his career as a Member of the Lower House. That is all it was. He was not interested in the question of the reform of your Lordships' House and did not touch upon it. I shall revert to this point more than once in the few remarks I have to make, but I emphasise now that this had nothing to do with the reform of your Lordships' House. The Committee reported briefly—I myself could have wished that they had gone into more detail. But what did they say? They said, not that the Petition was bad,
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  or that they disagreed with it, but that "This is a matter which touches a larger issue, and therefore you must bring it in as a Public Bill." That was their Report, and the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Simonds, quoted a famous declaration made by Lord Shaftesbury in the case of the Purbeck Viscounty in the seventeenth century. This is what Lord Shaftesbury said:
  "It is a dangerous doctrine to say that such legislation is only your concern"—
  he was addressing the Petitioner—
  "and not the interest and concern of the whole nation."
  On that same point, the Lord Chairman of Committees, Lord Drogheda, said:
  "… but are there reasons why it should not be presented as a Public Bill in the House of Lords?"
  Guided by that authoritative advice, the Petitioner decided to abandon his Personal Bill—although many of the features are the same—and to introduce that element of generality which appeared to be the desire of the Committee and the guidance of Lord Shaftesbury; and the Bill is now a Public Bill. Your Lordships will find in the preamble of the Bill, on the second page, the sense of Lord Shaftesbury's dictum, which declares that a matter of this kind is a matter of public interest.
  What objections can there possibly be to this Bill? The first objection—and it would be very powerful indeed—would be this: "Here is a young man who finds himself unexpectedly called to high estate with great responsibilities—and that often happens in your Lordships' House. It is his duty to bear the burden and he has no right to attempt to shift it. This is the organisation of the State, and it is his duty to carry the load." But in this instance the very reverse is the case. This young man is carrying the burden of public duty; he is serving the public. Everyone knows that, first of all, a young man like that could not afford to come here; and secondly, there is not the scope. He wants to go on serving his constituents. Parliament has rather changed even in my time. A Member of Parliament occupies a dignified and important position in his constituency. I do not want to say that he is a sort of welfare officer, but he is a sort of counsellor of good to his constituents. It has nothing to do with Party opinion: once a man has been elected he is the ser-

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  vant of all constituents, whatever their Party may be. I imagine that the relationship of a Member of Parliament to his constituents to-day is something like the best tradition of paternal interest which existed in this country before the days of the Industrial Revolution. Therefore, to base yourselves on noblesse oblige does not support the case at all, because the public duty is presently being discharged.
  The second argument that might be produced against the Bill is this: "It is a general principle and it must await the general reform of your Lordships' House." I have tried to point out that there is nothing whatever in this Bill that affects the Constitution of your Lordships' House. The Petitioner does not ask that later on he should be Lord Stansgate, M.P. That request has been made before. It was made sixty years ago by that famous trio of Lord Curzon, Lord Selborne and Lord Midleton, and that did involve the structure of the House; and complaint was made recently on the same lines in regard to the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham. But that is not what this Petitioner asks. He asks that he should be allowed to remain a commoner. He is not of noble blood; he is a commoner and he wants to remain a commoner. That is what the whole Bill is about.
  The Committee said: "This is a general principle and you must permit other people in the same state to have the same redress." I admit that. But are there any other people in the same state? I have never heard of any Peer or son of a Peer coming forward and pleading that he should be allowed to renounce the whole thing and remain a commoner. If such a thing occurred, I think it would have to be dealt with on these lines. In fact, the Titles (Deprivations) Bill—although that is the other side of the case; we were then dealing with enemies of the State—would probably be the model on which we should work. But there is no sign whatever that the concession of this Bill would expose your Lordships to a flood of renouncers. If that is so, are you going to grant the permission for this young man to remain for life "Mr. Benn"—I hope "M.P."?
  Just one final word. There is a great deal of talk about the position of the House of Lords at this time. There is
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  some legitimate criticism. We have great disadvantages. There is the disadvantage of the large number of Members of your Lordships' House who, for reasons that are quite intelligible and, honourable, cannot give their attendance in this House. That is a handicap, because whenever anyone wishes to criticise this House the absentee Members are always mentioned. But why add to a difficulty that you cannot get rid of? Why add a further injustice by so pressing the hereditary principle that you wish to snatch from public service in another place somebody who is unwilling to come? To put it quite simply, I would say: "I plead that you should adapt the great traditions of this House, or be able to adapt them, in such a way as to satisfy the needs of personal justice." Or, if I put it in another sense, I should say: "I am pleading for fair play, and I have never heard in this House a plea for fair play which has not been listened to."
  That is all I have to say. I have only one witness to call, but he is a powerful witness. At the beginning of this business the Petitioner, who was well aware from the published works of the then Prime Minister how he felt about this matter—there was a telegram published in one of the War Books on the subject—wrote to the then Prime Minister and asked for his support. The Prime Minister said, quite naturally, that as Prime Minister it was impossible for him to come forward and support the plea, however right, of an individual Member of Parliament. But as soon as Sir Winston Churchill had vacated his office the Petitioner, who is a rather persistent fellow, returned to the charge and wrote again to the ex-Prime Minister. I will read in its full context the reply which he received. It is as follows:
  Chartwell, Westerham, Kent.
  9 April, 1955.
  My dear Wedgwood Benn,
  As I wrote to you confidentially in September, 1953, I certainly feel yours is a very hard case, and I am personally strongly in favour of sons having the right to renounce irrevocably the peerages they inherit from their fathers. This would not of course prevent them from accepting another peerage, if they were offered one, later on.
  Yours sincerely,
  Winston S. Churchill."
  I beg to move.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Viscount Stansgate.)
  3.53 p.m.
  EARL JOWITT: My Lords, I am going to speak for only a moment or two. I have one fact to add to the facts which the noble Viscount has stated. He is, as your Lordships heard when he made his speech just now, full of vigour and energy, but I believe I am right in saying that he is within a fortnight of his seventy-eighth birthday. I hope he will be with us for many years but, of course, life being what it is, we cannot gamble on that. If he should die before some remedial Bill is passed, then I fear it would be for ever too late to give this boy the relief for which he asks. I do not regard this matter as in any shape or form a Party question. So far as I know, my Party have not pronounced upon it at all. I believe it is a question upon which we can each use our own judgment and our own discretion. I would echo the words of the noble Viscount who has just spoken, and say to your Lordships: My Lords, why can we not give this young man what he is asking for? What great principle is infringed? Believing, as I do, that no great principle is infringed, I would most humbly ask your Lordships to give this Bill your support.
  3.55 p.m.
  EARL WINTERTON: My Lords, my excuse for my temerity, as a comparatively new Member of your Lordships' House, in speaking on this Bill, which does raise questions of high constitutional principle, is that I feel very strongly on this subject, and I warmly support the Bill. If I may commence on a personal note, may I say that it is a pleasure to me, after forty years of friendship and mutual regard for the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate (which has not prevented us from attacking each other, both in this House and in another place, on almost every occasion on which we have spoken), to be on his side. It is perhaps as well that we are not often in concert in your Lordships' House, because we might be a considerable nuisance to your Lordships if we were, since neither of us minds treading on people's toes—and there are a great number of people in this country who deserve to have their toes trodden upon.
  I agree with the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, that there is little that need be said on this Bill. In fact, I associate myself not only with what the mover of the Bill has said but also with what the
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  noble and learned Earl has said. The main support for the Bill rests on one point; and I would, with all courtesy, invite my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, and anyone else who is going to speak against this Bill, to answer this question, which is the question which really arises: why should a Member of another place be compelled to vacate his seat and become a Member of this House because he succeeds to a Peerage? And why should he do so when his desire to renounce that right is supported by the influential support which comes in the present case from the ancient city of Bristol? I would further ask opponents of the Bill to answer this specific question: what common sense, fairness or logic is there in asking a Member of another place, who has been elected to that House and who is anxious to remain there, compulsorily to become a Member of your Lordships' House? Where is the logic? Where is the common sense? Where is the fairness? That is a question which should be answered.
  We are not living in mediaeligval England or pre-1914 Austria, with its sixteen quarterings and its strict demarcation between those who have titles and those who have not. We belong to a modern State, and your Lordships' House is supposed to be the Second Chamber of a modern State. That is its function—whether it performs it or not is not a question which we need discuss on this occasion. It is the Senate—it is the Second Chamber—of a modern State. If I may say so with the deepest respect, it should behave as a Senate. It should not say, "We cannot do this because of precedent of 300 or 400 years ago; because of people long dead and forgotten; because some constitutional expert says that it cannot be done." It ought to say, "In accordance with the greatness of our position, and with the greatness of the country of whose Constitution we are an integral part, we should do the fair and common-sense thing where a clear opportunity to do so is presented, as it is in the case of this Bill."
  I hope that those questions will be answered and I hope the Bill will pass. At the risk of offending sonic of your Lordships, I should like to point out what will happen if it does not. Any intelligent observer will say, "On a Tuesday afternoon, in a House representing some 4 per cent. or 5 per cent. of those who might

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  sit in that House but who do not, and many of whom never will, the House of Lords, supposed to be the Second Chamber of the head of a Great Commonwealth, refused to do something merely on the ground that it might cause an awkward precedent." I hope that that will not occur and that, if the Bill is not passed this afternoon, the noble Viscount will revert to the matter in another Parliament, because, although, as he most truly said, it is not, and should not be, concerned with the general question of the reform of your Lordships' House, it raises a very important principle.
  In conclusion, I must say this—again at the risk of offending some. The noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, in one of the most impressive speeches I have ever heard in fifty years of public life in either House of Parliament, addressed your Lordships' House the other day on the subject of the reform of the composition of this House. May I say to all the noble Lords on this side of the House that I hope they will have regard to his words, which were received without a murmur of disapproval. Lord Samuel said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 191 (No. 31), col. 842]:
  "My Lords, this House is dying of inanition before our eyes."
  I would add that, if your Lordships' House appeared to be living in an age of armour and broadswords, instead of in a modern State, it could kill itself, for even in this country ridicule can kill; and if any British institution does anything that is foolish it suffers thereby in the opinion of the people who really count—that is, the great mass of the population.
  4.2 p.m.
  LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, with your permission, I should be glad of the opportunity to make a few comments on this most interesting Bill. The noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, has, I think, tried to use two arguments to prove the same thing. He stressed in the earlier part of his speech that this was a Bill affecting an individual: that the only person who would be concerned was his own son; and he gave powerful arguments why this House should permit his son that privilege which he asks for him. On the other hand, he also made reference to the fact, and inferentially still makes reference to the fact, that it is impossible to legislate for an individual:
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  that the effect of passing this Bill would be very wide. Here in this Bill, in Clause 3, the noble Viscount says that the Bill shall be taken as the prototype (if I may use that word) of the action that should be taken in the future by any noble Lord like-minded with himself. That implies that either now or in the future there may be other noble Lords placed somewhat in the same position as is the noble Viscount who would also desire that this exceptional privilege—because such it is—should be accorded to their sons.
  Therefore, it appears to me that this is not an individual Bill at all; indeed, it is a Bill which affects the Constitution of this House in a very material manner. It proposes to introduce into our constitutional practice something quite new. It proposes also to open the door to something very much wider, to which I will refer in a few moments—and not entirely with disapprobation. I have great sympathy with the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, in his particular plea, but it is the inference of what he proposes to do and its effect upon the present and the future which I think is so vastly more important than the actual subject, his own son, which he brings to your Lordships' notice. The very fact and the mere fact that the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of Bristol, through the mouth of the Bishop of their diocese, should be of the opinion that Mr. Benn should be permitted to continue to be a Member of the House of Commons, representing them for so long as the electors choose to vote for him—and, after all, it is always possible that Mr. Benn may be sacrificing the substance for the shadow; one cannot be sure—
  VISCOUNT STANSGATE: I should like to make a point here. Of course, by this Bill, his renunciation is irrevocable. It has nothing whatever to do with whether or not he remains a Member of Parliament.
  LORD HASTINGS: Quite true. The noble Viscount was perfectly justified in interrupting me. He may have misunderstood me. When I said "the substance," I meant his seat in another place. He may be sacrificing the substance, a place in one of the Houses of the Legislature, for the shadow—in fact, for the electoral hazards. But that is by the way; that is his own business and nobody else's. I can,

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  of course, imagine certain cities in England where, if their Lord Mayor, aldermen and burgesses were to petition the House of Lords in favour of a member of a certain political Party, there would be a howl of execration. It has not happened in the city of Bristol, and so all is well. It does not affect the issue one way or the other. I do not think that this Petition is very relevant, but what is relevant is the effect that the passage of this Bill would have upon the future Constitution of your Lordships' House.
  There is, unfortunately, in this Bill a clause which I think must make it wholly unacceptable. It is to the effect that, whereas the heir to the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, is asking to be permitted to renounce the Peerage (I hope that it will be a long time before he succeeds to it), Lord Stansgate is asking that the next heir should be allowed to come back into the House of Lords if he so wishes. I do not think anybody could tolerate that. You cannot make a Peerage a convertible commodity; you cannot do that. You cannot create a family, so to speak, which with one generation is in the House of Lords, and with the other is in the House of Commons, and with the next generation is in the House of Lords and with the next is not even in either House. I think that would be unconstitutional beyond belief. What would happen? I do not want to turn this serious subject into ridicule, but the appropriate supporter for the coat of arms for a Peerage of that kind would be a Jack-in-the-Box. I do not think such a thing could possibly be permitted.
  If the noble Viscount were endeavouring to convert his hereditary Peerage into a Life Peerage, then, not that we wish the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, to be exterminated—very far from it—he would have a vastly stronger case than he has now by suggesting in his Bill that it is going to be the will of that particular family to sit either in this House or in another place. You cannot do that. Let Mr. Benn renounce his inheritance if he pleases, with the permission of your Lordships' House; but let that be final. That must be the end, not only for himself but also for his family. Somebody—I think it was the noble Earl, Lord Winterton—said that that would not debar him from accepting another Peerage if it were offered to him. That would be piling
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  Pelion on Ossa. You cannot do that. It would reduce the whole thing to ridicule.
  I beg the noble Viscount to see it from the point of view from which I am looking at it, which is not unsympathetic to him in any way. I want to look at it from the standpoint of its effect on this House. If that particular clause which enables, or would enable, the family of Benn to revive its Peerage at will were eliminated from this Bill, then it would be open to any noble Lord who had accepted an hereditary Peerage to move in a Bill of this character that his heir should not be encumbered with that Peerage. It is not very many weeks since, more or less on the initiative of the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, we were having a most interesting debate in which, as my noble friend Lord Winterton mentioned, the noble Viscount made a remarkable speech—so remarkable that I believe I could quote a great deal of it word for word: it made so great an impression upon my mind. But during that debate it became perfectly clear that there was a consensus of opinion on all sides of the House that the creation of Life Peerages would be of immense advantage. There may have been some who disagreed, but I think the general consensus of opinion was in that direction.
  My Lords, here we have what one might call the foundation of a Bill which would enable that proposal to be put into effect. Let us imagine this Bill without what, to me, is its objectionable feature—namely, the re-creation or the recrudescence, the rising up from the ashes, of the Wedgwood Benn of the third generation. Eliminating that, it would then be possible for a man of distinction, on any side of the House, who was anxious to take his part in legislation and to pull his weight in managing the affairs of this country, but whose other considerations made it difficult for him to accept the Peerage, to accept the Peerage that was offered to him with the certain knowledge that all he had to do would be to introduce into Parliament a Bill founded upon this precedent inviting the House to excuse his heir from succeeding to the Peerage. Thereby, without in any way contravening the Royal Prerogative, he would have converted his hereditary Peerage into a Life Peerage. The Crown would continue to create hereditary Peerages as before, and it

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  would be within the volition of the individual recipient of the Peerage to determine whether he wished to take advantage of the hereditary principle conferred by the Crown upon his Peerage or to abrogate it by introducing a Bill of this character, thereby turning his own Peerage into a Life Peerage.
  There is immense value in this Bill from that point of view; but, with all respect to the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, I do not think that any Member of this House can, on reflection, really permit a Peerage to go under and to come up, and again to go down and to come up—the choice must be final. If the noble Viscount wants to say, "Well, I have to make up my mind to this, difficult though it is; my son does not wish to inherit my Peerage," very well: his son's son must not inherit it either. This must be a Life Peerage. That, apparently, would be acceptable to the noble Viscount's heir who, I understand, has a son of his own, though he is at present only a baby and therefore cannot be consulted. If there were three generations of age they might be consulted. In this case I do not think it is necessary. I do not know whether the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, intends to take this matter to a Division, but I could not vote for him because of that particular clause.
  May I remind him of just one other matter that may not have occurred to him—namely, that if his son is permitted by Act of Parliament to renounce his succession to the Peerage he has no nobility to hand on to his son (I think that is constitutional law, though I am not sure—I am not a constitutional lawyer) because he would not have inherited his Peerage. I would remind your Lordships why I say that. I hope the noble Viscount will forgive me. I have had the great privilege of sitting in your Lordships' House for fifty years. In the course of that long time I have often been concerned in questions of successions to Peerages, although not exactly of this kind. I often had to consult Sir Claud Schuster, when he was Clerk to the Crown, in matters of that kind; so I am not unfamiliar with them. Where an heir to a Peerage has omitted to claim the right of succession and has never taken his seat, the difficulty of establishing that right in that man's heir is almost
  576
  insuperable. I would suggest to the noble Viscount that in fact that repudiation of inheritance constitutes an abrogation of nobility and that he would have no nobility to pass on to his own son. I think I am right in saying that, though I stand subject to correction.
  I will not weary the House any longer. I hope that the noble Viscount will realise that I am in no sense unsympathetic to his particular view; on the contrary, I think there is a great deal in it. But I am afraid of its effect upon the future. I should hope that if this Bill happens not to meet with the general approval of the House, or if it does not go to a Division, another Bill might be introduced in a new Parliament. I hope that such a Bill would be redrafted to give the noble Viscount exactly what he wants and, at the same time, would be widened in its effect, so as to make it perfectly clear that it would be open to any Peer, or to any person who might be offered a Peerage, that he could accept it without fear that it would have to descend to his own heir. All he would have to do would be to introduce a Bill of this character and thereby renounce the Peerage on behalf of his heir. Such a Bill would be of immense advantage to many people.
  I do not for a moment suppose that the noble Viscount has this in mind, but he would make a great mistake if he thought that membership of the House of Commons is the only reason why Members of another place or persons of distinction are chary of accepting a Peerage. There are many other more potent and enduring reasons than that. Electoral hazards sometimes govern these cases. When I suggested that the noble Viscount's son was sacrificing substance for a shadow, that is what I meant; he is, of course, subject to electoral hazards. Even the Lord Mayor of Bristol cannot ensure his return to the House of Commons. There are other cases which are dependent not upon electoral hazards but upon more far reaching things, and it is to them that I should like to give the opportunity which Lord Stansgate here seeks for his son.
  I have spoken long enough. Because of what I have said, I should oppose this Bill, but I should like to see a somewhat similar Bill introduced in the next Parliament, when we can deal with the subject

  577
  on an altogether wider footing. The noble Marquess the Leader of the House has already proposed to this House that a Committee should be set up to inquire into Standing Orders and other matters. I hope that before too long that Committee will be set up. I am hoping that its terms of reference will be sufficiently wide to make its recommendations or its Report of real use to this House, to see exactly what we can or cannot do. Nobody is more anxious than I not only to ensure regular attendance to the business of this House, but to ensure that all Parties are properly and equitably represented in it. That is what we want in a Legislature. I believe that the creation of Life Peerages, or, rather, the conversion of hereditary Peerages into Life Peerages, might be the solution of the whole subject. I am greatly obliged to your Lordships for having listened to me for so long. I apologise for having delayed this debate for longer than perhaps I ought to have done.
  4.20 p.m.
  LORD ELTON: My Lords, we have heard the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, so often and so gallantly pleading forlorn and dubious causes on behalf of strangers (ranging from Communist scouts upwards, or downwards) that I am sure that on personal grounds, and particularly after listening to what one can only call the deeply moving speech of the noble Viscount, now that he has picked a horse from his own stable we should all wish to see it placed. But I am sorry to say that the noble Viscount has on this occasion entered it for the wrong race. For I hold strongly that this is not the time or the manner in which to debate this particular subject. There is very little to be said for what the Romans used to call a privilegium, the private law passed on behalf of an individual, however deserving the individual. Very naturally, almost everything that was said by the first three speakers emphasised the hardship on the individual, rather than the public interest. It seems to me that if the thesis that the heir of a Peer should be permitted, if he so wishes, to contract out of his privileges and duties, should ever commend itself to the majority of your Lordships' House, then it ought to be embodied in legislation of much wider scope than this.
  578
  If the Conservative Party should be victorious in the forthcoming Election we all know (and I for one am sorry to know it) that Her Majesty's next Government is likely to be in gestation with a scheme for an operation of some kind—major or minor—on the body of your Lordships' House, Then, if ever, would be the time to debate whether or not it is in the public interest for any Peer's son, and not only Mr. Wedgwood Benn, to be permitted to renounce his heritage. Even then, and even if the issue should be in that way suitably widened, I hope Her Majesty's Government, or a majority of your Lordships, would dissent from the thesis embodied in this Bill. For I believe it is the fact that this House is known to be a synthesis of heredity Peers with newcomers which goes very far to account not only for its high prestige here and overseas, but for the character and quality of its debates. But once your Lordships admit the principle of contracting out, it becomes dangerously easy for the tradition to grow up that the progressive, the forward-looking, the high-spirited course for a man to take (and I am deliberately selecting the hackneyed phrases which would probably be used), is to run away from the situation into which he has been born.
  I do not want to use offensive words, and needless to say I am not thinking of the Petitioner when I use them; I am thinking rather of all those to whom this principle must extend once it is accepted. I am remembering, first, what noble Lords know only too well: that there are still many duties and opportunities outside Parliament out of which a man would be contracting if he renounced his succession. I am also remembering (and I think that up to a point this is a real analogy) how, a generation ago, it was the habit of Bernard Shaw and others to represent the young man who found his family irksome and his relations unresponsive, and ran off to join some more congenial coterie elsewhere, as having acted courageously by breaking out of the restricted atmosphere of the home circle and forcing his way into the wider freedoms of the great world outside. But it was G. K. Chesterton who pointed out that, on the contrary, the home circle, with its psychological conflicts and its potential dead-ends, was nevertheless the real world, the given world with which

  579
  Providence had confronted that young man; and that by running off into some selected backwater of the like-minded he was in fact turning his back upon the reality and taking refuge in an artificial, selected world of his own. That is far from being a complete analogy but it has a very real relevance. After all, if we consider this question purely from the angle of public interest, no one can overlook the fact that there are many millions of men and women on whom another place can draw for its membership. It is very unlikely to be starved of able Members if some hundreds of men continue, in the familiar words of the Catechism,
  "to do their duty in that state of life into which it shall please God to call them."
  LORD GRANTCHESTER: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, has said precisely, though in much more eloquent phrases, what I should have liked to say on this matter. I need not repeat what he has said, but I would appeal to the noble Viscount to withdraw this Bill and to introduce on another occasion a Bill along the lines indicated by the noble Lord, Lord Hastings.
  4.28 p.m.
  LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, I am bound to say that I am a little surprised. I remember that when the noble Marquess the Leader of the House discussed some measure for reforming the Constitution of this House, while the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, was always ready to co-operate, noble Lords opposite steadfastly refused, and the noble Marquess has had to go forward without their support. Yet to-day, if my guess is right, we have the noble Lords opposite resolutely supporting a reform of the House for the sake of only one person. My noble friends, Lord Hastings and Lord Elton, have pointed out that this is a very bad example of a privilegium, a constitutional law passed for the benefit of one person. Until the noble and learned Earl who leads the Opposition spoke, I had always understood that every lawyer, and everybody who was practised in the Constitution, was resolutely opposed to a privilegium. I am not going to say that in the past your Lordships' House has never countenanced privilegia, because of course it has. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries an Act of Parliament was the only method
  580
  of procuring a divorce. As everybody who knows his Bible is aware, the law of Moses says,
  "… let him write her a bill of divorcement."
  But that was a definite class of privilegium, well understood and running along general lines, although it had to be passed for a particular instance. The particular Bill proposed to your Lordships this afternoon is not only a privilegium which breaks new ground but it is, I believe, unique among privilegia in that it is introduced by the parties for whose benefit it is to be procured. I do not know; but that is what it seems to me to be.
  There is only one other thing I should like to say upon this matter, and I say it with a great deal of sympathy. I have a great deal of sympathy with the feelings that inspired this Bill—the more so because I was in precisely the same position myself. I wanted to stand for a constituency which I think there is very little doubt that, unless I had behaved very badly, I should have won. But I was told that I could not stand because of my father's age, which deprived me of that opportunity. My remedy, too, might have been to go to my father, but I am sorry to say that I think my father would have told me that I had no grounds for thinking that my presence in another place was so important to the country that special measures should be taken to enable me to enter it. I thought then that it was possible (your Lordships will appreciate that there have been so many in respect of my own country that I am naturally familiar with the process) that a Bill of Attainder, without any escheat, might have served the purpose. But I certainly think my father would have snubbed me very severely. I frankly admit that I was not a Member of another place. I had not the great career and record that inspired the present Bill. But, at the same time, I was in that situation, and I felt it very much at the time. However, I had to "bite the bullet," as P. G. Wodehouse said, and I think that is probably the answer in this particular case.
  4.33 p.m.
  VISCOUNT SAMUEL: My Lords, as frequently happens in your Lordships' House when we consider new proposals, we have to take into account not only

  581
  their strict merits, not only the principle that is being raised, but also the procedure that has been adopted and the timeliness of the particular proposal. All these aspects have been dwelt upon in connection with the Bill which is now before your Lordships' House. The noble Viscount who introduced it disclaimed any intention of raising the wider issue of the reform of the Constitution of your Lordships' House, and I shall follow him in that respect, though this question which we are now debating must have some bearing upon the other and wider issue. Indeed, that that was so, I found when I was speaking on the previous occasion.
  In opening the former debate I found it necessary and useful to quote the particular case of Mr. Wedgwood Benn and the previous cases, so strongly pressed, of Lord Curzon, Lord Selborne and Lord Midleton, when they were heirs to Peerages, and the more recent one of Lord Hailsham, as examples of the unreasonableness of the principle of heredity put to its strictest purposes, as in this case, in choosing the Members of a House of Legislature. But I do not propose to proceed upon that line to-day. I think the noble Viscount was right to regard this as a case in itself, and to leave the other matter for consideration, first by the Select Committee of the House, which is about to be appointed, and afterwards by way of any proposals that may be made in either House of Parliament for a general reform.
  When I spoke the other day on this particular case of Mr. Wedgwood Benn I declared in no compromising language that the present situation is, in the first place, an infringement of the rights of personal liberty of individuals; it is a denial of opportunities which are open to other persons. Secondly, it is, in my judgment, a breach of the privileges of the House of Commons, because they are deprived of one of their Members, not by the fiat of the electors, not by vote of the House itself, not by any statutory disqualification (as of aliens or felons), not by any statutory law, not by any Act of Parliament, but solely by the customs, traditions and rules laid down by your Lordships' House. Thirdly, in the same way, it is a breach of the rights of the electors, who in all other respects (apart from those statutory disqualifications) have the ancient right of picking out any person of the male sex—I say nothing
  582
  about the other half of the population. Any man can be chosen on his merits to stand for Parliament, and can be elected to represent them.
  But, that having been done, if he is an heir to a Peerage, the moment the present incumbent of that Peerage dies—and it may be his cousin or his great-uncle—this man, duly, and perhaps repeatedly, elected by a particular constituency, ceases to represent it in another place. From the moment when his predecessor draws his last breath, he is no longer a Member of the House of Commons. If he continued to sit or to vote he would be liable to penalties—I think on the information of a common informer. That seems to me to be a quite indefensible principle, and one which cannot possibly be justified. When the noble Lord, Lord Elton, says: "After all, there are millions in the country, why make so much fuss about this one individual, or even if there were a hundred such individuals?", I ask, has it ever been a rule of the British Constitution that you are at liberty to do an injustice if only there are not too many cases; that if it is only one or ten you need not take remedial action? Surely, in a single case, or one in a century, if the principle is right, that principle ought to be observed. For these reasons, it seems to me quite indefensible that the present situation can be left as it is.
  The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, made a most cogent speech. The noble Lord himself is the very incarnation of the hereditary principle; I think he is the twenty-first Baron and his Peerage dates front 1263. And he is an example of the good fruits that come from that principle now and then. When I first came into this House nearly twenty years ago, he was a very active Member, and his polished speeches were always listened to with great attention. I think his speech to-day makes us regret that in recent years he has not attended with such regularity, and that he so rarely intervenes in our debates. I hope that he will come back.
  He said that because he was opposed to a particular clause of the Bill he felt it necessary to vote against the Second Reading. But surely his long experience of Parliamentary procedure should tell him that there is an alternative. If he believes that the Bill in its general purpose is right, but that it is wrong in that

  583
  it contains a clause allowing a Peerage to be suspended but to be called out of abeyance if, in a later generation, a member in the direct line of descent wishes to revive it, he should support the Second Reading and move an Amendment in Committee. That observation applies also to what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester. If the noble Lord means to go into the Division Lobby—I do not know if he will go; that is a matter of Parliamentary tactics—I can tell him that I should certainly vote for the Second Reading, reserving the right to support Amendments in Committee.
  Some noble Lords are concerned about the Bill because this ancient House, centuries old, has never previously been faced with this situation in this way: it would be creating an entirely new precedent. But ought that to be the final consideration? Supposing that someone had been able to "dig out" such a case in the reign of King George II and show that such a case as this had previously arisen and had been dealt with by a Bill of this sort, everyone would have said, "Here we see the wisdom of our ancestors. They even could foresee a case like this." Everyone would have said that we should adopt the policy of the Statute of Chapter 43 of the fourteenth year of the reign of King George II. But why should not we make precedents? A precedent must begin sometime. We are all familiar with the tritest of quotations from Tennyson in which he says of freedom that it
  "… slowly broadens down
  From precedent to precedent."
  But unless someone first creates a precedent, there will be nothing to broaden. So I think that we might well pass this Bill to-day and provide some ancestral wisdom for the guidance of our posterity. For these reasons, I commend the Bill to your Lordships.
  There are other points that might be made in its support, and, before concluding, I should like to give one or two. With regard to precedents, a Peerage has always been regarded—and rightly so—as so great an honour and so great a privilege that, except in recent times, there has been no occasion of anyone so fortunate as to inherit a Peerage desiring to rid himself of it. The lower a Peer's own personal qualifications, the more he regarded the distinction of being a Peer as of value. Consequently the occasion has
  584
  never arisen in this way. But now, in days of democracy, we have the situation in which a person's whole career and ambition may lie in the House of Commons, so that a Peerage becomes no longer a privilege but an incubus. If that is so, ought he to be left without any remedy whatsoever?
  The same sort of matter was raised in the different sphere of land ownership by the practice and law of entail. In order to maintain the status and wealth of the great land-owning families, there was the strange law of entail, which allowed properties to descend from father to son without any part being played by the owner for life. That law was found to be so burdensome that after a great deal of controversy, and many years of discussion, the Entail Act was passed to allow two generations, if they agreed, to break an entail. But there is no permission to break the entail of a Peerage itself. If it were right to do that with regard to land-owning, is it not also just with regard to the Peerage itself?
  Another point is this. The Monarchy survives in the modern world as an example of the principle of heredity and is universally supported and working extraordinarily well. But it works well because it is not unchangeable: the principle is not absolute and unbreakable. Only recently we had the case of the incumbent of the Crown saying that his situation was intolerable and abdicating the Crown for himself and for his heirs. That has happened before in the long history of this country. But though a King may abdicate, a Peer may not. Are we to carry the principle of heredity to such an extreme that we have arising situations such as that of Anthony Wedgwood Benn? It may be that all this discussion may be superseded if the reform of your Lordships' House comes about, when this aspect might be dealt with as part of the whole question. But, meanwhile, are we to permit this personal injustice to be done to this one individual? Are we to say, "Let it be done, because it concerns only an individual"? I come back to what I said at the beginning: personal liberty is a sacred thing. We have no right to remake a man's life against his will, merely because of a status which, through no fault of his own, he chances to inherit. I support the Bill.
  4.46 p.m.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT KILMUIR): My Lords, like all your Lordships I listened with the greatest care, and I hope sympathy, to the moving and carefully prepared speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, who moved the Second Reading of this Bill. I have also read more than once the statement which his son made to the Committee on Personal Bills, and I should like to say at once that I think that that statement is notable for its erudition, its modesty and its clarity of argument. Today we are faced with one of those difficult questions which face everyone in public affairs more frequently than we desire. On the one hand, we have the wishes of an old friend, if I may so call him, and the old friend of many of your Lordships, and the career of a young man of promise in his own chosen field: on the other hand, we have to consider the position and the status of your Lordships' House and the public advantage, questions which, I humbly and modestly submit, are interdependent. That is not an easy task.
  May I give one example of the difficulty? I disagree respectfully but profoundly with Viscount Samuel's attempt to carry the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, with him on the question of the principle of the Bill; because if there is one point that is perfectly evident it is that there is a deep division in principle between the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, for the creation of a Life Peerage out of an hereditary Peerage, and the proposal in the present Bill which, by the use of the doctrine of abeyance (upon which I am not going to comment) seeks to cut out one generation, with the maintenance of full rights for succeeding generations. It would take more than even the persuasive eloquence of the noble Viscount to create a true synthesis of these points of view.
  I have considered this matter and I believe that a great and serious constitutional issue is involved in this Bill. I believe that the acceptance of the principle that the heir to a Peerage can renounce his eventual right would effect a great constitutional change. I am not going to argue to-day whether your Lordships' House were right in 1678, in the case of the Viscounty of Purbeck, to which the noble Viscount referred, in finally deciding that there should not be a right in a Peer to surrender his Peerage. I say,
  586
  "finally deciding" because the matter had been discussed and the same conclusion arrived at several times before; but that was the last case in which the matter was raised. I am not going into that. I am only going to say that that has been an unchallenged rule of your Lordships' House and of Peerage for nearly 300 years.
  The noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, quoted my predecessor, Lord Shaftesbury, in that case. With great respect, I should like to put the same thought—Lord Shaftesbury's thought—as it was stated by my noble and learned friend and predecessor, Lord Simonds, in the course of the proceedings before the Personal Bills Committee. The noble and learned Viscount said:
  "But, on the other hand, what Lord Shaftesbury said—and it seems to me to have a good deal of force—is that the whole nation is interested in whether, not only you, but any other heir to a Peerage can surrender his Peerage."
  Whatever else is clear, the departure from that rule would create a new view of the responsibilities and duties which Peerage implies. I believe that that is an important point (and I shall try to develop it) for this reason. The noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, has spoken of the individual liberty of the one particular person involved. With the greatest respect, liberty and freedom in our land depend on the functioning of an ordered Constitution accepted throughout the land; and it is within that framework that true liberty alone can lie.
  My point is not that there should be no alterations to the Constitution, but that when you are dealing with a subject of such importance and magnitude, alterations should not be made by working from an individual case, but from viewing the Constitution as a whole and seeing how it can be improved along the lines which discussion and mutual tolerance and forbearance of differences indicate. That is the question for this afternoon: should this be done in relation to a particular case, or is it a matter which requires a more general conspectus? That is the point that I want to put to your Lordships. I want to make it quite clear to the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, that it is not my purpose to-day, as it was not that of my noble friend who leads this House, Lord Salisbury, to pronounce on the wider question, that if your Lordships' House

  587
  is reformed in such a way that the number of hereditary Peers sitting and voting is limited, then in that case there should be some power of election in those who inherit Peerages. That is a different question, and I am sure it is one which your Lordships would want to discuss.
  I would remind the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, that Paragraph (8) of the document which he put before your Lordships a short time ago, which resulted from the discussion of the Party Leaders seven years ago, in which he and I both had the honour to take part, reads:
  "Peers who were not Lords of Parliament should be entitled to stand for election to the House of Commons, and also to vote at elections in the same manner as other citizens."
  As I say, I am not disposing of that point. What I am saying is that it is a point which merits the most full and complete discussion, including the questions of the time at which and the method in which the Peer would be allowed to make his election. It is obviously a matter which your Lordships would discuss with great interest and. I believe, considerable concern. Therefore, I want your Lordships to get this quite clear: that that is a matter of general application and general interest.
  The Bill at present before your Lordships, however, is of its essence of particular and not of general application, and I submit to your Lordships that it is not a subject capable of being dealt with on the appeal of the individual without due consideration of the principles involved. Let me put this point, too. I am not going to make decisions on what is partly a moral question for your Lordships, but I am going to say that your Lordships will have to consider whether, if you pass this Bill, you could fairly refuse another Bill of the same kind; and you would also have to consider how far back you were going to go. My noble friend Lord Saltoun put this point of view; there are others that we know and have known all our lives. What are your Lordships going to do with regard to them? A not unreasonable test for your Lordships' House is: where does the committal in honour lead us here? I say that a consideration of that question brings us back to my general point, that this is a matter that can only be dealt with generally and not in regard to particular cases.
  588
  I hope your Lordships will forgive me if I make a slight excursus here, because I think it is important that in this debate we should consider, as I have tried to do as carefully as I can, the arguments which have been advanced in favour of this matter. I have tried to weigh the arguments which Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn advanced. One of them was, as I am sure the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, will remember, that this House has dealt with Peerage matters individually and not as matters of principle. As my argument is directly to the contrary, I would ask your Lordships' indulgence for a moment or two while I deal with that point, because I think it has some interest and relevance to the matter we are considering. Mr. Wedgwood Benn took the examples, first of all, of attainder and reversal of attainder. Bills of Attainder dealt with individual Peers; but attainder was based on the general principle that it was a method of dealing with treason against the Crown of the day. It was from that general method of dealing with treason (I am not going to argue its merits or demerits to-day) that its use in particular cases arose. With regard to reversal of attainder, in some cases the name was cleared; in other cases there was a change of view in the Crown and Government of the country as to what constituted treason. If I may relieve this heavy part of my argument, I would remind your Lordships of the jingle, which illustrates this:
  "Treason doth never prosper; what's the reason?
  For if it prosper, none dare call it treason."
  That was usually the background of the reversal of Acts of Attainder, and again it depended on a general principle.
  Now Mr. Wedgwood Benn also relied on what I may call the German Princes Act—and I think the noble Viscount referred to it—the Deprivation of Titles Act, 1917, which dealt with those Members of your Lordships' House who were adhering to the enemy during the 1914–18 war. Again, there was a perfectly general principle. The general principle was that it was not suitable or convenient that those adhering to the enemies of their country should be Members of your Lordships' House, and that was applied, after proof, in particular cases.
  Take another example which was raised: that of what were called Parliamentary Peerages and are really Bills by

  589
  which special limitations were attached to Peerages by Acts of Parliament, such as the Arundel Peerage Act at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and the Dukedom of Marlborough Act in 1706. Again there was a general principle. These Peerages were so deeply rooted in the history and traditions of our country that it was necessary that a special limitation should be attached to protect, maintain and secure that part of our history. That is the principle behind that class of case. Again, it was urged that the Rules winch your Lordships laid down in 1927 with regard to calling Peerages out of abeyance had to be applied to an individual case. But it was the converse that your Lordships' House was doing. What your Lordships were laying down were general rules that were to be applicable to calling out of abeyance, which would preserve the propriety and suitability of the calling out. I am sorry to have inflicted that excursus on your Lordships, but I think it is important that we should see that, at any rate according to my view of history, this House has not proceeded on individual cases: it has applied principles which are deeply rooted to individual cases. I think two individual examples were given—one the De La Warr Peerage and the other the Bedford Peerage in 1478. The first, as I understand it, dealt largely with estates and the second was a rearrangement of his thoughts and wishes by Edward IV at the end of the War of the Roses, neither of which I should say really help us on the general point, which is that your Lordships have tried in these matters to act in accordance with principle.
  I turn for one moment to the speech, as forthright as one always expects, of my noble friend, Lord Winterton. The noble Earl was putting a rather different point of view. He asked the question, as I understood it, "Why in modern times should any Peer be deprived of the right of sitting in the House of Commons?" I always listen—I have at any rate for thirty-five years—with great attention and sympathy to anything Lord Winterton says, but he asked me for an answer and I shall try to give it to him. The answer that I make is that we have sometimes, with great clash and political turmoil, and at other times by quiet exercise of common sense and tolerance, worked out a Constitution, and the bicameral system is an important part of it. A bicameral
  590
  system depends on securing the membership of your Second Chamber. I say that you are not going to protect your Second Chamber, which I think is essential for matters of revision and good legislation, unless you deal generally and seriously with changes in the composition of that Chamber, and do not, because of the warmth of heart and sympathy which we all know the noble Earl possesses to the brim, attack that Constitution in order to obviate a difficulty in a particular case.
  EARL WINTERTON: I am sorry to interrupt the Lord Chancellor. I did not attack the Constitution to any greater extent than he attacked it when he and others agreed, in the conference between the Parties, that there should be an alteration in the composition of the House. The Constitution of your Lordships' House is, if I may say so, under consideration, if not attack, from many quarters.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am not arguing that point with the noble Earl. That is not where we depart. What I am saying is that if you have a Constitution you may want to alter it. I personally believe—I have never made any secret of it—that there should be an alteration in the composition of your Lordships' House. What I am saying to the noble Earl is that when you have a certain constitutional situation, even if you do not like it, you must not alter it by granting a privilege to an individual; you must alter it by facing up to what requires alteration and amendment and then doing it.
  There is one further point. Politics is the most fascinating and, at the same time, the most cruel of all the occupations to which humanity devotes itself. The first lesson that we all learn is that each one of us has no claim to indispensability, in whatever office he may be holding. I have seen the excellence of Mr. Wedgwood Benn's performance in another place, and I speak with complete sincerity about that. But one must recognise that that position cannot be differentiated from that of any other heir to a Peerage who has occupied, or wishes to occupy, a seat in the House of Commons and has, like Mr. Wedgwood Benn, the great honour and privilege of generations of ancestors who have served with distinction in the House of Commons. That is what we have to face; and while we

  591
  sympathise with the position of any young man who has given service in the House of Commons, we believe that the remedy must be a remedy which is general in character. It must, in the view of Her Majesty's Government, be arrived at not by a side wind but by full, frank and free consideration of all its implications. It is for that reason that I cannot advise your Lordships to do anything other than reject this Bill.
  5.11 p.m.
  VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, first of all I should like to thank the noble Lords who have spoken, and particularly the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, whose valuable and enlightened examination of this Bill will bear fruit. What is the issue? It is a perfectly simple issue. I have never heard a speech which filled me with as much despair as did the speech of the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor. The simple issue is this. All he has to say is: "My Lords, this is a general question for discussion in a general way with the reform of your Lordships' House."
  In 1911 I was a Whip in another place. I counted the joyous Members of Parliament who trooped through the Lobby in support of the Bill which implied that the reform of your Lordships' House would "brook no delay." This young man, according to any reasonable forecast, has to wait another forty-four years before
  we get from the Front Bench another Delphic utterance drafted by the Chief Whip's Office. The issue is quite simple. It is the case of a young man who wants to serve and whose constituency want him to serve. The Lord Chancellor says that that cannot be dealt with as an individual case. That is what the Committee say. Provision is made in the Bill for other people in the same position. But there are not any—that is the whole point. Nobody has come forward to suggest that he would associate himself with this act of renunciation. Therefore, I say that we have met the point of the general argument. It is in the Bill. If it needs amendment, I am sure that the Lord Chancellor will help.
  In one word I should like to say how grateful the Petitioner and myself, as his father, are for the generous, expert help of the Officers of this House in drafting this Bill. At present, as the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, said, there is an injustice. The Bill does allow for general application, if there is another case to be found. Because it is a right and fair claim, and is supported by powerful opinion, both here and in another place, I propose to carry the banner into the Lobby.
  On Question, Whether the Bill be now read a second time?
  Their Lordships divided:—
  Contents, 24; Not-Contents, 52.

  CONTENTS

  Jowitt, E.

  Ripon, L. Bp.

  Merthyr, L.

  Listowel, E.

  Morrison, L.

  Lucan, E.[Teller.]

  Adrian, L.

  Pakenham, L.

  Winterton, E.

  Burden, L.

  Pethick-Lawrence, L.

  Haden-Guest, L.

  Shepherd, L.

  Alexander of Hillsborough, V.

  Henderson, L.

  Silkin, L.

  Hall, V.

  Hungarton, L.

  Strabolgi, L. [Teller.]

  Samuel, V.

  Kenswood, L.

  Wise, L.

  Stansgate, V.

  Lawson, L.

  NOT-CONTENTS

  Kilmuir, V. (L. Chancellor.)

  Bledisloe, V.

  Elton, L.

  Hudson, V.

  Fairfax of Cameron, L.

  Cholmondeley, M.

  Monsell, V.

  Fraser of North Cape, L.

  Reading, M.

  Ruffside, V.

  Gifford, L.

  Simonds, V.

  Grantchester, L.

  Beauchamp, E.

  Soulbury, V.

  Harvey of Tasburgh, L.

  Bessborough, E.

  Woolton, V.

  Hastings, L.

  Buckinghamshire, E.

  Hawke, L.

  Clarendon, E.

  Brassey of Apethorpe, L.

  Hindlip, L.

  Fortescue, E. [Teller.]

  Brocket, L.

  Hurcomb, L.

  Gosford, E.

  Carrington, L.

  Jessel, L.

  Home, E.

  Coleraine, L.

  Lloyd, L.

  Munster, E.

  Croft, L.

  Mancroft, L.

  Onslow, E. [Teller.]

  De L'Isle and Dudley, L.

  May, L.

  O'Hagan, L.

  Rockley, L.

  Sinha, L.

  Rathcavan, L.

  Saltoun, L.

  Strang, L.

  Rea, L.

  Sandhurst, L.

  Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

  Ritchie of Dundee, L.

  Sandys, L.

  Teviot, L.

  Teynham, L.

  Resolved in the negative, and Motion disagreed to accordingly.

  CLYDE NAVIGATION (SUPER ANNUATION) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
  Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1936) deemed to have been read 2a and reported from the Committee.
  GLASGOW CORPORATION (EXTENSION OF TIME) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
  Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1936) deemed to have been read 2a and reported from the Committee.
  CHESHUNT URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL
    NUNEATON CORPORATION BILL
    Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and referred to the Examiners.