SUPPLIES AND SERVICES (TRANSITIONAL POWERS) (Hansard, 11 November 1958)

HL Deb 11 November 1958 vol 212 cc348-54 348

§ 2.52 p.m.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT KILMUIR) rose to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty under section eight of the Supplies and Services (Transitional Powers) Act, 1945, praying that the said Act, which would otherwise expire on the tenth day of December, nineteen hundred and fifty-eight, be continued in force for a further period of one year until the tenth clay of December, nineteen hundred and fifty-nine.

§ The noble and learned Viscount said: My Lords, this is the first of two Motions standing in my name, the other being concerned with the Emergency Laws (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act. Last year, when there were five Motions, our discussion took place on the first, and it may be for the convenience of the House if we follow that precedent to-day.

§ On this occasion any pleasure that I find in announcing that your Lordships 349 will hear this Motion for the last time is tinged with a certain degree of sorrow—surgit amari aliquid, if the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, will allow me, because he, too, must have grown quite fond of these phoenixes which rise so regularly from their ashes year after year. Besides that, they have given him the opportunity of, I think the Parliamentary phrase is, "elongating my lower limb" in a way that I have been unable to criticise or resent. May I remind him that this time last year he thought I should still be going through the same Motions in 1975. At the time I indicated that the future was not quite so gloomy as all that, and I think I have been as good as my word in being able to announce that this is the last occasion.

§ The effect of these two Motions, if your Lordships pass them, will be to keep in force for one year the Supplies and Services (Transitional Powers) Act and, with one exception, the Defence Regulations which are still in force. But your Lordships may already have heard that the Government's Emergency Laws Repeal Bill, which sets out the new proposals for dealing with this legislation, has been introduced in another place. Your Lordships may have seen the White Paper which has been published, which sets out and summarises the proposals in the Bill and, I think, sets out quite succinctly the problem which is left to us.

§ If your Lordships would look at paragraph 17 of that White Paper, you will find that of the thirteen substantive Defence Regulations still remaining (and they are set out more fully in paragraphs 11 and 12), the Government propose to retain only five; and the other eight will be allowed to lapse as various legislation takes effect. If your Lordships would look also at paragraphs 6, 18, 20 and 21, you will see the extremely limited purposes for which these five Regulations are being retained. When the Bill reaches us we shall no doubt have a full discussion of these proposals, but I feel that having indicated the present state of play and the purposes of those Regulations which are being allowed to lapse and those which are being retained, I need not occupy more of your Lordships' time to-day. I therefore beg to move.

§ Moved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty under section eight of the Supplies and Services (Transitional 350 Powers) Act, 1945, praying that the said Act, which would otherwise expire on the tenth day of December, nineteen hundred and fifty-eight, be continued in force for a further period of one year until the tenth day of December, nineteen hundred and fifty-nine.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

§ LORD SILKIN
My Lords, as the noble and learned Viscount has said, this Motion has become an annual event, and he has not sprung any surprises on us. I think I anticipated what he was going to say, and no doubt he anticipates what I am going to say. This may be the last occasion on which a Motion of this kind will be presented by the noble and learned Viscount. There may be a number of reasons for that, but I will not attempt to elaborate them. But it is not clear to me that it is the last occasion on which a Motion of this kind will necessarily be brought to the House, because there are still five Orders which will remain, and one of them is far-reaching.
The noble and learned Viscount referred to minor Orders, but Regulation 55, as he will remember, is a far-reaching one because it says: A competent authority… may by order provide

(a) for regulating or prohibiting the production, treatment, keeping, storage, movement, transport, distribution, disposal, acquisition, use or consumption of articles of any description;…

(e) for any incidental and supplementary matters for which the competent authority thinks it expedient for the purposes of the order to provide."

I would submit that it is hardly conceivable to think of anything that could not be done under that Order. And, for good measure, the Government are proposing to retain Regulation 55AB. I will not read it, but if anything had been left out in what I have read it is contained in Regulation 55AB. I am not complaining about this. If I have any complaint at all it is that the country was misled at the last Election and in 1951, when the Party of noble Lords opposite pretended that all these Regulations could be swept away and swept away at once; that they were going to "set the people free"; and that they were tired of Regulations and so on.
It is not such an easy matter as that. The noble and learned Viscount may disagree with us as to the amount of regulation that is necessary. I can understand 351 an argument along those lines. But to represent that it is possible to abolish and sweep away all the Regulations, and do it just with a wave of the hand, has turned out to be quite unthinkable. And I give noble Lords opposite credit for being responsible and for not sweeping away the Regulations, which are, of course, necessary in the interests of good government.
I do not propose at this stage to say any more than that. Like the noble and learned Viscount I propose to reserve my remarks for the occasion when the Emergency Laws Repeal Bill is introduced, when we shall go into the matter in rather more detail. I will just say this in conclusion—I have said it before. The noble and learned Viscount will no doubt tell us that there were some hundreds of Regulations when my Party left office and that there are now only five left. Literally that is perfectly true. But what has happened to the others? A good many of the others have become permanent legislation; they have become the subjects of Acts of Parliament. Whereas in the past they were being merely carried forward from year to year, now they have become fetters, if they are fetters, for ever. Again I am not complaining, because I believe, and always have believed, that a good many of these regulations and controls are necessary; and so does the noble and learned Viscount, otherwise he would not have put them into permanent legislation. But he must recognise that it was quite wrong to pretend that they could be swept away. I think I will reserve myself on the other matter. I had thought of saying something about the use being made of these Regulations from another point of view, but I think I will leave that until the Bill comes before us.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
My Lords, I hope that your Lordships will bear with me if, in traditional style, the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, and I have our final round, because he having made his attack, I must very shortly deal with it. The first point was on the great extent of Regulation 55. I agree that it is extensive at present, but if the noble Lord will look at paragraph 6 of the White Paper he will find that the extent which he mentioned is being limited to four subjects; the imposition of certain strategic controls; the control of hire purchase, which in fact is not being exercised at the 352 moment; the control of welfare foods, and the control of essential goods from overseas, if the supply should be interrupted by overseas action. On both points that is a great and substantial reduction, and the purposes that we have retained are limited to strict national needs. With regard to regulation 55AB, that refers, in addition to those matters I have mentioned, only to liquid milk, medical supplies and to the fact that bakers now prefer to bake their loaves in 14 and 28 ounce weights, and also that the dairies prefer to serve milk in one-third pint bottles. That is what is left of the Regulation.
The noble Lord's second point was that we have taken a long time to do it. As he rightly anticipated, when this task first came to me there were 215 of these Regulations. But, of course, as he knows, that was not all. Almost every Regulation had a child in the form of an Order, and probably a grandchild in the form of a licence or something of that sort. When I first started dealing with this problem some seven years ago, the book which the noble Lord held in his hand was a thick volume, and the books which contained the orders and licences ran into several thick volumes. I agree that it may seem a long time, but it is something that the task has been done, and that subsidiary legislation which does not necessarily go before Parliament has been swept away.
The noble Lord made the third point that it has not all been swept away. Again I am not going into details, but I will give him my approach to that matter. It has always been to retain the absolute minimum powers required for the country today. I quite agree with the noble Lord that in nineteen years those necessary powers change, and that some which were not in force in 1939 are required in 1958. But I have tried to limit them to the essential minima. I have also tried to do something else, which is put (I think without any exaggeration) in paragraph 8 of the White Paper, Cmd. 563. That says: The Bill itself does not complete the process of reducing or revoking emergency powers, though the powers still exercised are few. What it does do is to establish that powers should not exist in peacetime, unspecified as to their scope and purpose, which a Government might use at its discretion without the explicit authority of Parliament. It represents an affirmation of the principle that Parliament should be asked to grant only specific powers for specific purposes. 353 I say quite generally, and without looking at the issue from a Party point of view, that I hope noble Lords in every part of the House will accept that principle. It is certainly a principle which noble Lords will remember was pressed upon me very hard by the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt when he led the Party opposite. I would ask your Lordships (I hope this is the last word I shall say on this matter) to consider whether that principle, that we should act on powers specifically and explicitly given by Parliament, is not a sound principle which every Party ought to adopt in considering the legislative processes of our country. I try to say that not controversially but as a contribution to general good government.

§ 3.9 p.m.

§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH My Lords, we are greatly obliged to the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Woolsack for the detail with which he has replied to my noble friend Lord Silkin. I should not have spoken on this particular Motion but for his recital of the small number of items that are left. There has just been a sort of ministerial and legal consultation between Ministers and the Lord Chancellor without very much reference to the industrial organisations or commercial undertakings which may be concerned. When the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor says that milk must be left in Regulation 55B because the dairies prefer to serve it in one-third pint bottles, all I say is that I wonder whether the noble and learned Viscount has consulted the noble Earl, Lord Woolton, on that point. I should have grave doubts whether the dairy trade as a whole wants to retain the serving of milk in one-third pint bottles.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
My Lords, I am sorry, but I ought to have said that that was for school milk. The one-third pint bottles are for the convenience of the supply of school milk. The fault is mine; I should have said that.

§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH
My Lords, do I understand, therefore, that the power of the order that is retained is limited to that one function of serving milk?

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
My Lords, I will verify that; but certainly the purpose of its retention is in order to 354 deal with school milk. I will find out whether it can be exercised in any other way.

§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH
My Lords, there has been great controversy in the dairy trade about this particular matter—not that they want to stop serving the schools, but because a few sections of the trade would like to start up a new practice of serving in one-third pint bottles. That is an expensive and inconvenient way of doing this, and if the general power left in the Emergency Powers is retained, and the Order can be so amended to cover that, then it becomes important and far-reaching. Perhaps the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor will forgive me for having mentioned the point. I do not want an answer now, but I think it is the sort of thing that might be looked into before my noble friend raises the point again on the actual debate on the Bill when it reaches this House.
The other thing I would say is that I believe I have what is for the moment the only copy of one of the Orders which is deleted from the Supplies and Services legislation—that is, the Industrial Disputes (Amendment and Revocation) Order, 1958. I must say that, however much we may desire to get rid of statutory orders and legislating in this rather perfunctory way for important matters, we in the Labour Movement do not desire to see this kind of Order wiped out unless fundamental and comprehensive legislation is introduced in its place. Apparently this Order is not being wiped out because, since war time has gone, it is one of the things that does not really apply; so far as I can tell, it is for other reasons. I therefore give notice to the Lord Chancellor that when we come to discuss this matter—in fact, we may have to make some reference to it to-day in regard to the next but one matter on the Order Paper with regard to catering and wages councils—we shall have to look at it most carefully. I hope that he will make representations to his right honourable friend the Minister of Labour, to let him know what we are really thinking about it—and perhaps he may even be able to get him to think again.

§ On Question, Motion agreed to: the said Address to be presented to Her Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.