PROCEDURE OF THE HOUSE

HL Deb 21 July 1959 vol 218 cc297-9

2.59 p.m.

Order of the Day read for the consideration of the Second Report from the Select Committee.

The Committee reported as follows:

1.—QUOTATION FROM COMMONS SPEECHES The Committee have considered the proposals arising from Lord Silkin's Starred Question on Tuesday, the 5th of May. The Committee are of the opinion that the reply by the Leader of the House to Lord Silkin be summarised for inclusion in the Companion to the Standing Orders of the House, and that this summary be considered at the next meeting of the Committee. The Committee further agree that the full text of the letter from the Lord Badeley to the late Lord Salisbury, dated the 2nd of March, 1942, be communicated to the House.

2.—OPPOSED PRIVATE BILLS The Committee have considered the proposals made by Lord Alexander of Hills-borough and Lord Swinton in the House on Thursday, the 25th of June (columns 253 to 255). The Committee are of the opinion that private business should be taken immediately after Starred Questions and therefore recommend to the House that Standing Order No. 35 be amended accordingly. The Committee further agree that, if the Lord Chairman directs the attention of the House under Private Bill Standing Order No. 91 to any special circumctances relative to any Private Bill, or if, on a Second or Third Reading, it appears that a Private Bill is likely to be debated, the Lord Chairman should have discretion to propose the postponement or adjournment of that Stage of the Bill either to a time later in the same day or to another day. The Committee also consider that Peers intending to oppose any stage of a Private Bill should give notice of their intention to the Lord Chairman.

THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD MERTHYR)

My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now considered.

Moved accordingly and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

LORD MERTHYR

My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now agreed to. In so doing, I do not think that there are any matters to which I need draw the particular or special attention of your Lordships, save that at the request of the Committee I should like, if I have the permission of the House so to do, to read the letter which is referred to in paragraph 1 of this Report, so that the letter may be on the record and in Hansard for reference in the future. The letter was addressed by the late Sir Henry Badeley, at that time Clerk of the Parliaments, to the late noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, on March 2, 1942, and is as follows: Dear Lord Salisbury, In reply to your letter of the 28th instant, the whole matter of quotation from debates in another place was raised on the Motion of Lord Cecil of Chelwood in December, 1938, as you say, and the Motion abrogating the custom was subsequently withdrawn. The matter is one of custom and not of rule and, no doubt, has its origin in the fact that it is unfair to quote with a view to criticism words of a speaker who in his absence cannot reply, and again that the report may be an inaccurate one. Erskine May founded it upon the fact that the debates of one House are not known to the other and that the other House can take no notice of them: this explanation could hardly be held good today. Dicta by various Speakers of the House of Commons do not seem to me to have any binding influence on the procedure of the House of Lords. The custom has always been that while the purport of a speech can be quoted in debate, the actual text should not. The exceptions are, as you say, two—the first that the custom does not apply to what has passed in a former session, and the second that a statement of a Minister can be quoted verbatim in view of the necessity for accuracy in quotation. This latter at once brings into question the extent to which the Prime Minister's speeches are statements. You will remember that the previous practice was that identical statements should be made simultaneously in the two Houses. This has now rather gone by the board. Nothing has been passed since 1938 in the way of a Resolution of the House to upset the custom as I have stated it above, but the practice of putting down a Motion in the House of Lords for discussion of a situation dealt with by a speech by the Prime Minister would seem to render the custom an inconvenient one, and I feel that speeches by the Prime Minister in the present emergency might well be treated as falling under the second exception and therefore treated as statements and that verbatim quotation would therefore be justified. My Lords, that is the letter referred to in the first paragraph of this Report. I have only to add that if any noble Lord wishes to ask any question with regard to this Report I will do my best to reply to it, either to-day or as soon as possible. I beg to move.

Moved, That the Report be now agreed to.—(Lord Merthyr.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.