COMMONS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 23 July 1962)

§ LORD CRAIGTON
My Lords, the battle for police inspection of clubs in any form and with any safeguards has been fought and lost. Your Lordships emasculated the Guest proposals; the Scottish Standing Committee rejected both your Lordships' proposals and an 890 even more refined Government Amendment. The other place on Report would have nothing but Clause 16 out of the Bill, and I have no alternative and no right, with a provision of this nature, but cheerfully and resignedly to ask your Lordships to agree with the other place. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.

§ LORD STONHAM
My Lords, I am sorry my noble friend Lord Hughes is unable to be here to-day to express our regret that the Government have succumbed to pressure and have agreed to what we regard as a wholly retrograde and reactionary step. It is no use the noble Lord, Lord Craigton, coming here and saying that we have to carry out the will of another place. It is quite true that in another place the Government have a very large majority. Therefore, if the Government had let it be known that their will was that this clause should stay in the Bill, then it would have stayed and we should not now be considering this Amendment. No one can deny that. Nor can anyone deny that, when the Government put Clause 16 in this Bill, they did so after mature consideration. Your Lordships will remember that on the English Bill we had a series of debates in which we on this side (and certainly I personally, because I moved more than one Amendment) tried to get this clause, or one like it, inserted in the English Bill. The noble and learned Viscount, Lord Kilmuir, the former Lord Chancellor, explained very carefully and at considerable length why that was not possible.
Then we came to the Scottish Bill several months later. The Government obviously had had much more time for reflection, and they had had much more mature and wise advice from the people in Scotland, and they put in the Bill a provision that a police officer of the rank of inspector or above could have the power to enter into a club. I well remember the noble Lord, Lord Craigton, explaining why the Government had come to this decision, that this was the right and proper course. I have no intention of quoting his words at this stage, because I know he expressed 891 genuine and sound views which secured tie general support of your Lordships. What is extraordinary is that the Government have now suffered some change of heart in his matter—I do not know whether the new Secretary of State for Scotland has any responsibility for this, but if so I would consider it a very bad start.
This question of a police inspector, a chief inspector or superintendent, having the right of entry to a club would never be abused. In every case police officers know before they go in whether it is a bad club. But under the present law in this country, and under the law as it will again be in Scotland if this Amendment is accepted, they will have to go through the whole rigmarole of getting evidence inside before they can go before a magistrate and secure a warrant. We all know the tremendous expense and time which is taken and, very often, the degrading steps which the police themselves have to undertake to secure the evidence. All that would have been done away with, and was done away with, by this Clause 16. No good club would ever object to this power.
No good club would ever have a visit from an inspector or chief inspector, because they know full well what goes on inside before they go in. What yielding in this way means is that we have once more given way to all the spivs and racketeers who want to carry on unsatisfactory and undesirable practices; who in fact want to break the law, and to break it with virtual impunity. The people who object are the people who have something to hide, the kind of people who, whether they be Fascists or Communists, are so ready to use the processes of democracy in order to preserve for themselves the Tights which they would deny to others.
There really is no case against this clause at all and it is extraordinary that the Government should have succumbed in this way. It would have given protection to young people, and particularly to young girls. It is not a question of snooping; it would have given provision to protect the decent clubs and to deal in a proper way, using responsible and senior police officers, with the undesirable clubs. It would, indeed, have been one example of many where Scotland was in advance of England, 892 and where we could have gained experience under the Scottish law which might later have been used with advantage by an amendment of the English law. I feel that your Lordships' House were entitled to some fuller explanation than the very lame and untenable one, that the Government have had to bow to the will of the Commons. The Government, at the moment, possibly without any justification, have a large majority in the Commons and they would have been able to deal with this.

§ LORD CRAIGTON
My Lords, first, I must say that my right honourable friend the new Secretary of State for Scotland had nothing Whatever to do with this Bill, and I must say that personally I am sorry that Clause 16 is out of the Bill. But let us be frank. Democracy has had its say, and this is the sort of Bill which cuts right across Party lines. The noble Lord talks of spivs and racketeers; but he is rather over-emphasising this aspect, because, as he realises, the same conditions already apply in England and Wales.

§ LORD SHEPHERD
My Lords, would the noble Lord refresh my memory, as he spoke of democracy expressing itself? Was this particular matter taken to Division in the Commons?

§ LORD CRAIGTON
Yes, my Lords.