§ 2.11 p.m.
§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGHMy Lords, is any statement to be made on Business by the Government to-day?
§ THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM)My Lords, I was not aware of any statement to be made on Business, but if the noble Viscount would put any particular matter he has in mind I should be glad to assist him.
§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGHThere are two points I want to put. I understood through the usual channels last night that it is the intention of the Government, whatever happens, to push through the Committee stage of the Transport Bill to-night. This is the eighth day of the consideration of this enormous Bill. The strain upon an Opposition, with the limited number of members it can afford to allocate to the close examination of a technical Bill of this character, is very great. We have had two very late night Sittings, with an attendance at the end which make the proceedings almost farcical from the point of view of getting a thorough examination.
We have now, perhaps, from some points of view, slightly easier Amendments; some of them may be quite consequential, and I have thought about all that. Nevertheless, we have still to deal with Amendments from No. 154 to No. 263, and it is proposed to push those through. It may well be that it 716 will be possible to get the Business through; it depends what the treatment may be in the consideration of each Amendment as we proceed. But to say that the matter is to be pushed through at all costs is asking rather too much of a limited Opposition. I think that you should rest upon the circumstances of the Business to-day as they eventuate, and not put that burden upon us. That is the first point; I have another to put forward.
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMMy Lords, as your Lordships may know, I have not played a very large personal part in the deliberations on the Transport Bill. I had myself thought that eight days was a very ample allocation. So far as the strain upon members of the Opposition is concerned, the noble Viscount will agree that we have done our best in other ways to strengthen the numbers on the Opposition Benches and thereby relieve the strain on individuals.
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMWould the noble Lord forgive me? I will, of course, give way to him when I have completed my answer to the noble Viscount. So far as continuance of Business at all costs is concerned, it is, after all, an issue for the House. I cannot prejudge what the House will think about it. The noble Viscount asked what was the Government's desire and intention. Obviously that will have to be decided in the light of the feeling of the House at the time, but our intention now is to carry the Committee stage to a conclusion to-day.
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMMy Lords, may I give my notice of reply, without emphasising it?
§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGHMy Lords, I hope that the usual channels will keep in consultation during the course of the debate and that the reasonable comfort of the Members of the House may be taken into consideration on this last day of this part of the Session, when many of them have made arrangements to be away elsewhere. They are not exactly high-salaried servants of the Crown; they are 717 just loyal people who attend here to do their best.
I should also like to ask the Government whether they will state to the House to-day what are their intentions with regard to the Amendment carried to the Sea Fisheries Bill, which concerned the last words of Clause 3 (1), and which was put in by the House on Committee against the wish of the Government on Tuesday last. I am informed through the usual channels that the Bill is to be taken on Report stage on the first day we return, and it is imperative, in my judgment, that we should know to-day what is the Government's intention. Is it the intention to leave the Amendment carried by your Lordships in the Bill, or is it to try either to remove the Amendment or to amend it? Because, as I see it, this is raising a pretty important constitutional issue. If I look at Clause 3 (1), under which powers are given to make orders in the future, in the last line but two I see that it says that the grants mentioned above
shall be extended and shall have effect in accordance with, and subject to, the following provisions of this section.The Bill was before the other place, and the Leader of my Party in the other place will again be raising it there on Business to-day. They had this Bill before them for a period of five months. This extension of the powers of the previous Act means that any order made under this Bill could really, with honesty, carry only the same provisions for grants, except as amended in this Bill, as were provided in the Act of 1953. This is a financial matter. There is a new proposal to make grants for the building of trawlers by British owners in foreign ports. It was never mentioned on the Second Reading of this Bill. I consider it to be a constitutional issue of great importance that, before the Bill finally receives Royal Assent, this matter should be before the House controlling finance. Therefore, I want to know to-day what are the intentions of the Government, so that I can make what reasonable arrangements I can to consider the matter between now and the day on which we come back, which at present is to be devoted to this matter.
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMMy Lords, there is nothing whatever in the constitutional 718 point. Any scheme which gives effect to the subsidies proposed will have to come before both Houses of Parliament by way of Affirmative Resolution, and that is the way the Act provides, and has always provided. As regards the question which the noble Viscount has asked, I do not propose to debate its merits now, and I do not suppose that the House would wish me to; but it is the intention of the Government to put down an Amendment in due course, and to try to persuade the House on Report to accept an Amendment which will restore the Bill to the condition in which we received it from the other place. In answer to the debate on the Adjournment to-morrow, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland will be making a more general reply upon the nature of the Government's policy, Which I would ask the noble Viscount to await.
§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGHMy Lords, it does not follow at all that I am bound to accept the statement of the noble and learned Viscount the Leader of the House that no constitutional point arises. I myself have read this pretty carefully and what he has just suggested would be a matter for great debate. It seems to me that no order can be made under this Bill, which is out of line with the financial provisions of 1953. All it says here is that it will extend the powers. What powers? What powers were mentioned in the financial House? What powers were there to make this new proposal that you now say you will introduce, introduce almost surreptitiously, when the Bill is well advanced, and finished in the other House, without the proposal coming before the House that is responsible for ultimate financial control? To my mind it is an absolutely constitutional point, and we should pursue it as such.
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMMy Lords, there is absolutely no reason why the noble Viscount should not make his speech, with all the eloquence at his command, when we come to discuss the Government Amendment. I can only repeat to the House now that I think there is absolutely nothing in what the noble Viscount has said.
§ LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETHMy Lords, may I support what my noble Leader has said? Surely, this is the position. A new principle is involved in that the other place was not told about the Government's intention of paying money into foreign countries for the building of fishing vessels for our country. It was not told, so the House of Commons had no knowledge when the Bill was before it that this was the intention. The Bill came here, and we were not told on Second Reading. Then, after that, the Minister announced it in another place, I understand in answer to a Written Question, so that there could be no supplementary questions about it, nor could the Adjournment of the House be moved on the subject. The Bill came here and it was after that that this Answer to a Written Question was made.
If the Government—and I would urge this upon the noble Viscount the Leader of the House—would leave the Bill as amended, it would then go back to another place. I would not recommend the Government to seek a change, but if they wanted to seek a change, surely the proper place to seek it would be not in this House, which has no jurisdiction on financial matters, but in another place; they should take the will of the popularly elected House in this matter, which intimately concerns finance.
I submit to the noble and learned Viscount the Leader of the House that this is contrary to the spirit of the Constitution and to the spirit of Parliamentary practice. It is sharp practice. It is a wicked thing to have done. I would beg the noble and learned Viscount, for the sake not only of the Government but of fair play towards Parliament as a whole, not to press this Amendment here, but to take it to another place, to the House which has rights over finance, the House of Commons. Why should the Government be afraid of it, unless they are afraid that the House of Commons will not pass it? Why should they be afraid of it unless, in tie light of yesterday's by-election and to-day's too, they realise they are in such a position that they have forfeited altogether their moral authority in Parliament?
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMMy Lords, the noble Lord is himself, I think, violating the practice of the House in seeking to debate the merits of the Amendment, when all his noble Leader did was to ask me what was the Government's intention as to whether or not we should put it down. The noble Lord will later be able to make his speech, and it will be just as inaccurate then as it was just now, but then I shall be able to answer it and remain in order. I will only say this to the noble Viscount and his noble friend: it is a remarkable thing, coming from the Party which immediately prior to that Amendment sought to introduce a new subsidy by way of Amendment in the House of Lords. That, indeed, was a grave violation of the spirit of our Constitution.
§ LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGHMy Lords, may I ask the noble Viscount the Leader of the House whether he is aware that, when for five and a half months this Bill was discussed in another place, the situation was that all shipping vessels or engines for which a grant or loan could be obtained were exclusively to be produced in the United Kingdom? During the whole of those five and a half months those honourable Members who were discussing this Bill were never made aware of any likely change on the lines indicated in the Minister's reply to a question on May 18. Is the noble and learned Viscount also aware that this House was also in ignorance of any change when it gave the Bill a Second Reading? But more important still than either of those questions, I think, is the point that noble Lords on this side of the House were as anxious as any member of the Government to see the Bill on the Statute Book, so there was nothing fractious, synthetic or political about the approach. Does the noble and learned Viscount not think, in those circumstances, that it is going slightly outside the normal constitutional procedure to introduce this Latter-day saint after the Bill has come from another place and had a Second Reading in your Lordships' House.
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMMy Lords, I read the point that the noble Lord has made, when he made it in his speech on the Amendment, and no doubt he will make it again (and be in order) when he replies to the Amendment which we 721 shall be proposing on Report. I may say that, on the occasion when I read it in Hansard, I thought it was in fact a bad point, and I shall be giving my reasons in due course. All I was seeking to do this afternoon was to reply to a question by the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition as to what we intended to do, and that question we have answered. We really cannot discuss the merits of what we are going to do, until we try to do it.
§ LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGHNo, my Lords. But is the noble Viscount not aware—I am sure he is—that if the Government put down the Amendment indicated, and the large number of noble Lords who sit opposite carry the Government's Amendment, what they will be doing in effect is to deprive all those Members in another place who were keenly interested in the Bill, and spent five and a half months upon it in ignorance of this change, of an opportunity of ever discussing this new principle?
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMMy Lords, I do not agree even with that. But the Government's Amendment will not succeed in your Lordships' House unless this House so decrees by its vote in the ordinary way, and we shall appeal to it to do so. As regards the other place, I have never found them unable to safeguard their own privileges, and I hope the time will never come when they are.
§ LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETHMy Lords, the noble and learned Viscount has referred to an Amendment to another Bill, which was moved from this side and involved money.
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMIt is the same Bill.
§ LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETHAll right, my Lords, the same Bill. But there is nothing wrong about that. If it went to another place with that Amendment in, it would be treated as a privilege Amendment; the Speaker or the Chairman of Committees would so announce, and it would be printed in italics. It would then be open to another place either to affirm this privilege or to let it go, just as they like. It is well within their power. What the Government are seeking now is to sidestep another place, the popularly elected House. On the noble and learned 722 Viscount's point about orders, he will be aware that when an order comes here or goes to another place, Amendments cannot be moved. It is either, "Yes" or "No"—
§ LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGHTake it or leave it.
§ LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH—or, as my noble friend says, "take it or leave it". We have a tradition here, which I think on balance is sensible, that we do not interfere with orders; we leave it to another place. Therefore, is that an adequate substitute for the rights of Parliament and particularly of the House that deals with money matters? Is that a good reason why we should not safeguard the rights of both Houses and, on a money matter, particularly of another place?
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMMy Lords, I still do not think we should do right to debate the merits of this Amendment, when all I was doing was to reply to the question as to what we were going to do. But I must say I think it is extremely strange for the noble Lord to speak about the privilege of another place, when all the Government's Amendment is proposing to do is to put back the Bill in the condition in which the other place sent it to us.
§ LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETHThey did not know about it.
§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGHMy Lords, I have never in my life heard such evasions. That last answer takes no account of the fact that the House of Commons was absolutely sidestepped by the Government in their action. It was never mentioned there at all. So the noble Viscount's case on that has gone by default. However, I do not propose to continue it here. I suppose we should not have known for a long enough time if I had not asked a question to-day what the Government's attitude was going to be. I tried to find out yesterday through the usual channels, but I got no firm answer. I now have an answer; I know the Government's intention. I hope it will be circulated in a very early Blue Paper, so that Members of the House may know when to be here and will not make arrangements to be away that day. I am sure the Government Chief Whip would like that, and I certainly would.
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMMy Lords, the noble Viscount has no right to say the Government would not have stated their intention but for the question. I answered the question because it was put. The noble Viscount knows as well as I do that there is to be a debate in another place to-morrow and that the Government would have stated their intention then if they had not done so here to-day.
§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGHThe action taken by this House had a right to be dealt with in this House. I took the precaution of asking the Minister first whether he proposed to make a statement on this.
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMThat is true; the noble Viscount gave me notice that he was going to put this particular point to me, and for that reason I came armed with the answer. What he has no right to do is to suggest that the answer would have been suppressed had he not asked his question.
§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGHI, at least, find the noble and learned Viscount guilty on that point.
§ LORD OGMOREMy Lords, as it is the last day before the Recess, and as I moved the original Motion on increase of pensions for former Colonial Service officers, may I ask the noble and learned Viscount the Leader of the House what action the Government propose to take as a result of the Resolution passed by this House last night?
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMMy Lords, unfortunately, unlike the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition, the noble Lord did not take the precaution of giving me notice that he was going to ask a question.
§ LORD OGMOREMy Lords, I apologise for not doing so; I have only just returned from the country. But may I nevertheless ask him whether it is within his knowledge as Leader of the House whether the Government propose to take action on something the House decided last night?
§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAMMy Lords, I cannot say anything beyond what my noble friend said last night.