HL Deb 12 November 1963 vol 253 cc6-26

The Queen's Speech reported by The LORD CHANCELLOR.

2.44 p.m.

LORD TWEEDSMUIR

My Lords, I beg to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty as follows:

"Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament."

My Lords, in endeavouring to discharge this honourable task which has been entrusted to me, I shall speak of Crown and Commonwealth and the foreign field, leaving other aspects of the gracious Speech in the capable hands of my noble friend Lord Windlesham. But I should like, if I might, to say one or two words by way of prelude. This is the second year running that this honour has been entrusted to a Scot—and may I say at this stage how much I welcome the mention of Scotland in the gracious Speech: regional development in central Scotland, attention to the Highlands and Islands and the tourist industry, and indeed much else besides? We Scots, or most of us, are a far-wandering people, which I think is perhaps sufficient excuse and reason to explain why I appear before your Lordships to-day wearing the uniform of the Army of Her Majesty the Queen of Canada.

We have lost in the last few months, since the Recess, two notable faces from this Assembly, other than by the process of mortality: one to become the sixth Scottish Prime Minister of Britain since the century began, and another one whom we shall greatly miss. But I think it was the predecessor on the Woolsack of the noble Lord, Lord Dilhorne, who said in a speech some time after the union of the two Crowns, "We have catched the Scots." I wonder whether that was meant to be in a transitive or an intransitive sense.

My Lords, the Crown and Commonwealth and the foreign field are subjects of which I am going to speak, and speak fairly briefly. First of all, let me say that it is a matter of great regret to all of us that Her Majesty could not be here in person to open Parliament to-day, but that our regrets are swept away in the tide of our rejoicing at the reason for it. Your Lordships will probably remember many years ago the broadcast made by Her Majesty when she was as yet a young girl, in which she said that she would devote her life to the Commonwealth. How nobly she has lived up to that promise! She has at her side a dedicated and devoted husband, and receives the greatest possible help from the other members of the Royal Family. She has not very long returned from a tour of Australia and New Zealand, a tour which she had done with her husband ten years before; and His Royal Highness is to leave next month to be present at the freedom celebrations in Zanzibar and Kenya.

I regard it as a fact beyond challenge that Her Majesty, with the tremendous travel she has undertaken, and continues to undertake, in the Commonwealth, the tremendous number of people she meets and has met in those countries, has amassed a more extensive and up-to- date knowledge of the Commonwealth and its peoples than probably is possessed by any other living person to-day. And in her short life she has seen an infinity of change. She has seen London cease to be the head of the Commonwealth and to become instead the heart of it. She has seen the final fulfilment, or almost the fulfilment, of the Colonies turning into nations, and with this history made in the last decade with such furious momentum, the historians will always link her name.

My Lords, I welcome the mention in the gracious Speech of the continued affirmation of faith in the Commonwealth. These newer nations are the work of many hands, of many men of many races over many years. They are no accident. They are to my mind the greatest achievement of the British race. Wise men planned this outcome not only decades ago, but in some cases hundreds of years ago. The uniform that I wear to-day is that of the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment of Canada. That regiment was founded from among those who had fought at the British side against George Washington. They, being citizens of the country which became the United States, and having lost, were determined to stay under the British Crown and live under British institutions. So they made their way northwards to Canada and they called Hastings County after that very brilliant general of the British side, Rawdon Hastings. Rawdon Hastings went on to gain many distinctions and eventually, as the Marquess of Hastings, he became the Governor-General of India. He kept a journal into which he would sometimes enter his most intimate thoughts, and on May 17, 1818, he wrote these words which I think are worth my quoting: A time, not very remote, will arrive when England will, on sound principles of policy, wish to relinquish the domination that she has gradually and unintentionally assumed over this country, from which she cannot recede. In that hour it would be the proudest boast and most delightful reflection that she had used her sovereignty towards enlightening her temporary subjects so as to enable the native communities to walk alone in the paths of justice. My Lords, a lot of that has come about; and we welcome the mention in the gracious Speech of the independence of Kenya, Nyasaland, Zanzibar and Malta, and of a new Constitution for the Bahamas. The making of a new nation is a moment of triumph. But unless that nation be a free nation, then there is no triumph. In wishing them well from the bottom of our hearts, let us also fervently hope that, in these new nations, men of all races will be able to live free and equal as citizens; that their Governments will rest on the maximum attainable degree of consent; and that they will say in their enactments, "This is not fair because it is the law, but it is the law because it is fair".

Thirty years ago I was district officer in Uganda, now art independent nation, and thirty years before that my father was engaged with Lord Milner in South Africa in the reconstruction of that country after the South African War. He was at the burial of Cecil Rhodes, where there was a guard of honour of Africans 100 miles in length. I read with sadness what of course we all knew already, of the dismantling of the Central African Federation. I was one of the many who had hoped that the great nation of Africa might be built on the foundation that Rhodes had laid.

But of all political patterns Federations are the most difficult to devise. It appears that if a Federation is going to succeed it must acquire a momentum after the Federation has become a fact. That was so in Canada and Australia, whose Federations started in tumult and controversy. They quickly acquired that momentum in the United States, lost it, fell into civil war and regained it once more. There is every reason to believe that Nigeria, a much more recent one, posesses it; but s'omehow in Central Africa, in spite of the devoted work of many men of many races, that momentum never developed. But we are witnessing another Federation of the Commonwealth which bids fair to succeed in a great degree, and that is the Federation of Malaysia—round about 10 million souls of different races, cultures and creeds, under the wise and experienced guidance of that well-known Common wealth statesman, Tunku Abdul Rahman. Let us hope that they gather the strength and the prosperity to have the power to stand four-square amidst the tides of power that run and race round the confines of Asia.

I turn now to the foreign field, and when I say that I turn to the foreign field perhaps the greatest difference to us between the rest of the world and the Commonwealth is that the countries of the Commonwealth are nations which are essentially "unforeign" to each other. You may travel the Commonwealth from end to end, and you may be a stranger there, but never a foreigner. Let me first of all most warmly welcome the reference in the gracious Speech to the nuclear test ban treaty. I think your Lordships will be as pleased as I am that the outgoing Prime Minister, after forty years of dedicated service to this country and seven years in office as the Queen's first Minister, was still in office when that treaty was signed. It crowns so many years of patient effort on his part.

It is not an end of anything, my Lords: it is a milestone. It may be a milestone on the way to genuine co-existence. The co-existence as understood by Marshal Stalin was that co-existence which the cat extends to the mouse whilst the mouse is down its hole. That was the most dangerous period of Russia, that terrifying blend of ignorance and power, and at a time in the world's history when it had become technically possible for one nation to be master of the earth. All through her history Russia has been tormented by the nightmare of having two flanks. After the last world war—and I devoutly hope that historians will record that it was the last world war—Russia riveted her hold on the satellite countries and thus secured her western border. Communism engulfed China, and she felt secure on the other side. But to-day things are rather different. Russia finds not a friend on her eastern border, but a rival. She put too much of an effort into certain aspects of her technological advance and most seriously neglected others, to her great detriment. She has been forced to educate more and more people to a very high level, and you cannot educate half a man's mind and get it to work for you and forbid him to use the other half. You have, inevitably, a growing public opinion to which the rulers of Russia must increasingly harken.

The signing of this treaty is a tremendous step forward, but it would be very rash for us to assume that Russia had awakened from her fevered dream of world conquest; that the giant sleeps fitfully now. It is that, for the first time, she has stepped out of her isolation to combine with the West in a constructive measure. It is not the end of anything, but it may be the beginning of the glimmering of sanity. But were we to relax our guard or diminish our alliances, we should lose all we have won already, and probably more.

I welcome in the gracious Speech the words that the Government will continue their support for the United Nations in many spheres". Then, later on, the gracious Speech says, they will continue to play their part in the North Atlantic Alliance and other regional associations for the defence of freedom". I have always taken a deep interest in the United Nations. I was a delegate there ten years ago, and my noble relative in another place (if that is the correct expression) was a delegate there in 1961 and 1962. The United Nations was founded on the most noble principles, and its machinery was put together as being the kind most likely to give effect to those principles. The machinery has been almost completely deadlocked, largely due to the actions of the Russians, and I do not think we can blind ourselves to the fact that the organisation has strayed from time to time from its task. It is to return it to the task which it was founded to fulfil which must be the object of this or any other British Government.

Let us not belittle its achievements. I think, apart from the achievements of which we all know—the Special Agencies, the great crusade in Korea and much else—most of your Lordships will agree that one of the greatest safeguards of the liberties of this country is Question Time in another place, and the United Nations has carried out the remarkable feat of producing what amounts to a world question time, which again is a great safeguard of liberty. But an idea can create an institution: an institution can then, so often, stifle the idea that created it. When we see the United Nations, which has been set up to bring rules of conduct to the world, sometimes disinclined to obey the rules it set up to regulate its own conduct and straying from the path, it needs our support on the lines, as I have said, of helping to restore it to do the task for which it was founded.

Then, my Lords, we are partners in various great Alliances. It is always important for us in this country to remember that we have never been a great land Power. We were once a sea Power, so great that single-handed we could guarantee the entire defence of the Commonwealth. That chapter ended at the beginning of this century, but we have always been a genius in combination, in alliance, and I welcome the Alliances of which we are now part. But it is tremendously important to remember that, if we have a vital national interest, it is no less our vital national interest because others in alliance are helping us defend it.

I welcome the modernisation of the defence system, about which legislation will be laid before your Lordships. If the logic of the present day calls for quick decision and quick action to put out a little tongue of flame before it can become a forest fire, never forget that Just after the last war one first-class British brigade, put in at the right time and in the right place, prevented Greece from going behind the Iron Curtain. Had there been delay for a few months, then ten times that force would have been needed.

Then, last of all, the gracious Speech makes mention of the relations with the European Free Trade Association and the European Economic Community and the countries that compose it. As one who has spent most of his life in the Commonwealth I naturally incline to the habit of thought that Britain does not belong to Europe and shares little with it apart from proximity and climate. But, at the same time, as a Scot I cannot forget that we are part of Europe in a way that England has really never quite been and that the second Scottish renaissance at the end of the eighteenth century came about through our going into a common market. We went into a common market with England at that time a foreign country. We had not previously been allowed to trade with the English colonies. The benefits hung fire for a time, but within the space of one man's life the population of Scotland rose by two-thirds and her revenue by 51 times. Now people see this thing, so often, in hard and fast rules, either for the Commonwealth or for Europe. Great is the perplexity of someone like me who has both outlooks at the same time. But I believe that they can be reconciled by careful and patient statesmanship. It was Dean Inge who said that History never repeats itself, but it frequently resembles itself". So, my Lords, I give the gracious Speech a very warm welcome because I regard it as dealing with the fundamentals of our existence as a nation and people. We have so many strengths, not least of all our proven genius in alliance. As Edmund Burke once said—and it is as true now as when he said it—we are on a conspicuous stage and the whole world marks our demeanour. Our leadership lies in the leadership of ideas. Our task is to enlarge the area of sanity in this clouded world. We have to lead to live. My Lords, I beg to move.

Moved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty as follows:

"Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament."—(Lord Tweedstnuir.)

3.5 p.m.

LORD WINDLESHAM

My Lords, it is a great privilege to be invited to second this Motion for an humble Address in reply to the most gracious Speech, which has been so movingly proposed by my noble friend Lord Tweedsmuir. It is a privilege which I appreciate particularly, since I have been in your Lordships' House for such a very short time. Events as they turned out have prevented me from having the opportunity to-day of thanking in person the Lord President of the Council who, as Leader of the House, invited me only a few weeks ago to speak at the opening of the new Session. What I can do, however, is to thank your Lordships on whose behalf he invited me, and whose patience and tolerance no doubt he had in mind when he decided to take the risk of asking me to speak.

It is also a privilege that I personally value very much to be speaking on the first occasion that the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, is acting as Leader of the House at the opening of a new Session of Parliament. I make the point deliberately that I was invited to speak by the noble Lord's predecessor in case it is thought that his first action as Leader was to look quickly around the Benches behind him for somebody who had served in the same regiment as himself to speak this afternoon.

Your Lordships will also forgive me if I follow for a moment the noble Lord, Lord Tweedsmuir, with a mention of the Prime Minister. Of course it is a heavy blow to your Lordships' House to have lost the Prime Minister from its membership. Nobody would deny that. But I suggest that your Lordships should not forget that it was primarily through his membership of this House, and the high posts in successive Administrations which he held as a Member of your Lordships' House, that the Prime Minister has been able to give his outstanding service to the country over the last twelve years.

It was your Lordship's wish, formally expressed in legislation, following an amendment in this House only last July, that no noble Lord should any longer be even temporarily debarred from membership of another place. Now suddenly the demands of national leadership have obliged the Prime Minister to transfer to another place—indeed, he will be taking his seat more or less as we are talking now. The Prime Minister is not likely to be doing this for a quiet life. The reason why he is doing it is simply because it is now in the public interest that he should take his place there—answerable and accessible to the elected representatives of the public he continues to serve. The devotion to public service remains: it is only the medium through which it is expressed that has altered.

My Lords, I know that it will also be your wish that I should express the regret of the whole House that Her Majesty the Queen was not able to open Parliament in person this morning. At the same time, everyone inside the Chamber and outside it will want to rejoice with Her Majesty and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh at the reason for their absence. The political changes I have just referred to must have placed an unwelcome burden of anxiety on Her Majesty, and all your Lordships this afternoon will want to record once again, humbly and respectfully, their admiration and affection for Her Majesty, the Duke of Edinburgh and their family.

My Lords, as I listened to the gracious Speech read by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor this morning, and again this afternoon, and thinking in particular of home affairs, I was wondering—as no doubt were others of your Lordships—whether there was any connecting theory or, if that is too grand a way of putting it, any consistency of outlook behind these proposals. I am inclined to think that there is a link, and that it is a link which takes the form of the words which appear in the gracious Speech, "the modernisation of Britain". This word "modernisation", graceless but fashionable just now, is worth looking at on the occasion of the opening of a new Session of Parliament.

The first thing that attracts notice is that the word itself is the product of an hereditary principle. In the first half of the nineteenth century the word was "reform"—reform particularly of an out-dated system of Parliamentary representation. The Victorians preferred to speak of "improvement", a more flexible term stretched out to include and bring under scrutiny social institutions: public education, public health and conditions of industrial employment. Then came the two world wars, followed by periods of reconstruction; reforms made urgent by the sometimes violent destruction of old institutions and old ways of thought. And so today it is modernisation that takes its place as the heir to one of the most vigorous and nourishing processes of thought and action ever to have influenced the political and social development of this country.

The words have obviously changed. The danger is that the institutions they describe may not have changed quite so fast as the terminology. It is also as well to admit that the word "modernisation" is politically attractive. Even doing no more than talking about the modernising of Britain, as I am doing this afternoon, gives a comfortable glow of virtue; a consciousness of being up to date with all the latest ideas. It suggests a streamlined rather hygienic future, in which many of the problems of contemporary society will somehow simply cease to be relevant. For these reasons, good as it is to see reform back in fashion once again, it is as well to ask: What is modernisation? How does it happen? Why does it matter? If I spend a few minutes discussing these questions to-day, it is only because I believe that in a stable political society, of the sort we are so fortunate to have in this country—and the fact that we are in this condition is, of course, to the credit of the Opposition Parties as much as to the credit of the Government—it is primarily by their attitudes towards change that political leaders and political Parties should be judged.

Of course, it is necessary to accept that altering institutions so that they continue to fit altered circumstances, which is what I take to be the meaning of modernisation, is not everything. There is, first, that prerequisite of good government: efficient administration. Then there is responsiveness and awareness to public moods and public needs. There is the toughness to withstand criticism and the openness of mind to benefit from it. All these things are important. But I would argue that it is in the taking of initiatives that governments are faced at the same time with their hardest and most rewarding task. There are always so many good reasons for not doing something, for not "breaking new around", for "leaving well alone"—even the number of clichés available for the use of those who want to sit tight indicates how many opportunities there are for their use.

However, it would be misleading to suggest that it is the job of governments alone to think up new legislation or new ideas which can be implemented without legislation. Most new proposals either have behind them a long record of continuing agitation, by the public or by special interest groups, or are thrown up by the accumulated weight of evidence. In this connection, I would guess that the welcome statement on payment of compensation to the victims of crimes of violence is a good example of the latter. Nevertheless, it is a responsibility of government to listen and to evaluate; to pull a proposal out of the ruck of general political discussion; to give it shape and form, turning it into an issue to be debated inside Parliament and outside Parliament; to be scrutinised and, if found acceptable, to be acted upon. It is this process, I suggest, that lies at the heart of good government and the continued effectiveness of any political Party which may be called upon to form a Government.

There are proposals in the gracious Speech which indicate an awareness of this fact. There are plans for comprehensive regional development in the North-East of England and Central Scotland, to begin with, and in other of the older industrial areas later on; and, as my noble friend Lord Tweedsmuir mentioned at the beginning of his speech, special development is envisaged in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Already there is a new Secretary of State, with a responsibility for regional development reflected in the altered title of his office.

Then, in the words of the gracious Speech, there is a recognition that economic growth must be matched by social advance". A further expansion in higher education is forecast, and proposals, we are told, can be expected based on the recommendations of the Committee on Higher Education which reported last month. There will be few noble Lords, on either side of the House, who will not wish to record appreciation of this great social document, produced after two and a half years of systematic study by the Committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Robbins. Research, also, is to be encouraged and further efforts made to increase the number of qualified engineers and of qualified scientists. Then, too, there are the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Police, which are to be implemented; and the law relating to police administration is to be brought up to date.

My Lords, these are necessarily general statements, but they illustrate that modernisation means not just the replacement of out-dated plant in the older industrial areas, or the reorganisation of the transport system and the ports, essential as both of these things are. The word also extends to new ways of thought and new ways of behaviour.

It is on this note that I would end. It is not for me to stray into controversy by discussing how far these proposals go towards meeting the needs of modern society. I am sure that this will be done by many noble Lords on both sides of the House in the debate that is to follow. But what I can say, without risking much disagreement I think, is that in Britain evolutionary change is seldom rapid enough or far-reaching enough to satisfy the aspirations of the public whose interests Parliament has a duty to promote.

In the end there are really only two ways of transforming any society: by revolutionary change or by evolutionary change. In this country, we have been fortunate in avoiding the cataclysmic changes, frequently accompanied by violence, which have earned the word "revolution" such a bad name in recent history. Yet most societies have their revolutions, and every society needs them. The revolutions which have transformed British society, and which will continue to do so, have been gradual but thorough, processes of step-by-step modification, punctuated by occasional upheavals. It is said that the great social advances which have marked these transformations: changes in environment, in income and in leisure, are invariably reflected in our institutions. Maybe they are, my Lords; but when? Too often only when society has marched on, leaving behind it the unsuitable, sometimes the improbable, framework of an age that has passed. We need to accelerate the process of change. We need initiators and we need invigorators. They usually make life difficult, in politics as elsewhere, but also, surprisingly often, they make it more worth living. My Lords, I beg to second the Motion for an humble Address in reply to the most gracious Speech.

3.19 p.m.

EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH

My Lords, in rising formally to move the adjournment of the debate and to make some reference to the speeches made by the noble and gallant Lords who have performed the functions of moving and seconding the humble Address, may I first, especially as this is the opening day of the new Parliamentary Session, say to the noble Lord the Leader of the House that in the stress of my political duties just before the last adjournment of the House I omitted to give him an official welcome to the House in his new position. I apologise for that. I very much hope that the Parliamentary qualities and characteristics of the noble Lord, with which we are so familiar, will bear him in good stead and in good friendship right through his period of holding his present office.

I ought to say that all Members of your Lordships' House are glad to know that Mr. Macmillan has been making satisfactory physical progress, and we hope that he will be fully restored to health.

We have listened to an interesting and satisfactory performance of this time-honoured duty of moving and seconding the loyal Address to the Crown. The mover, the noble Lord, Lord Tweedsmuir, is very proud of being a Scot. I wonder why he was not in the Scots Guards. He, I think quite properly and deliberately, after the service of his great father to the Commonwealth chose to serve the Queen in a Canadian regiment. I must say that he is always quite a handsome looking person, and at least he does not suffer from having adopted as a uniform that favourable naval blue which I have liked so much all my life. That is the traditional uniform of his regiment; and I think his services in Sicily and in Italy, for which he was mentioned in despatches on more than one occasion, justify his affection—and it is obviously a great affection—for the regiment and the corps in which he served.

I should like to say, too, that the noble Lord has adopted for most of his life the affection for the interests of the British Commonwealth of Nations which was so marked in his father. My noble friends Lord Attlee, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, Lord Silkin, myself and many others of the limited number of Peers that we have in the House, remember with gratitude our association with the noble Lord's father in the other place. Anybody who has read, re-read and re-re-read The Thirty-nine Steps will never forget his contribution to literature. But his great public service was to the Commonwealth, and I was glad to note how closely the noble Lord based his theme to us to-day upon this question. It is not for me on such an occasion as this to talk about the details of his speech on these subjects—these will be wide open to the whole House presently—but I am sure all noble Lords will agree with me when I say that for some years the noble Lord, Lord Tweedsmuir, has addressed us from time to time on questions especially relating to the Commonwealth, and some of us have often wondered why he does not do so more often, because when he does address your Lordships on these questions he speaks with knowledge and sincere ideas as to the future of this great Commonwealth.

Perhaps we ought not to let an occasion of courtesy such as this go by without saying that the noble Lord is a fortunate man, still comparatively young, to have such a charming wife as the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland. You see, my Lords, Scotland keeps on coming into it. I suppose there will be a day when the English will get a little bit of their own way. Certainly we all remember the noble Lord's wife from our service in the other place, and I am sure she must remain as charming as ever.

May I now say a word or two about the seconder of the Motion for the loyal Address? The noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, was asked to perform his task to-day in a week which must have been quite difficult to him and redolent with memories of another father, well-known to us all as a Liberal Member of this House, who served in the same regiment as the noble Lord opposite and gave great service to the State, fighting so well for his country and reaching the rank of Brigadier. He gave his life literally in public service (I think the anniversary is next Saturday, November 16), when in the course of Parliamentary duties in visiting a Defence exercise he was drowned practically in home waters. We did not always agree with the noble Lord's father, but whatever he felt in his mind he always spoke with great frankness and he addressed the House in a fairly active membership. We now see that he has a great product of his own following in his steps, although upon different Benches. I must not comment upon that particular affair, because the noble Lord has his own life and career to form. But I could not help detecting, as I listened, a note of independence within his Party, which must be born of all those impulses which sent him into the Bow Group. I have observed, from records, that he was actually chairman of the Bow Group on at least two separate appointed occasions. I listened to the noble Lord's remarks this afternoon on modernisation with great interest. I wish he had been talking this way just as strongly about twelve years ago, and perhaps we should have seen some of the modernisation even earlier than we are now promised.

The noble Lord speaks with clarity and independence of thought, and this is a House which welcomes independence of thought. Many different decisions are arrived at in this House, and I am sure the Chief Whip of the Government has noticed often in the last few years that the Government do not always get their way here. There is a great use for independence of thought in this House, and I think the noble Lord has given us this afternoon an example of clearness of thought about what he wants which is very much to be commended.

I was speaking the other day at a large local government function in the outer suburbs of London, and I ventured to say then that experience in local government is a great help to Parliamentarians in their subsequent careers. It should not go without notice that the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, served on the Westminster Council for three or four years. Experience of local government is an exceedingly good basis for training, and I wish the noble Lord every possible success in his future Parliamentary career. I should just like to say this final word. We shall all be thinking of the noble Lord on Saturday with deep sympathy at the passing of his father in the service of his country and Parliament. I do not think I need say any more to-day except to move the adjournment of the debate so that I may have the proper right to reopen it tomorrow.

Moved, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Earl Alexander of Hillsborough.)

3.28 p.m.

LORD OGMORE

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Rea has asked me to speak in his place on this Motion and to say a few words congratulating the mover and seconder of the Address. Before doing so, however, as I was unable to be present on the last occasion when the House met, I should like to express my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, on becoming Leader of the House and also to the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, who in future will be trying to solve the knotty problem that Lord Carrington so often failed to solve, unable, as the Negro preacher once said, "to unscrew the unscrutable"; namely, to explain the difference between the recruiting figures so often put out by the Minister of Defence from those of the Service Ministries. I hope that the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, will have more success than his predecessor.

We listened to-day to two most interesting speeches, from the noble Lords, Lord Tweedsmuir and Lord Windlesham. This is not an occasion on which your Lordships expect any forthright condemnation of the Government, or any serious criticism of Government measures. So many odd things are happening in Parliamentary practice and usage to-day that we may even see that one day; but up to now the movers and seconders of Addresses have always been most cautious and careful in what they have said. I think that to-day both noble Lords picked their way over some occasionally delicate ice in a most masterly fashion.

As for the noble Lord, Lord Tweedsmuir, it seems to me that he has had a career rather like a character in one of his father's books. As he has told us, he started in Uganda, where he was in the Colonial Civil Service, and then went to the furthest North, to the very roof of the world in the North West part of Canada, in the Hudson's Bay Company, which is a romantic association to have. Then he fought, commanding his regiment whose uniform he wears to-day, in the invasion of Sicily and Italy. He has been Rector of Aberdeen University, and he has been President, and is President, of a number of associations and societies connected with the Commonwealth. In fact he and I, I am proud to think, serve on one of them. We are Governors of the Commonwealth Institute. I am not sure that this is not the greatest contribution he has made—not serving as Governor, but in doing a good deal to save the Institute, because there was a time when everybody thought that its career was about to come to end, and should end. The noble Lord and others in this House fought very hard to save the Institute, and now in the heart of the Commonwealth, as he has called it, in London, the Institute flourishes like the bay tree and has become a real centre not only for Commonwealth activities but for artistic activities, too.

As for the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, it was with a deep sense of poignancy that I listened to him to-day, because his father was a personal friend of mine and, of course, a very close colleague on these Benches. It was a considerable blow to us when he was taken the way he was, when he lost his life in a sad disaster last year, because he had told us that he proposed to retire quite shortly and would then devote a great deal of time to the service of the House, his Party in the House and the country. It has been a great loss to us because he was a man of considerable ability, great drive and also a knowledge of military matters. We have lost an important figure in our Party. But there it is, we cannot prevent these things happening. I am quite sure that he would have been delighted to think that his son had so ably succeeded him and did so well in speaking to-day in seconding the Address. We congratulate him from these Benches and wish him every possible success, both in this House and in his political career.

I do not think I need detain your Lordships any further except once more to congratulate the mover and seconder of the Address. They have performed their duties as well as I have ever heard them performed. Indeed, they have covered the whole range of the Government measures as set out in the gracious Speech. We thank them for giving us a most interesting and valuable afternoon.

3.35 p.m.

THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD CARRINGTON)

My Lords, I rise briefly to support the two noble Lords who have just spoken and who have congratulated my noble friends Lord Tweedsmuir and Lord Windlesham on the way they have moved and seconded the humble Address. I should like also to thank both the noble Earl, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, for the generous things he said about me personally, and also the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, although I noticed that even on this occasion he was unable to resist the addiction he has for playing the Army numbers game. But, as I say, I should like to thank them on behalf of my two noble friends for the courteous and kindly way in which they have commented on the speeches made by the mover and seconder.

Before I add my own congratulations to them I should like to join with them in regretting that Her Majesty The Queen was unable to open Parliament this morning, but, of course, to say, on behalf of all of us, how glad we all are at the reasons for that absence. Nevertheless, every one of your Lordships who attends the ceremonial Opening of Parliament knows how much that ceremony depends on the presence of Her Majesty and how it is but one of the countless duties that she performs with such grace and dignity throughout the Commonwealth and Britain.

This would be a curious occasion if the mover and seconder of the humble Address were not warmly praised for the speeches they have made, however pedestrian or ordinary they might have been. But I think we can truthfully say on this occasion that we have heard two speeches of a particularly high standard and of special distinction. This will not come as a surprise to any of us who know my two noble friends. The noble Lord, Lord Tweedsmuir, drew attention to the fact that he is dressed in the uniform of an officer of Her Majesty's Canadian Forces, and it seems, as the noble Earl, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, said, very fitting that this should be so. There are a number of your Lordships in the House who live or have lived at one time in the Commonwealth. Indeed, there are some, such as Lord Casey and Lord Sinha, who are citizens of Commonwealth countries. But there can be few Members of this House who have the varied experience of the whole Commonwealth which Lord Tweedsmuir has acquired over the years. He has reminded us that he has worked not only in Africa but in Canada; and I know that he also has business dealings with almost every other member of the Commonwealth.

One of the great strengths of this House is that there are people of his calibre and breadth of interest and distinction who add first-hand knowledge and informed opinion to its debates. He has shown in his speech this afternoon how well versed he is in affairs in Scotland, as well as abroad, and that he has given much thought to these matters, though perhaps his observations on Scotland may owe something to the special knowledge of one of the Joint Parliamentary Secretaries to the Scottish Office. Some years ago that same Parliamentary Secretary moved the humble Address in another place. Now it has been the turn of my noble friend. I cannot help feeling that she must have been as proud of him to-day as he was of her in 1957.

My noble friend Lord Windlesham is a less familiar figure in your Lordships' House though I am glad he pointed out that the uniform he wears is a very familiar one to many of those of us who sit in this House, not least to the Leader of the Liberal Party, who I am sorry to see is not here to-day, because he and I could claim him a brother officer. I am particularly glad that Lord Windlesham should have seconded the Motion this afternoon, since at one time I was fortunate enough lo serve in that regiment under his father, who is well remembered by your Lordships for his trenchant and forthright speeches. It is true, and a cause for satisfaction to those of us who sit on these Benches, that my noble friend does not sit in the same part of the House as did his father. Nevertheless he has many of the same characteristics, and I know that the contributions to our debates which he makes—and I hope they will be frequent—will be listened to with as much respect and attention as were those of his father.

The noble Earl, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, reminded your Lordships that my noble friend was on two occasions chairman of the Bow Group, and that he was also a member of the Westminster City Council. Incidentally, he has also held various offices in the Conservative Party organisation. In all these he has shown himself to be a most forward-looking and progressive Conservative, and his speech this afternoon seems to me to have reflected those two characteristics very clearly. There is nobody in any quarter of the House who will not agree on the need for a modern up-to-date Britain capable of competing on equal terms with the rest of the world, though no doubt there may be disagreement as to which Party could best achieve this. But I do not think that so long as there are people like my noble friend in public life we need fear that Britain will lag behind in the twentieth century.

I notice that the family motto of my noble friend Lord Windlesham is: "I live by force and arms". Having listened to him to-day I think he might perhaps change it to: "I live by force and arms and head and heart".

I do not intend on this occasion to take up any more of the House's time. I shall have the opportunity, as will the noble Earl, the Leader of the Opposition, of making a speech during debates on the humble Address which will follow over the next few days. Suffice it to say that there is a heavy programme of legislation outlined in the gracious Speech. We shall in this House be starting on a number of Bills almost immediately. I believe that this programme of legislation is both constructive and necessary for the modernisation of Britain, about which my noble friend Lord Windlesham spoke just now, and I am sure that your Lordships, in all parts of the House, will co-operate in helping the Government to get it through, no doubt moving many Amendments which would, or possibly would not, improve the Bills which you have before you.

My Lords, having said that, I should once again like to congratulate both my noble friends upon the speeches they have just made, and the noble Earl the Leader of the Opposition and the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, for their kind remarks.

On Question, Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned accordingly until to-morrow.