PROCEDURE OF THE HOUSE

HL Deb 20 January 1972 vol 327 cc179-83

3.34 p.m.

THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL)

My Lords, I beg to move that the Third Report from the Committee on Procedure of the House be now considered.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

The Committee's Report was as follows:

1. EN BLOC MOTIONS—NOTICE

Item 1 of the Committee's Second Report of last Session, dated 3rd February, 1971, proposed the conditions under which Motions relating to Special Orders could be moved en bloc.

The first condition relating to Notice reads as follows:— (1) Notice of such a Motion shall appear in the Order Paper on at least two consecutive sitting days before the day on which the Motion is due to be taken.

The Committee have reviewed this condition in the light of the proceedings which took place in the House on 16th November, 1971 on the eleven Parliamentary Constituencies Orders standing in the name of Lord Windlesham (OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th November, 1971, cols. 570–3 and 643–6).

The Committee recommend that the above condition be amended to read:—2. (1) Notice of such a Motion shall appear, before the Motion is taken, in at least two issues of the "second half" of the Minutes of Proceedings (Notices and Orders of the Day).

The Committee have also considered the form in which notice should be given of the intention to move the approval of more than one Special Order at a time. They consider that a separate Business Motion is not necessary; but the Notice for the approval of the Special Orders should clearly indicate the Minister's intention to move them en bloc. In addition, an italic note should be appended to the Notice to remind the House that, if any single Lord objects, or wishes one or more of the parts of the Motion to be moved separately, the Minister must move its constituent parts separately to the extent desired.

2. PUBLIC BILLS: COMMITTEE AND REPORT

(a) Terms of the Motion

The Committee have considered and recommend no change in the terms of the motion "That this Report be now received".

(b) Minute Entries

They have also considered the terms of the Minute entries at the end of Committee and on Report. They have approved the following proposals from the Clerk of the Parliaments:—

1. (i) That the end of the Committee should be marked by the entry: "Bill reported without amendment" (or, as the case may be "with amendment(s)"). This would be the record of the Report of the Bill to the House, made by the Lord in the Chair.
2. (ii) That if a Bill is not amended in Committee and the Report is received forthwith. the Minute entry should be: "Bill reported without amendment; Report received".
3. (iii) That if the Report is still to be received (whether or not the Bill has been amended in Committee) the Minute entry should end with the words: "Report to be received".
4. (iv) That whenever the Report Stage of a Bill is not concluded, the Minute entry should end with the words: "Bill to be further considered on Report".

3. AMENDMENTS TO THE PREAMBLE OF A BILL

In the light of exchanges in the House on 11th October, 1971 (H.L. Official Report, cols. 207–9), the Committee have considered the procedure to be followed when amendments are moved to the Preamble of a Public Bill, or an amendment is moved to insert a new Preamble.

The Committee recommend that amendments to a Preamble (or to insert a new Preamble), should he taken last, except for amendments to the Title.

4. STANDING ORDER 78

Page 130 of the present edition of the Companion to the Standing Orders describes the procedure followed at the outbreak of the last war, when Bills were taken through all their stages without notice. A similar procedure was followed in 1914.

In considering the revision of the Companion the Committee have become aware that this procedure is in direct conflict with Standing Order No. 78 (" Standing Orders not to be dispensed with without Notice ") the sanctity of which was recently reaffirmed by the House (Fifth Report from the Procedure Committee 1970–71, agreed to on 26th May, 1971).

Standing Order No. 78 reads as follows:— 78. No Motion shall be granted for making any new Standing Order, or for dispensing with a Standing Order of the House, unless notice shall have been given in the Order Paper to consider the said Motion.

The Committee recommend that the emergency procedure should be sanctioned by the addition of the following proviso to Standing Order No. 78:— Provided that on an occasion of grave national emergency the House may, not-withstanding the provisions of Standing Order No. 33B, resolve without notice that it is essential for reasons of national security that a Bill (or Bills) should immediately be proceeded with and that the provisions of Standing Order No. 42 should be dispensed with to enable the House to proceed that day with every stage of a Bill (or Bills) which it thinks necessary; and if the Clerk shall have read Standing Orders Nos. 42 and 78 at the Table and the motion for the said resolution shall have been then agreed to, any such Bill may be passed through all its stages on that day.

THE EARL OF LISTOWEL

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

Moved, That the Report be agreed to. —(The Earl of Listowel.)

LORD SHACKLETON

My Lords, I do not think your Lordships ought to allow this Report to pass without noting one very important provision, which I pesonally think is necessary; that is, the power to override our own Standing Orders without notice in order to proceed with emergency legislation. If I understand the position correctly, the House has done this previously. For instance, at the time of the national emergency in 1939 certain legislation or other matters were dealt with in defiance of the Standing Orders of the House. That strikes me as wrong, and I therefore think it right that the House should have this power. As I understand it, this recommendation of the Procedure Committee means that in circumstances where, in the judgment of the Government and of a majority of the House, it is right to override Standing Orders, we remove all the protections which due notice would provide against arbitrary action. But though I think this recommendation is right, I should be a little shocked if the House were merely to pass what is really a pretty revolutionary proviso to the Standing Order, without taking note of all that it is doing. Perhaps the noble Earl will confirm that my understanding is correct and, furthermore that the power to dispense with the protection does not require unanimity and can be taken with a simple majority of the House. This recommendation worries me quite a lot, but I feel that it is inescapable if we are to be effective. But I think that the noble Earl should comment on this, and that the House should take a decision in the realisation that it is rather a weighty one.

May I raise one other point on the first item in the Report? I understand that the new procedure in regard to en bloc Motions—namely, that notice of such Motions shall be given in at least two issues—will mean under other Standing Orders that they will always appear in the Order Paper for the actual day on which they are being taken.

THE EARL OF LISTOWEL

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition for what he has said, and for supporting the recommendations of the Procedure Committee in their Third Report. I agree with him that recommendation 4, dealing with Standing Order No. 78, is of very special importance and I also agree with his interpretation of that recommendation. I think it is perfectly clear that what is being asked is that the House shall be enabled to proceed with business without due notice, on the occasion of a grave national emergency, and only on the occasion of a grave national emergency. It is only in those circumstances that the House, if it amends Standing Order No. 78 in this way, will be in a position to deal with urgent business such as certain Bills that were promoted, as the noble Lord pointed out, at the beginning of the last war, without having notice on the Order Paper of this urgent business and without being in the position, as it was before, of breaching its own Standing Order.

LORD LEATHERLAND

My Lords, I want to be very brief. I should like to ask: what is the interpretation of the words, "grave national emergency"? If we were confronted with a possible outbreak of war, then, quite obviously, this new Standing Order would be appropriate. But if an industrial dispute developed in such a way that not only the coalminers but the transport workers and the railway workers were out, would that be regarded as a grave national emergency within the provisions of this Standing Order?

THE EARL OF LISTOWEL

My Lords, I think the view taken by the Procedure Committee was that it would be for Parliament to decide what was a grave national emergency. In recent history, the only occasions that have been regarded as grave national emergencies, in the sense that we are now discussing, were the outbreaks of the two world wars. My Lords, I have spoken again only by leave of the House, but I wished to reply to the noble Lord opposite.

On Question, Motion agreed to.