APPENDIX (Hansard, 8 June 1972)

§ THE EARL OF LISTOWEL
My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be agreed to.

§ LORD SHACKLETON
My Lords, I do not think we ought to let this Report go by without noting that, if we pass it, this will be the last time that we shall have the Motion, "That the Report be now considered" before the Motion asking that the Report be agreed to. This is a great simplification in our procedures, and noble Lords will not, as I have so often done, jump up at the wrong point.
There is one other aspect of this Report that I would mention, and that is the Appendix, concerned with the short Wednesday debates. The Committee have proposed that the experiment of holding short Wednesday debates should he continued for another year, and I think your Lordships will agree with that proposal. But it is an experiment, and of course we shall watch it. There is, however. one passage in the Appendix, paragraph (4), which says: The purpose of these debates is to provide a forum for discussion rather than questions which the House is required to decide, if necessary, on a Division. Motions should not, therefore, be couched in a form to provoke a challenge. I in no way disagree with that. It was intended that these Motions should be somewhere half way between one of our main Wednesday full Motions and the type of Adjournment Motion which they have in the Commons, but I should be very concerned if this passage gradually came to be interpreted as laying down that Motions had to be entirely neutral in form. Clearly, a Motion which condemns the Government and calls on them to resign is calculated to provoke a challenge and would be inappropriate, at any rate for a mini debate. It might be too much to hope for.
None the less, although it is stated in the Companion under "Motions for Papers"—and we always use the formula 423 "Motions for Papers" in these minidebates—that such a Motion is treated as a neutral motion and there is neither advantage nor significance in pressing it. The opinion of the House is expressed in the speeches.…", and I entirely agree with that, I think that the House would get into great difficulty if total neutrality were sought in its Motions. We should end up by merely having Motions to take note. I do not believe it was anybody's intention consciously to achieve that. But there having been some discussion on a recent Motion, I think it is important that the House should recognise that any Member is free, within the ordinary standards of language such as is used in our House, to put down an appropriate Motion. Clearly it is undesirable that it should be worded in such an extreme form that it would promote a challenge, but that does not mean that it could not, in appropriate language, be a critical Motion. It is rather important that we preserve our freedom and do not allow ourselves gradually to get into a bowdlerised attitude to such Motions.

§ LORD FERRIER
My Lords, I should like to ask the noble Earl the Chairman of Committees a question. Is there any provision in regard to a twelfth man? Under paragraph (6) a Peer might say that he was net able to move the Motion on the day he won the ballot. Moreover, in the month that might elapse between the ballot and the date a Peer might fall sick.

EARL JELLICOE
My Lords, perhaps I could say a word on what the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition has said. I think the test is whether Motions are couched in such a form that they are likely to invite a challenge or indeed a Division. This is an echo of what was said by the Chief Whip in the Statement on February 17 last: It seems to me most undesirable and contrary to all the traditions of the House that 424 the House should be asked to divide in a limited-time debate in which not necessarily all those who wish to speak may have had the chance of doing so. It is important to preserve this principle. That said, I think it is a question of judgment, and usually we can rely with great confidence on the judgment of our Members to steer something of a middle course between the entirely anodine and colourless Motion—a bore to read and possibly a bore to discuss—and a Motion couched in unduly dogmatic and controversial language. There is a middle way, and I hope that it is the middle way which your Lordships would choose to follow. That said, I believe that these mini-debates, warts and all, have been at least a certain success in the first instance. I think that this is an area of our affairs which we could keep under review, but I have been gratified by the way the experiment has gone on up to now.

§ THE EARL OF LISTOWEL
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, and may I remind him of the Statement made on February 17 by the noble Earl, Lord St. Aldwyn, the Government Chief Whip, on the procedure for Wednesday about debates? In the course of his Statement the noble Earl said: … in order to provide for the unforeseen contingency such as illness or accidents, the Clerk of the Parliaments will draw, and keep in reserve, two other Motions in addition to the two successful ones. In other words, the two Peers who come third and fourth in the ballot will be kept in reserve in case one or other of the noble Lords who have been successful falls ill. I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, for the proposal to reduce the number from two to one of Motions required for asking the approval of the House for Reports from Select Committees. It will save me time as well as the time of the House. I beg to move.