Sitting of 14 November 1949

Preamble
The House met at Half past Two o'Clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  FIFE COUNTY COUNCIL ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
  Read a Second time; to be considered Tomorrow.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  FUEL AND POWER

    Quarries, Corby (Blasting)
    Mr. Mitchisonasked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he is aware that in or about July explosives used by Stewarts and Lloyds, Limited, caused damage to property and risk of injury to persons in Stephenson Way, Corby, and that Weldon Parish Council have cause to complain to that company about noise and damage from blasting at night; and what steps he will take to supervise blasting in the company's ironstone quarries near houses.
    The Minister of Fuel and Power (Mr. Gaitskell): My responsibility in connection with blasting at quarries is limited to securing the safety and health of the persons employed, but the rules that have been made for that purpose also provide that
    "where danger from blasting may arise to the public, efficient means shall be taken to give them due warning."
    My inspectors report that this requirement is complied with at the ironstone quarry near Stephenson Way, Corby. I have no powers or responsibility in respect of noise or damage to property resulting from the blasting at these quarries.
    Mr. Mitchison: Will my right hon. Friend look into the circumstances not
    1654
    only at Stephenson Way, but also at Weldon, and will he consider how effective warning can be given to the inhabitants of Weldon when they are sleeping in their beds at night, or how damage can be avoided to church windows when the church is empty?
    Mr. Gaitskell: According to my inspectors' report, adequate warning was provided, but I will certainly look into the point about Weldon which my hon. and learned Friend has mentioned.

    Area Gas Boards (Tariffs)
    Mr. I. J. Pitmanasked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether in view of the fact that the South-Western Area Gas Board has felt obliged to refund the increases made in its charges for gas, and to discontinue all increases proposed in its notice dated 27th June, 1949, and is therefore unable to earn revenue adequate to fulfil its duty under Section 41 of the Gas Act, 1948, he has consulted the Treasury with a view to giving his consent to further temporary borrowing by the board under Section 42 of that Act.
    Mr. Gaitskell: I see no reason why the South-Western Area Gas Board should be unable to earn revenue adequate to fulfil its duty under Section 41 of the Gas Act, 1948. But as regards temporary borrowing, I have recently received an application from the Gas Council seeking authority for this in order to meet the needs of all the area boards in respect of capital expenditure and additional working capital. This application is now the subject of consultation with the Treasury.
    Mr. Pitman: Will the Minister give directions to the area gas board to see that the consumers of 1950 are not surcharged for the error of the board in sending out their charges for consumption in 1949?
    Mr. Gaitskell: No, Sir. I should certainly not regard it as part of my duty to give directions to an area gas board on a matter of this kind.
    Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth: Does the reply of the Minister mean that, where refunds have been made and there is a short-fall and the right hon. Gentleman has not allowed additional borrowing, those refunds will again be recovered retrospectively?
    Mr. Gaitskell: The hon. Member has asked me a series of hypothetical questions which it is quite impossible to answer, and I do not intend to answer them.
    Captain Crookshank: Whose business is it to watch these matters? My hon. Friend has been very active on behalf of his own constituents, but surely there must be some authority which maintains an oversight?
    Mr. Gaitskell: It would be better if the right hon. and gallant Gentleman were to await my replies to the two further Questions which the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Pitman) has on the Order Paper.
    Mr. Charles Williams: Why is the Minister so very reluctant to protect the consumer against these errors?
    Mr. Gaitskell: I do not consider that the consumer needs any protection in these matters.
    Mr. I. J. Pitmanasked the Minister of Fuel and Power (1) whether, in view of the wide divergencies among the forms of notice by area gas boards in publishing fresh tariffs under the terms of Section 53 of the Gas Act, 1948, he will make a statement on the consultations he has had with the Gas Council with a view to giving a general direction to area boards on the framing of new tariffs;
    (2) whether he is aware that the majority of demands for payment of gas supplied by area boards under new tariffs published by them since 1st May, 1949, are unenforceable and may remain unpaid; and what steps he proposes in order to minimise the financial deficiencies which will result.
    Mr. Gaitskell: I do not at all accept the hon. Member's assertion that the majority of demands for payment by area gas boards under new tariffs are unenforceable. One area gas board—the South Western—has withdrawn notices issued at the end of June and is proposing to issue revised notices because of a doubt as to whether the original ones were in a form to comply with Section 53 of the Gas Act, 1948.
    Under this Section, the framing and publication of tariffs is entirely a matter
    1656
    for the area gas boards who are also responsible for safeguarding their own financial position. A divergence in the form of notice among the different areas is not necessarily to be deprecated and I do not propose to issue any general directions on this matter.
    Mr. Pitman: Is the Minister aware that the notices for the tariffs sent out seemed to indicate that every area board in the country has at least some tariffs which are subject to doubt, and, that being so, that the nation really needs a clarification of the issue in regard to the validity of the accounts which have been rendered for gas?
    Mr. Gaitskell: I really cannot accept the hon. Member's assumption. The question whether or not the notices are in accordance with the Act is a legal one and not one on which it is my business to advise the boards.
    Mr. Pitman: Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to accept later from me and to give me an answer, which may be published to the House, specific examples in regard to every area which I can furnish him?
    Mr. Gaitskell: This is entirely a matter for the gas boards themselves. It is their business to seek the necessary legal advice to ensure that they comply with the Act. It is not my business to tell them how they should do that, or to interpret the Act myself.
    Mr. Hollis: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the chairman of the South Western Board said that the legal position is uncertain, and that, by his own confession, he is anxious to have guidance?
    Mr. Gaitskell: No, Sir. He has not asked me for guidance anyway.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether, since this matter has arisen, he has consulted with the other boards to ensure that their tariffs are legal, and can he give an assurance to the House that in all areas other than the South Western the tariffs put out are valid?
    Mr. Gaitskell: No, Sir. I have not consulted with the other area gas boards.
    Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: Does the right hon. Gentleman not consider that he has a duty placed upon him to protect the interests of the consumers in this matter?
    Mr. Gaitskell: I cannot agree that the interests of consumers are threatened in this matter. It is purely a legal point.
    Air-Commodore Harvey: Will the right hon. Gentleman recommend that a commission be appointed to inquire into the whole position in order to see what is legal and what is not?
    Mr. Pitman: If the right hon. Gentleman will not accept from me by private letter specific cases where the notices are illegal and payment may be withheld and act, how can he assure the House that he is not interested in the Question? Surely the question of the legality of these charges is of interest to him and is it not fundamental to the whole question?
    Mr. Gaitskell: I am afraid I find that supplementary question far too involved to answer.
    Mr. Mitchison: Is it not about time that someone took legal advice instead of asking the Minister for it?
    Commander Galbraith: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether he has or has not a duty to protect the consumers' interests?
    Mr. Gaitskell: Certainly, I regard it as part of my duty to protect the consumers' interests, but not my duty to give legal advice to the gas boards.
    Mr. De la Bère: Has there not been a great deal of unfinished thought about this?

    Coal (Screening and Washing)
    Squadron-Leader Flemingasked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether the coal ordered by consumers in the Manchester area is now screened and washed before delivery.
    Mr. Gaitskell: Not all consumers specify screened or washed coals in their requirements. I am informed by the National Coal Board that coal for the domestic consumer and large coal for industry is screened and, in general, hand cleaned; that graded coal for industry is screened and the bulk of this is also washed; and that a substantial tonnage
    1658
    of untreated small coal is used in power stations and also in industry.
    Squadron-Leader Fleming: Why are the National Coal Board allowed to charge top coal prices for the mixture of coal, rock and filth which is still being delivered to domestic consumers in the Manchester area?
    Mr. Gaitskell: The hon. and gallant Member is making serious allegations. I am always ready to look into individual instances, if he will give particulars, but general allegations of this kind are not very helpful.

    Supplementary Petrol Allowances
    Mr. Ralph Morleyasked the Minister of Fuel and power if his attention has been drawn to the fact that the 41 Club at Southampton has been refused supplementary petrol for the purpose of conveying sufferers from poliomyelitis to entertainments provided for them; and if he will give instructions that the supplementary petrol should be issued for this purpose.
    Mr. Gaitskell: Regional petroleum officers already have discretion to grant small block allowances of supplementary petrol to appropriate organisations for taking permanently crippled or blind persons to Christmas parties or annual outings, or on similar special occasions. I regret that in present circumstances I am not prepared to extend this arrangement.

  LEGAL AID ACT (OPERATION)
  Mr. Marloweasked the Attorney-General upon what date the decision was taken to postpone the operation of parts of the Legal Aid and Advice Act, 1949; what steps had been taken at that date to implement the Act; and what expenditure had been then incurred.
  The Attorney-General (Sir Hartley Shawcross): The decision to postpone the operation of certain parts of the Legal Aid and Advice Act, 1949, was taken at the discussions leading to the Prime Minister's statement of 24th October. At the time of the decision to postpone the operation of certain parts of the Legal Aid and Advice Act, 1949, as the hon. and learned Member will know, no date had yet been appointed for the coming

  1659
  into operation of the whole Act. The Law Society was, however, engaged on the administrative and planning functions laid down in Sections 8 to 11, in preparing the detailed scheme with a view to its submission to and approval by my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor and expenditure of £8,500 had been incurred.
  Mr. Marlowe: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that this decision was made when he was in America? Can he tell the House whether he was consulted on the matter before the decision was arrived at?
  The Attorney-General: I do not think it is usual to disclose what Members of the Government were consulted in connection with a decision for which the Government are collectively responsible.
  Mr. Quintin Hogg: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman tell us, as soon as possible, what parts of the scheme are in fact postponed?
  The Attorney-General: I will do so as soon as possible.
  Mr. Marloweasked the Attorney-General if he will make a further statement explaining in lay language the effect of the decision to postpone the operation of parts of the Legal Aid and Advice Act, 1949; and which benefits to the poor litigant will be retained and which postponed.
  The Attorney-General: The possibility of replying to the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg) now arises.
  People whose means are within the limits laid down by the Act will get legal aid under its provisions in proceedings in the High Court and Court of Appeal, and in the county court where a case is transferred there from the High Court. Solicitors and counsel in those cases will be remunerated under the provisions of the Act.
  The provisions of the Act in regard to legal aid in the criminal courts and in the county court and by way of appeal to the Privy Council and the House of Lords will be deferred, as well as those in regard to legal advice, but existing arrangements covering aid under the Poor Prisoners' Defence Act and appeals in formâ pauperis to the Privy Council and the House of Lords will continue.
  Mr. Marlowe: Does that mean that there are now a number of instances in which a poor litigant will not get assistance whereas he would have had assistance had the Act been brought into operation on the intended date? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that in future, where any litigant is under a disability for want of means, that difficulty will not be the responsibility of the lawyers, but purely the fault of His Majesty's Government in mishandling our affairs?
  Mr. Sydney Silverman: Will my right hon. and learned Friend say what was the purpose of postponing the assistance in the case of House of Lords appeals, inasmuch as those appeals are always few in number and therefore could not have been very expensive, and also in view of the fact that in those cases alone there could be no appeal to the House of Lords unless the Court of Appeal, or the House of Lords, have certified that a question of public importance is involved?
  The Attorney-General: It was thought that the additional expenditure involved in altering the present proceedings would not be justified in view of the financial stringency of the country and in view of the fact that alternative procedure would still remain available.
  Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is it the intention to appeal to the generosity and the patriotism of the legal profession to accept no fees in this respect until the crisis is over?
  The Attorney-General: It is certainly my hope that the voluntary arrangements which have hitherto existed, and to which both branches of the legal profession have in the past made most valuable contributions, will continue until the rest of the Act is brought into operation.
  Major Sir David Maxwell Fyfe: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman tell the House what provision the Government are making for the Services, because I understand that the present scheme is coming to an end in July, and I think the right hon. and learned Gentleman will agree that it is important that some provision should be made for their legal assistance?
  The Attorney-General: I should like to see that Question on the Order Paper.
  Mr. S. Silverman: When my right hon. and learned Friend says that there is an alternative procedure in the case of House of Lords appeals, is he referring to the fact that a great deal of the professional work is done free under poor persons' rules, and will that continue? Is he not also aware that in the case of a House of Lords appeal the principal expense is the high cost of printing, for the meeting of which there is no procedure available? Is that not a great hardship which this scheme would have prevented, and which it would not have cost much to remove?
  The Attorney-General: I must agree with my hon. Friend that the deferment of this part of the scheme, as indeed of the rest of the scheme, is a matter of great regret to the legal profession and the Government and I am sure to the public.

  FOOD SUPPLIES

    Ration Increases
    Mr. Austinasked the Minister of Food if he has any statement to make regarding extra food rations available to the housewife for Christmas.
    The Minister of Food (Mr. Strachey): Yes, Sir. We have made a special allocation to bakers of the ingredients for making cakes and sweet biscuits. Supplies of turkeys should be rather better than last year and there should be appreciably more of other types of poultry. There will be rather more Christmas puddings and about the same quantity of dried fruit as last year. Supplies of mincemeat, candied peel, crystallised fruit, and so on will be slightly better than last Christmas, and there will be good supplies of wines and spirits except whisky, which is a vital dollar export. There will be rather more apples and oranges than last year and plenty of tangerines and other fruit.
    Mr. Drayson: What about nuts?
    Mr. Strachey: I am glad to tell the hon. Member that there will be plenty of those.
    In regard to rationed food we shall be able to issue an extra 6 oz. of sweets during the four weeks beginning 4th December, making the ration for the Christmas period 22 oz. We can also
    1662
    issue an extra 4 oz. of cooking fat during the Christmas ration period. That may seem a short list of Christmas bonuses. However, I am glad to be able to tell the House that our stocks and supplies of tea and bacon are large enough to make possible an increase in the regular weekly ration, which I am sure will be much preferred to an extra Christmas bonus.
    The tea ration will be increased to 2½ oz. a week on 4th December. It will be issued at the rate of 3 oz. a week and 2 oz. a week in alternate months, and December will be the first 3 oz. month. The bacon ration will be increased to 4 oz. a week on 20th November. This increased rate should be maintained for some time. But the House must not assume that it will necessarily be possible to retain it through the whole of 1950. As I have often explained to the House, the bacon ration must vary frequently with fluctuations in the supply, since it is undesirable to keep bacon for more than a few weeks even in cold stores.
    Mr. Austin: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask him whether he is aware that this practical evidence of the nation's recovery under the Labour Government is widely recognised in the country?
    Lord John Hope: It may not be out of place to ask the Minister whether he does not agree that all things considered, politically and otherwise, this is really the funniest answer we have had in the last five years?
    Mr. McGovern: Will my right hon. Friend consider increasing the fat ration to housewives, in view of the popularity of fish and chips?
    Mr. Strachey: My hon. Friend perhaps did not notice that that is what we have done.
    Air-Commodore Harvey: Why is there to be no increase in the meat ration, particularly pork, since many workers are unable to buy turkeys?
    Mr. Strachey: We undoubtedly have considerable stocks of meat, but I cannot make a statement at present because there are questions of supply of which the House is probably aware.
    Mr. Harrison: In view of that long and substantial list of increases of rations, can my right hon. Friend consider very seriously including an additional ration of sugar, because it is in very short supply?
    Mr. Strachey: No, Sir. We cannot do that because we have already purchased the whole of the sterling and non-dollar supplies of sugar. Any further supplies would cost us dollars, which we cannot afford.

    Butchers (Retail Margin)
    Commander Galbraithasked the Minister of Food what profit margin is allowed on rationed meat to retail butchers; and what changes to meet extra expenses have been permitted since the margin was originally fixed.
    Mr. Strachey: The retail butchers' margin is designed to allow for variations in turnover and expenses, and to yield a reasonable net profit over the whole field of the trade's activities. Costings investigations into the actual profits earned by representative cross-sections of the trade are made from time to time, and wholesale prices adjusted by surcharges or rebates in order to leave the net margin at a reasonable level. The total net margin earned by the retail trade before the war is estimated at £12 million per annum. On the present ration of 1s. 4d. the total net margin is calculated to amount to £16¼ million per annum.
    Commander Galbraith: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a profit margin of 22½ per cent. was calculated in 1939, since when there has been a great increase in expenses? The present profit margin works out at about 17½ per cent. which is too low to allow in the case of many small retailers, a proper or reasonable standard of life.
    Mr. Strachey: I could not agree with the hon. and gallant Gentleman.
    Colonel Ropner: Will the Minister say what he thinks will be a fair profit for this trade?
    Mr. Strachey: I think that this is by no means an unfair profit.
    Commander Galbraith: Could not the Minister state the actual margin of gross profit allowed by his Department at present?
    Mr. Strachey: I have stated the total amount and the cross-sections of the trade upon which it is based. Any other answer would be misleading.

    Sago Flour
    Mr. Walter Fletcherasked the Minister of Food what was the average percentage profit made by his Department on sago flour imported from Malaya during the 12 months ended September, 1949.
    Mr. Strachey: We made a profit of about 16 per cent. in 1949; this profit is used to keep down the prices of other starches.
    Mr. Fletcher: Will the Minister give it in plain figures, because that would help to allay the very reasonable sense of grievance of the sago flour exporters of Malaya?
    Mr. Strachey: Perhaps the hon. Member will put down a Question on any further point which he has in mind.
    Mr. Marlowe: Can the Minister explain why it is in the public interest to disclose these figures when there is a profit and not to disclose figures when there is a loss.
    Mr. Strachey: I frequently disclose the fact that most of our food imports are heavily subsidised to the consumer and that therefore there is a loss on them.

    Fish Meal
    Mr. Hurdasked the Minister of Food how the current supply of fish meal for animal feeding compares with the prewar supply; and what action he is taking to ensure an increased supply of this feedingstuff needed to balance cereals now more freely available for pig and poultry feeding.
    Mr. Strachey: Home production of fish meal for animal feeding in the first nine months of this year was about 42,000 tons, which is nearly 3,000 tons more than in the same period last year. Production before the war was about 70,000 tons in a full year. All the fish waste possible is being used for fish meal.
    Mr. Hurd: Is the Minister aware that the supply of proteins such as fish meal has now become the crux of the feeding-stuffs problem, and that if he wishes to

    1665
    maintain the bacon ration at 4 oz he will have to find more fish meal and other proteins?
    Mr. Strachey: I agree that fish meal is of great importance and production is steadily rising towards the pre-war level.
    Air-Commodore Harvey: Does not the Minister realise that he could have increased this production if he had insisted on white fish being landed with heads on instead of with heads off?
    Mr. Strachey: As the House is aware, the control of fish will come to an end in the spring, and the economic price should then induce the landing of fish with heads on.
    Mr. Hogg: Why has so small a proportion of the herring catches been used for this purpose? If herring have to be exported, surely it would be better to use more for this purpose?
    Mr. Strachey: I do not think that we could prohibit the export trade in klondyked and other processed herring, which is a traditional and important export of this country.

    Meat Bonus, London
    Commander Nobleasked the Minister of Food when the people of London may expect to receive the 6d. meat bonus now seven weeks overdue.
    Mr. Strachey: I understand that the Committee of Investigation hope to submit their report to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and National Service in the course of today.

    Irish Pressed Beef
    Sir Patrick Hannonasked the Minister of Food if he will inform the House of the arrangements made by his Department for the import of pressed beef from Ireland; what quantity has already been placed upon the market in Great Britain; and at what price.
    Mr. Strachey: Pressed beef is imported from the Republic of Ireland by private traders under individual import licence. Licences are not required for imports from Northern Ireland. Licences have been issued for 60 tons, but I understand that only a small quantity has arrived. The present maximum permitted retail price is 3s. a pound.
    Sir P. Hannon: Is it the policy of the Ministry to encourage this export of pressed beef from Ireland?
    Mr. Strachey: Certainly, Sir. It is undertaken by private traders, but we have never discouraged it.

    Edible Tallow
    Major Legge-Bourkeasked the Minister of Food (1) how many tons of edible tallow of all grades were imported in the period 1st January, 1949, to 1st October; how much was later resold for non-edible purposes; and what were the purchase and re-selling prices;
    (2) how many tons of edible tallow of all grades have been imported since 1st January, 1949; what were the countries of origin; how much has been bought since devaluation; and where these purchases were made.
    Mr. Strachey: Eleven thousand seven hundred and seventy-seven tons of edible tallow were imported between 1st January and 30th September, 1949, the latest available date, from New Zealand, Australia, Argentina and Uruguay. Since devaluation my Department has signed new contracts with Australia and New Zealand for one year from 1st October continuing the arrangements under which we buy the whole of their exportable surplus of tallow. So far this year no edible tallow has been sold for non-edible uses, but any tallow not fit for edible use would be sold at my Department's published selling prices for technical tallow. I am not prepared to disclose the purchase prices of particular consignments.
    Major Legge-Bourke: Does the right hon. Gentleman's answer mean that the 1,500 tons of edible tallow imported from the Argentine in February has not yet been disposed of, or has been found to have gone rancid, and what is the loss expected to be?
    Mr. Strachey: I could not agree that that particular consignment has gone rancid. Some may be used for technical purposes.
    Major Legge-Bourke: What did the right hon. Gentleman mean when he told me on 7th November that the price had been changed, because there would be no loss on the re-sale? Surely if the price is reduced, there must be a loss on re-sale?
    Mr. Strachey: I am afraid I have not followed the last point made by the hon. Member. Perhaps he will put down a Question on it.
    Mr. Turton: How much has gone rancid?
    Mr. Strachey: None has gone rancid at present. Some may be used for soap making rather than for the fat ration or for lard, but that process is one which goes on every year.
    Major Legge-Bourke: Does the Minister, then, deny that fat which has gone rancid has been offered to soap makers who say that they can do nothing with it?
    Mr. Strachey: No, Sir. Tallow which is no longer fit on arrival for edible uses may be used for non-edible uses.
    Major Legge-Bourkeasked the Minister of Food what was the cause of the deterioration of edible mutton tallow from New Zealand during the summer; how much was involved; what has now become of it; and what was the purchase and selling price of it.
    Mr. Strachey: The arrival from New Zealand of some edible mutton tallow of low keeping quality coincided with peak supplies of home-produced animal fat, when the use of imported tallow is seasonally low. So far 463 tons of mutton tallow from New Zealand have been set aside and will be offered for technical purposes at the Ministry's published prices. I am not prepared to disclose our purchase prices.
    Major Legge-Bourke: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether it is a fact that this fat went bad because it was landed on the quay and left there unstored for a considerable period of time, and that that coincided with the dock strike?
    Mr. Strachey: I have no information to that effect.
    Captain Crookshank: What on earth does the right hon. Gentleman mean when he keeps repeating that it is "used for technical purposes"?
    Mr. Strachey: It is used for making soap.
    Captain Crookshank: Then why not say so?
    Major Legge-Bourke: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest opportunity.

    Sugar Ration
    Mr. Lipsonasked the Minister of Food if he will now increase the sugar ration.
    Mr. Strachey: Much as I would like to do this, I regret that it is not possible at present. We buy the entire exports of the Commonwealth and the only extra sugar we could buy would cost dollars, which we cannot afford.
    Mr. Lipson: Will the Minister bear in mind the possibility of a bonus ration even when the circumstances do not justify an increase in the ration, because many housewives are finding it very difficult to manage on the present ration?

    Pig and Cattle Feedingstuffs
    Mr. De la Bèreasked the Minister of Food whether, with a view to ensuring an adequate home pig population, he will consider increasing the offal extraction rate and improve the quality of pig and cattle feedingstuffs; and if he will give an assurance that the present imports of feedingstuffs necessary to maintain the present increasing pig population will be continued.
    Mr. Strachey: As to the first part of the Question, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Central Bristol (Mr. Awbery) on 24th October. As to the second part, I have good hope of being able to maintain imports of feeding-stuffs on the present scale.
    Mr. De la Bère: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the reply he gave on that date was not satisfactory, and he really must give further thought to this matter? There is far too much unfinished thinking. Why do they not get down to it? Can we have much more than hope? We want a definite assurance that feedingstuffs will be imported. I am not satisfied at all.

    Imported Food (Passengers)
    Mr. Keelingasked the Minister of Food why passengers crossing the Irish Sea from the Republic of Ireland are

    1669
    only allowed to bring in to Great Britain 7 lb. of food, while passengers crossing the Straits of Dover from the French Republic are allowed to bring in 50 lb.
    Mr. Strachey: The lower limit was retained in the case of the Republic of Ireland, because there is also a land frontier to consider, and because the Government of the Irish Republic said they would prefer us to do so.
    Mr. Keeling: Why should the British Customs stop what the Irish Customs have let out, not enforcing their own rules? What duty do we owe to the Irish Customs? What British interests are served by the restriction?
    Mr. Strachey: There is the interest of Northern Ireland to consider in the matter.
    Mr. Keeling: Well, make a separate rule for Great Britain.

    American Oysters
    The following Question stood upon the Order Paper in the name of Mr. CARSON:
    29. To ask the Minister of Food how many tons of oysters have been imported from the United States of America during the last year; what price was paid for them; and what was the retail price charged in this country.
    Mr. Carson: In asking this Question, Mr. Speaker, may I point out that the word "tons" should be "tins."
    Mr. Strachey: I am afraid that the emendation does not make a great difference, as the answer is, "None, Sir."
    Mr. Carson: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain how it is that these tins of oysters stamped with the words "United States of America" are freely available in the shops at the present time?
    Mr. Strachey: They must have been imported in previous years.
    Air-Commodore Harvey: During this Government.

    Groundnut Scheme (Accounts)
    Mr. W. Fletcherasked the Minister of Food to what extent the internal audit
    1670
    department of his Department was responsible for the accuracy of the accounts of the United Africa Company, when that company was acting as managing agents for the East African groundnuts scheme.
    Mr. Strachey: The internal audit division of the Ministry of Food had no responsibility for the preparation or accuracy of these accounts: this was the duty of the managing agents themselves. The division was responsible only for the audit of the accounts.
    Mr. Fletcher: In view of the fact that the right hon. Gentleman appointed these people as his agents, does not the responsibility still rest on him to see that the audit department ensure that proper accounting is being carried out by the agents?
    Mr. Strachey: It is perfectly true that I bear the responsibility for appointing this firm as managing agents and I am willing to acknowledge that responsibility; but the responsibility of the internal audit division of my Ministry was to audit the accounts and make a report on them to the Comptroller and Auditor General, both of which responsibilities have been discharged.
    Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the very grave shock to public opinion caused by the comments of the auditors, and how dare he brush that off so lightly?
    Mr. Strachey: I am not brushing off anything.
    Mr. Turton: Was this internal audit continued when the Overseas Food Corporation took over?
    Mr. Strachey: No, Sir, A firm of auditors, Messrs, Cooper Brothers, were then appointed.

    American Meat and Feedingstuffs
    Mr. Turtonasked the Minister of Food if he will give details of the expenditure of £2,715,578 recorded in the Trade and Navigation Accounts as having been spent in imports of meat from the United States of America during the nine months ended 30th September, 1949.
    Mr. Strachey: As the answer is a table of figures, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the statement:
    Details of the expenditure of £2,715,578 recorded in the Trade and Navigation Accounts as having been spent in imports of meat from the United States of America during the nine months ended 30th September, 1949, are as follow:

    Value in £

    Beef, chilled, other than fore and hind quarters

    20

    Canned corned beef

    2

    Other canned beef (excluding canned beef tongues)

    1,433,331

    Bacon (other than canned bacon)

    24

    Hams (other than canned hams

    111

    Pork, chilled or frozen

    889,256

    Canned bacon and ham

    484

    Canned pork

    2

    Beef and veal extracts and essences

    150

    Canned poultry

    8

    Other canned meat (not elsewhere specified in the import list)

    392,168

    Poultry and meat pastes, poultry liver (except raw liver), whether mixed or not, sausages, tinned, canned, and meat pies)

    22

    Mr. Turtonasked the Minister of Food what was the quantity and value of feedingstuffs for animals listed in Class I, Group B, of the Trade and Navigation Accounts that were imported from the United States of America during the nine months ended 30th September, 1949.
    Mr. Strachey: As the answer contains a number of figures I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the statement:
    Imports into the United Kingdom consigned from the United States of America in the nine months January to September, 1949:

    TRADE AND NAVIGATION ACCOUNTS: CLASS I, GROUP B

    Quantity in tons

    Value in £

    Soya bean cake and meal

    590

    33,968

    Dog foods

    (insignificant)

    9

    Seeds, feeding (other than Dari or durra, Dhol or pigeon pea, gram or chick pea, Millet and Canary)

    (insignificant)

    24

    Feedingstuffs for Animals unsweetened, not elsewhere specified in the Import List.

    112

    6,111

    Overseas Food Corporation (Advance)
    Mr. Turtonasked the Minister of Food for what purposes a further £8 million has been advanced to the Overseas Food Corporation since 31st March, 1949.
    Mr. Strachey: Of this amount £420,400 was advanced for the Queensland British Food Corporation. The balance was for the development of the East African Groundnuts Scheme. It was required mainly for capital expenditure on clearing, housing and new transport facilities, partly for meeting the ordinary charges of the Corporation.
    Mr. Turton: Can the Minister say, with regard to the major portion of it, in which region this capital expenditure is being made?
    Mr. Strachey: In the answer to a supplementary question, I cannot give a detailed account of it, but a large part, for example, was used for the railway in the Southern Province which the Governor of Tanganyika opened a fortnight ago.
    Mr. Charles Williams: Does any of this sum appear in the Service Estimates?
    Mr. Strachey: No, Sir.
    Mr. Piratin: Has the Minister seen the report of a speech made by the right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Secretary yesterday in which he said that part of the purpose of our expenditure in East Africa was for defence, and can he say whether any of this money has been allocated for that purpose?
    Mr. Strachey: No, Sir. In the report of the speech of my right hon. Friend which I saw, he said that the development of these territories would strengthen this country in peace and war, and that seems perfectly correct.
    Mr. Ivor Thomas: What is the total of the advances so far made.
    Mr. Strachey: I have given the House the figure already. It is roughly £29 million.

  TRANSPORT

    Bridge, Selby
    Colonel Ropnerasked the Minister of Transport (1) how far the proposed cuts in capital expenditure will

    1673
    delay the construction of either the temporary toll-free bridge at Selby or the permanent bridge;
    (2) whether his negotiations for the purchase of the toll rights of Selby toll bridge have yet been concluded.
    The Minister of Transport (Mr. Barnes): In view of the present increased need for economy, I see no immediate prospect of acquiring the toll rights of Selby Bridge or of beginning the construction of either the temporary bridge or the new permanent one. The negotiations for the eventual purchase of toll rights are not yet concluded.
    Colonel Ropner: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it must be nearly three years since he told me that a new bridge would be constructed shortly, and does he not think that the people of Selby and the surrounding districts are entitled to expect some help from him after all this delay?
    Mr. Barnes: I have never attempted to deny the value of this bridge if it was reconstructed. There are many other proposals throughout the country which are equally important as this.
    Colonel Stoddart-Scott: Will the Minister promise to repair the bridge and the roadway, if he will not construct a new one?
    Mr. Barnes: No, Sir. This is a private toll bridge and first it must be acquired. Then the intention was to put in a new bridge.
    Colonel Ropner: Will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that at least the negotiations for the purchase of the toll rights will be continued until concluded?
    Mr. Barnes: No. I cannot do that because the Chancellor of the Exchequer indicated recently that one of the economies of my Department must be secured by the postponement of the acquisition of toll rights.

    Statutory Instruments
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenterasked the Minister of Transport why Statutory Instruments 1793, 1794, 1795, 1796 and 1797 of 1949 are made as separate statutory instruments.
    Mr. Barnes: These instruments give effect to proposals made independently by different local authorities at different dates and the draft instruments were consequently prepared separately. It is not my practice to make such instruments until the necessary signs are ready for erection. This occurred at about the same time in all five districts.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Is not it a fact that all five instruments were signed by the right hon. Gentleman on the same day and that they do exactly similar things, all of them in the Metropolitan area, and would it not have saved a great deal of paper if they had all been made in one?
    Mr. Barnes: It would have been convenient if I could have done that. As a matter of fact, the dates vary considerably, and the authorities managed to get the signs from the suppliers at more or less the same date. That is why it happened in this way.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: If the right hon. Gentleman looks at the instruments, he will see that next to his signature in all five cases appears an identical date.
    Mr. Barnes: The discussions and the negotiations were on different dates.

    Road Safety (Cycles)
    Mr. Beswickasked the Minister of Transport if he is yet able to say when action will be taken to implement the recommendation of the Committee of Road Safety Report of 1947 that cycles should have efficient brakes, and that all parts and accessories of cycles should be in such a condition that no danger is caused to other road users.
    Mr. Barnes: I intend to give effect to the recommendation as to brakes when circumstances permit. I have not accepted the other recommendation referred to and do not, therefore, propose to take action on it.
    Mr. Beswick: Can my right hon. Friend say, in reference to the first recommendation, when circumstances are likely to permit?
    Mr. Barnes: This is a question both of supplies and information. I do not think that it is a matter of sufficient importance at present to cause me to take unnecessary action.
    Mr. Beswick: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that no supplies are involved and that this is simply a question of making it compulsory for brakes to be efficient? In view of the pressure that there is from the local road safety committees, will my right hon. Friend see whether something can be done?
    Mr. Barnes: It would require the provision of brakes if I made this compulsory.

    Ministry's Officials, Egypt
    Mr. Errollasked the Minister of Transport what are the salaries, designations and duties of the 13 members of his Department at present employed in Egypt.
    Mr. Barnes: As the answer is somewhat lengthy and involves a number of figures I will, with permission, circulate it in HANSARD.
    Mr. Erroll: Could the Minister shorten the answer by reducing the staff?
    Following is the answer:
    The staff in question is as follows:

    No.

    Designation

    Salary Scale(a)

    1

    Sea Transport Officer Grade I

    £1000–£1160

    2

    S.T.O's Grade II

    £650–£850

    4

    S.T.O.'s Grade III

    £350–£625(b)

    1

    Higher Executive Officer

    £675–£800

    2

    Executive Officers

    £230–£650

    1

    Clerical Officer

    £150–£360

    1

    Temporary Assistant

    £378

    This staff is responsible in the Middle East for:—

    (1) the supervision and handling of troopships carrying Service personnel and their families to and from theatres in the Middle East area, and those calling at Port Said or Suez en route to other destinations;

    (2) the movement of Government stores by sea from the Middle East; and

    (3) the custody and maintenance of a stock of sea transport stores (bedding, troop fittings, cargo gear, etc.) to meet Service requirements.

    Notes.—(a) The officers, in addition to their salaries, receive Foreign Service allowances on the scales accorded to United Kingdom based Civil Servants serving abroad.
    (b) This number has recently been reduced from five.

    Thames Water Buses (Accident)
    Mr. W. Fletcherasked the Minister of Transport how many accidents have occurred to Thames water buses since the
    1676
    opening of the service; and whether any resulted in loss of life.
    Mr. Barnes: Only one accident to a Thames water bus has been reported to me and this involved no loss of life.

    Locomotives (Maintenance)
    Mr. Thomas Reidasked the Minister of Transport how much steel and other materials he allocates annually for the construction and maintenance of the locomotives on the railways.
    Mr. Barnes: It is not the practice to give details of allocations for particular purposes.
    Mr. Reid: Is my right hon. Friend supplying iron and steel and other materials necessary to maintain the 400 types of locomotives built in Swindon and other railway works which he took over when the railways were nationalised? Is he continuing all these types?
    Mr. Barnes: No, Sir. As the result of nationalisation, these 400 types will be reduced to quite a small number.
    Mr. Harrison: If the Minister cannot give details of the allocations of steel, can he say whether there will be any reduction in the allocations for the construction of locomotives next year?
    Colonel Gomme-Duncan: In view of the very large number of main-line locomotives which are completely out of action because they require steel parts, will the Minister give the matter his urgent attention, because the railway service is liable to break down if this trouble continues?
    Mr. Barnes: There are not a great number of locomotives out of action. Since nationalisation there has been a considerable improvement in the figure for locomotives under repair, because of the better use of locomotives for the purpose of hauling stock.
    Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will extend his inquiries to Scotland, where I have received entirely different information.
    Mr. Barnes: I understand that there is great satisfaction in Scotland now that the railways have been nationalised.
    Mr. David Renton: Will the Minister take steps, in consultation with his Cabinet colleagues, to ensure that the price which the railways have to pay for iron and steel does not rise in future?

  PANDIT NEHRU (TALKS)
  Mr. Emrys Hughesasked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on his recent official conversations with Mr. Nehru.
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Attlee): Pandit Nehru was recently invited by President Truman to visit the United States of America and by Mr. St. Laurent to visit Canada. On his journey to and from the North American Continent, he passed through this country and His Majesty's Government were glad of the opportunity to extend to him an invitation to be their guest during his stay here last week. My colleagues and I were glad to renew our contacts with him and our talks naturally touched upon a variety of subjects which are of common interest to both countries. The conversations were informal and personal and hon. Members will not expect me to reveal their substance.
  Mr. Hughes: Would it be possible for the Prime Minister to invite Pandit Nehru to address Members of both Houses in this country, as he addressed the United States Senate and the Canadian Parliament?
  The Prime Minister: Pandit Nehru has now departed from this country.
  Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether at this meeting Pandit Nehru's monstrous invasion of the State of Hyderabad was discussed?

  BAKING INDUSTRIES RESEARCH ASSOCIATION
  Mr. Keelingasked the Lord President of the Council what was the purpose of the recent official visit of the Director of the British Baking Industries Research Association to the United States of America.
  The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): The visit was arranged through the Department of
  1678
  Scientific and Industrial Research under the Economic Co-operation Administration Technical Assistance Scheme. The purpose of the visit was the study of the scientific aspects of methods of production in the baking industry in the United States of America.
  Mr. Keeling: Can the Lord President confirm that this was paid for out of Marshall Aid dollars and, if so, could not a better use have been found for them?
  Mr. Morrison: This was partially paid for out of dollars provided by the Economic Co-operation Administration. The problem for me is whether I shall examine every one of these matters personally. This gentleman went for a private enterprise research association which is assisted by D.S.I.R. under an arrangement which I think is good. I could examine every case, but on the whole I would sooner leave it as a matter of co-operative decision between private enterprise and the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.

  DIPLOMATIC MISSIONS (MOTOR CARS)
  Mr. Martin Lindsayasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what privileges are given to owners of Corps Diplomatique cars; how many are so registered; and what means there are of preventing the unauthorised use of these letters.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Mayhew): The privileges enjoyed by members of foreign Diplomatic Missions include exemption from payment of motor car licence duty, from the fees charged on the issue of driving licences, and from the Driving Test. Those of them who enjoy personal Customs franchise need not pay Customs Import Duty and Purchase Tax on cars imported from abroad for their personal use. The number of cars for which "exempt" licences are at present in force is 767.
  With regard to the final part of the question, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department to the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Joynson-Hicks) on 3rd November.
  Mr. Piratin: On the question of the driving test, especially in view of the fact that drivers of those countries would perhaps be more experienced in their own countries and in driving on the other side of the road, is the Minister satisfied that they are qualified to drive in this country, and will he take steps to ensure that they are?

  ANGLO-YUGOSLAV COMPENSATION AGREEMENT
  Mr. William Teelingasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs why the first payment by Yugoslavia to this country, due in September, has not been paid; and what steps are being taken to see that Yugoslavia honours her agreement.
  Mr. Mayhew: The first payment by Yugoslavia under the Anglo-Yugoslav Compensation Agreement of 23rd December, 1948, is not due until 23rd December next. The second part of the Question does not, therefore, arise.
  Mr. Teeling: When the hon. Gentleman says it is not due until December, does that mean that there has been no change made at all, because at one period it was definitely stated that the first payment would be in September?
  Mr. Mayhew: I am not aware of that; I always thought it was 23rd December.

  FORMOSA (STATUS)
  Mr. Teelingasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will make a statement on the present position in Formosa; whether we have representatives there and to whom they are accredited; and what is to be the eventual settlement with regard to Formosa.
  Mr. Mayhew: His Majesty's Government maintain a consulate in Tamsui which is in charge of a regular member of His Majesty's Foreign Service. He maintains contact with the Chinese Nationalist authorities who are in control of the island. Any change in the legal status of Formosa can only be formally effected in a treaty of peace with Japan. But what the eventual settlement will be is a matter which His Majesty's Government cannot decide alone.
  Mr. Teeling: Am I to understand that the consul is working under direct instructions from London or from the ambassador who was formerly working in Nanking?
  Mr. Mayhew: He certainly does not get them from the ambassador. Such instructions as he gets, I should have thought, are directly from us.

  AUSTRIA (DETAINED BRITISH SOLDIERS)
  Lieut.-Colonel Liptonasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what steps he is taking to secure the release of 22017561 Private B. Tyndall, Northants Regiment, from detention by the Soviet authorities in Austria.
  Mr. Mayhew: I am glad to be able to inform my hon. and gallant Friend that Private Tyndall and Private Newsam were released by the Soviet authorities on 12th November, and are now with their regiment in Vienna.
  Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: While congratulating my hon. Friend on the successful outcome of these particular negotiations with the Soviet authorities, will he make representations in favour of early compassionate leave for Private Tyndall, whose father is seriously ill in hospital as a result of weeks of anxiety?
  Mr. Mayhew: I think that question is now one for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War.

  UNITED KINGDOM AND ITALY
  Mr. Ivor Thomasasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will invite the Italian Foreign Minister to London for a discussion of outstanding Anglo-Italian differences.
  Mr. Mayhew: My right hon. Friend has had the pleasure of several meetings with the Italian Foreign Minister during their recent visit to Paris. There seems no need to arrange any further special meetings for the time being.
  Mr. Ivor Thomas: May I hope that the question of further improving Anglo-Italian relations was considered in those talks?

  JAPAN

    Peace Treaty (Consultations)
    Mr. John Patonasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if, in view of his recent conversations in Paris, he is now in a position to make a statement on the result of his consultations with other Powers concerned with regard to a Japanese peace treaty and the recognition of the Communist Government in China.
    Mr. Mayhew: In their recent talks in Washington, my right hon. Friend and Mr. Acheson were in agreement that the time had come to re-examine the possibilities of negotiating a peace settlement in the Far East. Such a reexamination is now in progress. With regard to the second part of the Question, I have nothing to add to the reply given to the hon. Member for Mile End (Mr. Piratin) on 19th October.
    Mr. Warbey: Will my hon. Friend given an assurance that no peace treaty will be made with Japan without the participation of China, which suffered most and longest under Japanese aggression, and without whose participation no stable peace settlement in the Far East is possible?
    Mr. W. Fletcher: Will the Under-Secretary also make certain that, while the situation remains as it is, proper protection is given to British merchant shipping at the mouth of the Yangtse?
    Mr. Mayhew: We shall do everything we possibly can, but that is another question.
    Mr. Teeling: Can the hon. Gentleman state when the peace conference is likely to be called? Is it imminent, or will it be very soon; or is this just another vague statement?
    Mr. Mayhew: No, Sir. I cannot speculate about the date.
    Mr. S. Silverman: Would my hon. Friend care to answer in any way the important question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Luton (Mr. Warbey)? Is it not of very great importance that the country which suffered most from Japanese aggression should have some say in whatever peace treaty is now made?
    Mr. Mayhew: It is our policy, as has been stated before, that the countries which took part in the defeat of Japan should be represented at the conference.
    Mr. Eden: Can the Minister elucidate his reply a little further? I am not at all clear about his first answer. Can he say whether the decision has been taken to proceed with the peace treaty or not?
    Mr. Mayhew: I think that if the right hon. Gentleman will study my reply, he will find that it explains the position. A re-examination of the possibilities of negotiating a settlement is going on at the present time.
    Mr. Eden: It means nothing at all.

    Export Prices (Supreme Commander's Powers)
    Mr. Patonasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will give the particulars of the treaty or agreement of the Allied Powers which confers upon the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers in Japan the authority to take decisions abolishing price controls on Japanese exports without obtaining the prior consent of the Allied Powers.
    Mr. Mayhew: The Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers has wide discretionary powers to deal with matters not specifically covered by Far Eastern policy decisions. The original decision to impose "floor" prices was not a Far Eastern Commission decision, and it was within the discretion of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers to abolish it.
    Mr. Paton: Are the Government satisfied, concerning decisions of this kind which may have the most far-reaching consequences on British trade and on the trade of all the countries of the West, that the Allied Supreme Commander has the right himself to take such decisions without consultation?
    Mr. Mayhew: I think it is a fact that the Supreme Commander was fully within his rights in taking this decision. I would add that, so far as I can see, British interests were in no way prejudiced by his decision.
    Air-Commodore Harvey: Does the British Government ever take the opportunity of impressing upon the American Government and on General MacArthur the contribution made by British men in Burma?
    Mr. Paton: Will my hon. Friend address himself to the question I asked him, and indicate which treaty or agreement of the Allied Powers conferred this authority upon the Supreme Commander?
    Mr. Mayhew: The rights of the Supreme Commander are limited by the directives which can be given to him by the Far Eastern Commission. The Far Eastern Commission is not in a position to give directives to the Supreme Commander, nor has it given them, on this point. Until it did give such directives, he would be free to act on his own initiative.
    Mr. Eden: This is news to many of us, and it is very important. Can these directives be studied anywhere? Are they available to us for examination, and can the powers of the Supreme Commander be examined? Cannot the Government, if necessary, take the initiative to call together this other body which apparently has some power of issuing directives?
    Mr. Mayhew: The powers of the Far Eastern Commission are well known, and they are surely known to the right hon. Gentleman. If he wishes, I will explain them, if a Question is put down, but nothing new whatever has been said on this matter.
    Mr. Eden: I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon. I do not want to know what the powers of the Far Eastern Commission are, but what are the rights of the Supreme Commander, and, if the powers of the Commission are not sufficient to deal with this situation, if the Government cannot take the initiative to try to put the matter right.
    Mr. Mayhew: I do not say that the powers would not extend to a matter like that. I merely said that the Commission has not given a directive to the Supreme Commander, and that, until it does, he has power to act on his own initiative.
    Mr. S. Silverman: Can my hon. Friend say whether he consulted the leaders of the textile industry in this country, either
    1684
    on the industrial side or on the workers' side, before he came to the conclusion that the removal of these controls of export prices had no disadvantageous bearing upon the trade of this country?
    Mr. Mayhew: I must refer my hon. Friend to my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade. On the question of consultation with the business men in this country, I am informed that this decision is not regarded as adverse to British business interests.
    Mr. W. Fletcher: Did the hon. Gentleman ever take any steps to bring any pressure to bear to protect British interests in this matter, in view of the fact that on two occasions representatives went to Japan well briefed about the dangerous situation for the textile industry that was growing up?
    Mr. Mayhew: That is not a question for me.
    Mr. Harold Davies: Is my hon. Friend aware that the peremptory manner in which these decisions are taken by the Supreme Commander is affecting British business, and that both sides of the House are perturbed at the consequences of these decisions to the British textile industry?

  EASTERN EUROPE (PEACE TREATIES)
  Sir P. Hannonasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he has considered the resolution, a copy of which has been sent him, which was adopted at a meeting of 5,000 people, presided over by the Archbishop of Birmingham, at Birmingham Town Hall, on 30th October, and embodies a protest against the treatment of Catholic priests in Bulgaria, Hungary and Roumania; and, in view of the obligations in relation to human rights placed upon these countries by the Peace Treaties, if he will make fresh representations to their Governments on this subject.
  Mr. Mayhew: Yes, Sir, my right hon. Friend has taken note of the resolution. The hon. Member will be aware that the General Assembly of the United Nations has, in connection with the human rights issue, asked the International Court of Justice for a ruling on four points arising out of the provisions in the Peace Treaties

  1685
  for the settlement of disputes. His Majesty's Government therefore feel bound to await the decision of the Court before considering what further action to take.
  Sir P. Hannon: In the meantime, are the Government using every influence possible to impress upon these nations their obligations to observe the provisions about human rights in the treaties?
  Mr. Mayhew: I do not see how we could have been more pressing in this matter than we have been, but if the hon. Gentleman has any suggestion to make, I will look into it.
  Mr. Lipson: Can my hon. Friend say when the International Court is expected to announce its decision?
  Mr. Mayhew: No, Sir.

  ADJOURNMENT DEBATES (SCOPE)
  Mr. Ivor Thomas: May I ask you, Mr. Speaker, a Question of which I have given you private notice—whether you will rule to what extent it is permissible in Debates on the Adjournment to discuss the internal affairs of other countries?
  Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member has so worded his Question that it is somewhat difficult to give a detailed reply.
  The extent to which the affairs of another country may be discussed in an Adjournment Debate must depend on how far the responsibility of a Minister of this country is involved. As I stated on 24th May this year, it must remain for the Chair to determine in any particular Adjournment Debate whether the responsibility is present. Presumably, purely internal affairs of a foreign country do not involve Ministerial responsibility here. Perhaps I should add that the Human Rights Commission is a committee of the United Nations charged with drawing up model rules to protect human rights. Until such rules come into force, it would be in Order to ask what instructions had been given to our representative on the Commission, but it could not be in Order to ask that alleged breaches of rules which do not yet exist should be brought before a body which is not a tribunal.
  Mr. Ivor Thomas: May I thank you for that Ruling, Mr. Speaker, which meets all the points I have in mind.
  Mr. John Hynd: For the information of the House, Mr. Speaker, would you elaborate the point whether, taking advantage of the opportunity which your Ruling gives to ask if steps are being taken to raise a matter before the Human Rights Commission, an hon. Member might make allegations in the course of that question and use the Adjournment Debate as an opportunity for expressing such allegations?
  Mr. Speaker: I think that would be going outside my Ruling.
  Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: Was it not the original Rule of this House, Mr. Speaker, that on general Adjournment Debates, hon. Members might make speeches on anything, and that nothing would be out of Order? Is it not a new principle which has been introduced that Members of the Government must be responsible? Surely during a Debate on the Address, nothing is out of Order, and is not an Adjournment Debate on all fours with that?
  Mr. Speaker: In all Debates there must be governmental responsibility. That is a fundamental Rule of this House, and has been so since it came into existence.
  Mr. Driberg: Further to your original Ruling, Mr. Speaker. Apart from references to the Human Rights Commission or any other committee of the United Nations, is it not always in Order to ask, for instance, the Foreign Secretary to make representations to a foreign country through a British ambassador or chargé d'affaires if there appears to be a violation of human rights in any country?
  Mr. Speaker: I should like to see all those questions on the Order Paper first. To give a general Ruling on a matter like this is very difficult. If it were a question about an internal matter of another country, I do not think it would get past the Table.
  Mt. Driberg: With great respect, Mr. Speaker, may I submit that not only on the Adjournment, but also at Question Time—when the Rules are stricter than those governing the Adjournment—there have been in 1947 and 1948 a number of

  1687
  instances of the Foreign Secretary accepting responsibility for making representations to Governments of countries not covered by peace treaties, such as Greece and Spain?
  Mr. Speaker: Of course, if the Foreign Secretary accepts responsibility, that is his affair and not mine; but where he does not accept responsibility and where we are satisfied that it is a purely internal affair of another country, then the Question cannot be put down.
  Mr. Driberg: With great respect, Mr. Speaker, may I ask what remedy hon. Members have when the Foreign Office repudiate responsibility and the Table, therefore, refuses to accept a Question concerning, for instance, trials in a foreign country about which precisely similar questions were allowed last year? Is it not within the discretion of the Chair to safeguard the rights of hon. Members by requiring Ministers to accept responsibility when there is a precedent?
  Mr. Speaker: I have no power to ask Ministers to accept a Question. It is a matter between the Minister and his questioner, and I must leave it at that.
  Mr. Quintin Hogg: I have always understood, Mr. Speaker, when one was dealing with the responsibility of the Foreign Secretary as distinct from other Departments, that it was in Order to ask by means of Questions, or by substantive speech upon the Adjournment, information of the Foreign Secretary with regard to the state of affairs in a foreign country. I had always understood that that was an exception to the general rule that there must be executive responsibility.
  Mr. Speaker: I think there is no objection to that. One can ask for information. But I do not think that was the original Question which I was asked.
  Mr. Eden: Is it not the position, Mr. Speaker, that there must be Ministerial responsibility, so far as the Foreign Secretary is concerned? Otherwise would he not be bound to answer any question of general news information which, quite clearly, it is outside the confines of the Foreign Office to give?
  Mr. Sydney Silverman: Would it be a fair deduction from the Ruling you originally gave, Mr. Speaker, that it would be in Order for anyone to refer in an
  1688
  Adjournment Debate to any matter on which it would be competent for the Foreign Secretary either to make representations or to seek information in the country concerned?
  Mr. Speaker: I hardly like to give a general Ruling that it is in Order to raise any matter. I should rather like to see the matter first, and to hear about it.
  Mr. S. Silverman: The point of my question, Sir, was that, supposing it were common ground that the Foreign Secretary might, if he chose, seek information or make representations, if that were admitted would it not then follow that the Debate about it could not be out of Order?
  Mr. Speaker: I suggest that perhaps the best thing to do would be to read my Ruling, which was considered very carefully, and then perhaps there might be some useful questions asked.
  Mr. Austin: In view of the importance of preserving the rights of back benchers in Adjournment Debates, can the House take it that, apart from questions involving legislation, which of course are out of Order, the greatest possible latitude will be given to Members to raise whatever subjects they think fit?
  Mr. Speaker: Anything involving legislation is out of Order and, as I said before, matters raised must involve some Ministerial responsibility. I am not quite sure that I caught the end of the hon. Member's question.
  Mr. Warbey: May we take it, Mr. Speaker, that your Ruling does not remove the responsibility of the Government, and the Foreign Secretary in particular, for answering for their obligations to the United Nations? In that connection may I submit that we have accepted certain obligations through our membership of the United Nations, including, amongst others, the obligation to uphold the purposes of the organisation? One of the purposes defined in Article 1, paragraph 3, is:
  "To achieve international co-operation … in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms.…"
  Therefore, through our membership of the United Nations we have a concern for the preservation of human rights throughout the world as a whole.
  Mr. Speaker: I thought I set the limits one way and the other in the statement that I made in reply to the question on human rights.
  Mr. Wyatt: As internal conditions in a particular country must frequently influence our policy towards that country, do I understand that it is not now in Order on the Adjournment for a Member to make a case about a country and the manner in which our policy towards it will be affected, by building up a number of facts and instances which he alleges may have taken place in that country and which he states on his own responsibility?
  Mr. Speaker: That is a matter for the Chair to decide, I think. It is quite impossible to lay down definite rules in advance.
  Mr. Thurtle: May I take it that there is nothing in what you have said this afternoon, Mr. Speaker, which indicates that you think the Chair has the power to compel a Minister to accept responsibility for a given subject if he does not want to do so?
  Mr. Speaker: No, I would not go as far as that. A Minister can always say "I have no responsibility." As far as Questions are concerned, if that is said publicly, and made clear and accepted, it is finished. It does not get past the Table.

  COUNCIL OF EUROPE (REPRESENTATIVES' STATUS)
  Mr. Scollan: May I ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether you have given consideration to the matter which I placed before you on Thursday last on the question of the Strasbourg Assembly and the fact that the Prime Minister very definitely said that this was a Parliamentary delegation? I should like to know your Ruling on the matter?
  Mr. Speaker: I am afraid I was correct and that the hon. Member was wrong. The hon. Member drew my attention to what was said by the Prime Minister as reported in HANSARD, and the Prime Minister reported the names of those Members who were going to Strasbourg. It was an important matter, and therefore, it was said in the House, but it
  1690
  was no more an official delegation than, for instance, a party which I accompanied to Italy. In that case, the names were not reported in HANSARD but were reported in "The Times." No delegation is official merely because the Prime Minister or somebody else says it is a delegation, and it is reported in HANSARD. HANSARD is not an official document. If one wants to find what is official, then one should read the Journal. If it is reported in the Journal, then it would be official. That, I think, is the answer to the hon. Member.
  Mr. Scollan: May I point out, Mr. Speaker, that while HANSARD may not be an official journal, I do not think anybody would question the accuracy of the report in that particular issue. In this particular instance, when the Prime Minister brought the matter before this House, he said that this was a Parliamentary delegation. I have seen all kinds of Parliamentary delegations going from this country to other countries, but this is the only one I ever knew to be brought before the House, and the names of the delegates mentioned.
  Mr. Speaker: I must point out to the hon. Member that although it was a delegation which consisted of Members of this House and of one member from another place, it was not an official delegation which spoke for the House of Commons. Every Member was entitled to speak as an individual and to give his own point of view. If the hon. Member will look at the questions in HANSARD, he will see that the objection was raised, not because it was an official delegation, but because all the parties were not represented so that all kinds of party views would not be stated at Strasbourg. I think that point must be made clear, and that they were not supposed to speak with one voice.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Motion made, and Question put:
"That the Proceedings on Government Business be exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House)."—[The Prime Minister.]
The House divided: Ayes, 246: Noes, 109.

Division No. 280.]

AYES

[3.45 p.m.

Acland, Sir Richard

Hale, Leslie

Parkin, B. T.

Adams, Richard (Balham)

Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil

Paton, Mrs. F. (Rushcliffe)

Albu, A. H.

Hamilton, Lieut.-Col. R.

Paton, J. (Norwich)

Allen, A. C. (Bosworth)

Hannan, W. (Maryhill)

Pearson, A.

Alpass, J. H.

Hardy, E. A.

Piratin, P.

Anderson, A. (Motherwell)

Harrison, J.

Poole, Cecil (Lichfield)

Attewell, H. C.

Haworth, J.

Popplewell, E.

Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.

Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Kingswinford)

Porter, E. (Warrington)

Austin, H. Lewis

Hewitson, Capt. M.

Porter, G. (Leeds)

Awbery, S. S.

Hicks, G.

Pryde, D. J.

Ayles, W. H.

Hobson, C. R.

Pursey, Comdr. H.

Ayrton Gould, Mrs. B.

Holman, P.

Randall, H. E.

Bacon, Miss A.

Holmes, H. E. (Hemsworth)

Ranger, J.

Baird, J.

Houghton, Douglas

Reeves, J.

Balfour, A.

Hoy, J.

Reid, T. (Swindon)

Barnes, Rt. Hon. A. J.

Hubbard, T.

Ridealgh, Mrs. M.

Barton, C.

Hudson, J. H. (Ealing, W.)

Roberts, Emrys (Merioneth)

Bechervaise, A. E.

Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayr)

Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvonshire)

Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.

Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

Robertson, J. J. (Berwick)

Beswick, F.

Hughes, H. D. (W'lverh'pton, W.)

Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

Bing, G. H. C.

Hynd, H. (Hackney, C.)

Rogers, G. H. R.

Binns, J.

Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)

Ross, William (Kilmarnock)

Blackburn, A. R.

Irving, W. J. (Tottenham, N.)

Royle, C.

Blyton, W. R.

Janner, B.

Scollan, T.

Braddock, Mrs. E. M. (L'pl. Exch'ge)

Jay, D. P. T.

Scott-Elliot, W.

Braddock, T. (Mitcham)

Jeger, G. (Winchester)

Shackleton, E. A. A.

Brook, D. (Halifax)

Jenkins, R. H.

Sharp, Granville

Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

Johnston, Douglas

Shawcross, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (St. Helens)

Brown, George (Belper)

Jones, D. T. (Hartlepool)

Silverman, S. S. (Nelson)

Brown, T. J. (Ince)

Jones, P. Asterley (Hitchin)

Simmons, C. J.

Bruce, Maj. D. W. T.

Keenan, W.

Skinnard, F. W.

Burden, T. W.

Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

Smith, S. H. (Hull, S. W.)

Butler, H. W. (Hackney, S.)

King, E. M.

Sorensen, R. W.

Byers, Frank

Kinghorn, Sqn.-Ldr. E.

Sparks, J. A.

Callaghan, James

Kinley, J.

Steele, T.

Chamberlain, R. A.

Lavers, S.

Strauss, Rt. Hon. G. R. (Lambeth)

Champion, A. J.

Leonard, W.

Stubbs, A. E.

Chetwynd, G. R.

Leslie, J. R.

Summerskill, Rt. Hon. Edith

Cluse, W. S.

Lever, N. H.

Sylvester, G. O.

Cocks, F. S.

Lewis, A. W. J. (Upton)

Symonds, A. L.

Collindridge, F.

Lindgren, G. S.

Taylor, H. B. (Mansfield)

Colman, Miss G. M.

Lindsay, K. M. (Comb'd Eng. Univ.)

Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)

Corbet, Mrs. F. K. (Camb'well, N. W.)

Lipson, D. L.

Taylor, Dr. S. (Barnet)

Corlett, Dr. J.

Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.

Thomas, D. E. (Aberdare)

Crawley, A.

Logan, D. G.

Thomas, I. O. (Wrekin)

Daines, P.

Longden, F.

Thorneycroft, Harry (Clayton)

Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.

Lyne, A. W.

Thurtle, Ernest

Davies, Rt. Hn. Clement (Montgomery)

McAdam, W.

Tiffany, S.

Davies, Edward (Burslem)

McEntee, V. La. T.

Timmons, J.

Davies, Ernest (Enfield)

McGhee, H. G.

Tolley, L.

Davies, Harold (Leek)

McGovern, J.

Tomlinson, Rt. Hon. G.

Davies, Haydn (St. Pancras, S. W.)

Mack, J. D.

Vernon, Maj. W. F.

Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)

McKay, J. (Wallsend)

Viant, S. P.

Deer, G.

Mackay, R. W. G. (Hull, N. W.)

Wallace, G. D. (Chislehurst)

de Freitas, Geoffrey

McLeavy, F.

Wallace, H. W. (Walthamslow, E.)

Delargy, H. J.

MacMillan, M. K. (Western Isles)

Warbey, W. N.

Dodds, N. N.

MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)

Watkins, T. E.

Driberg, T. E. N.

Mainwaring, W. H.

Webb, M. (Bradford, C.)

Dugdale, J. (W. Bromwich)

Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield)

Weitzman, D.

Dumpleton, C. W.

Mann, Mrs. J.

Wells, P. L. (Faversham)

Edelman, M.

Manning, C. (Camberwell, N.)

Wells, W. T. (Walsall)

Edwards, John (Blackburn)

Manning, Mrs. L. (Epping)

Wheatley, Rt. Hon. John (Edinb'gh, E.)

Edwards, W. J. (Whitechapel)

Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.

White, H. (Derbyshire, N. E.)

Evans, Albert (Islington, W.)

Mathers, Rt. Hon. George

Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.

Ewart, R.

Mayhew, C. P.

Wilkins, W. A.

Farthing, W. J.

Medland, H. M.

Willey, F. T. (Sunderland)

Fernyhough, E.

Mellish, R. J.

Willey, O. G. (Cleveland)

Field, Capt. W. J.

Middleton, Mrs. L.

Williams, Ronald (Wigan)

Fletcher, E. G. M. (Islington, E.)

Mikardo, Ian

Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)

Follick, M.

Millington, Wing-Comdr. E. R.

Williams, W. T. (Hammersmith, S.)

Foot, M. M.

Mitchison, G. R.

Williams, W. R. (Heston)

Forman, J. C.

Monslow, W.

Willis, E.

Fraser, T. (Hamilton)

Morley, R.

Wills, Mrs. E. A.

Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.

Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Lewisham, E.)

Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. H.

Ganley, Mrs. C. S.

Moyle, A.

Wise, Major F. J.

Glanville, J. E. (Consett)

Murray, J. D.

Woods, G. S.

Gooch, E. G.

Naylor, T. E.

Wyatt, W.

Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A. (Wakefield)

Neal, H. (Claycross)

Yates, V. F.

Greenwood, A. W. J. (Heywood)

Nichol, Mrs. M. E. (Bradford, N.)

Young, Sir R. (Newton)

Grey, C. F.

Noel-Baker, Capt. F. E. (Brentford)

Zilliacus, K.

Griffiths, D. (Rother Valley)

Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. J. (Derby)

Guest, Dr. L. Haden

Oliver, G. H.

TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

Gunter, R. J.

Pannell, T. C.

Mr. Snow and Mr. Bowden.

1692

1693

NOES

Agnew, Cmdr. P. G.

Haughton, S. G.

Orr-Ewing, I. L.

Baxter, A. B.

Hinchingbrooke, Viscount

Peake, Rt. Hon. O.

Beamish, Maj. T. V. H.

Hogg, Hon. Q.

Peto, Brig. C. H. M.

Boyd-Carpenter, J. A.

Hollis, M. C.

Pickthorn, K.

Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W.

Hope, Lord J.

Pitman, I. J.

Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.

Hurd, A.

Poole, O. B. S. (Oswestry)

Butcher, H. W.

Hutchison, Lt.-Cm. Clark (E'b'rgh W.)

Prescott, Stanley

Carson, E.

Hutchison, Col. J. R. (Glasgow, C.)

Price-White, D.

Challen, C.

Jeffreys, General Sir G.

Ramsay, Maj. S.

Cole, T. L.

Jennings, R.

Reed, Sir S. (Aylesbury)

Crookshank, Capt Rt. Han H. F. C.

Keeling, E. H.

Renton, D.

Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.

Lambert, Hon. G.

Robinson, Roland (Blackpool, S.)

Crowder, Capt John E.

Langford-Holt, J.

Ropner, Col. L.

Cuthbert, W. N.

Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.

Ross, Sir R. D. (Londonderry)

De la. Bère, R.

Lindsay, M. (Solihull)

Savory, Prof. D. L.

Dodds-Parker, A. D.

Lloyd, Selwyn (Wirral)

Scott, Lord W.

Donner, P. W.

Lucas Tooth, Sir H.

Shepherd, W. S. (Bucklow)

Drayson, G. B.

MacAndrew. Col. Sir C.

Spearman, A. C. M.

Drewe, C.

Macdonald, Sir P. (I. of Wight)

Spence, H. R.

Dugdale, Maj. Sir T. (Richmond)

McFarlane, C. S.

Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.

Eden, Rt. Hon. A.

Mackeson, Brig. H. R.

Strauss, Henry (English Universities)

Elliot, Lieut.-Col. Rt. Hon. Walter

McKie, J. H. (Galloway)

Taylor, Vice-Adm. E. A. (P'dd't'n, S.)

Erroll, F. J.

Maclean, F. H. R. (Lancaster)

Teeling, William

Fleming, Sqn.-Ldr. E. L.

MacLeod, J.

Thomas, Ivor (Keighley)

Fletcher, W. (Bury)

Macmillan, Rt. Hon. Harold (Bromley)

Thorneycroft, G. E. P. (Monmouth)

Foster, J. G. (Northwich)

Macpherson, N. (Dumfries)

Thorp, Brigadier R. A. F.

Fox, Sir G.

Maitland, Comdr. J. W.

Touche, G. C.

Fyfe, Rt. Hon. Sir D. P. M.

Marlowe, A. A. H.

Turton, R. H.

Galbraith, Cmdr. T. D. (Pollok)

Marshall, D. (Bodmin)

Wakefield, Sir W. W.

Galbraith, T. G. D. (Hillhead)

Marshall, S. H. (Sutton)

Walker-Smith, D.

Gomme-Duncan, Col. A.

Mellor, Sir J.

Ward, Hon. G. R.

Gridley, Sir A.

Moore, Lt.-Col. Sir T.

Webbe, Sir H. (Abbey)

Grimston, R. V.

Morris-Jones, Sir H.

Williams, C. (Torquay)

Hannon, Sir P. (Moseley)

Mullan, Lt. C. H.

York, C.

Harden, J. R. E.

Neven-Spence, Sir B.

Young, Sir A. S. L. (Partick)

Harris, F. W. (Croydon, N.)

Nicholson, G.

Harvey, Air-Comdre. A. V.

Noble, Comdr. A. H. P.

TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

Mr. Studholme and Major Conant.

PARLIAMENT BILL (PROCEDURE)
3.54 p.m.
The Attorney-General (Sir Hartley Shawcross): I beg to move,
"That when an Order of the Day is read for the House to resolve itself into Committee on the Parliament Bill, Mr. Speaker shall leave the Chair without putting any Question, notwithstanding that Notice of an Instruction has been given, and on the Committee stage of that Bill the Chairman shall forthwith put the Question that he do report the Bill, without Amendment, to the House without putting any other Question, and the Question so put shall be decided without Amendment or Debate."
The commendation of this Motion to the House will not, I think, involve me or the House in any consideration of the manifold merits of the Parliament Bill. This Motion is concerned only with the procedure to be followed at the Committee stage and it follows the precedents set in 1913 and 1914 and, again, in connection with this Bill, in 1948, the object of the Motion being—if I may use an objectionable phrase which has been sanctified by precedents—to formalise the Committee stage of the proceedings.
As the House will be aware, the course which is open to us is very much circumscribed by the provisions of the Parliament Act itself and, after its first passage through both Houses, it is inappropriate for this House to make any substantial amendment in a Bill which it is proposed to present for the Royal Assent under the Parliament Act, notwithstanding the fact that it may not have been passed by the Upper House. The very essence of the procedure under the Parliament Act is, of course, that the Bill which is sent up to the Upper House on the second and third occasions is the same Bill as that which was originally submitted to and rejected by the Upper House. That excludes the possibility of any substantial amendment of the Bill taking place on the second or third occasions when the matter is considered in this House, so long as it is intended and contemplated that advantage may have to be taken of the machinery of the Parliament Act itself.
I said "substantial amendment" because it may be that, owing to the lapse of time, drafting Amendments—Amendments as to dates and so forth—are necessary and the insertion of these does not take the Bill outside the provisions of
1696
the Parliament Act if you, Mr. Speaker, certify not only that the time-table has been followed but that the Amendments which have been inserted in this House are only such as are necessitated by the lapse of time. I do not think any question of that kind of Amendment arises in connection with the present Bill.
It is also true that provision is made under the Parliament Act for the insertion of Amendments in another place and for their consideration—their acceptance or rejection—thereafter by this House, but this House has, perhaps not unnaturally, not thought that the present Bill is an appropriate occasion for the use of this machinery. By the Parliament Act it is provided that in an appropriate case this House, without itself inserting any Amendment into the Bill on the second or third occasions when we consider it, may make suggestions to the upper House as to the Amendments which might appropriately be inserted into the Bill in that place.
But such suggestions, if indeed any were made, would not be considered on the Committee stage of the Bill or, indeed, at any other formal stage of the Bill itself. Suggestions of that kind are put down by way of a Motion on the Paper and they may be discussed and considered by the House, I think at some stage prior to the Third Reading of the Bill but not as part of one of the ordinary stages of the Bill itself. That, again, does not arise in this case because I understand that no such suggestions with a view to Amendments in another place have, in fact, been made. Consequently, we are now concerned only with the procedure on the Committee stage itself.
If the Committee stage were taken in the ordinary course and Amendments were put down, the proceedings on them would be bound to be abortive and unrealistic. No Amendments could be carried on the Committee stage without defeating the very objects of the Parliament Act procedure, and, consequently, if any Amendments were put down and were discussed and were carried, the Government would either have to seek to move them out on Report or the Bill would cease to be the same Bill as that which had been submitted to another place on the first occasion. Consequently, the Parliament Act procedure would no longer be applicable to it.

1697
It would, therefore, be a singularly fruitless waste of time for this House to discuss in Committee Amendments which ex hypothesi could not be adopted consistently with the desire of the House, already so clearly expressed on two occasions, that this Bill, if need be, should be passed under the provisions of the Parliament Act. Indeed, I venture to go further and to say that if any attempt were made to put down Amendments and to take up time by their discussion in Committee, that would really thwart the whole will of the House either by changing the identity of the Bill as previously submitted to the House of Lords or by upsetting the time-table which it is essential to follow in order to ensure that the Bill goes to another place at least a month before the end of the session.
So, acting within the rigid framework of the Parliament Act itself, the Government put down this Motion, in accordance with all the precedents, to ensure that the Committee stage shall be a formal one only.
4.0 p.m.
Captain Crookshank: I was sorry that last year when this was discussed I was unfortunately absent through illness. I therefore had to rely only upon the text of HANSARD for my knowledge of what took place. I must admit that I was rather surprised that it fell to the Attorney-General to move this Motion, and neither the Leader nor the Deputy-Leader of the House, because I did not realise that the right hon. and learned Gentleman had interested himself very much in these matters. Then it came to me that the Lord President had told us that when he went away he always took Erskine May on his holidays, and I can only suppose that the Attorney-General, finding the speeches of the Russian delegates at Lake Success boring, took to studying how this House should conduct public business.
I am sure we are indebted to the Attorney-General for the way he put this Motion, with which, incidentally, my hon. Friends and I do not agree. He told us it had the authority of all the precedents. That is using a very big phrase for a very little case, because, of course, the precedents are two precedents of 40 years ago and what happened last year; so that the precedents eventually boil down to three, and with such a tremendous interval
1698
of time between them, that it is only right that the House should look at this matter with very great care before it passes this Motion.
For my own part, I am rather worried at this form of Motion, though I have no doubt that the Government have taken very good advice on it; I hope that I may be permitted, therefore, to say just one or two words about it, because it is a matter of importance, though not, obviously, a matter of tremendous importance in the case of a one-Clause Bill like the one which we are discussing, in which, it is obvious, the scale of or opportunity for Amendment at any stage is very restricted. That, of course, is clear from what was going on during the Debates on the Bill itself, where, obviously, Amendments could not very well be drafted or discussed except the two which did come before the Committee.
If we are to assume that there will be other Bills—one must make some assumption in discussing this matter—if we are to assume that other Bills will be passed by the machinery of the Parliament Act—or of this Bill when it becomes an Act—then we have to assume that they will not always be one-Clause Bills. They may very well be—as was, indeed, the case in two out of the three precedents—very long and complicated Measures which come before the House under the machinery of the Act. If that is so, during the period when the Bill which is passing through under the Parliament Act is before this House, there may very well be, in the case of a long and complicated Measure, reasons—and good reasons—why Amendments should be made if possible, and without, as the learned Attorney said, endangering—"thwarting" as he said—the wishes of the House, which wished the Bill to go forward under the Parliament Act.
This Motion has, therefore, to be discussed. The point is, how far is a Debate valuable at all when ex hypothesi the body of the Bill cannot be amended in Committee? On the other hand, we ought also to discuss at some stage—I hope now, if it is the appropriate occasion; if it is not, I hope we may find one—how we are going to debate Amendments which, may be, the Government themselves want to bring forward, if possible, if the other place agrees, to incorporate in the Bill.

1699
As the Attorney-General has pointed out, there is provided in the Parliament Act, Section 2 (4), the method by which suggestions can be made by this House and submitted to the other place, and, if accepted there, can be incorporated in the Bill without technically altering the Bill and making it impossible for it to pass along the road of the Parliament Act procedure. That is accepted. There is a method for putting forward suggestions. In the Debate last year, when various questions were asked, there was only one authoritative statement, if I may use the word, made at all, and that was your own Ruling, Mr. Speaker, on this matter, in which you said of such suggestions that there would have to be notice of Motion,
"… and that would require to be put on the Order Paper. A manuscript Amendment could not be accepted for a Motion."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st September, 1948; Vol. 456, c. 713.]
Therefore, at some stage or another, if one wants to proceed with a suggestion, a Motion must be put upon the Order Paper.
I am not quite sure whether that Motion could, under our new Rules, appear before this stage—before, that is to say, the Government had produced their Procedure Motion. Had we wished to make a suggestion, could we have done it any time up to today? I am not at all sure that we could have done it until after this Procedure Motion had appeared. I think it is a matter which should be cleared up at some stage because, as I said, if we are making precedents and laying down arrangements for future Bills coming under the Parliament Act, it is just as well, when one is going through the House, that we should ascertain what the position is and ought to be.
The Deputy-Leader of the House, the Home Secretary, on this very point, when he was asked if a Motion could be put down, said it would be too late to do it now—that was, when this Procedure Motion was before the House; it would have been too late to put down any Motion dealing with a suggestion. I assume he had been advised it would have been in Order and proper to have put it down before the Government brought forward their Procedure Motion. But then, until the Government have brought forward a Procedure Motion, how is anyone to know that is to be the method
1700
by which Business is to be conducted? That is important. It must be clear that until we see this Motion on the Order Paper we cannot assume that the Bill to which it relates will not be treated as an ordinary Bill. It is only after this Motion appears that we know it is going to be done in this way, and then, says the Home Secretary:
"… no suggestion can now be placed upon the Order Paper.—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st September, 1948; Vol. 456, c. 712.]
I think that one mistake, if I may respectfully say so, is taking this Procedure Motion and the Third Reading of the Bill on the same day. I do not see any necessity for it. After all, this could have been on the Order Paper any time after the Second Reading and disposed of in a short half-hour. I am not pressing the point about this Bill, and I hope nobody will take it against me, because being a one-Clause Bill it is not particularly appropriate. But in the case of a long Bill it might be very necessary, perhaps in the Government's interests, to have something put forward as a suggestion; or, indeed, hon. Members opposing the Government might wish to bring forward something fresh.
I would give out of my own imagination the sort of thing that might have happened. It did not happen, and let no one think I am putting it in any but a fanciful way. Suppose the Bill that had been going through this House, and was going to go forward under the Parliament Act procedure, was to deal with the nationality of British subjects. That is, obviously, not a thing, in fact, where there is any great controversy. But suppose it had been bitterly opposed, and suppose that in the period during which the Bill was going through the House there were circumstances such as led to the Indian Independence Act or the Ireland Act, where obviously there were going to be some considerable changes of words owing to some outside circumstances which no one could have foreseen—in cases like that, it is obvious that there might very well be reasons for suggestions to be put forward by the Government themselves.
All I would seek to establish on that point is that it is wrong, in my view, to take the Procedure Motion at the same time as the Third Reading, and it is wrong that, at the moment, there is

1701
nothing clearly laid down anywhere—there is nothing in the authorities, and there is certainly not in all the precedents to which the Attorney-General referred—as to what is the moment when a Motion dealing with suggestions can be put down—except it must be on the Order Paper, and, according to the Home Secretary, cannot come at this stage, because it would be too late.
I hope that I am not wearying the House, but I want to safeguard the position for the future, because one knows that so often what happens is used as a precedent. The Attorney-General himself used as a precedent what happened 40 years ago, when the Parliament Act was quite new, and when probably no one had thought out any of these problems. I do not think that anyone has thought them out now. It seems to me that the matter might be pigeon-holed and stored up for some future Committee sitting on the procedure of the House. It was not a matter raised on the last occasion, but it may very well be on a future one.
The point I now come to is this: Supposing the Opposition were to bring forward suggestions in the technical term by the form of a Motion. The Home Secretary was very contradictory on the last occasion as to whether they would or would not in fact have the right or opportunity of doing that. He said:
"In fact, on this occasion, no suggestions have been tabled and, therefore, the Government have not in any way precluded, and, in fact, cannot preclude any suggestions which might have been tabled from being discussed."
That sounds—although I cannot believe that he meant it—that any suggestions put down in the form of a Motion must be taken. He says that the Government cannot preclude any suggestions which may have been tabled from being discussed. According to the Home Secretary in that statement, the Government have no option. Later, he changes his mind—and this is why I think it is so important to clear up the matter. In the same speech, he says exactly the opposite:
"… had suggestions appeared it would have been open to the Government to consider giving time for the consideration of suggestions."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st September; Vol. 456, c. 708 and 711.]
In the first instance, he says that the Government cannot preclude suggestions
1702
being discussed, and then goes on to say that the Government would have been open to consider giving time. It follows that by being open to consider giving time, one of the results of their consideration might be not to give time. I should like to know whether this rests entirely in the Government's hands or not, and whether there is an inherent right under this plan for anyone to put down suggestions which then must be discussed.
That is opening up a tremendous prospect if this procedure is ever to be used again. It does not agree with the normal procedure of the House. Let us take a Committee stage. One cannot expect every Amendment or Committee point to be discussed. There is the right of selection. If it is true that one cannot be precluded from making suggestions in the form of a Motion, I think that that point ought to be cleared up, and I leave it at that. If we find that the alternative is the right answer, and it rests with the Government to find time or not for any of these Motions, we are putting enormous powers in the hands of the Government to decide what is or what is not to be discussed; not as a general proposition but as something in relation to legislation going through the House. I do not think that is in conformity with the traditions and precedents for debate in this Chamber.
My own suggestion is rather different. The Attorney-General said just now, "Of course, if you had a Committee stage and proceeded with an Amendment which ex hypothesi would be abortive because the Government of the day was not intending to accept any Amendment, that would therefore be wasting the time of the House and possibly endangering the time-table which the Government had set before themselves." I see the point of that argument, but I do not see why we cannot have a Committee stage in order that points which have come out can be discussed. They would only be major points that would arise on which Members might wish to bring pressure upon the Government. I do not see why we cannot have a Committee stage even if, as a result of the Committee stage, none of the Amendments could ex hypothesi be put on the Statute Book. I will explain why I say that.

1703
First of all, if we did it in that way, the selection of the subjects to be discussed, the Amendments, would rest with the Chair and not with the Government, as the Home Secretary suggested. There is a whole world of difference between leaving the power in the Chair to select Amendments and leaving it to the Government to say, "There is a whole list of suggestions put up by various people including ourselves, and we will decide that there is only time for one, eight and 74, or whatever it may be." The whole underlying assumption of everything that I have said is that there may be some change of a major character occurring during the time when these Bills are passing through the House. Assuming that, I am trying to find out how to deal with this matter when it arises.
Of course, we could have a Committee stage. On this Bill that would not make much difference because even on the main Committee stage of a one-Clause Bill there is practically nothing in the way of Committee points, as opposed to real points of principle on Second Reading. I think that the advantage of having a Committee stage is that one would have Amendments put down. The Chair would select them, and they would all automatically and ex hypothesi have to be defeated if the Government wanted to get the Bill through under this procedure; but if the Minister responsible was satisfied that the case put up should go forward to another place, at any rate in a form of a suggestion, we should be benefited by the previous discussion and could put forward the proposal in the proper language. There is all the difference between discussing something on the Committee stage and being told, "We accept that idea, but it is the wrong form of words." So far as I can see, there is no chance of looking at any of the words again under the suggested procedure.
The House of Lords, as I understand the position, cannot touch a suggestion on its wording; it can merely accept or not, if it accepts, that makes it, as the Attorney-General said, the same Bill as before. I would definitely prefer that it should be done that way because it has caught my eye that the Home Secretary not only put it in the first place that the Government had to find time and secondly that it was open to the
1704
Government to find time—that I thought was an even chance—but I find that in column 716 he repeats that the Government
"might find time for the discussion of a particular suggestion but not for others."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st September, 1948; Vol. 456, c. 716.]
That is a theory which I do not accept. I do not think that any of us can accept the position that if there is to be discussion on a Bill, matters which have arisen after the Bill has left the House should be left entirely with the Government. I am sure that everyone on the other side who is not entirely under the thumb of the Government will look at this as a matter for the House of Commons as a whole and would agree that it would be better from all points of view for the final word to rest with the Chair. That is what I would like to have cleared up today.
While this form of procedure in this particular case of a one-Clause Bill may not be so bad as it seems, it is certainly not a procedure that ought to become a precedent in any form. Of course, one hopes that we shall not have to use the machinery of the Parliament Bill in future, and that it will lie dormant for another 40 years. But if it is used again, I trust that this form of Motion will not appear on the Order Paper to be rushed through on the same day as the Third Reading. Because we have those objections—and I dare say other hon. Members can think of other objections—I shall certainly ask my hon. Friends to support me in the Division Lobby as a protest against this way of handling this problem.
4.21 p.m.
Mr. Clement Davies: I rise to support this Motion. I do so because I think it is the only procedure which could be followed. I am also supported by what is perhaps an even better reason, namely, that this is the procedure which was followed in 1913 and 1914 on the Government of Ireland Bill and the Welsh Church (Dis-establishment) Bill by the very authors of the 1911 Act. Ordinarily and generally, one dislikes any form of procedure which shortens or limits debate, but in this case this procedure is inevitable because of an inherent weakness in the Act of 1911.

1705
As the Attorney-General has already pointed out, in order that the Bill might become law—which is the intention of the Government, whatever be the decision of the Upper House—it has to be substantially the same as the one originally sent to the Upper House from this House on the first occasion. Any change in it would mean that it would be a new Bill. Under the Act of 1911 the same Bill has to be passed three times when, even if the Upper House rejects it, it can become law. That being so, a Committee stage in the ordinary sense becomes almost futile, because the Government, if they mean to carry the matter through, must resist any Amendment. All the Government can do is to wait perhaps for Amendments to be moved in the Upper House, or for some suggestion that might be made individually in this House for the betterment of the Bill.
The right hon. and gallant Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank) asked when was the right time to make those suggestions. Surely the procedure is now well understood. A suggestion should be made in the form of a Motion, which must be put down on the Order Paper. The right time to make it is immediately after the House has given the Bill a Second Reading. That Motion can then be considered, and time will be afforded in the usual way by what is known in this House as the procedure through the usual channels.
I am perfectly sure that that was what was in the mind of the Home Secretary when he said it would be a question of whether or not time could be found. If the suggestion were a really vital one the Government of the day would have to find time so that the matter could be discussed. Then, dependent upon the nature of the suggestion, the amount of support that it was likely to obtain, and maybe the number of suggestions, it would be the duty of the Government to see whether they would not frame the Motion they put before the House in a different way from the Motion we are now considering. It might be a Motion that there should be no Committee stage but only consideration of suggestions which had been put down on the Order Paper, or such of them as might be selected. That would be the right way to do it. Surely that opportunity
1706
has been afforded to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman.
This matter was discussed in 1913 and 1914. It could have been raised last year, and if anybody had a new suggestion to make, warning could have been given. The time to make such a suggestion was immediately after this Bill had received a Second Reading for the third time. What is more, although it is right that these points should be raised, it is difficult to think what suggestion can be made upon this Bill of one Clause. One can well understand that a whole series of suggestions might have been made on two Measures such as the Government of Ireland Bill and the Welsh Church (Dis-establishment) Bill, but none was made by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's predecessors and friends in those days.
As I pointed out on the last occasion we debated this matter, everyone realised the inherent weakness of the 1911 Act. Although we know that there may be some flaw in the Parliament Bill as it left this House on the first occasion, it is impossible for us as a House to put it right. All we can do is to make the suggestion that it be adopted. That being so, we must realise that we have passed that Measure once and for all, and we must stick to it; if we change it in any form we lose the advantage of the 1911 Act. For those reasons, I support this Motion.
4.26 p.m.
Mr. Charles Williams: I strongly support my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank) in his protest against considering this Motion and the Third Reading of the Parliament Bill on the same day, because it means prohibiting the House of Commons from considering in any way the meaning of this Motion and at the same time hearing full and proper Third Reading speeches.
I was interested to hear of the only three precedents on which any comment can be made on this Motion. The Attorney-General referred us back to the two Acts of 1913 and 1914. Has there not been any form of advance in parliamentary thought since 1914? In debating such a Motion, cannot we deal with the matter in a rather wider way than having in mind merely the idea of passing some Bill through its various stages? I cannot see how, in adopting various methods for eliminating the Committee stage, we

1707
can avoid eliminating the power of the House of Commons, and for that reason I say that there should be a Committee stage.
The Attorney-General said that if an Amendment were made, it would sink the whole Bill. If the House of Commons, the supreme legislative assembly, decides in its wisdom, after consideration, that a Bill would be better if amended, why not allow the House to make the Amendment? Why should the House be prevented from doing so simply because of the silly notion that the procedure is upset? I should have thought that even this Government could have risen above that. It often happens that, in Committee, a Bill can be made more generally acceptable. If it were possible to have a proper Committee stage, Amendments which were accepted by the Chair could be properly discussed, and if they were agreed to by the House, the amended Bill might be acceptable to the whole House, so that both Opposition and Government would agree to accept the Bill on the new basis.
Would it not be possible in that way to use the Committee stage so as to pass the Bill without resorting at all to the Parliament Bill procedure? That is something which has been frequently done in the past—we are always having compromises on these matters. Those who opposed the 1911 Act did so because they were afraid of having a Government which would do everything in their power to eliminate discussion in the House of Commons. That is why I say it is better to have a Committee stage. Any Government that brings forward a suggestion of this kind must distrust its own supporters. The purpose of the Government is to stifle discussion in the House of Commons, which shows that they fear the Amendments which may be put down by their supporters who may take a contrary view.
This sort of Motion shows that the Government intend to use all their powers to eliminate discussion by elected Members of Parliament. It also shows that the Government fear what will happen if a Bill is allowed to take its full course. We should try to reason with each other on these great constitutional questions and get a compromise between the parties concerned, instead of using the machinery to cut out discussion. This is a Motion
1708
which I should expect from this Government. Its aim is deliberately to weaken the House of Commons. It has not been brought forward to deal with a great constitutional question in the best interests of all, but is mean in outlook and disastrous in effect. The purpose is to stifle the elected representatives in the House of Commons. Thank goodness that by this time next year, this Government will no longer be in power.
4.34 p.m.
Mr. Henry Strauss: I shall detain the House for only a few minutes in order to deal with that part of the speech of the right hon. and learned Attorney-General which drew our attention to the proviso to Section 2 (4) of the Parliament Act, 1911. That proviso has 10 lines, and it is quite clear that those who framed that legislation meant it to have some force. I accept of course the clear Ruling that was given by Mr. Speaker on 21st September, 1948, on the method of operating these 10 lines. My right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Gains-borough (Captain Crookshank) has also called attention to that Ruling, which was so much more clear, if I may say so, than any of the speeches of Ministers on that day.
The Ruling shows that to operate this proviso the procedure of putting a notice of Motion on the Order Paper must be used. In that connection, it would be very unfortunate if the idea got about that the primary duty to put such a Motion on the Order Paper necessarily rested on His Majesty's Opposition—this is very much a case where the Government might think fit to put down such a Motion themselves.
The right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) told the House that it was very difficult to see what suggestions could be made. I will give just one example, which I think is an important one. One of the suggestions which could have been made would be to cut out what, I think, most lawyers interested in our Constitution would agree is a most monstrous feature in the Bill, namely, the retro-active provision. It would certainly be a matter worthy of consideration to leave out the words from "effect" in line 5 to "as" in line 8. Later in the week we shall hear whether there is any point in these words, although it would be wrong for me to

1709
speculate on that at this stage. It certainly strengthens what my right hon. and gallant Friend has said, that this Motion should be put down and decided some time before the Third Reading.
All I am suggesting at this stage is that we may be precluding ourselves from operating the proviso contained in Section 2 (4) of the 1911 Act, and that we may be losing our last chance to remedy what is in any event a constitutional monstrosity and what the Government may find is also unnecessary. For these reasons the House will be well advised to reject this Motion, unless the Government are prepared to take the Motion today and postpone the Third Reading.
4.39 p.m.
Mr. Eric Fletcher: It would be tempting to answer the hon. and learned Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss) and to explain to him once again that there is no constitutional monstrosity in this Bill, but that would be out of Order in discussing this Motion. I do not think there is any answer to the contention put forward by the Attorney-General that the House must pass a Motion of this sort for the elimination of the Committee stage.
It was quite obvious that the right hon. and gallant Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank) was dealing with a purely hypothetical situation which might or might not arise, and was not addressing any serious argument in relation to this Bill. He is not proposing to make any Amendment to the Bill. If he had wanted to put down an Amendment for consideration in Committee it was open to him to do so at any time since the House gave a Second Reading to the Bill on 30th October. But he has not done so. It was also open to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to put down a Motion under the procedure which Mr. Speaker outlined in 1948, but no notice of Motion has been put down, although the Opposition have had every opportunity of doing so for over a fortnight.
Therefore, in the absence of any Motion for suggesting an alteration to the Bill and of any notice of Amendments for consideration in Committee, it is natural that the House should be invited to dispense with the Committee stage. What the House wants to do is not to
1710
amend the Bill—I think there is common ground with us on this point; we are in conflict with another place—but, by passing it for the Third time, to record its determination and reiterate what is the wish of the elected Chamber in the conflict which has arisen with the non-elected Chamber. As the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) said, there is no necessity for a Committee stage. To have a Committee stage would be fatuous and completely nugatory, and I think the House should unanimously adopt the Motion.
4.43 p.m.
Mr. Butcher: I was not very impressed with the three precedents which the Attorney-General brought to our notice. The precedent of 1948 was brought forward by the same right hon. and learned Gentleman, and to quote it is only saying that "During the last year we have not gained in wisdom"—to put the least charitable construction upon it—or, alternatively, to say "During the last year we have seen no reason to alter our minds." I therefore dismiss that precedent and address myself to the precedents of 1913 and 1914, which are rather different. Both of those Bills, in respect of which Motions were passed, were not single-Clause Bills.
At a time when democracy throughout the world is on the defensive, we are deliberately making a formality of one of our accepted procedures for the fourth time in the history of this Parliament. The Attorney-General said there was strife over this Bill between the elected and the non-elected Chambers, and that the Government desired the House to pass the Bill for the Third time so that it could become law. I do not disagree, but if that is the real desire of this legislative democracy, it is disastrous, when emphasising a determination that the will of the people shall prevail, to make one of the rights inherent in that democratic assembly a matter of pure formality.
4.45 p.m.
Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I was surprised that the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies), who leads in this House the smaller section of the Liberal Party, should put forward the astounding doctrine that because the Government would refuse Amendments there should be no Committee stage. It is a little

1711
difficult to follow the tergiversations and orations of that section of the party, but I should have thought that the one thing in which they did believe was free democratic discussion. It was a little startling, and I must say that the right hon. and learned Gentleman could not have appreciated the implications of what he said in putting forward that doctrine.
The implications are clear. They are that on any Measure on which the Government announced, in advance, that they will not pay attention to any Amendments, there should not be a Committee stage. That is carrying the stultification of this House to a degree further than the Guillotine Motions which have disfigured some of our previous Bills. I am astonished that the right hon. and learned Gentleman, who is much respected personally on both sides of the House, and who leads a section of a party the very name of which suggests freedom, should have lent the weight of his authority to that appalling proposition.
After all, a Committee stage does not merely exist in order to incorporate Amendments to Bills. It also exists to permit the detailed discussion and analysis of Bills. Again and again one has heard right hon. Gentlemen opposite dismiss an awkward point on a Second Reading when they did not know the answer, by saying that it was a Committee point. It is all very well for the Attorney-General to say that no Committee points are involved on this Bill; that may be his opinion and the Government's opinion, but it does not inevitably follow that it is also the opinion of all sections of the House. Before the Attorney-General is entitled to come here and take away some of the rights of discussion of the House on this Bill, he should be satisfied that his view that no useful purpose is to be served by having a Committee stage is accepted by everybody.
As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss) pointed out, there is one highly intricate provision in the Bill—the proviso to Clause 1, which would well repay detailed analysis on the Committee stage. It would repay some interrogation of the Government as to which Measure it is designed to cover, since in its terms it must refer to one
1712
Measure which has been rejected in another place.
Mr. H. Strauss: My hon. Friend made a slight slip in calling it a proviso to the Bill. The words are in lines 5 to 8 of the Bill itself. I used the word "proviso" in connection with the Act of 1911.
Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I am much obliged, but I am in the habit of saying that anything that begins with the word "provided" is a proviso, a practice which even my profound deference to my hon. and learned Friend will not lightly lead me to abandon, although I know he is trying to assist me.
The truth of the matter, I think, slipped out in the Attorney-General's speech—that a Committee stage in which anything happened to the Bill would upset the Government's time-table. Quite clearly, that is the motive behind this Motion. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said the Government had to get the Bill to another place a month before the end of this Session, and that it would upset any plans the Government may have for winding up the Session in the middle of next month if it did not get there in time. The truth is not that a Committee stage is not necessary; the truth is not that we cannot be usefully employed, even though the Government stonewalled in their resistance to Amendments; the truth is that it is the Government's plan to put this Bill on the Statute Book and dissolve Parliament before the economic ground crumbles completely under their feet.
4.50 p.m.
Mr. Sydney Silverman: I listened with considerable interest to the last two speeches, and in order to test their validity it occurred to me to ask what the Opposition would do if it had its way? Hon. Members opposite are presenting arguments to the House against the proposal of the Government, and presumably when the time comes they will vote against it. Suppose they carried it, would there then be a Committee stage? It seems to me there would not. This is a one-Clause Bill. There are no Amendments on the Order Paper, and I am wondering how the hon. Gentleman the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) was proposing to have his detailed examination point by point if he had his way.
Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: On the Motion that Clause 1, and subsequently that Clause 2, stand part of the Bill.
Mr. Silverman: I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows better than he pretends that if there is a discussion on the Motion that the Clause stand part, all that can be done at the end is to vote for or against the Clause as it stands. What he wants to do, therefore, is to defeat a proposal in order to discuss point by point items in a Clause which he does not propose to alter. Is he saying seriously—
Mr. McKie: It is the inherent right of Parliament.
Mr. Silverman: It is the inherent right of Parliament to do anything Parliament chooses. It is the inherent right of Parliament to reject the proposal, and it is equally the inherent right of Parliament to pass it. It is no more an inherent right of Parliament to have a Committee stage than to decide to do without it if it wanted so to decide. What the hon. Gentleman is saying is that we are very wrong in doing some incalculable and permanent harm to the Constitution by avoiding a Committee stage, which he does not want. There is not a single thing—and I speak with due deference to the Chair, though I feel sure I am right—which hon. Gentlemen opposite can say on the Motion for the Clause to stand part in the Committee stage that they will not be perfectly entitled to say on the Third Reading of the Bill. They are not losing anything except the right to say it twice.
The whole point is that this is not a sincere argument which is being advanced to the Committee. If hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite were seriously complaining that they were being deprived of the opportunity of registering some change of mind that had been come to in the 12 months since we last discussed this matter, then we would have expected to see on the Order Paper the formalities of those changes of mind, and one could clearly have understood the argument that the Government were running away from these proposals to amend the Bill, or the complaint, "We are being deprived of our opportunity to test the opinion of the House of Commons on this, that, or the other point on which we have had opportunity for further consideration in the last 12 months."
1714
Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite cannot have it both ways. Either they have such a proposal to make or they have not. If they have not, then the whole of their argument this afternoon is to no purpose. If, on the other hand, they have proposals for amendment which they wish to make, they have been neglecting their duties as a loyal, constitutional, and constructive Opposition in failing to put them down on the Order Paper to let us know what they are thinking. It is too much to expect at this stage of this Parliament that the Opposition should begin to show that it understands what its job in Parliament is. This is the worst Opposition the House has known in a couple of centuries. It is entirely ineffective, and whenever there is an opportunity of doing anything, it has not done anything about it. When it had something to propose, it has refrained from doing so, and has blamed the Government for not doing something.
So far as its policy is concerned, it has been the policy of the uneducated mother, who told her eldest son, "Go and see what Tommy is doing, and tell him he must not." The only common thread that runs through the whole of the activities of the Opposition during the past four years is for it to sit back and wait to see what the Government propose and then say it is wrong. That, of course, would be a competent thing to do if hon. Members opposite would suggest what the Government ought to do. The Opposition never do that. It would be a competent thing to tell us in advance what ought to be done, but that is altogether too risky for this Opposition, because it might find that the Government have already done it. I come now to the speech of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Holland with Boston (Mr. Butcher), who spoke for what is now called the National Liberal Party.
Mr. Emrys Roberts: Would not the hon. Gentleman call it the smaller section of the Conservative Party?
Mr. Silverman: My only doubt is which of the numerous sections constitute the smallest section of the Conservative Party. I no longer know. What is the doctrine? The hon. Gentleman was arguing that there was some offence to democracy in doing without

1715
a Committee stage. He said that this proposal was the wrong action to take at a time—and this was the important point which he made—when democracy was on trial throughout the world. The hon. Gentleman, like his party, has long forgotten what democracy means. It is too much to suppose that democracy is only a matter of unlimited repetitive discussion on points Ion since decided. If the hon. Gentleman wants to strike a blow for democracy at this time when democracy is in such danger all over the world, he will vote for the Government's Motion, because the real democratic issue, which is involved in this Motion, is whether it is the will of the House of Commons which is to prevail or the will of the House of Lords. There can be no doubt whatever of the democratic answer to that question.
I would suggest that the reason why hon. Gentlemen opposite have refrained from putting any Amendment down on the Order Paper is that they agree with us that there is only one substantial issue today about this Parliament Bill. They think it ought not to pass; we think that it ought to pass, and that is the only issue between us. That is why they did not bother with a lot of pettifogging Amendments on small points.
Mr. H. Strauss: Does the hon. Gentleman really suggest that there is nothing between us on the question of whether this Bill should retain the retro-active provision which the Government propose?
Mr. Silverman: A number of points were between us. One was whether any amendment of the law on this matter was necessary, and another whether this Bill should contain this, that or the other point. What I am saying is that all these are now decided issues, and that it is common ground between both sides of the House that they are now decided issues. The real question between us now is whether the Bill, in the form to which the House of Commons has twice given overwhelming approval, should now become the law of the land. I do not complain if hon. Members opposite think that we are wrong about this, and if they vote against this Motion and the Third Reading. That is their view, and no doubt they will defend it in the country when the time comes.
1716
I think, however, the House and I are entitled to complain that a real and very live issue between the two sides of the House should be confused by all these arguments, which are not seriously meant, as to the enormity of not having a Committee stage to amend Clauses when no desire is shown to amend them at all.
5.0 p.m.
Sir John Mellor: I am rather surprised at the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman). I have always thought that in this House he has been rather a champion for free opportunity of Parliamentary discussion. He has certainly appeared to stand for that, upon principle. It has been on that principle that we have so frequently and so long suffered him in his contributions—I will not say gladly but certainly generously. Therefore I am sorry that I differ from him on this occasion. This is a time when the House ought to take its stand upon principle and insist upon our having the normal opportunities for Parliamentary discussion.
I cannot understand what the Government are afraid of in having a Committee stage. If it is fear of getting their time-table dislocated, that is their fault. They should so arrange their time-table that we have the normal opportunities for discussion. If it is right, as has been said several times on that side of the House, that there would be nothing to discuss in Committee, then, again, why cannot we have a Committee stage? If it was sought on this side of the House to raise matters which would not be in Order in Committee, we should be stopped by the Chair. There are great advantages in having a Committee stage to a Bill. The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne said that a Committee stage would merely involve a repetition of the Second Reading, which again—
Mr. S. Silverman: I did not say that at all. What I said was that, since there are no Amendments down, hon. Members could make speeches in the Committee stage only on the Motion, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," and that speeches with the same effect and the same content might equally well be made on the Third Reading.
Sir J. Mellor: I think that that is not altogether correct. The position will not

1717
be quite the same in Committee; in fact, it is very different. I have always felt that there has been great advantage in our discussions in Committee. We have a much freer exchange of views across the Floor, and the very fact that hon. Members can speak more than once shortens their speeches because they know if they do not get an answer they can return to the attack. In Committee we get much more quickly to grips with the point at issue than we do in the more formal stages of our proceedings. That is not only true when Amendments have been moved. On the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," and particularly on the Question, "That Clause 1 stand part of the Bill," we get, on most Committee stages, a pretty wide discussion.
This proposal, which I hope the House will resist, to eliminate the Committee stage from the Bill, ought to be defeated. We have had too much muzzling during this Parliament, and it is time, although it is rather late in the day, for the House to stand up for its rights.
5.3 p.m.
Mr. John Foster: Two main points have been raised against the Motion. The first was that raised by my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank). He pointed out that there had been no interval between this Motion and the Third Reading for what I might call Amendments under the proviso to the Parliament Act. If this Motion goes through and no Committee stage is taken, it will not be possible, according to Mr. Speaker's Ruling, to put down any Amendments. I call them Amendments purposely, because that is what they are called in the Parliament Act, 1911. I refer to Amendments put down before the Third Reading. One could have expected that if the Government were going to abolish the Committee stage, they would have allowed an interval between taking the Motion to abolish it, and the Third Reading.
The other main point advanced against this Motion may be dealt with by taking up an argument used by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman). He advanced a lot of arguments which, in my respectful submission, rested upon a misunderstanding of a point of Parliamentary discussion. One
1718
argument was that there was a big majority on the other side, and it was known that the points which might be raised would be rejected, and that therefore there was not to be any discussion.
Mr. S. Silverman: The hon. Member is doing much more misunderstanding than I did. I never advanced the proposition, and I never would, that a man is not justified in putting down Amendments, talking upon them and dividing upon them, merely because he knows that they will be defeated. I said that it was quite wrong to complain about the absence of a Committee stage, when hon. Members have not indicated any desire to have a Committee stage.
Mr. Foster: Before the Committee stage is announced it is not the practice to put down Amendments. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] No. If the Committee stage is to be in a week's time, we put down our Amendments later. There is no duty to put down Amendments now.
Mr. Silverman: Hon. Members have had a fortnight in which to do so.
Mr. Foster: Why should it be done? I might take exception to what the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne says. What reason is there for the Opposition to put down Amendments before it is decided to have a Committee stage? The hon. Member says that Amendments would be rejected, and that we all know what is going to happen. We are taking this opportunity to protest against it.
Mr. Silverman: The hon. Member surely misunderstands. It was known as long ago as last Thursday, and perhaps before that, that the next stage of the Bill would be taken this afternoon. But for the present Motion from the Government, that next stage would be the Committee stage. It is only reasonable that people who want to move Amendments should give reasonable notice of those Amendments. That is what the Order Paper is for. Since there are no Amendments on the Order Paper, one is entitled to draw the deduction that nobody wants to move any Amendments.
Mr. Foster: We appear to be arguing in a circle. We also know that the Government have a large majority and we know that they are likely to carry their Motion.
Mr. Silverman: Then why is the hon. Member speaking?
Mr. Foster: If the hon. Member asks me why I am speaking, I say that it is in order to protest and to carry out that education of the Government which is one of the functions of the Opposition. I would remind the House that the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne said that this was the most disgraceful Opposition in the history of England, and so on, and—
Mr. Silverman: Not disgraceful, but inefficient—
Mr. Foster:—that we are unconstructive, unco-operative and unhelpful.
Mr. Silverman: The hon. Gentleman misunderstands me completely. I never ask the Opposition to be helpful or co-operative. It is not their business to be so. What I complain about in the present Opposition is that they have never known how to oppose.
Mr. Foster: I can understand the hon. Member's attitude towards the Opposition. On many occasions we have had to help the Government against the hon. Gentleman. No wonder he is resentful against us. When the Opposition have been co-operative and helpful to the Government on issues like conscription, and the hon. Gentleman has gone into the Lobby against the Government, no wonder he thinks that the Opposition is not efficient. I do not think that other people will agree with him. The Opposition have been opposing him and not always the Government, and for that reason he says it has not been an efficient Opposition. In that direction we can find out why the hon. Gentleman is so condemnatory of the Opposition. The hon. Gentleman's philosophy of Parliament seems altogether misconceived.
Parliament exists in order that there should be discussion. If everything depended upon a vast majority, obviously there would be no discussion after the first day. The Government would pass a Bill saying: "There shall be no more discussion. We have more supporters than you, and there's an end of it." The whole issue of the Parliament Act, 1911, is to provide that a Measure in question shall go through once, twice and a third time. From the way it is drafted it was envisaged that there would be discussion
1720
again and again on the same point. It was envisaged that it would be the same Bill but that it would go through for the second time and be discussed again and it would go through a third time and also be discussed again.
Mr. Awbery: When it goes back the third time it must go back unaltered. Therefore there cannot be any Amendments.
Mr. Foster: It depends upon what we mean by "unaltered." The proviso in the 1911 Act says that there can be Amendments suggested by the House of Commons on the third occasion, and therefore the Bill can go to another place altered in that sense, accompanied by the "Amendments," as the Parliament Act calls them, "suggested by the House of Commons."
Mr. S. Silverman: But where are they?
Mr. Foster: That is the point I am making. It is not right to abolish the Committee stage and not give the Opposition the opportunity of making Amendments for rejection on the Committee stage and on Third Reading, a point which was made by my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Gains-borough. The Opposition would by that means be able to make suggestions which might or might not be carried. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss) pointed out, one of the most important subjects which could be discussed on that kind of Amendment would be the retroactive provision of the Parliament Bill. The Government in this Parliament have been far too prone to introduce retroactive provisions, and that is a subject of great interest which should be discussed on the suggestions to be proposed by the Opposition to accompany the Bill when it goes to another place, if carried again in this House.
I want to allude to a point made by the Attorney-General about the timetable. Will he tell us what the timetable is, on what it depends, and what is in the time-table which would be upset? Will he also tell us why this Session must end this year? What would be the objection to the Session going on a little longer in order to give an opportunity for these matters to be discussed? If the right hon. and learned Gentleman has

1721
in mind a time-table he ought at least to tell us what is in the time-table and what it matters if it is upset, and if he will tell us that, perhaps we shall understand why he is so frightened about the timetable being upset.
At the moment I can see no reason why we should not discuss the Bill even more fully. Some of it might be repetitive, but that does not matter, for we educate the Government and we see them alter their opinions after we have repeated a thing to them. It is necessary to do that sometimes, and Parliament is none the worse for it. Had we another opportunity of educating them on the Committee stage, on Report and on the Third Reading, we might find that it was an advantage to the country that the time-able had been upset.
5.14. p.m.
Mr. McKie: I am very glad that the Opposition are going to vote against what I consider to be an iniquitous proposal. If I had wanted any additional spur to make me go with even more alacrity into the Lobby, it was the speech of the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies). I am sorry that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has left the Chamber, but I am sure that his solitary colleague on the Liberal bench will not object to the remarks I am about to make. I can well imagine that this must have been a day which gladdened the heart of the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery because he no doubt regards it as one step forward in making more perfect the legislation enacted in this House in 1911.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman as a lawyer is no doubt entitled when he seeks to interpret statutes to be heard with the greatest interest and attention by the House as a whole, but we on this side could not be expected to agree with him when he sought to state an argument on the precedent of the 1911 Parliament Act and on this identical Motion which we are asked to pass this afternoon, which was brought in because of the Act of 1911 with regard to the Home Rule Bill and the Welsh Church (Dis-establishment) Bill in 1913 and 1914 respectively.
I remember as a boy the passage of those Acts and the public feeling among Conservatives which was aroused at that time. I can truthfully say with respect
1722
to the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery that much the same kind of feeling was entertained by those who sat on these benches then and their supporters towards the Radical Government of that day as is entertained towards the Socialist Government some 35 or 37 years after. The right hon. and learned Gentleman must not be surprised when we think that that was a very bad precedent indeed upon which to base his claim this afternoon. As Conservatives thought then, we think this afternoon—this has been plain in every speech from this side of the House—that it is an attempt to manipulate or manoeuvre in the interests of one particular political party.
Mr. Emrys Roberts rose—
Mr. McKie: Wait and see. In a most ingenious speech, the hon. Member for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams) gave the Government the benefit of his advice—he is well entitled to do so as one who formerly occupied a position of great authority in this House—as to how they might get round the formula and give us or another place an opportunity of doing something further by way of amendment of the Bill. I do not propose to deal with the points of his speech but I absolutely agree with him, as I do with my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter), that if the House passes this proposal, it will be dealing, as I said to the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), a blow at the inherent rights of the Parliamentary system.
Mr. Tolley: Oh!;
Mr. McKie: The hon. Member has not been here very long and perhaps he will not be here after the next General Election. I should advise him to study Parliamentary procedure a little more fully and carefully than he has apparently done before. He seeks to interrupt me with a rather incoherent interruption without even rising to his feet. If he will allow me to proceed, I was about to say that the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne sought to make much play with the argument that if we were true democrats we should be only too glad to go into the Lobby in support of this proposal. He really was overstraining it. The hon. Gentleman is a great student of Parliamentary procedure and he must agree that it is preposterous to say that

1723
if there are no Amendments down, the Committee stage is of no value.
I repeat that just as the Radical Government did long years ago with regard to the Welsh Church (Dis-establishment) Bill and the Home Rule Bill for Ireland, the Government this afternoon are inviting us to take away a valuable privilege of the House of Commons. Had there been a Committee stage to the Bill and had it been taken on the Floor of the House, it would have been a very valuable concession by this Government, which has not hesitated on many occasions to remove the Committee stage of very important legislation to the Committee rooms upstairs. We are thus forgoing another right which the Government would have been bound to give us but for this formula.
The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne must know well that even though there are no Amendments, a Committee stage is not merely a dead letter. By no means, even though—I am as well aware of it as he is—under the Parliament Act a Bill has to go for the second and third times in precisely the same form as originally presented to the House. Surely the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne does not suggest that between the various presentations of the measure to Parliament hon. Members have not been thinking over the Bill? We on this side of the House are not ashamed to say from time to time that we like to change our minds, let alone the minds of hon. Gentlemen opposite, and there might have been valuable suggestions made in the Committee of the whole House this afternoon if we had had the advantage of the two Clauses being put to us in the traditional manner, namely, that the two Clauses stand part of the Bill.
I regret this Motion. I see in it something which fills me with foreboding for the future, especially when I reflect on the speech of the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery in which he praised the first introduction of such a proposal by a Radical Government of long ago with regard to the Welsh Church Bill and the Home Rule Bill. Whatever the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne may say about this being a small Measure—
Mr. S. Silverman: I did not say it was a small Measure.
Mr. McKie:—small in content, so far as it is only a two-Clause Bill—when the right hon. and learned Gentleman reminds us of those two far-reaching and evil Measures of long ago, we on this side of the House would be guilty of dereliction of our duty if we were not to make a protest in view of what may happen in the future if we have another Socialist Government presiding over us. For those reasons it will give me considerable pleasure—I do not think I shall ever have had more pleasure in my life—to vote against this proposal.
5.22 p.m.
Sir Richard Acland: I thought that the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) on this point was overwhelming, and I am surprised that after his contribution, anyone thought it worth while continuing a discussion which seems to me to have no value. It is all very well for hon. Members opposite to talk so loudly about the limited rights of free discussion, but this House must have a little co-operative self-discipline on this matter.
Obviously we have not an unlimited right to discuss everything under the sun—[An HON. MEMBER: "Of course we have."]—because there are only 24 hours in the day and it is physically impossible for us to sit here and debate during all of them. There are only 365 days in the year and for obvious reasons this House cannot meet and debate on all of them. And there is an almost unlimited number of topics which we want to debate, as can be seen on Thursday each week when Business is given out. Therefore it is important not to go on repeating, over and over again, discussions which have already taken place.
Today there is a special reason which, perhaps, explains why hon. Members opposite are prolonging this discussion after the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne had said every last word that could be said about it. I perceive that on the Adjournment the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) is to raise the subject of Income Tax evasion, so that every repetitious speech on this subject limits the time which the House can give to that-important subject.
5.24 p.m.
Mr. Emrys Roberts: I intervene because so many Conservative Members were aghast at the remarks of

1725
my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies). I have turned up the report of the Debate on 23rd June, 1913, and I am fortified by the remarks of no less a person than the First Lord of the Admiralty of those days, the right hon. Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) who now leads the Conservative Party. If I commend this suggested procedure to the House, the House will find support for it in the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman.
It is tempting to deal with the sneers of the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) at the so-called smaller section of the Liberal Party. It is a theme which was intertwined throughout his speech, and he tried to repeat in this House the tactics which Lord Woolton employs outside, thereby trying to create in the country the impression that the larger section of the Liberal Party is bound up with the Conservative Party. This Liberal Party does not attend the Conservative Party Conference and this section of the Liberal Party is in the House at the present time.
Colonel Gomme-Duncan: It is not representative.
Mr. Emrys Roberts: There will be more of us after the General Election. It was no part of the theme of my right hon. and learned Friend that the Committee stage of a Bill serves no useful purpose. He was devoting his argument purely to the procedure under the Parliament Bill, and he pointed out that no suggestion had been put out by the Opposition. In fact, during what the hon. Member for Galloway (Mr. McKie) called those evil days of long ago, it was Mr. F. E. Smith, a distinguished Member of the Conservative Party, who said:
"I indicated that the Suggestion stage has no value of any kind whatever,"
referring to procedure under the Parliament Act. And the right hon. Member for Woodford was able to cap that with this:
"The Suggestion stage has no value of any kind whatever to persons who are unable or unwilling to make any suggestions."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 23rd June, 1913; Vol. 54, c. 842]
The right hon. Gentleman had a very good day then, and I felt he was much happier in atttacking the Conservative Party than he is in defending them. In
1726
dealing with this point about the degradation of Parliament, he said, in talking of the speech of Mr. Austen Chamberlain:
"The right hon. Gentleman proceeded to talk about the degradation of the House of Commons. I am not at all inclined to disagree with him in his very proper and becoming opinion that there were much greater men in former times than exist today. … My Parliamentary experience has been short, but I remember that we spent the greater part of three Sessions walking through the Lobbies, debating night after night the details and provisions of measures which had for their support the largest majorities which in our lifetime ever assembled within these walls, and that after all these immense proceedings had reached their conclusion in the House of Commons the whole of these measures were cast out and ruined by the partisan vote of the House of Lords. Is not that the degradation of the House of Commons? Would not that be a blow at their immemorial liberties and their elementary rights? The right hon. Gentleman felt in no way humiliated by that spectacle."
Finally—the agony will be over shortly—I will quote what the right hon. Gentleman said about the argument that this kind of procedure limited discussion in the House. This is what he said about Mr. Austen Chamberlain:
"This procedure, which they deem a hard-ship is a privilege which they alone enjoy. What chance should we have, if we were to occupy their seats"—
There was some foresight in that remark but I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman knew it at the time—
"of debating over again, even in a limited-form, and even under a restricted procedure, measures which had already been disposed of by the House of Lords? Every facility, every power which the right hon. Gentleman and his Friends enjoy in respect to these measures under the Parliament Act today is a pure advantage to them and a pure windfall to them which would not under the existing Constitution be enjoyed by any other body of Members in the House, and every burden which we must support in carrying these measures over and over again, or every risk we must run in their passage through this. House, every labour we must exact from those who support us, every one of these is a risk and a burden and a labour which, were the Conservative Party in office tomorrow, they would find themselves wholly immune from."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 23rd June, 1913; Vol. 54, C. 837.]
I commend to the Conservative Party not only the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, but the whole proceedings of the Debates in 1913 and 1914. They will then find how much better the Conservative Party of those days were able to conduct an Opposition.
5.30 p.m.
The Attorney-General: If I may, with the leave of the House, I should like to take up certain of the points which have been raised in the Debate today. First, I make this general comment: that I cannot help thinking that our discussion has proceeded, so far as many of the speeches from hon. Members opposite are concerned, with a characteristic detachment from the real purpose of Parliamentary debate. The speech of the hon. Member for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams), for instance, was, I venture to suggest, just another characteristic exhibition by him of partisan peevishness at the fact that he and his hon. Friends have not so far been able to wreck the policy of the Government in regard to the Bill we are now discussing.
My hon. Friend, if I may call him so, the Member for Northwich (Mr. J. Foster), who after having delivered a charming and characteristic exercise in dilettantism immediately left the House, and whose speech conveyed a proposition with part of which, at least, I should be willing to agree, said that Parliament exists in order that there should be discussion. No doubt that is one of its purposes, but that does not mean that Parliament must stultify itself by permitting a minority of Members to discuss for a second and third time that which has already been fully discussed and decided in the first instance, and that in regard to which no change whatever in circumstances has taken place. Democracy no doubt involves discussion, but it does not involve the repetitious waste of time in order to delay the implementation of decisions which have been taken by a majority of the legislature.
Although I would agree with the right hon. and gallant Member for Gains-borough (Captain Crookshank) that certain matters—not, I think, those which are germaine to our present discussion—have been rather in the air under the Parliament Act, it can hardly be said by anybody who listened to the extracts from the Debate in 1913 or 1914, which were cited by the hon. Member for Merioneth (Mr. Emrys Roberts), or who read the whole of the speeches made at that time by that very great Prime Minister and Parliamentarian, Mr. Asquith, or by the present right hon. Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill); nobody who has read those speeches can doubt that
1728
this particular problem of the amendment of Bills in connection with which the Parliament Act procedure was to be invoked has not previously been given a great deal of thought by this House. We are following the precedents closely applicable to the present case that were laid down in 1913 and 1914 after a great deal of Parliamentary discussion and after the view of acknowledged authorities had been expressed in regard to the matter.
Mr. Pickthorn: The right hon. and learned Gentleman says that we are following exactly the precedents, so no doubt he has informed himself and can tell us of what I do not know: did they on that occasion take this Motion and the Third Reading in immediate succession to each other on a single Parliamentary day?
The Attorney-General: I do not know. I am afraid I am not in a position to say. I am dealing with the Motion at present before the House. On that Motion we are following mutatis mutandis the exact precedent that was set at that time. I was a little surprised, therefore, that so many hon. Members opposite—not, I am glad to think, the senior Burgess for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn)—felt called upon to express their views when they had themselves no concrete proposals whatever, either for an Amendment of the Bill in this House or for any suggestion to another place as to Amendments which might appropriately be made in the Bill in that place.
Mr. H. Strauss: The right hon. and learned Gentleman has said that no suggestions have been made. One has been made by at least two hon. Members, and perhaps more, on this side of the House, namely, that the proviso to Section 2 (4) of the Parliament Act, 1911, might be used to strike out the retrospective provisions of the Bill. The Lords might agree to that suggestion, without endangering the remainder of the Bill.
The Attorney-General: I fail to follow the hon. and learned Member. That is an idea—I am using a neutral phrase, because I shall come to the more formal and technical term "suggestion"—which might have been appropriate for discussion on Second Reading or Third Reading, but which the hon. and learned Member has not thought sufficiently useful or cogent to make the subject of an

1729
Amendment or of a suggestion on the Order Paper and, consequently, is one which we could not usefully have discussed on Committee stage had we had any Committee stage of the Bill.
The right hon. and gallant Member for Gainsborough asked me whether it would be possible to put down Motions involving suggestions as to Amendments in another place before the Procedure Motion had been discussed in this House. That appears to be clearly a matter for Mr. Speaker and I should hesitate to make any comment—indeed, I obviously could not lay down any rule in regard to it—but I would have thought that such Motions could have been put down—not necessarily discussed—before any Procedure Motion had appeared on the Paper and before the Committee stage with a view, perhaps, to their being discussed after the Committee stage, if there were a Committee stage, or after a Procedure Motion had been considered.
After all, the fact that a Bill is one in which the Parliament Act may be invoked is not as a rule a matter which is shrouded in complete secrecy. After the rejection of the present Bill in another place in the first instance, and its Second Reading on the second occasion in this House, even hon. Members opposite, who wilfully shut their eyes sometimes to the obvious, can hardly be unaware of the fact that it is probable that the procedure of the 1911 Act may be invoked in regard to it, and that, whether or not the House occupies its time in discussing Amendments in Committee, no Amendment is very likely to be adopted for the Bill itself.
In those circumstances, no doubt hon. Members opposite who wished would take the earliest opportunity they had of putting down suggestion Motions and would do so immediately after the Second Reading stage, having, perhaps, canvassed their suggestions in the course of Second Reading Debate. When, and indeed whether, such suggestion Motions should be debated is, of course, quite another matter. The Government cannot abdicate its control of such time as the House sees right to allocate to Government business, and obviously I could not bind this or any other Government to find time for any suggestion Motion, no matter how frivolous the suggestion might be. On the other hand—
Captain Crookshank: Is it quite clear, then, that the first dictum of the Home Secretary is wrong, and that his second and third are the right ones?
The Attorney-General: The speech must be read as a whole, and I venture to think that I am summarising the effect of the speech of my right hon. Friend. I add only this: that if the Government did not give time to a suggestion Motion where one had been put on the Paper, and if time could not be found to deal with it in the time that was allocated for Private Members' business, then no doubt the Opposition would seek such opportunity as they had either of opposing the Procedure Motion or opposing the matter on Third Reading.
It is difficult to think that in any matter of the importance which any Bill involving the machinery of the Parliament Act must obviously have, the Government would not in fact find time for the discussion of any suggestion Motion which contained any really serious suggestion. I have no doubt that in such cases they would follow some such procedure as was suggested by the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) in his speech. Beyond that I would hesitate to agree that it would be useful on the Committee stage of a Bill which, if its eventual passage is to be ensured at all, must go through Committee unamended, to discuss Amendments which, on that hypothesis, could never be adopted into the Bill at all. Whether they were selected by the Chair, or whether they were selected in some other way, their discussion would at the best be a time absorbing exercise in academics. I cannot see that it would either assist or prevent hon. Members opposite putting down in a concrete and formal way any suggestions they really wanted to get adopted into the Bill in another place.
I only add this in regard to it and it arises out of something which was said by an hon. Member opposite—there is really no question at all here of denying the House its normal opportunity for discussion. I think the point was put try the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir J. Mellor). The normal opportunity for detailed discussion is when a Bill is first committed on its first passage through the House. The procedure under the Parliament Act is not normal procedure, but the procedure which is being followed now is in fact that which has

1731
been followed on the previous occasions when the extraordinary procedure of the Parliament Act has been adopted at all and I am told we are now following the 1948 precedent as far as the actual order and timing of the different parts of the Bill are concerned. The procedure Motion was at once followed by the Third Reading. Hon. Members must blame themselves if they did not anticipate the same course in 1949.
For the rest, I venture to suggest to the House that the discussion really is in the highest degree unrealistic. Nothing we are doing now will bind the House on any future occasion when it may be thought desirable that there should be a Committee stage, not to amend the Bill, but to discuss in detail the provisions of particular Clauses. I can see that that might be a proper course where we had a long Bill with many Clauses and with detailed provisions, but even in such a case I would have doubted whether that discussion would ordinarily be useful. I must say that, personally, I am not in favour of the practice of having a number of bites at the same cherry.
We are dealing now with the passage of a Bill fully discussed on its Committee stage, which could have been even more fully discussed if hon. Members had desired it, when it was first before the House. It was fully debated then. It is difficult to think in any normal case where the circumstances have not changed at all in the meantime that any useful pur-
pose would be served by repeating the discussion of Clauses which has already taken place. But all that is, for the moment, academic. If such a case arises on a long and detailed Bill the House will decide then whether to give detailed discussion to it.
The fact is that hon. Members opposite are seeking, not for the first time, simply to absorb the time of the House which the House, having fully debated this particular Bill, could devote to other important and fruitful matters which it has not yet had an opportunity of discussing. It may well be the inherent right of Parliament to discuss for a second and third time matters they have already discussed and decided. It may be right for the House to do that if it wants to do it but, if the Government have correctly appreciated the sense of the House in regard to this Bill, it is not their wish to discuss these matters now for a third time. I therefore commend this Motion with confidence to the House.
Question put,
"That when an Order of the Day is read for the House to resolve itself into Committee on the Parliament Bill, Mr. Speaker shall leave the Chair without putting any Question, notwithstanding that Notice of an Instruction has been given, and on the Committee stage of that Bill the Chairman shall forthwith put the Question that he do report the Bill, without Amendment, to the House without putting any other Question, and the Question so put shall be decided without Amendment or Debate."
The House divided: Ayes. 289; Noes, 116.

Division No. 281.]

AYES

[5.48 p.m.

Acland, Sir Richard

Braddock, T. (Mitcham)

Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.

Albu, A. H.

Bramall, E. A.

Davies, Rt. Hn. Clement (Montgomery)

Allen, A. C. (Bosworth)

Brook, D. (Halifax)

Davies, Edward (Burslem)

Alpass, J. H.

Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

Davies, Ernest (Enfield)

Anderson, A. (Motherwell)

Brown, George (Belper)

Davies, Harold (Leek)

Attewell, H. C.

Brown, T. J. (Ince)

Davies, Haydn (St. Pancras, S. W.)

Austin, H. Lewis

Brown, W. J. (Rugby)

Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)

Awbery, S. S.

Bruce, Maj. D. W. T.

Deer, G.

Ayles, W. H.

Burke, W. A.

de Freitas, Geoffrey

Ayrton Gould, Mrs. B.

Butler, H. W. (Hackney, S.)

Delargy, H. J.

Bacon, Miss A.

Byers, Frank

Dodds, N. N.

Baird, J.

Callaghan, James

Donovan, T.

Balfour, A.

Chamberlain, R. A.

Driberg, T. E. N.

Barton, C.

Champion, A. J.

Dugdale, J. (W. Bromwich)

Battley, J. R.

Chater, D.

Dumpleton, C. W.

Bechervaise, A. E.

Chetwynd, G. R.

Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.

Berry, H.

Cluse, W. S.

Edelman, M.

Beswick, F.

Cobb, F. A.

Edwards, John (Blackburn)

Bevan, Rt. Hon. A (Ebbw Vale)

Cocks, F. S.

Edwards, Rt. Hon. N. (Caerphilly)

Bevin, Rt. Hon. E. (Wandsworth, C.)

Collindridge, F.

Edwards, W. J. (Whitechapel)

Bing, G. H. C.

Colman, Miss G. M.

Evans, Albert (Islington, W.)

Binns, J.

Corlett, Dr. J.

Ewart, R.

Blackburn, A. R.

Cove, W. G.

Fairhurst, F.

Blyton, W. R.

Crawley, A.

Farthing, J.

Bowden, H. W.

Crossman, R. H. S.

Fernyhough, E.

Braddock, Mrs. E. M. (L'pl. Exch'ge)

Daines, P.

Field, Capt. W. J.

Fletcher, E. G. M. (Islington, E.)

McAllister, G.

Sharp, Granville

Follick, M.

McEntee, V. La T.

Shawcross, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (St. Helens)

Foot, M. M.

McGhee, H. G.

Shurmer, P.

Forman, J. C.

McGovern, J.

Silverman, J. (Erdington)

Fraser, T. (Hamilton)

McKay, J. (Wallsend)

Silverman, S. S. (Nelson)

Freeman, J. (Watford)

Mackay, R. W. G. (Hull, N. W.)

Simmons, C. J.

Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.

McLeavy, F.

Skeffington-Lodge, T. C.

Ganley, Mrs. C. S.

MacMillan, M. K. (Western Isles)

Skinnard, F. W.

Gibson, C. W.

MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)

Smith, C. (Colchester)

Glanville, J. E. (Consett)

Mainwaring, W. H.

Smith, S. H. (Hull, S. W.)

Gooch, E. G.

Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield)

Snow, J. W.

Goodrich, H. E.

Mann, Mrs. J.

Solley, L. J.

Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A. (Wakefield)

Manning, C. (Camberwell, N.)

Sorensen, R. W.

Greenwood, A. W. J. (Heywood)

Manning, Mrs. L. (Epping)

Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

Grenfell, D. R.

Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.

Sparks, J. A.

Grey, C. F.

Mathers, Rt. Hon. George

Steele, T.

Grierson, E.

Mayhew, C. P.

Stubbs, A. E.

Griffiths, D. (Rother Valley)

Medland, H. M.

Summerskill, Rt. Hon. Edith

Griffiths, Rt. Hon. J. (Llanelly)

Mellish, R. J.

Swingler, S.

Guest, Dr. L. Haden

Messer, F.

Sylvester, G. O.

Gunter, R. J.

Middleton, Mrs. L.

Symonds, A. L.

Guy, W. H.

Mikardo, Ian

Taylor, H. B. (Mansfield)

Hale, Leslie

Millington, Wing-Comdr. E. R.

Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)

Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil

Mitchison, G. R.

Taylor, Dr. S. (Barnet)

Hamilton, Lieut.-Col. R.

Monslow, W.

Thomas, D. E. (Aberdare)

Hardman, D. R.

Moody, A. S.

Thomas, Ivor Owen (Wrekin)

Hardy, E. A.

Morgan, Dr. H. B.

Thorneycroft, Harry (Clayton)

Harrison, J.

Morley, R.

Thurtle, Ernest

Haworth, J.

Morris, Lt.-Col. H. (Sheffield, C.)

Tiffany, S.

Hewitson, Capt. M.

Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Lewisham, E.)

Timmons, J.

Hicks, G.

Moyle, A.

Tolley, L.

Holman, P.

Murray, J. D.

Tomlinson, Rt. Hon. G.

Holmes, H. E. (Hemsworth)

Nally, W.

Turner-Samuels, M.

Houghton, Douglas

Naylor, T. E.

Usborne, Henry

Hoy, J.

Neal, H. (Claycross)

Vernon, Maj. W. F.

Hubbard, T.

Nichol, Mrs. M. E. (Bradford, N.)

Viant, S. P.

Hudson, J. H. (Ealing, W.)

Nicholls, H. R. (Stratford)

Wallace, G. D. (Chislehurst)

Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayr)

Noel-Baker, Capt. F. E. (Brentford)

Wallace, H. W. (Walthamstow, E.)

Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

Noel-Buxton, Lady

Warbey, W. N.

Hughes, H. D. (W'lverh'pton, W.)

Oliver, G. H.

Watkins, T. E.

Hutchinson, H. L. (Rusholme)

Orbach, M.

Webb, M. (Bradford, C.)

Hynd, H. (Hackney, C.)

Pannell, T. C.

Weitzman, D.

Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)

Pargiter, G. A.

Wells, P. L. (Faversham)

Irvine, A. J. (Liverpool)

Parker, J.

Wells, W. T. (Walsall)

Irving, W. J. (Tottenham, N.)

Parkin, B. T.

West, D. G.

Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.

Paton, Mrs. F. (Rushcliffe)

Wheatley, Rt. Hn. John (Edinb'gh, E.)

Janner, B.

Paton, J. (Norwich)

White, H. (Derbyshire, N. E.)

Jay, D. P. T.

Pearson, A.

Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.

Jager, G. (Winchester)

Platts-Mills, J. F. F.

Wilcock, Group-Capt. C. A. B.

Jeger, Dr. S. W. (St. Pancras, S. E.)

Poole, Cecil (Lichfield)

Wilkins, W. A.

Jenkins, R. H.

Popplewell, E.

Willey, F. T. (Sunderland)

Johnston, Douglas

Porter, E. (Warrington)

Willey, O. G. (Cleveland)

Jones, D. T. (Hartlepool)

Porter, G. (Leeds)

Williams, D. J. (Neath)

Jones, P. Asterley (Hitchin)

Proctor, W. T.

Williams, Ronald (Wigan)

Keenan, W.

Pryde, D. J.

Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)

Kenyon, C.

Pursey, Comdr. H.

Williams, W. T. (Hammersmith, S.)

Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

Randall, H. E.

Williams, W. R. (Heston)

Kinghorn, Sqn.-Ldr. E.

Ranger, J.

Willis, E.

Kinley, J.

Reeves, J.

Wills, Mrs. E. A.

Lang, G.

Reid, T. (Swindon)

Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. H.

Lavers, S.

Ridealgh, Mrs. M.

Wise, Major F. J.

Lee, Miss J. (Cannock)

Roberts, Emrys (Merioneth)

Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

Leonard, W.

Robertson, J. J. (Berwick)

Woods, G. S.

Leslie, J. R.

Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

Wyatt, W.

Lewis, A. W. J. (Upton)

Rogers, G. H. R.

Yates, V. F.

Lewis, J. (Bolton)

Ross, William (Kilmarnock)

Young, Sir R. (Newton)

Lindgren, G. S.

Royle, C.

Younger, Hon. Kenneth

Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.

Sargood, R.

Logan, D. G.

Scollan, T.

TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

Longden, F.

Scott-Elliot, W.

Mr. Hannan and

Lyne, A. W.

Segal, Dr. S.

Mr. Richard Adams

McAdam, W.

Shackleton, E. A. A.

NOES

Agnew, Cmdr. P. G.

Carson, E.

Digby, S. Wingfield

Amory, D. Heathcoat

Challen, C.

Dodds-Parker, A. D.

Baxter, A. B.

Clarke, Col. R. S.

Drayson, G. B.

Beamish, Maj. T. V. H.

Cole, T. L.

Drewe, C.

Boyd-Carpenter, J. A.

Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C.

Dugdale, Maj. Sir T. (Richmond)

Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W.

Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.

Eccles, D. M.

Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.

Crowder, Capt. John E.

Eden, Rt. Hon. A.

Butcher, H. W.

Cuthbert, W. N.

Elliot, Lieut.-Col Rt. Hon. Walter

Butler, Rt. Hn R. A. (S'ffr'n W'ld'n)

De la Bèe, R.

Erroll, F. J.

1734

1735

Fleming, Sqn.-Ldr. E. L.

Lloyd, Selwyn (Wirral)

Roberts, P. G. (Ecclesall)

Fletcher, W. (Bury)

Low, A. R. W.

Robinson, Roland (Blackpool, S.)

Foster, J. G. (Northwich)

Lucas-Tooth, Sir H.

Ropner, Col. L.

Fox, Sir G.

MacAndrew, Col. Sir C.

Ross, Sir R. D. (Londonderry)

Fraser, H. C. P. (Stone)

Macdonald, Sir P. (I. of Wight)

Sanderson, Sir F.

Fraser, Sir I (Lonsdale)

McFarlane, C. S.

Scott, Lord W.

Fyfe, Rt. Hon. Sir D. P. M.

McKie, J. H. (Galloway)

Shepherd, W. S. (Bucklow)

Galbraith, Cmdr. T. D. (Pollok)

Maclean, F. H. R. (Lancaster)

Spearman, A. C. M.

Galbraith, T. G. D. (Hillhead)

Macpherson, N. (Dumfries)

Spence, H. R.

Gomme-Duncan, Col. A.

Maitland, Comdr. J. W.

Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.

Hannon, Sir P. (Moseley)

Manningham-Buller, R. E.

Strauss, Henry (English Universities)

Harden, J. R. E.

Marlowe, A. A. H.

Stuart, Rt. Hon. J. (Moray)

Harris, F. W. (Croydon, N.)

Marshall, D. (Bodmin)

Studholme, H. G.

Harris, H. Wilson (Cambridge Univ.)

Marshall, S. H. (Sutton)

Taylor, Vice-Adm. E. A. (P'dd't'n, S.)

Harvey, Air-Comdre A. V.

Mellor, Sir J.

Teeling, William

Head, Brig. A. H.

Morris-Jones, Sir H.

Thomas, Ivor (Keighley)

Hinchingbrooke, Viscount

Mullan, Lt. C. H.

Thorneycroft, G. E. P. (Monmouth)

Hogg, Hon. Q.

Neill, W. F. (Belfast, N.)

Thorp, Brigadier R. A. F.

Hollis, M. C.

Neven-Spence, Sir B.

Touche, G. C.

Hope, Lord J.

Nicholson, G.

Turton, R. H.

Hurd, A.

Noble, Comdr. A. H. P.

Wakefield, Sir W. W.

Hutchison, Lt.-Cm. Clark (E'b'rgh, W.)

Orr-Ewing, I. L.

Walker-Smith, D.

Hutchison, Col. J. R. (Glasgow, C.)

Peake, Rt. Hon. O.

Webbe, Sir H. (Abbey)

Jeffreys, General Sir G.

Peto, Brig. C. H. M.

Wheatley, Colonel M. J. (Dorset. E.)

Jennings, R.

Pickthorn, K.

Williams, C. (Torquay)

Keeling, E. H.

Pitman, I. J.

York, C.

Lambert, Hon. G.

Poole, O. B. S. (Oswestry)

Young, Sir A. S. L. (Partick)

Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.

Prescott, Stanley

Lindsay, M. (Solihull)

Price-White, D.

TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

Linstead, H. N.

Prior-Palmer, Brig, O.

Major Conant and

Lipson, D. L.

Ramsay, Maj. S.

Brigadier Mackeson.

Ordered:
"That when an Order of the Day is read for the House to resolve itself into Committee on the Parliament Bill, Mr. Speaker shall leave the Chair without putting any Question, notwithstanding that Notice of an
1736
Instruction has been given, and on the Committee stage of that Bill the Chairman shall forthwith put the Question that he do report the Bill, without Amendment, to the House without putting any other Question, and the Question so put shall be decided without Amendment or Debate."

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  PARLIAMENT BILL
  Considered in Committee.

  [Major MILNER in the Chair]

  The CHAIRMAN pursuant to the Order of the House this day, put forthwith the Question, "That the Chairman do report the Bill, without Amendment, to the House."

  The Committee divided: Ayes, 286; Noes, 117.

  Division No. 282.]

  AYES

  [5.58 p.m.

  Acland, Sir Richard

  Edwards, W. J. (Whitechapel)

  Lewis, J. (Bolton)

  Albu, A. H.

  Ewart, R.

  Lindgren, G. S.

  Allen, A. C. (Bosworth)

  Fairhurst, F.

  Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.

  Alpass, J. H.

  Farthing, W. J.

  Logan, D. G.

  Anderson, A. (Motherwell)

  Fernyhough, E.

  Longden, F.

  Attewell, H. C.

  Field, Capt. W. J.

  Lyne, A. W.

  Austin, H. Lewis

  Fletcher, E. G. M. (Islington, E.)

  McAdam, W.

  Awbery, S. S.

  Follick, M.

  McAllister, G.

  Ayles, W. H.

  Foot, M. M.

  McEntee, V. La. T.

  Ayrton Gould, Mrs. S.

  Forman, J. C.

  McGhee, H. G.

  Bacon, Miss A.

  Fraser, T. (Hamilton)

  McGovern, J.

  Balfour, A.

  Freeman, J. (Watford)

  McKay, J. (Wallsend)

  Barton, C.

  Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.

  Mackay, R. W. G. (Hull, N. W.)

  Battley, J. R.

  Ganley, Mrs. C. S.

  McLeavy, F.

  Bechervaise, A. E.

  Gibson, C. W.

  MacMillan, M. K. (Western Isles)

  Berry, H.

  Glanville, J. E. (Consell)

  MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)

  Beswick, F.

  Gooch, E. G.

  Mainwaring, W. H.

  Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale)

  Goodrich, H. E.

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

  Bevin, Rt. Hon. E. (Wandsworth, C.)

  Greenwood, A. W. J. (Heywood)

  Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield)

  Bing, G. H. C.

  Grenfell, D. R.

  Mann, Mrs. J.

  Binns, J.

  Grey, C. F.

  Manning, C. (Camberwell, N.)

  Blackburn, A. R.

  Grierson, E.

  Manning, Mrs. L. (Epping)

  Blyton, W. R.

  Griffiths, D. (Rother Valley)

  Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.

  Bowden, H. W.

  Griffiths, Rt. Hon. J. (Llanelly)

  Mathers, Rt. Hon. George

  Braddock, Mrs. E. M. (L'pl. Exch'ge)

  Guest, Dr. L. Haden

  Mayhew, C. P.

  Braddock, T. (Mitcham)

  Gunter, R. J.

  Mellish, R. J.

  Bramall, E. A.

  Guy, W. H.

  Messer, F.

  Brook, D. (Halifax)

  Hale, Leslie

  Middleton, Mrs. L.

  Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

  Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil

  Mikardo, Ian

  Brown, George (Belper)

  Hamilton, Lieut.-Col. R.

  Millington, Wing-Comdr. E. R.

  Brown, T. J. (Ince)

  Hardman, D. R.

  Mitchison, G. R.

  Bruce, Maj. D. W. T.

  Hardy, E. A.

  Monslow, W.

  Burke, W. A.

  Harrison, J.

  Moody, A. S.

  Butler, H. W. (Hackney, S.)

  Haworth, J.

  Morgan, Dr. H. B.

  Byers, Frank

  Hewitson, Capt. M.

  Morley, R.

  Callaghan, James

  Hicks, G.

  Morris, Lt.-Col. H. (Sheffield, C.)

  Champion, A. J.

  Holman, P.

  Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Lewisham, E.)

  Chater, D.

  Holmes, H. E. (Hemsworth)

  Moyle, A.

  Chetwynd, G. R.

  Houghton, Douglas

  Murray, J. D.

  Cluse, W. S.

  Hoy, J.

  Nally, W.

  Cobb, F. A.

  Hubbard, T.

  Naylor, T. E.

  Cocks, F. S.

  Hudson, J. H. (Ealing, W.)

  Neal, H. (Claycross)

  Collindridge, F.

  Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

  Nichol, Mrs. M. E. (Bradford, N.)

  Colman, Miss G. M.

  Hughes, H. D. (W'Iverh'pton, W.)

  Nicholls, H. R. (Stratford)

  Corlett, Dr. J.

  Hutchinson, H. L. (Rusholme)

  Noel-Baker, Capt. F. E. (Brentford)

  Cove, W. G.

  Hynd, H. (Hackney, C.)

  Noel-Buxton, Lady

  Crawley, A.

  Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)

  Oliver, G. H.

  Crossman, R. H. S.

  Irvine, A. J. (Liverpool)

  Orbach, M.

  Daines, P.

  Irving, W. J. (Tottenham. N.)

  Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)

  Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.

  Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.

  Pannell, T. C.

  Davies, Rt. Hn. Clement (Montgomery)

  Janner, B.

  Pargiter, G. A.

  Davies, Edward (Burslem)

  Jay, D. P. T.

  Parker, J.

  Davies, Ernest (Enfield)

  Jeger, G. (Winchester)

  Parkin, B. T.

  Davies, Harold (Leek)

  Jeger, Dr. S. W. (St. Pancras, S. E.)

  Paton, Mrs. F. (Rushcliffe)

  Davies, Haydn (St. Pancras, S. W.)

  Jenkins, R. H.

  Paton, J. (Norwich)

  Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)

  Johnston, Douglas

  Pearson, A.

  Deer, G.

  Jones, D. T. (Hartlepool)

  Platts-Mills, J. F. F.

  de Freitas, Geoffrey

  Jones, P. Asterley (Hitchin)

  Poole, Cecil (Lichfield)

  Delargy, H. J.

  Keenan, W.

  Popplewell, E.

  Dodds, N. N.

  Kenyon, C.

  Porter, E. (Warrington)

  Donovan, T.

  Kinghorn, Sqn.-Ldr. E.

  Porter, G. (Leeds)

  Driberg, T. E. N.

  Kinley, J.

  Proctor, W. T.

  Dugdale, J. (W. Bromwich)

  Lang, G.

  Pryde, D. J.

  Dumpleton, C. W.

  Lavers, S.

  Pursey, Comdr. H.

  Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.

  Lee, Miss J. (Cannock)

  Randall, H. E.

  Edelman, M.

  Leonard, W.

  Ranger, J.

  Edwards, John (Blackburn)

  Leslie, J. R.

  Reeves, J.

  Edwards, Rt. Hon. N. (Caerphilly)

  Lewis, A. W. J. (Upton)

  Reid, T. (Swindon)

  1738

  1739

  Ridealgh, Mrs. M.

  Stubbs, A. E.

  West, D. G.

  Roberts, Emrys (Merioneth)

  Summerskill, Rt. Hon. Edith

  Wheatley, Rt. Hn. John (Edinb'gh, E.)

  Robertson, J. J. (Berwick)

  Swingler, S.

  White, H. (Derbyshire, N. E.)

  Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

  Sylvester, G. O.

  Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.

  Rogers, G. H. R.

  Symonds, A. L.

  Wigg, George

  Ross, William (Kilmarnock)

  Taylor, H. B. (Mansfield)

  Wilcock, Group-Capt. C. A. B.

  Royle, C.

  Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)

  Wilkins, W. A.

  Sargood, R.

  Taylor, Dr. S. (Barnet)

  Willey, F. T. (Sunderland)

  Scollan, T.

  Thomas, D. E. (Aberdare)

  Willey, O. G. (Cleveland)

  Scott-Elliot, W.

  Thomas, Ivor Owen (Wrekin)

  Williams, D. J. (Neath)

  Segal, Dr. S.

  Thorneycroft, Harry (Clayton)

  Williams, Ronald (Wigan)

  Shackleton, E. A. A.

  Thurtle, Ernest

  Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)

  Sharp, Granville

  Tiffany, S.

  Williams, W. T. (Hammersmith, S.)

  Shawcross, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (St. Helens)

  Timmons, J.

  Williams, W. R. (Heston)

  Shurmer, P.

  Tolley, L.

  Willis, E.

  Silverman, J. (Erdington)

  Tomlinson, Rt. Hon. G.

  Wills, Mrs. E. A.

  Silverman, S. S. (Nelson)

  Turner-Samuels, M.

  Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. H.

  Simmons, C. J.

  Usborne, Henry

  Wise, Major F. J.

  Skeffington-Lodge, T. C.

  Vernon, Maj. W. F.

  Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

  Skinnard, F. W.

  Viant, S. P.

  Woods, G. S.

  Smith, C. (Colchester)

  Walkden, E.

  Wyatt, W.

  Smith, S. H. (Hull, S. W.)

  Wallace, G. D. (Chislehurst)

  Yates, V. F.

  Snow, J. W.

  Wallace H. W. (Walthamstow, E.)

  Young, Sir R. (Newton)

  Solley, L. J.

  Warbey, W. N.

  Younger, Hon. Kenneth

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Watkins, T. E.

  Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

  Webb, M. (Bradford, C.)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Sparks, J. A.

  Weitzman, D.

  Mr. Hannan and

  Steele, T.

  Wells, P. L. (Faversham)

  Mr. Richard Adams.

  Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.

  Wells, W. T. (Walsall)

  NOES

  Agnew, Cmdr. P. G.

  Harvey, Air-Comdre. A. V.

  Orr-Ewing, I. L.

  Amory, D. Heathcoat

  Head, Brig. A. H.

  Peake, Rt. Hon. O.

  Baxter, A. B.

  Hinchingbrooke, Viscount

  Peto, Brig. C. H. M.

  Beamish, Maj. T. V. H.

  Hogg, Hon. Q.

  Pickthorn, K.

  Boyd-Carpenter, J. A.

  Hope, Lord J.

  Pitman, I. J.

  Bracken, Rt. Hon. Brendan

  Hurd, A.

  Poole, O. B. S. (Oswestry)

  Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W.

  Hutchison, Lt.-Cm. Clark (E'b'rgh, W.)

  Prescott, Stanley

  Brown, W. J. (Rugby)

  Hutchison, Col. J. R. (Glasgow, C.)

  Price-White, D.

  Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.

  Jeffreys, General Sir G.

  Prior-Palmer, Brig. O.

  Butcher, H. W.

  Jennings, R.

  Ramsay, Maj. S.

  Butler, Rt. Hn. R. A. (S'ffr'n W'ld'n)

  Keeling, E. H.

  Roberts, P. G. (Ecclesall)

  Carson, E.

  Lambert, Hon. G.

  Robinson, Roland (Blackpool, S.)

  Challen, C.

  Langford-Holt, J.

  Ropner, Col. L.

  Clarke, Col. R. S.

  Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.

  Ross, Sir R. D. (Londonderry)

  Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C.

  Lindsay, M. (Solihull)

  Sanderson, Sir F.

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.

  Linstead, H. N.

  Scott, Lord W.

  Crowder, Capt. John E.

  Lipson, D. L.

  Shepherd, W. S. (Bucklow)

  Cuthbert, W. N.

  Lloyd, Selwyn (Wirral)

  Spearman, A. C. M.

  De la Bère, R.

  Low, A. R. W.

  Spence, H. R.

  Dodds-Parker, A. D.

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir H.

  Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.

  Drayson, G. B.

  MacAndrew, Col. Sir C.

  Strauss, Henry (English Universities)

  Drewe, C.

  Macdonald, Sir P. (I. of Wight)

  Stuart, Rt. Hon. J. (Moray)

  Dugdale, Maj. Sir T. (Richmond)

  McFarlane, C. S.

  Studholme, H. G.

  Eccles, D. M.

  Mackeson, Brig. H. R.

  Taylor, Vice-Adm. E. A. (P'dd't'n, S.)

  Eden, Rt. Hon. A.

  McKie, J. H. (Galloway)

  Teeling, William

  Elliot, Lieut.-Col. Rt. Hon. Walter

  Maclean, F. H. R. (Lancaster)

  Thomas, Ivor (Keighley)

  Erroll, F. J.

  Macpherson, N. (Dumfries)

  Thorneycroft, G. E. P. (Monmouth)

  Fleming, Sqn.-Ldr. E. L.

  Maitland, Comdr. J. W.

  Thorp, Brigadier R. A. F.

  Fletcher, W. (Bury)

  Manningham-Buller, R. E.

  Touche, G. C.

  Foster, J. G. (Northwich)

  Marlowe, A. A. H.

  Turton, R. H.

  Fox, Sir G.

  Marshall, D. (Bodmin)

  Wakefield, Sir W. W.

  Fraser, H. C. P. (Stone)

  Marshall, S. H. (Sutton)

  Walker-Smith, D.

  Fraser, Sir I. (Lomsdale)

  Mellor, Sir J.

  Webbe, Sir H. (Abbey)

  Fyfe, Rt. Hon. Sir D. P. M.

  Morris-Jones, Sir H.

  Wheatley, Colonel M. J. (Dorset, E.)

  Galbraith, T. G. D. (Hillhead)

  Mullan, Lt. C. H.

  Williams, C. (Torquay)

  Gomme-Duncan, Col. A.

  Neill, W. F. (Belfast, N.)

  York, C.

  Harmon, Sir P. (Moseley)

  Neven-Spence, Sir B.

  Young, Sir A. S. L. (Partick)

  Harden, J. R. E.

  Nicholson, G.

  Harris, F. W. (Croydon, N.)

  Noble, Comdr. A. H. P.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Harris, H. Wilson (Cambridge Univ.)

  O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir H.

  Major Conant and

  Mr. Wingfield Digby.

  Bill reported without Amendment.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."—[Mr. Ede.]
  6.8 p.m.
  Major Sir David Maxwell Fyfe: I am not surprised that the Home Secretary has run out of arguments in favour of this Bill. He has produced very few arguments in favour of the Bill over the last two years, and the paucity which he has displayed on earlier occasions is well reflected in his silence tonight. Therefore I must examine with a little particularity the would-be arguments which the Home Secretary advanced when last he addressed this House, and I regret that the limitations of a Third Reading Debate prevent my examining at length the main argument on which the right hon. Gentleman and the Lord President relied on Second Reading.
  That main argument was that the Opposition Front Bench, with the exception of myself, had varied the attack on the Bill; whereas the Government Front Bench have left it—except for a short and very superficial examination of the history of 40 years back by the Prime Minister two years ago—to the Lord President and the Home Secretary. Frankly, I have been puzzled by the attempted force of this argument. I should have thought that it demonstrated one point only, that the Government up to today, with the exceptions I have mentioned, had only been able to find two Ministers who have the audacity, or shall I say the effrontery to support this Bill before the House. I cannot say that that fact strikes me with surprise, although the attempt to rely on it has its surprising aspects.
  Fortunately, as it is the Third Reading, the contents of the Bill are themselves sufficient to indicate and illustrate the line of cleavage between hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite and ourselves. The difference between our two parties is crystallised in the period of one year from the first Second Reading to the second Third Reading, which the Government wish to insert. We say—and we retract nothing of the force with which we say it—that that period does not allow sufficient time for public opinion to form and express itself, and we reiterate that it is in the dynamic expression of an educated public opinion that we on this side
  1742
  of the House are interested as the kernel of our political life. Our Second Chamber, if it exists, must use that public opinion as its criterion and guide.
  The Government say—and it is this argument on the contents of the Bill which I wish to examine—that this Bill allows time for the Lords to perform their function of revising, in that it ensures that their objections if not agreed to will, at any rate be considered. Secondly, they say that it is not for a Second Chamber to interpret public opinion. Thirdly, they say that Conservatives are trying to maintain a privileged and irresponsible body. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am much obliged. I am glad that I have got correctly the arguments which I shall proceed to demolish. Fourthly, the Government say that they are trying to wreck the fourth and fifth Sessions of Parliament when a Labour Government is in power. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am so glad that hon. Gentlemen opposite do me the justice of saying that I have quoted correctly the few arguments which have been advanced in favour of the Bill.
  I want to make it quite clear that the reply to the argument that the Government's proposal permits sufficient time for a Second Chamber to perform their function is one that has been made repeatedly and never answered. It is that a revising Chamber must be in a position not only to deal with points of correction and clarification of unimportant detail but to deal with points of secondary policy. That is, when the principle of the Bill is accepted—as the House of Lords have accepted, for reasons which my noble Friend Lord Salisbury has stated, certain of the nationalisation Bills—they have yet disagreed as to the method in which that principle is to be put into effect. When they have disagreed and when they have suggested alterations, the Amendments have been accepted and Members of the Government have been the first to say that the action of the House of Lords has improved the Bill.
  The point that we make is that unless a Second Chamber has a substantial power of delay, its suggestions on points of secondary policy, which have admittedly proved so valuable to the Government, will not be considered by an overweening Government for an instant. That point has been made every

  1743
  time when this Bill has come up and we have looked in vain for any answer from the Government benches to our reply to their criticism. We have now dealt with this Bill six times, apart from Committee stages and the like, and that point has never been answered.
  The next point that is sought to be raised is that it is not for a Second Chamber to interpret public opinion. I put it to hon. Members opposite that they should face up to the position which even their own Bill contemplates, and that is that the Second Chamber is to have some power of delay. As soon as a Second Chamber is given some power of delay, one postulates that that Second Chamber will use its discretion and initiative to act when it thinks proper. The Government cannot get back to the old dilemma of the refined sophists at the time of the French Revolution that "If our second Chamber disagrees with the first Chamber it is mischievous, and if it does not disagree it is superfluous." That dilemma is an absurdity.
  Therefore, one must postulate that if one gives any power at all—if a Second Chamber is placed in the constitution—that Second Chamber will choose for itself the time when it will act. We ask what is the correct criterion for a Second Chamber to choose, and we say—and again we stand by what we have said—that the correct criterion and guide is its view of public opinion considered and found to the best of its ability. That is the inevitable answer to the suggestion that a Second Chamber cannot or must not interpret public opinion.
  The alternative argument, slightly contradictory but requiring attention nevertheless, is that, in any case, there is enough time for it to perform the function of delay. That, of course, means that sufficient time in the view of those who advance this argument is the holiday months of August and September and perhaps October as well. I think that even hon. Gentlemen opposite, if they consider the ordinary occasion apart from times of international crisis and the like to which we are so used, would agree that that is putting an undue strain on the powers of holiday making of the people of this island.
  I come next to the suggestion that has been put forward that we on these
  1744
  benches desire the maintenance of an irresponsible body. I ask hon. Members to look at what we are doing by this Bill. It is:
  "A Bill to Amend the Parliament Act, 1911"
  and the first words are:
  "The Parliament Act, 1911, shall have effect, and shall be deemed to have had effect from the beginning of the session in which the Bill for this Act originated"—
  and then certain Amendments are made. I substitute for the words:
  "… from the beginning of the session in which the Bill for this Act originated…"
  the date "October, 1947," so that we have the time in mind. Certain Amendments are made, but the first enacting words of this Bill are to reinforce the Parliament Act, 1911. One cannot re-enact and reinforce the Parliament Act, 1911, without re-enacting and reinforcing and making one's action dependent on the Preamble which conditions that Act. I venture to remind the House how that Preamble runs:
  "And whereas it is intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis, but such substitution cannot be immediately brought into operation;"
  There may well have been some arguments—I do not see them, but I acknowledge my limitations—for not proceeding with that Preamble which was being reenacted and reinforced in November, 1947, but today we are in November, 1949. The Government have had two years to put into operation what they have piously reinforced by re-enacting that Preamble. They have had two more years to put before us a new design for a Second Chamber, and not one serious thought or real intention have they given to that point. My hon. Friends and I have urged again and again their desire for a reform in composition in accordance with that Preamble.
  Mr. Eric Fletcher: On a point of Order. May I ask for your Ruling, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, on whether, on the Third Reading of this Bill, we shall be in order to discuss reform of the House of Lords?
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Bowles): I have not got the Act before me, but I know that the Preamble does refer to it. Therefore, I think it is in Order. Perhaps the right hon. and learned Gentleman will make a submission?
  Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: The point with which I am dealing is that the form of this Bill is that the Parliament Act, 1911, shall have effect and shall be deemed to have effect from October, 1947, and that that method of legislating by giving effect to a previous Act must introduce the Preamble by which that provision is conditioned. My point is limited to the effect of that Preamble and to the fact that it is mentioned and is not excluded from the Bill.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Yes, I think my earlier Ruling was correct.
  Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I put the point that the Government have done nothing, and I reinforce that by stating that we on this side of the House have urged again and again our desire for a reform in composition which will not give any one party a guaranteed majority in the Second Chamber. No doubt some hon. Members have heard my speeches, and others can read them if they so desire, but they will find that, on behalf of the Conservative Party I have said that with the utmost clarity on each occasion when I have had the honour of addressing the House. In addition, there is for the first time in the history of this troubled problem, a great measure of agreement—provisional agreement—as to the composition—
  Miss Jennie Lee: No, no.
  Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: If the hon. Lady had been listening, she would have noticed that I corrected myself by saying "provisional agreement," and she knows what I mean by provisional agreement. It is an agreement arrived at with the leaders subject to consultation with the parties.
  Miss Lee: This is a very important point and should be made clear. It must be understood that, so far as I am concerned as a member of this party, if I had these provisions put before me, I most certainly would reject them. I am entitled to say that I think a great majority of the Labour Party would also reject them.
  Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I am sorry that the hon. Lady disagrees very much with one of her leaders, because the Lord President of the Council, in addressing the House only a fortnight ago, made it clear that he would have done his utmost,
  1746
  and I think he said that, in his view, they would have reached or obtained agreement from most of his supporters.
  Mr. E. Fletcher rose—
  Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I am not going to give way. I must answer the hon. Lady, and then I will give way, if the hon. Gentleman wishes. I think he will agree that it is very difficult to give answers to two points at once, and I am trying to answer the hon. Lady because she has raised a very important point which she was anxious to raise a fortnight ago, as we are all aware, but did not have the chance of doing it. Therefore, I am glad she has made it on this occasion.
  What I say is that the point was mentioned by the Lord President, who said that he would have to meet his friends, and that he would have got agreement. May I quote his words on the point raised? He said:
  "Rather, I should say we were prepared to recommend it. It is not fair for me to commit the Labour Party"—
  [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Well, let me read the rest. The hon. Member for East Islington (Mr. E. Fletcher) is in such a state of jumps tonight that it is very difficult for people who have interests in other aspects to get over his jitterbugism. I hope he will restrain it for a moment until we deal with this point. I was quoting the Lord President, who went on to say:
  "to those conclusions because we have not yet met our friends."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 31st October. 1949; Vol. 469, c. 160.]
  The Lord President, when he says agreement, means agreement with me. I have known the right hon. Gentleman a long time, and, on the point of agreement with the Lord President, although I have a great admiration and respect for the hon. Member for Cannock (Miss Lee), after 15 years in this House with the Lord President, and despite her qualities, I should take the Lord President against her. Does the hon. Member for East Islington wish me to give way again?
  Mr. E. Fletcher: I was only going to make a further quotation which seems to bear out what the hon. Lady has said.
  Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: If the hon. Member for East Islington thinks that the Lord President was going to abandon that point of view and adopt that of the hon.

  1747
  Lady, he is entitled to all the innocence which a beneficent Deity has given him. I do not regret the interruption at all, but, if I may proceed with the argument, I repeat that we had made these suggestions and reached the stage where the possibility of implementing the intentions of the Preamble was greater than it had been before, and because, for the first time, we had got this provisional agreement which gave us a chance to make an advance.
  The point I make is that the only reasonable inference which we can make on the conduct of the Government is that, having reinforced the Preamble two years ago and taken no advantage of the provisional agreement on composition, it is the party opposite—and let us get down to the truth—which does not want an alteration in composition. They want a grievance, and they want to be able to talk about the hereditary chamber. All I say to them is this: "Have the grievance, if you like, but do not pretend, do not be hypercritical about the matter, and, when you want agreement, deliberately refuse to deal with composition, and then blame the present composition of the House of Lords. "Hon. Members can have it one way or the other, but they cannot have it both ways.
  I come now to the last of these arguments which hon. Members opposite have put forward about wrecking the fourth Session. There, again, I ask the House to follow the argument because it is rather important and related entirely to the contents of the Bill. With regard to the inter-party talks, the Lord President on the last occasion said:
  "The issue on which these discussions broke down was that the Conservative Opposition in both Houses was determined to have power to wreck the fourth Session of Parliament as well as the fifth."
  He went on to say:
  "Therefore, we determined to introduce this Bill to take care of the fourth and last Session of this and future Parliaments."
  He had already made clear what was the provision of this Bill to which he was referring because he said earlier in the speech:
  "Legislation must be passed under the new Act in two Sessions and that a period of not less than 12 months from the first Second Reading to the second Third Reading must have elapsed."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 31st October, 1949; Vol. 469, c. 160–1.]
  1748
  I compare that—because I want to do full justice to the great twin brethren of the Government on this Bill—with what the Home Secretary said on the same occasion. He said:
  "The representatives of the party opposite were prepared to agree to one year from the first Third Reading. … We were bound to reject the Conservative proposal because that would still involve us in the wrecking of the fourth Session of Parliament if controversial legislation were introduced during that time."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 31st October, 1949; Vol. 469, c. 45.]
  May I make it quite clear that it is only the fourth Session which comes into it because this Bill or any period of delay must affect the fifth Session. Therefore, that is a conceded point. I ask the House to consider this point because it is the kernel of the argument of the two right hon. Gentlemen. Let us compare the suggestions which they mentioned, namely, the one in the Bill of 12 months from Second Reading and the one which they said was the feature of the construction of the Bill, namely, the suggestion of the 12 months from the first Third Reading.
  With regard to the 12 months from Third Reading, let us take, first of all, a Parliament elected in November. It is quite an ordinary time for an election; in fact, it is the time at which everyone except right hon. and hon. Members opposite would have liked an election to take place this year. Therefore, I am supposing that, in accordance with our wishes, we had a General Election in November, 1949, and the first Session started. In that case, the fourth Session would start in October, 1952. I am taking the ordinary procedure which we have adopted of starting the Session in the autumn.
  We will suppose that a major and complicated Bill gets its first Second Reading in November, 1952. That is the hypothesis we must take in order to examine it. In May, 1953—roughly six months later—it gets its Third Reading. I am therefore allowing a long time for a complicated Bill. In June, 1954, that Bill would become law under the proposal which the Government rejected—12 months from the Third Reading. I am allowing the extra month because of the month which has to elapse before the Lords are deemed to have rejected it.
  Having done that, we get a period of six months of freedom of manoeuvre in

  1749
  the fifth Session. That is an ample period of freedom of manoeuvre for any Government that want to go into their fifth Session. Many Governments of all political flavours do not; many have preferred to go to the country at the end of their fourth year, or thereabouts. If they do, they cannot complain about the position in the fifth Session. But the suggestion which the Home Secretary threw on one side and said was a justification for the terms of the Bill, not only would not interfere with the fourth Session, but would give the Government six months of freedom of manoeuvre in the fifth Session.
  I have taken the other example—instead of the happy thought of an election in November, 1949, the rather more gloomy thought of an election in June. 1950.
  Mr. Cecil Poole: It will be gloomy at any time.
  Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: Yes, gloomy for hon. Members opposite. If hon. Members opposite think it can give any pleasure to those of us on these benches to contemplate their continuance in this House for another six months, then they have over-emphasised my charity and my good feelings. I ask them to consider the other suggestion.
  If we have a summer election, it is quite true that we then have to have a short Session at some time or other. The right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that must be so in order to get the Session started at the proper time in the autumn. A short Session would be started after Whitsuntide—in July—and the major Bill would be got through by September. In that case, it would become law in January, 1955, which would again give five to six months of freedom of manoeuvre in the fifth year. Therefore, that point which after all, apart from prejudice, was the only serious point put forward by the Home Secretary, is completely accepted by anyone who examines the Parliamentary time-table. It can be worked out. I have taken the two obvious examples, and the position applies to both of them.
  On the general point, as to giving a reasonable time for opinion to form, I was criticised by the Lord President for not paying sufficient attention to antiquated quotations with regard to the
  1750
  struggles of 38 years ago. As I am always willing to try to fit in with the views of the Lord President when he endeavours to make my speeches for me in advance, I looked up a quotation of Mr. Asquith. We had from the right hon. and learned Attorney-General an hour or two ago a glowing testimony to Mr. Asquith. Therefore, he is a particularly suitable person to quote. Mr. Asquith said:
  "A delay of three Sessions or of two years when the suspensory veto of the House of Lords is interposed precludes the possibility—and I will say this with assurance—of covertly or arbitrarily smuggling into law Measures which are condemned by popular opinion."
  We were prepared, as the Home Secretary said, to compromise on that period in order to try to reach agreement. But what is absolutely certain is that the principle still stands, that we still stand by that principle, and that the arguments that have been made against it by right hon. Gentlemen opposite have fallen as flat as arguments can possibly fall.
  I want to deal with the other aspects of the Bill, namely, the retroactive provisions in constitutional matters. I am glad the hon. Member for East Islington is here, because he has told us that there are precedents for these retroactive provisions. The only answer I can make is in the forbidding words of a great judge before whom I used to appear; when one put forward a doubtful argument he used to look at one severely and say, "I hear you say so." I have heard the hon. Member for East Islington say that there were precedents for these retroactive provisions; I have tried to find them. He once referred to the Septennial Act, and apart from the fact that the Septennial Act was not retroactive and is not otherwise a precedent for this position, I am sure it has a great relevance which I have missed. That is the only precedent which has been given.
  We are dealing with retroactive provisions in constitutional matters—not with the ordinary regrettable but necessary retroactive provision that one gets after a Chancellor of the Exchequer has warned incipient tax dodgers that if they pursue a certain line of country he will introduce retroactive legislation. That is done after warning, to meet a specific evil which has been discussed. But for a precedent of retroactive legislation in constitutional matters I defy any consti-

  1751
  tutional lawyer to search our Statute Book with success. The Home Secretary was much more forthright in the matter. He said he did not care whether there were precedents or not, and that is really the attitude with which we have to meet the point.
  Our objection here is really deep-rooted. We have in this country a constitution under which Parliament is omnicompetent. That is, under our constitution, unlike many democratic constitutions, there is the same machinery for changes in the constitution as for any other public Bill. We have made this work in this country for one reason only; there has always been up to now the deep-seated agreement which our common experience, the suffering of war, the tradition of victory and our way of life have produced—an agreement which is much deeper and which unites us far more than political differences have divided us. Whether we are right or wrong, that is the kernel of the creed which my hon. Friends and I hold. Because that is our creed and because we believe in that unity, we are completely unable even to understand phrases which come from hon. Gentlemen opposite like "We are going to see that the right people squeal now," or "Anyone who does not pay the political levy does not matter a tinker's cuss," or even the phrase of the Attorney-General, "We are the masters now." That does not mean anything to us. [Laughter.] Really it does not.
  Mr. W. R. Williams: What is all the fuss about then?
  Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: The hon. Gentleman does not see that the unity of which I have spoken, that British quality, is much more important than the class strife which remarks like that are designed to rouse.
  Mr. William Ross: Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman apply the same unity and the same feeling of "Britishness" towards something called "general jobbers"—propaganda which is being put round by the Tory Party?
  Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: If the hon. Gentleman cannot see the point I am sorry for him; I have done my best to enlighten him. I want to show him the
  1752
  relevance of this point. It has been that feeling which everyone except those who think like the hon. Gentleman have hitherto accepted in this country. It has been that feeling which has made our Constitution work. If hon. Members opposite substitute for that an ability only to take a sectional view and to alter the rules of the game for his advantage while the game is being played, if they are prepared to withdraw from the ordinary man the stability and the certainty that the Constitutional basis will stay—if hon. Members opposite withdraw the idea of common agreement and adopt the idea of sectional hate, then they may be able to get a temporary advantage. I do not deny that.
  Mr. W. Ross: Go and read the "Address to the Unco' Guid."
  Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: The hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) may be able to make a few speeches from the appropriate tub, which will sound louder, and may even have a much more increased popularity as his vocal powers decrease. Fundamentally hon. Members have made a Constitution, which has been the envy of every other country, cease to work because this fundamental agreement has been withdrawn. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Kilmarnock may get a chance to speak. These turgid semi-sotto voce interjections do not help forward debate. Perhaps we shall have an opportunity of hearing his considered view; somehow I doubt it.
  I have dealt on other occasions with the facts of this situation. This afternoon I have tried to deal in order and fully with the fancied objections which the imaginations of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite have tried to conjure up. The facts are on our side; the fancies are as baseless as their authorship. For all these reasons it gives me great pleasure, having moved this or cognate Amendments three times before, to move, to leave out "now," and to add, "this day three months."
  6.49 p.m.
  Mr. Clement Davies: I feel that I should say a few words before this Bill is read the Third time. Whatever is said or done by the Second Chamber, this Bill will inevitably become law. In view of the reception it has had on two previous occasions, one cannot

  1753
  have much doubt as to what the result of the vote will be tonight.
  It is almost impossible to imagine anyone today—even the right hon. and learned Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe)—able to defend the Upper Chamber as it is at present constituted and the continued maintenance of its present powers. In the course of his speech, even the right hon. and learned Gentleman did not attempt to defend that. Certainly no Liberal could ever defend the House of Lords as it is at present constituted. After all these years—nearly 40 years—we have still a vivid recollection of the way in which Liberal Measures passed by this House were mutilated by the Upper Chamber, or were not even discussed by them but were thrown out after a conclave had been held in Lansdowne House. When this House had spent not only weeks but months in discussing a Measure for which the public had voted, that Measure had only to leave here on its way to another place for a meeting to be held at Lansdowne House that night and a decision taken there, in secret, that it should be thrown out without even a Debate.
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that his party were guided by a deep-seated principle. That deep-seated principle was this: that however the people voted, whatever the representation in this House, they, the Conservative Party, were the true interpreters of public opinion. Hon. Members on the Conservative benches continued to hold that view even after the Act of 1911. Until the 1911 Act was passed, it mattered not how the public voted, it mattered not what majority there might be against the Conservatives—the Conservatives still claimed that they should have complete power of deciding what legislation should be passed. Under the Parliament Act three years were taken away from them, but even now they claim that immediately those three years are over they shall decide what shall be passed or not passed by using the extraordinary powers which they possess in their enormous majority in the Upper House. Through their power in the Upper House they can also decide whether this House shall continue or whether it shall go to the country at a General Election. In fact, they have in their hands complete authority over the whole Constitution.
  1754
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman spoke with pride—and rightly—of the tradition of this country and the way in which the Constitution has been built up, and how it has been adapted from time to time to meet the increasing needs of the people. But may I point out that this has been done in spite of the Conservative Party, because on every occasion when suggestions for reforms were made they fought every one of them. It does not, therefore, lie in the mouth of any Liberal to defend the attitude taken up by a section of the public in accusing others also of representing only a section.
  When this Bill was introduced in the autumn of 1947, I not only deprecated its introduction but actually voted against its Second Reading. I spoke and voted against it for two reasons. First, I thought the Bill was unnecessary in this Parliament. I pointed out that one does not know how long a power must remain in quiescence and not be used before one can say that it can no longer be used. For example, we know that the Royal Veto has not been used for over 250 years and we know, therefore, that it has fallen so much into disuse that it cannot be raised again. I therefore felt that as the power which was given to the Upper Chamber under the 1911 Act had not been used by them since 1914, I did not know how long must pass before it could be said that, under our unwritten Constitution, it could no longer be used.
  I thought that by this Bill we were rather reviving the power and were informing the Upper House that the power was still with them. I therefore suggested that the Bill was unnecessary. Apparently others thought that it might be necessary, in view of the fact that another Bill was about to be brought before this House. They thought that it might be necessary in order that the other Bill should become law in a shorter period than that permitted under the 1911 Act. I do not know whether I need withdraw the word "unnecessary," for, if rumours are true, we shall, I hope, hear more about this tomorrow. It may be that this Bill will not be necessary in order to bring the Steel Bill into effect. It may be that I was right on that point.
  My second reason was that the Bill was untimely. If you recall it, Mr. Speaker, we had just been informed by

  1755
  the Government of the serious economic situation and the cuts which would have to be made. I was at that time making an appeal that all thought and all action should be concentrated upon dealing with the economic situation, and I said that the only way in which I could protest against proceeding with what I regarded as a small Measure was to vote against it and to ask my colleagues also to vote against it. My vote was a protest at that time.
  This is not a great Bill. One cannot become very enthusiastic about it, or become exhilarated if it is passed or depressed if it is thrown out. What happened afterwards, however, again changed the situation. To some extent I can certainly say that my party had something to do with bringing about the conference which followed. I believe we were responsible for Initiating it. All three parties were represented. True, we were only, at the most, authorised to try to see whether we could reach provisional agreement—no more than that—but it was amazing how near we came to agreement and how desirable we all felt it was to have this continuity in our Constitution. I quite realise that the representatives of the Government would possibly have been face to face with quite considerable difficulties with Members of their own party if we had ultimately reached that agreement. I quite realise that many of their own Members would have thought the Government had gone too far.
  However, that search for an agreement broke down on one small point. It was a small point so far as time for the Conservative Party was concerned, but a vital point so far as this Government or any Liberal Government were concerned—namely, that we should have four clear Sessions. If there is a Conservative Government in power, five clear Sessions are allowed. They can run the full time and can use every moment of it, but if they object to any legislation introduced by a Socialist or a Liberal Government, then at the most those Governments can utilise to the full only three Sessions. All that we were then asking was that we should have the full use of four Sessions, and upon that the Labour Members and the Liberal Members were in entire agreement. The Conservatives objected to a
  1756
  matter of three months and three months only, and broke up the conference.
  The right hon. Gentleman stood at that Box and said that no suggestion had been made by the Government with regard to the alteration of the membership of the Upper House. They were parties in bringing forward the proposed new reformed membership of the House of Lords—that peers should be appointed only for life, that women should be admitted on the same terms as men, and so on. I should not be in Order if I were to go into the details. Upon those grounds we would all agree that we should have a newly-constituted and far better working Upper Chamber than we have today. The Upper Chamber since 1911 has worked extraordinarily well. That is because at all ordinary times its Debates are confined to fewer than 100 Members; but if perchance they are called upon by the Conservative Party, something in the neighbourhood of 600 or 700 Conservatives, who never take part in the ordinary Debates there, would go to vote down not only the Government but this House itself.
  So we were within an ace of getting an agreement, and that was thrown on one side for reasons of their own—which, I believe, were purely political—by the Conservative Party. That being so, when this matter came up a second time I and my colleagues said that our protest with regard to it on the first occasion had been made and we would now vote for it, because we realised that the Conservative Party wanted still to continue the Upper Chamber and to give it the full power over this House which they would like it to exercise at all times. That being so; I and my colleagues voted for the Second Reading, and we shall vote for the Third Reading tonight.
  Mr. Henry Strauss: May I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman a question before he sits down? Can he say why, if that is the attitude of the Liberal Party to the Bill, last year 21 Liberal Lords voted against it and not one for it?
  Hon. Members: Answer.
  7.3 p.m.
  Mr. Donovan: The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) said earlier that there was

  1757
  nothing in this Bill to get worked up about, but I and my hon. Friends here have been delighted to hear the most vigorous indictment of the Conservative Party in this matter that we have heard in the course of these discussions. The right hon. and learned Gentleman also said that this was not a great Bill. I think it is an important Bill, and I do not think the right hon. and learned Gentleman meant to say anything else. Because it is an important Bill I should like to try to answer one or two of the arguments which have been put against it in the course of our Debates.
  One of them was mentioned in passing by the right hon. and learned Gentleman just now. He said that originally he thought that this Bill was unnecessary. And, others have said that it is unnecessary because the House of Lords throughout this Parliament has behaved with perfect propriety, and that there was no ground for believing that it would behave in any other way. If that is the argument, then, of course, it is not an argument in favour of the two-year veto; it is an argument against any veto at all; and does not help anyone to make up his mind whether if there is to be a veto two years or one year is the right time. I therefore say no more about it.
  It has also been objected that we ought not to pass this Bill in advance of a Bill for the general reform of the Second Chamber. Like the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Hollis) who spoke on Second Reading, I have no objection to reform by instalments. In fact, that seems to be the general pattern of reforms, and he who objects to reform by degrees lays himself open to suspicion that he is opposed to any reform at all. In this particular matter, where general reform bristles with so many difficulties and dilemmas that every attempt to reach agreement on it has so far foundered, it seems to me this Bill cannot be condemned out of hand because the reform it effects is piecemeal and not wholesale.
  One argument which does come to close grips with the Bill is the argument that one year's delay is not enough, and that was advanced in some detail by—and, I think, only by—the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe) on the last Debate
  1758
  on the Bill. By instancing the dates when a Bill is passed by this House, and rejected by the other—if that is its fate—he showed that five months' was at the most available for public opinion to be "formed, expressed, and crystallised" on the issue, and he said that that was inadequate. That argument proceeds on the view that public opinion begins to get really interested only when there is a clash between this House and the other place.
  Most Bills which are thrown out will be Bills upon major issues, and I disagree with the premise upon which the right hon. and learned Gentleman based his argument, because on these matters public opinion will begin to be educated, as some would say, or poisoned, as others would say, long before we ever give the Bill a Second Reading in this House. If anybody doubts that he has only to look at any sugar packet today. Nor does the instance of the death penalty help the argument. I have to be careful here because this is not a Debate on the death penalty, and I use the matter purely as one of illustration, but if I do exceed the bounds of Order I hope, Sir, you will give me no rope.
  It has been observed that the action of the House of Lords in that matter accorded with the great majority of public opinion. I must say in parenthesis that I think it a little presumptuous to talk like that before public opinion has been properly tested, which, so far, it has not. But, granting the truth of that observation, merely for the purpose of the argument, namely, that the House of Lords correctly interpreted public opinion when it threw out the Clause suspending the death penalty, then it took the House of Lords and public opinion exactly six weeks to coincide, which compares with the five months which, on the most pesimistic view, will be available if this Bill becomes law.
  The argument for the Bill, which, I think, must appeal to all fair-minded people is, that the present political situation is one-sided; and the hon. Member for Devizes, speaking from the benches opposite, admitted that that was so. The hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) did not admit it, although I hasten to say that by that remark I am not insinuating that he is not fair-minded. He has said that there

  1759
  is nothing in this argument that a Government of the Left is frustrated in its fourth year by the veto of a Conservative House of Lords, because, he says, the ban lies only upon a doomed Government, and, in fact, there is not a ban at all if the Government goes to the country and is returned at the ensuing General Election.
  What does that argument come to as a matter of practical politics? A Bill goes to the House of Lords in the fourth year of a non-Conservative Government. The other place considers it and dislikes it. It then has to say, "Now, is this Government a doomed Government?" Is its answer likely to be the same if the Government which sent up the Bill is a Conservative Government instead of a Labour Government? Because otherwise the position is still one-sided. And whatever the answer to that question, is it likely to be of the same weight, for example, as the answer of the electorate which, by returning one Member after another in support of this doomed Government in a series of unexampled by-election victories, has made it quite clear what public opinion is upon this matter?
  As regards the contention that the Government can always pass a rejected Measure if it be returned at the ensuing Election, I think that wherever we sit in this House we ought to be a little careful about acknowledging the right of another place to dissolve Parliament, because that, in fact, is what it comes to. The hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames knows quite well that a particular Measure, whose rejection has caused an election in the way he suggests, might quite well commend itself to the majority of the electorate, and yet, for general reasons, power may change hands. It may even happen that a majority of votes are cast for the party in power at the time, and, therefore, by implication, for the rejected Measure; and yet their opponents be returned to power on a minority vote. I therefore find the argument of the hon. Member on this point to be completely invalid; and the one-sidedness admitted by the hon. Member for Devizes remains. It is true that we are not entirely removing it by this Bill. We are, however, going half-way, which shows how reasonable we are, and is an answer to the charge that we are seeking a one-Chamber Government.
  1760
  It has been engaging to listen to the arguments proceeding from both sides of the House on this Bill on the footing that we have one House of Lords. That is not true. We have three. The first is the House of Lords sitting in its judicial capacity as the supreme tribunal of this country and consisting of the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary. That House of Lords, if I may say so without presumption, commands the respect of everyone in this country and of many people outside it. The second is the House of Lords doing its daily round of work, to which, again, tribute has been paid on all sides of this House. That work is done very largely by peers of recent creation, although I freely acknowledge that the tradition of certain families for distinguished public service there is still maintained.
  The third is the House of Lords reinforced, or one might almost say engulfed, by large numbers of peers summoned specially for the occasion from the hills and woods by the call that freedom and progress are once more on the march, and the defences of die-hard Conservatism have once more to be manned. It is against that House of Lords that this Bill is primarily directed. It is certainly that House of Lords which the public has in mind—at least I think so—whenever there is a clash between the two Houses.
  I feel certain that the public has no objection whatever to a reasonable curtailment of the veto period so far as it concerns that House of Lords. It is significant that no one on the other side gets up and says that if their party is returned to power they will restore the two-year period. What they do say is that they will give a reformed second Chamber powers no greater than those in the Parliament Act, 1911; a pledge which can be quite well-fulfilled by leaving the veto at one year. Hon. Members opposite, therefore, must not be surprised if some of us suspect that their more progressive elements would actually be disappointed if this Bill were to fail to be passed tonight on Third Reading. They can be reassured.
  7.15 p.m.
  General Sir George Jeffreys: When this Bill was first introduced in November, 1947, it was a time of economic crisis, and both the Government

  1761
  and the nation were beginning to realise the seriousness of the situation. "The Times" newspaper of that time, in a leading article, used the following words:
  "The country calls for rescue from the imminent menace of distress and decline. More than ever before except in wartime the partnership of all groups in the community will be indispensable. Yet this moment is chosen by Mr. Attlee and his colleagues to incite bitter constitutional argument without need or reason."
  If that was the case in 1947, how very much more is it the case today having regard to both the Prime Minister's and the Chancellor of the Exchequer's recent statements. Surely, it is madness at such a time to pass this most contentious Measure, which, far from uniting all groups in the community, must inevitably accentuate the differences.
  Are the Government in fact trying by means of this Bill—one might almost have thought so had the speech of the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) been made from the other side—to use the Peers v. People controversy to distract attention from the national crisis? That might almost appear to be the case.
  The Bill contains a retroactive Clause which is a most unusual feature. I think that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss) described it as a most unconstitutional feature, or words to that effect, especially in a Measure of such importance, and, affecting as it does, very seriously the constitution of the country. It seems that this can only be intended as a means of securing the passage of a certain Bill during the life-time of the present Parliament. If it is not intended for that purpose, what is the object of including it in the Bill? Why the Government should seek to tinker with the British Constitution—because that is what they are doing—at such a time, and for such a cause, is very hard indeed to understand.
  It is all the harder to understand because the third successive Session necessary in the 1911 Act need not be in the same Parliament, and if the Government should be returned to power at the General Election, any Bill which has been passed and twice rejected, in the 1950 Parliament may be passed over the heads of another place. The Committee stage was omitted. That has been the subject of Debate today, and I do not intend to
  1762
  labour the point, but it seems to me to have been a mistake to have omitted the Committee stage.
  Many Government Bills have been very much improved in Committee at other times and on other subjects, and might not this Bill have been improved if it had been considered in Committee, and one or two of these points, particularly the retroactive question, considered afresh? Is it in fact because the Government are not sure of returning to power—not sure what the people will say—that they are so anxious to pass this Bill now? The Home Secretary, in the Second Reading Debate, spoke of the last word being with the House of Commons. The House of Commons has the last word at present, although that last word is deferred for some time longer than is now proposed in the present Bill. What is more important is this: On Bills brought in during the last two years of Parliament, the people of the country—and they are the most important of all—can under present conditions have the last word. The right hon. Gentleman also spoke of there being no opposition to this Bill. However that may be, there is certainly no demand for it, and very little support for it in the country.
  The Lord President himself has on various occasions paid tribute to the work of the House of Lords in this Parliament. Not only have they not rejected Government Bills, but they have performed invaluable service in revising, amending and improving Bills which have often been inadequately discussed in this House and sometimes very indifferently drafted by Government draftsmen. They have rejected no Bill except this one, and in cases of difference they have almost invariably deferred to the opinion of the House of Commons. The Government argument is that for five years after a General Election everything passed by the House of Commons must be taken to be the will of the people expressed at the last election, even though it may have been little, if at all, mentioned at that election, and even though it be passed in the closing years of the Parliament.
  The hon. and learned Member for East Leicester (Mr. Donovan) has referred to the death penalty controversy. I also do not wish to transcend the bounds of Order in this Debate, but I would say that,

  1763
  whatever the hon. and learned Gentleman may think, the country had no doubt that on that occasion the House of Lords did express the will of the people. Incidentally, it helped the Home Secretary out of a very difficult situation.
  If this Bill goes through it seems to me to be a very long step towards the abolition of the House of Lords and eventual single chamber Government. On Second Reading there could be no mistaking, I think, the attitude of some if not a good many, hon. Members opposite who appeared to be in favour, not of mending the House of Lords but of ending it. It appears to me that with single chamber Government an extremist Government—and there are some extremists, and I put it mildly when I say "some," amongst the Government supporters—
  Mr. Skeffington-Lodge: And on the Opposition side.
  Sir G. Jeffreys: —might resolve that Parliament should go on sitting without any appeal to the country, being in fact indissoluble. That has happened in certain Parliaments abroad. It has happened once in the history of this country, and, whether some people are proud of what happened at that time or not, there is no doubt that at the end of the Long Parliament—for that was the Parliament concerned—there was universal rejoicing at the end of that régime which led, as single chamber Government almost invariably does lead, to a dictatorship. In my submission, that would be the end of British liberty, and it is not entirely impossible in this country.
  The right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery is like the Bourbons who learned nothing and forgot nothing. He is living apparently in the age of 40 years ago, when there was only one appreciable enemy for his party, when his party was strong and when they knew of only one enemy. Things are very different now, and I think that the polemics in which he indulged would be hard to find reflected in many Liberals even in these days.
  In the spring of 1948, as we were reminded by the right hon. and learned Gentleman, the party leaders came very near to agreement on the future composition of the House of Lords. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for the West Derby Division of Liverpool
  1764
  (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe) said that we, the Conservative Party, should stick to the offers we made at that time. This is a very late hour in the history of this Bill, but I feel that it ought to be possible to confer again on the same lines as in 1948; it ought to be possible, as it should have been possible then, to arrange for a reformed rather than an emasculated second Chamber; and at the same time, as regards our Constitution to have at least something of that unity which is so desirable, and which is constantly being appealed for by both the Prime Minister and other Members at this time. Is it not out of accord with our constitutional usage that one party, for no adequate reason—for no adequate reason has been adduced today or at any time during these Debates—should seek to emasculate the Upper House and pave the way, as it appears to me, for single chamber Government with all its perils? I hope that even now, at this very late hour, wiser counsels may prevail with the Government.
  7.27 p.m.
  Miss Jennie Lee: After the many hours that we have discussed this subject I begin to feel that perhaps I am the truest friend that the House of Lords has in this Chamber. I believe in the value of a continuing tradition. The other day, in another Debate, we heard the right hon. and learned Member for the West Derby Division of Liverpool (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe) say that he, for one, was a traditionalist. Perhaps it would be better when we use those sort of words, if we defined our terms and told the House just what traditions we were talking about. In the course of these Debates it has become quite clear that hon. Members opposite are, I should say, unanimous in wishing for a reformed House of Lords on the basis, broadly, of salaried life peers. It has become equally obvious that there are divisions on this side of the House.
  Two years ago, when this Measure was first before us, the general feeling of the Labour movement of this country was that the Government were proposing a very practical and wise compromise. We did not ask for equality of opportunity with hon. Members opposite, but in our traditional British way, although the majority party in this House, and although with power to decide otherwise, decided to continue to carry a handicap. Hon.

  1765
  Members opposite, though the minority party, are still permitted to enjoy a substantial advantage.
  No one would dispute that not only the present House of Lords, but any conceivable reformed House of Lords would still be essentially Conservative, essentially for hon. Members opposite, and opposed to those vigorous new adjustments of our social and economic values which I believe are necessary for this country's survival. So, when I say I am a traditionalist I mean it in the following sense: I, too, inherit from my forebears certain values, certain prejudices if you like, and it would be extremely easy for me to say "Why waste so much of our precious time discussing a Second Chamber?" Why not simply abolish it?
  It would be very easy for me to take that point of view, and that is still the official point of view of the Labour Party, but I, like so many more of my fellow countrymen and women, can see at times the value of compromise. Surely we have arrived at a wonderful compromise here in being able to offer to the House of Lords a position of honour and security in which to carry out its judicial functions and the many other useful jobs it has to do. It can become as far removed from sharp party controversy as the Royal Family, the Crown itself.
  It would have been possible for us at many stages in British history when passions were aroused to have abolished the Royal Family, but we all congratulate ourselves on having come through the fierce stages of the Stuart and Cromwellian phases, even the dubious early days of the reign of Queen Victoria, and arrived at a relationship in which the Royal Family is universally honoured and respected and is recognised as doing a very valuable job for all of us. But the condition of its security and of its universal respect is that it has been removed from the arena of party politics.
  I began by saying that I considered myself to be one of the best friends the House of Lords possesses in this Chamber. I can see a useful and respected future for the House of Lords, if it will meet the needs of the contemporary generation and withdraw more and more from the sharper issues of party politics. The point was put very well by my hon. Friend the
  1766
  Member for East Islington (Mr. E. Fletcher), when he suggested the other day that just as the Liberals had to remove the financial powers of the House of Lords in 1911, so we should try to make a modern equation. For instance, are we not doing the wrong thing in asking the House of Lords to concern itself with major Measures of nationalisation, such as the case of iron and steel and the other such Measures to come, also Bills where there are large redistributions of national income to be considered and with those, all the social changes which follow?
  I congratulate the Government on this wise and sensible Bill. Members have said it is arousing bitter controversy in the country, but I have not seen any of that. The country is completely placid, for the excellent reason that the Government are doing exactly the job which requires to be done at the present moment. I can assure hon. Members that if there should be an attempt to go beyond the reasonable compromise contained in this Bill, and it be suggested there should be a basic reform of the composition of the House of Lords on the lines of the statement made in the earlier part of 1948, the issue will become a very live one throughout the Labour movement, as well as in the Conservative Party.
  We should then have real bitterness, and my prediction is that if hon. Members opposite want to end the House of Lords—[Interruption.] I am offering the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg) a fair deal. If he wants to end the House of Lords, then I suggest that he campaigns for the reforms laid down in that statement, because then he will see that modern democracy will not tolerate what, in my judgment, would be a form of disguised Fascist control in Great Britain. There would be an end to the vigorous, healthy and honourable exchanges of party controversy.
  I can think of many at the present moment who might be nominated to that Second Chamber who are Socialists, but I am not certain that they would be Socialists 10 years hence, although I am fairly certain that most Conservatives who were nominated would still be Conservatives 10 years from now, perhaps even more so. Let us face it, very few of us become more radical as we grow older; we come to know too much of the dangers

  1767
  and difficulties of life and lose some of the vaunting courage which is one of the highest attributes of youth.
  I say that this is a wise and able compromise to meet the needs of the times, and if Members opposite will settle down and enjoy it we can together continue to enjoy our House of Lords in safety, for we shall have a Second Chamber which will do useful work and meet the needs of modern times. I beg Members opposite to remember, in all they say and advocate, that democratic Socialists are never in danger of going too fast or being over-hasty. Do not try to hold us back; what we need rather is an occasional prodding. Remember that the criticism offered democratic Socialists throughout the world is that it is not possible to carry out radical changes by our methods but that dictatorship is needed, that we need to abolish not only the House of Lords, but the House of Commons as well before we can win through to a new world. I do not believe that. I am vehemently opposed to such defeatism.
  I believe there is something in the history, traditions and temperament of the British people that makes it possible for us to be sitting here today contemplating, with a certain amount of heat but without too much heat, a Measure that would seem strange to most countries. We on this side have the grievance, not Members opposite. If Members opposite should have the misfortune to come into power, it would be a misfortune both for them and for the country and they would have the House of Lords behind them. We accept our handicap, and we believe that in so doing we are wisely maintaining the traditional ways of Great Britain. If Members opposite will co-operate with us, they can make their beloved House of Lords as safe as the Royal Family.
  7.39 p.m.
  Mr. Quintin Hogg: The idea of the hon. Member for Cannock (Miss Lee) becoming less radical as she grows older greatly appeals to me. As far as I am concerned, it removes the one obstacle to her charms, although I have some doubt whether she will ever become much older. I must try to explain to her why the argument she put forward with so much plausibility is wholly unacceptable to Members on this side. The fact is that there was an underlying and quite
  1768
  irreconcilable inconsistency between the two arms, of her argument.
  The first point she made was that there remains, even if this Measure is passed, a considerable amount of power in the mutilated House of Lords. That is true, but it is inconsistent with that observation that the hon. Lady should go on to say, "Well, provided they do not exercise any powers at all the Second Chamber can look forward to a future of popularity in common with that of the Royal Family." But so far as we are concerned we want a Second Chamber not merely to have but to exercise certain limited powers. If they exercise any powers at all they will, of course, be drawn more or less into the field of controversy. It so happens that the House of Lords, as it is composed today, cannot effectively engage in controversy of any kind because its composition does not command respect.
  Although we appreciate the hon. Lady's love of tradition, it therefore follows that a so-called compromise which confers powers on a body of men who will never have sufficient public opinion behind them to exercise those powers effectively, is not a compromise which can appeal to us. There comes a time when a rickety structure has to be altered fundamentally if it is to be any use at all. Our fundamental objection to the Bill is that it prejudices the whole cause of Second Chamber Government in a form in which we should like to see it while, at the same time, leaving a burden on the existing rickety structure which it is unable to maintain.
  I always listen with respect to what is said by the hon. and learned Member for East Leicester (Mr. Donovan), but I thought his speech on this occasion, obviously trying to be reasonable, betrayed the same incomprehension of the attitude of Members on this side of the House that other speeches have done before—and that is the more remarkable as we are today debating this Bill for the Third time. When the hon. and learned Member says that there are three Houses of Lords—the judicial, the day-to-day and the mysterious backwoodsmen who attend for the purpose of destroying democratic Measures on some of the mythical occasions in which hon. Members opposite believe—I wholly agree with him. That is why I want to see the composition of

  1769
  the House of Lords reformed. But I cannot see that that is an argument in favour of a Bill which, after two years' controversy, still persistently declines to deal with the overdue question of composition and deals, instead, with the question of powers.
  The hon. and learned Member says, "I have no objection to reform by instalments" and adds, largely and generously, "That is the way reform usually comes." I always distrust hon. Members opposite who try to use Conservative arguments, because they nearly always apply them in the wrong way. It is true that if desirable reform comes by instalments, as it frequently does, it is perhaps the best way for such reforms to come. But there is another kind of specious alteration in the law which is not an instalment of reform but an obstacle to further reform, and it is because we regard this Measure as an obstacle to further reform that it is quite intolerable to us.
  I must answer the hon. and learned Member for East Leicester out of the mouth of his hon. Friend the Member for Cannock. Whereas the hon. and learned Member regarded the Bill as an instalment of some unspecified reform in composition which he would desire to see, the hon. Member for Cannock argued in favour of it on precisely opposite grounds—namely, that it would provide a wonderful compromise—to quote her own happy and eloquent phrase—in which the House of Lords might rest happy and secure for the centuries which no doubt await this island of ours. It is not possible to imagine two speeches delivered in support of the same Bill, within almost a quarter of an hour of one another, which take a more radically different view in support of it. There is no common ground between the hon. and learned Member and the hon. Member for Cannock on that matter at all.
  In our view the questions of composition and powers are not two entirely different questions to be dealt with at different times and in different circumstances; they are inter-connected questions which have an organic relationship to one another. We cannot discuss what powers we propose to give to the Second Chamber unless we also discuss whether that Second Chamber is one which could command sufficient respect to exercise
  1770
  them. Nor can we consider the question of the composition of the Second Chamber in a particular context unless we also consider the powers which it is proposed to give to them. To talk of reform by instalments is not merely wounding to the feelings of the hon. Member for Cannock which I am sure the hon. and learned Member for East Leicester will, on reflection, regret; it is also basically to misunderstand the nature of the problem facing us today.
  Mr. Donovan: In instancing disagreement between my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock (Miss Lee) and myself, does the hon. Member realise that what he is saying now is directly contrary to what was said by his hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Hollis) on the Second Reading?
  Mr. Hogg: I did not hear my hon. Friend's speech. I am sorry to detain the House on a question in which I have an obvious interest and an unconcealed bias, but I must say, with due humility, that I have devoted considerable thought to this subject, about which I feel deeply, and that I have as much right to express my opinion about it as any other hon. Member of the House has to express his.
  The hon. and learned Member for East Leicester went on to give two remarkable examples in favour of his thesis. The first was when he referred to the question of the death penalty. I do not wish to go into detail on that matter, as it would not be in Order to pursue it at length, but I think he overlooked the character of the Debate on that occasion. The hon. and learned Member will remember that when the final Debate took place in this House the Home Secretary was able to refer to difficulties and objections in imposing Parliament Act procedure in a matter of that kind. If the sanction of that complication had not existed in that Debate I do not doubt—and every hon. Member is entitled to his own opinion—that the Home Secretary would have found it quite impossible to deal with the more recalcitrant of his own supporters.
  The hon. and learned Member then went on to instance the admitted good behaviour of the present House of Lords in this Parliament as a reason why this Bill should pass. He said that the right conclusion to draw from their good

  1771
  behaviour was that a period of one year was not needed. I differ from the hon. and learned Gentleman as to the conclusion to be drawn from his premise. If this piece of patchwork legislation amending the Parliament Act of 1911 were to be justified, it would only be justified, in my submission, in the context of an insuperable conflict which had arisen between the two Houses. In my view, once it is conceded that there is no conflict between the two Houses, to attempt to patch the Parliament Act of 1911 cannot be justified at all, because, as we have tried to show again and again, that is a constitutional outrage.
  I must record my view that under the Parliament Act of 1911, it was never contemplated that that particular procedure would be employed for the purposes of amending that Act. On the contrary, the Preamble makes it quite plain that the Act was contemplated as a temporary Measure, and when the question of reform came before this House again what would be introduced, according to the framers of that Measure, would not be some amendment of that Act, but a totally new Second Chamber altogether. The purpose of using the Parliament Act procedure for the purposes of amending the Parliament Act is wholly outside the purposes of those who framed it, and is in itself a constitutional outrage.
  I return to the argument which I ventured to present to the House on a former occasion, and which, therefore, I can summarise in a very short way. In my submission, this is a fundamentally dishonest Bill. I was much impressed by the interjection of the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. McGhee) when my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe) was addressing the House. The hon. Member said that what we wanted in this House was single chamber Government.
  Mr. McGhee: That is quite incorrect. At that moment I was speaking to my hon. Friends, and I said that in matters of finance we have virtually single chamber Government, and that this Bill would give the Labour Government what the Tory Government have always had, single chamber Government for the first four years.
  Mr. Hogg: If I caught a private remark which through some freak of the microphone was not intended to be amplified for the benefit of Members of the Opposition, I can only apologise.
  Mr. McGhee: Actually, the hon. Member did not hear it. It was reported to him by two other Members.
  Mr. Hogg: I heard the remark most clearly. I entirely accept the explanation given by the hon. Gentleman, but it does not seem to me to be an explanation which differs very much from the actual form in which I quoted it, because one thing is absolutely clear—so far as this Bill is concerned it is not providing single chamber Government.
  We have had the most explicit assurances from the Front Bench opposite that it does not provide single chamber Government, nor that that is intended even during the first four years of any Parliament. If it were, my case for this being a dishonest Bill would be overwhelmingly proved, having regard to the clear and explicit assurances to the contrary which we have received from Ministers. I think they were honest and truthful when they said that the Bill was not designed to produce single chamber Government. That may be the desire of some hon. Members opposite, but that is not the effect of the Bill, and I am dealing with the Bill as it is framed, as one must in the course of a Third Reading speech.
  If it is not designed for a single chamber Government what is it designed to achieve? We are told that it is designed to achieve a period of one year's delay as a means of combating the backwoodsmen, who exist more in hon. Members' imagination than in fact and who come in their imaginary hordes to defeat Socialist Measures in the fourth and fifth years of a Parliament. As I pointed out on more than one occasion during these Debates if, in fact, what is feared is a misuse by the House of Lords of their powers, then this Bill does not, in fact, deal with that. This is a Bill to reduce the suspensory veto from two years to one year.
  It would be perfectly possible within the ambit of the Parliament Act as it is proposed to amend it to hold up effective Government legislation for a much longer period than they can now. They can resolve against any statutory orders under the Parliament Act, and

  1773
  such a step is still possible to them under this amending Bill. They can hold up the Steel Bill by resolving time and time again against the regulations made under it, which would make it altogether unworkable. Hon. Members know the powers that are left with the House of Lords. Under this Bill, if they were to misuse their powers, they would be capable of bringing the whole of the Government in this country to a standstill within three months.
  On the other hand, if the argument is that the House of Lords can be trusted not to misuse their powers, then it follows that the whole of this legislation is unnecessary, because the proposal, as put forward from the Benches opposite, is solely on the ground, not that the powers have, in fact, been misused, but that it is apprehended that they might be. Therefore I submit that this is a dishonest Bill, which does not honestly deal with the real difficulties which have occurred.
  Before I leave that part of the case I should like to put it in this way—nothing proves the dishonesty of the Measure more clearly than the fact that, when we have been discussing, as we are, limiting the powers of the House of Lords as they exist under the Parliament Act and limiting the suspensory veto, no significant speech by hon. Members opposite in favour of the Bill has been heard which has not contained either the avowed or concealed major premise that it is the composition of the House of Lords and not the powers which is the real subject of grievance.
  I see the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) in his place. I did my best to follow the extraordinary twist of reasoning whereby the leader of the Parliamentary Liberal Party tried to explain how it was that the party had voted against the Second Reading but were going to vote for the Third Reading. I was left with this conviction—there is no political section of this House which has lost a sense of political responsibility and respectability to compare with the Liberal Party. They issued three-line whips on the Steel Bill, but never had a 100 per cent. division. First they vote for a Second Reading—
  Mr. Frank Byers: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman,
  1774
  but it so happened that on the Steel Bill the Liberal Party was the only party to have a 100 per cent. vote in the Division Lobby.
  Hon. Members: Withdraw.
  Mr. Hogg: If I am wrong about that I gladly withdraw. It is such a rare case that I am very glad that I have brought it to light, because on Bill after Bill, since I started sitting next to the hon. Gentleman below the Gangway, they have first voted for Second Reading and then against Third Reading, or against Second Reading and for Third Reading. On more than one occasion there was a respectable minority of their not very large party voting in the opposite Lobby. When it was not so, a normal feature of their party tactics was that in the House of Lords the party did the opposite to what had been done in the Home of Commons. Really, they are the least respectable of all the parties.
  Mr. Bing: Does the hon. Member include in his strictures of the Liberal Party, the right hon. and gallant Member for Pembroke (Major Lloyd George) on his own Front Bench?
  Mr. Hogg: I was including the whole party as a party in my strictures without attacking any individual in it. They are not politically respectable.
  I conclude with a word of thanks for a particular point which was made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Derby. I was very glad that he referred to the very narrow limits which divide the omnicompetent Parliament which we have in this House from a dictatorship. Democracies take different forms. It does not follow because you have a universal system of election that you therefore have the safeguards of liberty, which is one of the essential prerequisities of democracies. Different countries have had different safeguards at different times. We of all democracies have the fewest safeguards. We have an Executive in control of a Parliamentary majority in the House of Commons which, with the other Chamber, has power to legislate on every subject, constitutional or otherwise. In that respect we are unique, or, at any rate, our pattern of democracy is unique among other patterns.
  I think we must proceed with the alteration of the powers of the Second Chamber

  1775
  with very great caution, having regard to that particular feature of our Constitution in general. I do not believe that that caution has been shown in this case. I do not know, of course, the motives underlying the Bill. I still continue to suspect, despite the evening papers today and the morning papers yesterday and the day before, that originally, when it was conceived in the heart and brain of the Lord President of the Council, the Steel Bill had something to do with it. If it be true that the "Evening Standard" is right and the other morning papers are right, and that that motive has now been removed from the heart and breast of the right hon. Gentleman, I do wish he would strangle his little child, which was ill-begotten of unrespectable parents. He should put an end to it now once and for all, and should come forward in this Session or the next with a Bill designed to remove the real grievance concerning the composition of the House of Lords. If the Bill were at all reasonable, I should be willing to support it.
  8.3 p.m.
  Mr. William Ross: I think that we all very much enjoyed the speech of the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg) but I could not entirely divest myself of the feeling that he was allowing his very keen personal interest in the problem to over-ride his more balanced judgment from the political and present constitutional point of view. It may be all right for him to consider that we should regard this problem as integrated of two parts, powers and composition, but I think he forgets that this discussion takes a very long time and that it takes a long time also to get agreement, as we can appreciate from the fact that the Tory Party have been at work on the matter for more than 80 years, and have not yet come to a final solution. All that time the present Second Chamber has continued, with its present composition and powers.
  That consideration may not affect a Conservative Party fully lining these benches, but it is something that a Socialist or a Liberal Government must take into account. We cannot argue this matter in vacuo and leave out the fact that the Second Chamber still has the right and the power to prevent legislation becoming effective in the Second and
  1776
  Third Sessions of the present Government. Therefore the Government are quite right in placing emphasis not on composition but on powers. While I agree that we must again go into the question of composition, we have, in the Bill, given the maximum of power which can be given by the House of Commons to any Second Chamber.
  Some hon. Members have claimed to examine all the processes of history and the march of democracy, but I think they have neglected the theme that runs through it all, which is the rise in power of this democratic assembly. It is all very well for the right hon. and learned Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe) to clothe himself sanctimoniously with that rather nauseating principle that Conservatives, and Conservatives only, are the interpreters and upholders of all that is fine in the British tradition. I was surprised at a Scotsman accepting that point of view, particularly when speaking on a Measure dealing with the other Chamber, and with his knowledge of Burns, and the poem:
  "A man's a man for a' that."
  Having studied this matter a little, I got rather furious when I reminded him of the poem "Address to The Unco Guild," which begins with the unforgettable lines:
  "Oh ye wha are sae guid yoursel.
  Sae pious and sae holy."
  The point is that we all feel, when we examine the democratic tradition of this country, that the step which is now being taken is a step forward. The power of this responsible House against a House that no hon. Member cannot deny is particularly irresponsible, in the precise sense of that word, must be upheld. We have done the right thing in first tackling the powers of the other House. In the past when there have been Conservative Governments on this side we have had literally and effectively unicameral government. Only when we get Liberal and Labour Governments does the other Chamber awaken to its constitutional duty of being a revising and delaying Chamber. If the Government had not introduced the Bill they would have been lacking in the foresight that the people of the country expected them to show when they elected them in 1945.
  The suggestion has been made that we should have waited until a great conflict had arisen between the two Chambers,

  1777
  but that would be shutting our eyes to history and to the actual composition of the other House, as well as to its powers. Taking other spheres, for example, the sphere of international security, we know that present peace is no guarantee of future peace. The Government were quite right to bolster up the democratic part of our Constitution.
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the West Derby division of Liverpool suggested that there would not be ample time for public opinion to crystallise and express itself and to be interpreted, seemingly infallibly, correctly by the House of Lords. In the delay we have granted there is ample time for public opinion to form and be expressed, but I do not think that the other Chamber will infallibly interpret correctly that public opinion. If they did we should be having marches on this House tonight with people protesting that we were destroying the Constitution of the country and all that was fine and noble, that the House of Lords had correctly interpreted public opinion to be that the nation did not want the Bill and that we were thrusting it down the throats of the people.
  I have spoken to people here and in my constituency, and I have found people outside a little more extreme their views than even the Government have shown themselves to be on this Bill. It is even suggested that we should not bother about the other House at all but get rid of it. I do not for the moment support that, but that is one expression of public opinion. The hon. Member for Wood Green (Mr. Baxter) may realise that there are polls which might have been held through the medium of a newspaper with which he is connected, which show that the people of this country are not rising in insurrection against the Bill.
  Mr. Beverley Baxter: I have no connection with any newspaper I know of which is running polls, except a romantic and sentimental one, but no practical one. Perhaps I may ask the hon. Gentleman if he has heard of anybody demanding this Bill.
  Mr. Ross: I wonder if the hon. Gentleman has followed my last remarks. I have just been assuring the House that people to whom I have been speaking in my constituency have been very much for
  1778
  the Bill and have suggested that the Bill is not strong enough.
  Colonel Dower: Do they understand it?
  Mr. Ross: As they belong to a country which is poetically celebrated for its honesty and a county which is famed for its political intelligence, I can assure the hon. and gallant Gentleman that they understand the Bill. I congratulate the Government on their foresight and on refusing to leave this thing to drag on. If they had allowed that we should have had no guarantee that there would be no interference with the fourth and fifth Sessions of the present Parliament, and it might well be that the good behaviour of the other place has been deliberately planned good behaviour to be used as propaganda during the next month or two. Those who look on this from a traditional and historical point of view and as people upholding and maintaining the position in the Constitution of this House cannot do otherwise than support the Government tonight.
  8.14 p.m.
  Mr. Beverley Baxter: The Sassenachs of the House have all enjoyed this whiff of strong air from Scotland. It is always good to hear Burns quoted. It is nice to be reminded that:
  "A man's a man for a' that"
  but it seems that in this case the hon. Gentleman the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) makes one exception, so that:
  "A man's a man for a' that"
  —unless he happens to be a Peer. The hon. Gentleman does not grant Peers the same admiration.
  I want to recall to the House the speech made earlier by the Attorney-General. One of his points was that he was distressed that so much time should be spent in the House of Commons discussing this Bill when there were so many urgent matters facing us. I was much impressed by that. There was a languorous dismay about him which is always attractive. I do not doubt his sincerity and it seems to me that he is absolutely right. The only trouble is that he seemed to be inferring that it was we who had, somehow, brought in this Bill. The Bill has been debated and debated until there is almost nothing new to be said about it, but it is not our fault; it was brought

  1779
  in by the Government of which the Attorney-General is such an ornament. Now the Attorney-General is criticising us for the time it has taken when the fault is that of the Government.
  In my opinion this is one of the many Measures brought in by the Government in the form of irrelevancies to hide from the public their incompetence to govern. Those are harsh words, I know. They have not that urbanity or sweet reasonableness with which I like always to address hon. Members opposite. Nevertheless, whether the Government intended them as irrelevancies or not, they have proved to be irrelevancies, but I do not believe that they have hidden from the public the incapacity of this Government to govern. I know that Parliament is the great inquest of the nation and that it is the duty of Parliament to debate, but it is also the duty of Parliament to inform and inspire the nation and to give it leadership. That is something which this Parliament is not doing at present.
  After such a lively and good natured Debate as we have had, it seems somewhat less than gracious to say that if this Parliament today came under the unfriendly and brusque pens of dramatic critics it would get a very bad Press. It is getting a very bad Press. Even the hon. Member for East Coventry (Mr. Cross-man) wrote the other day that this Parliament was as dead as Mr. Churchill said. What is the reason? Because we are not dealing with reality at all. I have been away for two months, and from a distance—[Interruption.] I was doing propaganda for this Government in Canada. I was doing good work; I was not loafing. I was in Canada telling the Canadians what I believe, that this country will survive. It may be that looking at Britain through a telescope from a distance one may not get a clear or accurate picture, but from a long distance one may well wonder when the nation will wake up and deal with that with which every other country sees we have to deal.
  It might have been a good idea if we could have taken a gramophone record of the laughter of hon. Gentlemen opposite at serious moments during this Parliament and played it at the General Election so that the people could have heard them. I hope that will not prevent hon. Gentlemen opposite laughing if
  1780
  I stumble upon a good joke. However, I have heard the party opposite laugh at the most serious times—
  Mr. McGhee: We have only been laughing at an Opposition speaker.
  Mr. Baxter: Why has this Parliament been condemned as moribund, dead, dying and decaying? The reason is that it is out of touch with realities and is not grappling with the urgent problems before it.
  Mr. McGhee: Is this a Canadian speaking?
  Mr. Baxter: If hon. Gentlemen opposite think that I am exaggerating on this point, when they face their constituents at the General Election and the constituents ask, "What did your party do when it went to Westminster?", which is a fair question, will they please reply, with all the enthusiasm they showed when they carried it through, that they did away with the Parliamentary representation of the universities? That was a great victory. [HON. MEMBERS: "Order."] I anticipated that I might be out of Order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. The Attorney-General was deploring the fact that we were not dealing with more urgent matters, and I thought I would help the right hon. and learned Gentleman by pointing out that he is absolutely right and that this Parliament has done away with such things as University Representation, the City of London representation—
  Hon. Members: Ah!
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Milner): I do not think that the hon. Gentleman ought to help the Attorney-General too far or too much.
  Mr. Baxter: I bow to your Ruling, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, and I will only say that the Government might have considered that when they repealed the Trades Disputes Act.
  I want to put one or two points to hon. Gentlemen opposite. We all know that the House of Lords is archaic in composition, but this is a land of paradox, not only a land of tradition. The Upper House is maintained under an impossible hereditary system and we on this side of the House, just as strongly as the party opposite, regard it as

  1781
  ridiculous that under the hereditary system the favours should be given to the first pup of the litter.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Dr. Edith Summerskill: The first male pup.
  Mr. Baxter: I am obliged to the right hon. Lady for supporting her sex in this matter of the litter. Nevertheless, although the Upper House is archaic in construction, the fact is that it has served this Parliament magnificently. The hon. Lady the Member for Cannock (Miss Lee) spoke about the magnanimity with which her party was willing to accept and maintain an Upper Chamber which was politically against it. I think that is to the credit of the Socialist Party. But I am sure that in fairness the hon. Lady will agree that the Upper House when dealing with legislation to which it was opposed—by tradition, by judgment or by anything else one likes to call it—showed a splendid recognition of the fact that the House of Commons is the master, and that it brought all its resources of judgment and skill and wisdom to bear upon the Socialist legislation from this House.
  Therefore I think it was a great pity that the Party opposite did not make a gesture, instead of saying, as they did by this Bill, "The Upper House behaved all right for the first three years because they knew we could deal with them, but they are not honourable men and we will not trust them any further." That is the meaning of this Bill. There is no excuse for it. Why if they were frightened did not the Government introduce this Bill in the first year of its life? I believe that the action of the party opposite was in keeping with its natural philosophy which, as I have said before here, is to put its trust too much in a sort of creeping commonsense. A writer once said that the instinct of the Left-wing parties is to build the factory and to destroy the cathedral.
  Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg), who is automatically heir to a peerage which he does not want—and for that I honour him—I speak as a commoner. I am proud to be one. In this country we have been going through something of a revolution. It is to the credit of the British people that this revolution has been a bloodless one, and in many ways it has been a
  1782
  credit to the party opposite that they did not press their extreme views but held their wilder men in control. I find much to admire in that, but I urge the party opposite: "Do not destroy, Do not tear down, Do not apply logic as if logic is the last truth." There is no logic in a piece of ribbon for which a soldier will give his life, but the ribbon means something.
  The hon. Lady the Member for Cannock said wisely that the Monarchy has survived different changes and is now in a different phase. The same is true of the House of Lords. It would have been a splendid thing if this Socialist Party, with its mighty majority in the House of Commons, had said, "We trust our colleagues in the Upper House, we trust the men who have handled our legislation there with impartiality, with justice and with wisdom." Instead of that they have brought this rather squalid quarrel into the House, because many of the speeches made during these three long Readings have not been as tolerant as they were today. For that reason, as a vote of censure in my own mind upon the party opposite, I shall certainly vote against the Third Reading of this Bill.
  8.27 p.m.
  Mr. Lipson: Hon. Members opposite have congratulated the Government in bringing in this Bill. I cannot join in those congratulations because I believe that in persisting in carrying the Bill through at this juncture the Government have missed a great opportunity. When introducing legislation one cannot disregard the times and also the conditions under which it is being introduced, and from that point of view this Bill stands condemned. The country is facing a grave economic crisis, and it is the duty of the Government to concentrate their measures and public attention entirely on that crisis and on the steps taken to deal with it. The Government should try to help to create the atmosphere which would enable the country to solve its very difficulteconomic problems, upon which depend our whole future, the standard of life of our people and the part which this country is to play in the world. It is in that light that we ought to consider the Bill which is before us.
  The Bill—and we must recognise it—is a purely party Measure. The need at

  1783
  this time is for a responsible Government to put first things first; and by "first things" I mean the country. That is what the Lord President of the Council said in a recent speech and I agree with him, as do, I believe, the overwhelming majority of our people. Example, however, is better than precept, and if the Government are asking—and how necessary it is that they should ask—everybody to make sacrifices of one kind or another, what a grand lead it would have been had the Government said, "In view of the economic crisis we are prepared to delay the procedure so far as this Bill is concerned."
  I wish that instead of continuing with the Bill, the Government had made a proposal to reopen the all-Party Conference which met a short time ago. The conditions are such that its chances of success would be even greater today, in view of the need for national unity, than when it actually met. Even then, it was within an ace of achieving success. There was agreement on the composition of membership of the House of Lords, and only a question of three months kept the parties apart so far as its power was concerned. How much better it would have been, and how much more responsible leadership would have been shown, had the Government shown this kind of initiative.
  I recognise that the Government will get their majority tonight and that the Bill will pass its Third Reading, but I want to appeal to them, even now that when they get the Bill—and perhaps it may give them something else with which to bargain—that they will consider from the national point of view whether they ought to try to summon again the all-Party Conference to see if agreement can be reached. Not only would such a step be a great action; it would be of even more importance in the kind of lead which the Government would be giving towards national unity. It is their prime responsibility to try to bring about this unity, for they are the Government, and if they were to take such a lead they might reasonably expect that the Opposition would be prepared to follow.
  If the Government persist with the Bill and try to reap all the party advantages which they can from it, they will be telling the country that, "Crisis or no
  1784
  crisis, we go on with our party business." If that is what they say to the country, how can they expect the ordinary citizens to adapt themselves and to make the very real sacrifices which they are called upon to make to help the country out of its difficulties? Therefore, I hope that more worthy considerations will be taken into account by the Government in regard to this Bill than the purely party considerations which have been advanced.
  There is no urgency about this Bill. In my view, the fears in regard to the power of the House of Lords exist in theory far more than in practice because this power, which is now so much criticised, has been exercised only three times in 40 years. It is a very different House of Lords in its outlook from that which existed even at the time when the Parliament Act was passed. I think recognition ought to be given to that and the national interest given predominance. I hope the Government will give consideration to the appeal I have made.
  8.35 p.m.
  Mr. Eric Fletcher: A good many of us would agree with one remark of the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Lipson) when he said that the powers of the House of Lords exist more in theory than in practice. But that, in my view, is a reason which makes it more necessary that this House, on the third occasion on which it has been considering this Bill and in view of the clash which has arisen with the House of Lords, should assert its majority view and carry this Bill into law, in order to make the theory more in accordance with practice.
  I wish to address myself to some of the remarks made in his speech by the right hon. and learned Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe). I do not propose again to go over the numerous arguments which he mentioned in his opening remarks, but, towards the end of his speech the right hon. and learned Gentleman developed a theme, as I thought in very unctuous and sanctimonious language, which completely shocked me and, I am sure, a great many hon. Members on this side of the House. He had the audacity to talk about national unity. He pretended that this Bill outraged the constitution and that this party were breaking the rules of the game. He referred to our fundamental unity as a nation and a fundamental

  1785
  agreement which was one of the sources of our national greatness. I should like to ask him, when was there any fundamental agreement that the House of Lords should have a veto?
  Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I was dealing in that portion of my speech, as the hon. Member knows, with the introduction of retroactive provisions in a constitutional manner, which I called cheating by altering the rules of the game to your own advantage while the game was being played. I take back no word of that.
  Mr. Fletcher: I am glad the right hon. and learned Gentleman has repeated that because it will enable me to deal with it more specifically. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is perfectly well aware that one of the fundamental rules of the game, as he calls it, is that this Parliament is omnipotent and has power to deal with all matters, great or small, constitutional, or trivial. That is one of the rules of the game; if there is a fundamental agreement, I think it is based on this, that this Parliament and our democratic constitution has always had, within itself, the means to give expression to the wishes of the electorate and not to allow the wishes of the electorate to be thwarted either by the monarchy, or the barons, or the House of Lords, or vested interests, or privilege, or anyone else.
  That is the fundamental agreement which unites us; that is the law of the constitution. There has been no change in the rules of the game. It has always been fundamental in England that Parliament is supreme; that we can modify all laws, whether they deal with constitutional matters or not, and part of the law of the land is the Parliament Act. One of the supporters of the right hon. and learned Gentleman objected to the fact that the Parliament Act was being modified under the provisions of the Parliament Act itself. How else could the Parliament Act be modified? Was it ever contemplated that the House of Lords would willingly acquiesce in measures for curbing their own powers?
  More remarkable is the justification which the right hon. and learned Gentleman gave for retaining the present powers of the House of Lords. He said that the House of Lords were entitled to retain some powers in order to interpret public opinion. That has been a noteworthy
  1786
  feature of the speeches which we have heard from the opposite side of the House. For example, the hon. Member for Wood Green (Mr. Baxter), who has now left, thought it was commendable on the part of the House of Lords that they had not thrown out any Bill passed by this House during the first three Sessions, and that they were honourable for not having done so. I am puzzled to know what, according to the principles of hon. Members opposite, are the duties of the House of Lords. Is it their duty, when they have a Conservative majority, to apply Conservative principles and throw out Bills to which their party is opposed, or is it not?
  We know perfectly well that in practice the powers of the House of Lords have been seriously curtailed since 1910 as part of the Constitution. All that we are now doing is to carry one stage further the adaptation of our Constitution to the needs of the moment. In 1910 it was provided that as the House of Lords should have no veto power over the really important Bills of the day—no power to veto any Finance Bills, any Money Bills. That was the great constitutional change made in 1910. The so-called veto power of the House of Lords has only a residual operation and significance since then. It did not exist while the Conservatives were in power for a large number of years, and it ill becomes hon. Members opposite at this stage of our Debate to complain that this present Bill is not dealing with the composition of the House of Lords. They had abundant opportunities to deal with the composition of the House of Lords but failed to use them.
  We have heard this afternoon the remarkable disclosures of the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies), who was a member of the recent Conference of Party Leaders, and who ascribes to the Conservative Party all the blame for the fact that those discussions on constitutional reform broke down. In fact, it is the breakdown of those discussions which makes it no longer possible to deal with the composition of the House of Lords. We have not yet heard any hon. Member opposite say what the party opposite would approve today as regards the composition of the House of Lords if they had a majority. Speaking for myself, and in view of the fact that the right hon.

  1787
  Gentleman referred to it, I would say that I should not be prepared to give to the House of Lords, whether it retained its present composition or whether it was reformed in the manner suggested in those discussions, any greater power than it has under this Parliament Bill which will become operative as a result of our passing it tonight for the third time.
  If it is the duty of the House of Lords to interpret public opinion in deciding whether they should or should not resist the expressed will of the House of Commons, it is pertinent to consider whether they have been attempting to interpret public opinion by having rejected on two occasions this very Bill, because this is the only Bill which they have as yet attempted to reject. If their attitude can be justified on the grounds that they have been attempting to interpret public opinion, what is the evidence of that?
  The only really reliable evidence of public opinion since the date, two years ago, when this Bill first had its Second Reading in this House, is the long series of by-elections that have taken place. That is the best evidence of public opinion that has had any opportunity of expressing itself. Therefore, if the House of Lords was seriously trying to interpret public opinion, it, according to the right hon and learned Gentleman's own argument, should have passed this Bill in the Session of 1948, and should pass it in this Session, as, I hope, it still may—because, according to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, that is the only reason for having the veto power at all—that is the raison d'etre.
  I think if the House of Lords rejects this Bill for the third time, as, I am afraid, seems likely, it will go on record that it has not taken that step in deference to public opinion—and I think that it might have had that excuse if, in fact, the Government had suffered a series of reverses at the by-elections, which they have not suffered. It will become more plain that the House of Lords is rejecting this Bill because of the desire of the Conservative Party to retain a position of privilege in the Constitution of the country; because it is not concerned with playing the game; because it is not concerned with giving effect to the declared wishes of the electorate; and because it wishes to retain
  1788
  a reserve of power which would enable it, if and when it thinks it expedient to do so, to thwart and defy the wishes of the people as expressed in this elective Chamber.
  All these Debates on the constitutional position have been increasingly instructive. More than one hon. Member on those benches regarded it as something of an anomaly that the House of Lords is given powers to pass Prayers against various Statutory Instruments, and it has been said that, if it thinks right, it can hold up the whole of the programme of the Government by passing Prayers against Statutory Instruments and Regulations that are made under various Acts. In truth, it has no such real power at all, but a merely theoretical power like the Royal Veto, which has already passed into desuetude.
  Mr. Pickthorn: On a point of Order. May I inquire if it is in Order to refer to the Royal Veto as "purely theoretical?"
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Bowles): I did not hear the hon. Gentleman say that, but I should imagine it is not in Order.
  Mr. Fletcher: It was the hon. and learned Gentleman—
  Mr. Pickthorn: I am not learned.
  Hon. Members: Hear, hear.
  Mr. Fletcher: —the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter).
  Mr. Pickthorn: He is not learned either.
  Mr. Fletcher: The real significance of the supposed power of the House of Lords to hold up progressive legislation by passing resolutions against Statutory Instruments, is, that they have never yet dared to exercise it. I repeat, they have never yet dared to exercise it. It is significant for this reason, that when Conservative Members of Parliament have, on a number of occasions, put down Prayers, more often than not—I say it without offence—it has been the least responsible Conservative Members who sit on the back benches, because it has been noteworthy that most of those Prayers have not been supported by the Front Bench. But there have been occasions, I concede, when Prayers have been put down, or supported by name and speech and vote,

  1789
  by Front Bench Members, presumably because the Conservative Party believed in the sincerity of what it was doing.
  However, if Conservative Members had really been sincere, they would have had abundant opportunities to incite their friends in another place to pass a Prayer which they thought ought to be passed to annul an order; but on not one single occasion has that been attempted. I am not complaining about that. I think it is right. I am only pointing it out because it is vital in this Debate, as has been mentioned, to draw a distinction between the real, effective rights of the House of Lords and its merely theoretical powers. The right hon. and learned Gentleman at one point I think went so far as to say that the objection to reducing the power of veto from two years to one year was not because the House of Lords ought to have a veto of two years or one year or even a veto at all, but because, if they were to do their work as a revising Chamber, they could not do that work effectively unless they had a rather longer period to think about it.
  Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I think the hon. Gentleman has misunderstood me. I said that no one would pay attention to their revising work unless the House of Lords had a substantial delaying power, and it was because they had substantial delaying power that attention was given to their revision on matters of secondary policy.
  Mr. Fletcher: Then I misunderstood the right hon. and learned Gentleman. I will conclude with the observation that in my opinion there is no justification for giving the House of Lords a veto as distinct from a delaying power. I agree with what has been said by hon. Members on both sides that the real function of the House of Lords is to do the important constitutional work of revising and amending Measures passed in this place—a work for which I personally believe it is admirably fitted by its present composition. I doubt whether, owing to the failure of the recent Conference, it would now be possible, or in the near future, to devise a differently constituted second Chamber which would either do the work as well as the present House of Lords, or which would commend itself as much as the present House of Lords either to the Labour Party or to many members of
  1790
  the Conservative Party. I hope, therefore, that when this House exercises its undoubted right of saying for the third time that in a clash with another place the views of the elected representatives must predominate, we shall put an end for a long time to the constitutional difficulties which have divided us.
  8.55 p.m.
  Mr. Marlowe: The contribution of the hon. Member for East Islington (Mr. E. Fletcher) would have been a little more valuable if he had accepted the challenge of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe) who invited him to substantiate the claim he had made on a previous occasion that the retroactive aspect of this Bill had been employed before. It is abundantly clear that that power has never been put into such a Bill on any previous occasion, yet the hon. Gentleman asserted previously that that had been the case, and he was quite unable to substantiate the argument when invited to do so. That makes his opinions on these matters less valuable than they would otherwise have been.
  The hon. Gentleman has taken up a point of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Derby on the question of the charge which was made that hon. Members opposite are attempting to change the rules in the middle of the game. The hon. Member for East Islington denied that charge, but it is useless for him to deny it because he and those associated with him do not know what are the rules of the game, which makes it difficult for them to know whether they are changing them or not.
  The hon. Gentleman also said that in matters of this kind Parliament was supreme, and he referred to the fact that by that he meant the House of Commons, illustrating that he had not the faintest idea of what Parliament means. Parliament consists of two Houses and the Monarchy—[Interruption]—I am glad that hon. Gentlemen opposite reinforce my charge that they are ignorant of what they are talking about. Their jeers make it abundantly clear that they have not the faintest idea what Parliament consists of, and I have no doubt that in a very short time the people will indicate what a great mistake was made in sending them here at all. If in five years hon. Gentlemen

  1791
  opposite have not learned what Parliament is they certainly do not deserve to return to it again.
  The hon. Member for East Islington also said it was impossible to get this Bill through with the agreement of the House of Lords because obviously the House of Lords would not agree to curb their own powers. Well, they have only been asked to do so once before, in 1911, and they did so then, so I do not know why the hon. Gentleman should deny that they will do so on this occasion. So many of the hon. Gentleman's arguments were baseless that I am hardly justified in taking up time by dealing with them, but I must make this final point on his speech. He said that in all these matters the will of the House of Commons must prevail, and that the House of Lords must have no veto of any kind. I advise him to study the policy of his own party, because in the Supplies and Services (Extended Purposes) Act, 1947, the present Government gave the House of Lords an equal power of veto concurrently with this House with regard to statutory instruments. The hon. Gentleman has obviously completely misunderstood the policy of his own party.
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: He supported that Act.
  Mr. Marlowe: As my hon. Friend points out, the hon. Gentleman supported the Government on that Measure.
  I wish now to deal with one or two of the more general aspects of these Debates and the various steps by which this Bill has gone through the Parliamentary machinery. Hon. Gentlemen opposite have, both today and on many occasions, quoted speeches made in the early part of the century by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition. Such is the failure of hon. Gentlemen opposite to understand what they are talking about that they have taken extracts from speeches which my right hon. Friend made in favour of the Parliament Act, 1911, thinking that in doing so they are quoting him as supporting the present Bill. How could that be? If he made those observations in support of the 1911 Act, how could they support this Bill which destroys the Act of 1911? They cannot have it both ways. When my right hon. Friend was supporting the
  1792
  1911 Act it was for the very purpose that it should not be destroyed, as it is by this Bill in 1949.
  What is my objection to this Bill as it stands? I say at once that it is wholly unnecessary, and is not desired by the people at the present time. Many times have we in this House on a Thursday afternoon, during the discussion on the Business of the House, heard hon. Members on both sides urging upon the Lord President of the Battersea Fun Fair something that they would like to debate, always to be told that there is no Parliamentary time. If there is no Parliamentary time for those far more important matters, why is it that Parliamentary time can be found for this Measure which nobody demands at the present time?
  It is said that the present procedure, by which the power of a Government can be curbed in its fourth or fifth year, is undesirable. Why is it undesirable? It seems to me a very good principle that for the first three years immediately after an election, while the election issues are still fresh, the Government should have a comparatively free run; but as time gets further away from that election it is very desirable that there should be some curb on the Government to prevent the passing of Measures which were not part of the election issues.
  I am expressing my opinion that it is a very good thing, particularly with such a Parliament as this, which is stale and has an incompetent majority, that it should have its powers curbed as time goes on. This is a Measure which is quite unsuited to the temper and condition of the country. I understood that there was a crisis of some kind, and perhaps that is why the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is to reply to the Debate, because we can always be sure that if he is around there is a crisis somewhere. It is fair to say that if this Bill had to be introduced when there was no crisis the Government would not have been able to introduce it at any time.
  It has been claimed by those who ought to speak with a sense of responsibility that this Bill has no relation to the Iron and Steel Bill. I do not accept that. Perhaps someone will tell me, if this Bill is not designed to work in conjunction with the Iron and Steel Bill, what Bill it is intended to safeguard. I challenge any

  1793
  Member opposite to suggest a single Measure to which this Bill is related other than the Iron and Steel Bill. I feel fully justified in saying that it is merely part of the plot to push through the Iron and Steel Bill.
  The truth was displayed by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) who, having paid his customary tribute to the House of Lords by saying that our relations with the other place continue to be friendly, went on to say that "peace at present is no guarantee of peace in the future." That is true, but it seems a very inadequate reason for declaring war. Members opposite are deliberately making an attack on the House of Lords. They want to see its powers curbed because they know it is a repository of common sense which offers British justice and prevents them putting through their ill-timed Measures. The same sort of principle was illustrated by the hon. Member for Central Bristol (Mr. Awbery), who said that his objection to the House of Lords was that it was the provider of Tory funds. That is why the hon. Member will vote for this Bill. It is not for him a question of principle, whether we should or should not have bicameral government, or if so in what form, but merely some ghost out of the past which says there is a lot of money in the House of Lords and that therefore, like everything else with money, the Socialist Government must destroy it. That is the basis on which the General Election is to be fought—look at the insurance, cement and sugar men with plenty of money; let us destroy them and get the money for ourselves.
  The great quarrel I have with this Measure is that it alters the Constitution in a fundamental way and does not attempt to deal with the problem we all agree needs attention. It is merely tampering with the Constitution on grounds of expediency. It is adjusting the Constitutional sails to the winds of the Steel Bill. If we are to reform the House of Lords, we must do the job properly and not merely interfere with the Constitution in this way, which Members opposite will undoubtedly regret. The Constitution should not be tampered with as a matter of expediency, and the time will come when, having opened the doors to Communism, hon. Gentlemen opposite will regret having passed a Measure of this kind.
  9.5 p.m.
  Mr. Awbery: I am grateful to the hon. and learned Member for Brighton (Mr. Marlowe) for doing me the honour of reading the speech I made on the Second Reading of this Bill and, more than reading it, committing it to memory. It is true that I referred to the House of Lords on that occasion as being the place from which the Tory Party obtained their finances. I have nothing to withdraw; indeed, my recent researches have confirmed me in that opinion.
  I will not detain the House long, but I would remind hon. Members that looking down on this great democratic Chamber are the 16 Barons who forced King John to sign Magna Carta. If those men, who were the progressive people of their time, were articulate today they would say to the Government, "The step you are now taking is the natural corollary to what we started centuries ago." The progress of democracy must be maintained; a nation must either go backward or forward. Since this Government have been in power I believe that we have made progress which is satisfactory to our people.
  While I have been sitting here I have been trying to reconcile the arguments used in our Debates on this Bill Previously, it was said that we were undemocratic because we would not allow an Amendment on the Committee stage. Now the very same people who said that are satisfied that the Bill should go to the House of Lords to be settled by an undemocratic and unelected body. The hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg) described the Bill as an obstacle to further reform of the House of Lords. Not necessarily. This is not the law of the Medes and Persians, unchangeable. I can visualise the time, in a few years, when this matter will be discussed again. We are now in the final stages of this Bill. The first stage was that not two years ago but in 1911, when the Liberal Party and the Tory Party came into conflict on this question. I think that the toleration and good feeling shown today is more conspicuous than it was when the Liberals and the Tories were having their fight years ago.
  If we accepted the proposal of the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Lipson) and withdrew the Bill, I am convinced that

  1795
  we would be basely betraying the trust of our people. We must carry on with this Bill as a step forward in the march of progress. It is not a question of a single Chamber today; it is a question of reforming or amending the composition of the House of Lords. Whenever the Bill has been discussed in this House I have been satisfied that the Tory Party have proved themselves to be the champions of reaction. They have endeavoured to buttress an obsolete and outworn system of undemocratic organisation. Well, they will have an opportunity of putting this matter before the electorate in a few months' time. I am convinced that the electorate will return this party. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Hon. Members opposite can cheer. The boy who lost his courage when passing the graveyard in the night whistled to try to get back his courage. That is what the Tory Party are trying to do.
  One great statesman said of the House of Lords that it was the watchdog of the Constitution. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Hon. Members will agree with that, but another one said it was the obedient poodle of the Tory Party. Two statesmen said that of a reactionary bastion, the pillars of which are falling one by one. The confidence of the Tory Party, which they have tried to show in most of their speeches this evening, is only a shallow confidence. Deep down in their hearts there is no real confidence. They are like sick men, and a sick man is always more confident of recovery when he is on his death bed. That is the position of the Tory Party. The nearer hon. Members opposite approach the catastrophe of 1950, the greater will be their attempt to show how they still have courage to face the electorate. In 1945 the decision of the electorate was unexpected. The decision of 1950—
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Bowles): The hon. Member is getting very wide of the Third Reading of the Parliament Bill.
  Mr. Awbery: Since this Bill came to this House two years ago the Tories have been conscious that they were playing on a sticky wicket. They have been digging and searching for truth, facts and figures. When they found the truth and the facts they looked at them in
  1796
  the face and were so astounded and amazed at what they saw that they threw most of them back. They threw back half the truth and three-quarters of the facts and figures they found. With the little bit they had left, they mixed some wishful thinking, some hope and some fear and out of that mixture, mélange or jumble they gave to the people of this country a book called "The Right Road for Britain." [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am glad hon. Members are cheering. They have to do something to keep up their hearts. What they have produced to fight the election upon I consider to be a bundle of negations wrapped up in a coloured handkerchief, and they will not win an election on it.
  9.14 p.m.
  Captain Crookshank: After the somewhat mixed metaphors of the hon. Member for Central Bristol (Mr. Awbery) may I come back to the Bill? In doing so I should like to welcome the arrival of the Lord President of the Council. On the last occasion that this matter was before the House, he took it upon himself—I do not know why—to chip my right hon. Friends because during these Debates it was not always the same right hon. or hon. Gentleman who spoke, whereas, of course, up to that moment we had the consistent duet of himself and the Home Secretary. The classic comedy of the one and the uproarious farce of the other were always part of the show.
  Today, as we have come up the straight, he thought it was no longer necessary for his guiding hand to be there, so he sent us the suavity of the Attorney-General and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster—who may be anything before he is done, for all I know. We have had this matter before us now for two years. The right hon. Gentleman says he was bored with it and that is why he was not here today. If he was bored with it, it is his own fault. Nobody asked him to introduce this Measure. At least, we certainly did not. It is at this stage that it is proper briefly—because, as the right hon. Gentleman said, this is not the first time we have discussed the matter—to sum up the arguments upon which we think decision should be come to.
  I start by saying that I have not read all the Debates of 1910. I am not so well served as the Lord President of the

  1797
  Council in that sort of thing, and also this is an entirely different world, with different conditions. Indeed, the quotations which I have seen used in this Debate, and which, at first sight might seem to be great attacks upon the House of Lords by the Leader of the Opposition, were made against a different House of Lords in different circumstances [Interruption.] Hon. Gentlemen do not seem to realise what was the effect of the great agitation of those days and of the legislation which followed it.
  The arguments which were then used by my right hon. Friend were used in order to get the Parliament Act upon the Statute Book. He was successful in helping to do that, and the situation is not the same today. Arguments which were then used cannot apply today because they were used against a House of Lords which did not have the power of veto but the power of overthrowing all Bills altogether. They have not that power at all today. They cannot overthrow any Bill if the machinery of the Parliament Act is invoked.
  When hon. and right hon. Gentlemen say, foolishly, that this is the same House of Lords, I commend to them the statistical information in the reference book which lies on the Table of the House. They will see the interesting fact which I do not think has been fully appreciated that, according to the latest figures, the total membership of the House of Lords is 868, and that of that total 457 have been creations since 1908. That is to say that more than half the present House of Lords owe their titles to creations subsequent to the passage of the Parliament Act. [Interruption.] If hon. Members will take a piece of paper I will repeat the figures all over again. The total is 868, and the creations since 1908 have been 457. No fewer than 63 of those creations have taken place in this Parliament upon submissions by this Government. If we are to talk about the general aspect of things we must at least give some weight to that fact. I will put it at no more than that.
  As far as the Bill is concerned, it purports to do two things: to reduce the delaying power of the House of Lords, and retrospectively to allow Bills introduced in this Parliament to benefit by the change in the Parliament Act as the result of the Bill. We said two years ago
  1798
  in 1947, we have said it since up to this very moment, and, for the last time, I say it from this Box, that there is no justification or demand anywhere for the Bill. Secondly, there can be no complaint on the use of their existing powers by the present House. What Bill have they rejected, except this one? Thirdly we say, and continue to say, that all this agitation and talk about constitutional problems is distracting attention from the economic perils from which we are suffering. After all, if we suffered from the whips of the Chancellor of the Duchy before, we are certainly now suffering from the scorpions of his successor, because although the 1947 crisis when the Bill was first under discussion was bad enough, the 1949 crisis seems to me to be even more serious.
  The only conceivable justification I can imagine for the Bill was that suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg). He said that the only justification which could have been put up was that there was a great conflict going on with the other House; but there is not and there has not been a sign of one.
  Mr. Sparks: Why wait for one?
  Captain Crookshank: Let me develop my argument. At the moment I am putting three reasons why we say that the Bill should not have been passed. What we have said ever since it started was that there was no justification, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford said, the only justification could have been that there was a great conflict, when the issue could have been raised and settled. However, there is no conflict and there is no justification. Make no mistake, this is a great constitutional change. What one has all the time to remember—apparently it is often forgotten, judging by the speeches we have heard—is that our constitution is unwritten and highly flexible.
  I have not had time to check it, but I believe I am right in saying that this is the only part of the constitutional procedure which is enacted. I believe I remember reading that years ago. From the very fact that the Constitution is unwritten and from the very fact that Parliament is, to use the phrase of my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge

  1799
  University (Mr. Pickthorn), omnicompetent, any changes which are made in constitutional relationships between the two Houses or between the constituent parts of the Constitution should be made with very great care and with every attempt to try to find agreement and also general national approval.
  That has not happened in this case, and the reason why we have to be so particular about this when it comes to dealing with legislation is a very simple one. Under our arrangements we use exactly the same legislative processes for, if I may use the words of the hymn:
  "All things bright and beautiful,
  All creatures great and small."
  Big issues and small issues appear on the Order Paper the same day and are dealt with by exactly the same process. We give India independence by the same procedure with which we extend the boundaries of a small borough. We settle the laws of citizenship in the same way as we decide the hours of opening for night clubs or the docking and nicking of horses' tails. Look at today's Order Paper. It is proof for me. I did not realise it would be when I was thinking out yesterday what I wanted to say. Order Number 1 is, "Parliament Bill; Committee." That is the greatest constitutional question which this Parliament is internally deciding. Order Number 8 is,
  "Charity of Walter Stanley in West Bromwich Bill."
  Number 17 is:
  "Festival of Britain (Supplementary Provisions) Bill."
  That is the funfairs Bill.
  The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): No.
  Captain Crookshank: All right. It is the amusement section Bill. Number 18 is, "Pet Animals Bill." That shows the scope of the things we have to do, but the point I am trying to impress on hon. Members is that it is exactly the same procedure for dealing with pet animals, horses and so on as for altering the Constitution, and that makes it all the more important that we should be cautious in how we do it. Many other countries have special arrangements by which they alter their Constitution. To introduce something which could, and in the view of at least one hon. Member
  1800
  should, be done in this country—prohibition—we could do it here, were we so foolish, by means of a simple Bill. In the United States they had to do it by a tremendous constitutional process. They had to amend the Constitution to do it and, when they repealed it, they had to have another complicated amendment of the Constitution because it was a constitutional problem. Here we do it by Bill, and I say we have to be much more careful than the Government appear to be at the moment.
  Now I turn to the question, why is this being done? As I remarked just now, my hon. Friend said that the justification would be if there had been a great duel between the two Houses. There has not been. So we have to turn to the authorities, and we find that in 1947 the Home Secretary said that the Bill was being introduced as a general precautionary Measure to complete the 1945 programme. If it were, I should have thought it would have been introduced much earlier to make quite certain that even the Measures which came forward in the early days of the Parliament would he amply safeguarded. Then the same day the Lord President said that the reason for it was that a good Government looks ahead. This Government! He forfeited the title "good" for this Government when he qualified it by saying that it would look ahead.
  Mr. Shurmer: A very good Government.
  Captain Crookshank: The hon. Gentleman will never know another in this House, so in his pipe dreams back in Birmingham next year he can think what a lovely Government it has been and the rest of the country will have shown what they think about it. That was apparently the reason, that a good Government would foresee everything. A theory was given out a fortnight ago by the Lord President when he said that it was based on the simple principle that people, having elected a Labour majority in this House, have a right to expect that its decision will be carried out without obstruction of an improper character by another place. I will not comment on the word "improper" because I do not think it is a relevant adjective in that connection. If the simple principle is that the people, having elected a Labour Party, have a right to expect that its

  1801
  decision will be carried out, how much the more have they the right to expect that all the other things promised to them which do not require legislation should have been carried out long ago? I do not know what the right hon. Gentleman will say to that because that was within their own power—for example, the improvement in food rations, the standard of living, all the rest of it. That did not require any legislation.
  Mr. Sparks: All in good time.
  Captain Crookshank: A good time for the hon. Gentleman is a glass of water, is it not? That he can have at any time excepting in droughts which also coincide with Labour Governments.
  In fact, this means a Government dictatorship. It means that during the five years after the election, a Government is entitled entirely to ignore the growing and changing public opinion. It means that the Government of the day alone knows what is the will of the people all the time. After all, the Government of the day is only a small body. It may be sustained by the majority in this House of Commons during its period of office, but it is asking too much to expect everyone to believe that it and it alone is the repository of wisdom and the sole interpreter of what the people really want.
  Anyhow, that is what the Labour Government thinks is right. It certainly does not coincide with the constitutional theory of this country. The theory of the country is—and I am sure it is right—that the people are the sovereign power, and not the House of Commons.
  Mr. Shurmer: At last.
  Captain Crookshank: The trouble, as has already been pointed out, is that hon. Members opposite, and particularly below the Gangway, know very little about this subject.
  The theory has always been that the sovereignty rests in the people, not in the House of Commons, and still less in a section of the House of Commons represented by His Majesty's Ministers. It is the people who ultimately rule through their répresentatives—[Interruption.]—through their representatives, not their delegates. It naturally follows that the longer a Parliament lasts, changing trends of public opinion are bound to occur.
  Mr. Shurmer: Thirty-five by-elections.
  Captain Crookshank: Prior to the Parliament Act the House of Lords used to have full power of throwing out any Bill. The Parliament Act, passed about 40 years ago, changed that into delaying powers. It was done, I imagine, because the Radical element in the population—if we like so to call the Liberal Party of that time—appreciated that there must be some delaying powers somewhere. As, obviously, those powers could not reside here because what was being talked about was Bills sent from this House, and since they obviously could not reside in the Crown, the powers were left, therefore, in the Second Chamber. Ever since then the House of Lords have taken the view that what they are entitled to say is not—as some hon. Members during these long Debates have been trying to make out—that, "We know the people do not like this." The House of Lords have taken the view, "We do not think the people would like this and we will hold it up; if you want to ask them, ask them," bearing in mind—this is another point which is also very much glossed over by speakers for the Government—that the Parliament Act works in spite of a General Election; there is a carry-over provision.
  Therefore, there is nothing so terrible about that proposition, for it follows that it is quite untrue to pretend that by rejecting a Bill the House of Lords would be attempting to control the date of the elections. They certainly have nothing to do with that because the Parliament Act, so far as concerns the first, second or even the third Session, can operate after a General Election has intervened. Forty years ago it was agreed that there should be delaying powers somewhere. The Government still agree, because the object of this manoeuvre is to take away the delaying powers in the fourth Session. They are still there in the fifth Session and therefore, in logic, if the Government really wanted to do away with them altogether, we should be discussing an entirely different Bill.
  When we come to the public grounds outside Parliament upon which to justify the Bill, we are told that it is because at the last General Election, in their famous document, Labour said that they would not tolerate obstruction from the House of Lords. They have never had

  1803
  that obstruction. They cannot point to a single issue where it has arisen. Even so, words like that in a party manifesto certainly would never have brought it to the minds of anyone who read them that what was intended was to tinker with the Constitution. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Certainly not. In 1947, when the Bill first started its passage through Parliament, we were told, "Well, of course, there might be obstruction." There was still time for it to occur, but there has not been any. It is really quite unnecessary, therefore, to proceed with the Bill at all.
  I agree with something which was said—I am afraid to a very small House—by my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford that it is quite an outrage to use the procedure of the Parliament Act to amend the Parliament Act, for the reason he pointed out, that the Parliament Act was merely, as the Preamble says, a temporary one leading up to a general reform. It was certainly never intended that that machinery should be used to alter it.
  With all these powers which are now being more and more concentrated in the hands of the Government, there is always a risk—I will not quote it again because it is on record, but it was a quotation from Mr. Lees-Smith's book—of the minority intimidating the Government itself and that is a risk which should be avoided. It is true that in the course of this Parliament we have passed a number of Measures for which there was no kind of authority in the so-called mandate of the party opposite. I am not complaining of that, because the authority could not have been there. They were not able to foretell, for example, that in this Parliament we would have to deal with the problem of Ireland in the way we did; they might not have been able to forecast that we would have to deal with India in the way we did; and they certainly did not know that we would have to deal with devaluation. They did not tell their supporters in the country that they proposed to introduce industrial conscription. Yet all that has been done.
  Therefore, to try to pretend that somehow or other the existing delaying powers of the House of Lords are hampering to a Government of the Left when it has
  1804
  to pass legislation is not true, first because they cannot point to a single case where that has happened and, secondly, if they are trying to carry out their so-called mandate they have had a full opportunity and Bills have been passed in another place and, when dealing with unforeseen circumstances, like Ireland, India and other matters I have mentioned, they have had no difficulty.
  The final argument is that the present House of Lords is a place where the parties are very unequal. If that is so, change the composition of the House of Lords, as my right hon. and learned Friend pointed out was inherent in the original Parliament Act. I urge the House not to pass this Bill tonight. I go back to my original statement that constitutional Measures and changes like this ought to be discussed with far more care and have far more public support titan is apparent for this Bill.
  On one occasion when this was being discussed, the Home Secretary said that the passage of the Bill would be a Christmas present for democracy. I do not know which of them is Santa Claus, but if it was a present I should be very careful for fear that it might turn out to be a Trojan horse in which a very big advance might be made towards a single Chamber Government and the one-party State. It is ominous that at the last stage of these discussions the Attorney-General should have been brought in with his famous dictum of, "We are the masters now." But, if it is a Trojan horse, he will be a very good-looking jockey for it.
  At the end of his speech the other day the Home Secretary, echoing words used in another connection, in another place, said that this was for "the third time of asking." I presume he remembered the antecedent words—
  "If any of you know cause, or just impediment"—
  to a certain action—
  "ye are to declare it."
  Right through these two years of debate on this subject we have done our best to show what we consider are the "just cause" why this House should not pass this Bill tonight. We are against the growing concentration of power at the centre, of which this is but one more example. We are against upsetting the existing balance between the two Houses.

  1805
  We are against making constitutional changes for which there is no public demand and no justification. We are against the taking of retroactive powers for reasons undisclosed—I emphasise that—in fact we are against the Bill and so will we vote.
  9.40 p.m.
  The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Dalton): I should like to begin by thanking the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Leader of the Liberal Party for promising us tonight the support of his cohorts in the Division Lobby. We are not always sure of them but we are very happy to have them when they come. Tonight, with the aid of the Liberal Party, this Bill will be read the Third time, for the third time in two years; it will then go to the other House and either the other House will pass it or it will by-pass the other House, as they prefer, and be presented for the Royal Assent even against their will.
  Air-Commodore Harvey: With a song in the right hon. Gentleman's heart?
  Mr. Dalton: Why not? This is quite a suitable season for the quotation from my right hon. Friend's speech regarding Christmas gifts soon to be distributed. [An HON. MEMBER: "What are they standing at to-day?"] If the hon. Gentleman has not got any, he should buy now; now is the time.
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe), to whose speech I listened with great attention, as always, argued that this Bill was defective in a number of respects, and I shall refer to some of his arguments in due course. I do not think that he can deny, however, that over the two years during which this Bill has been before the country, there has not been manifested any passionate resentment or opposition to it, nor any great response to the arguments which the Opposition in this House have used against it, even the argument about its retrospective character, to which the right hon. and learned Gentleman referred.
  So far as we can judge, this Bill has not been a leading issue in the case of the Opposition in the country, or in the Press, or in the by-elections that have taken
  1806
  place. They have not made very much of it as an issue, and if they have done so it has certainly not been a very effective issue in the sense of influencing public opinion and diversifying the doleful diary of defeats in by-elections which the Opposition have sustained.
  As to the retrospective character which is alleged, I doubt, if I may say so with respect to a high legal authority such as the right hon. and learned Gentleman is, whether it is properly to be described as retro-active or retrospective, because clear notice was given from the beginning when the Bill was first introduced that it would operate in the manner set out in regard to Measures passed for the first time before the Royal Assent was given to this Bill. I do not judge it fair to describe that as retrospective of retro-active legislation in the objectionable sense. We would all agree that there is a sense in which retrospective legislation is objectionable; that is surely when circumstances are altered without due warning and persons have been led into misconceptions in the light of subsequent legislation. That is not so here, and that argument cannot be sustained.
  However that may be, the case for this Bill is very short and very simple. I will restate it in one sentence. The Lords still, as 40 years ago, represent no one but themselves, they are still unreformed—the right hon. and learned Gentleman made a complaint on that point and I shall reply to that part of his speech in a moment—and it is not to be tolerated that, in these later days, they should still have power to twist and distort legislation passed by this House of Commons, whatever the complexion of the House of Commons may be. It is for that reason that we propose, as a further step in the British manner proceeding step by step, to abbreviate the powers still left to them under the Parliament Act, 1911. We propose simply to substitute a period of one year for a period of two years, and a period of two Sessions for a period of three Sessions. We propose putting the thing in the simplest possible way, to clip their feathers to the extent of one-half.
  Mr. Marples: Make them more streamlined.
  Mr. Dalton: What still remains to the Lords, as has been argued on the other side of the House, is a considerable power

  1807
  of delay, perhaps of very important Measures for, perhaps, a critical period of time. But we proceed stage by stage. [HON. MEMBERS: "What is the next stage?"]
  Now I come to the question of reform, and to the Preamble—the famous Preamble—to the Parliament Act, 1911, which the right hon. and learned Gentleman quoted again today. There is, it is true, no reform of the House of Lords in this Bill. The famous Liberal Government, of which the present Leader of the Opposition was a very distinguished member, in 1911 put into the Parliament Bill of that time a Preamble which I will quote again because I want to comment upon the terms of it. It stated:
  "And whereas it is intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis, but such substitution cannot be immediately brought into operation…"
  Mr. Asquith, then Prime Minister, said in a phrase we all remember that this reform of the Lords "brooked no delay." [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Oh, yes; "hear, hear"; but it is rather late for hon. Members to say that on the other side of the House, because it has been delayed for nearly 40 years, including a long period between the wars. It would not have been expected in war time, but between the wars, for a long period during which an overwhelming Conservative majority sat in this House, they did nothing about it. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] They did not.
  Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: The right hon. Gentleman probably did not mean to say that. He will remember that in 1922 they put forward proposals; that in 1927 they put forward fresh proposals on which the Labour Party moved a Vote of Censure; that in 1933 they put forward proposals to which Lord Ponsonby, on behalf of the Labour Party, objected in the House of Lords.
  Mr. Dalton: They did nothing about it by way of legislation. There were discussions; there were proposals put forward from time to time; but my point is—and it cannot be denied—that no legislative action was taken by the Conservative Government—successive Conservative Governments—which commanded majorities both here and in the
  1808
  other House. If, therefore, this matter has been left to lie on the table a long time, the principal blame lies on the Conservative Party, who could not, in fact, come to agreement amongst themselves as to how to implement the Preamble. That is clearly the case in the light of the history of the matter.
  I will add this. There were recently discussions that have been referred to between representatives of the various parties; and we read—I hold the White Paper here—what they were provisionally agreed upon in respect of the composition, supposing it had been possible to get agreement over the whole field. I shall quote in a moment from its paragraphs; but I should like to suggest to the House that the party leaders themselves, including the Conservative Party representatives, have moved a long way from the terms of that Preamble, because the Preamble which I have just read speaks of a Second Chamber constituted on a popular—I repeat popular—instead of an hereditary basis, and I think it is Within our recollection or, at any rate, in the records which we have studied—that in 1911 and 1910, when these matters were under discussion in Parliament and the country, the notion of an elected Second Chamber was very much in the forefront of discussion, and I judge that the use of the word "popular" by the Liberal Government of that time in the Preamble was intended to signify a Chamber, at any rate partly, elected in some manner direct or indirect. That is my recollection of the run of the discussions.
  Earl Winterton: I have a very vivid recollection of those days. The right hon. Gentleman is doing the Conservative Party of those days some injustice because we constantly, between 1911 and 1914, asked the Government, including my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, when they were going to implement their pledge, and being Liberals they did not do so.
  Mr. C. Davies: I am grateful for the interruption of the noble Lord. Does he also remember that during those years, 1911 to 1914, the Liberal Government had to pass through this House the Home Rule Bill and the Welsh Church (Dis-establishment) Bill in successive years, and on 4th August war broke out.

  1809
  Since then the Conservatives have been in power.
  Mr. Dalton: We are gradually getting the history filled in. Of course, the strictures of the noble Lord on the Liberal Party of those days must fall with crushing weight upon the present Leader of the Opposition who was a very active and influential Member of that Government. After the first World War, the blame must rest—and I do not think that the hon. Gentlemen who interrupted can question this—the responsibility must rest on those parties who had the majorities in this and the other House—that is to say, the Conservative Party themselves.
  The point that I was seeking to make was that in the recent discussions between the party leaders it was stated as one of the provisional terms of agreement that the Second Chamber should be complementary and not a rival to the Lower House, and that the reform of the House of Lords should be based on a modification of the existing Constitution as opposed to the establishment of a Second Chamber of a completely new type based on some system of election. That may be right or wrong. This moves a long distance from the earlier conception in the Preamble of a Second Chamber based on a popular, as distinct from a hereditary, basis. So we have all moved away from that Preamble in these days.
  The House of Lords has been allowed to remain, in terms of its constitution, unreformed. The hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg) said that its composition commanded no public respect—a statement in which many others will agree with him—and, having been left unaltered for 40 years, it follows that what this Bill does has to be judged against the background of this particular House of Lords. It is this House of Lords whose composition commands no public respect, and it is this House of Lords whose powers we propose to diminish. That is the purpose of this Bill. If an argument is to be developed against the House of Lords, it is perfectly proper to quote things said of this same House of Lords at an earlier date.
  For example, one high authority said of the House of Lords, that it was "one-sided, hereditary, unpurged, unrepresentative, irresponsible, absentee." These were
  1810
  words which the present Leader of the Opposition used about them when speaking in this House in 1907 in support of Campbell Bannerman's famous resolution. It deserves today every one of those epithets, as it deserved them then. This is the House of Lords on which we are legislating now.
  Absentees—we have had other discussions about absentees in this House and also about incentive payments. I hope that the House will remember that one of the efforts which this Government have made to diminish absenteeism in another place is by providing incentive payments for what are described as regular attenders, and it is now possible for noble Lords who attend on 25 per cent. of the days worked to be paid their travelling expenses. That is a great reform which was carried into operation when I was at the Treasury, and I hope it will not be thought to be an example of profligate expenditure. Whether it has produced very beneficial effects with regard to voluntary absenteeism in another place I have not checked up, but I have my doubts. The truth is that it is very difficult at this time in the history of our public institutions for anyone to get up and defend the House of Lords as it is still constituted.
  The right hon. and gallant Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank) quoted some figures regarding the dates at which new Peers had been created. It is of course true that there is a flow of new Peers into the House of Lords from time to time. The flow varies, and I think was strongest in the days of the Lloyd George-Conservative coalition; that was when the new creations were most frequent. The flow has fluctuated from time to time since then. But the relatively recent arrivals are never a majority of the whole; we still have the blend of what I might call the natural and the synthetic elements, in which the natural at any given moment always predominate; and, after a time, the synthetic elements change character as by radioactivity or chemical action and become natural elements.
  For this reason, I ask the leave of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, and of the hon. and learned Member for Brighton (Mr. Marlowe) who made the same point, to quote once more from an inexhaustible treasure house of inspiration

  1811
  and invective which I keep on my library shelves regarding the character of this still fundamentally unchanged and unrepresentative Second Chamber. This is just as apt now as it was when the present Leader of the Opposition spoke these words, not in this House but in Lancashire:
  "The House of Lords have only been tolerated all these years because they were thought to be in a comatose condition which preceded dissolution. They have got to dissolution now. That this body, utterly unrepresentative and utterly unreformed, should come forward and claim the right"—
  and then he described the various claims they made at that time, and went on:
  "is a spectacle which a year ago"—
  speaking in 1909—
  "no one would have believed could happen, a spectacle which fifty years ago no Peer would have dared to suggest, and which two hundred years ago would not have been discussed in the amiable though active manner of a political campaign, but would have been settled by charges of cavalry and the steady advance of ironclad pikemen."
  I remember well how thrilled I was as an undergraduate at Cambridge when those speeches were made and that book came out. I have cherished it ever since, with a picture of the right hon. Gentleman, as he was 40 years ago, upon the cover, showing a very handsome and eager countenance, who at that time tackled these problems with the same ardour and attractive vigour and power of speech which he has shown on so many occasions since. Everything he said then about the Lords in his tour of Lancashire is still true of the Lords as we know them now. I will quote one more passage:
  "We are not the aboriginal inhabitants of some newly discovered South Sea Island. We are not the children being educated at school. We are the leading civilised community in the world, and we are not going to have our affairs mismanaged, and we are not going to have our national name degraded by being tied up in the leading strings of snobbishness and antiquated usage."
  That is as true now as ever it was. What we are therefore asking the House to do tonight is to give a Third Reading to this Bill so warmly commended by the present Leader of the Opposition in words which are still most relevant.
  Mr. Marlowe: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain this rather difficult point? He has referred to speeches of commendation made by the Leader of
  1812
  the Opposition when he was endeavouring to secure the passage of the 1911 Act. Why does he find it surprising that, having achieved that result, the Leader of the Opposition now defends the Act which he got into operation?
  Mr. Dalton: I do not find it surprising. What I find invigorating and instructive is the language used by the Leader of the Opposition about the House of Lords which, in spite of the passage of years, remains in composition substantially the same. All these words I have quoted, which support and buttress my case, and many more, the hon. and learned Member will be happy to read if he has not already read them.
  Reform of the House of Lords can wait, in our view. Many alternative possibilities may be suggested. It is said that this Bill is not urgent. Certainly the reform of a Second Chamber is not urgent. Alternative proscriptions have been offered, I remember the late Jack Jones' pungent comment—"Reform! I would give them chloroform." That is a point of view, to which we are not committed as a Government. Many other points of view may, in due course, be deployed and considered when we have a little leisure on our hands after the next Election. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am surprised to find the Opposition wishing to describe themselves as a leisured class, because I thought that even the Opposition worked hard.
  As far as the reform of the House of Lords is concerned, that can wait, but as far as the reduction of their powers is concerned, that is urgent. I make these general observations about the purposes for which this Bill is to be used. It can be used in the future for any suitable purpose whenever the Lords are discovered blocking or unduly delaying any Measure passed by this House. Do not suppose it has been created with too narrow an object. The hon. Member for Oxford gave a very good illustration of a possible future use to which this Bill might be put. He suggested that some ingenious persons in the House of Lords might find a method of delaying and obstructing the Government's programme by refusing to give approval to statutory regulations, Prayers and the like. So far they have not so dared, but if they

  1813
  do so dare it will be necessary to take measures to stop that hole, and it will be very convenient to have this Bill to assist us in so doing.
  I submit to the House that this Bill is in the direct line of British democratic advancement. It is a characteristically British Measure, gradually diminishing privilege and unjustifiable power and extending the powers and rights of the chosen representatives of the people. I ask the Opposition, in view of the many appeals we hear in these days for the cessation of party controversy and the creation of national unity, to let us have an example of that tonight. After all they lose nothing, knowing how the vote will go, as in this House of Commons it will
  always go, on deep and fundamental questions. Would it not be a generous gesture of conciliation? Would it not be a really strong argument on their side, in support of their appeal for national unity, and to remove from our midst all needless controversy, if they would allow, despite all the speeches they have made and their deep feelings on the matter, if they would allow this Bill to have an unopposed Third Reading, and so permit the Home Secretary's Christmas present to be distributed by common consent among the people?
  Question put, "That 'now' stand part of the Question."
  The House divided: Ayes, 340 Noes, 187.

  Kinghorn, Sqn.-Ldr. E.

  Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)

  Summerskill, Rt. Hon. Edith

  Kinley, J.

  Palmer, A. M. F.

  Swingler, S.

  Lang, G.

  Pannell, T. C.

  Sylvester, G. O.

  Lavers, S.

  Pargiter, G. A.

  Symonds, A. L.

  Lee, F. (Hulme)

  Parker J.

  Taylor, H. B. (Mansfield)

  Lee, Miss J. (Cannock)

  Parkin, B. T.

  Taylor, Dr. S. (Barnet)

  Leonard, W.

  Paton, Mrs. F. (Rushcliffe)

  Thomas, D. E. (Aberdare)

  Leslie, J. R.

  Paton, J. (Norwich)

  Thomas, I. O. (Wrekin)

  Lewis, A. W. J. (Upton)

  Pearson, A.

  Thomas, John R. (Dover)

  Lewis, J. (Bolton)

  Peart, T. F.

  Thorneycroft, Harry (Clayton)

  Lindgren, G. S.

  Poole, Cecil (Lichfield)

  Thurtle, Ernest

  Logan, D. G.

  Popplewell, E.

  Tiffany, S.

  Longden, F.

  Porter, E. (Warrington)

  Timmons, J.

  Lyne, A. W.

  Porter, G. (Leeds)

  Tolley, L.

  McAdam, W.

  Price, M. Philips

  Tomlinson, Rt. Hon. G.

  McAllister, G.

  Pritt, D. N.

  Turner-Samuels, M.

  McEntee, V. La T.

  Proctor, W. T.

  Ungoed-Thomas, L.

  McGhee, H. G.

  Pryde, D. J.

  Usborne, Henry

  McGovern, J.

  Pursey, Comdr. H.

  Vernon, Maj. W. F.

  Mack, J. D.

  Randall, H. E.

  Viant, S. P.

  McKay, J. (Wallsend)

  Ranger, J.

  Walkden, E.

  Mackay, R. W. G. (Hull, N. W.)

  Rankin, J.

  Walker, G. H.

  McLeavy, F.

  Reeves, J.

  Wallace, G. D. (Chislehurst)

  MacMillan, M. K. (Western Isles)

  Reid, T. (Swindon)

  Wallace, H. W. (Walthamstow, E.)

  MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)

  Richards, R.

  Warbey, W. N.

  Macpherson, T. (Romford)

  Ridealgh, Mrs. M.

  Watkins, T. E.

  Mainwaring, W. H.

  Robens, A.

  Watson, W. M.

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

  Roberts, Emrys (Merioneth)

  Webb, M. (Bradford, C.)

  Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield)

  Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvonshire)

  Weitzman, D.

  Mann, Mrs. J.

  Robertson, J. J. (Berwick)

  Wells, P. L. (Faversham)

  Manning, C. (Camberwell, N.)

  Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancres, N.)

  Wells, W. T. (Walsall)

  Manning, Mrs. L. (Epping)

  Rogers, G. H. R.

  West, D. G.

  Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.

  Ross, William (Kilmarnock)

  Wheatley, Rt. Hon. John (Edinb'gh, E.)

  Mathers, Rt. Hon. George

  Royle, C.

  White, H. (Derbyshire, N. E.)

  Mayhew, C. P.

  Sargood, R.

  Wigg, George

  Medland, H. M.

  Scollan, T.

  Wilcock, Group-Capt. C. A. B.

  Mellish, R. J.

  Scott-Elliot, W.

  Wilkes, L.

  Middleton, Mrs. L.

  Segal, Dr. S.

  Wilkins, W. A.

  Mikardo, Ian

  Shackleton, E. A. A.

  Willey, F. T. (Sunderland)

  Millington, Wing-Comdr. E. R.

  Sharp, Granville

  Willey, O. G. (Cleveland)

  Mitchison, G. R.

  Shawcross, C. N. (Widnes)

  Williams, D. J. (Neath)

  Monslow, W.

  Shawcross, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (St. Helens)

  Williams, J. L. (Kelvingrove)

  Moody, A. S.

  Shurmer, P.

  Williams, Ronalld (Wigan)

  Morgan, Dr. H. B.

  Silkin, Rt. Hon. L.

  Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)

  Morley, R.

  Silverman, J. (Erdington)

  Williams, W. T. (Hammersmith, S.)

  Morris, Lt.-Col. H. (Sheffield, C.)

  Silverman, S. S. (Nelson)

  Williams, W. R. (Heston)

  Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Lewisham, E.)

  Simmons, C. J.

  Willis, E.

  Moyle, A.

  Skeffington-Lodge, T. C.

  Wills, Mrs. E. A.

  Murray, J. D.

  Skinnard, F. W.

  Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. H.

  Nally, W.

  Smith, C. (Colchester)

  Wise, Major F. J.

  Naylor, T. E.

  Smith, Ellis (Stoke)

  Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

  Neal, H. (Claycross)

  Smith, S. H. (Hull, S. W.)

  Woods, G. S.

  Nichol, Mrs. M. E. (Bradford, N.)

  Snow, J. W.

  Wyatt, W.

  Nicholls, H. R. (Stratford)

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Yates, V. F.

  Noel-Baker, Capt. F. E. (Brentford)

  Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

  Young, Sir R. (Newton)

  Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. J. (Derby)

  Sparks, J. A.

  Younger, Hon. Kenneth

  Noel-Buxton, Lady

  Steele, T.

  O'Brien, T.

  Stokes, R. R.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Oldfield, W. H.

  Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.

  Mr. William Whiteley and

  Oliver, G. H.

  Strauss, Rt. Hon. G. R. (Lambeth)

  Mr. R. J. Taylor.

  Orbach, M.

  Stubbs, A. E.

  NOES

  Agnew, Cmdr. P. G.

  Channon, H.

  Eden, Rt. Hon. A.

  Amory, D. Heathcoat

  Clarke, Col. R. S.

  Elliot, Lieut.-Col. Rt. Hon. Walter

  Assheton, Rt. Hon. R.

  Clifton-Brown, Lt.-Col. G.

  Erroll, F. J.

  Astor, Hon. M.

  Cole, T. L.

  Fleming, Sqn.-Ldr. E. L.

  Baldwin, A. E.

  Conant, Maj. R. J. E.

  Fletcher, W. (Bury)

  Barlow, Sir J.

  Corbett, Lieut.-Col. U. (Ludlow)

  Foster, J. G. (Northwich)

  Baxter, A. B.

  Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C.

  Fox, Sir G.

  Beamish, Maj. T. V. H.

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.

  Fraser, H. C. P. (Stone)

  Bennett, Sir P.

  Crowder, Capt. John E.

  Fraser, Sir I. (Lonsdale)

  Boles, Lt.-Col. D. C. (Wells)

  Cuthbert, W. N.

  Fyfe, Rt. Hon. Sir D. P. M.

  Boothby, R.

  De la Bère, R.

  Gage, C.

  Boyd-Carpenter, J. A.

  Digby, S. Wingfield

  Galbraith, Cmdr. T. D. (Pollok)

  Bracken, Rt. Hon. Brendan

  Dodds-Parker, A. D.

  Galbraith, T. G. D. (Hillhead)

  Braithwaite, Lt.-Comdr. J. G.

  Donner, P. W.

  Gammans, L. D.

  Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W.

  Dower, Col. A. V. G. (Penrith)

  Gates, Maj. E. E.

  Bullock, Capt. M.

  Drayson, G. B.

  Gomme-Duncan, Col. A.

  Butcher, H. W.

  Dugdale, Maj. Sir T. (Richmond)

  Gridley, Sir A.

  Butler, Rt. Hn. R. A. (S'ffr'n W'ld'n)

  Duncan, Rt. Hn. Sir A. (City of Lond.)

  Grimston R. V.

  Carson, E.

  Duthie, W. S.

  Hannon, Sir P. (Moseley)

  Challen, C.

  Eccles, D. M.

  Harden, J. R. E.

  1816

  1817

  Hare, Hon. J. H. (Woodbridge)

  MacLeod, J.

  Ross, Sir R. D. (Londonderry)

  Harris, F. W. (Croydon, N.)

  Macmillan, Rt. Hon. Harold (Bromley)

  Sanderson, Sir F.

  Harvey, Air-Comdre. A. V.

  Macpherson, N. (Dumfries)

  Savory, Prof. D. L.

  Haughton, S. G.

  Maitland, Comdr. J. W.

  Scott, Lord W.

  Head, Brig. A. H.

  Manningham-Buller, R. E.

  Shephard, S. (Newark)

  Henderson, John (Cathcart)

  Marlowe, A. A. H.

  Shepherd, W. S. (Bucklow)

  Hinchingbrooke, Viscount

  Marples, A. E.

  Smiles, Lt.-Col. Sir W.

  Hogg, Hon. Q.

  Marshall, D. (Bodmin)

  Smith, E. P. (Ashford)

  Hollis, M. C.

  Marshall, S. H. (Sutton)

  Spearman, A. C. M.

  Holmes, Sir J. Stanley (Harwich)

  Mellor, Sir J.

  Spence, H. R.

  Hope, Lord J.

  Molson, A. H. E.

  Stewart, J. Henderson (Fife, E.)

  Howard, Hon. A.

  Moore, Lt.-Col. Sir T.

  Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.

  Hudson, Rt. Hon. R. S. (Southport)

  Morris-Jones, Sir H.

  Strauss Henry (English Universities)

  Hurd, A.

  Morrison, Maj. J. G. (Salisbury)

  Stuart, Rt. Hon. J. (Moray)

  Hutchison, Lt.-Cm. Clark (E'b'rgh W.)

  Morrison, Rt. Hon. W. S. (Cirencester)

  Studholme, H. G.

  Hutchison, Col. J. R. (Glasgow, C.)

  Mott-Radclyffe, C. E.

  Sutcliffe, H.

  Jeffreys, General Sir G.

  Mullan, Lt. C. H.

  Taylor, Vice-Adm. E. A (P'dd't'n, S.)

  Jennings, R.

  Neill, W. F. (Belfast, N.)

  Teeling, William

  Joynson-Hicks, Hon. L. W.

  Neven-Spence, Sir B.

  Thomas, Ivor (Keighley)

  Keeling, E. H.

  Nicholson, G.

  Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)

  Kerr, Sir J. Graham

  Nield, B. (Chester)

  Thorneycroft, G. E. P. (Monmouth)

  Kingsmill, Lt.-Col. W. H.

  Noble, Comdr. A. H. P.

  Thornton-Kemsley, C. N.

  Lambert, Hon. G.

  Nutting, Anthony

  Thorp, Brigadier R. A. F.

  Lancaster, Col. C. G.

  Odey, G. W.

  Touche, G. C.

  Langford-Holt, J.

  O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir H.

  Turton, R. H.

  Law, Rt. Hon. R. K.

  Orr-Ewing, I. L.

  Vane, W. M. F.

  Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.

  Osborne, C.

  Wakefield, Sir W. W.

  Lennox-Boyd, A. T.

  Pato, Brig. C. H. M.

  Walker-Smith, D.

  Lindsay, M. (Solihull)

  Pickthorn, K.

  Ward, Hon. G. R.

  Linstead, H. N.

  Pitman, I. J.

  Webbe, Sir H. (Abbey)

  Lipson, D. L.

  Ponsonby, Col. C. E.

  Wheatley, Colonel M. J. (Dorset, E.)

  Lloyd, Maj. Guy (Rentrew, E.)

  Poole, O. B. S. (Oswestry)

  White, Sir D. (Fareham)

  Lloyd, Selwyn (Wirral)

  Prescott, Stanley

  White, J. B. (Canterbury)

  Low, A. R. W.

  Price-White, D.

  Williams, C. (Torquay)

  Lucas, Major Sir J.

  Prior-Palmer, Brig. O.

  Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir H.

  Raikes, H. V.

  Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

  Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. O.

  Ramsay, Maj. S.

  Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl

  MacAndrew, Col. Sir C.

  Rayner, Brig. R.

  York, C.

  MacDonald, Sir M. (Inverness)

  Reed, Sir S. (Aylesbury)

  Young, Sir A. S. L. (Partick)

  Macdonald, Sir P. (I. of Wight)

  Renton, D.

  McFarlane, C. S.

  Roberts, H. (Handsworth)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Mackeson, Brig. H. R.

  Roberts, P. G. (Ecclesall)

  Mr. Buchan-Hepburn and

  McKie, J. H. (Galloway)

  Robinson, Roland (Blackpool, S.)

  Mr. Drewe.

  Maclean, F. H. R. (Lancaster)

  Ropner, Col. L.

  Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

  INCOME TAX EVASION
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Popplewell.]
  10.16 p.m.
  Mr. Douglas Houghton: In raising the matter of Income Tax evasion this evening, I have not the purpose to criticise the devoted band of public servants who are serving in the Income Tax offices throughout the country. Still less is it my purpose to criticise the general mass of good citizens and honest taxpayers who are bearing their burdens with admirable cheerfulness, fortified in many cases no doubt by wholehearted approval of the social and financial policies of the Labour Government. We have astonished the world by our willingness to pay taxes. There are three times as many taxpayers, paying in total three times as much money, as before the war. That alone is testimony to our capacity for social discipline.
  1818
  When we are accused of living beyond our means, our accusers should acknowledge the great sacrifices which the British people are making in taxation.
  In an article in "The Economist" in August of last year, a very great tribute was paid to the British taxpayer. It was said there that the tax-paying subject, the British citizen, was one of the most remarkable economic phenomena of all time. But the taxpayer is human, after all. We all dislike parting with our possessions and, since Income Tax is a method of parting us from our possessions, there is a very strong temptation to avoid paying the tax. The rewards of avoiding taxation at the present level are extremely effective. The married man whose income is £500 a year and who escapes paying tax is approximately £73 better off. If a person pays on £500 instead of £700, he can be up to £80 better off. If he pays on £1,000 instead of £1,500, he can avoid paying tax up to £200. When there is evasion among taxpayers whose total income is above the Surtax limit of £2,000, the rewards of evasion are greater still.

  1819
  There are two kinds of evasion. A frequent one is legal evasion which in many cases is something worse than the mere arrangement of one's affairs so as to keep the charge to tax as low as possible. Legal evasion as we understand it is a contrivance and a device, and sometimes a dubious one, by which wealthy taxpayers, with the aid of astute advisers, are able to keep substantial sources of income outside the charge of tax under the Income Tax Act. However, since those matters require legislation to be remedied, I cannot refer to them now and I mention them only in passing to distinguish one kind of evasion from another.
  I wish to deal with evasion which can and should be remedied by more stringent administration. There are two types of Income Tax payers today, those paying under Pay-as-You-Earn and those paying under Schedule D. I saw in an article in "The Economist" last year that certain inspectors of taxes confided to a contributor that tax evasion in the eyes of some inspectors is no longer a risky proceeding so much as a standard trade practice. Schedule D on profits and Schedule E on wages and salaries are two different taxes, and half a year's revenue is awaiting collection if evasion could be detected and arrears vigorously pursued.
  I regret to say that in present circumstances the public cannot be even reasonably confident that the taxing machine is doing its job efficiently. There are obvious signs that it is not. Extravagant living on one of three sources of income is obvious to those who go about the streets and see evident signs of wealth which could not remain in the hands of individuals if taxation were doing its job. In many cases it may be capital gain, in some cases capital spending, and in others tax evasion. What is the nature and the extent of tax evasion? There are those who slip through the net because of lack of effective means of keeping track of tax evaders such as one-man and family businesses, shopkeepers, ice-cream vendors and fish-and-chip stalls, which I see my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War finds preferable to other and more luxurious forms of hospitality. There are garages, boarding houses, catering establishments, window cleaners, chimney sweeps and entertainment proprietors who never come to the attention
  1820
  of the tax inspectors through lack of any reliable sources of information.
  Recently members of the public were shocked to find that the sequel to the investigation into the affairs of a person known as Mr. Sydney Stanley was that bankruptcy proceedings had been taken against him and that the Inland Revenue had put in a preferential claim for £21,000 Income Tax owing over a period of six years. They were shocked to find that under a system of taxation in which they had been led to have great confidence that sort of thing could happen to one whose operations were obviously on such a large scale that members of the public would think he would have fallen into the net of the Income Tax inspectors. Recently there was a music-hall artist against whom bankruptcy proceedings had been taken who, again, was found to owe considerable sums to the Inland Revenue.
  In some instances these cases which surprise and dismay the public are due to the failure of the normal machinery of Income Tax to bring them to the notice of inspectors of taxes. In other cases they are due to confusion and muddle in the affairs of individuals which the good offices of their accountant have failed to get straight and to the fact that the Inland Revenue over a long period has been unable to grapple with the true liability of the individuals concerned. However it may be, there are signs there of circumstances which, quite rightly, give rise to disquiet amongst people who hitherto have had confidence in our Income Tax machine.
  Other forms of evasion are the various devices whereby people escape their full liability through employing cash transactions instead of putting some of their business operations through their books; those who keep two banking accounts: those who employ personal staff charged to business account; those who make bogus claims to be employing their wives at a wage, when they are not, and other means of deceiving accountants and the Inland Revenue alike; or even the deliberate understatement of profits, relying on the pressure on the officers of the Income Tax Department at the present time to enable them to get away with it. There are also sources of income which derive from interest on securities, such as municipal and Government loans,

  1821
  and bank interest, which is paid without deduction of tax and which in many cases the Inland Revenue rely on the taxpayer to disclose if that source of income is to be brought into charge.
  No reliable estimate can be made of the extent of this evasion. A number of guesses have been made, some are large sums, others are of more modest proportions. There is no doubt, however, that in aggregate the extent of evasion is serious today and the total amount of revenue being lost to the State is a large sum.
  Now, what progress has been made so far in tackling this problem? We find on reference to the Appropriation Accounts that the amount recovered from fraud and evasion in the financial year 1947–48 was just over £4 million in 1,411 cases. That is only £1 million more than in the previous year, and it is little higher than in each of the four years before the war. It is £1 million less than in the year 1935, when tax was 4s. 6d. in the pound. So we find that, despite the fact that tax is now 9s. in the pound, and that the amount of income assessed under the heading of profits and gains is nearly twice what it was before the war, little more is being recovered by the Inland Revenue today in each year than when tax was 5s. 6d. in the pound.
  That is a startling commentary on the slow progress which the Inland Revenue is now making to overtake the arrears of cases awaiting investigation, and is an indication, too, of the failure of the Inland Revenue to tackle effectively the wider field of taxation which now lies at their hand. When the number of joint stock companies registered is now approximerely twice what it was before the war, when the number of assessments on profits and gains has risen from approximately 1 million before the war to 1½ million today, the pressure of this work on the Inland Revenue has resulted in the relaxation of scrutiny. It has modified the vigour and the intensity with which the Inland Revenue has previously been able to pursue doubtful cases and to ensure that the full liability is charged in as many cases as possible. Here I ask the Financial Secretary to give the House and the public some assurances concerning the speed and effectiveness with which the Inland Revenue can tighten up its
  1822
  administration and introduce greater stringency of control.
  I have one or two suggestions to make to my right hon. Friend. The first is that more manpower—more inspectors of taxes—is undoubtedly the major answer to the problem confronting the Department today. But since that takes time and since there are large numbers of officers in the Inland Revenue who, after a short training, could be turned over to the work of investigation, I urge on him that the full resources which the Inland Revenue already possess should be turned on to this job. Secondly, I think the Inland Revenue Department should seek greater co-operation from other Departments in regard to the supplying of vital information which will enable Income Tax liabilities to be traced and dealt with. Why, for instance, cannot the Ministry of Food let the Inland Revenue know of all the catering licences issued, and the licences for traders to deal in rationed goods? Why cannot they not know of establishments licensed to sell petrol, car and lorry registrations, particulars of Government contracts, which was a proposal made by the Royal Commission in their Report in 1920, particulars of moneys paid by Government Departments to chemists, doctors and dentists under the National Health Service?
  The Inland Revenue should undoubtedly employ additional manpower on a visual survey of their respective districts with a view to seeking out Income Tax liabilities. It is not generally known that the law requires that persons liable to Income Tax make a disclosure of the fact to the Inland Revenue under penalties prescribed by the Income Tax Act, 1918. Many people wait to be caught into the Income Tax net by inquiries and researches and investigations made by the Income Tax inspectors. Members of the public should be encouraged to disclose their Income Tax liabilities. The Inland Revenue must encourage them to do so by having at its disposal the means to inquire into the resources of residents of luxurious blocks of flats, and residents of expensive hotels, who in many cases are able to evade Income Tax for long periods of time.
  I trust also that the Inland Revenue will encourage those who have been concealing Income Tax liabilities to come forward under the protection of the

  1823
  Chancellor of the Exchequer's statement about the Board's lenient policy toward malefactors who make a voluntary disclosure, the details of which were announced by the Chancellor to the House on 5th October, 1944. Finally, I think it should go forth from the Inland Revenue and from this House that the honeymoon of the tax evader is over and that the taxation authorities must now set about the task with a will and purpose. I would underline the opinion of the Royal Commission of 1920 about the willing acceptance by the public of increased stringency of administration.
  In conclusion, I think the Government and the tax authorities are entitled to appeal for the co-operation of professional bodies, particularly those representing the accountancy profession, because they have a duty to the State as well as to their clients. High standards of professional conduct are plainly asked for in these critical times in the nation's affairs. I trust that assurances on these points may be given by my right hon. Friend.
  10.33 p.m.
  Captain John Crowder: I am sire the public will be grateful to the hon. Gentleman for telling them how they can evade taxes in so many different ways. I gather that in the past the hon. Gentleman had some experience in seeing what was done by members of the public. I should like to make one point, briefly, because I know that the Financial Secretary wishes to reply. This is not all on the public's side as regards blame. After all, the public are entitled not to have to pay more tax than they are legally liable to pay. Not a single month goes by in which I do not receive some form of communication from the Inland Revenue, either a claim form to get tax back or an additional assessment. That goes on every month in the year. When I went away in August and September, I wrote to the Inland Revenue and suggested that these two months might be a close time for taxpayers. I was just about tired of it all.
  There are tax accountants who work in the Inland Revenue, but they do not help the public very much. There was the case in my own experience of a man aged 80 who prepared his own Income Tax returns. I happened to be his executor.
  1824
  When he died we found that he had added up wrongly and that he had paid about £100 too much in tax. We found this out and got the money back. The Inland Revenue did not point out that he had paid too much. I do not think that the Inland Revenue always play fair with the public. In my opinion it is not the case that the public are always trying to evade the tax.
  Modern taxation methods employed by all Governments of the last few years are so complicated that very few people can understand what their liability will be. I hope that in the near future the Government will find time to go into the whole question so as to make taxation clearer to the public. One has to employ an accountant or a bank if one wishes to understand it. I happen to be a member of Lloyds. I go to the bank and say. "Here is the balance-sheet; how much goes in taxation?" They say, "So much goes to N.D.C., so much comes off for E.P.T., so much comes off for Surtax. Therefore, we cannot say until the end of the year." I think the Inland Revenue makes life intolerable for the public, and it is not the fault of the public if they do not pay more than they are liable to pay.
  10.36 p.m.
  Mr. Diamond: I wish to intervene for only two minutes to say that I am sure that all members of the accountancy profession are more than conscious of the fact that their first duty is to the State, although they have a duty to their clients. I am sure that all who have experience of this matter will realise that in many cases accountants have a difficult time in making clear to their clients that the road to perdition is the road of attempted tax evasion, that those who get away with tax evasion do so only for the time being and at a very great risk and rate of interest to themselves.
  I should also like to say, that it is not my experience, at all events—I can only speak for myself—that the Inland Revenue have been in any way reducing their vigour in going into inquiries with regard to the accounts of companies and the tax returns of individuals which are put before them. If my hon. Friend says that the Inland Revenue staff is too greatly reduced. I would accept that argument. Certainly, anyone who tries to

  1825
  get a repayment of tax knows the difficulties which are experienced and which must no doubt be due to that. I can assure my hon. Friend that all practising accountants are put to a considerable amount of trouble—some of them think wholly unnecessary trouble—in satisfying the inspector of taxes that the figures put before him are in all respects correct.
  10.38 p.m.
  The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Glenvil Hall): I was rather surprised that the hon. and gallant Member for Finchley (Captain Crowder) attacked the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton). The hon. and gallant Gentleman indicated that my hon. Friend was giving away tax secrets, by indicating to people who might be so minded how they could avoid paying. It seemed to me he was doing much the same thing in another way. He was inviting people to believe that anyway they were paying too much, and should wait until the last moment and then pay only under duress.
  It may be that both points of view have unfortunately something in them, though both have been somewhat exaggerated. I would like to have details of the case which the hon. and gallant Member gave, because it is my view from some experience with the Inland Revenue that it can catch up on mistakes which have been made and it may well be that in the case of the particular individual to whom he referred the Inland Revenue would have found out that he had overpaid and that the money would have been refunded. If it happened during the war, there were, I admit, at that time some arrears. Things were not done with the celerity which we would have liked to see. But I, for one, was agreeably surprised a fortnight ago to be informed that I had overpaid £50 this last year. If they had not told me I would not have known. But there it is, these things do happen when the Income Tax law is as complicated as it is.
  It is difficult, as I think we all know, to assess accurately the extent of the evasion. If we knew where it was, the evasion would not be there—we would be able to catch up with it and would be able to deal with those who are undoubtedly, at the moment, evading their fair share of tax payments. The experts of the Inland Revenue, however, are confident that the figure is nothing
  1826
  like that given by my hon. Friend; he did not mention it tonight, but during our Debates on the Finance Bill, I think he committed himself to a figure of something like £100 million. There is an amount of evasion, but we are quite certain that it would be unfair if that figure went out, for I am able to state that it is nothing like the £100 million which he feared. The number of people assessable has gone up considerably. We are not dealing here with people assessed under Schedule E; they pay under the P.A.Y.E. system. We are dealing with people who make their own returns, under what is known as Schedule D. Those assessed under Schedule D have increased by 400,000 since 1939, and that figure does not include the farmers who, under the last Finance Act, I believe, are now assessed under that Schedule.
  The real reason why there is an amount of evasion, which we admit to be there, is because of the shortage of inspectors. Before the war, something like 1,700 were doing a far less volume of work than now; they had fewer with whom to deal. The number of inspectors ran down during the war, and 1,430 are at present in the service. It takes three years to give an inspector that basic training which makes him useful in this particular field. It was suggested that some in other grades in the Inland Revenue Department might be used to assist in this direction; and the Inland Revenue authorities would be only too delighted to use those very competent people in this way, if that were possible. But it does, as I have said, take several years to make an inspector competent to undertake this skilled work.
  Also, I would like to remind my hon. Friend and the House that those in the Inland Revenue Department, now on other types of work than that of an inspector, have their hands pretty full anyway. Fourteen million people are now subject to Income Tax—four times as many as were subject to it before the war. Work of one kind and another does make the hands of the ordinary staff pretty full—I should say very full. We are building up the inspectorate as fast as we can, and my hon. Friend, and think the whole House, will ##he glad to know that the number of inspectors in 1951 will be in the neighbourhood of 1,630; only 17 short of the number in those posts in 1939.

  1827
  By 1951, also, another 400 will be partially trained; so that, if there are any individuals evading their tax who read the papers tomorrow, and take note of what has been said tonight, they will know that their days are numbered. The law has a very long arm in this matter; it can go back over the years, and it will catch them eventually. Let there be no mistake about that. The Inland Revenue authorities appointed a committee last February to see what could be done straight away in this direction, and in three districts have strengthened the inspectorate. I had better not name them, but results are expected at no distant date. We have invited the two unions concerned, including the one associated with my hon. Friend, to give the Inland Revenue the benefit of their advice in these matters.
  In the minute left to me, let me assure the House that we have taken note of
  1828
  the suggestions which have been made, not only in the House tonight by my hon. Friend, but also by others. There is leeway to make up, but although the evasion may appear large, it is, I would assure the House, not so big as he has suggested, or as some people would have us believe. Under Schedule D there must be some evasion. People change their names like the man Stanley, they move about, and never have one address for very long. But it would be very unfair to the great body of taxpayers who loyally pay their taxes, for it to go out that a great many people are evading their due share.
  The Question having been proposed after Ten o'Clock and the Debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at Fourteen Minutes to Eleven o'Clock.

  LEGAL AID ACT (OPERATION)
  LEGAL AID ACT (OPERATION)
FOOD SUPPLIES
  Dried Fruit
  Dried Fruit
  Margarine (Groundnut Oil)
  Margarine (Groundnut Oil)
  Retailers' Licences
  Retailers' Licences
  BEER AND SOFT DRINKS (SUGAR ALLOCATIONS)
  BEER AND SOFT DRINKS (SUGAR ALLOCATIONS)
TRANSPORT
  Nationalised Undertakings (Compensation)
  Nationalised Undertakings (Compensation)
  Electrification (Economy Measures)
  Electrification (Economy Measures)
  Channel Tunnel Project
  Channel Tunnel Project
  Piney Bridge, Cheltenham
  Piney Bridge, Cheltenham
  Road Schemes (Postponement)
  Road Schemes (Postponement)
  Steamer Services, Clyde
  Steamer Services, Clyde
  Regional Boundaries (Maps)
  Regional Boundaries (Maps)
  Non-Industrial Staff
  Non-Industrial Staff
GERMANY
  Shipbuilding (Negotiations)
  Shipbuilding (Negotiations)
  Factories (Dismantling)
  Factories (Dismantling)
  Railwaymen, Berlin (Wages)
  Railwaymen, Berlin (Wages)
  Prisoners of War
  Prisoners of War
  Occupation Costs
  Occupation Costs
  COUNCIL OF EUROPE
  COUNCIL OF EUROPE
  UNITED STATES TARIFFS
  UNITED STATES TARIFFS
  CZECHOSLOVAKIA (BRITISH CLAIMS)
  CZECHOSLOVAKIA (BRITISH CLAIMS)
  BRITISH MIDDLE EAST OFFICE, EGYPT (STAFF)
  BRITISH MIDDLE EAST OFFICE, EGYPT (STAFF)
  ATOMIC ENERGY (INTERNATIONAL CONTROL)
  ATOMIC ENERGY (INTERNATIONAL CONTROL)
  JAPAN(PEACE TREATY DISCUSSIONS)
  JAPAN(PEACE TREATY DISCUSSIONS)
  BRITISH SUBJECTS ARGENTINA (ASSAULT)
  BRITISH SUBJECTS ARGENTINA (ASSAULT)
  MIDDLEEAST (ANGLO-AMERICAN DISCUSSIONS)
  MIDDLEEAST (ANGLO-AMERICAN DISCUSSIONS)
MINISTRY OF SUPPLY
  Steel Production (Capacity)
  Steel Production (Capacity)
  Motor Cars (Home Distribution)
  Motor Cars (Home Distribution)
  Princess Class Flying-Boat (Engines)
  Princess Class Flying-Boat (Engines)
  Electric Washing Machines
  Electric Washing Machines
  Slot Machines (Licence)
  Slot Machines (Licence)
  GERMAN REPARATIONS, UNITED KINGDOM
  GERMAN REPARATIONS, UNITED KINGDOM
MINISTRY OF WORKS
  Government Offices, Stanmore (Dining Room)
  Government Offices, Stanmore (Dining Room)
  Bellahouston Park, Glasgow
  Bellahouston Park, Glasgow
  Bricks, High Wycombe
  Bricks, High Wycombe
  Departmental Staff, Egypt
  Departmental Staff, Egypt
  Hotels (Maintenance and Repair)
  Hotels (Maintenance and Repair)
  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (REGIONAL OFFICE STAFFS)
  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (REGIONAL OFFICE STAFFS)
  ISLE OF MAN (IMPERIAL DEFENCE CONTRIBUTION)
  ISLE OF MAN (IMPERIAL DEFENCE CONTRIBUTION)
  AGRICULTURAL WORKERS (RENT CONTROL)
  AGRICULTURAL WORKERS (RENT CONTROL)
  AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRY (FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE)
  AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRY (FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE)