Parliament (Elections And Meeting) Bill

Considered in Committee.

[Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS in the Chair]

Clause 1—(Special Register For War-Time Parliamentary Elections)

Major Manningham-Buller  (Daventry)
I beg to move, in page 2, line 2, to leave out "as respects," and to insert "with regard to." I consider that the expression "as respects" has no merit whatever. It appears no fewer than 14 times in the first 12 Clauses of this Bill, and it will be  observed twice in the Preamble. If the Under-Secretary does not like the proposed alteration to the words "with regard to," may I suggest that the words "as to" should be inserted?

Major Petherick  (Penryn and Falmouth)
For many years past on repeated occasions I have put down this Amendment. So far I think this is the first time it has ever been called. We have suffered and are always suffering from the tyranny of phrases and slogans in this House, and there has been an extraordinary affection for many years on the part of the parliamentary draftsmen for this abominable expression "as respects." I remember a Clause in a Bill which began "as respects the roads as respects which", which I think was a trifle over the odds. In this case, if the Amendment does nothing else and is refused, I hope it will call the attention of the Parliamentary draftsmen, whose work I know is difficult, to the advisability of moving away from these clichés which are always inserted.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Peake)
This Amendment is not one of very great importance so far as the contents of the Bill are concerned. I think that the justification for the words "as respects" as compared with the proposed Amendment are, broadly speaking, that it is better to have two words in an Act of Parliament rather than three, but I should like to consider the possible substitution of the words which the Mover of the Amendment suggested, but which he has not put on the Order Paper, the words "as to," and as the words are not on the Paper—

Earl Winterton  (Horsham and Worthing)
Would the right hon. Gentleman face the Chair?

Mr. Peake
I am speaking to my hon. Friends. I am not sure that the noble Lord will hear me any better if I face the Chair. I should like to consider the possible insertion of the words "as to," but as they have not been put on the Paper, I will consider them between now and the further stages of the Bill. I hope that, with that undertaking, the hon. and gallant Member will see his way to withdraw the Amendment.

Major Petherick
Would it not be possible to insert the word "for" instead?

Mr. Peake
I am very sorry; I could not catch my hon. and gallant Friend's suggestion.

Major Petherick
I only suggested that the word "for," which is three letters and one word, might be suitable instead of as "respects."

Major Manningham-Buller
In view of the undertaking, which I understand applies not only to this instance but where this expression appears in the Bill, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 3—(Dissolution Of Parliament On Future Date)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Colonel Arthur Evans  (Cardiff, South)
Before we leave this Clause, perhaps my right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary might find it possible to give the Committee more information on the question of the Dissolution of Parliament. On the Second Reading the question was raised at some length as to the desirability, in a temporary Measure, designed to meet abnormal situations, for this country to find itself without a Parliament for a minimum period of three weeks. It was argued at that time that as this was purely a temporary Measure and during its operation anything of an emergency character might arise, and as in the case of the demise of the Crown where it is necessary to extend the life of Parliament for a period of not less than six months, whether it has been dissolved by Proclamation or not, it was suggested in some extraordinary circumstances that it was desirable in the national interest that the Government should retain power in this temporary Measure to recall a Parliament which had previously been dissolved if that course was required in the national interest. The Home Secretary, in rejecting a suggestion of that kind, put forward an argument that he did not think it was fair that all candidates at a General Election which would take place under the Bill if Members of the old House of Commons were in a position to describe themselves as Members of Parliament, as indeed they would be able so to describe themselves if Parliament was not dis-  solved before the date before the poll on which the new Parliament was elected. That was the suggestion which was made. I hope that before we leave this Clause the Home Secretary or the Under-Secretary might find it possible to deal in a little more detail with the objections to the suggestions made on that occasion.

Mr. Peake
This matter has been discussed both inside and outside the Committee. It was discussed to some extent on the Second Reading of the Bill, and the view of my right hon. Friend, who, I am sorry to say, is absent to-day on account of ill health, is definitely that Parliament as a whole would think it proper that there should be some definite interval between the existence of one Parliament and the existence of a new Parliament; that is to say, that there should be a date as from which we who are now here cease to be Members of the House of Commons and become simply candidates for election like those who are putting up against us in the constituencies. That period hitherto has always been 17 days. It is perfectly clear that under the new system proposed by the Bill, where the space of time between the Proclamation dissolving Parliament and the election of the new House will be approximately 7½ weeks, that is too long a period for this country to be without a Parliament. At the same time my right hon. Friend thinks that it would be the general sense of the House that there should be a clear-cut period. That period at the present time under the existing law is 17 days. Some hon. Members may think that it ought to be a little more or a little less, but, broadly speaking, I think there is a case for retaining this period of 17 days in which we are not entitled to describe ourselves as Members of Parliament and during which we stand on the hustings on an exact equality with the candidates who are put up against us. I think that is the general sense of the House upon the matter, and I think it would be undesirable that we should be to the very day of the election able to describe ourselves as Members of Parliament, and for that reason I hope that the Clause as it stands in the Bill will be supported.

Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 5—(Civilian Residence Register)

Major Sir Derrick Gunston  (Thornbury)
I beg to move, in page 4, line 18, after "incapacity," to insert: "and not being a person who at the outbreak of the present war was ordinarily resident in Eire." I do not intend in any way to raise an Imperial issue, and in no way is this Amendment meant as an attack on Eire or on Irishmen. I myself have Irish blood in my veins, I served in an Irish regiment, and I married into an Irish family, so that I have no anti-Irish feelings—very much the other way. But the franchise is a very valuable thing. We all prize it, and the franchise is for those who live and reside and take an interest in the affairs of this country. As I read the Bill, it seems to me that there is a possibility that many Irish, Southern Irish or Northern Irish, farm workers and so on, who are birds of passage and only in this country for a few months, may come on the register and be entitled to vote, because Clause 5 says: "Subject to the provisions of this Part of this Act, a person, being on the qualifying date a British subject of full age—" I understand that an Eire national is still a British subject— "—shall be entitled to be registered in the civilian residence register for an election in any constituency, if on that date that person either—(a) is registered in the National Register as residing at a place in the constituency and has—(1) throughout the period of two months ending with that date;" It would seem therefore that any worker who is a British subject and comes to this country and is in this country for only two months—who is a bird of passage not interested in this country—would get a vote. I do not think the Bill is very clear, because if the Committee will look at page 5, Sub-section (2, b), he will see that it says: "a person shall not be treated as registered in the National Register as residing at a place in any constituency if he is so registered as usually resident outside the United Kingdom." The Under-Secretary might perhaps make it clear whether that Sub-section covers workers who are temporarily in the United Kingdom. It is quite possible that a man might come here for a couple of months and get his permit extended, say, for six months. In that case would he be considered as usually resident outside the  United Kingdom, and what about those who have been admitted for war work for an indefinite period? I would like to ask the Under-Secretary whether the national registration system provides any means for identifying Eire workers who have been admitted to do war work and whose permits have been extended from time to time, and does it provide means of identifying those who have been given permits for an indefinite time? Can the registration machinery be so used that the names of the Eire workers will not be sent on by the national registration officers to the election registration officers, and if it can be so used, will he give an assurance that it will be so used? I have no objection to any Eire citizen coming here and being registered if he intends to live here permanently, but I am sure that the Committee does not wish to give a vote merely to these birds of passage. I hope the Under-Secretary will give that his consideration.

Mr. Logan  (Liverpool, Scotland Division)
Does the hon. and gallant Member say that he would prescribe as regards a resident of Eire that he is not a British subject and has no right to receive any benefits of the franchise here?

Sir D. Gunston
I understand that a resident of Eire is regarded as a British subject, and while he is over here for just a couple of months he will be entitled to a vote—

Mr. Logan
I understand that. As far as British citizens are concerned, we recognise even one in Eire to-day as a British subject, and, that being so, why should he be denied the right here?

The Deputy-Chairman
I think I had better put the Amendment.

Earl Winterton
I do not find myself in agreement with the Amendment. The point at issue goes further than the question of residence in Eire. I agree that there are a number of residents from Eire in this country. Perhaps, Mr. Williams, I might suggest that on this Amendment you allow some latitude, as it raises questions of principle. There is a certain number of West Indian British subjects working in civilian employment in this country. Then there are civilian British subjects from the Dominions. What is their position? It is clear that we can discuss this matter only in the light of  Sub-section (2, b) of the Clause, which says: "a person shall not be treated as registered in the National Register as residing at a place in any constituency if he is so registered as usually resident outside the United Kingdom." Let us assume, for the sake of example, that a labourer from Eire has been in this country for two years prior to registration, but has previously spent his life in Eire. The same thing would apply to one of these West Indians, who had spent his life previously in the West Indies. Would such a person be regarded as a person usually resident outside the United Kingdom, or not?

The Deputy-Chairman
In answer to the Noble Lord's question, as to whether we should discuss the whole question of temporary residents on this Amendment, I think it would be for the convenience of the Committee if we discussed it now, and not on the Question "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Peake
This point has been the subject of very careful consideration by the Home Secretary. He is advised that the provision, to which my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Thornbury (Sir D. Gunston) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham and Worthing (Earl Winterton) have drawn attention, in Subsection (2, b) of Clause 5: "a person shall not be treated as registered in the National Register as residing at a place in any constituency if he is so registered as usually resident outside the United Kingdom"— will cover the numerous labourers and workmen from Eire; and, of course, if it covers them it will also cover those from other places who have been admitted temporarily to Great Britain and Northern Ireland to take up employment during the war. The fact that a permit has been extended from time to time, and that some of these people may be allowed to reside in the United Kingdom for a substantial period—even two years or more—does not take them outside the category of persons usually resident outside the United Kingdom. The National Registration system provides means for identifying Eire citizens who have been allowed to enter the United Kingdom for war work, including those who have been allowed to stay here for a substantial period. The National Registration system will be used to see that the names of  these workers are not sent on to the electoral registers. I think that meets the point that my hon. Friend had in mind. We all agree that it would be undesirable for these temporary residents here, especially those from Southern Ireland, to make use of the franchise in this country. We are determined that the machinery shall be so used as to exclude them. I hope that, on that explanation, my hon. Friend will withdraw his Amendment.

Professor Savory  (Queen's University of Belfast)
While thanking the Under-Secretary for his very lucid explanation, I feel bound to say that I should be far happier if the Amendment were passed. Equally with the Mover of this Amendment, I disclaim, in supporting it, any attack whatever upon Eire or any ill-feeling whatever towards Eire. I have spent the greater part of my life in trying to promote good relations between the North of Ireland and Eire. But there are certain relevant facts which I should like to bring before the Committee. What are the numbers of those citizens of Eire who are coming to this country? It is very difficult to obtain the figures. Some people have estimated them at 100,000; some at as many as 300,000. Suppose we take the lowest estimate, of 100,000. Even so, it would be possible, if those citizens got on the register, to swamp completely the electorate in certain constituencies.

Sir Alfred Beit  (St. Pancras, South East)
As we have been told that these people will not vote, is it in Order to discuss the number of them in this country?

The Deputy-Chairman
It is, I suppose, technically just in Order. But, on the other hand, as for practical purposes the point has been dealt with, I think it is going rather far, if I might suggest it to the hon. Gentleman, to discuss the whole question of the numbers of these people. That is really not quite relevant to the Bill especially after the explanation given by the Minister.

Major Petherick
Surely, Mr. Williams, it is in Order for any hon. Member to say that he is not satisfied with the explanation given by the Minister. If he thinks that the position is not covered, he is in Order in saying so.

The Deputy-Chairman
That is why I put the position as I did.

Professor Savory
I shall be as brief as I possibly can, as I do not want to detain the Committee; but there are certain considerations which I must bring before the Committee. What is the legal status of these citizens of Eire? Under the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act, 1935, these citizens of Eire are not British subjects. Mr. de Valera stated in the Dail: "Under Irish law no Irish citizen will be a British subject when this Act is passed. When this Bill becomes law, it would be an impertinence if the British were to claim as citizens of their country people who are obviously citizens of another country." Under that Act Eire regards its citizens as not being British subjects. Under the other Act passed in Eire in 1935, called the Aliens Act, it is stated that the word "alien" means a person who is not a citizen of Eire.

The Deputy-Chairman
I really think that going into the question of Acts that have been passed by another country as to whether their citizens are citizens of this country, is outside the scope of this Bill, and still more outside the scope of this Amendment. I cannot see that it has any relation to this Amendment.

Professor Savory
I accept your ruling, Mr. Williams. All I wanted to point out was that these citizens of Eire are regarded by Eire as not being British subjects, and we should be perfectly right in excluding them.

Mr. Logan
While I do not dispute the Eire definition of British subjects, might I point out that we are dealing with the position of British subjects in this country? Can we have an interpretation from the Government bench of what is a British citizen?

The Deputy-Chairman
If the hon. Member wants to ask that question, he will be able to do so when he is called upon.

Professor Savory
I think I am entitled to refer to the Irish Aliens Act, under which all British subjects are aliens in Eire. It seems to me, therefore, that we should demand something like reciprocity.

The Deputy-Chairman
Nothing in an Act of the Southern Ireland Parliament has anything to do with the very narrow point dealt with in this Amendment.

Professor Savory
I would now like to refer to what has happened in this country. Last April two Irishmen were summoned at Chester for failing to register for fire-watching duties. They pleaded that they did not think they were liable, because they were not British subjects. [An. HON. MEMBER: "They were ignorant."] No; let me finish. One of the men produced a letter which he had received from the High Commissioner for Eire, who told him that he did not regard citizens of Eire as British subjects. In order to be quite fair, I should add that he advised the man to do fire-watching duties, because he considered them humanitarian and because they helped in self-protection; but, on the technical point, he advised that these citizens of Eire were not liable to be called upon to do fire-watching duties, because they were not British subjects. I submit that that is a very relevant consideration.

Mr. John Wilmot  (Kennington)
Would not the relevant consideration be, What is the position of the British courts in this case?

The Deputy-Chairman
We are having a very wide discussion, and I have let the hon. Gentleman put his point; but I hope that he will try to get very much closer to the Amendment.

Professor Savory
Is it relevant for me to point out that Mr. de Valera, speaking at Ennis, declared—

The Deputy-Chairman
That is exactly the point. This Debate might be very nice in the Southern Ireland Parliament, but it does not affect the position in this country.

Professor Savory
If Mr. de Valera described His Majesty the King as a foreign King—

The Deputy-Chairman
This really is going too far. I must ask the hon. Gentleman to keep completely off Mr. de Valera and affairs in Southern Ireland.

Professor Savory
Very well. I would only ask the House to insist on this safeguard, which appears in the Amendment. I think you will not rule me out of Order, Mr. Williams, when I say that my reason is this. I feel very strongly on this point. When the Statute of Westminster was going through this House we received the most solemn assur-  ances from the Prime Minister of the Free State that the Treaty of 1921 was still regarded as absolutely binding, and that if we inserted a Clause in the Statute of Westminster which would exempt the Treaty of 1921 from the operation of the Statute the Government of the Free State, as it then was, would regard the Treaty as morally much less binding. We have seen that Colonel Gretton and his supporters, who moved an Amendment, were perfectly right. Had that Amendment to the Statute of Westminster been accepted, we should not have had the flagrant violations of the Treaty which we have witnessed in past years. Therefore I ask the Committee not to be satisfied with any assurances, however strong they may be, but to have this matter put into black and white in accordance with the Amendment which has been moved.

Mrs. Tate  (Frome)
I have become a little confused in my mind as to what the exact position is, and I would like to feel a little more certain than I do that the answer the Minister gave us really does mean that these temporary residents will not have the power to vote. Under the Bill as it is drafted I believe that if your name appears on the register, you are then able to vote. What assurance have we that in actual fact we can check the prevention of these names of temporary residents in Eire appearing on the register?

Sir R. W. Smith  (Aberdeen, Central)
There is one point I should like to put to the Minister in order to get over this difficulty. I understand that people from Eire and other parts are not liable to be called up for military service. Why should we not limit the vote in this country to those people who can be called up for military service, and then we would sweep away all this difficulty?

Commander Bower  (Cleveland)
As a native of Eire, I shall resist all temptation to make any reply to the hon. Member who spoke from the benches opposite. I yield to none in my disapproval of the attitude of the Eire Government, but I do not see what that has to do with it. These people are under the Statute of Westminster and under the law of this land British subjects still. The sponsors of the Amendment are trying to make special legislation in this case. If they had  Put at the end of their Amendment, instead of "or ordinarily resident in Eire," "or ordinarily resident outside the United Kingdom," it would have been very much better. They would not have been open to the charge of discriminating against citizens of Eire. As the Noble Lord the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton) remarked, there are West Indians in much the same position, and indeed others. You cannot possibly deal with the citizens of Eire in this way. Tens of thousands of them are fighting loyally for the Allied cause. A few years ago there was a Boundary Commission, and it is likely that if they had drawn their boundary a little different, General Montgomery would have been excluded from the franchise under this Amendment. And what about Esmonde, V.C., who went to certain death in an old, slow and obsolete aircraft in the gallant attack on the "Scharnhorst" and "Gneisneau"? What about young Jackman, one of the early V.Cs. of the war in Egypt? Are you to exclude these people? Many such have come over here because of their love of this country and their love of liberty, and you cannot class all the Irish who come over here with the questionable ones. They have come over and shared our perils in the great cities which have been blitzed, and many of them have done yeoman work in the Fighting Forces. The Amendment is much too widely drawn. I agree, as has already been said, that there is still a danger that some of the people whom we do not intend to get on the register will manage to slide on to it. I was not altogether satisfied with the Under-Secretary's statement of the measures that were being taken. For instance, it is said that the National Registration organisation would see to it that they did not get on to the register. I would rather it should be done directly by Act of Parliament. Between now and the Report stage something stronger might be done to make it certain that these people do not get on to the register. I would ask my hon. and gallant Friend who moved the Amendment to consider that it is so widely drawn that it does a grave injustice to a great many, and I hope he will withdraw it.

Major Manningham-Buller
I would like to say a few words on what my hon. and gallant Friend has said. As far as I can see, the particular gentlemen to  whom he referred are serving this country in the Forces and would be entitled to be placed under this Bill on the Service register, so that there is no force in the objection he raised to this Amendment. The Amendment applies only to civilians temporarily visiting this country from Eire. It does not apply to anyone who comes over here with the intention of remaining permanently in this country. I would be entirely satisfied by what the Under-Secretary has said in regard to the Amendment, except on one point. He says that there are means far distinguishing the temporary visitors from those who come to live here permanently under the Regulations. I would like to know, not whether there are means for distinguishing temporary visitors, but whether those who came here since 1939 are distinguished now on the National Register. It is no use providing for their being distinguished in the future if you leave those who have been here perhaps since 1939 completely undistinguished from those who are going to remain in this country.

Mr. Price  (Forest of Dean)
We ought to be very careful not to do Eire's work by regarding Irish citizens as non-members of the British Empire. That is the sort of thing which might happen. We have a right to regard the citizens of Southern Eire in the same way that we regard Canadians or Australians. (HON. MEMBERS: "No.") That is to say, they should have the right to vote here if they reside a sufficient length of time, but we should leave it at that. Mr. de Valera wants Southern Ireland to be regarded as a non-member of the British Commonwealth, and therefore we must not play up to him by making it impossible for citizens of Eire to become British citizens if they wish when they have come over here and qualified in the same way as Canadians or Australians might do. I am satisfied with the section of the Clause under discussion and the statement of the Under-Secretary that sufficient precautions are taken to prevent citizens of Eire from coming over here and getting the vote in spite of what de Valera may want to say or do, but if they qualify by length of residence, then they should vote in the same way as other members of the Empire can do.

Colonel Sir A. Lambert Ward  (Kingston-upon-Hull, North-West)
Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary  will clear up the point raised by the hon. and gallant Member for Cleveland (Commander Bower) whether the thousands of citizens of Eire who are at present fighting, and extremely gallantly, for this country will automatically go on to the register under the Bill or be automatically excluded. It is rather an uncertain point, and it will facilitate my judgment if the right hon. Gentleman can clear up that matter.

Lady Apsley  (Bristol, Central)
We have heard a lot about the men voters, but the point that arises in my mind is, What about the women? A great many women have come over here and are working in factories and as domestic servants and in hotels and in many other ways, and I would ask the Under-Secretary what is their position under this Clause.

Mr. Peake
I can answer two or three of the points that have been raised, and I think satisfy bon, Members on this question. As the hon. and gallant Member for Cleveland (Commander Bower) rightly said, the words on the Order Paper would go much too far. There are many thousands of loyal and extremely worthy British subjects residing in Southern Ireland, and they were residing there on the outbreak of war, such as retired officers, retired civil servants, and people of that kind. Many of these people have come back to this country to work, and they have acquired a home and domicile and residence in this country, and though they are qualified in the ordinary way under this Bill, nobody would wish to exclude such persons from voting at a General Election. Ever since the middle of 1940 there has been direct control of travel and of emigration from Ireland to Great Britain. Everybody who has come in since that date has had to have special identity and travel documents. They are well known. They have been admitted under arrangements made by the Ministry of Labour in order to help in the heavy work of aerodrome construction and so forth, and all these people are what we at the Home Office call "conditionally landed," and they can be excluded from this country at any moment. These are the people who are identifiable and whom hon. Members rightly seek to exclude from exercising the franchise, and they are the people in respect of whom I have given the complete assurance that they are completely identifiable as far as National Regis-  tration is concerned, and machinery will be used to exclude them from any possibility of being placed on the electoral register. I cannot do more. The assurance is complete, and the identification is complete, and I hope that with that explanation my hon. and gallant Friend will withdraw the Amendment.

Sir D. Gunston
After that explanation I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Hon. Members
No.

Commander Sir Archibald Southby  (Epsom)
There is one point I want to ask the Under-Secretary. The speech he has delivered has made the position a little more confusing. What is the exact position with regard to people who are normally domiciled in Eire and who have come into this country and have been living in this country for a period of two or three years and who will presumably go back to Eire when the war is over? Are they now on the register, or are they eligible to be placed on the register, and will they be able to vote at a General Election? That is the first point. I appreciate the Minister's undertaking regarding those people who come in from Eire and elsewhere under temporary licence to come in, but what is the position regarding the people from outside who have come into this country during the war and who, therefore, as far as I can see, will be eligible to vote at a General Election? Surely it is not right that people should take part in an election here unless they are in fact domiciled properly in this country.

Lieut.-Commander Hutchison  (Edinburgh, West)
Arising out of what the Under-Secretary has said, would the position not be made clearer by adding the words "of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" after "United Kingdom"?

Mr. John Beattie  (Belfast, West)
It is regrettable that I should have to sit on this side, the home of democracy and of centralisation, where friendly relations are being preached day in and day out and listen to an hon. Member getting up on the Floor of this House and throwing forth such a venomous attack upon a friendly neighbouring country.

Professor Savory
I must ask the hon. Member to withdraw that statement.

The Deputy-Chairman
Order. We cannot have two hon. Members standing up together, and unless the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. J. Beattie) gives way, the hon. Member for Belfast University (Professor Savory) cannot interrupt.

Mr. Beattie
I do not think that I have mentioned any particular hon. Member yet. If the cap fits, then the hon. Member for the Queen's University of Belfast (Professor Savory) can wear it. I do not believe he is a native of Ireland at all; he belongs to no party and would perhaps better serve the interests of his own country if he tried to put the Germans out of it. I come from Ireland, and I can tell the Committee that the people of Northern and Southern Ireland do not want to get from this country any privileges to which they are not entitled. The name of Montgomery has been brought into this Debate, the name of a hero. I feel angered and annoyed that Members have used Montgomery's name to cloak with respectability manoeuvres which are trying to create distrust in the relationships between this country and Eire. If this House has been embarrassed by Eire or its citizens, it has not been brought about by the Eire Government. It has been brought about by hon. Members who—

The Deputy-Chairman
I think we had better leave all Southern Ireland to look after itself.

Mr. Beattie
Under your guidance and protection, Mr. Williams, I will proceed on different lines. I can understand the fear of many thousands of Irish people in Great Britain who are at present helping to make our war effort sufficiently powerful to drive Hitler and all he stands for from the earth. These people are being looked upon, by this Amendment, with suspicion. I would like to know what portion of Northern Ireland will suffer under this Amendment. I am treated as an alien when I come here. I have to have all sorts of identity cards and be examined by the Customs and censorship authorities. I am supposed to be living in a part of Ireland which is classified as part of the United Kingdom. I have to have the same residence permit as a citizen of Eire in England. Does this mean that Northern Ireland citizens will be chased away from this country  after the war? Are they to be disqualified from having the right to vote for their representatives in this House?

Mr. Peake
They can vote in Northern Ireland for their representatives in this House.

Mr. Beattie
Yes, but the right hon. Gentleman knows that many people from Northern Ireland come to live in Great Britain and that many have been here for several years. If they decide to remain, will they be disqualified from having a vote for a representative of the area in which they reside? I cannot see any reason why their fellow countrymen should not have the same right.

Mr. Peake
They have the vote wherever is their place of usual residence.

Mr. Logan
Where would their residence be?

Mr. Beattie
I am disturbed about the point of view put forward by the Under-Secretary about the North of Ireland. The person's normal residence would be Northern Ireland, but assuming he had been for three years in Great Britain, he could vote for me, but not for the hon. Member for the Queen's University of Belfast. This Bill is full of complications, and I hope its reactions will not be such as to do any damage to the war effort of this country. The war effort of this country should be proud of its voluntary workers. I have come across them many times, and they are not all living in congenial conditions. Some people in this country have the idea that the Irish in this country can be housed in any conditions.

The Deputy-Chairman
It is getting rather far from the Amendment if we are to discuss the housing conditions of war workers on this narrow Amendment.

Mr. Beattie
I will not pursue that course, but I would ask the Committee to go carefully in regard to this Amendment. The Mover has asked leave to withdraw it, and I think he is wise. He has near him an hon. Member who is a native of the 26 counties. Eire is Ireland, and I live in Ireland.

The Deputy-Chairman
The hon. Member must not go into that.

Mr. Beattie
The Amendment contains the word "Eire" which covers 32 counties  of Ireland. Eire is Ireland. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Yes, it is. Ireland has 32 counties, but the part of Ireland known as the 26 counties is the part referred to. That is the position. Assume that a new Parliament comes about in 10 or 20 years' time, that a younger generation coming from Ireland all adopt the Eire language and instead of the word "Ireland" use the word "Eire." That would lead to many difficulties in connection with this Bill.

Mr. Silverman  (Nelson and Colne)
On a point of Order. Arising out of the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Belfast (Mr. J. Beattie), I want to ask you, Mr. Williams, whether this Amendment is in Order. The Amendment refers to Eire, and if it be the case that Eire includes all Ireland [HON. MEMBERS: "No."], then it would be outside the Title of this Bill, because it would purport to legislate for Southern Ireland.

The Deputy-Chairman
Yes, if that was the case, but it does not happen to be the case. We can, therefore, go on with the Amendment as it stands.

Mr. Gallacher  (Fife, West)
Further to that point of Order. I raised this matter several years ago when Eire was mentioned for the first time in a Government agreement. There were a Free State Government and a Northern Ireland Government, and then the Free State Government decided to take over the whole of Ireland. They called this Government by the Gaelic term "Eire," and that term means Ireland. I am quite positive that if this Amendment was passed and anyone took the matter to court, no one in Northern Ireland would be permitted—

The Deputy-Chairman
As the hon. Member has already said, that is a matter for the courts, but it does not seem to me that what someone said or did some time ago in Southern Ireland or Eire will necessarily be the law in English courts. I suggest that we might keep fairly strictly to the Amendment and not use this occasion to go into a complicated matter of international law between us and Southern Ireland. That might be possible on another occasion—I do not wish to give a narrow Ruling—but I make that suggestion to the Committee as a whole.

Professor Savory
On a point of Order. I would like to be allowed to point out, Mr. Williams—

The Deputy-Chairman
The hon. Member cannot point out to the Chair.

Professor Savory
Then I would like to ask you, Mr. Williams, whether you do not recollect the Eire (Confirmation of Agreements) Act, 1938, under which Eire was defined as being the 26 counties of the Free State? That is an Act of Parliament; there is no doubt about the matter. All this discussion is wholly irrelevant.

The Deputy-Chairman
That is for me to judge.

Major Petherick
I can see that we should have to extend our hours of Sitting if there were more Irishmen in the House. I will confine myself, Mr. Williams, to the terms you have laid down for discussion of this Amendment. I hope my right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will not think that I and others are making things difficult in refusing to give permission for the Amendment to be withdrawn, but I am not quite satisfied that the announcement he has made is entirely watertight. I know he is making efforts to meet the points raised by the Mover of the Amendment, but the difficulty is not confined simply to the question of Irish temporary residents in the United Kingdom. The difficulty may very well extend much wider, as my noble Friend the Member for Horsham and Worthing (Earl Winter-ton) stated. There are a large number of temporary residents from the Dominions, all subjects of the Crown, in this country, and it is possible that a man may come from Canada and have a vote in Great Britain. That is a constitutional issue which ought to be dealt with in the future, although it cannot be dealt with under this Bill and certainly not under this Amendment. The reason I am not happy about the Under-Secretary's declaration is that he says that the place of temporary residence will cover Irish workers and others who come to this country during the war and that they will be covered by the electoral machinery, that is to say, presumably by directions which will be given in the future by the Home Secretary. If that is the case, I would point out that a declaration such as he has made cannot bind any future Government. Should the Bill come into operation as an Act, it is  quite possible that a future Government may take a different view of the directions to be given. Would it not be sounder therefore to put something into the Bill in black and white? Personally, I should not like it to be in the form of this Amendment, because, although my hon. and gallant Friend expressly dissociated himself from any attack on Eire or the Irish people, there is the reference to Eire in the Amendment, and I think it would be better to have a more composite Amendment introduced on Report. Would my right hon. Friend consider the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Central Aberdeen (Sir R. W. Smith), which seemed perfectly sound, that the qualification should be eligibility for being called up for military service? Those who are working temporarily over here are apparently not liable for military service, being looked upon as subjects of Eire. If that suggestion were followed I think the Bill would become workable, and there would be no doubt about any person appearing on the register who was not a resident of this country.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir William Allen  (Armagh)
In my view we people from Northern Ireland have no concern at all with this Bill. In Northern Ireland we have our own machinery. The Mover of the Amendment wants to put something into the Bill which will explain to a court of justice the meaning of the reference which the Under-Secretary has made, in view of the possibility of some other interpretation being given to it, but it is for the people of this country to say whether the Bill should be so amended.

Mr. Furness  (Sunderland)
I am only very slightly Irish, and therefore feel that I am not qualified to take part in these rather bitter controversies, nor am I disposed to do so, but I have had the very great privilege of serving as an indifferent soldier in a regiment in which there were a very large number of Irishmen, and I would say two things to the Committee. First, although there were Englishmen, Ulstermen and Southern Irishmen in that regiment, I never yet heard any disputes or controversies about these matters of tremendous historical importance. Perhaps that shows that in some respects the Army is more broadminded, enlightened and tolerant than certain of those of us  who take part in these proceedings. Secondly, although I am only a quarter Irish, I should feel tremendously disloyal to the great men, private soldiers and the like, with whom I have served, if I did not say that there are in that regiment, as there are in many British regiments, and in the Royal Air Force and the Navy, a number of Southern Irishmen. It is one thing to serve in the Armed Forces of His Majesty if you live in this country, because if you do not join voluntarily you are compelled to join. It is another thing to serve if you come from Ulster, because while you are not under compulsion there is, no doubt, a strong public opinion in favour of your doing your duty. But a man who comes to join my regiment or any other regiment from Southern Ireland is making a very much bigger sacrifice than I have made or any other man—

Major Lloyd  (Renfrew, Eastern)
On a point of Order. Is it not the case that we are discussing a civilian register and not discussing soldiers at all?

The Deputy-Chairman
Several illustrations from the Army and Navy have been given, and I think the hon. Member's point, which is only a short one, is not out of keeping with the character of the Debate.

Mr. Furness
The point I wished to make was that there are Southern Irishmen who are doing their job under difficult conditions. Many of those in the regiment, private soldiers or officers, when they go home on leave have to go home in civilian clothes, and once they get home there is nothing on earth that can make them come back, but in my experience they always do return. That being so, are we really wise in putting into a Bill something which points out these unhappy differences? As my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Penryn and Falmouth (Major Petherick) said, it is only right that people who do not live in a country should not vote in that country. Whether they come from Canada, or Australia, or Northern Ireland these men are here as soldiers. If a man is resident here he should have the vote, and if we do embody this in the Bill would it not be better to do it in such a way as will not accentuate and embitter these very unfortunate differences? With all respect to those who speak with more  knowledge, feeling and authority, I would ask the Under-Secretary to pour oil on the troubled waters but not to pour oil on the flames.

Mr. Peake
I have been trying to pour on oil for some little time past, and I will make one more effort to satisfy those who, like my two hon. Friends, seem to think that this issue will rest upon some assurance which the present Government is giving. I really can make it clear that that will not be the case. Clause 5, Subsection (2, b) makes it perfectly clear that a person shall not be treated as registered in the National Register and consequently entitled to be placed on the civilian residents' register if he is registered in the national register as usually resident outside the United Kingdom. It is mandatory upon the electoral registration officer not to place such people on the register, because they will not be qualified. The only assurance I have given is that machinery exists for operating this sub-section, and it is the duty of the national registration officers to make use of it and see that these names are not transferred to the electoral register. It is not a question of an assurance by the Government that something will be done. The duty is laid upon the officers and for that reason the Amendment is, in my view, quite unnecessary and, as other hon. Members have pointed out, goes very much beyond what would be desirable.

Major Petherick
The right hon. Gentleman has quoted paragraph (b), which I think is somewhat clumsily drafted, though quite understandable. The case of the Irish workmen who come over here to work during the war is covered, and they will not be eligible, but he also pointed out that there are a number of perfectly loyal people of the type who fought for us in the last war and who came over in this war to help the war effort. The whole point revolves round the word "usually": "a person shall not be treated as registered in the National Register as residing at a place in any constituency if he is so registered as usually resident outside the United Kingdom." What is meant by "usually"? Is it one year, two years, or three or five years? It is a question of interpretation, and I hope that it will be looked into.

Amendment negatived.

Major Manningham-Buller
I beg to move, in page 4, line 23, to leave out "two" and to insert "three." We were told on Second Reading that the Bill provided machinery for facilitating voting by the people and did not affect the qualifications of those entitled to be put on the register. Under the Act of 1918 three months' residence was necessary, and that period has been altered by this Bill to two months, without, so far as I can find, any explanation of why that alteration was made. If we are going to alter qualifications it is wrong that we should do so piecemeal, and my Amendment proposes that we should retain the same period as has been in existence since 1918.

Mr. Peake
Briefly, the reason why we have adopted two months' residence as the qualification and not a longer period is that a Departmental Committee, which comprised members of all political parties, including, I think, yourself, Mr. Williams, considered this question and the recommendation of that Committee, to which there was no dissentient voice, was that the reduced period of two months was the appropriate period. The Government have adopted that recommendation. As between two months and three months, I would point out that the longer period would result in the disfranchisement of a certain number of people who otherwise would have the vote. For these reasons I think we should be well advised to stick to two months.

Major Manningham-Buller
In view of the explanation which has been given, with which I am entirely satisfied, I beg to ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Sir Harold Webbe  (Westminster, Abbey)
I beg to move, in page 4, line 31, after "constituency," to insert: "or in the same county or county borough." I am sure the Committee will be glad to know that, as I am not in any sense Irish, I do not possess either the eloquence or the fervour that some of them do to deal with matters of this kind. This Amendment is designed to safeguard the elector from losing his right to a vote owing to removal during the qualifying period. That is a safeguard which is given to him under normal conditions. The Clause as drafted provides protection in  the case of a removal within the constituency, and I seek to extend that somewhat, so that the elector will be protected on removal within the county or county borough. My reason for doing so is that, particularly in built-up areas, the boundaries of constituencies frequently run across the middle of a street, and one elector who moves to, say, No. 76 may retain his right to vote whereas another who moves to No. 78 may lose it, because he is just over the boundary. It may be said that the machinery of national registration cannot function quickly enough to deal with removals within the county or county borough, although it is contemplated that it can deal with removals within the constituency, but the number of such removals would be quite small and it is desirable that we should avoid an anomaly which will certainly not be understood by any electors who are affected.

Mr. Peake
My hon. Friend, who has great knowledge of these matters, has moved an Amendment which would import into the temporary provisions in this Bill, a provision of the existing law in regard to residence and removal, but, of course, the system proposed by the Bill is a very much more liberal one than that in the existing law. Under the existing law, in order to acquire a qualification, a man has to be resident for a fixed period of three months during part of the year. Under the new system there is no fixed period, and residence for two months continuously provides a qualification to be placed on the register. This question of removals within the county or within the county borough would greatly complicate the work of the registration officer. He would not be able to treat all removals to or from his constituency in the same way. A person who moved to or from a constituency in the same county or county borough would require a different treatment from one who moved to or from a more distant constituency. We anticipate in the new system considerable machinery difficulties. A great deal of work will have to be done with considerable speed, and we think that the more liberal methods proposed by the Bill of enabling a resident's qualification to be acquired to a large extent counterbalances the drawback of there being no provision in the Bill similar to that in the Representation of the People Act, 1918, to which my hon. Friend referred. It is  a question of machinery difficulties. It would complicate the work of the electoral registration officer considerably, and I think that for the sake of simplicity and also on account of the greater freedom given by the Bill to enable qualifications to be acquired, it would be wiser to omit a provision of the kind proposed from the Bill. I hope that my hon. Friend will therefore not press it. It would in fact require the redrafting of a considerable number of the Clauses of the Bill to give effect to it.

Sir H. Webbe
I thank my right hon. Friend for his very studied and careful reply, and I accept at once the statement that the provisions in the Bill as to the qualifying period are more generous and do much to make the register more up to date than it is. I suggest, however, that that fact reduces the likelihood of the provision for which I ask being called into operation and by so much reduces the administrative difficulties. I would not wish, however, to press a matter of this kind which is highly technical, and as my hon. Friend has assured me that he views this proposal as likely to cause complications in the machinery, I must bow to that view and beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

The Chairman
I think the next Amendment, in the name of the hon. Member for Kings Norton (Major Peto), would be more conveniently considered in connection with Clause 7.

Major Manningham-Buller
I beg to move, in page 5, line 22, to leave out from "furnished," to "to," in line 24. For some reason which I cannot fathom, this Clause provides that the information prescribed by the national regulations with regard to the National Register shall be furnished first to the proper officer of the council of a county borough or county district if it relates to a county borough or county district and then by him to the registration officer. I can see no point in this circuitous action. If we look at a later provision, we find that the proper officer is really to work as a delegate of the registration officer to fulfil such functions as the registration officer selects. I therefore suggest that there would be a considerable saving of time if these words were omitted, and the information sent straight away and directly  to the registration officer, who is the person who wants to receive it.

Mr. Peake
The effect of the Amendment would be that this provision in regard to the appointment of a proper officer as an intermediary between the National Registration machinery and the electoral registration machinery would be omitted from the Bill.

Major Manningham-Buller
No, but that the information which is prescribed by the regulations should be sent by the National Registration people directly to the registration officer without going through any one else's hands.

Mr. Peake
I am informed by those who are much more highly versed than I am in the technicalities that that procedure would be in many cases impossible; that the National Registration officers have no means of knowing who are the appropriate electoral registration officers to whom this material should be directed. Apparently there is such confusion and overlapping of boundaries with areas which are not co-terminous that there are many cases in which it would not be possible for the machinery to function without the intervention of the person who is described here as "the proper officer." If my hon. and gallant Friend looks lower down on the Order Paper, he will see an Amendment to Clause 13 in the name of my right hon. Friend which is intended to take the place of the definition of "proper officer" now contained in Sub-section (3) of that Clause. The effect of the Amendment is to nominate the proper officers under the Bill and not leave their nomination to the regulations. The reason for that is that we attach great importance to these proper officers being appointed by the Bill and being able to undertake their functions immediately the Bill becomes law. We regard the proper officer as a necessary intermediary. His appointment, I am told, will save papers having to be sent to one electoral officer and then returned by him because he is not the proper officer to receive them, and then sent to another electoral registration officer who may find that the voter's names are not in the polling district in his area and who thus has to return them again, and so forth. I am told that by bringing into the picture the proper officer, who will as a general rule be the rating officer, it will  be possible to distribute the material furnished by the National Registration authority without unnecessary delay. Although, as I say, I am not very well versed in these matters, I hope my hon. and gallant Friend will accept my assurance that the experts do regard the appointment and the intervention of these proper officers as necessary to the smooth working of the machinery.

Mr. George Griffiths  (Hemsworth)
Is the Minister sure that the rating officer in future will be the registration officer?

Mr. Peake
I was not saying that he would be the registration officer. I was saying that as a general rule he would be the proper officer appointed under Clause 13 of the Bill.

Mr. Griffiths
At the present time the registration officer is the food control officer. It has all been handed over to the food control from the rating officer, who used to be the registration officer, and if there is an immediate election, it will be the food control that will act.

Mr. Peake
I expect that that will come into the picture here.

Major Manningham-Buller
In view of my right hon. Friend's assurance, which I gladly accept, and his explanation of the object of these words, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 6—(Business Premises Register)

The Chairman
Before I call upon the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling) to move the first Amendment which stands in his name, it may be convenient to suggest that we should take both Amendments together and afterwards if necessary separate Divisions can be taken upon them.

Sir H. Webbe
On a point of Order. Am I to take it you are not calling the Amendment which stands in my name? I know that it is similar to a previous Amendment, but it raises a rather different point.

The Chairman
I assumed that it was consequential on the hon. Member's previous Amendment. Perhaps he will be  content to raise the point involved on the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill".

Mr. Keeling
I beg to move, in page 6, line 2, after "unless," to insert "either." This Amendment is to be read along with the next Amendment on the Paper. Both Amendments refer to the business premises register. The proviso at the top of page 6 of the Bill provides that persons entitled to the business premises vote must themselves apply for registration. The effect of these Amendments would be that anybody would be entitled to apply on their behalf. In practice of course only party agents would exercise this right, and if the Government prefer that words should be used limiting this right to the party agent I should be content. If that right is given to the party agent, I am sure the business premises register will be much more complete. In introducing this Bill, the Home Secretary said he was not seeking to alter the franchise, but was merely providing a new method of compiling the register in the absence of an official canvas by the registration officer. I submit that the provision in the Bill for compiling the business premises register is so inadequate that many occupiers of business premises will in the result be disfranchised if Clause 6 remains as it is, and that in effect if not in intention the Bill will make a change in the electoral system. My right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary in winding up the Second Reading the other day said that the right of the business premises occupier to apply for registration would be advertised, and that the party agents would be able to distribute forms of application. Official advertisements are, however, so numerous that many people do not read them, and even those who do very often find them incomprehensible. Also it will be quite impossible for party agents, in the time available, to get in touch, as my right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary suggested they should, with those entitled to apply. It would be far easier for the agents to apply on their behalf. I hope that the Government will either accept this Amendment or, on the Report stage, will introduce an Amendment giving agents the right to apply.

Major Lloyd
I should like to add a word to my hon. Friend's remark in support of this Amendment. As I read the  Bill, it is almost entirely a Bill for machinery, and in no circumstances does the Bill handicap any voter who is qualified to vote. Indeed, the whole purpose of the Bill is to assist in every way those who desire or are entitled to be on the register. This Amendment gives further assistance to the individuals who are qualified under the business premises qualification. I cannot conceive that any handicap should be put in their way. On the other hand, I suggest that every assistance should be given to them. The Amendment would not affect their qualification in any way. That they should receive this assistance such as my hon. Friend describes seems to be only right and reasonable, and I hope that the Minister will see his way to accept this Amendment.

Sir H. Webbe
In the opinion of my hon. Friend, the Clause as it stands gives an entirely proper handicap in the way of a business voter. I personally hope that my right hon. Friend will accept one of the other methods of dealing with this problem rather than the one which has now been suggested. I, personally, do not at all like the idea of bringing in the political agent as a part of our electoral machinery. Some of us think we should be better without political agents at all, but it certainly seems to me that the political agent, indeed the political association, has no constitutional existence at all and therefore that it would be a mistake if in precise terms permission was given to people whose existence this House does not in fact recognise to act as applicants on behalf of business people. By all means provide for application to be made on behalf of business people; but I submit that it would be dangerous to limit that right to particular people. How they would be described in an Act of Parliament I do not know—the people we all know as political agents.

Major Manningham-Buller
I only want to intervene to make one point, which is that this Amendment does not propose adding anything new to the law as it now exists, but the Bill as it stands cuts down the right of the people who want to have their claim to vote registered. If one looks at Rule 10 in the First Schedule to the 1918 Act, it is made perfectly plain that where a claim is made on behalf of another person what this Amendment proposes to do under this Bill can at the moment be done. There is no particular  reference in that Act to political agents, nor is there in this Amendment, but as this is merely a Bill dealing with machinery, I support the Amendment, which I hope will be accepted.

Mr. Reakes  (Wallasey)
May I support what has been said by one hon. Member with reference to party agents? In the future we may have an entirely different political organisation. There will be no such people as party agents, who in law have no existence whatever. I think that is a very strong point, and we should be very careful indeed to whom we give power in regard to such an important matter as that which is embodied in this Bill. I query the wisdom of the limitation of the Amendment which was adumbrated by my hon. and gallant Friend.

Mr. Peake
As my hon. Friend who moved the Amendment stated, this would enable the party agent or anybody else, on behalf of someone who claims to be a business premises voter, to apply on his behalf Clause 6, Sub-section (1) of the Bill. I think my hon. Friend indicated on the Second Reading that there would be considerable objection to this course. The business premises vote under the scheme recommended by the Departmental Committee and embodied in the Bill has to be claimed by the individual. In peace-time the business premises register is compiled as a result of a canvass undertaken on behalf of the electoral registration officers. Under this Bill we recognise that no canvass is possible, and therefore a claim to be placed on the business premises register must be made by or on behalf of the individual claimant. There would be a great disadvantage in permitting anyone to make a claim on behalf of someone else. The only check upon the facts stated in the claim is by some penal proceedings for which penalties are provided under, I think, Clause 15 of the Bill. That is the check upon a fraudulent claim. Clause 15 says: "Any person who makes an application to be registered in the business premises register, knowing the application or declaration contains a statement which is false, shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £50 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months or to both." Now a reason for the provision of those penalties is that in a vast number of cases it is quite impossible for anyone to check the accuracy of the facts in the claim in the time allowed. As everybody knows,  the civilian register—the residents register—does not come into existence until the last day of the month preceding the election, and there are only 10 days for the making of an application to be entered on the business premises register. There is very little time therefore in which any proper check at all can be undertaken, and for that reason heavy penalties are imposed upon the maker of a fraudulent declaration. If a party agent or anybody else were permitted to hand in claims for inclusion on the business premises register, the task of the authorities would become very difficult and, moreover, there would be no check that the facts stated were correct. If a party agent were charged with making a fraudulent declaration, he would tell the court that he himself had made the statements in good faith. The Amendment quite frankly states that its object is to enable party agents to make claims on behalf of the business premises voter. That suggestion was carefully considered, as I understand it, by the Interdepartmental Committee which dealt with this matter. It is recommended quite clearly that claims by persons wishing to be placed on the business premises register would have to be made by the persons entitled, on their own initiative and on the basis of the same qualifying date, the date of the Royal Proclamation. That is the recommendation of the Committee representatives, and that is the recommendation which we have thought fit to embody in this Clause of the Bill. On the Second Reading my hon. Friend the Member for West Edinburgh (Lt.-Commander Hutchison) suggested that this vote might be claimed on behalf of a husband by a wife or on behalf of a wife by a husband. That would be a much more limited proposal than the one made in the Amendment now before the Committee. The position, of course, is that the wife of a man entitled to a business premises vote is herself, quite independently of her husband, entitled to a business premises vote also, and the same thing, of course, applies to the husband, where the wife is the occupier of the business premises. We see some advantage in that proposal—that each of these persons is entitled to the business premises vote in respect of the premises, and it will save the duplication of applications and a good deal of  extra correspondence if the vote can be claimed on behalf of the husband by the wife and on behalf of the wife by the husband, and, therefore, when we come to the Amendment which makes the proposal I will, if the Committee agrees, table a manuscript Amendment in proper form to be embodied in the Bill.

Sir H. Webbe
I do not wish to embarrass my right hon. Friend who has dealt with this matter with so much tact and patience, but what he has just said is that this Amendment if carried might result in thousands of applications for business votes being lodged and it being quite impossible to check them. If that is so, what is going to happen if the people who are properly entitled to business votes themselves make application? Surely that is the worst possible reason for opposing this particular Amendment. If the machinery is such that people who are properly entitled to vote and who make proper application in the manner already described by the Bill itself are going to swamp it—that is what I understood my hon. Friend to say—then I submit that the whole matter should be very seriously reconsidered.

Mr. Peake
No one except the voter himself or his wife can swear that that statement is true. Although in practice it will not of course be possible to check each application, it will be assumed that the greater number of applications are bona fide for the simple reason that the person making them will be liable to a heavy penalty if the declaration is false.

Sir H. Webbe
That does not quite answer my point. The position now seems to be that the applications which are made by the persons who claim that they are themselves entitled to a vote are not, in fact, to be subjected to any close scrutiny. My right hon. Friend said that no one but such a person, in fact, could supply the information which is called for by the form. If that is so, then the political agent or anyone else who sought to make a claim would not be able to do so. That is no argument against providing the opportunity which the movers of this Amendment have sought, and I am afraid that in this case my right hon. Friend has made me more suspicious of this particular provision and more anxious to secure some real piece of machinery by which these people who, under the law, are entitled to a vote shall be able to claim it.

Mr. Keeling
Does the Minister admit that under the law as it stands, as my hon. and gallant Friend the hon. Member for Daventry (Major Manningham-Buller) pointed out, a person may apply on another person's behalf? If so, the Home Secretary was not quite correct in stating that this Bill is not making any change in the electoral system.

Mr. Peake
The short answer to that is that the business premises register under the present law is compiled annually and is open to inspection, and ample time is available for claims and objections to be made. In the case of the system proposed by the Bill, the whole matter will be carried through with immense rush and hurry in the few weeks immediately preceding the election. I think the cases are very different for that reason.

Mr. Keeling
That is not an answer to my question.

Major Manningham-Buller
I have listened to the Under-Secretary on this point, and I confess I am not satisfied with the reasons he has put forward for adhering to the Bill in its present form. The effect of the Bill in its present form seems to me to deprive large numbers of business voters who are away on business from their particular area from obtaining their right to vote. The danger he apprehends from a flood of claims coming in which cannot be checked in the time provided seems rather exaggerated, because under the present law, whereas a claim by a husband or wife to the business vote is accepted, where a claim is put in by anyone else the burden of proving that claim rests on the person claiming on behalf of another. It does not rest on the registration officer, so that unless claims are supported by appropriate evidence the registration officer can refuse flatly to accept them. If that procedure was carried on under this Bill, it might enable a lot more people to exercise the right they now have under the existing law regarding the business vote.

Amendment negatived.

Major Lloyd
I beg to move, in page 6, line 5, at the end, to insert: "Provided also that it shall be the duty of the registration officer to send within the prescribed time to each person rated in respect of business premises a copy of such form and to draw his attention to the provisions of this subsection."

The Chairman
It might be for the convenience of the Committee if this and the two following Amendments were discussed together.

Major Lloyd
I take it that Members of the Committee will feel that the wording of this Amendment is quite clear to them, and therefore it is unnecessary to go into the details of reading it. I assume, and I think all Members of the Committee rightly assume too, that the object of this Bill is to make it as easy as possible for those who are qualified to be on the register as voters in another election to do so, and that every possible handicap should be removed. With regard to those who are qualified to vote as occupiers of business premises, I contend, and my hon. Friends agree with me, that this particular class of voters or potential voters are, in fact, handicapped very considerably in so far as they have in a very short time to apply either individually or now, as has been suggested by Amendments, their wives might apply for them to be put upon the register. My right hon. Friend emphasised a few minutes ago the very short space of time there is for this to be done and gave his reasons for not allowing a third party to apply on behalf of the applicant, but in this particular instance it seems to me it is causing a very great handicap for those who are qualified for a business premises vote if they have themselves got to do it. In every other instance, so far as I can see, reading the Bill, a form will be sent to an individual who desires to vote, whether he is a soldier, a merchant seaman or an ordinary civilian. They will either be automatically on the register or specifically reminded of the fact that they have facilities and privileges as voters, but as regards the occupier of business premises the Bill, as I see it, at present says there is to be no form or reminder of any kind. I suggest that there is nothing easier than to see that he gets ordinary assistance to remind him that he is qualified and that if he wants to vote he must register as such. Therefore this Amendment suggests that the registration officer should send to all those qualified a reminder in the shape of a form. The registration officer can readily ascertain who are qualified from the valuation rolls at the present time. All those on the existing register  are on the valuation roll and those on the new register will also be on the valuation roll. I suggest it will be difficult to find a reasonable excuse why the registration officer should not fulfil this common or garden duty. Human nature is sometimes careless and sometimes indifferent. It may be that in other instances the owner of business premises is away ill or has no time to do the job unless specifically reminded to do so. We feel very strongly about the Amendment. A most important principle is involved, and I trust the Under-Secretary will take this Amendment as seriously as it is intended by those who have brought it forward.

Sir D. Gunston
I should like to endorse what my hon. and gallant Friend has said in moving the Amendment. I hope my right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will accept the Amendment. The whole point of this question is not whether there should be a business vote or not. Parliament has given the vote and should see that knowledge is provided to let people know that they are entitled to a vote. I find that on this point I am very much reinforced by the Report of the Committee on Electoral Machinery. If my right hon. Friend will turn to page 35, he will see what the unanimous Report of the Committee was. They said: "Under the head of 'Construction' it is proposed that particulars of Business Premises qualification should be obtained by claim. Maintenance will, however, be requisite. Here the national registration system can provide no automatic machinery. The onus of revising these qualifications cannot be left with the E.R.O., and the initial and subsequent qualifications must be for a year, renewable by application. To facilitate such applications the E.R.O. should send an application form to each elector already possessing the Business Premises qualification in order that he may apply for a renewal if qualified." If the Committee came to the conclusion that it is quite possible for the returning officer to send that information to the business man when he is qualified, it must be equally possible to send it before he himself has made a claim. The machinery is there, it is admitted it is there by the Committee, on which this Bill is founded. Therefore I suggest to my right hon. Friend that he cannot say the machinery is not there. It is, and I cannot see what argument there can possibly be for saying that the machinery should not be  provided to let those people who are entitled to business qualification know that they are entitled, and how to make their claim.

Captain Duncan  (Kensington, North)
I should like to support the Amendment, particularly from the point of view of a business man who may well be overseas but whose wife would not realise that she might apply on his behalf and thus obtain not only for him but for herself a business premises vote. I think it is important that if this application must be made, it should be made in the easiest possible form, and that this Amendment that a form should be sent by the registration officer within a prescribed time to each of the persons entitled in respect of business premises would meet very largely the objection I raised on Second Reading. I realise, of course, that there will be a certain amount of wastage of paper, but I do not think that a small amount of waste paper should stand in the way as regards the business premises vote.

Mr. Peake
I am not quite clear whether we are discussing the single Amendment standing in the name of the hon. and gallant Member for Thornbury (Sir D. Gunston) regarding the sending of a notice by the registration officer, or whether we are dealing at the same time with the two other Amendments to Clause 6. I should be grateful for your guidance, Major Milner.

Major Lloyd
I had intended solely to move the insertion at the end of line 5, the Amendment which I originally moved. That is one to which I attach great importance.

The Chairman
I understood the Committee agreed that it would be for the general convenience if all three Amendments were discussed together.

Major Lloyd
May I with respect point out that there may be a desire to have a Division on this Amendment and not on the others?

The Chairman
There is no difficulty about that. The Committee may discuss the three Amendments, and if there is a desire to have a Division on the Amendment which the hon. and gallant Member has moved, that can take place.

Lieut.-Colonel Acland-Troyte  (Tiverton)
These are different Amendments.

The Chairman
I had hoped it might shorten discussion and avoid repetition if the Amendments were discussed together but I am, of course, in the hands of the Committee.

Mr. Peake
On a point of Order. I think it is true that the second Amendment, which deals with the application for the business premises vote, is a rather different matter from that contained in the first and last Amendments of the three. It might be convenient to have a discussion on the first Amendment and then have a discussion on the proposal of my hon. Friend the hon. Member for the Abbey Division (Sir H. Webbe) that this duty should be imposed on the Inspector of Taxes. We could take those two discussions together with consent, but I am quite happy to deal with each Amendment in the order in which they stand on the Paper.

The Chairman
I gather that the Committee would prefer that course.

Mr. Peake
This Amendment proposes, as I understand, to facilitate the entry of applications for registration in respect of the business premises vote by placing upon the registration officer the duty of sending within a prescribed time a copy of the form of application to each person rated in respect of business premises. There is some machinery objection to the proposal, but more formidable objections on merits. The registration officer and his staff will frequently have great difficulty in carrying out work which, under the new scheme, will be essential to the preparation of a new register. To add to this work the labour of obtaining the rate book and going through it and sending out notices to all the persons who may be thought, from an examination of the rate book, to have a claim to the business premises vote, would be in many cases impracticable. Secondly, the particulars recorded in the rate book are frequently insufficient to show whether an individual whose name appears in the book is rated in respect of a dwelling or of business premises. Also, there is the very large class of business premises occupiers who do not pay rates at all. An enormous number of blocks of offices are leased to business tenants for a rent which includes the amount of the rates, the landlord being the ratepayer. On the one hand, you  would be sending out forms of application to people who would not be qualified for the business premises vote, and raising, false hopes in their breasts, while, on the other hand, you would be missing out a large number of people who would be entitled to be entered on the register. The proposal has defects from both angles. That, I suggest, is why the Inter-Departmental Committee came to the conclusion that this matter must rest upon individual claims. So far as publicity is concerned, my right hon. Friend and I have already promised that every possible step will be taken to publicise the existence of the business premises vote at election times and to enable people to make their applications. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Thornbury (Sir D. Gunston) quoted from page 35 of the Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee. He thought that that paragraph strengthened the case for the Amendment. But the paragraph deals, not with elections initiated in what I might call the first stage, but with elections initiated in the second stage contemplated by the Bill. Once we have a business premises register, it is practicable on a subsequent occasion to send out notices to persons entered thereon reminding them that they are entitled to be entered on the business premises register. When we get to the second stage, when the business premises register is compiled on a different principle, that course is practicable. I would not like to be dogmatic on this point, but I think it is contemplated that the regulations on the second stage shall provide for some reminder to be sent to the persons already on the business premises register. I assure my hon. and gallant Friend that, while the first stage is operative, it is not possible to find any method of getting in touch with persons who are entitled to the business premises vote, in order to stimulate them into making the necessary application.

Sir H. Webbe
I cannot regard the speech of my right hon. Friend as at all satisfactory. He has virtually admitted that the machinery proposed under this Bill will in fact involve the business man in considerable difficulties. He has given reasons for not accepting the proposal made in this Amendment. I ought perhaps to explain why I put my name to this Amendment while I have at the same  time an Amendment down urging an alternative piece of machinery. I think I am justified in supporting both proposals, because I am concerned only with seeing that the business man gets some opportunity of making application properly for his business premises vote. The first objection is that the study of the rating lists by the registration officer would be an impossible task. I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend has been advised by his own expert officers, but I have talked about this matter to registration officers in divisions where the problem is very serious, and they see no insuperable difficulty. They are the men who have to do the job, and they say that, by and large, it can be done. My right hon. Friend's second objection is two-fold. He says that, on the one hand, people will receive copies of forms when they are not entitled to vote, and, on the other hand, people who are entitled to vote, who occupy premises in respect of which they do not pay rates direct, will not get any vote. I am certain that those who have put their names to the Amendment will realise that the Amendment in itself will not secure a 100 per cent. perfect piece of machinery, but it will do a great deal more than nothing. If there are going to be thousands of business men, who do not pay rates direct, who will not get forms, there must be many more thousands who, under the Bill as it stands, will get no qualification whatever. We shall be very happy to have something less than perfection if we can have the very substantial something which the Amendment would give. Every business man is accustomed to receiving letters, particularly from Government offices, which do not concern him, and the receipt of one more or less will go quite unnoticed. I do not think our hearts need bleed for people in that position. I think that the objections of my right hon. Friend are not substantial. I must revert to what was said on Second Reading about the way in which the business man is going to be given this vote. There is going to be publicity. It has been pointed out to-day how completely ineffective official publicity may be. The other suggestion was that forms might be sent to political agents for them to canvass in the districts. Although the voice was the voice of my right hon. Friend the Under-  Secretary, I saw, from long acquaintance, the imprint of the hand of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary in that suggestion. That suggestion is quite improper. It is the business of this House to provide by Statute the machinery to enable the citizen simply and easily to claim that vote, and to exercise it. It is entirely wrong that we should contemplate throwing this burden of notifying business men of their right to the business vote upon people who, as I said just now in another connection, have no constitutional existence whatsoever. Particularly is it wrong at this time. There is supposed to be a political truce, which some of us are trying to observe. As a result, the ordinary political machinery, as every hon. Member knows, is in many cases virtually non-existent. Most—indeed, I would say all—of those political agents who are capable of doing a job more closely related to the war effort than that of running party politics are, or should be, differently engaged. In fact, the political agents do not exist in a large number of instances to carry out the duties which my right hon. Friend, speaking, I am certain, on behalf of the Home Secretary, has suggested they should do. It is just a piece of humbug to suggest that this business can be done by the political agent. It is the business of this House to secure by Statute that there is proper machinery, so that the business man entitled, under the Constitution, to a vote, can have the same opportunity of securing that vote, as nearly as we can, as the residential voter has. There is at the moment a gross disparity between the position of the residential voter and that of the business voter. This is not the right machinery, and I suggest that it is the duty of the Government to find adequate machinery to deal with what may turn out to be a great injustice.

Mr. Glenvil Hall  (Colne Valley)
I cannot help feeling that practically the whole of this discussion is completely unreal. The arguments put forward by the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department are overwhelming in the light of existing circumstances. The hon. Member for the Abbey Division (Sir H. Webbe) put up, no doubt, the best case he could for the proposition which has been put forward, but it is difficult to persuade most of us that any business man will not be alive to the fact that he  is entitled to this vote. Therefore, any suggestion that because he is not spoon-fed with regard to this vote and will therefore miss it strikes me as being completely out of accord with the facts as we know them. He will still be able to vote like an ordinary citizen, and the business vote in any case is an extra vote to which many people believe he should not be entitled. It is there for him, and all he is asked to do is to apply for it, not year after year but only in the first instance, due entirely to the exigencies of war-time conditions. After the first year his name would have been noted, and in all probability he would be reminded. If the Amendment is carried, it will mean that overworked returning officers will have to send out these forms literally in their thousands, taking the country as a whole. That in itself will be a tremendous work, and a very large number of them will be completely wasted. The line to be taken is a reasonable one, and anyone entitled to the vote who is keen enough to exercise will watch for his opportunity to become registered. I hope that the Under-Secretary will resist all attempts to add this burden to returning officers at the present time, with all its resultant waste in man-power and indeed, of paper.

Mr. Turton  (Thirsk and Malton)
The hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) has given the game away. He says he does not like the business vote, and, therefore, why make it easy for people to exercise that vote? The answer to that was contained in the very excellent speech of the Under-Secretary on Second Reading, when he said it was necessary to give publicity to the fact and suggested that forms should be sent round to all the agents of the political parties in the country. That seems to be foreign to the hon. Member's idea of democracy. Surely we ought to adopt this really democratic principle and impose this duty on returning officers of sending an application form to everybody who appears to be running business premises. The amount of time involved would not be great when you bear in mind the importance of securing that everybody, whatever his party, has a clear right to vote in an election.

Major Lloyd
I entirely agree with the opinion expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for the Abbey Division (Sir H. Webbe) that the case put up by the right  hon. Gentleman was entirely unsatisfactory to those of us who feel strongly on this Amendment. He was inclined to make very heavy weather of a very simple thing. It is only a reminder and not a case of the possibility of fraud being involved or of anybody getting on to the register who ought not to get on. Who was more entitled to send a reminder than the registration officer? There may be a case here and there where some people may not be on the valuation roll and where some may get the form perhaps who do not need it. But such cases will only be very few. The vast majority of people will be on the valuation roll and the registration officer can very readily, even in the time available, obtain that information and bring it to the notice of all concerned. I am thoroughly dissatisfied with the case presented by the right hon. Gentleman, and unless he proves to be considerably more conciliatory I am afraid we must press the matter to a Division.

Sir D. Gunston
I hope that the Under-Secretary can meet us on this point. I was amazed to hear that the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) was anxious about the waste of paper. Fancy a Socialist worrying about the waste of paper.

Mr. Charleton  (Leeds, South)
Is it not true that Socialists are organised to prevent all waste?

Sir D. Gunston
Are they really so anxious about the waste of paper as to prevent from voting someone who has the right to vote in this country? The Under-Secretary of State has made an extraordinary argument, that if the amendment is accepted it will not cover everybody, and a certain number of people not on the rate roll will not be included, and also he says that to send forms to certain people not entitled to them might cause a heart-burning. That is not a serious Parliamentary argument. If the Amendment is accepted it will remind a lot of people and tell them they are entitled to the vote, and I beg of the right hon. Gentleman to consider the position again before he rejects the Amendment.

Mr. Peake
I appreciate the anxiety of hon. Friends, some of whom have a large number of business voters in their constituencies, that every possible step should  be taken to enable those people to exercise their right. I am bound to point out in respect of the proposal in the Amendment, which suggests that persons rated in respect of business premises should receive a copy of the form, that the rate books do not say who is and who is not rated in respect of business premises at all, and if persons are so entered in the books, they may not, and in many cases will not, be entitled to a business premises vote, because they are residing in the same constituency already, and I am bound to point out that the result of circulating these forms to these persons will be that large numbers of people will obtain the forms who have no claim to the business premises vote whatever. In those circumstances, I suggest that the proposal will not clarify the position in regard to the business premises vote. It will add a tremendous lot of fog to the position. When an election comes along there will be announcements in the Press and broadcast, and so forth, in regard to the business premises vote, but it will add to the confusion if, at the same time, forms are going out which are not reaching the right people in many cases and in thousands of other cases are reaching the wrong people. I suggest that the Amendment, no doubt designed with the best intention in the world, will only make confusion and chaos, and I therefore suggest that its supporters will be well advised to reconsider their position before dividing the Committee.

Sir Robert Tasker  (Holborn)
The position in regard to the Amendment does not create any more confusion than the position with regard to an individual who has a residential qualification and a business qualification. The returning officer would not experience very much difficulty in differentiating between the business vote and the residential vote. Everybody can tell from a particular street whether it is a residential place or a business place. That is reflected in the return which is made in regard to the payment of rates. The business firm pays a greater sum than the residential voter in my constituency in the majority of cases. Here is an attempt to deprive business men of the vote, and that is not the intention of the Bill or of Parliament. If small injustices creep in and men are likely to be deprived of their votes, I would remind  my right hon. Friend that one of the duties of the election agent is at all times to try and sustain the votes of people whose names do not appear on the register but which ought to appear. When the registers are being prepared such names are put forward by representatives of all parties. If after that has been done there are people who are still deprived of their vote, it is just too bad. There is no justification for trying to deprive men of their votes who pay a much greater volume in rates and taxes and have greater liabilities than residential voters.

Mr. John Wilmot  (Kennington)
It is very remarkable that those who are supporting this Amendment are those who support the business voter. Were it not for the fact that this is not the time to embark upon widespread controversy, I am sure that my hon. Friends on this side of the Committee would take grievous exception to the perpetuation of the business vote at all. The argument put forward in such dulcet tones by the hon. Member for Holborn (Sir R. Tasker) opens the position very wide. Surely, at this time of day this Committee would not really support the principle of two votes to the man who pays the most in rates. It would be impossible to justify the business vote unless you were prepared also to give a plural vote to every workman in respect of the place where he carried out his employment.

Sir R. Tasker
Does the hon. Member support the university vote?

Mr. Wilmot
I do not. The only tenable principle of voting is that each citizen in respect of his citizenship shall be entitled to one vote in the place where he lives. While I agree that this is not the time to seek to make fundamental changes in established voting practice, it is most unfortunate that those who are supporting the Amendment should seek to pursue this archaic and obsolete piece of class prejudice to the point of a division.

Sir H. Webbe
On a point of Order. Is the hon. Member, who is now letting all the cats out of the bag, in Order in discussing this matter at all?

The Chairman
I was watching the hon. Member. He has been in Order, but should not go far on his present line.

Mr. Wilmot
I am most anxious to keep in Order, and I should have thought that it would not have been in Order but for the Amendment, which just opens the door to a discussion of these things. That is why the proposers of the Amendment were so unwise, but if we were called upon as a Committee to justify plural voting, we would all find it very difficult. The best thing to do is to let the Clause be and remember that the least said the soonest mended.

Mr. Loftus  (Lowestoft)
I want to refer to the remarks of the hon. Member for Kennington (Mr. Wilmot). I do not propose to discuss whether the business vote is desirable or not. That, I suggest, is completely out of Order. I want to put forward the general principle that if, under the existing law, an individual is entitled to a vote, he or she should have every fair opportunity of obtaining that vote. I feel that the Mover of this Amendment has made out a case that as the Bill now stands the owner of the business vote will not have an equal and fair opportunity. My right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, a few moments ago, appeared to admit this, to say that the machinery proposed under the Amendment will create fog, will not clarify the position and will not remove grievances. If that is the case, could he not see his way between now and the Report stage to consider whether there are any legitimate grievances and, if so, take the opportunity of putting forward counter proposals to remove them?

Mr. Gallacher
There is a Scriptural text which says: "He that is faithful in the least is faithful also in much." I would like hon. Members to realise how tough Members on the other side are over this small matter and to take it as a warning as to how much tougher things will be when we come to tackle them on bigger subjects. If those who are affected by this dual vote were suspected of being in any way "Red," there would be no question from the other side of sending them a reminder.

Sir Joseph Nall  (Manchester, Hulme)
I hope the Committee will insist on a Division and support the Amendment, because it is disgraceful that the Home Office should seek an occasion of this kind to do a very dirty trick—it is nothing more or less—in endeavouring to disfranchise a  not very considerable but at least a worthwhile considering section of the electorate.

Mr. Glenvil Hall
On a point of Order. Is it in Order, Major Milner, for an hon. Member who has not listened to the Debate to come into the House and make charges of a character that are quite demonstrably untrue?

Sir J. Nall
I have followed this matter from the first. How long I have been in the House is of no importance whatever. I am entitled to vote and to express my opinion before I vote. As I was saying, this is one more of those dirty tricks we are getting from certain members of the Government, and I hope the Committee will insist on carrying the matter to a Division. Many people affected are at the moment on war duties or are away from home and are being called on for all kinds of additional jobs. Now they are to have put on them the onus of having to claim their own vote.

Mr. Gallacher
An extra vote.

Sir J. Nall
It is not an extra vote; it is a statutory vote to which they have been entitled for many years. The Home Office has no right to endeavour to change the franchise in this way under an emergency Measure of this kind.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Home Security (Miss Wilkinson)
There seems to be some misapprehension about this Amendment and as so many Members who have now come into the Chamber did not hear the statement which was made by my right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary a short while ago perhaps they would not mind if I made the point with which the Home Office is here concerned. I want to assure the hon. Member for Hulme (Sir J. Nall) that there is no desire whatever on the part of the Home Office either to gain any advantage or to alter the existing franchise. The business vote has been put in in exactly the way it exists at present. This is an emergency Measure for dealing with extremely difficult conditions under which any election will have to be held under this procedure. We are not dealing with a normal peace-time election, where you can have as many workers and as many paid officials as you need, or at any rate as you are allowed under your statutory allowance. An election under this pro-  cedure will take place under the maximum difficulties with regard to staff. Everyone knows how depleted are the staffs of local authorities, from whom we are constantly receiving complaints. If the Amendment is carried it will put upon the returning officers and registration officers who are liable under the Amendment such a task that the machinery may very well break down.

Sir J. Nall
Nonsense.

Miss Wilkinson
It is not a question of principle; it is a question of arithmetic, a question of how many people are available at a given time to do a given job. The Home Office has tried, in setting up the machinery under this Bill, to get what it was clear the House of Commons wanted—the possibility of as good a register as possible under war-time conditions. It may well be that if more is put upon the machinery that exists it will break down so that nobody will be happy or satisfied.

Sir Herbert Williams  (Croydon, South)
In response to the speech of the hon. Lady, for whom I have the highest personal regard, I would like to, say that there are many firemen who can write. It really is nonsense to say that it cannot be done. I will undertake to do it on a voluntary basis in any constituency where a by-election may be held, and in the light of that offer I hope the Government will agree to the acceptance of this Amendment. If they do not, many hundreds of thousands of people will be disfranchised.

Mr. McKinlay  (Dumbartonshire)
I see a representative of the Scottish Office on the Government Front Bench, and while I do not want to take part in any dirty work or to be intimidated by a display of force I would like to get some information as to the position in England. I know what it is in Scotland. Business premises have a valuation notice served on them, and that notice can be used in connection with the voters roll. There are many things in this interim Bill that do not meet with the acceptance of Members on this side of the House. Speaking as a member of the largest single administrative local authority in the country, I can say that the City of Glasgow assessors' staff has been so depleted that even the  preparation of such a register will be a very difficult job. Is it proposed to issue a supplementary register so that the names can be checked? Members on the other side always leave the electioneering cupboard bare. They rake out the infirmaries and, if possible, would do the same with the graveyards. I am satisfied that if a valuation notice was served that ought to be sufficient for anyone to give an indication that he is on the valuation vote.

Hon. Members
Divide!

Colonel Arthur Evans
I am sure it is the sense of the Committee that a vote should be taken on this matter now but, nevertheless, it is clear from the speech of the hon. Lady who has just intervened on behalf of the Home Office that the Government are under some misapprehension. They have accepted the principle yet they tell us that it is simply a question of machinery. But the question of machinery will not arise at a general election and, therefore, there will not be any undue strain. The subject in which most hon. Members are interested through this Amendment is a by-election and surely the difficulty of setting up machinery for a by-election cannot be compared with finding that machinery at a general election. I hope, therefore, that the Amendment will be accepted.

Commander Agnew  (Camborne)
I do not think the Home Office have met the case adequately to-day. I regret to say that owing to other duties I was not able to be present in the Chamber when the Committee heard earlier speeches on this matter, but if the issue were the straight issue of whether in normal times the business vote should be abolished or retained, I should vote unhesitatingly for its abolition. I shall do so in future, but that is not the issue to-day. The issue is quite different. This Bill is a temporary expedient to maintain the status quo and to ensure that there shall be fair play during the time a by-election or a general election is conducted. The speech of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Home Security, if it is the final reply for the Government, has not met the case at all. It is common knowledge, I think, that there is a sufficiency of staff in Whitehall Government Departments who could be lent to the local authorities. I am sure they could be well spared, and I  think it would be a pleasant holiday from their otherwise no doubt strenuous labours. At this late hour I hope the Government will accept the Amendment because it is quite clearly the majority opinion of the Committee that the status quo should be maintained and that there should be no nibbling at the present situation as regards the right and ability to exercise a vote at a general election.

Mr. G. Griffiths
I want to ask one question of the Under-Secretary. Will he threaten to withdraw this Bill if the Government are defeated on this Amendment, in the same way as we were threatened on the Workmen's Compensation Bill last week?

Mr. Peake
There is a large number of Members present in the Committee who were not present during the discussion on the Amendment, and although I have already made two speeches on this matter, if not three, I will make the same speech again—

Hon. Members
Divide.

Commander Agnew
On a point of Order. Is it in Order for hon. or right hon. Members to repeat their speeches?

The Chairman
That is a matter for the Chair.

Mr. Peake
I am sure that if you find me infringing the Rules of Order, Major Milner, you will interfere. The short point raised in the Amendment is that those who are entitled to the business vote shall be given every facility for claiming it and exercising it. We are all agreed about that. We are not discussing the merits of the business premises vote. The Amendment suggests that every person who is rated in respect of business premises should be sent a copy of a form of application. My objection to the Amendment is this. In the first instance, rate books do not themselves show who is rated in respect of all hereditaments. In some cases they do, but in many cases they do not. Therefore, in fact you would not get at the right people by limiting the circular to those rated in respect of business premises. In the second place, many of the persons registered in respect of business premises do not have a second vote. They only have that if they reside in a different area. The result would be that we should send out many forms of application to people who have no entitlement whatever to the business premises vote, and that might mislead them perhaps into thinking that they are entitled. On the other hand, you will miss many of the people who are entitled because they are not rated in respect of the business premises they occupy. All big blocks of offices in the City of London and no doubt in other cities are rented to people who pay a rent which includes rates. They do not themselves directly pay rates. You would leave out numbers of people who are entitled to the business vote. The attitude of the Government is that we should try to give effective publicity to those who are entitled to the business vote so that they may make application, but that we should not take a step which is going to lead to confusion and will not ensure that the circular gets to the right people. That is the clear issue, and on it the Government are quite ready to divide.

Mr. Silverman
I would like to ask the Under-Secretary to give a reply to the question asked just now by my hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth (Mr. G. Griffiths). I ask it for what I hold is a good reason. The Under-Secretary has just proved, to the satisfaction at any rate of some hon. Members, that if the Amendment is adopted, the machinery contemplated by this Bill will be rendered virtually unworkable. He says it will mean sending a great many notices to a great many people, many of whom will not be interested in the least and who have no rights under the Clause at all. If that burden and obligation are imposed upon registration officers, it is quite easy to see—it has been stated twice by representatives of the Department—that the whole machinery would become unworkable. If therefore this House insists upon introducing into the Bill a provision which would render the machinery contemplated unworkable, so as to make the Bill in that respect abortive, we are entitled to know what would then be the attitude of the Government to the Measure as a whole. Only the other day, on a quite different matter, when an Amendment which if carried would not have rendered the Bill unworkable the Government took the line—many of us protested against it—that if the Amendment were insisted upon it would be such a revolt against the  Government that they would withdraw the Measure altogether with such advantages as it gave to a hard-pressed set of people. If they adopted that attitude upon a vote which would not have rendered the machinery abortive, we are entitled to know what their attitude would be if this Amendment was insisted upon.

Sir D. Gunston
On a point of Order. If the Under-Secretary is entitled to repeat his speech, may I be allowed to repeat my reply?

The Chairman
I do not think the Parliamentary Secretary did unduly repeat his speech.

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|Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.         |Gretton, J. F.|Robertson, D. (Streatham)|
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|Agnew, Comdr. P. G.                   |Gridley, Sir A. B.|Ross Taylor, W.|
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|Anstruther-Gray, Major W. J.          |Grimston, Hon. J. (St. Albans)|Royds, Admiral Sir P. M. R.|
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|Apsley, Lady                          |Hammersley, S. S.|Russell, Sir A. (Tynemouth)|
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|Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P.           |Hannon, Sir P. J. H.|Salt, E. W.|
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|Beattle, F. (Cathcart)                |Henderson, J. J. Craik (Leeds, N. E.)|Sanderson, Sir F. B.|
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|Bennett, Sir P. F. B. (Edgbaston)     |Higgs, W. F.|Savory, Professor D. L.|
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|Berry, Hon. G. L. (Buckingham)        |Hulbert, Wing-Commander N. J.|Selley, H. R.|
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|Boles, Lt.-Col. D. C.                 |Hunter, T.|Shephard, S.|
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|Bower, Norman (Harrow)                |Hutchinson, G. C. (Ilford)|Simmonds, O. E.|
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|Brass, Capt. Sir W.                   |Hutchison, Lt.-Com. G. I. C. (E'burgh)|Smith, Bracewell (Dolwich)|
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|Brocklebank, Sir C. E. R.             |Jeffreys, General Sir G. D.|Smith, E. P. (Ashford)|
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|Cadegan, Major Sir E.                 |Kerr, Sir John Graham (Scottish U's.)|Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)|
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|Campbell, Dermot (Antrim)             |King-Hall, Commander W. S. R.|Snadden, W. McN.|
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|Challen, Flight-Lieut.- C.            |Lamb, Sir J. Q.|Southby, Comdr. Sir A. R. J.|
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|Channon, H.                           |Lancaster, Lieut.-Col. C. G.|Strickland, Capt. W. F.|
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|Clarry, Sir Reginald                  |Leighton, Major B. E. P.|Stuart, Lord C. Crichton- (Northwich)|
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|Cobb, Captain E. C.                   |Linstead, H. N.|Studholme, Captain H. G.|
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|Colegate, W. A.                       |Lloyd, Major E. G. R. (Renfrew, E.)|Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.|
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|Craven-Ellis, W.                      |Loftus, P. C.|Summers, G. S.|
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|Crowder, Capt. J. F. E.               |Lyle, Sir C. E. Leonard|Tasker, Sir R. I.|
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|Davies, Major Sir G. F. (Yeovil)      |Manningham-Buller, Major R. E.|Tate, Mavis C.|
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|Davison, Sir W. H.                    |McCullum, Major D.|Taylor, Major C. S. (Eastbourne)|
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|Denman, Hon. R. D.                    |Macdonald, Captain Peter (I. of W.)|Thorneycroft, Maj. G. E. P. (Stafford)|
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|Doland, G. F.                         |Mellor, Sir J. S. P.|Touche, G. C.|
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|Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)          |Mitcheson, Sir G. G.|Tufnell, Lieut.-Comdr. R. L.|
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|Dunean, Capt. J. A. L. (Kens'gt'n, N.)|Moore, Lieut.-Col. Sir T. C. R.|Webbe, Sir W. Harold|
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|Emmott, C. E. G. C.                   |Morgan, R. H. (Stourbridge)|Wedderburn, H. J. S.|
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|Errington, Squadron-Leader E.         |Nall, Sir J.|Williams, Sir H. G. (Croydon, S.)|
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|Ersklne-Hill, A. G.                   |Petherick, Major M.|Willink, H. U.|
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|Evans, Colonel A. (Cardiff, S.)       |Peto, Major B. A. J.|Windsor-Clive, Lt.-Col. G.|
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|Everard, Sir W. Lindsay               |Plugge, Capt. L. F.|Wise, Major A. R.|
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|Fermoy, Lord                          |Radford, E. A.|Wootton-Davies, J. H.|
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|Findlay, Sir E.                       |Raikes, Flight-Lieut. H. V. A. M.|Wright, Group Capt. J. (Erdington)|
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|Galbraith, Comdr. T. D.               |Reakes, G. L. (Wallasey)||
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|Cammans, Capt. L. D.                  |Reed, A. C. (Exeter)|TELLERS FOR THE AYES:—|
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|Gower, Sir R. V.                      |Reed, Sir H. S. (Aylesbury)|Major Sir Derrick Gunston|
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|Graham, Capt. A. C.                   |Reid, W. Allan (Derby)|and Mr. Turton.|
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|Greenwell, Colonel T. G.              |Richards, G. W.||
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|Albery, Sir Irving        |Brown, T. J. (Ince)           |Daggar, G.                         |
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|Ammon, C. G.              |Brown, W. J. (Rugby)          |Davies, Clement (Montgomery)       |
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|Aske, Sir R. W.           |Buchanan, G.                  |Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)       |
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|Assheton, R.              |Burden, T. W.                 |Dobbie, W.                         |
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|Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.    |Burke, W. A.                  |Drewe, C.                          |
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|Barr, J.                  |Butler, Rt. Hon. R. A.        |Driberg, T. E. N.                  |
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|Barstow, P. G.            |Campbell, Sir E. T. (Bromley) |Eccles, D. M.                      |
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|Baxter, A. Beverley       |Cary, R. A.                   |Edmondson, Major Sir J.            |
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|Beattie, J. (Belfast, W.) |Chapman, A. (Rutherglen)      |Edwards, Rt. Hon. Sir C. (Bedwelty)|
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|Beechman, N. A.           |Charleton, H. C.              |Edwards, N. (Caerphilly)           |
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|Bowles, F. G.             |Cluse, W. S.                  |Edwards, Walter J. (Whitechapel)   |
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|Brooks, T. J. (Rothwell)  |Cooke, J. D. (Hammersmith, S.)|Evans, D. O. (Cardigan)            |
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|Brown, Rt. Hon. E. (Leith)|Cove, W. G.                   |Fildes, Sir H.                     |
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Mr. Keeling
I have not yet spoken on this Amendment, and so I cannot repeat what I said. The Under-Secretary's short point was that if the Amendment is carried a number of people will get forms who are not entitled to the vote, and vice-versa. The short answer is that even if there be a little overlapping—I do not think it will be very substantial—that is no reason why the exercise of the business premises vote should be made largely impossible, as the Bill without this Amendment will make it. I hope the Committee will support the Amendment.

Question put, "That those words be there inserted."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 112; Noes, 146.

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|Foster, W.                                 |Lawson, J. J.                     |Richards, R.                         |
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|Frankel, D.                                |Lees-Jones, J.                    |Riley, B.                            |
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|Fraser, T. (Hamilton)                      |Levy, T.                          |Ritson, J.                           |
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|Furness, Major S. N.                       |Little, Dr. J. (Down)             |Sexton, T. M.                        |
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|Gallacher, W.                              |Mabane, W.                        |Shakespeare, Sir G. H.               |
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|George, Megan Lloyd (Anglesey)             |McEntee, V. la T.                 |Silverman, S. S.                     |
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|Gibbins, J.                                |McEwen, Capt. J. H. F.            |Sloan, A.                            |
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|Green, W. H. (Deptford)                    |McGhee, H. G.                     |Smith, E. (Stoke)                    |
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|Grenfell, D. R.                            |McGovern, J.                      |Sorensen, R. W.                      |
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|Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)               |McKie, J. H.                      |Spearman, A. C. M.                   |
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|Grimston, R. V. (Westbury)                 |McKinlay, A. S.                   |Stephen, C.                          |
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|Gruffydd, W. J.                            |Magnay, T.                        |Stewart, J. Henderson (Fife, E.)     |
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|Guy, W. H.                                 |Mainwaring, W. H.                 |Stewart, W. Joseph (H'gton-le-Spring)|
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|Hall, W. G. (Colne Valley)                 |Maxton, J.                        |Strauss, G. R. (Lambeth, N.)         |
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|Hannan, I. C.                              |Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.               |Summerskill, Dr. Edith               |
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|Hardie, Agnes                              |Mills, Sir T. (Leyton, E.)        |Thorneycroft, H. (Clayton)           |
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|Harris, Rt. Hon. Sir P. A.                 |Montague, F.                      |Tinker, J. J.                        |
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|Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)               |Morris-Jones, Sir Henry           |Walkden, A. G. (Bristol, S.)         |
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|Henderson, J. (Ardwick)                    |Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Univ's) |Walker, J.                           |
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|Henderson, T. (Tradeston)                  |Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)   |Watkins, F. C.                       |
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|Heneage, Lt.-Col. A. P.                    |Mort, D. L.                       |Watson, W. McL.                      |
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|Hepworth, J.                               |Murray, Sir D. K. (Midlothian, N.)|Watt, Lt.-Col. G. S. H. (Richmond)   |
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|Hill, Prof. A. V.                          |Murray, J. D. (Spennymoor)        |Westwood, Rt. Hon. J.                |
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|Hollins, A. (Hanley)                       |Naylor, T. E.                     |White, H. (Derby, N. E.)             |
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|Holmes, J. S.                              |Nicholson, Captain G. (Farnham)   |White, H. Graham (Birkenhead, E.)    |
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|Hore-Belisha, Rt. Hon. L.                  |Oldfield, W. H.                   |Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W. (Blaydon)      |
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|Hudson, Rt. Hon. R. S. (Southport)         |Paling, W.                        |Wilkinson, Ellen                     |
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|Hume, Sir G. H.                            |Parker, J.                        |Wilmot, John                         |
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|Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)                    |Peaks, Rt. Hon. O.                |Windsor, W.                          |
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|Jewson, P. W.                              |Pearson, A.                       |Woodburn, A.                         |
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|John, W.                                   |Peters, Dr. S. J.                 |Woolley, Major W. E.                 |
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|Johnston, Rt. Hon. T. (St'l'g & C'km'n)|Pownall, Lt.-Col. Sir Assheton    |Wright, Mrs. Beatrice F. (Bodmin)    |
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|Jones, A. C. (Shipley)                     |Price, M. P.                      |Young, A. S. L. (Partick)            |
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|Jones, L. (Swansea, W.)                    |Pritt, D. N.                      |                                     |
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|Keir, Mrs. Cazalet                         |Procter, Major H. A.              |TELLERS FOR THE NOES:—               |
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|Kendall, W. D.                             |Qulbell, D. J. K.                 |Mr. Boulton and Mr. Pym              |
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|Kirby, B. V.                               |Ramsden, Sir E.                   |                                     |
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Sir D. Gunston
I beg to move, in page 6, line 5, at the end, to insert: "Provided also that any person qualified to be registered by virtue of the foregoing provisions of this subsection may apply on behalf of the wife or husband of such person." The object of this Amendment is to secure that when a husband is entitled to a business vote he can apply for himself and his wife, and when the wife is entitled to a business vote she can apply for herself and her husband. I think this Amendment will save a lot of paper, and I hope that it will be accepted.

Mr. Peake
As I indicated in a previous discussion, it is the desire of the Government to meet the point of my hon. Friends by enabling a wife to make a claim in respect of her husband or a husband in respect of his wife as regards the business premises qualification. That seems to us to be sensible, because both are qualified voters, and it will save paper if an Amendment on these lines is made; but the wording of my hon. and gallant Friend's Amendment is, in our view, not quite appropriate, and I will therefore read the terms of an Amendment which I will move as a manuscript Amendment in preference to my hon. and gallant Friend's Amendment, if he will agree to accept it: "Where a husband and wife are qualified to be registered in respect of any business  premises by virtue of the foregoing provisions of this Section the said application may be made by either of them on behalf of both of them."

Mr. Silverman
I am greatly surprised that the Government should accept an Amendment conceding such a principle. The scheme of the Bill is that people shall be entitled to be put upon the register in respect of a business qualification provided they take the trouble to apply. A great many of us are altogether against plural voting and it is interesting to see that when a large section of the Tory party shows its loyalty to a united Government by rebelling against a minor provision it should do so in order to gain some advantage for its own section of the community. Plural voting is a vicious principle. It gives a privilege to those who already have too many privileges, and I think the opportunity might have been taken to abolish it altogether, and to get nearer to the principle of allowing each citizen one vote and no more. However, if the Government do not feel able to do that, and think the business qualification shall be preserved, we ought not to be asked to go beyond that. A man who is entitled to a vote in respect of a business qualification should make his own application. There is no reason for giving one of two parties the right to  apply on behalf of the other, who may not desire to vote at all. A great many wives of business people may have sufficient common sense and sense of equity not to desire to exercise a vote in another constituency over and above the vote they already have in their own constituency. Apparently there is to be no machinery for inquiring whether the other person desires to go on the register. A husband's application on behalf of his wife will put her upon the register even if she does not want to go on, and similarly a wife's application would put her husband on the register even if she did not want to go on. What is the reason for this? Is it that hon. Members opposite know that unless one of the couple is given the right to apply for a vote the other would never apply at all? It seems a vicious principle and entirely undemocratic. In a democratic community persons of an agreed age ought to be entitled to vote, and if it is thought necessary that they should apply before they are put on to the register let anyone so entitled make his or her application, but do not let us have a kind of packed jury, a kind of packed electorate, numbers of people being put upon the register and given an extra vote which they do not desire and which this Amendment exempts them from asking for. This is giving an extra privilege which is not now enjoyed and is against all democratic principles.

Sir D. Gunston
I shall be pleased to accept the suggested manuscript Amendment of my right hon. Friend, and therefore I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

The Chairman
Is it the pleasure of the Committee that the Amendment be withdrawn?

Hon. Members
No.

Mr. Peake
As it is evidently not the wish of the Committee that the Amendment should be withdrawn, I should like to explain the position. Under the existing system the business premises register is compiled by the electoral registration officer. No man or woman has to take any step whatever in order to be placed on the register. A canvass is made and those who are qualified are placed on the register automatically. Under the scheme of registration in the Bill a business premises vote has to be the subject of an  application. It has been held out as a hardship that claims are not permitted to be made by agents, solicitors and other people of that kind on behalf of other persons, and the Government are not prepared to concede that point, but I think it is perfectly reasonable to make the concession in the case of a husband claiming for a wife or a wife claiming for a husband. Each of them has an independent right to vote in respect of the qualification of the other. Therefore they are both voters, and each can vote whether the other applies to be placed on the register or not. Let me take the case suggested by the hon. Member in which a husband applies for himself and his wife to be placed on the register although the wife does not want to be on. What conceivable injury is done to her by being placed on the register? Nothing can compel her to exercise her vote, or grant a proxy in favour of her husband exercising her vote.

Mr. Silverman
Does the right hon. Gentleman say it is reasonable to allow a husband to put his wife's name on the register without asking her consent, because it could do no harm and she need not vote?

Mr. Peake
I do not want to go into domestic matters, but nobody could have any legitimate grievance because somebody else, the husband or the wife, had secured that a name should be entered in the register. Nobody is compelled to vote by virtue of being on the register. It is, in our view, perfectly reasonable, especially when people are spread all over the world in connection with the war effort, that a wife should be able to apply on behalf of her husband, or vice versa. There would be considerable hardship on people entitled to this vote if neither could make the claim on behalf of the one of them who happened to be away from home.

Major Petherick
I am grateful to the hon. Members who refused to allow the Amendment to be withdrawn, because it gives me the opportunity in a few words to answer the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman). It is appropriate apparently for Members of the Labour party to cash in politically in war-time, and it is the most abominable thing for the Tory party to refuse to allow them to do so. That is all I have  to say, and I am grateful to the Under-Secretary for seeing the sense of this matter.

Mr. Ammon  (Camberwell, North)
I am sorry that the Parliamentary Secretary has taken the line he has, because it is an endeavour to get half of what the justice of the House has decided should not be granted. Any man who is qualified can get a vote on application, and with electors so widely scattered as they are under present conditions this concession opens the door to the greatest possible abuse, and I shall ask my hon. Friend and other Members who have a desire for fair play during an emergency like this to reject the Amendment.

Lieut.-Commander Hutchison
As the hon. Member responsible for bringing forward this point on Second Reading, I should like to thank my right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary very sincerely for meeting us in the spirit he has on this matter.

Mr. McEntee  (Walthamstow, West)
I should like to put one point. Suppose a man and his wife are qualified for a business vote in a constituency in London and the husband puts his wife's name in the register there, and it also happens that she has an interest in a business in Yorkshire or Lancashire and desires to be placed on the register there. Would she be entitled to two votes if she applies herself to be put on the register in, say, Lancashire? Or, her husband having placed her on the register in London, would that prevent her from voting where she desires to vote in Lancashire? Another question on which I should like some information is what is meant by a wife in this connection. In some recent legislation we have given a definition of a wife and the term has been interpreted as including, not only those who have been legally married, but also as being applicable to the case of a couple who have lived together over a number of years. It has been held that the woman in such case is entitled to be regarded in the same light as a wife because of the couples' long association even though they have never gone through the legal ceremony of marriage. That kind of definition has been accepted by the Government in regard to other legislation, and I should like to know what is to be the definition of a wife within the terms of  this Bill. I would also like an answer on the first point which I raised, because it may be a definite hardship if a woman, or a man for that matter, who wants to vote in a particular constituency, cannot do so because the husband or the wife, as the case may be, has effected a registration in another area.

Sir J. Nall
It may be that when the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman) goes to his own constituency, he will find that a good many of the business people and shopkeepers who voted for him in the past will not appreciate his efforts to get them put off the register. There is no party advantage involved in this question. There are scores of thousands of business voters all over the country who would vote for the Labour party or for any other party, or for any Independent candidate. To say that it is a question of party advantage is just nonsense. The whole point is one of common fairness, that people who, under the existing law are entitled to be registered as voters should have reasonable facilities for being assured of their names appearing on the next register. For my own part may I say to the Under-Secretary that I would not have made so much of the last Amendment if I had known that he was going to accept this one, because this goes a very long way. The whole thing is that it is quite wrong to use an emergency Bill for gerrymandering the franchise and that is what the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne wants to do on this occasion.

Mr. Glenvil Hall
I really think the House of Commons is not at its best today, when we see dozens of Conservative Members pouring into the Chamber not because they have been fetched in by the Government Whips but obviously, as I believe, speaking subject to correction, fetched in simply by people who desired to see the last Amendment carried.

Mr. Keeling
That proves there is no Conservative caucus.

An Hon. Member
It shows it does not work properly.

Mr. Hall
I realise that it is possible out of a minor issue for serious consequences to arise for the so-called unity between all parties. It is a thing that we should turn over in our minds that disaster might  easily come from what is after all a very tiny matter which was, and I say so quite frankly, misunderstood by about three-quarters of the Members who trooped into the Aye Lobby in the last Division. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] They were under the impression that the business vote was going to be taken away. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] We, although we are emphatically against plural voting, acquiesced in the inclusion of the provision in the Bill, yet apparently that was not enough, and a considerable section of the party opposite was willing to jeopardise the unity of the nation for what is, after all, a very small matter.

Mrs. Tate
May I intervene to say that the hon. Member really must not consider himself qualified to speak for three-quarters of the Members on this side of the Committee; also he must remember that there are Members on this side who prefer to act of their own accord.

The Deputy-Chairman (Mr. Charles Williams)
Perhaps I may also intervene to suggest to the hon. Member that he should discuss the present Amendment and not the one which the Committee has just disposed of.

Mr. Glenvil Hall
I apologise, and will try to keep to the point at issue. I have very little more to say except that I am very sorry that the Under-Secretary has seen fit to accept this Amendment. It appears to me that the way in which he did it may give hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite the feeling that they have got the Government on the run in regard to this matter. The right hon. Gentleman gave no explanation of why he was accepting the Amendment. He just got up and accepted it without the Committee having a real chance of discussing it. I am sorry he did so, and, as far as I know, my hon. Friends on this side who feel deeply on this issue will see that the matter is carried to a Division.

Sir Percy Harris  (Bethnal Green, South-West)
I certainly would not criticise the Committee for exercising its judgment. On the contrary, I think it is a good thing for hon. Members to show that they are examining this Bill. But I find myself in a difficult position. I remember when the business vote was provided for during the last war. It was clearly intended that  it should be one vote. It was never intended that it should be a double vote. It came as a complete surprise when an attempt was made to put a different interpretation upon it and it was found that by "extending the franchise to the women, you more or less automatically doubled the business vote. It was never the intention that the business vote should give an opportunity for women who had not a business qualification to vote twice. The idea was that a man who was working in one place and living in another should have a chance to express a business man's view and that was quite different from the provision for the extension of the franchise to women, the provision which gave a woman the franchise because her husband had the franchise. I do say that this is a matter which should be thoroughly inquired into by the Speaker's Conference when it sits. I do not think this is the occasion to make the change. We have the undertaking that there will be a conference to consider the whole problem and I hope that that conference when set up will deal with this anomaly.

Mr. Simmonds  (Birmingham, Duddeston)
It is interesting to note that hon. Gentlemen opposite seem to have come to the conclusion, which has been held widely in some other quarters, that there is some unsatisfactory thinking going on in the Home Office these days. With regard to this point, I think they have found something sinister in a suggestion which is surely only common sense. If you have in time of war a man and woman living in the same house and applying for a business premises vote, is it not rather pushing purity to an extreme, to suggest that each of those persons should sit there and write a letter each applying for that vote, thus duplicating not only their own effort but also the effort of the authority which receives the letter. I think my right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has taken the common sense view of an Amendment which has nothing more than a common sense and economising purpose.

Sir H. Webbe
It is abundantly clear as this Debate continues that a frightful lot of nonsense is being talked about plural voting. I am surprised that an experienced Member like the hon. Member for Nelson and Come (Mr. Silverman) who is also an ornament of the legal profession should not have known the difference between the registration and the recording  of votes. Whatever the machinery of legislation, no citizen of this country, except graduates of certain universities, in any circumstances has two votes and therefore all the talk of plural voting and multiple voting is sheer nonsense.

Mr. Silverman
I apologise for troubling the Committee again but certain points have been made which call for a reply. Let me say at once that the suggestion of the last speaker is quite mistaken. Plural voting does exist in circumstances other than those mentioned by him but if he were right it would only strengthen the case for opposing this Amendment. The hon. Member says now that if a husband exercising his right under the Amendment—the principle of which the Government seem prepared to accept—should put his wife's name upon the register in respect of a business qualification the effect of that would be to deprive the wife of her residential qualification. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] The hon. Member cannot have it both ways. My original point was that this was objectionable, because it might have the effect of putting upon the register in respect of a business qualification, a woman who did not desire it. The hon. Member says it would have the additional effect of giving her a vote in a business constituency in which she was not interested, at the expense of her vote at home in the place where she resided and where her political interests lay. I say that argument is wrong, but if the hon. Member is right the case against the Amendment is even stronger. The hon. Member for Hulme (Sir J. Nall) said that the business people in my constituency would not thank me for interfering with their rights of plural voting. If the plural vote is wrong it should be abolished, even if those who now enjoy it desire to retain it, and I am prepared to take the chance of what will happen in my own constituency in regard to the activities which I pursue in the House of Commons. The hon. Member also said that we ought not to take the opportunity afforded by this temporary and provisional Measure to gerrymander the electoral law. He will observe, however, that I am not proposing to alter anything. I have not moved an Amendment. I am resisting one and if there is any gerrymandering it is on the part of those who want the Amendment carried. I am perfectly content for the moment and for  these provisional purposes, with the Clause as drafted by the Government. I am against plural voting and would take an opportunity if there were an opportunity of abolishing it but I am prepared to waive that view. The Government have said that in this temporary Measure they are going to preserve plural voting and I am not seeking to use the opportunity, but other hon. Members for their own private party purposes and in order to retain the privileges which they ought never to have had and even extend them, have moved an Amendment which would have the effect of extending those privileges. In that case I think we are entitled to protest.

Captain Duncan
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary for accepting this Amendment. I think it is desirable in the interests of the Service man, that his wife should be able to register for him and for herself. Up to now, I was of the opinion, and I think rightly, that if the Service man was deprived of his business vote, automatically his wife would also be deprived. To the extent that that has now been altered I am grateful. As regards the present Debate, it seems to me that the Labour party are making a mistake because the last Division which we had appeared to split the Tory party, and this division, if we have one, will certainly unite it again.

Mr. Stephen  (Glasgow, Camlachie)
I am surprised at the solicitude of hon. Members opposite for the welfare of the Labour Party and I am sure we are all deeply grateful for that. Hon. Members argue that it is not a case of plural voting but of alternative voting and one hon. Member declared that, apart from the university franchise, no person in this country had two votes. As I understand it, the position is that if a person has a business in one constituency and a residence in another, that person can vote in both constituencies as long as they are not constituencies in one borough. Consequently, there is plural voting.

Sir H. Webbe
This Bill does not alter the position in any way.

Mr. Stephen
But the hon. Member did not say that. He said that no person had two votes except the person who had a university qualification. Supposing a man has a business in London and his  wife has a business in Norwich, and the wife registers her husband for a business vote in Norwich and the husband registers his wife for a business vote in London, then those people at a by-election which, say, takes place in London and a by-election which takes place in Norwich, have two votes. That seems to be unfair to the other citizens. The Under-Secretary has evidently accepted this Amendment. That is probably why the Government got their majority, but some of the friends of the Government knew that he was going to make this point.

Mr. Peake
I would like to reply to two Questions by the hon. Member for West Walthamstow (Mr. McEntee), who asked, first of all, supposing you found a wife who possessed two business qualifications, one in respect of her own business and one in respect of her husband's business, what would her position be? The position is that she is qualified to be on the register in both constituencies, but she can only exercise a vote in one of them, and, of course, she has a free choice as to which constituency she votes for. The last speaker mentioned a man having a business address in London and another in Norwich. The answer is that he can select whichever constituency he prefers for voting purposes. Nobody can cast more than one vote in respect of a residence qualification, nor more than one vote in respect of a business qualification, but a person who has a business qualification may have a residence qualification somewhere else. Then an hon. Member asked "What is a wife in relation to this Clause?" It bears the natural and ordinary meaning, and we need not go into any of the refinements such as exist in the Royal Warrant and so forth. I think it would be a pity if we got away from the very small point at issue here on to a discussion of the merits of the business premises qualification and the business vote. These questions will all be discussed at the Speaker's Conference on Electoral Reform. The short point here is that under the existing law for business qualifications a husband and wife are placed upon the business register automatically by a public authority without either of them taking any step of any kind. That is what happens under the  existing law. What is proposed under the Bill is that they will only get on the register if they make separate applications. We are not extending this to applications by agents, solicitors or anybody else, but we do say it is reasonable to allow the husband to apply in respect of the wife and the wife to apply in respect of the husband, because they are the two voters concerned. Where a man is serving His Majesty overseas, in the Army or in the war effort, it would be wrong to deprive him of his right to be on the register because you did not give him the opportunity.

Mr. Silverman
The Bill says that where one spouse is unable to apply, then the other spouse should apply for him or her, but the Amendment allows one spouse to apply for the other without the knowledge and without the consent of the other.

Mr. Peake
Both spouses are under the existing law placed on the register without their consent by public authority and at the public expense. The hon. Member thinks it unreasonable that a wife should do something on behalf of the husband and a husband something on behalf of the wife. It confers no duty whatever and does not commit the person in whose name the application is made to do anything at all. In my view, and I think in the view of the majority of the Committee, we are for the first time telling people that if they want to secure certain rights they have got to apply for them. It is perfectly reasonable to allow a wife to apply on behalf of a husband and a husband on behalf of a wife, and it will save a great deal in time.

The Deputy-Chairman
I think it only fair to say that supposing the existing Amendment is not carried, then a Government Amendment which has been handed to me in manuscript is so like the present Amendment that it could not be moved until the Report stage. I think the Committee ought to know that.

Mr. McEntee
Where a man and his wife have registered both in London and Manchester and the wife votes at a London by-election, would she be permitted to vote again at Manchester? If she is so permitted, then, in fact, she gets two votes.

Mr. Peake
Not two votes in the same election, and, after all, this is a point for the Speaker's Conference.

Amendment negatived.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Sir H. Webbe
I had understood from the Chair that the original suggestion was that the Amendment was to be discussed with the previous Amendment, but that it was decided that they were to be dealt with differently.

The Deputy-Chairman
I am afraid that point has passed.

Clause 7—(Civilian Absent Voters)

Major Peto
I beg to move, in page 6, line 27, at the end, to add: "Subject also to the provisions of this part of the Act a person being on the qualifying date a British subject of full age and fulfilling the conditions of registry prescribed in subsection (1) of section five, but subject to such physical incapacity that he is unable to exercise the right conferred on him by this Act, may appoint a proxy to vote for him, or be placed upon the absent voters' list, at any election for which he may be registered in the civilian residence register." In moving this Amendment, I am proproposing something which is wholly non-controversial. This is entirely foreign to my own nature, but this Amendment is one which I feel certain no hon. Member need feel ashamed to support. I speak on behalf of the tens of thousands of bedridden persons all over this country. They are good citizens like you and me. They pay their rates and taxes in the same way as we all do, but, unlike us, they suffer this terrible cross of being held to their beds for life. The Government give them no remission of taxation on this account. The local authorities give them no remission of rates on this account. Yet though they bear not only as great a burden as we do, but a much greater one, they are, by what I feel sure must be an oversight, denied an opportunity to record their votes. We know that at election times some bedridden persons are dragged and pushed and pulled to the polling booth to register their votes, but the vast majority of them cannot stand the strain, and they have to stay behind and are unable to record their votes. I would ask the Committee to remember that many of these persons are those who, by reason of wounds received in the last  war in our defence, are condemned to a lifetime in bed, and I ask myself how many more after this war will be in a similar tragic condition. Are they to be denied the right of franchise? Shall we fail to make the provision that these persons shall be able to vote from their beds as they are doomed to conduct all other forms of business?

Major Petherick
I should like to support the arguments put forward by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for King's Norton (Major Peto). Some of the passages that have been exchanged across the Floor of the Committee to-day have been quite reminiscent of old times, but I cannot think that this Amendment which we are now moving can really raise any opposition from any part of the Committee. Any man or woman who is bedridden may be a member of any political party. I think we have all had examples in our own divisions during election time of a man or woman who has struggled out of bed because he or she was strongly in favour of risking health in voting for the candidate whom they favoured. I hope my right hon. Friend will accept this Amendment, because I feel it will do justice to many tens of thousands of people who would like to exercise their vote, who keep their interest in politics and who are only debarred by their disability.

Mr. Peake
Whatever the merits or demerits of this proposal may be—and I should imagine that it might be viewed with some suspicion by my hon. Friends opposite, who might think that the great preponderance of what I might call the bedridden vote is a Conservative vote—at the same time it does lie outside the scope of the present Bill. It is clearly a matter which must be discussed at the Speaker's Conference on Electoral Reform, along with other topics of a similar character, such as motor cars, expenses and so forth. Therefore, while I express no opinion on the merits of my hon. and gallant Friend's suggestion—I feel considerable sympathy with it—I suggest that he regards his essay to-day as by way of a demonstration with a view to the Speaker's Conference.

Mr. J. J. Davidson  (Glasgow, Maryhill)
I regret very much that the Under-Secretary has been so begrudging in his treatment of this particular Amendment.  He might at least have gone the length of saying that the whole matter would be considered and that his Department might make a representation for future consideration, because I can assure him that Members on this side of the Committee do not look on this with any suspicion at all. We support the statements of the Mover and Seconder that this is something which deals with people belonging to all sections of the community, and I believe that if the question had to be carefully analysed we could claim among the workers injured at their work and old age pensioners, aged people, to benefit more appreciably than Members of the Conservative Party. But I trust that none of us look at it from this narrow party point of view and that this question might be examined as a question affecting the rights of ordinary citizens of this country. It is true there are thousands and thousands of people who have contributed very greatly to the welfare of the country in industrial organisations and in business and by military, naval and Air Force service who are to-day, because of the position, denied full rights of citizenship. They are unable to exercise their vote. Many of them who have not the opportunity of mixing with the general discussions and arguments that go on during elections, and having had many quiet moments to think over things and over their position, are very competent to cast a very intelligent vote. Therefore I would ask my right hon. Friend whether he will not rise in his place now and give us an assurance that his Department will consider this matter very carefully and make a recommendation to Mr. Speaker for future consideration.

Mr. Peake
It is quite clear that the Speaker's Conference will be comprised of hon. Members of this Committee and that Government offices as such will not have any special standing before it. This is purely and primarily a House of Commons matter. It seems to me that it will come before the Speaker's Conference automatically. It appears to be a matter on which a good deal of sympathy is expressed from all sides of the Committee, but it seems to me to be outside the scope of a Bill the purpose of which is to provide a simpler method of registration for holding an election under present conditions.

Mr. Davidson
Surely the right hon. Gentleman will agree that while we are discussing this, and while it extends the narrow limits of this Bill, most Members are concerned with making the next election as full a one as they possibly can?

Mr. Peake
It is perfectly clear that if there is such a general measure of agreement, steps will be taken to meet it at the forthcoming Conference.

Mr. Ammon
The whole Committee, I think, is in sympathy with the Amendment, and if we are prepared to give way on questions of vital principle on this, we may be called on to give way on others. I think the consensus of opinion is such that the Speaker's Conference cannot ignore it if and when it comes up for consideration, and I suggest that with that the Amendment does not need to be pressed.

Mr. Furness
Someone has handed me a copy of the OFFICIAL REPORT of our Debates on 28th October, in which a question was put to the Home Secretary by the hon. and gallant Member for King's Norton (Major Peto) on this very point, and the Home Secretary replied that any question of this type would be appropriate to the forthcoming Debate on electoral reform. It does seem with great respect to my right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary that the Home Office is very conveniently—

Mr. Peake
May I explain that this is not a Debate on electoral reform? There is the promise of a two-day Debate on electoral reform, but this is not the occasion.

Mr. Furness
Would that be following the Speaker's Conference? In what sense is it forthcoming?

The Deputy-Chairman
That is getting rather far from the point.

Major Petherick
May I put one point to my right hon. Friend? I quite understand the Home Office view in this matter, and perhaps it might be argued quite strongly that this is a case for the Speaker's Conference. My right hon. Friend was apparently disturbed that it might come rather outside the scope of the Bill. I will try to show him that that is not the case. The Preamble of the Bill says it is to: "make temporary provision as respect parliamentary elections and the registration of parliamentary electors. …" It is quite true that this Bill is purely a machinery Measure, but as a result of this war, as the hon. and gallant Member for King's Norton (Major Peto) pointed out, a number of people, soldiers, sailors and airmen may be bedridden. Therefore when the next election comes it seems to me rather important that these people should have the vote. The temporary provisions now being made in this Bill are partially to provide for circumstances which will arise and affect electoral machinery as the result of the war. This is one circumstance which certainly will, and I claim that it is within the scope of this Bill. Consequently could I ask the right hon. Gentleman between now and the Report Stage to consider the matter in that light?

Sir Edward Campbell  (Bromley)
I approve of the suggested Amendment. A great number of people who owing to the war are bedridden to-day may be bedridden for a month, two months, six months. Eventually an election will occur, and these people will be enfranchised because they have not had an opportunity of being registered. I am very interested in the blind workers. Blind people are registered. At an election they are taken to the poll and somebody does the necessary signing on their behalf. My right hon. Friend says this is not a matter for the Government as such; but we know that if the Government are sympathetic it is far more likely to be given full consideration at the Speaker's Conference, and not treated as a matter for the future. I maintain that it is something for the present. I hope that my right hon. Friend will reconsider the matter, and at a later stage bring in an Amendment to cover the point.

Mr. Davidson
Surely, in spite of the speech of my right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, this matter must be in Order on this Bill; otherwise you, Mr. Williams, would not have called the Amendment.

The Deputy-Chairman
Technically, it is correct that the subject does come within the scope of the Bill, or the Amendment could not have been called.

Mr. Peake
I meant to convey that, although technically within the scope of  the Bill, this point did not seem to me an appropriate one for this Bill, as it would involve extending the franchise. It is an idea with which we all have some sympathy, but a great deal of detailed work would have to be done on this proposal before it could be embodied in legislation. You have to decide first whether you are going to provide for the temporarily bed-ridden or the permanently bedridden, and matters of that sort. It would mean a great amount of re-drafting, some special Clauses, and a great deal of delay. I suggest, therefore, that the matter would be much more appropriately dealt with at the Speaker's Conference on Electoral Reform.

Mr. Davidson
Has my right hon. Friend read the Explanatory Memorandum? It says: "Part I of this Bill deals with registration of electors and facilities for voting at Parliamentary elections." We are asking that facilities for voting at Parliamentary elections should be extended to people who at present are in such a physical condition that they are unable to go themselves. We are asking only for facilities for voting at Parliamentary elections.

Mr. McEntee
Can the right hon. Gentleman give any reason why, when a husband is allowed to register his wife or a wife to register her husband, in a case like this, where there is real need for somebody else to register a person who is unable physically to go and do it, nobody is allowed to register that person? Take the case of the returned war prisoner who has been wounded, and is unable to do things for himself, although mentally alert. He may be living in the same house as his father and mother. The father may register the mother, who is perfectly capable of going to register herself, but neither the father nor the mother can register the son, who is physically incapable of going. My hon. Friend has just read out a quotation on the purposes of the Bill. Surely a person who is competent to vote except for his physical condition, should be given a chance to vote.

Mr. Peake
Such people will be registered in any case. This has nothing to do with registration. It is a matter of voting rights.

Mr. McEntee
But it may be a business qualification. A man who has been in business, and has left his business to go to the war, may still have business qualifications when he returns; but he is not permitted, because of his physical condition, to exercise his vote.

Mr. Turton
It is clear that we are going to have a Report stage, and equally clear that on all sides of the Committee there is support for this proposal. Will my right hon. Friend undertake to consider the matter between now and the Report stage? It seems to me a weak argument to say that the provisions dealing with absent voters and property voting are outside the scope of the Bill—whatever my right hon. Friend meant by outside the scope of the Bill.

Mr. Peake
I cannot give that undertaking, because it is the intention to take the remaining stages of the Bill to-day, and such a proposal would entail a tremendous amount of re-drafting, dealing with the definition of physical incapacity and the question of whether it should be temporary or permanent incapacity, and so forth. A great deal of machinery would have to be provided to enable these persons to exercise a proxy vote. It is clear that it cannot be done before the end of the Session. Unless it is through both Houses before the end of the Session this Bill will lapse, to the regret, I should imagine, of everybody. I have expressed the Government's sympathy with the proposal, and I have stated that in my view it is a more suitable subject to incorporate in a Bill dealing with electoral reform than in one dealing with temporary registration.

Mr. Turton
Will my right hon. Friend give an undertaking about action to be taken in another place? That would seem an easier way out.

Mr. Peake
No, I cannot do that.

Lieut.-Colonel Acland-Troyte
It seems to me a perfectly appropriate thing to put into this Bill. Why should not my right hon. Friend do it in another place? He has plenty of time to think about it before it goes to another place.

Captain Sir William Brass  (Clitheroe)
I do not see where the difficulties are going to arise. Surely such a person may get a doctor's certificate, and vote by proxy?

Mr. Beverley Baxter  (Wood Green)
I apologise for not having been here through the Debate, but a point seems to have arisen since I came in. For the second time in a week we are being presented with a Bill which has to be rushed through because of time being short. If that is true, if we cannot adequately discuss the Bill and Amendments cannot be considered, why cannot we sit five days in each series of Sittings, instead of three?

The Deputy-Chairman
We really cannot go into a full discussion of the number of days upon which we sit now.

Mr. Baxter
I beg to give notice that I shall raise this matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible moment. This has happened twice in a week. I think the authority of the House is being flouted by the Government.

Mr. Mathers  (Linlithgow)
When the hon. Member comes to raise the matter on the Adjournment—

The Deputy-Chairman
As a point of Order, the hon. Member cannot give notice of that kind now.

Mr. Mathers
I was just going to say, will the hon. Member then come armed with particulars of the number of days on which he appears?

Major Peto
I naturally had in mind persons who were bedridden for life. I had particularly in mind ex-soldiers who are bedridden by reason of wounds received in the last war. A doctor's certificate could quite easily settle the point. As the right hon. Gentleman cannot give an assurance that this might be discussed in another place—and it appeared to be an excellent way out of a very natural difficulty—can he give me any assurance that he will himself recommend that the matter be discussed by the Speaker's Conference or suggest any means by which it can be discussed at that Conference?

The Solicitor-General (Major Sir David Maxwell Fyfe)
I have listened with very great care to what my hon. and gallant Friend has said and to the obvious consensus of opinion in all parts of the Committee, and I want the Committee to understand that it is no mere obstinacy for the sake of it that has  made my right hon. Friend raise the difficulties with which we are faced today. The position of those who can come on to the absent voters' list is clear. It is limited to those who by reason of their occupation, service or employment are debarred from voting, and we have covered that and not gone beyond the existing provision in the present provisions of the Bill. This, as my hon. and gallant Friend has made clear and would be the first to appreciate, is an extension of that point, and there is a difference between my hon. and gallant Friend and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Clitheroe (Sir W. Brass) as to what was in their minds. My hon. and gallant Friend had in mind the permanently bedridden person. Obviously my hon. Friend had a more extended class and that shows the sort of difficulty which would have to be faced and for which provision would have to be made. It would also at once suggest to other hon. Members different classes for whom an extension might be made. My hon. and gallant Friend has obviously sought to take every reasonable method of presenting his point, and what he suggested is a suitable way of dealing with it, namely, that the Government should, as they must and will do, take full note of the expression of opinion from the Committee and see that this point is raised at the Conference not only with clarity and full consideration of its obvious methods but with every preparation having been made to deal with the practical difficulties it may involve. Therefore, I do, with gratitude to my hon. and gallant Friend, accept his last suggestion, and the Government will give full consideration to this matter and see that the opinion of the Committee is communicated properly to the Conference in the way I have suggested.

Major Peto
In view of the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary and particularly in view of the explanation and assurance of my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 8—(Service Register)

Mr. Turton
I beg to move, in page 6, line 35, to leave out from "or," to the end of the paragraph, and to insert: "elects that constituency as the constituency in which he desires to record his vote." The next Amendment in my name is an alternative to leave out from "or," to the end of the paragraph and to insert: "his next of kin is residing at a place in the constituency." I would like to speak on these two Amendments together, because both refer to the same point and are really two alternatives that I am suggesting to the Government to the Service qualification.

The Deputy-Chairman
If it is the wish of the Committee, we will discuss the two Amendments together.

Mr. Turton
The alteration I am trying to make is to take out the words: "would be so residing but for his service as a member of the Forces or a seaman." The reason why we want to make the alteration is that the qualification for the Service register is vague and indefinite and rests upon a hypothesis. Under this provision many men in the three Services will be disfranchised if that qualification is interpreted literally. Earlier in the Debate my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Cleveland (Commander Bower) and the Noble Lord the Member for Horsham and Worthing (Earl Winterton) made an impassioned plea for Irishmen who have fought so well in all the Services.

Earl Winterton
I am afraid that my hon. Friend is confusing me with somebody else. I did not make an impassioned appeal for Irishmen.

Mr. Turton
I have probably mistaken the speech of the Noble Lord, but my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Cleveland made an impassioned appeal and quoted a number of cases of military distinctions won by Irishmen, and I apologise to the Noble Lord. Once in the Forces a man would be residing in the Army and therefore would have no franchise at all, I have in mind a man of the Regular Army who has been abroad six years, and it would be impossible for that man to say where he would be residing if he had not joined up 14 or 15 years ago. I regret to say that there are many cases of men serving in the Forces whose homes have been destroyed and who have no home  which they can claim as their own. I have noticed, in reading through this Clause and subsequent Clauses, that, although they put in these definite words, the Government have given no check on this Service declaration. The soldier must declare that he would have been so residing but apparently my right hon. Friend does not expect anybody to check the veracity of that. I would like him to deal with that point. If it is a fact that a man is going to be allowed to say he can declare for any constituency and claim the place where but for his service he would be residing, that would satisfy me artifically, but there might be no opportunity for every man in the Army to elect the constituency of West Leeds and my right hon. Friend would find that he would have an embarrassing electorate.

Mr. Peake
I represent North Leeds.

Mr. Turton
Well, then, North Leeds. If it should operate without a check, then let us have it made clear in the Bill. Let the soldier choose the constituency. It is a reasonable claim to be allowed to choose the constituency for which he can be given the vote. If that is too much for the right hon. Gentleman to concede, I suggest that which was suggested as long ago as 1917, namely, that the soldier should choose for his constituency the address of his own next-of-kin. It is a clear, definite qualification, and in my view it is far better than having the vague, indefinite qualification that is at present in the Bill. It is a matter of considerable importance to see that what the soldier receives as his qualification is easily intelligible to him and that by merely looking at his pay book he can exercise his vote in any election.

Miss Wilkinson
I think that if you look at the result of the alternatives which the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) has put before the Committee, the matter is not quite so simple as it would seem to be. The first alternative he put forward is to allow a member of the Forces to elect for a constituency in which he desires to vote. This would give him a wider choice than he already possesses in the Bill as drafted. The Bill as drafted preserves the principle of the existing law, and that goes some way to meet the point the hon. Member has put forward, because Section 5 of the Representation of the People Act says: "A naval or military voter shall be entitled to be registered for any constituency for which he would have had the necessary qualification but for his service with the Forces." I think that meets the point which the hon. Member has raised. There is a further point in my mind and it is this: What happens if the house at which he would have been residing does not exist any more, if, for instance, it has been blitzed? In that case if the house has been destroyed by a bomb he can be advised to fill in any address at which he would have been likely to have been residing, that is to say, at the house of a relative. It is intended that an instruction to this effect shall be given to officers attesting the declaration. In that way we have tried to meet the pathetic case of the man whose home has been blitzed. It is essential that the address shall be specified because that is the only way in which it is possible to ensure certainty as to the constituency in which the man is to be a voter. If the Amendment was passed as contemplated, the constituency could be selected without specifying an address, and you might have somebody writing in "Birmingham," "Manchester" or "London," which would lead to an impossible situation. There is another point, to which to some extent the hon. Member alluded, although I do not know whether he has thought what the effect might be. Let us say, for the sake of argument, that the whole of the Army was particularly annoyed at something the Minister for War was doing.

Mr. Davidson
Is that a supposition?

Miss Wilkinson
Yes, and an entirely hypothetical case. You might have soldiers who decided to get their own back by registering in that unfortunate right hon. Member's constituency. You might have another case. You might have an organised body of opinion in this country which decided to run a vendetta against particular Members who had not voted for something that that organisation had happened to want. In that case we can see a way in which it would be possible to organise a Service vote to elect in a certain constituency or group of constituencies. That would be a form of rather dangerous blackmail. If you take the second alternative, which would allow a person to be registered for the constituency where his next-of-kin resides, I see  two real objections to it. To begin with, a man could only specify the name and address of his next-of-kin as he last knew them. The man may be in Burma or some other far-off place, and his next-of-kin might have removed.

Mr. Turton
But his Service document has to have the address of his next-of-kin kept up to date.

Miss Wilkinson
It might not be possible to keep it up to date, because he may have removed in that short time. He may have then registered somebody else as his proxy, and if a Service voter's qualification is to be linked with that of his next-of-kin, the proxy appointed by the Service voter might be able to vote on his behalf if the next-of-kin has removed from the constituency where the proxy vote was. Then you might have great difficulty. Of course, this difficulty could be overcome if the Service voter was required to appoint his next-of-kin as his proxy. That would meet one point, but it would raise another. You cannot always assume that your next-of-kin is of the same political complexion as yourself and would vote in the way you want. I can think of Communist fathers who have deeply Conservative sons.

Mr. Davidson
What about Conservative Prime Ministers who have deeply "Red" sons?

Miss Wilkinson
While appreciating the excellent idea in the Mover's mind, I hope he will see that these are practical difficulties in war-time elections.

Mr. Turton
Could the hon. Lady deal with the point about checking? What check is there on the present words?

Miss Wilkinson
Does the hon. Member mean the check on whether the Service man really puts down his own address?

Mr. Turton
No, the check on the words: "… 'would be so residing but for his service.' …" There is no provision in the Bill for checking it.

Miss Wilkinson
Well, you have to trust people to some extent. There always will be a few who might have another idea in their minds, but we take it for granted that where a man was residing will be given as his address. If he cannot do that  for reasons I have stated, he will give some address in a definite constituency.

Earl Winterton
I think it is pressing an open door to support the hon. Lady, because she has put the point with such clarity. I do not want to be over-critical—I am sometimes accused of so being—but I appeal to my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) not only not to pursue his Amendment but also the idea which is behind it. It really is most dangerous. The hon. Lady has reminded us that this Bill, in general, endeavours to carry out the ordinary electoral law, and the first consideration upon which the whole basis of representation in this House rests is that persons have votes for the constituencies in which they have an interest of some kind. I understood my hon. Friend to say that Service men should be allowed to select the constituencies in which they should vote. That is a dangerous principle. I would like to give another example in addition to those which the hon. Lady gave. Not only might there be an attempt by certain persons in the Army to endeavour to organise a vote against particular persons, but it would be a tremendous temptation for parties to do so. I do not say they will, but members of the Tory Party might try to organise a vote against members of the Socialist Party. Socialists might endeavour to turn out a Tory like myself. It would be a most dangerous proposal. I hope my hon. Friend will not think I am unduly critical, but I very much hope he will not pursue the idea. A Bill like this can only go through with a measure of general consent, because of the circumstances of the time. If we were dealing with the whole basis on which an ordinary election was conducted, we should be here for weeks.

Mr. Martin  (Southwark, Central)
As I understand, the hon. Lady says if a soldier's house has been blitzed, he could give the address of his nearest relative.

Miss Wilkinson
May I give an example? In such a case the soldier when he went to his commanding officer who was attesting these declarations would say, "I cannot put down the address where I lived, because the house is not there now." We are going to say to the attesting officer that in such a case the soldier should give the address of a relative or friend.

Sir E. Campbell
But the blitzed house will still be registered. It will still be his property.

Miss Wilkinson
Let me mention my own house as an example. It is not there. There is only a hole. It will be no use my giving that as my address. Therefore in such a case as that the attesting officer would have to ask, "Where have you been residing, or where would you reside if you went back home?"

Mr. Martin
May I ask whether the hon. Lady would put in at the Report stage an Amendment providing that where a man resided in a certain constituency before the war and his house was blitzed he should still have a vote in respect of that particular house?

Captain Duncan
There are two points I would like to raise. I take it that the hon. Lady the Parliamentary Secretary has made out a case for not accepting either of these Amendments on their merits, but I would like to ask what form the instructions will take which are sent to the Service Departments. There may be endless trouble if every commanding officer is expected to interpret what is meant by the place where a soldier resided or would be residing. I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary if the Home Office will draft the orders for the Service Departments in such a way as to make the matter clear in ordinary soldier's language and not in Parliamentary or legal language. The second point has already been raised by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton). Unless there is some check on the statement that but for his service a soldier would be residing at a certain place, a state of affairs painted by the Hon. Member opposite might quite well come into existence.

Lieut.-Colonel Heneage  (Louth)
There is one point about blitzed houses which has not yet been mentioned. A Service man who has been abroad for some time may have no knowledge that his house has been blitzed. Would his registration be invalidated if the house which he had given as his address is shown not to exist? If not, why should not all people who lived in blitzed houses show them as their places of residence? I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary will appreciate that  cases may occur where a man may not know his house is blitzed and may give it as his address. My second point refers to seamen. I rather think that "seaman" is a new word in an Act of Parliament—the expression "naval rating" is more usual. Will the word "seaman" include men of the fishing fleet, and will they be entitled to a vote in the same way?

Mr. Martin
I would like to pursue this matter further. I sat down before I finished in order to give way to the hon. Lady. Take the case of a man who before the war lived in a house which has been blitzed, and he is now serving overseas. As I understand, the Home Office proposal is that he should give the name and address of a relative. But it may be that he has no relative in that particular constituency, and he may not desire to vote in the constituency where his nearest relative is living. I should have thought that, in such a case, if the man desires to vote in his old constituency that should be allowed.

Mr. Davidson
I should like to support my hon. Friend. I think that the hon. Lady must see, and I am sure the Solicitor-General will agree, that this matter requires very careful examination. It is true that blitz and evacuation and other war problems have upset many areas as far as registration is concerned. Common sense must be applied. It must be recognised that the great majority of the men in the Services will want to return to the areas they left. Those who were already established in certain constituencies will normally desire to vote in those particular constituencies. What we must maintain is some safeguard so that no group within the Services can abuse the rights that are being extended to them. The hon. Lady made a very good case with some of the examples she put forward, but I have one which must touch hon. Members much more nearly. We were promised recently—I nearly said threatened—that a Member on the opposite side might cross the Floor of the House. I understand that in a recent speech the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg) said that he might cross the Floor as our Prime Minister had done in the past, and it may be that those in the Services belonging to the Conservative party might organise a vote against him or any other man who, if I may put it  that way, wished to move to a higher status in politics. Or an hon. Member, no matter of what party, may take a certain line in regard to one of the Services, may disagree with certain high officers in that Service, and those officers might be able to exercise a certain amount of influence against him. I do not believe such cases would be numerous, but even if only one or two occurred it would be an abuse of the Parliamentary rights of the men in the Services. Therefore, I think we should be well advised to leave the Clause as it is, if we are able to extract from the Solicitor-General an assurance that the whole question will be carefully reconsidered in order to make the instructions to the attesting officers as clear as possible, so that serving men may understand their position.

Major Manningham-Buller
The Noble Lord the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton) invited the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) to withdraw this Amendment on the ground that it would be dangerous to allow Service men to select their own constituencies. In my view the Bill as it stands gives effect to that very dangerous principle, because there is nothing in it to prevent a soldier, or a group of soldiers, selecting a constituency, or selecting constituency after constituency, as the place of their would-be residence. The hon. Lady said the soldier would have to show his postal address, but that would not be a very difficult matter, and, so far as I can see, no penalty is imposed on anyone who likes to indulge in that practice. It is true that by a major Clause it is an offence to make a false statement in any such declaration, but to get a conviction one would have to prove the statement to be false, and how could one prove that a soldier's statement as to where he would be residing on a particular date was false? He might declare that but for his service he would have been residing last April in the Daventry Division, and no one could prove the falsity or truth of his statement, and he would be entitled to vote there. Now that a by-election is pending in Woolwich, he might make a subsequent declaration to say that but for his service he would have been residing in Woolwich, and no one could prove that his statement was in any respect untrue. Therefore, I hope the Government will carefully reconsider the wording of this Clause, which does not  seem to be apt to give serving soldiers, airmen or sailors facilities for voting which we should like them to have, and which sometimes opens the door to the abuse of such facilities as are granted.

Major Lloyd
The hon. and gallant Member for Daventry (Major Manningham-Buller) has put my point of view so admirably that only one sentence needs to be added by me to explain why I support this Amendment. The whole object of the Amendment is to make this Clause fool-proof as well as knave-proof, and it is because we suspect that it may possibly not be knave-proof that we have emphasised the importance of this Amendment.

Mr. Turton
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Turton
I beg to move, in page 6, line 37, at the end, to insert "or(c) immediately prior to his service as a member of the forces or a seaman was occupying business premises in the constituency." It has been said with justice against my previous Amendment that I was trying to alter the procedure of the 1918 Act. Here I am doing the reverse, asking the Committee to put back the position to 1918. The Government, for some reason which I do not understand, have altered the right of the soldier under the Representation of the People Act, 1918. Under that Act he had a right to either a residential vote or to a business vote. He has now been limited to a residential qualification. As I said on Second Reading, this is not a matter of party differences. It may be that some hon. Members do not agree with the business vote, but if we have a business vote a soldier should have as much right to be registered in the business register as in the residential register. On Second Reading the Under-Secretary seemed to think there was some difficulty about giving this qualification, feeling that people would claim it if they had once been qualified in peace time for inclusion in the business register, but I would point out that the words of my Amendment are the identical qualification which has existed from 1918 until to-day, and would remind the Committee also of the words of the then Home  Secretary when that Act was being passed in 1917. Lord Cave, who was at that time Home Secretary, said: "I have come to the conclusion that if a soldier would have had business premises but for that service he ought to be able to get a vote in respect of that place." I do not think it is fair to the man who is fighting to-day suddenly to deprive him of a right which he has had so long and has always exercised. Only to-day the Under-Secretary, in saying that he would put forward an Amendment to allow a wife to apply for registration on behalf of her husband, said, I thought very inaccurately, that that would help the man who was serving, but unless we put in this Amendment it will not help him, because it is no good to a soldier to be included in the civilian register under Clause 5. What is of value to him is to be in the service register under Clause 8, and if the Under-Secretary did really mean to help the soldier then he must grant us this concession under Clause 8, so that the business qualification can be included in the service register. This war has dislocated the business life of a good many men. They have been called up and have thrown away their businesses to enter the Army. Now is the time to see that those men have the right to vote as if they had not been called up for the Army and were still engaged in business. There will come up for consideration the question what would happen if the business they had before the war was blitzed. I hope that will be dealt with on the lines put forward by the hon. Lady on the previous Amendment—that if a man's business was blitzed, he would still be entitled to inclusion in the business register. The Army to-day is a civilian Army. They are men who were in business and employment before the war and all the time they are looking back to that civilian life and watching anxiously their right of voting. I think it wrong that the Under-Secretary or any Member of the Government, should seek to justify that a soldier who, up to the passage of this Bill, had a right to be included in the Service register either for a residence or a business qualification, should as a result of the Government's action be limited to the residential qualification, and have the business vote taken away.

Sir H. Williams
I have just come in from a meeting of the Select Committee on National Expenditure, and I rise merely to draw attention to the fact that the Under-Secretary, in dealing with this difficult Bill, is not fortified by the presence of a senior member of the Government. The right hon. Gentleman is in a difficult position because he is not authorised, in the ordinary way, to accept Amendments. I think it improper that a Bill of this magnitude should be considered without the presence of one Cabinet Minister or some person of that rank—because we know that the word "Cabinet" is rather vague now. It is unfair to the Under-Secretary and a discourtesy to the House.

Lieut.-Colonel Heneage
My right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has not had an opportunity of answering the question which I put to him concerning seamen and particularly fishermen, who go from one port to another and might not be in a constituency when the election took place. I also wish to know what would be the effect if a man's house or his business premises were blitzed and he had no knowledge of it.

Captain Duncan
I have put my name to this Amendment mainly in order to get an opinion from the Under-Secretary on whether a Service man is entitled to a business vote. The Under-Secretary, on the Second Reading, said he would be entitled, but I am still not convinced. He referred to the Subsection which says that a person registered in the Service register shall be deemed to be registered in respect of a residence qualification. That seems to me to rule him out as a Service business voter. Take a particular case. Let us say that the wife of a Service man serving in Italy registers for business premises in North Leeds. She gets on the register but what sort of privilege does the man get as regards voting? That is the important thing. He may be on the register but how is he to vote? I want to get it clear from the Parliamentary Secretary, first, whether the man gets on the register, and, secondly, what benefit does he get and how is a Service man to vote.

Mr. Davidson
I support this Amendment. I think it falls into line with the reply of the hon. Lady the Parliamentary Secretary on the previous Amendment. I cannot understand why we should state  definitely that on the date of the declaration the declarant, that is, the Service man "was, or but for his service would have been, residing," etc. We must recognise that it is only because he is a Service man that he is making the declaration. I suggest that the Solicitor-General should give us an assurance that this Clause will be carefully examined. Personally I do not want a Cabinet Minister brought into this. The hon. Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams) who has recently entered the Committee must recognise that we have been getting along not so badly so far without the assistance of any Cabinet Minister including the particular one whom he desires to pillory. But I ask the Solicitor-General to examine the Clause. On the one hand, as I see it, the Service man could abuse his rights if he desired and could take advantage of the Clause, and, on the other hand, if the Amendment is accepted, it still leaves the Clause in a rather doubtful position. If a soldier is asked to make a declaration it may be a case in which his home and property have been destroyed and his family evacuated. As to where he goes on leave, it might be the case that a soldier would ordinarily stay in Devon but for purposes of his own he might go to another part of the country for his leave. There would be absolutely no check on what the soldier could do in changing to different constituencies.

Sir H. Williams
On a point of Order. Surely this is more appropriate to the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," and is not pertinent to this Amendment.

Mr. Davidson
I should say that the part of the Clause which we are discussing, in conjunction with the Amendment, lays itself open to these abuses. I think it has been badly drafted, and I ask the Solicitor-General for an assurance that it will be carefully reconsidered.

Mr. Peake
A good many points have been raised on this Amendment which are a little remote from it. If I may first reply to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Louth (Lieut.-Colonel Heneage), I would explain to him that seamen are defined in Clause 21, and clearly the definition would not include members of the fishing fleet or ordinary fishermen. The Amendment before the  Committee is that moved by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) to enable persons in the Forces who occupied business premises at the time of their enlistment to be placed on the Service register in respect of the occupation of those premises. The register designed by this Bill is divided into three parts, the civilian register, the Service register and the business premises register. There is nothing to stop a member of the Forces being on both the Services register and the business premises register. What you cannot do is to be on the civilian register and the Service Register at the same time. There is nothing to disqualify him from admission to the business premises register and under an Amendment which the Government are prepared to see introduced into the Bill it will be possible for his wife to make application for his name to be entered in the business premises register which will go a long way to meet the point which my hon. Friend has in mind. That is to say, a serving soldier can be replaced by his wife on the business premises register in respect of the business premises which he occupies during the qualifying period. But where my hon. Friend's Amendment is unacceptable is that it provides for persons being entered in the business premises register in respect of premises which they may have occupied one year, two years, three years or four years ago. The consequence of that, of course, would he that we might have three or four different persons entered in the business premises register in respect of the same business premises owing to their having occupied them in series before enlisting in the Forces. It is quite right that these people should be able to exercise the business premises qualification and should be entered in the register, but to our minds it would be wrong and a departure from all the principles of the past Acts to enable people to be entered in a register in respect of a qualification which they once enjoyed and do not any longer enjoy. Paragraph (b) is to provide our serving men with one vote. The principle underlying the business premises vote has always been occupation during the qualifying period, whatever it was.

Mr. Evelyn Walkden  (Doncaster)
May I just put this point? Bill Smith lives at No. 1, Park Street; he is called up for the Forces. Another man takes the pre-  mises; he is called up for the Forces. As many as you like take the premises and are called up for the Forces, but their qualification is in respect of the premises which they previously occupied.

Mr. Peake
The difference between a residence qualification and a business qualification is that for the business qualification you have to be in actual occupation during the qualifying period, and it is quite impossible in our view to concede a position on the business register to people who have long ceased to be business men. It would be unreasonable, and we cannot accept my hon. Friend's Amendment, which would, in any event, enable these men to be placed on the Service register.

Mr. Turton
First of all, my right hon. Friend said there were three registers—the business register, the civilian register and the Service register. What is the use of a soldier being on a business register if he cannot exercise his vote? Unless a soldier can have his business vote in the Service register he cannot exercise that vote. It is perfectly nugatory for my right hon. Friend to say he is on the register if he cannot vote; that is the first point. The second is that he said that some new theory was being propounded. I think he was out of the House when I made my speech. The Home Secretary in the 1917 Government said he had come to the conclusion that a soldier who would have had business premises except for service should have a vote. In fact, from 1917 the soldier has had the business vote, and my right hon. Friend is asking the Committee to take that vote away from the soldier. I hope the Committee will insist on the vote for the soldier. It is a new principle which my right hon. Friend is trying to thrust on this Committee—that a soldier should not have a business vote. Let us keep to the wording of the 1918 Act, which says that a soldier would have had the necessary qualifications but for his service. That includes both residential and business qualifications, and for that reason I would ask the Committee to insist either on this Amendment as drafted by me or, if my right hon. Friend has a better form of words, on the lines of paragraph (b), which I take violent exception to. I ask the Government to consider this matter very carefully. The soldier has a right to  be justly treated. A great many men who have this business vote are overseas to-day.

Sir H. Williams
I hope there will be some reconsideration of this question. A lot of people do not seem to realise that this is a disfranchising Bill. All these men are on the register. A vast proportion of those who would be qualified by the Amendment are now on the register. If this Bill is passed, they will be taken off the register. In other words, a man is in occupation of business premises, he joins the Forces, he gives up his office for the time being, but he hopes to come back. Because, however, he has given it up you take away from him that right which he already possessed in 1939. That right is taken away from him unless he has, in fact, gone on paying the rent for the premises during the period in which he was in the Services.

Mr. Peake
The right would have been taken away from him in any case had we gone on preparing annual registers since the war.

Sir H. Williams
The fact remains it takes him off the register. The Minister contends that you cannot have more than one person registered in respect of one premises. Paragraph (b) is based on a hypothetical residence. This is based on hypothetical occupation. There is no moral difference between hypothetical occupation and hypothetical residence. Why should a vast number of people in Westminster, in the City of London, in Liverpool and Manchester be deprived of their votes in the places where they used to earn their living and where they hope again to earn their living when they come back, merely because they are serving in the Forces? The City of London would be a farce if the vote was restricted to the people who live there. The same would be largely true of Westminster, though they would still have me left as a residential voter, as well as the Prime Minister and one or two others. But you get these important business centres from whence the people have gone off to fight, and while they are away you are going to deprive them of that power to vote for the place which often means far more to them than the place where they live. They are migrants from one constituency to another so far as residence is concerned. But because they are away serving His Majesty you  say you will disfranchise them because somebody else, who may be a refugee, not British at all, is in occupation of the premises. It seems to me a complete denial of justice.

Mr. Silverman
I am attracted into this Debate by the hon. Member's reference to the Exchange Division of Liverpool, of which I happen to have some knowledge. My first adventure in Parliamentary contests was made in a by-election in the Exchange Division of Liverpool. [Interruption.] I was about to tell the hon. Member that the previous Member had a majority of 10,000. I was fortunate in being able to reduce that majority to rather under 2,000. What is perfectly certain about it is that I should have been returned by an overwhelming majority but for the business men's plural vote, and, what is much more important, though not Quite relevant at the moment, the vote of their wives. One may say to the hon. Gentleman that among the soldiers away fighting who belong to the Exchange Division of Liverpool the vast majority have a residential qualification in the division. People think that that division is predominantly a business or commercial division. It is nothing of the kind; 70 or 80 per cent. of it is a working-class residential division. What is the hon. Member asking for in respect of that division? He is asking that a soldier who has an office in the Exchange Division and a house somewhere in Liverpool or over in Wirral shall be given under this Bill two votes, one in respect of his residence and one in respect of his office in the Exchange Division, whereas his comrade fighting at his side shall have only one vote in respect of his residence.

Sir H. Williams
I am not asking that he should be given two votes, but that he should not have one taken away from him.

Mr. Silverman
I think it amounts to the same thing in this sense, that if the hon. Member has his way the man for whom he is pleading will have two votes to the other man's one vote, whereas if I have my way they will have one vote each. It comes to the same thing. I say to the hon. Gentleman that he very greatly misunderstands the spirit in the Forces now if he thinks either that such a proposal as that would make for harmony in the Forces or if he supposes that such a proposal as that would have the  support of the soldiers in the Forces. I do not believe it. There is a new spirit at work, and it is evidenced nowhere more strongly than in the Forces themselves. This sentimental plea the hon. Member has made sounds very well until you examine the facts, but it is a plea of privilege and a plea that men shall not be equal, a plea for inequality of citizenship, that some men in the Forces shall have a greater voice, or more voices, in the community's affairs than other men. I am quite certain that among all the citizens of this country there are none more strongly resistant to any such suggestion than those on whose behalf, mistakenly, the hon. Member made his sentimental plea. This Bill is not going to amend anything fundamental in the electoral sphere. Let us have no humbug, no hypocrisy, If we are to make our claim for privilege, let us make it quite clear that we are claiming it on privilege not on sentimental grounds.

Major Manningham-Buller
The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman) has put forward an impassioned claim that the business vote for the serving man should not be retained on the grounds that it is a privilege. He is apparently quite content that under this Bill the Service man shall be put in an inferior position to the civilian who remains in business, because a civilian at home must have if he carries on a business a residential vote as well as a business vote. The man who has gone to serve his country overseas, according to the hon. Member, should be content if he is deprived of one of his votes, that he is left with merely his residential vote. I cannot conceive that to be right or justifiable in any shape or form. If we are to have a Debate on electoral reform, let us have it. If we are to discuss the merits of the business vote, let us do it, but not in this hole and corner fashion, nibbling at it.

Mr. Silverman
rose—

The Chairman
Hon. Members cannot debate the merits or the demerits of the business vote. That is not before the Committee.

Mr. Silverman
I have no intention of doing that, Major Milner, but I do not know whether the hon. and gallant Member was in the Committee before or not. He said I was content with something he described. I am not content. I have  made it clear several times to-day that I am not content with it. If I had my way I would abolish the plural vote altogether.

Major Manningham-Buller
I am sorry if I misunderstood the hon. Member. What I meant was that he was content that the civilian at home should have two votes at home as against one vote for the soldier.

Mr. Silverman
That is a Government decision.

Captain Duncan
The Parliamentary Secretary does not seem to like the wording proposed in the Amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton). Will he consider, therefore, although I personally do not think there is very much wrong with that, repeating what is now the existing law, that is, under Section 5 (1) of the Representation of the People Act, 1918: "A person to whom this Section applies.. shall be entitled to be registered as a Parliamentary elector for any constituency for which he would have had the necessary qualification but for the service which brings him within the provisions of this Section." If the Under-Secretary will keep the present law as it is, I am sure my hon. Friend will withdraw his Amendment. We must have one or the other, otherwise, as the hon. Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams) has said, it is depriving the Service people of something they already have.

Mr. Evelyn Walkden
The hon. Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams) argued that we were depriving the man on active service of a vote which he already has. The Minister says that that is not true: that the man would not be on the register anyway if there were no Bill. If three or four shops have changed hands a number of times, as many have done in the suburbs of London three or four times in a year or two, is each of the men who have occupied each shop to have a business premises vote on that account? According to the argument of the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) and that of the hon. Member for South Croydon, a man who was registered for a business premises vote should continue to have such a vote. That is not fair. If there were electoral reform now I would like to argue against plural voting for anybody, but that is not the issue now.  What is under discussion is the rights of the men in the Fighting Services. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Epsom (Sir A. Southby) knows that in the area where I live shops have changed hands half a dozen times in three or four years, not because of war circumstances, but because there are too many shops in our area. No one can argue that each of the men who has held one of those shops, if he has since gone into the Services, should have a business premises vote on that account. It is wholly inconsistent and inequitable, from the point of view either of the Service man or of the citizen.

Mr. Turton
How will the hon. Member justify taking from the Service man the business vote which he already has, and not taking it from anybody else?

Mr. Walkden
There is no question of justifying taking away something which a man has got. If you were to compile a register to-day, on the legislation that we now have, irrespective of this Bill, the majority of those people would not be entitled to be on the register at all. [Interruption.] Soldiers would be able to vote, because they would have a citizen's rights somewhere. Of the soldiers in the Fighting Services 99.9 per cent. have residential qualifications, even if they live the life of a hermit. I do not see why we should pursue this argument any further. I think that the Minister is quite right.

The Solicitor-General
I have listened to the speeches from all quarters on this matter, and I think it is right that the Committee should consider what is the actual problem. The Amendment proposes something quite new, namely, the pegging of the business qualifications to an antecedent date. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North Kensington (Captain Duncan) recognises that the Amendment seeks to do something quite new, and has offered, in the tentative way which is the only way one can make an offer of an entirely different Amendment from the one on the Order Paper, to put forward an altered form. I want to do justice to my hon. and gallant Friend's intention, and it might be useful to remind the House of what was the law in 1918, as expressed by Section 5 (1) of the Act: "A person to whom this section applies (in this Act referred to as a naval or military voter) shall be entitled to be registered as a parliamentary elector for any constituency for which he would have had the necessary qualification but for the service which brings him within the provisions of this section." There was a special qualification that those who had left the Army within the last six months could get their qualification within a period of one month, which is very much the same as the period with which we are dealing now. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) seeks to do something quite different. His Amendment says that if you occupied a business premises in 939 that is the end of the matter, and you are entitled to the vote now. You have not even to place your hand on your heart and say, "I shall be back in the business premises." The Committee ought to have some regard to the problem. I am not going to enter into the deeper problem, which you, Major Milner, would rule out of Order. We are dealing with a total vote of 386,000. That includes wives. In some cases the business has gone on. Although the occupier may be in the Army, he can make his application, or his wife can apply on his behalf, so that he can get on to the business premises register. So of that 386,000—out of 27,000,000 electors—two vast groups are taken out. They are those who are over age for being on Service—quite a considerable body of the 386,000—and their wives, and those who have continued the occupation of the premises. These, I think the Committee will agree, will cover a great proportion of the cases. I am quite open to the argument, which I already see hovering on the lips of my hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams), that an injustice is no less an injustice because it is confined to a small number of people. That is a point which we must meet. But we are dealing with practical improvements to machinery, and there are always hard cases on the side of every statutory line. If one sees that they are reduced to a small proportion, that helps to the effectiveness of our legislation. I think that is a fair point. Let us see whether there is any real injustice. At the highest—and I take the revised form as put by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North Kensington (Captain Duncan)—what he  wants is that people should be able to say, "There but for the war I would be carrying on business." Anyone who has been interrupted in carrying on business for a period of even two and a half years, like I have myself, will not likely be held to be unsympathetic towards people in that position. But allowing for all that sympathy, it is a very difficult matter to say, "There but for the Service I would be carrying on business, dealing with the whole business or going into a new business." That is a much more hypothetical matter and much more uncertain than saying, "There would I have lived and there would my household goods have been." There would be very different considerations in saying where you would be working, I care not what that work might be. When we consider the extent of the problem, which I have tried to put forward and have given due allowance to the other point of view, and when we are dealing with the hypothesis, I would ask the Committee to say that the method—and hon. Members will know that the old method was not successful in its working out—we have suggested is a practical one. The grounds of possible injustice are very limited and it is not an injustice which anyone can really and fairly represent. The hon. Member for Maryhill (Mr. Davidson) has asked me to consider certain parts of the Act generally. I need hardly say that I would have assured him had the opportunity occurred earlier, but he may take it from me that I shall be pleased to look into any part of the Measure which he or any other hon. Member indicates to me they would be glad to see revised. I must not be taken to suggest to the Committee that that would mean a guarantee of alteration, but I shall with the greatest pleasure look into the points which the hon. Member has indicated.

Amendment negatived.

Major Manningham-Buller
I beg to move, in page 6, line 37, at the end, to insert: "'residing' for those seeking inclusion in the services register shall mean the place where the person is living or would but for his service be living and shall not include the place at which such person is stationed or billeted for the purpose of such service unless that person has been stationed or billeted there for two months preceding the qualifying date." The purpose of the Amendment is to try and clarify a doubt that certainly exists in my mind as to the meaning of the words "is residing." In the case where a soldier serving in this country is stationed in a part of this country far from his home the question may well arise as to whether the place where he is stationed is his residence for the purposes of the Act or not. I think it would be the intention of the Act that the soldier should have a vote in the part of the country where he had an interest and a stake and to all intents and purposes his residence should be that of the whole of his family. Some people may see some doubt about it as I have myself and therefore I have put down this proposal. If accepted the Amendment will stop the whole of an Army corps suddenly moved into a constituency becoming entitled to vote at a particular by-election.

Major Lloyd
I would add a word in support of my hon. and gallant Friend. The object is really an inquiry of the right hon. Gentleman, but it seems to me, and it may well seem to other Members of the Committee, that, unless the word "residing" is more adequately defined than at present, the somewhat exaggerated suggestion of my hon. and gallant Friend that an Army corps moving into a particular area might suddenly become available to vote in that area, will become a possibility, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will clear our minds on this matter.

Mr. Peake
In this question of defining how the Service voter shall choose his constituency, we have had to take the middle path. We have had to steer between the abuses which would result, on the one hand, from giving the Service voter complete freedom of choice in the matter of choosing a constituency in which to vote, and, on the other hand, the large number of serving men who would be disfranchised if we tied the matter up too tightly. We have done that by providing that the Service declaration shall state that the serving man is residing or would be residing but for his service at a place in the constituency. That means that we shall to some extent have to trust the soldier, and that for their part the Government are prepared to do. We do not want to tie the soldiers up in a strait jacket and say to them, "This declara-  tion of yours is going to be subject to restrictions and to objections." If we were to do that a man might fill up a form and say, "But for my service I should be residing at so-and-so in such a street," and after his declaration the house might be destroyed by a bomb and anybody could come forward and say that the declaration was a bad declaration. It would be impossible for anybody to be residing at that place. Therefore, one can conceive of cases of soldiers in the Far East not knowing that their homes had been destroyed by bombs filling up the Service declaration which could be successfully challenged and thereby the soldier who is innocent of any intention to deceive in the matter is disfranchised. We have therefore chosen the middle course which implies trusting the soldier's will and that is, I think, a wise thing to do in this matter. The object of the Government is to make it as easy for soldiers to take an effective part in the election as possible. That is the possibility we have in mind in drafting this Clause. My hon. and gallant Friend wants to define "residing" so as to exclude the place at which such serving person is stationed or billeted for the purpose of his Service unless that person has been stationed or billeted there for two months preceding the qualifying date. There may be persons who have no address to give other than that at which they are serving. There are, for example, considerable numbers of married soldiers occupying married quarters in barracks, and no doubt exactly the same thing applies in the Navy and possibly in the Air Force. It would be a hardship to disfranchise these people unless they had been at that station for a period of two months preceding the qualifying date. We want to be liberal to members of the serving Forces and we do not therefore think that the tightening of the definition which my hon. and gallant Friend proposed is necessary and we would rather be without it.

Major Manningham-Buller
Do I understand from what my right hon. Friend has said that soldiers who have moved into a constituency, and who may be there perhaps three weeks, will become residents in that constituency for purposes of voting? It is only to let soldiers know where they stand and the candidates who the voters are likely to be that I have put down this Amendment.

Mr. Peake
I think the position is clear. A man makes a Service declaration while serving in this country. He says, "I am residing here" or, alternatively, "But for my service I should be residing somewhere else." He has a choice in the matter, his declaration is accepted, and he is accordingly entered on the Service register. He has slightly more latitude than the civilian, but in the interests of the effective use of his vote I think that position is justified and will commend itself to the Committee.

Mr. Silverman
It would be of considerable advantage to the Committee if those Tories who are obstructing so successfully the early passage of this Bill would make up their minds what they wanted. At one moment they are moving Amendments to increase the privileges of Service men, and the next moment they are moving further Amendments designed to restrict those privileges. The position is clear. It states that the serving soldier shall have a vote and leaves to him the right to select where his vote shall be. Hon. Members have come along with Amendments designed to restrict his liberty of choice as to where his franchise shall be exercised and where he shall declare his normal home to be. I hope the Government will resist the Amendment and that we shall get on with the Bill.

Commander Sir Archibald Southby  (Epsom)
Suppose a soldier leaves a constituency where he has been living with his people, joins the Army and does not register as his constituency the address from which he went. Is it open to him to choose some other constituency which he prefers to say will be his residence when he comes out of the Army? All my hon. and gallant Friend was trying to establish was that under normal conditions the place which he registered would be the place from which he came and at which he normally lived. The reply of my right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary did not make that matter clear to me. He talked of the married soldier in married quarters and said that it may happen in the Navy. I have not heard of married quarters in the Navy, and, so far as I am aware, they do not exist.

Mr. Evelyn Walkden
I would like to put another point. If a man leaves the home of his parents and marries, possibly a woman from a neighbouring consti-  tuency, he may—as I did myself—take up residence in that neighbouring constituency on his return from the Forces. I interpreted the remarks of the hon. and gallant Member for Epsom (Sir A. Southby) as meaning that he could not elect to select that place. I want to know whether he could elect the neighbouring constituency, or is he restricted to nominating the place of residence of his parents from which he went to the Services?

Sir A. Southby
If the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. E. Walkden), who is my constituent, will allow me, I think there is a misunderstanding. Quite obviously, if a man leaves his parents' home and marries it would be reasonable if he wanted to live with his wife's people somewhere else and chose to do so. I was thinking of the unmarried man who has left his home, which is the only fixed point he possesses. I am not trying to deny Service men anything; I only want to know what is the position. Is the man able to choose any other part of the country? It is quite reasonable that a married man should choose the home of his wife's parents.

Mr. Peake
We are not dealing, as the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. E. Walkden) seemed to think, with people who have freedom to move where they please. We are dealing with people in His Majesty's Forces, who are under orders. The position is that they make, under the Bill, a Service declaration. They can cancel their Service declarations and make new ones at any time. In that declaration they nominate any constituency, and they have a choice as to a constituency in which they are residing. That they will often do when they are stationed in the United Kingdom. Alternatively, they can choose the constituency in which they say they would be residing but for their service. Obviously, in the case of men going overseas or being overseas they will declare for a constituency in which they say they would be residing but for their service. It seems a reasonable width of choice to give a Service man and will conduce to the effective use of the Service vote. We do not think that narrowing the definition of the word "residing," as proposed by the Mover of the Amendment, is necessary. It would not make very much difference but it would to some extent.

Major Lloyd
I hope I have not misunderstood my right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, but if my understanding is correct, I am more filled with alarm than I was before. It seems that a soldier can change his view and opinion as to where he is normally resident as often as he likes. My right hon. Friend says, "Trust the soldier." We know that we all should, but there are those who will exploit the innocent and who might desire to organise innocent-minded soldiers in order to obtain their votes for a particular constituency. [Laughter.] I am sorry if my hon. Friends opposite are laughing at me—

Mr. Silverman
We do not know what is worrying the hon. and gallant Member.

Major Lloyd
My hon. Friends seem to have no knowledge or experience of exploitation of the individual. Unfortunately, my great experience of human nature makes me realise that such things happen, especially in the political field. I think they ought to show more sympathy than they are showing with the point I am putting forward. I would like a fresh assurance on this point. While you may trust the soldier, you might not trust those who organise the soldiers' votes.

Mr. Peake
I think I can give my hon. and gallant Friend a further measure of assurance. He is afraid that 10,000 or 20,000 soldiers will opt to vote in a particular constituency, either because they like the sitting Member or because they do not. My hon. and gallant Friend must be aware that every soldier serving overseas, who wishes to vote by proxy, has to obtain a proxy to exercise his vote for him, somebody in his constituency who is willing to exercise the proxy on his behalf. Under the provisions of the Schedule to the Bill, no one person can hold more than two proxies at the same time. Therefore, the possibilities of the sort of organised racket feared by my hon. and gallant Friend are, in practice, very remote.

Sir A. Southby
The matter becomes even more involved. My right hon. Friend said just now that a soldier may opt for a different constituency as often as he likes, that he has to find someone in his constituency who is prepared to operate the proxy on his behalf. It is perfectly possible for more soldiers to opt into a  constituency than there are proxies. What will happen then?

Amendment negatived.

Mr. Peake
I beg to move, in page 7, line 41, after "regulations," to insert "and received by him." This is purely a drafting Amendment to bring this Sub-section into line with Subsection (2) of this Clause.

Amendment agreed to.

Major Lloyd
I beg to move, in page 8, line 3, after "deemed," to insert "until the contrary is proved." I think this Amendment speaks for itself, and I shall be glad to hear what the Government have to say about it.

The Solicitor-General
It appears to me that this Amendment would raise the very difficulty about blitzed premises which we have been trying to avoid and which I thought we had successfully avoided. If, when someone makes a declaration and it turns out that the premises have been blitzed, we are going to give someone else the right to prove the contrary, we may get into a very difficult position. Under the Bill, as presented, the premises are deemed to be the man's residence, and I hone my hon. and learned Friend will see that it is better to leave the Bill as it is drafted.

Major Lloyd
I thank my hon. and learned Friend for his explanation, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Turton
Before we leave this Clause, may I ask the Government to reconsider the whole question of the Service register? Some of us are not satisfied that all who are serving their country and are British subjects will be included. We get many letters from soldiers saying they have not got a vote because of the way this Clause is drafted. It is a matter for the legal advisers of the Government and perhaps for the Speaker's Conference, and I do not want to delay the Committee now, but I would like to ask the Government to give an undertaking that all who are fighting, for their country will be allowed to vote.

Mr. Peake
I can give an assurance that everything that has been said in the course of the Debate will be looked at before the Bill becomes law.

Major Manningham-Buller
May I draw attention to a point in connection with my Amendment which was not called? I think if a soldier can make as many declarations as he wishes as to where his residence is, he should at any rate be limited to one declaration as to a would-be residence. I believe if that were done there could be no abuse of the kind indicated by the hon. and gallant Member for South Cardiff (Colonel Evans). Otherwise you might have a man making a declaration at each by-election as it came along. I would like to ask the Under-Secretary to consider the proposal, so that some check may be put on that possible abuse.

Mr. Peake
I cannot give my hon. and gallant Friend much encouragement, I am afraid, as regards the Amendment which was not called. It would, in our view, provide quite unreasonable restraint upon soldiers in the exercise of their vote. If, when once a soldier has made a declaration, that is going to be for all time irrevocable, then if his wife or sweetheart or next-of-kin moved to another part of the country he might have great difficulty in finding a proxy. I am afraid I cannot hold out hope that his Amendment can be accepted.

Question, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

Clause 9—(Mode Of Voting Of Service Voters)

Mr. Turton
I beg to move, in page 9, to leave out lines 26 to 28. These lines deprive a soldier of his present right to vote by post. When the 1918 Act was before Parliament the right of voting by proxy was introduced in the later stages of the proceedings, and it was made clear that the soldier would still retain his right to vote by post. At the moment, a soldier has got that right as well as the right to vote by proxy, but this Clause will take away from soldiers serving overseas the right given in the 1918 Act. Although I have been unsuccessful in trying to retain for the soldier his right to a business vote, I hope the Government will be more favourable to this proposal  and that they will stick to the provisions of the 1918 Act and leave the soldier the right to vote by post or proxy which he has enjoyed up to now. The Under-Secretary said in the course of the Second Reading Debate that in many parts of the world voting by post would be quite out of the question because postal communications would not be received in time. That is admitted. I am not suggesting for a moment that soldiers in the Far East would be able to vote by post, but I do say that this House is entitled to resist the Government if they try to take away the right to vote by post in cases where it is practicable. Men serving in the Central Mediterranean, North Africa and the Middle East could perfectly well vote by post. I would recall the statement by the Under-Secretary that this Bill will operate in one if not two General Elections. By that time I should hope that the second front will be started and will be even nearer than the Central Mediterranean. If soldiers are at Cherbourg or Brest, or perhaps at Calais, surely we should not deprive them of the right to vote by post. But that is the proposal in this Bill. We have had tremendous developments since the last war in the transmission of mails. I suppose I have groused more about mails than anyone, because I have been without mail for something like two and a half to three months, and the whole of my formation was completely browned off because of that delay. We have had the development of the air mail service and of air-graphs, and they could and should be used for this method of voting. Let us use these immense benefits that we have been given so that the soldier can register his vote. Another factor is that we have developed wireless, and that will enable soldiers to know where by-elections are to be held, the candidates and their political opinions, and give them every facility for taking that great interest in politics which the modern soldier has shown. It is possible that the sending out of ballot papers to soldiers and their return to this country may involve rather undue delay, and I put forward the suggestion, which was one made in 1917, that the Army authorities should have a number of blank ballot papers which they could fill up. Then the soldier would be able to vote by  post, and there would only be the one way delay of the postal service. That would extend the area in which soldiers could vote by post to everywhere except the Far East. It would enable those in the Persia and Iraq Command to vote by post. I ask the Committee to give the matter grave consideration before they abolish what is now an acknowledged right of the serving man. I admit that it is a right which it is difficult to exercise, but it is for Parliament to see that it is made possible for that right to be exercised. With great respect I feel that the Government have been idle in the matter of helping the soldier to vote by post. At one time after Dunkirk, when we were stationed in this country, I was given orders by the higher command to publish notices about by-elections so that soldiers could vote, but in some cases the notices did not arrive until three days to a week after the by-election had been held. If it should be said against my proposal that the soldier now has the right of voting by proxy I ask the Committee to judge the difference between voting by proxy and personal voting. The soldier does not like the business of sending a proxy to somebody of whose views he is not absolutely certain. I make the point before—

The Deputy-Chairman
This discussion is getting to be a discussion upon the whole Clause, and I would remind the Committee that if we discuss the Clause now we cannot do it again.

Mr. Turton
I am sorry, and I will try to curtail my remarks, which were merely a rejoinder to a possible reply. Soldiers have the right now to vote by post and I suggest that we should improve it, and ensure that as many soldiers who are serving overseas as possible may vote in the elections. By that means I hope we shall get a better Parliament and a happier Army.

Mr. Peake
The object of my hon. Friend's Amendment is to provide postal voting facilities for the members of His Majesty's Forces serving overseas.

Mr. Turton
To retain the postal vote.

Mr. Peake
Members of His Majesty's Forces serving at home have, under the Bill, the right of voting by post. My hon. Friend says that it is practicable and feasible for members of the Forces in the Mediterranean, and even as far afield as  Persia and Iraq, to exercise postal voting facilities. I wonder how long he thinks it would take for postal communications to be sent out and to get back, with the names of the candidates and so forth—

Mr. Turton
Three and half days for the Central Mediterranean area, and six days for Persia and Iraq.

Mr. Peake
That certainly is not my experience of the postal facilities to the Middle East, nor, I am sure, the experience of anybody else in the Committee. The maximum period which one could allow would be, I think, nine days. The date of nomination eight days after the election commences and the polling day is nine days later. The names the candidates are not known until nine days before polling. In many cases nobody knows whether there will be a contested election or not until nomination day. Not only should we have to cable or in some other way transmit to the Forces overseas the names of the candidates in each constituency, but to describe their politics—

Mr. MacLaren  (Burslem)
And send their portraits.

Mr. Peake
And it would be a very wise precaution to include their portraits also. There is a further difficulty about the proposal, and that is that enormous numbers of members of the public in this country do not know the name of the constituency in which it is their privilege to vote, and the confusion which would arise in the Forces when soldiers were presented with a list of 615 constituencies, and the approximately equal number of candidates of varied political colour, and had to decide with a pin which they were going to plump for, shows, I think, that the method proposed would be no improvement upon that suggested in the Bill. My hon. Friend keeps citing the provisions of the Act of 1919 as if they were the acme of perfection in these matters. I should have thought that anyone who was a member of His Majesty's Forces at the time of the General Election in November 1918 would know perfectly well that the arrangements then were extremely defective, and we are aiming at something a great deal better. I am sure it is wise and proper to provide that members of the Forces serving overseas shall vote,  if they vote at all, by means of proxies. The person on the spot here will know when the election is fixed, will have an opportunity of seeing the candidates and hearing their views, and taking part in the election on behalf of the absent soldier. I am sure that any other method would lead to confusion and chaos, and that this is the most effective way in which we can provide for a member of the Forces serving in distant parts of the world to exercise his vote.

Amendment negatived.

Motion made, and question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Mr. John Wilmot
I listened with great interest to the last remarks of the Under-Secretary. I am bound to confess that I do not know any more satisfactory way of dealing with the problem of the votes of the soldiers serving abroad than the proxy vote but I am also bound to say that I do not like the proxy vote. I think other hon. Members feel the same way about it. In practice I am afraid it often turns out that a soldier, when no election is pending, may fill up a form of appointment of a proxy and send it away and long afterwards, when he has probably forgotten it, some person with whom he is no longer in touch, is able to exercise a vote on his behalf. It is not very satisfactory; in many cases it degenerates into a mere delegation of voting functions and it is another and a rather objectionable form of plural voting. I wish I could suggest some more satisfactory alternative. I think the postal system which has been suggested would be open to abuses even more grave and I have no constructive suggestion to make except this—that between now and the Speaker's Conference which is to deal with the whole electoral question, the Government, who have resources not open to the private Member, should see whether they cannot devise a more watertight and equitable manner of recording the votes of absent soldiers. I think that if we thought hard, we might find a better way.

Mr. Turton
I regret that we were not able to discuss an Amendment on this subject which stood in my name and which would I think have satisfied my hon. Friend the Member for Kennington (Mr. Wilmot). In it I suggested what is the recognised method of Service men's voting everywhere except in this country. I am  rather surprised at the lack of interest in the Committee in this question. I should have thought that it was a question which would have been exercising the minds of the Committee, in order to see whether this country could not follow the example of the Dominions in this matter. We are simply told that notwithstanding all the improvements in the postal service, voting by post is quite out of the question. That seems to me a sad confession of failure. The fact that only two Members have spoken on the question indicates a lack of interest by Members of Parliament in their voters who are serving for them overseas. It is an attitude of mind which I have found reflected among the soldiers in the Middle East. They think that they have been forgotten by their Members of Parliament. On the other hand, the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman) when it was a question of taking away the business vote, talked a lot about the soldier and about plural voting, but when we get on to the question of how the soldier's vote is to be registered, he is no longer in the Committee. It is true that many people give lip service to the rights of the serving man but when it comes to taking part in a Debate of this sort, apparently they have no interest in it at all.

Dr. Morgan  (Rochdale)
Is not that rather unfair? The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman) has been in the Committe for a very long time.

Mr. Turton
That is my point. I chose somebody who had been talking a great deal on the question of the business vote and the position of the Service men in relation to it, but who when it comes to the question of voting by the Service men is no longer interested. [HON. MEMBERS: "How do you know?"] I withdraw at once. I do not say that the hon. Member is uninterested in the matter but I say that he shows no evidence of his interest. I can only say that I also have been present during those Debates, and I noticed that the hon. Member talked a great deal about the plural vote, but now when we are talking about the Service men's voting, he does not take the trouble to be present. What is the system adopted by the Dominions in regard to voting by Service voters in the field? They manage perfectly well under the system which I have outlined in the Amendment which unfor-  tunately we have not been able to discuss. It is the Australian system. Each soldier receives a ballot card from a commissioned officer and is given his number. He fills up the card, hands it back to the commissioned officer who initials it, puts it in the field envelope, and off it goes to be counted. If such a system as that has worked in the case of South Africa, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, is it not time the Government considered whether it could not be worked for this country? Is the only answer to be "You must let the soldiers appoint proxies"?

Mr. Glenvil Hall
I do not wish to interrupt the hon. Member without cause but will he explain how we could be without a Parliament—because that is what it would amount to—while these votes were going out to the Far East and coming back?

Mr. Turton
I gather that under the original proposals there would have been a lapse of some 46 days and that this has been cut down to 17, by the provisions of this Bill. There would be no difference in a General Election if you had Service voters. I do not think there is any difficulty on that account. My point is that at the present time except for the Far East, all our theatres of war are sufficiently near by air mail to be in easy communication with this country within 17 days. [HON. MEMBERS: "Eight days."] If that is wrong, then I will say that many of them would be within eight or nine days, if you cut it down so that it became one-way transmission, and the commissioned officer simply had to send the ballot-paper back to this country. You have a very wide field indeed if you use the airgraph. The Under-Secretary will find if he consults his colleague the Postmaster-General that the whole of the Mediterranean area would now be within eight days and I believe you could also bring in the Persia and Iraq command on, say, two days of the week if not the remainder. I ask the Government to reconsider this matter. I think the attention given to the question of voting by Service voters up to now has been extremely unsatisfactory. We are approaching, we hope and believe, the end of the war, and the time is come when we ought to take full advantage of all modern inventions, in order to achieve what we all want to see, namely that the  man who is fighting for his country gets first consideration when it comes to a question of voting for his country. For those reasons I ask that this matter should be considered, if possible on this Bill, in another place, and if that is not possible, that it should be put down as a matter of urgency for consideration by the Speaker's Conference.

Sir H. Williams
I agree with most of my hon. Friend's Amendments but not with this one. The position is bad enough under Clause 3, because under that Clause this country would be without an effective Parliament for about five weeks. That is one of the great scandals of our Constitution. This country should not be without an effective Parliament for more than 24 hours. We must remember that there are lots of troops now in India and Burma and there will be some in China before long and some in the Solomon Islands, and we all know the delays which take place now in the air mail from North Africa. The proposal of my hon. Friend would mean a great increase in the time between the date of nomination and the date of election. There is the nomination. The papers have to be prepared, they have got to be sent to innumerable destinations, and the election cannot be completed until they have come back. What period is to be allowed—one month, two months, I should think three months? It is not disrespectful to the Dominions to say that the whole situation is not in peril if for some substantial period of time there is no Australian, New Zealand, Canadian or South African Parliament, because vital as their war effort is their position in relation to the whole struggle is not comparable to the position of this House. It would be intolerable if we were incapable of assembling a Parliament for a period of about four months, because that is what would be involved. I hope when we come to the Speaker's Conference that the whole situation will be rectified. His Majesty ought to summon a new Parliament instead of dissolving the old one, so that there is always in existence a body which can deal with matters in a middle of an election. It is true that Parliament is never altogether dissolved. If there is a demise of the Crown during an election the election is off for six months. Mr. Speaker will remain Mr. Speaker for certain functions. Let us realise the in-  credible position we shall be in, especially if the kind of things decorating the Front Bench—they have gone home now—had complete freedom from us for four months.

Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

Clause 10—(Arrangements For Exercise Of Rights By Service Voters)

Mr. Turton
I beg to move, in page 9, line 34, to leave out from "person," to "shall," in line 35, and to insert: "serving in the armed forces and every seaman." The whole simple object is to throw the onus of securing that the Service man shall have the opportunity of voting on the Army authorities. At the present time the Bill is drafted in these words: "… every person appearing to be qualified to make a service declaration …" This Amendment would simply alter that to say: "… every person serving in the armed forces and every seaman …" It is purely a drafting Amendment.

The Solicitor-General
The object of the words which my hon. Friend seeks to leave out is to avoid the necessity of the papers being sent to those who are known to be aliens and serving in the Forces, because of course the aliens are not qualified as electors and it seems unnecessary that they should receive the documents in question. In fact it would be putting them in a difficult position because they might easily by mistake fill up the form and there would be confusion and false declarations caused. I cannot think that any injustice is being done to anyone who is qualified as an elector and I would ask the Committee to leave it in the form I suggest.

Mr. Turton
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Captain Duncan
An enormous amount of the success of the scheme depends on the instructions issued by the Service authorities. I want to impress on the Home Office that they shall co-operate with the Service authorities in drafting these Regulations in a way that the ordinary commanding officer can understand.  I have raised this question earlier on Clause 8 in connection with the words: "is residing at a place in the constituency, or would be so residing but for his service as a member of the forces or a seaman." Every commanding officer would get into a hopeless muddle over things like this unless there were clear instructions from those who understand these things, and it would make all the difference to the working of the Service man's vote if the Service authorities issued clear instructions which could be understood by all. Can I have an assurance that that will be done?

Mr. Peake
I will certainly give the hon. and gallant Member this assurance, that so far as the Home Office is concerned we shall be most happy to co-operate with the Service authorities in drawing up the necessary instructions. At the same time I do not think we shall be in a position to complain if they take the view—and it is possible they may—that they are more capable of drafting language easily understood by the soldier. So far as we are concerned, we shall be most pleased to co-operate in getting the instructions known.

Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

Sir H. Williams
I beg to move, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again." It is now over on hour after the time for the Adjournment of the House in accordance with Standing Orders. We are to be asked to pass the whole of this Committee stage to-night, the Report stage and Third Reading. It is quite obvious that as a result of a Division earlier in the day, the Government ought to give reconsideration to the Bill. There will be no opportunity for reconsideration in this Committee before the Report stage.

Mr. Peake
I find it difficult to accede to the hon. Gentleman's suggestion, for this reason. This Bill is a matter of considerable urgency, both as regards by-elections and as regards the possibility of a General Election soon after, or possibly soon after, the termination of hostilities. We also have on the Order Paper to-day the Prolongation of Parliament Bill, and we desire to get both these Bills through before the Session ends. For that reason we must get their Second Reading begun in another place  on the next Sitting Day. But I will give my hon. Friend this assurance, that it is perfectly clear that the Committee stage of this Bill will not be taken in another place until the next series of Sittings, and that will give us an opportunity of considering the position, particularly in regard to the Amendment he indicated, and of considering other points which Members have made. That will give an interval during which any further necessary Amendments can be taken in another place. Having given that explanation and assurance, I hope that, seeing we have now, I think, passed the stage at which contention was likely to arise on Amendments, we can get through the Committee stage on the remaining Amendments, many of which are of a purely drafting character, very speedily. For that reason I hope the Committee will consent to proceed.

Sir H. Williams
I quite realise that we are getting to the end of a Session, but we all know there is going to be a short Recess so that the Government could decide to modify the programme. If you consider the importance of this Measure, it is a public scandal that we are dealing with it in the way we are doing.

The Deputy-Chairman
Does the hon. Member wish to withdraw his Motion?

Sir H. Williams
No.

Sir A. Southby
It has obviously appeared that there are grave differences of opinion about this Bill, and that its implications are imperfectly understood, even by people on the Front Bench. I would suggest a little more time for consideration. After all, the Water Undertakings Bill is out of the way, and we have a day which can be used for this Bill. I suggest that the Minister should reconsider his decision not to accept the Motion. Further consideration should be given to the Bill by the Government. I realise that it is urgent, but there is no reason why we should pass bad legislation because it is urgent.

Sir P. Harris
I should like on this occasion to support the Minister. On principle, I am all in favour of time. It would have been much better if the Bill had been introduced earlier in the Session But this is an emergency Measure. The register is  terribly out of date, and by-elections are taking place in most unsatisfactory conditions. It was because of the pressure of the House, over a long time, that the Government, at a late hour, introduced this Bill. I agree that it is not a perfect Bill. I do not think that even the Minister would say that it was. It was brought in to meet special circumstances. But the Speaker's Conference will, we hope, get to work very early in the new Session, when many of these points can be considered, and Amendments brought about. It would be nothing short of a disaster if this Session ended without this Bill going on the Statute Book.

Mr. Glenvil Hall
I hope the Committee will support the Under-Secretary, for one very obvious reason. The Bill will have to be finished to-night if it is to be taken in another place on the next Sitting Day. I am aware that there is a feeling among some Members that the Measure should be postponed for further consideration, but it is my conviction that the Bill, with the Amendments which the Minister is going to move presently, will make as good a Measure as can be made in the circumstances which face us. All the Amendments which have been moved on that side have been dilatory in their—

The Deputy-Chairman
I am afraid that that is a word which we must not use.

Mr. Hall
I apologise. The word slipped out. The Amendments which have been moved would, in my view, worsen the Bill, and the Amendments which those Members have still on the Paper would make it no better. I, therefore, appeal to the Under-Secretary to ask his friends to withdraw their Amendments, and we may then finish the Bill in good time.

Mr. Buchanan  (Glasgow, Gorbals)
On a point of Order. When has the word "dilatory" become unparliamentary?

Earl Winterton
Has it not been constantly ruled, both from the Upper and the Lower Chair, that the word "dilatory" as applied to an Amendment which has been discussed by the House, is a reflection on the Chair?

The Deputy-Chairman
I have no particular objection to the word "dilatory," but I thought that possibly at that minute it would be well if I pointed out that hon. Members cannot accuse other Members in  whole blocks of being obstructionist. That was really my meaning.

Major Lloyd
My right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has made the point very strongly that time is short, and that we have to get the Bill on the Statute Book. Whose fault is it? Not that of the Members of this Committee. It is no use suggesting that, because we are deeply concerned about matters connected with this Bill, we are being dilatory, or obstructionist. The Bill need not have been brought in at the end of the Session. I suggest that the best thing would be for my right hon. Friend to accept the Motion. If he cannot do that, he should at least agree that at the end of the Committee stage he will allow the matter to be reconsidered.

Mr. Wilmot
We are all agreed that this Bill has not devised the best possible system of voting that can be devised, but I beg the hon. Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams) to withdraw his Motion, which would probably have the effect of leaving the registers as they now are. If there is one thing on which all Members in all parts of the House would probably agree, it is that the present registers are hopelessly out of date. It is a denial of democracy to continue to hold elections on the present registers one week longer than is necessary. I hope that, although there are imperfections in the Bill, the fact that we are going to get new registers will be considered so great an advantage that the Motion will be withdrawn and we can get on.

Mr. Keeling
My right hon. Friend made what he apparently thought was an attractive offer in suggesting that what we have said to-day would be considered by the Government, and that if necessary Amendments would be moved in another place. It seems to me unsuitable that Amendments to a Parliamentary Elections Bill should be brought up in another place, where nobody can have any interest in the matter. Surely the proper place is this House.

Sir Irving Albery  (Gravesend)
Even on war-time legislation I cannot recall a Bill of this nature, on which there was really a substantial Committee stage, with Amendments being moved, some by the Government, and the Committee stage being followed on the same day by the  Report stage and the Third Reading. I hope that the Under-Secretary will at any rate be able to tell us that if we finish the Committee stage to-night the Report stage and the Third Reading-will be taken at a later date.

Rear-Admiral Beamish  (Lewes)
I would like to support the Motion to report Progress. I have listened with great attention from the beginning of the Debate, and I have been very struck by the quiet way in which all the Amendments have been moved. I have also been struck by the fact that they have been moved by Members who have served overseas and have been through the mill in this war. I hope the Government will realise the intensity of feeling among many of us, who have the impression that the Government have been very inflexible in face of the views which have been put forward. If we cannot get Progress reported, I think it will be quite wrong and out of accord with the spirit of the times if we try to carry the further stages of the Bill after the Committee stage.

Mr. Peake
The Committee ought to be quite clear what the consequences of abandoning the discussion at this stage would be. This Bill is, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South-west Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) said, a very urgent Measure. It has been pressed upon us from all quarters of the House. There has been no delay by the Government in preparing this Measure. It is a very complex Measure, and the Government machine has worked at very high pressure in getting it ready. If we abandon the discussion at this stage and do not take the further stages of the Bill to-night, it is dear that the Second Reading cannot be taken in another place until the middle of the next series of Sittings. The intention of the House is to adjourn at the end of that series. It is clear that if we report Progress now, the Bill will have to be reintroduced next Session. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] The only alternative is for the House to sit in the following week. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] I cannot give any undertaking that that course can possibly be taken. I do not know what arrangements can be made with regard to Business and so forth, and it is impossible for me to give any undertaking that that course will be possible. It is therefore clear that if we report Progress now,  that may necessitate the reintroduction of the Bill in the new Session and its discussion de novo in that new Session. We have now made very good progress with the Committee stage; the Amendments still on the Paper are, in the main, of a drafting character, and some of them are points of very small import. I am confident myself that we could complete the Committee stage within the next hour, and considering the appeals that have often been made in regard to the hours of Sitting that the House shall sit longer for particular purposes, I do not think that it is asking the House to inflict any great hardship upon itself to complete the Committee stage, which, I think, can be done in the course of the next hour.

Sir H. Williams
That is the Committee stage.

Mr. Peake
I think we ought to try to take the remaining stages. At any rate, we ought to proceed with the Committee stage and see what progress we can make.

Earl Winterton
It is right that it should be pointed out—which I hope to do without showing any hostility to the right hon. Gentleman who has so well conducted this Bill—the rather serious Parliamentary situation into which the Government have got themselves. It would be in Order, on this occasion, to point out again and again that there have been cases known to all of us under ordinary party political fighting when there has been opposition to a Bill and when the Government have perhaps suffered, as they have done to-day, a bad fall, and there has been a good deal of feeling and a Motion has been made to Report Progress. There has usually followed discussions behind the Chair between the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the House, and a compromise has been reached in which the Government have agreed not to take the Report stage and the Third Reading. The right hon. Gentleman tells us that he has no authority to make any bargain of any sort. Neither the Leader nor the Deputy Leader of the House is present. Everybody appreciates the enormous strain under which Members of the War Cabinet are meeting, but there is an unfortunate fact, or a fortunate fact, as I think it is, that we are still the Parliament of Great Britain assembled. It is the duty of the Government to have regard  to the feeling of the Committee. It is absolutely certain that the feeling of the majority of the Committee, and perhaps I might say of the Tory Party, is in favour of having some compromise decision by taking the Committee stage to-night and the further stages later on. The right hon. Gentleman says he has no authority and makes an offer, which has no value at all, to see how we get on. He has dealt with this matter in a very inadequate way. I understand that on the first and second Sitting Days of the next series of Sittings the Business that has been put down may come to and end before the conclusion of the Sittings, and it should be possible, by the usual arrangement behind Mr. Speaker's Chair, to arrange for an hour or two to be given to this Bill. I shall certainly vote against the Government if we go to a Division and they do not come to a decision. I do not think in war-time we ought to abrogate the ordinary traditions and rights of the House, and rights not in a written sense in that when the Government have a bad Division and there is a feeling among some of their supporters—and it is even a stronger feeling when it is among their opponents—that the Government should proceed up to a certain point and that we should be met. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will get up and promise that he will not go further than the Committee stage.

Mr. Peake
The suggestion the right hon. Gentleman has made is a fair one. There is obviously some feeling in the Committee, which I quite well understand, that some of the points raised to-day will require further consideration in this House. For that reason, if we can proceed with the Committee stage and try to complete it, as I think we can in about an hour, we can then report Progress and take the Report stage and Third Reading at some other time.

Mr. Buchanan
I rise to congratulate the Under-Secretary on his very kindly speech to his friends. It was a great contrast to what took place last week, when we were discussing the Workmen's Compensation Bill, when I heard one of the most impudent speeches I had ever heard in my Parliamentary experience. To-day the Conservatives are raising this issue, and a fellow Member of their own party gets up and says that they are prepared to give more time, although a few minutes ago he said that the Bill must be got through  to-night. Within five minutes he says that it does not need to be got through to-night but on some other occasion. The thing does not work. He knows that he would be defeated if there was a vote, and that is why he has done it. Do not let the noble Earl become swell-headed; what he has said has nothing to do with it. What has to do with it is the fact that there are more Members against the Government than there are for.

Mr. Molson  (The High Peak)
Surely the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) does not condemn the Government because they bow to the wishes of a democratic Assembly?

Mr. Buchanan
The Government see a majority of opinion against them at the present time, and therefore they agree to finish the Committee stage to-night and then to report Progress and they will come again in the next series of Sittings and take the further stages of the Bill. The hon. Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams) is an astute Parliamentarian and will no doubt accept the arrangement. It is evidence to me of this, that as the war situation changes the Conservative Party in this House are asserting themselves and that the Government are not a Coalition Government but merely a branch of the Conservative Party masquerading as a Coalition Government.

Sir H. Williams
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again," by leave, withdrawn.

Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

Clause 12—(Preparation Of Register)

Major Lloyd
I beg to move, in page 10, line 26, to leave out from "Act," to the end of the Sub-section. Perhaps it may be convenient, Major Milner, if I speak to this Amendment and the next Amendment on the Order Paper, in the name of my hon. Friends and myself, which is to the same end. It seems to those of us who have been interested in this matter that the meaning of the words after "Act" are entirely unnecessary and simply begin the old game about which so many have protested for a long  time. What is the good of passing a Bill if, when we have done it, the whole thing is to be subject to modification by Regulations? I would not have bothered in connection with the Amendment I have formally moved, but in connection with the second—in page 11, line 38, to leave out from "Act" to the end of the Clause—it is much more serious because here you have the right of appeal being granted and it seems to me that that right would be subject to the Home Secretary's modification by Regulations. In other words, the right of appeal is modified and may, indeed, be vitiated by the Home Secretary in framing the Regulations. Why is it necessary to have these phrases at all? I hope my right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary can give an explanation for their necessity in order to justify their inclusion, which we strongly resist.

The Solicitor-General
There cannot help arising in our minds a certain apprehension whenever the portly figure of Henry VIII comes into our discussions in this House. I quite appreciate the anxiety my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for East Renfrew (Major Lloyd) has at the moment, but I would like to point out—and this is the short answer to his point—that under Clause 19 the Regulations which can be made under this provision are subject to an affirmative Resolution in the House. Therefore, Parliamentary control is maintained. In the principal Act, to which reference has been made to-day, the rules contained in the First Schedule may already be altered by Order in Council, and Section 13, Sub-section (2), gave a very wide power to alter, the rules in the Schedule. If this provision which we suggest is not taken, the only result as I see it would be to bring us back to an even more unfortunate position under the old Act. There does come a point in our legislation when you have to decide whether you can embody the whole of what you have to do in every provision for carrying out details in a Bill or make them subject to Regulations. I suggest that this point has been legitimately reached here and that the proper action in these circumstances is to make the Regulations subject to an affirmative Resolution in the House. I should like my hon. and gallant Friend to remember that if he does not concur with this procedure, the first state may be worse than the last.

Major Manningham-Buller
I have listened with interest to the remarks made by the Solicitor-General on this point, and I would agree that we have now reached the stage when further matters should be contained in Regulations. But there are two points which my hon. and learned Friend has not dealt with in full. One is the power which is given by these words to modify this Act after it has been passed by this House in accordance with the desires of the Home Secretary, which would indicate, perhaps, and support the view, that the preparation of the Bill has been hasty. The other matter that arouses concern is that the right of appeal given by Sub-section (4) on page 11 should apparently be subject to such limitations as the Home Secretary cares to impose by Regulations he may subsequently make.

Amendment negatived.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 13—(Registration Officers)

Mr. Peake
I beg to move, in page 12, line 17, to leave out Sub-section (3), and to insert: "(3) For the purposes of this Part of this Act, the proper officer of the council of a county borough or county district shall be the town clerk or the clerk of the council, and it shall be the duty of every such council to provide their proper officer with such staff as he may require for the discharge of his duties under this Part of this Act and national registration regulations made by virtue thereof." This Amendment is in regard to the appointment of proper officers under Clause 13. Further consideration has shown us that it is necessary to substitute a new Sub-section for the one which now stands in the Bill. The new Sub-section actually designates the proper officers, whereas the previous Sub-section provided for their appointment under the Regulations. The reason why we wish to appoint proper officers by the Bill itself is that we wish the work of legislation to proceed immediately the Bill is passed. Broadly speaking, the reason for the Amendment is to get on with the job and to get the machinery working as soon as possible.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 14—(Expenses Of Registration)

Mr. Peake
I beg to move, in page 13, line 32, to leave out "the said expenses," and to insert: "for the remuneration and expenses of any staff provided by the council, and expenses so incurred by the proper officer." This Amendment is consequential upon the Amendment we have just made.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered, to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 15 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 16—(Right Of Person Registered To Vote)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Sir I. Albery
There is one point I want to raise on this Clause. It reads: "Subject to the provisions of this section every person registered under this Part of this Act for an election in any constituency shall be entitled to vote at that election." This Clause refers to the arrangements made under the Bill for dealing with elections under the present difficult conditions. What I am mainly concerned about is that although all these persons will be entitled to vote, I do not feel satisfied that under the present machinery adequate arrangements have been made to facilitate that vote. It seems to me there ought to be, either in this Clause or in some other part of the Bill, some power for making regulations which will facilitate voting on polling day in view of the very difficult conditions under which such voting would be done at the present time. I will give only one example. Both men and women are working very long hours, and in addition many of them have to travel for an hour in the morning to work and an hour in the evening to get home. Is there any reason to suppose that many of these people will be able or at any rate can be relied upon to exercise their privilege and duty of voting unless this matter is taken into consideration and some facilities given?

Mr. Peake
I will certainly take into consideration what has been said by my hon. Friend. Clause 16 is merely a reenactment of existing law, but the question which my hon. Friend has raised in regard to facilitating voting by means of an extension of hours during which the polling booths remain open seems to be one which should be discussed by the Conference on Electoral Reform. No doubt what my hon. Friend has said will receive the attention it deserves.

Sir I. Albery
I thank my right hon. Friend for what he has said, but I am not so much concerned about the hours when polling booths are open. It is the long hours of work that I have in mind, and I think some provision should be made when people are working very long hours that they should be excused an hour's work on polling day.

Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

Clause 17 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 18—(Transitional)

Amendment made: "In page 15, line 45, leave cut "in," and insert "for."—[ Mr. Peake.]

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 19—(Approval Of Electoral Registration Regulations By Parliament)

Amendment made: In page 16, line 16, leave out "therein," and insert "in the regulations."—[ Mr. Peake.]

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 20 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 21—(Interpretation Of Part I)

Mr. Turton
I beg to move, in page 17, line in, to leave out "raised in the United Kingdom." This is a matter of definition. The definition in the Bill is: "any of the armed Forces of the Crown raised in the United Kingdom." The point I wish to raise is that since the beginning of the war many British subjects resident in the United Kingdom on joining the Forces have been seconded for service with other Forces not raised in the United Kingdom. I can give as an illustration the Royal Malta Artillery. Many men fighting in Malta are serving in that regiment. Then again there is the Cyprus Regiment, and many men who were either in the Territorial Army or Militia who were drafted out to West Africa in the early part of the war are serving with the Nigerian Regiment. I think it is a matter which requires consideration and a little alteration in drafting.

Mr. Peake
I think my hon. Friend will recognise that the Amendment on the Paper would be unsuitable to meet the particular cases which he has in mind,  and I think the best thing is to offer to look at the definition again in the light of his observations.

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson  (Farnham)
Will my hon. Friend also take into account the Indian Army?

Mr. Turton
I beg to ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 22 to 34 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

New Clause—(Appointment Of Proxies For Service Voters At University Elections)

(1) A person entitled to vote at a university election shall be entitled to appoint a proxy to vote for him at any such election if, at the time of his application for the issue of a proxy paper, he is a member of the forces or a seaman.

(2) An application for the issue of a proxy paper by any such person, being a member of the forces or a seaman, may be made on the same form as that prescribed under this part of this Act for use by service voters, and where such a form purporting to be signed by any person is accompanied by a declaration—
 (a) purporting to be signed by the same person and bearing the same date as the application; and(b) in the same form and attested in the same manner and, subject as hereafter provided, stating the same particulars as a service declaration;

the declaration shall be conclusive evidence that the said person was a member of the forces or a seaman at the time of the application:

Provided that the particulars to be stated in any such declaration shall not include particulars as to the residence of the declarant, but shall in lieu thereof include particulars of the university constituency in which he entitled to vote.

(3) The provisions of Section fifteen of this Act shall apply to any such declaration as if it were a service declaration.

(4) Any proxy paper issued by virtue of this Section shall, unless cancelled, remain in force until the expiration of this Part of this Act.

(5) Save as provided by the foregoing provisions of this Section, nothing in this Part of this Act shall affect the provisions of the principal Act or any Order in Council made thereunder relating to the appointment and voting of proxies at university elections.—[ Mr. Pickthorn.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Pickthorn  (Cambridge University)
I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time." I think this Clause is clear in its meaning, that it is technically unobjectionable and, I think, wholly uncontroversial. The object of the Clause is clear on the face of it. As the Bill is drafted and if it were left unamended, the right of voting by proxy would be much less useful, much less easy to exercise by university voters than by voters in geographical constituencies. In effect, that would inflict a very considerable hardship. I do not think it is generally realised how high a proportion of university voters will be out of the country on active service if there is a general election in war time or immediately afterwards. It will be a much higher proportion than in any other kind of constituency. I and my colleague for Cambridge University, and to a slightly less extent the Members for Oxford University, and then the other university Members are, I think, the only Members in this House who essentially represent young men. Almost all the rest of Members largely represent old women. No doubt old women are just as good and useful as young men, but they are not so apt to be overseas upon active service in war or emergency; I am sure that it was wholly inadvertence on the part of the office and the draftsmen responsible for this Bill that it should have been likely to have the effect of causing far more voters in one kind of constituency than in other kinds to be practically incapacitated from exercising their votes by proxy.

Mr. Peake
We have considered this matter very carefully and in the view of the Government it does seem reasonable to provide proxy voting facilities for members of universities. Here again we are not discussing the merits or demerits of the university franchise. The fact is that the register for the universities, which is not in the least affected by anything in the Bill, is already in existence. The register is there, and if is the duty of the university authorities to maintain that register, and unless some provision for proxy voting is made it is obvious that a very small proportion of university voters would have the opportunity at the present time of exercising their right to vote in the university elections. Having given the matter very careful consideration we think it is reasonable that this Clause should be included in the Bill.

Question, "That the Clause be read a Second time," put, and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

First Schedule—(Modifications Of Section Twenty-Three Of Principal Act)

Mr. Peake
I beg to move, in page 25, line 4, to leave out paragraph 1, and to, insert: "1. Sub-section (4), except so much thereof as provides that a ballot paper for the purpose of voting by post shall not be sent to any person unless the address of that person recorded by the registration officer is an address in the United Kingdom, shall not have effect, and in lieu thereof the following provisions shall have effect:— (a) so long as an application by any person for his name to be entered in the absent voters list is required to, be made as respects a particular election, a person whose name is entered on that list for an election— (i) shall, if he has satisfied the registration officer, on an application for the issue of a proxy paper made in accordance with electoral registration regulations at the same time as his application for his name to be entered in the said list, that there is a probability that at the time of the poll he will be at sea or out of the United Kingdom, be entitled to appoint a proxy to vote for him at the election; and(ii) having appointed a proxy, shall be entitled to vote by proxy at the election;(b) if and when electoral registration regulations provide that an application by any person for his name to be entered in the absent voters list is to be made as respects a prescribed period, a person for whom such an application has been received and accepted by the registration officer— (i) shall, if he has satisfied the registration officer, on an application for the issue of a proxy paper made in accordance with electoral registration regulations, that there is a probability that he will be at sea or out of the United Kingdom at the time of the poll at any Election initiated during that period or any part thereof specified in the application, be entitled to appoint a proxy to vote for him at any such election; and(ii) having appointed a proxy shall be entitled to vote by proxy at any such election as aforesaid for which his name may be entered in the civilian residence register or business premises register;(c) no ballot paper shall be sent for the purpose of voting by post to a person who has appointed a proxy by virtue of this paragrah while the appointment is in force;(d) the provisions of the Second Schedule to this Act shall have effect in relation to the appointment and voting of proxies under this paragraph." Although it looks rather formidable, this Amendment is practically nothing but redrafting. We had hoped by a comparatively simple bit of legislation by reference to meet the position, but have come to the conclusion that it is better to set out fairly fully the existing legislation regarding voting by proxy. I do not think there is anything in the Schedule as redrafted to which any exception is likely to be taken.

Amendment agreed to.

Schedule, as amended, agreed to.

Second Schedule—(Proxies)

Amendments made:

In page 25, line 24, leave out paragraph 2, and insert:
 "2. Where an application is made by a voter for the issue of a proxy paper, it shall be the duty of the registration officer, on being satisfied that the voter is entitled to appoint a proxy, to issue a proxy paper to the person appointed as proxy, unless the registration officer is satisfied that that person is not willing to be appointed or cannot lawfully be appointed by virtue of the following provisions of this Schedule."

In page 26, line 1, leave out "this Part of."

In line 4, at the end, insert:
 "Provided that this paragraph shall not apply to a proxy paper issued on an application made by virtue of sub-paragraph (a) of paragraph 1 of the First Schedule to this Act."

In line 6, leave out from "force," to the end of the paragraph, and insert:
 "(a) in the case of a paper issued on an application made by virtue of sub-paragraph (a) of paragraph 1 of the First Schedule to this Act, until the conclusion or abandonment of the election at which the voter is entitled to vote by proxy;(b) in the case of a paper issued on an application made by virtue of sub-paragraph (b) of the said paragraph 1, until the expiration of the period as respects which the application is made; and(c) in the case of a paper issued on the application of a service voter, so long as that voter remains entitled to appoint a proxy by virtue of the same service declaration."

In line 12, leave out from "that," to the end of the paragraph, and insert:
 "this paragraph shall not apply to an application for the issue of a proxy paper made by virtue of sub-paragraph (a) of paragraph 1 of the First Schedule to this Act."—[Mr. Peake.]

Mr. Brooke  (Lewisham, West)
I beg to move, in page 26, line 46, to leave out "two voters," and to insert "one voter." The object of this Amendment is to limit the number of persons for whom a  man or woman can act as proxy, not being members of the same family. An hour or so ago the hon. Member for Kennington (Mr. Wilmot) said that none of us felt altogether happy about proxy voting, though it was the best we could manage and we had to put up with it. His words were greeted with a general cheer. We want, I think, to narrow the scope for abuses and that is what my Amendment is designed to do. It would be the worst thing that could happen if this Bill were to breed a race of people who went round cadging for proxies. Under the Bill any person, by taking a certain amount of trouble, can treble the value of his vote. If he makes the necessary inquiries and writes a sufficient number of letters to his friends or acquaintances, he can pick up two proxies outside those of members of his own family. I entirely agree that a man or woman should be enabled to act as a proxy for their own families, but there is no real necessity to allow as many as two outside proxies. If my Amendment were inserted no one could act as proxy for more than one person, that is to say, could do more than double the value of his own vote. We want as far as possible to minimise the risk of any abuse of this system of proxy voting.

The Solicitor-General
We are all agreed with the motive that actuates my hon. Friend in moving this Amendment, but in a question of this sort we have to consider where does the line of reasonableness fall and whether we come, on what is really a question of degree, to a point where we require alteration of the existing procedure. As my hon. Friend probably remembers, the paragraph of this Schedule, in allowing a proxy to act for two voters, merely re-enacts the law which is contained in Clause 7 of the Third Schedule to the principal Act. I was relieved, and I am sure the Committee were, to find that my hon. Friend was not resting his argument on any ill results of the existing law. I should like to put this point to him. It is quite obvious that some degree of limitation is necessary. On the other hand, some latitude is also necessary so that the voter who is appointing a proxy may have less chance of finding that the appointment is nugatory because the person whom he selects has already been chosen by somebody else. I do not think it can be suggested that if a proxy can be  appointed by two persons and no more, apart from the designated relatives, there is any serious chance of abuse. We have drawn the line very low and I shall ask my hon. Friend to remember that we on our side have given attention to this point and not to press this Amendment.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. Turton
I beg to move, in page 26, line 47, after "parent," to insert "grand-parent." Many Services voters have their parents already in the Services. The call-up has created that position, and the grandparent, in some cases, is keeping the home. Many grandparents have more than two grandchildren, and if this Amendment is not passed, the Committee will be doing an injustice in some of these cases. If you are to have this proxy vote, to which I personally do not attach so much importance as other hon. Members, then we must make it workable and where the household is being held together by grandparents that is a reason why the grandparents should be able to act as proxies for their grandchildren. I have been so unlucky hitherto in my appeals to my right hon. Friend that I hope he will agree to this small proposal.

Mr. Peake
My hon. Friend has worked hard all day, and here he finds his reward. We can think of no objection either in principle or in detail to this Amendment, and therefore we are willing to accept it.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 27, line 12, after "parent," insert "grandparent."—[ Mr. Turton.]

Mr. Turton
I beg to move, in page 27, line 23, after the first "person," to insert "other than a Service voter." This is a drafting Amendment, because the Schedule as drafted appears to conflict with Clause 9 (2). Under that Sub-section, a Service voter, whether appointed a proxy or not, may vote in an election, but if we then turn to the Schedule we find that any person who has been chosen as a proxy and who votes himself is liable to heavy penalties. I think the insertion of these words is therefore necessary.

The Solicitor-General
I do not think that the words suggested by my hon. Friend are necessary or that they have any  meaning, because the absent voters' list will contain only the names of civilian residence voters and business premises voters. My hon. Friend will see that by referring to Clause 7. It will not contain the name of any Service voter, which means a person who has made a Service declaration. My hon. Friend will see that on reference to Clause 9 (1).

Mr. Turton
I hope my hon. and learned Friend will consider putting in the words "civilian," or "business voters' lists," if he means that. The absent voters' list hitherto has always included both civilian and Service voters, and it is because that word "civilian" was not put in, that I thought he was referring to what we are more accustomed to, namely, the absent voters' list.

Mr. Peake
I think my hon. Friend can accept the statement that the absent voters' list will not contain any names of persons who are on the Service register.

Amendment negatived.

Schedule, as amended, agreed to.

Third Schedule—(Adaptation Of Enactments In Relation To Part I)

Amendment made: In page 30, line 5, leave out "that Act," and insert "the National Registration Act, 1939."—[ Mr. Peake.]

Schedule, as amended, agreed to.

Fourth Schedule—(Modification Of Part I In Its Application To Northern Ireland)

Mr. Peake
I beg to move in page 32, line 45, at the end, to insert: "6. In subsection (2) of section twenty-four of this Act for references to the fourteenth day of October, there shall be substituted references to the fourteenth day of December." This amendment is in the Fourth Schedule, which applies to Northern Ireland and is necessary by reason of the fact that, in Northern Ireland, the register under the principal Act, comes into force on 15th December in each year and not as in England, Scotland and Wales on 15th October.

Amendment agreed to.

Schedule, as amended, agreed to.

Fifth to Seventh Schedules agreed to.

Bill reported, with Amendments; as amended, to be considered upon the next Sitting Day, and to be printed [Bill 61.].