Commons Chamber

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House Of Commons

Thursday, 19th October, 1950

The House met at half past Two o'Clock

Prayers

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Civil Contingencies Fund

Accounts ordered,

"of the Civil Contingencies Fund, 1949–50, showing (1) the Receipts and Payments in connection with the Fund in the year ended the 31st day of March, 1950, and (2) the Distribution of the Capital of the Fund at the commencement and close of the year; with the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General thereon."—[Mr. R. J. Taylor.]

Oral Answers To Questions

Trade And Commerce

Waste Paper (Collection)

asked the President of the Board of Trade what is now the average monthly collection of waste paper from local authorities; and whether he is satisfied that the present amount collected is sufficient to maintain full stocks at the pulping factories.

Statistics of collection are no longer available, but the mills' receipts of mixed waste paper of the type normally collected by local authorities have averaged 10,700 tons a week from all domestic sources during the three months June/August of this year. Stocks rose slightly during this period, owing to reduced activity during the holidays and the arrival of a small quantity of imported material.

Unless collections can be stimulated, I have no doubt that mills' stocks, which are already low, will decline further during the winter months. I hope that this will be prevented by the recent increase in waste paper prices and other arrangements which I understand the mills are now considering.

In view of the shortage of newsprint, which must ever be the responsibility of the Minister concerned and of the Government, and the rising prices of imported pulp, would the Minister himself bring about the stimulation which is necessary to get maximum waste paper salvage in this country?

The hon. and gallant Member will realise that this collection of waste paper has virtually no relevance to the newsprint situation at all. So far as collection is concerned, this was suspended by many local authorities when there was a temporary surplus of paper and the prices paid by the mills were so very low. These have now been increasing.

Can the right hon. Gentleman say what percentage of all local authorities in the United Kingdom now have active schemes for the collection of salvage paper?

Not without notice.

Is the right hon. Gentleman maintaining the department dealing with the collection of waste paper? If so, is it still at its normal level of activity?

No, Sir. The department dealing with this is at a much reduced level of staffing owing to the handing back of a good deal of the responsibility for this to the private trade.

Commonwealth Statistical Abstract

asked the President of the Board of Trade why the forthcoming issue of the Statistical Abstract for the British Commonwealth is to contain statistics only up to 1947; and what is the cause of the delay in publishing later statistics.

The delay in publishing the 70th edition of the Statistical Abstract for the British Commonwealth, which should be on sale before the end of the year, is largely due to the dislocation in the statistical services of this and other Commonwealth countries caused by the war. I regret this delay and hope that the measures which are now being taken will result in a service of more up-to-date statistics.

Is the Minister aware that the pre-war statistics were usually published within one year of the end of the year concerned, and cannot he hold out some hope of bringing this service back to its pre-war level?

I have explained the reason why, since the war, it has not been possible to get information from other countries as quickly as we would like. I hope to resume very quickly a speedy service of publication, particularly on the trade statistics side.

Cotton Mills

asked the President of the Board of Trade the percentage of capacity in the Lancashire cotton textile mills which has been redeployed.

As the hon. Member doubtless appreciates, the term "redeployment" is not capable of precise definition. But I understand that about 90 spinning mills have applied modern techniques of work-load assessment: in the weaving section something like half the industry is working more than the traditional four looms per weaver, and 57 firms with 15,000 non-automatic power looms have so far adopted the wage system based on the recommendations of the Cotton Manufacturing Commission. In addition, there are about 37,000 automatic looms already installed.

asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will give a list of schemes sanctioned under the cotton-spinning re-equipment subsidy scheme; the amount of money expended and authorised; and the progress made so far.

Plans for re-equipping or modernising cotton spinning mills submitted by 27 groups have been approved under the Cotton Spinning Re-equipment Subsidy Act. These cover modernisation of 145 mills containing 12 million mule equivalent spindles, and the cost of carrying out this work is estimated at £13 million. The total of grants paid to date is £516,000, but further claims are being submitted as work is completed. No further schemes can now be submitted, and work on those which have been approved must be completed by 30th April, 1952.

Have any schemes been submitted too late? If so, can consideration be given to starting them, if necessary, by amending legislation?

I shall be very glad to look into that.

War Damage Payments

asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on the total income received and the total payments made in respect of Part II of the War Damage Chattels Act, 1942.

As the answer contains a number of figures, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Is it not a fact that a great number of people are now waiting for payments under this scheme? If there is a surplus, as I believe there is, why should these people continue to wait for payments due to them?

I have answered questions about the delay of payments under this scheme on a number of occasions.

Following is the answer:

WAR DAMAGE ACT, 1943 (PART II)
Business and Private Chattels Schemes
Statement of total receipts and payments made to 30th September, 1950
		Business Scheme	Private Chattels Scheme	Total
		£m.	£m.	£m.
Receipts
Premiums	…	76·84	15·83	92·67
(a) Salvage	…	0·13	0·02	0·15
		76·97	15·85	92·82
Payments
		£m.	£m.	£m.
(b)(c) Claims	…	51·09	116·76	167·85
Interest	…	3·05	4·59	7·64
		54·14	121·35	175·49
(a) These receipts do not include salvage requisitioned and sold by other Government Departments, which would have been accounted for direct by those Departments.
(b) In addition to claims paid, amounts totalling £269,114 have been discharged by the Board of Trade by way of "set-off" against loans made to Business Scheme claimants by other Government Departments.
(c) Not including deferred payments to a total of £40·86 million and interest thereon.

Footwear (Exports To France)

asked the President of the Board of Trade what representations he has received from the French Government to the effect that they are unwilling to allow freer import of British footwear into France owing to their objection to Purchase Tax on their products in the United Kingdom.

The representations to which the hon. Member refers were made during a meeting of the Anglo-French Economic Committee, in response to a request we had made for an increase in the quota for our exports of leather footwear to France.

What is the right hon. Gentleman doing about it? Is he trying to do something with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or is he sitting still and seeing all the exports of British footwear to France banned as a consequence?

No, Sir. The question is, of course, the extreme difficulty associated with the inclusion of imported footwear within our utility scheme. In view of the importance of that scheme in providing some assurance of the quality of the products and the methods of manufacture, there is very great difficulty in associating imports with it.

Why do we allow free importations of French shoes into this country, while our manufacturers are excluded from sending any footwear to France except under small token schemes?

I thought the hon. Member was protesting about the controls placed on importations into France from this country.

Cannot shoes be imported under the utility scheme and, in that way, overcome the objections of France?

That is being examined, but we have to have assurances on quality and methods of manufacture associated with our own utility scheme for goods manufactured in this country.

Motorcycles

asked the President of the Board of Trade the number of motorcycles manufactured in Great Britain during the last 12 months; the number and value of those exported; and the number and value of those sent to the United States of America, respectively.

As the answer contains a number of figures, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate the information in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Can the right hon. Gentleman assure us that every encouragement and assistance will be given to the motorcycling industry to develop still further their better models and enable them to keep the high position they hold today of leading in the international races of the world?

I agree that this is a most valuable export trade. I think there are very encouraging possibilities of its expansion in the United States, and while I was there I went into the matter with the trade. I am satisfied that much more can still be done.

Following is the information:

The number of motorcycles manufactured in Great Britain in the 12 months ended August, 1950, was 165,764. United Kingdom exports in the same period amounted to 71,338, valued at £6,606,058, of which 7,975, valued at £840,428, were exported to the United States of America.

Russian Timber

asked the President of the Board of Trade what steps have been taken to assure a continued supply of Russian timber, in view of the supply of certain machine tools to Russia having been cut off.

The Russians are shipping to this country plywood, softwood and mining timber under contracts signed last March and June. Over half the plywood and mining timber and nearly half the softwood have already been delivered. His Majesty's Government cannot ensure that Russian timber will continue to be supplied, but I would point out that the timber is sold for sterling which the Russians are free to use, subject to the strategic controls which have had to be imposed, for a wide variety of purchases in the sterling area. Only a very small proportion of this sterling has consisted of purchases of machine tools in the United Kingdom.

Will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House what steps are being taken in the meantime, in case there should be a breakdown of deliveries in the future, to obtain more timber from the British Commonwealth and Canada?

I think that to some extent that is another question. I can assure the hon. and gallant Member that very large contracts have been already placed in Canada since before the Recess.

Commonwealth Trade Talks

10.

asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on the results of the trade talks between representatives of Commonwealth Governments which took place in Lon don in September.

The economic and trade discussions between Commonwealth Ministers which took place in London between 18th and 22nd September were most valuable. Their purpose was to permit a frank and informal exchange of views between Commonwealth Ministers. It was not intended to reach any formal conclusions, decisions or recommendations to Governments. The subjects which came under review in the course of the discussions are indicated in the Press communique, issued at the conclusion of the talks, of which I am sending the hon. Member a copy.

Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether any common policy was arrived at in regard to foreign countries at Torquay making further encroachments on Imperial preferences?

There has been a considerable exchange of views on the question of tariffs, Imperial preferences and other questions that will, no doubt, be discussed at Torquay.

Was the Secretary of State for the Colonies represented at this Conference?

Yes, Sir.

Has there been any indication among Commonwealth countries at the Havana and Torquay conferences to suggest an altered policy towards tariffs?

The Torquay conference is of rather a limited character. We discussed at the Ministerial conference and at the pre-Torquay conference the line to be taken on tariffs.

Mead (South African Ban)

11.

asked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that the South African Government have imposed a ban on the importation of mead into the Union; and whether, in view of the fact that this country offers a ready market for South African wines, he will make representations in favour of this historically English liquor.

Yes, Sir. Our senior trade commissioner has already taken up this matter with the Union authorities, and they have explained that the purpose of the ban, which does not arise from economic considerations, was to prevent the introduction of a disease of bees which is capable of being transmitted in honey. I understand that if it can be shown that imported mead is free of all possibility of carrying infection, the Union authorities will consider the matter further.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this can be definitely shown, and will he do all he can to encourage and revive this British industry?

I share the hon. and gallant Member's view, both in regard to the extremely high quality and acceptability of this particular liquor, and also its importance in the revival of this industry. If the trade are able to show that they can avoid the transmission of this disease, I am sure that the Union authorities will be prepared to co-operate.

Newsprint Supplies

12.

asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on future supplies of newsprint; and if he will say particularly what arrangements have been made to enable British newspapers to obtain Canadian newsprint.

14.

asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will make a statement on the recent reductions in newsprint available in this country.

15.

asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on the future supplies of newsprint.

I understand that the Newsprint Supply Company, thanks to the co-operation of the Canadian mills, has succeeded in placing contracts for the 100,000 tons of newsprint from Canada for which dollars were allocated up to the end of 1951, but that not more than 10,000 tons can be delivered this year, instead of the 25,000 tons for which we had hoped. I am advised that no further supplies are available at present even for dollars.

Apart from this, there is little change in the supply position anticipated when the House last debated newsprint. Consumption has continued to increase with circulations and this, coupled with the delay in the arrival of Canadian supplies, had led the Newsprint Rationing Committee to decide that tonnage rationing should be reintroduced as from 22nd October, to prevent a further reduction in the reserve stock.

Tonnage rationing, the allocation to each newspaper of a fixed tonnage instead of one based on varying circulations as well as paging, does not in itself mean any reduction in the size of newspapers; but it leaves it open to each newspaper to decide whether to meet any difficulties by maintaining its size or maintaining its circulation. The detailed arrangements in this case are complicated and are in the hands of the Newsprint Rationing Committee, which is still engaged in working out details; but I understand that the final allocation figures are likely to reduce current increased consumption by a small percentage. Local weekly papers will be largely exempt from this reduction.

That is not a cheerful statement. Will the Minister do two things to enable the British newspapers to fulfil their functions properly? First, will he allow the British Newsprint Supply Company to make forward contracts with Canada beyond, 1951 to restore the confidence of the Canadians in our bona fides in business? Second, will he withdraw his requirement that British mills should export 100,000 tons of newsprint each year?

In regard to the first part of that question, I am considering that proposal, which has been made by the Newsprint Supply Company. I hope to meet them and discuss it in the near future. In reply to the second part, I outlined the policy of His Majesty's Government in the last full Debate on this, and there is no change in that policy.

Can the right hon. Gentleman be a little more specific about this? Is he not aware that the present acute supply position is largely due to the delays caused by the Government, and that the only way of getting out of the present difficulty is by deferring the date of some of our exports of British paper? Will he give an answer to that?

I am aware that the deterioration in the newsprint supply position over the last six months has been due to the very high rate of consumption, particularly of United States newspapers and their imports, not only from Canada but, to some extent, from Scandinavia. That has been the reason for the deterioration, which we fully discussed in previous Debates. Certainly if anything can be done to alleviate the present newsprint position by placing longer term contracts with Canada, we shall be prepared to give favourable consideration to it.

Will something be done before the situation becomes more acute?

The right hon. Gentleman must be well aware that owing to the very high pressure of demand on Candian imports at present, even if all the dollars in the world were made available that would not increase the imports of newsprint from Canada.

What about the English paper?

In view of the grave shortage of newsprint, will the right hon. Gentleman say why he allows magazines and periodicals, and, more particularly, children's comic papers, to have unlimited supplies? Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the country will hold him personally responsible for the situation with which we are now faced?

They will not if they know the facts—

They will.

because, in the first place, the amount of newsprint—I repeat, newsprint; not other forms of paper—available to the periodicals has been strictly controlled over the past period, and now that a small reduction is inevitable or likely in the case of newspapers that same reduction will be applied also in the case of periodicals.

Does my right hon. Friend appreciate that there have been suggestions in the Press that there is a nefarious design to cut down supplies so that people cannot have the fullest information about what is going on, and will my right hon. Friend give the lie to that charge?

If it is necessary once again to do that I will certainly do it. We have never at any time sought to use the supply of newsprint as a means of controlling newspapers—[HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense."]—but I am sure that hon. Gentlemen on all sides will agree that with the present supply of newsprint it would still be possible to give a fuller treatment of the issues to which my hon. Friend has referred.

Will the President of the Board of Trade amplify what he said about the position of local weekly newspapers? He said that they would be "largely exempt." What does he mean by that?

I should, if the hon. and learned Member would agree, like notice of that question, because the actual arrangements for the rationing scheme are, of course, in the hands of the trade themselves. I have on a number of occasions, both privately and in this House, expressed what, I am sure, is the view, not only of the Government, but of hon. Members on all sides, that the weekly provincial papers should be exempt from any reductions that may be necessary, and I am waiting to hear the final views of the newspaper trade on that subject.

I am sorry to be so persistent, but will the President of the Board of Trade assure the House that he will discontinue the policy of restricting imports and stimulating exports? Is he not aware that the only way out of the situation is by delaying some of our exports? Will the right hon. Gentleman answer this point?

The right hon. Gentleman must be aware that outside the dollar area there has been no restriction on the imports of newsprint. It has been the inability to buy newsprint which the industry expected to buy from Scandinavian sources that caused the trouble. So far as exports are concerned, I have already announced that the view of the Government is to maintain exports but not to allow them to exceed 100,000 tons.

Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that some of the children's comic strips which have been criticised from the other side are more serious than some of the Opposition newspapers?

Imported Softwoods

13.

asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will make a statement in regard to reversion to private imports of softwoods, notably sawn sleepers and squares, deals and scantlings; and, in the event of private imports being resumed, whether consumer licensing and price control of such imports will be necessary.

I would refer the hon. Member to a notice published in the Board of Trade Journal of 14th October, of which I have sent him a copy, giving details of the measure of private trade in the import of softwood that has been decided upon. Sleepers, squares, deals and scantlings are included in the scheme. I regret that timber supplies do not permit of any relaxation whatever in the control over the use of softwood.

Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether it will be the policy of his Department progressively to extend the areas from which private imports of these softwoods may be permitted, subject only to a control of hard currencies in the case of the American countries or other considerations in the case of Eastern European countries?

The hon. Member will realise that the present change covers pretty well all the areas he has in mind—that is, to exclude the hard currency dollar area and also exclude Eastern European countries. If it is possible to work out any scheme under which the private trade can participate more in imports, for instance, from Eastern Europe, we shall be very glad to be able to do it.

How does the right hon. Gentleman propose to handle imports of softwood from the hard currency and Iron Curtain countries for which he has already made contracts for shipment for next year?

The contracts with the dollar areas, of course, are for shipments next year, but we have not yet come to contracts with Eastern European countries for shipment next year. Timber control will still buy from the dollar areas. We hope that a considerable quantity of that purchase will go to augment our stocks, which have been too low this year. In so far as they will have to be put into consumption, they will probably be sold to the trade at replacement prices.

Has my right hon. Friend taken steps to prevent an increase in price in softwood imported under these arrangements, remembering what happened when hardwood was decontrolled?

I should not like to speculate on the future trend of prices, whether by public or private purchasers in the timber trade.

Is there any good reason why Yugoslavia should not be within the area of free imports in view of the trade agreement between this country and Yugoslavia?

I think it is necessary to have some degree of public control over buying from a number of countries where there is at present monopolistic selling, including Yugoslavia, but, as I have said, if it is possible to associate the trade with that buying we shall be very glad to work out arrangements to do so.

Electoral Register

17.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has considered the suggestion that, to reduce the risk of personation at elections, the National Registry should notify electoral registration officers of deaths of persons included in the register of voters, and the register be marked accordingly; and what decision he has reached in the matter.

Arrangements are already in force to enable electoral registration officers to receive such notifications, but I cannot require that the register should be marked as suggested.

Is the Home Secretary aware that the increased facilities for postal voting, combined with the issue of an official polling card, have increased the risk of personation?

They may have increased the risk of personation, but I do not think that they have decreased the risk of death.

Entertainments Industry (Children)

18.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has now considered the Report of the Departmental Committee on the Employment of Children in the Entertainments Industry; and what action he proposes to take.

I am giving consideration to the Committee's recommendations, but I am not yet able to make a statement.

Aliens (Security Measures)

19.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will give an assurance that extra precautions are being taken at small ports to prevent the entrance into the country of saboteurs and foreign agents.

Yes, Sir.

Does the Home Secretary not appreciate that sometimes foreign fishing fleets, having enjoyed our hospitality, deposit a few dubious people on our shores before they sail away, and has the right hon. Gentleman got this matter in hand?

Yes, Sir.

Communist Activities

21.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if, in view of the increasing menace of Communism and in view of the fact that the Paris police have instituted an anti-Communist drive in Paris, he will take similar action in this country.

No, Sir.

Does the right hon. Gentleman not realise that Communists who take their orders from foreign Governments are traitors to this country, and should be treated as such?

National Fire Service

College, Brighton (Cost)

22.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he has taken to reduce the cost to the taxpayer of the requisitioned hotel near Brighton for a Fire Service college; and if he will subject the present and proposed arrangements to a review by an independent committee of financial and fire brigade experts to be presided over by a prominent K.C. to ensure that the training of the limited number of students at present contemplated is not carried out at undue cost to the public.

Some of the courses at the college have been enlarged from 40 to 60 students and certain minor administrative economies have been made; but I regret that it will not be possible to make any substantial savings until the college moves to its new premises. I hope that it will be found practicable to make the move next spring. I do not think the appointment of an independent committee would serve any useful purpose.

Is the Home Secretary aware that this is another instance of the Government wasting public money by entering into private trading?

No, Sir. This is not private trading at all. This is merely providing training for the members of the Fire Service.

Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether the cost of each trainee is £40?

I do not know the period to which that figure relates.

What will be the cost per student in the new premises?

I have already given that answer in reply to a previous Question.

National Joint Council (Representation)

25.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that the Association of Fire Officers are not satisfied with the representation afforded them on the National Joint Council for the service; and whether he will consider the advisability of granting to these officers the right of direct negotiation.

I understand that discussions are going on between the National Association of Fire Officers and the Fire Brigades Union, who are both represented on the employees' side of the National Joint Council, concerning the objection of the Association to the present arrangements. I hope that these discussions will result in an agreement acceptable to the Council as a whole.

World Peace (Congress, Sheffield)

24.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to the decision to hold the Second World Peace Congress in London during November; and what steps he intends to take to prevent aliens from coming to this country to attend it.

Yes, Sir. I understand that it is now intended to hold this Congress in Sheffield. The self-styled British Peace Committee have been informed that applications from foreigners to attend the Congress will be dealt with on their individual merits and His Majesty's Government must reserve the right to refuse admission to any foreigner who is persona non grata.

Is not the Minister aware that this Congress is Soviet-inspired? Does he not think it would be better to prohibit the Congress altogether?

I have no power under the law of this country to prohibit public meetings which are conducted in accordance with the law.

Would the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind the feelings of resentment of the people in Sheffield at the holding of this Congress in Sheffield?

I have some resentment myself at the holding of the Congress, but I do not desire to destroy the reputation of this country for free speech.

Doctors (Witness Allowances)

26.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what instructions he has given to local authorities regarding the payment of hospital doctors attending magistrates' courts for the purpose of giving evidence professionally; and what is the scale of payments for general practitioners attending for the same purpose.

The courts have a discretion as to the award of witness allowances. In the case of indictable offences, their discretion is subject to the scales laid down in the Witnesses Allowances Regulations, 1948 (Statutory Instrument 1909 of 1948), which contain scales applicable to general practitioners. In the case of non-indictable offences there are no fixed scales, but I understand that the scales for indictable cases are followed in practice. I am informed that hospital doctors are permitted to retain any allowances they are awarded for giving evidence professionally.

In the event of two persons in the same case being reported upon by a doctor, does the doctor get a double fee? In the case of three persons does he get three fees?

Subject to investigation of particular cases, I should think that if a doctor examined two people he would be entitled to two fees. I do not know how far we should have to go before we began to have regard to the need of some diminution for quantity.

Civil Defence

28 and 29.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what is the present establishment of the Civil Defence forces; and when further instructions on this subject will be given to those responsible for their organisation;

(2) what measures he proposes to take to stimulate recruitment to the Civil Defence forces.

38.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how soon an establishment for Civil Defence units will be issued to local authorities.

27.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many have volunteered for the Civil Defence Service, to the nearest date; how many are still required; and if he will make a statement.

At the end of September the number of volunteers in England and Wales was approximately: 61,500 in the Civil Defence Corps, 5,500 in the Auxiliary Fire Service, and 4,500 in the National Hospital Service Reserve, making a total of about 71,500. As regards establishments, I shall let all Civil Defence Corps authorities have these very shortly. I hope that as a result of the national and local recruiting drive which was inaugurated by the Prime Minister's broadcast on Sunday there will soon be big increases in all these Services.

Is the Home Secretary aware of the great inconvenience caused by the uncertainty of the authorities concerned about the establishment? Could he really not get this establishment out as soon as he possibly can?

I do not think there need be any uncertainty that these authorities should enlist as many persons as they possibly can.

Is it not one of the difficulties facing authorities in enlisting officials that they are not able to tell them what their duties are likely to be until this establishment has been published? Will the Home Secretary say what he means by "in the near future"? Six weeks, or six months?

I think it will be even less than six weeks.

Is the Home Secretary aware that one of the biggest deterrents to recruiting for Civil Defence forces at the present time is the uncertainty of the future of the Home Guard? The sooner it is settled the better it will be for recruiting.

The Home Guard is not within my jurisdiction.

Then the sooner the Home Secretary gets a decision out of somebody else the better.

30.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many volunteers for civil defence have come forward since the Prime Minister's broadcast on 29th July.

I regret that this information is not available from the recruiting returns, but in the quarter between the end of June and the end of September the combined strengths of the Civil Defence Corps, Auxiliary Fire Service and National Hospital Service Reserve in England and Wales rose from 39,000 to 71,500.

Would the Home Secretary take every opportunity of stressing the extreme urgency of getting these essential services well trained and manned?

Yes, Sir, but I hope I shall not be left to do it by myself. I hope that every citizen of good-will will also take his part.

Is the Minister aware that until a decision is reached about reserved occupations, and in regard to the age there will not be recruits coming forward either for Civil Defence or for any other voluntary service?

No, Sir. I cannot understand the idea that people should be reluctant to come forward because, after they have been trained, they might not be required. No one can be overtrained in these matters. The ordinary citizen may often have to render help for which he will be better qualified if he has undergone some training.

Does not the right hon. Gentleman recognise that there is such a thing as esprit de corps, and that people want to get back to their old units if there is the slightest chance? Until they are told that there will be an upper age limit of 40, or whatever it may be, they are reluctant to come forward, because they hope that they may be allowed to join the Home Guard.

32.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware of the lack of response to his appeal for volunteers in the Civil Defence forces; and what fresh steps he is contemplating to stimulate recruiting in the rural areas, particularly in South-East England.

As regards the first part of the Question, I would refer the hon. Member to the Prime Minister's broadcast on Sunday. As regards the second part, the recruiting drive which has just opened will cover both urban and rural areas including those in South-East England.

Will it be possible for the Home Office to publish the recruiting figures at regular intervals so that the level of recruiting can be judged?

Yes, Sir.

33.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is satisfied that local authorities are making it sufficiently clear to the public where they should go and to whom they should apply in order to offer then-services to the Civil Defence forces; and if he will take further steps to make this information more widely known.

I am satisfied that in general they are doing so, but I am asking them to give special attention to it.

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that many local authorities have not been given any indication where volunteers should go or what they are to do when they join up, and that that is one of the reasons for the lack of recruits?

I am aware that some have not. That is why we are issuing a circular in the next day or two.

37.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how a proportion of the sum of £100,000,000 is to be allocated to local authorities; and what is the maximum sum permitted to be spent by a local authority without prior sanction from his Department.

This sum covers the preparations of all Departments which have Civil Defence responsibilities and the hon. and gallant Member will appreciate that it is not possible at this stage to forecast what proportion will be allocated to local authorities; apart from other factors which are at present uncertain, the expenditure of local authorities will depend to a large extent on the progress of recruitment for the Civil Defence Corps. The extent to which a local authority is required to obtain prior sanction varies according to the class of expenditure and over a large part of the field general authorities have been given. In these cases there is no need for prior sanction.

Is the hon. Gentleman aware of a recent case in which a local authority had to receive prior sanction for the expenditure of £9 10s.? Will he take some steps to see that that ludicrous sort of situation does not arise?

It is not necessarily ludricrous, but I will certainly look into the case if details are sent to me.

39.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether any policy relating to air raid shelters has been formulated; and, if so, how soon will local authorities be informed of the details.

If the hon. and gallant Member will be good enough to repeat his Question on the next Thursday on which Oral Questions can be asked, I hope to be in a position to make a statement.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the meantime local authorities are having to hold up their planning until they get a directive from the Home Office on this matter?

Yes, Sir, but I shall not wait until I make my statement in the House before informing them.

Police Force (Laundry Allowance)

31.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what additional laundry allowance is made to members of the Police Force who are issued with open-neck tunics.

None, Sir.

Does not the hon. Gentleman think it unfair to ask men to pay for additional services which have been rendered necessary by Government action?

No, Sir. I should have thought that their shirts needed washing before.

Festival Of Britain (Licensing Hours)

34.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if, with a view to reducing intoxication caused by drinking against time, he will introduce legislation to remove all restrictions on the sale of alcoholic refreshments during the period of the Festival of Britain.

No, Sir.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the temptation to put another one down before closing time is one of the most potent causes of intoxication, and that in countries where no such restrictions exist there is much less drunkenness than in this country?

No, Sir. I should think it all depended upon how many had gone down before the last one.

Would not my right hon. Friend accept it as a fair presumption that the type of person who can guzzle a great deal at closing time is likely to guzzle more still if closing time were extended?

Is my right hon. Friend aware that his answer to the first supplementary question was rather flippant and that there was great substance in the question put by the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Bower)? Is he further aware that in other countries where families can go into premises where intoxicating liquors are sold, there is a very much better atmosphere?

My experience abroad is limited, but I must say that I consider that the social habits of the people of this country in this matter and other matters are not to be equalled or excelled by any other nation in the world.

Does the right hon. Gentleman really believe that our existing licensing laws reflect the best that we can do?

Oh, no, Sir. They were drawn up by other people, before I came into office.

In case the reply of the Home Secretary is misunderstood, may we take it that there is no evidence of intoxication caused by drinking against time?

I know of no evidence that there is any excessive drunkenness in this country from this cause.

Cruelty Offences (Penalties)

35.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is satisfied that the penalties for cruelty to children are adequate, having regard to the suffering of young children who have been the victims of negligence and assault.

40.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what action he is contemplating to meet the widespread demand for an increase in the penalties, especially imprisonment, for cruelty to children.

41.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will increase the maximum penalties for sentences given in cases of cruelty to children and to animals.

As regards penalties for cruelty to children, a person guilty of cruelty to a child is liable on summary conviction to six months' imprisonment and a fine of £25 or further imprisonment in default of payment, and on conviction on indictment to two years' imprisonment and a fine of £100. Within these limits, the appropriate penalty in any particular case is a matter for the court to decide. I see no reason to think that the powers given by the existing law are inadequate. As regards cruelty to animals, the law provides for a maximum penalty of three months' imprisonment, either in addition, or as an alternative, to a fine of £25. Furthermore, where the owner of an animal is convicted of cruelty to it, a court has power to deprive him of ownership. On the information before me I see no ground for thinking that these maximum penalties are not adequate.

In view of the very trivial sentences which are passed on many people who are guilty of these horrible crimes, will the Home Secretary review the matter again, particularly in view of the fact that in many cases small sentences lessen the powers of authorised bodies like the N.S.P.C.C.?

I do not have anything to do with the sentences; once a sentence has been passed by the court I cannot increase it. I hope that the publicity given to this matter recently will direct the attention of some benches of magistrates to the state of public feeling on this subject.

In view of the reasonable assumption that cruelty to children is very often reflected in later life in their behaviour as citizens, does the Home Secretary agree that a good deal of leniency which is rather misguided is being indulged in at present?

I must not be taken as making any general comment on the sentences being imposed by the magistrates who hear the cases and deliberate on the evidence and in most cases, I am quite sure, have the real interest of the children at heart.

Will my right hon. Friend give some intimation, by means of a circular, to the benches of magistrates so that they may understand the state of public feeling in this matter and give it full consideration?

As I have told the House, I am always reluctant to issue circulars to magistrates. I have been a magistrate for 27 years and I know where most of the circulars go.

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that many cases of cruelty to children are attributable to inadequate housing?

There are all sorts of causes.

Is it not rare for the maximum penalty to be imposed, and is it not quite clear that if the sentences are inadequate the remedy rests with the courts?

For most offences which are committed, particularly motoring offences, the maximum penalty is rarely inflicted. The House has, quite rightly, left a discretion to the magistrates, within the maximum fixed, to determine the punishment in accordance with their view of the crime and the criminal.

Will the right hon. Gentleman look into the relationship between courts of summary jurisdiction and quarter sessions? This has an important bearing on the whole question.

I do not quite know what the hon. Lady means by that, but it is not for me to direct justices as to which cases they should send to quarter sessions.

36.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he proposes to reduce more drastically the number of offences of cruelty to children and animals.

So far as concerns cruelty to children, a joint circular from the Home Office, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education was sent on 31st July to all county and county borough councils in England and Wales, urging them to arrange for improved co-ordination of all the local services, both statutory and voluntary, which are concerned with the welfare of children in their own homes, and suggesting lines on which the necessary co-operation could be achieved. As regards cruelty to animals, I am satisfied that the police and the animal protection societies are fully alive to the need for vigilance and action in dealing with this problem, and that there is no hesitation in bringing proceedings against those found to be offending. The resulting publicity cannot but be educational and should act as a deterrent.

Borstal Institution, Isle Of Wight

43.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what were the number of escapes from Camp Hill Borstal Institution, near Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, during the year, month and week preceding 16th October, 1950; what circumstances can be blamed for the frequency of these escapes; and what is to be his future policy about this institution.

The figures asked for in the first part of the Question are, respectively, 43 incidents involving 76 persons, seven incidents involving 15 persons, and four incidents involving 11 persons. Absconding from Borstal is a general problem, which causes much concern to the Prison Commissioners. It is not possible, within the compass of a Parliamentary answer, to set out fully what are believed to be the causes, but among the contributing factors are the increased restlessness and instability of the type of lad received during the last few years and unavoidably frequent changes of Borstal staffs, and their relative inexperience. The reply to the last part of the Question is that the institution at Camp Hill is to be taken over, by stages, for the accommodation of prisoners sentenced to corrective training, and during the course of next year will cease to be used for Borstal training.

Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the Camp Hill Institution has hitherto been in the nature of a prison without bars?

It is a place with some limited security.

Does my right hon. Friend's answer mean a diminution in Borstal accommodation or that suitable accommodation will be found elsewhere?

I do not think it means any reduction in Borstal accommodation in proportion to the number of persons likely to be committed.

Can the right hon. Gentleman say to what use Camp Hill will be put in the future? Is he aware that the large number of escapes from Camp Hill and Parkhurst causes great alarm in the neighbourhood and will he take steps to see that something is done about it?

As I said in my answer, it will be used as a prison for corrective training, when greater security measures will be taken. I want to express my regret to the inhabitants of the Isle of Wight that so many escapes should have taken place from these two institutions. I am taking every possible precaution to see that they do not occur.

Premises, London (Police Inquiries)

44.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis has yet completed his examination of evidence submitted to him in respect to the use of premises for immoral purposes by the Messina brothers; and whether any action is contemplated against them or their associates.

It would not be in the public interest to comment on the progress of the police inquines. Any information which may De given to the police will be carefully investigated and I have no doubt that if sufficient evidence is forthcoming vigorous action will be taken to enforce the law.

Is my right hon. Friend aware of the deep concern about the repeated inadequate fines of 40s.? Does not he think these women should be sent to prison, so that they will have time for moral reflection?

My hon. Friend has opened up a very controversial issue in that question, and posed far too simply one of the most difficult social problems that confront us.

Hampshire River Board

45.

asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he has given further consideration to the objections raised to the proposal to make the whole of the rivers Meon, Itchen and Test main rivers in the Hampshire River Board area; whether, in this connection, he has studied the agreement made by the Minister of Agriculture in 1942 and the report dated 4th March, 1950, of Sir William Gavin's Advisory Committee on these rivers; and whether he will now cause the whole matter to be investigated at a public inquiry.

After carefully considering objections to the map defining main river for the Hampshire River Board Area and all other relevant factors, my right hon. Friend has approved the map without amendment. My right hon. Friend is satisfied that the hearing of objections at a public local inquiry, for which the Act makes no direct provision in cases of this sort, would have provided no additional information that was relevant to this issue.

Will the hon. Gentleman answer fully the Question that was put down, namely, whether the Minister has studied the agreement made in 1942 and, further, whether the Minister has studied the Report of the Gavin Committee? Will he also state how it is that the Minister said on a previous occasion that this matter would not be settled except under special circumstances, and what were the special circumstances?

The answer to the first two parts of the Question is, "Yes." I have answered those, if the hon. and gallant Gentleman will look at the terms of my reply. My right hon. Friend considered all those factors, although neither the Committee to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman referred nor the agreement have any real relevance owing to the situation arising after the passing of the River Board Act.

Without expressing any opinion as to the merits of the proposal, may I ask the hon. Gentleman if he is aware that there has been prolonged public controversy on this matter, which could only have been allayed by public inquiry? Why then has he proceeded in this furtive manner during the Recess?

That, of course, is, as is so often the case, completely off the line. No objection was received from any local or statutory authority on this matter.

But is not the hon. Gentleman aware that, when this River Board was originally set up, during the war, in order to obtain general assent and to allay opposition to it, a gentlemen's agreement was reached by me and by his right hon. Friend the Minister that the main river would not extend beyond Stockbridge? Surely his right hon. Friend is bound by that gentlemen's agreement to this day?

No, Sir, neither my right hon. Friend nor the right hon. Gentleman. The agreement made then was under the circumstances arising under the Act which set up the catchment boards. When the River Board Act was passed, not during the war but after the war, the whole basis of allocating areas in England and Wales was changed. The whole of England and Wales became subject to river board areas, and therefore there was no point in the gentlemen's agreement.

Before taking this unusual step, did the Minister obtain a guarantee from the Hampshire River Board that the rivers would be treated in the manner recommended by the Garvin Report?

Answer!

Agriculture

Farm Machinery Service

47.

asked the Minister of Agriculture what stage has been reached in the abolition of the Farm Machinery Service; and whether, in the changed circumstances, this policy is being reconsidered.

It has been found possible to reduce the total strength of the machinery services operated by county agricultural executive committees by about a half since 1948, but no general decision has been taken to discontinue them altogether. They are still being maintained so far as is necessary for essential work that cannot be done in any other way.

Can the hon. Gentleman say at what level they are to be maintained? Will it still be 50 per cent.?

No, it will be at the level necessary to secure that work which cannot be done in any other way is done in that way.

Feedingstuffs

50.

asked the Minister of Agriculture if he will release to poultry keepers for feeding- stuffs some of the large stocks of coarse grains which have piled up in this country.

The stocks of coarse grains in this country are not sufficiently large to permit an increase in the rations for poultry this winter.

Is it possible for the Minister to give the domestic poultry keeper a greater variety of choice in his rationed feedingstuffs?

That seems to be a different point.

Fruit (Packing)

51.

asked the Minister of Agriculture if he has yet been able to arrange for farmers to obtain the necessary material to pack and crate their fruit so that it will compare with the packing and crating of fruit that is imported.

Materials for packing fruit are difficult to obtain at present, but my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade assures me that every effort will be made to ensure that supplies of veneer chip baskets or cardboard containers for horticultural products and of softwood for returnable boxes will be available in 1951 to the same extent as in 1950.

Does not the Minister realise that his failure to provide this material for farmers is doing a serious disservice to them and that he should do something about it? He has been warned many times.

It is quite obvious that that supplementary question was drafted before the hon. Gentleman heard my reply.

Tuberculin Tested Milk

52.

asked the Minister of Agriculture what is his policy with regard to increasing the amount of tuberculin tested milk produced with a view to raising the standard of quality generally.

My right hon. Friend is anxious to increase as far as practicable the production of tuberculin tested milk, and he hopes that the revised Tuberculosis (Attested Herds) Scheme which came into operation at the beginning of this month will be of material assistance.

If it is the case, as the Minister says, that he wishes to increase the quantity of this milk, why is he decreasing the guaranteed price to the farmers when the cost of producing this milk is increasing steadily?

If I may say so, I think, that the hon. Gentleman has not looked fully at the terms of the scheme which came into operation at the beginning of this month. If he will look at it again, he will find it does not bear that interpretation.

The Minister is not right. I have looked at it and so have the farmers.

If that is so, I cannot guarantee that the hon. Gentleman gets the right interpretation. I shall, however, be delighted to have a word with him about it.

Timber Felling Licences, Berkshire

49.

asked the Minister of Agriculture if he is aware that landowners in Berkshire and elsewhere who have mature timber fit for felling this winter, are being refused felling licences by the Forestry Commission, the reason stated being that the felling quota for the current period has been exceeded; and, if he will arrange for more discretion to be allowed in giving felling licences where timber, both soft wood and hard wood, is obviously mature and the time has come for felling and replanting.

My right hon. Friend is aware that applications for felling licences have sometimes to be refused. The quota is imposed because of the overriding national need to conserve timber resources. I therefore regret that greater discretion in the granting of felling licences cannot be allowed.

Yes, but does not the hon. Gentleman realise that this makes nonsense of the policy he is trying to put across to landowners, to treat their woods as a crop, fell them and re-plant in rotation? In this particular case the landowner is being refused the opportunity to do that.

I know the case the hon. Gentleman has in mind, but I do not think it bears the interpretation he has put on it. It does not make nonsense. The general policy is to have a plan to preserve standing timber. The policy we are following sets out to achieve just that.

Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that if timber is standing and going back it is not being preserved, but if it is cut down when mature it is being preserved?

I think that is obvious enough for us all to get the point, but in this case it is not so.

But could not the hon. Gentleman look at it again? Surely the point should be that when timber becomes mature there should be no quota to stand in the way of cutting it down when it is at its best for market?

Yes, but timber is not like other crops; it does not deteriorate. There is a period during which it is possible to reduce the rate of issue of felling licences and the actual felling. That is all we are doing.

National Finance

Crown's Nominee Account

53.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer why the Crown's Nominee Account was presented in dummy on 3rd April, when the full accounts were only available on 20th June.

It has been customary to lay the Crown's Nominee Account in dummy as an earnest of the intention to present the full accounts as soon as they are printed. The date of such presentation must depend on the volume and relative urgency of other demands for printing.

But could not a little more urgency be put into this matter of the Crown's Nominee Account in future?

Yes, but in this case the dummy was presented before we were legally compelled to do it.

Public Works Loan Board (Report)

54.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer why the Seventy-Fifth Annual Report of the Public Works Loan Board, 1949–50, was presented in dummy on 19th June, 1950; and when the full report will be available.

The Report was presented in dummy on 19th June, 1950, in order to comply with Section 5 (3) of the Public Works Loans Act, 1875. The full Report became available on 19th September, 1950.

Could this Report be speeded up in future so that we shall not have to stare at a dummy for several months?

We will certainly do our best, but there are printing difficulties.

Cost Of Living

55.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what he proposes to do to alleviate the hardship now being suffered by Service pensioners, old age pensioners and others on low fixed incomes as a result of the increase in the cost of living.

58.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware of the difficulties experienced by many old age pensioners in view of the increasing cost of living; and whether he will examine the possibilities of protecting old age pensioners as far as possible in this respect by extending to essential food and clothing the present concessions old age pensioners receive with regard to cheap cigarettes and tobacco.

The Government's policy of food subsidies, price control and tax-free utility production is designed to assist old age pensioners and all others with small incomes; and. together with other disinflationary measures, has successfully restrained the rise in living costs. I do not think it would be justifiable to extend concessions of this kind for the benefit of only one section of those with small incomes.

Does the hon. Gentleman realise that the cost of living figure produced by him and the real cost of living figure bear no relation to each other, and that old age pensioners and other people with low fixed incomes are having the greatest difficulty in living at all these days?

It is for those reasons that we intend to continue our policy of price control and food subsidies, which have been successful in keeping living costs down.

I did not hear the hon. Gentleman's answer. Does he intend to do anything to help poor people who are finding the cost of living so high? Can I have an answer? It is a simple question.

Is my hon. Friend aware that the only help to these poor people that the Tories gave last year was to raise the salary of the town clerk from £53 to £67 a week when they took control of Glasgow? [Laughter.]

Will the hon. Gentleman please answer the question put by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Knutsford (Lieut.-Colonel Bromley-Davenport), and will he also tell the House what it is that his hon. Friends find so funny in the difficulties of these poor people?

As our policy in this respect has been more successful than that of any other country in the world, I think it would be a mistake to change it now.

Member For Belfast, West

On a point of order. May I have your guidance, Mr. Speaker, on one point? I understand that in the House at the moment is the hon. Gentleman the Member for Belfast, West (Reverend J. G. MacManaway), and I should be glad if you would give your Ruling about his presence in view of the fact that on previous occasions when there was any doubt about the credentials of an hon. Member, the person concerned was absent from the precincts? I should like to have your Ruling whether this hon. Member should be in the House.

I am perfectly clear on the point. The hon. Member for Belfast, West (Reverend J. G. MacManaway) is entitled to be here. The House has found nothing against him. He is entitled to make his statement and then he must withdraw.

Later—

On a point of order. At an earlier stage, you, Mr. Speaker, answered to a point of order raised by a hon. Member opposite about the rights of the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Reverend J. G. MacManaway). May I with respect, ask you to consider the following point? You ruled that he should or might be here and make a statement, and that then he must withdraw. May I ask you to reconsider that point in fairness to him, and having regard to the precedents which govern these matters? Where an hon. Member has been the subject to a prima facie view that his conduct is in any way discreditable or subject to criticism, and where, as a result, that matter has gone to the Committee of Privileges or a Select Committee, and then some judgment, be it only prima facie, has been made, that no doubt is why, after making his personal statement, the hon. Member concerned leaves the House.

In this case, until the House itself determines whether the hon. Member has or has not offended in any way, he is considered a completely and absolutely innocent party, and the only matter before us is a judgment of certain legal persons who command great respect but who have no relationship to us such as has a Select Committee or the Committee of Privileges. In those circumstances, therefore, I ask you, Sir, whether the hon. Gentleman should not sit here for the whole Debate, until the House determines that something in his conduct requires adjustment?

I think that is an error. After all, even if a Member has been before a Select Committee, he is not guilty until the House has found him guilty, but it is always the custom that the Member, probably in his own interest, because things might be said which might cause him difficulty, should withdraw. I think that has always been the custom when any allegations have been made against Members. There is no question of dishonour or anything of that kind in this case. It is probably in the Member's own interest, that having made his speech and given the House his views, he should then withdraw. I do not propose to alter my Ruling on that. I may say that I have thought of this matter in advance, and I think my answer is the correct one.

Business Of The House

May I ask the Leader of the House to tell us the Business for next week?

Yes, Sir. With regard to the Business for tomorrow, after the Report and Third Reading of the Public Utilities Street Works Bill [Lords], we shall ask the House to agree to take the Report and Third Reading of the Allotments (Scotland) Bill [Lords], and consideration of a Lords Amendment to a Commons Amendment to the Maintenance Orders Bill [Lords], so that these Measures may be returned to another place as early as possible.

The Business for next week will be as follows:

MONDAY, 23rd October—Consideration of Motions for Addresses to continue in force for one year—

The Supplies and Services (Transitional Powers) Act, 1945: Various Defence Regulations and enactments having effect under the Emergency Laws (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1947;

Motions relating to the Patents Act, 1949, the Registered Designs Act, 1949 and the Shops Act, 1950.

TUESDAY, 24th October—A Message is expected to be received from His Majesty relating to our occupation of the new Chamber to which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will move an Address in reply.

A Motion will be moved to convey our thanks to the House of Lords for their courtesy and consideration in so readily lending us this Chamber for our deliberations after our own was destroyed. Arrangements will be made for the Resolution to be taken up to the House of Lords during the course of the Sitting by certain right hon. Gentlemen.

Consideration of Motions to approve—

Motor Vehicles (Variation of Speed Limits) Regulations;

Biscuit (Charges) (Amendment) Order;

Wool Textile Industry Scientific Research and Export Promotion Levy Orders; and

Scottish Milk Marketing Scheme (Argyll) Order.

WEDNESDAY, 25th October—At the beginning of Business we shall propose a Motion to meet on Thursday at 10.15 a.m. in the new Chamber, to provide that no Oral Questions be taken, and to repeal Standing Order No. 113, which relates to our sitting in St. Stephen's Hall on the first day of a new Session and which will now become unnecessary.

Afterwards, a Debate will take place on general problems relating to public corporations.

THURSDAY, 26th October—The House will meet at 10.15 a.m. in the new Chamber. After Prayers, a Motion will be proposed welcoming the presence in this country of Commonwealth representatives who have come to join with us in the opening ceremonies. Perhaps the House will allow me to say now that it will be necessary for us to complete the proceedings in time for Mr. Speaker to suspend the sitting at 10.50 a.m.

His Majesty will be pleased to receive Addresses from both Houses on this occasion in Westminster Hall at 12 noon and hon. Members will already have been notified of the proposed arrangements.

After the ceremony the sitting will again be suspended till 2.45 p.m.

At that hour, Mr. Speaker will resume the Chair and after any formal Business it is expected that Prorogation will take place, and that the new Session will be opened by His Majesty on Tuesday. 31st October.

May I put two questions to the Leader of the House? I am sure he will be aware that the Business for Monday next is very considerable, and the day is somewhat overloaded in view of the importance of the first issue. Can we have an agreement to switch some of that business to the next day? The second point is about the Debate on the public corporations on Wednesday. Will the Government put down a Motion on this subject, and if so, how soon can we know the form that Motion will take? Can the right hon. Gentleman give us some indication of the nature of the Debate which is expected on this point?

On the first point, I appreciate what the right hon. Gentleman has said about the amount of business for Monday. I have a feeling that if there is an adjustment between Monday and Tuesday so as to equate things better we should be able to do that through the usual channels. We shall be very happy to settle it, and we hope that the House will agree that we should have some elasticity as regards the business on Monday and Tuesday. This, I think, will meet the right hon. Gentleman's point. With regard to the Debate on the general work of the public corporations, I think we should, if we can agree, have a Motion because there might be points to be raised which would involve legislation. The idea of the Debate is that we will have a general discussion, and not one on any particular public corporation, as to the general functioning of public corporations, measures for their efficiency, public relations and public accountability, including Parliamentary points which interest the House from time to time. We thought such a Debate would be very useful. It would be a Debate of a nonparty character, and I hope we shall produce a Motion which need not in itself excite anybody with regard to possible divisions of opinion and the treatment of the Motion itself. That was the general idea, and it was thought that it would be a useful Debate. I thought Members on the other side of the House would like such a Debate as well as my hon. Friends.

There is one ambiguity in the statement of the right hon. Gentleman. He said, "If we can agree it." It does not mean that he expects the Opposition to agree the terms of the Motion, I take it? It will be a Motion put down by the Government, for which they will take responsibility?

indicated assent.

As to the nature of the Debate, while it will be impossible to leave out any considerations of the attitude of any particular party on such a burning issue as this, we are all agreed that more constructive good comes out of a Debate like this on how to make the corporation function better.

I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. The spirit of what he has said I readily accept. In referring to the Motion I said we would do our best to frame it in a way which did not of itself occasion a difference of opinion, but all we want is to enable the widest degree of debate.

While realising that the time between now and Prorogation is very limited, may I ask whether time can be found between now and then for a Debate on the Motion in the names of my hon. Friends and myself relating to the Postmaster-General and his action in refusing to have an inquiry into the conduct of the Chairman of the Governors of the British Broadcasting Corporation?

[ That this House deplores the action of the Postmaster-General in refusing to institute an inquiry into the action of the Chairman of the Governors of the British Broadcasting Corporation in banning the play Party Manners from the television service.]

I should be glad if the right hon. Gentleman could find time, either on Tuesday or Wednesday.

I am very sorry, but I am afraid it is quite impossible to find time for a Debate on that Motion in the time at our disposal.

May I put this to the right hon. Gentleman? This is a matter of great and immediate public interest. It is really a question of whether the Chairman of the Governors of the British Broadcasting Corporation can constitute himself an arbiter of public taste and whether the Postmaster-General is right in refusing to inquire into it. There does not seem, on the face of it, to be enough business to occupy the full time of the House on Tuesday and Wednesday. Could not some portion of either Tuesday or Wednesday be devoted to a Debate on this quite urgent matter?

I thought it was clear that the time on Tuesday and Wednesday was fully taken up. I am bound to say I did think that the letter which the Postmaster-General sent in reply to the first letter of the right hon. and learned Gentleman—

It did not deal with the point.

With great respect, I thought it dealt with the point and gave a complete answer. Now the right hon. and learned Gentleman is asking that the Government should intervene in relation to the B.B.C. programmes and day to day management—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I am sorry, but that is so, and if we start the policy of intervening and instituting inquiries on particular incidents of B.B.C. management, before we know where we are the Government will be having an undue influence with the B.B.C. [Laughter.] It is all very well—it may be that hon. Members have a bias about this thing—but if we start this, we are starting the business of political interference by the Government of the day.

It seems to me that this is becoming a Debate on the Motion, which is what the right hon. and learned Gentleman asked for.

May I ask, in all fairness to the House, if it would not be better, in order to avoid any loose talk, to have a copy of this play in the Library?

I think it would be desirable that everyone who wants to take part in the argument should read it and, if I can arrange it with the Postmaster-General, we will put a copy, or copies, in the Library so that hon. Members can read it, including the Leader of the Liberal Party.

It is not a question of the Government interfering, but of the freedom of the public and whether their tastes shall be interfered with arbitrarily in a day-to-day programme by the Chairman of the Governors of the B.B.C. without consultation with anyone else.

If I may say so, the Chairman of the Governors is just as much entitled to his opinion as the Leader of the Liberal Party and, when it comes to interpreting the tastes of the public, I am not sure that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is the most expert person.

May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he will draw the Government Motion to be discussed on Wednesday, sufficiently widely, so as not to exclude discussion of this matter, when we are discussing the behaviour of corporations generally?

I will keep that in mind. We will try to have the text in the Library in the meantime.

When the copy is put in the Library, will my right hon. Friend see that it includes the passages which were deleted for the purposes of this broadcast?

I do not know about that. We will see what happens. ft would not be quite fair to assume that the deleted passages are necessarily an act of censorship. In all plays there have to be adjustments before the final production, and I do not want to commit myself about it because that may mislead the House and the public.

In regard to Monday's Business, the second Motion of the right hon. Gentleman involves a schedule containing 60 or more separate orders, in respect of each of which I want to put down an Amendment to leave it out. I do so in respect of only a few, because it is quite obvious that time will be inadequate for a discussion of all of them, but will the right hon. Gentleman consider postponing the consideration until next Session? He has not to take action until 10th December.

I have, actually, because certain administrative matters are going on and, unless the House comes to a decision about them, a lot of administrative interference is caused and uncertainty is caused to trade and industry. We shall be faced with a broad decision of whether economic planning and control are to go on or not, and it would be better for the House to have a broad debate and come to a particular decision. The possibility of Amendments being put down by the hon. Member and others had occurred to me but, nevertheless, I hoped that by being particularly polite to him that eventuality would not occur.

Can the right hon. Gentleman say something about the scope of the Debate on the first of Monday's Motions, which is to continue the Supplies and Services (Transitional Powers) Act and, in particular, whether it will be possible for hon. Members to move to delete certain parts of the Act and regulations made under it? In respect of the Debate on Wednesday, will he say whether its scope will be wide enough to cover the responsibility of Ministers for the answering of Parliamentary Questions on the public corporations?

On the last point, yes, Sir, as far as I know. I am always speaking subject to the Ruling of Mr. Speaker but, as far as I know, the answer is yes and I would not wish to exclude that point. In regard to the first Motion on the Order Paper, again I am subject to your Ruling, Sir, but the Motion is to renew the operation of an Act of Parliament for 12 months. With respect, I should have thought that the only question before the House is whether it will be renewed for 12 months, or not, and, therefore, any Amendment which would limit the scope of the Act would be seeking to amend an Act of Parliament, which I should not have thought would have been possible. Therefore, I think the House on that matter must vote for or against the Motion to renew the Act for 12 months. Again, I speak subject to any views you, Sir, may have when the time comes.

Did we understand the right hon. Gentleman to say that it would be impossible to amend the Address which is being moved as the first order on Monday? If so, I am afraid that we, on our side, cannot accept that position, and we should like your Ruling, Sir.

According to the Rules of the House it cannot be amended. An Order is taken as a whole. We cannot pick out bits of an Order and not pass others. That is the rule of the House.

Then we shall have to resume discussions through the usual channels about the Business for Monday and Tuesday.

New Commons Chamber (Opening)

Arising out of Business, I should like to make a statement about next week because I have no doubt hon. Members are rather wondering what will happen on Thursday next and, perhaps on some of the intervening days, seeing that our Speakers from overseas and Presidents of the Assemblies are already here. I hope that as many hon. Members as are in London and able to attend will be at the service on Sunday when pews will be kept vacant for Members of Parliament until 10 minutes to 11. If they are not there, then they will have to take their chance with the rest of the congregation. Speakers from overseas will be met by the rector at the West Door and escorted to their pews by the vergers and the churchwardens.

Coming to Tuesday, there is a Motion for an Address to His Majesty which the Lord President of the Council has mentioned. It will be moved by the Prime Minister and it will be the speech I shall make on Thursday on behalf of the House of Commons. That will be moved by the Prime Minister and seconded by the Leader of the Opposition. Normally a Privy Councillor does not require a seconder, but this is not a Government Motion, this is a House of Commons Motion and, therefore, I thought it right that it should be moved from one side of the House and seconded from the other and then supported by hon. Members, "whose speeches"—to use the old fashioned expression—" would contain appropriate expressions befitting the occasion." I mention that because that would be the only opportunity for Members to voice these appropriate expressions; on the Thursday there will not be time.

On that day we meet at 10.15 a.m. which is rather early, but we have been through a very careful timetable, and we cannot make it later. After Prayers I understand that if the House so wishes the Speaker of the House of Commons will give a formal welcome to our visitors from overseas on coming to our new home. After that, the Prime Minister will move, and the Leader of the Opposition will second, a Motion to them, which I believe will be supported by the Leader of the Liberal Party and the Father of the House. I have had to write to all of them to ask them to make their speeches short, because I must suspend the Sitting not later than 10.50 a.m. if we are to get into Westminster Hall in time to receive His Majesty. It will not be a procession of Members. We shall not be summoned by Black Rod to attend in Westminster Hall so Members will make their own way to their places in Westminster Hall. But at a certain time I shall lead the Speakers of the Dominions and the Presidents of their Assemblies into Westminster Hall. where they will go to special places. If I may, I advise hon. Members to go early. After all, those who come first will probably get the best seats.

When we come back at 2.45—I shall suspend the Sitting from 10.50 until 2.45—we prorogue. I give notice that as the Prorogation is only for a long weekend I shall not expect the ceremony of shaking hands to take place. I hope that statement may be of some help to Members. They will remember that the Minister of Works, on my authority—because the House will have been handed over at 10 o'clock on Thursday—has made arrangements so that during the lunch hour Members will be able to take their guests into the Galleries of the new House of Commons before we meet at 2.45. That is all I have to say. I hope that it will help Members in their ideas about next week.

Sterling Area (Gold And Dollar Reserves)

I will, with permission, make the following statement. On 5th July my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that owing to the increase in our gold and dollar reserves during the preceding months it had become necessary to replenish the sterling resources of the Exchange Equalisation Account by the issue to the Account, under existing powers, of £300 million from the Exchequer. As a result of the continued increase in the reserves, an issue of sterling to the Account is again necessary, and a further issue of £300 million is accordingly being made to the Account this week.

Personal Statement

I will, with your permission, Mr. Speaker, make a personal statement. Yesterday the hon. Member for Coventry, North (Mr. Edelman), thought fit, in a supplementary question to say:

"Is it not shameful that at a time when British troops are fighting Communists in Malaya, Malayan producers should be selling vast quantities of rubber at considerable profit to the Soviet Union. Would my right hon. Friend"—

that is, the Secretary of State for the Colonies—

"attempt to obtain the cooperation of the hon. Member for Bury …?"—[OFFICIAL REEORT. 18th October, 1950 Vol. 478, c. 2033.]

He should have added "and Radcliffe."

You, Sir, unfortunately did not hear my name mentioned. I was, therefore, not able to deal with the matter at that time. The inescapable implication of that Question is quite clear—that I and my firm, as producers of rubber, have been selling quantities of rubber at a considerable profit to the Soviet Union. The facts, which the hon. Member could have ascertained either from the Board of Trade, or from myself, are as follows: firstly, I am not a rubber producer but a merchant distributor, and the rise in the price of rubber to its present level is of no direct benefit to me.

Secondly, I have always consulted, by word of mouth and in writing, the appropriate Government Department on the question of sales of rubber to Russia both here and in the Far East, and the policy laid down by His Majesty's Government on East-West trade, and on dealings in rubber, has been adhered to throughout. This policy, under which I believe the Government have themselves delivered 10,000 tons of rubber out of their stock here to Russia within the last few years, would have permitted sales by myself and my firm to Russia. In actual fact we have not sold or delivered any rubber to Russia within the last two years.

The seriousness of the insinuation that I and my business colleagues have been making huge profits out of selling rubber to Russia with the full knowledge that this would endanger the lives of fighting troops in Malaya and Korea is evident. In view of the hon. Member's known position in international affairs, in which sphere what he has hitherto said may have been listened to with some respect, I would ask you, Sir, for a Ruling. Is it in order for an hon. Member to make such base, unfounded and irresponsible imputations when he can ascertain—

In a personal statement one must not attack another Member. One must only state one's own point of view. One must not accuse another hon. Member of making base and unworthy statements. That I cannot allow.

I would ask you, Sir, for a Ruling as to whether the Supplementary Question put yesterday by the hon. Member is in order, and I shall naturally accept your Ruling with the deepest respect.

I regret very much that the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. W. Fletcher) should have misunderstood my reference to him yesterday. The rubber market is a free market. It is not controlled by the Government, and for that reason I invited my right hon. Friend to seek the co-operation of the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe, who, as is well known, is a leading member of the rubber trade. The alternative to Government control is, of course, voluntary restraint on the part of the trade. This appeared to me to be a reasonable and appropriate request, and I was all the more surprised when the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe replied to it in somewhat unusual terms which, under your direction, Mr. Speaker, he withdrew.

I can only say that I made no attack on the patriotism of the hon. Gentleman, but I did say and I did imply that large quantities of rubber are still being sold to the Russians in circumstances which I consider inappropriate. For that reason, Sir, I do not wish to withdraw from the position or from the view which I took yesterday when I said that the rubber trade, as a result of rearmament, is making excessive profits and that the destination of large quantities of rubber is as undesirable as was the export of certain machine tools now stopped. The hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe may defend the present state of affairs; I deplore it—

The only point is whether the hon. Member for Coventry, North (Mr. Edelman) accused the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe of unworthy motives. I gather he did not. All he has to do is to say so, and the mattter is ended.

May I point out in re futation of that attempt to get away with it—

We are getting into an irregular debate. The position is perfectly clear. The hon. Member felt himself aggrieved and the hon. Member for Coventry, North, says he meant no unworthy motive whatsoever against the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe. On that I think we had better leave it.

Do we understand that the hon. Member for Coventry, North, has or has not in fact withdrawn the imputation against the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe?

He said he never meant to make any implication at all of unworthy conduct by the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe, and therefore I take it that he has withdrawn.

May I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that any reasonable man reading HANSARD of yesterday cannot but take the implication about which the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe complains?

As a matter of fact I read HANSARD, and I thought it might be taken both ways. Personally I was pretty sure I knew what the hon. Member for Coventry, North, meant and that he did not mean anything unworthy.

May I point out that in the OFFICIAL REPORT of 18th September, col. 1620, exactly the same imputation was made by the hon. Gentleman and it was the repetition yesterday that confirmed me in my belief?

I think we had better leave this matter.

Business Of The House

Proceedings on Government Business exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House) for One hour after Ten o'clock.—[ Mr. H. Morrison.]

Member For Belfast, West

4.4 p.m.

I beg to move,

That this House having taken into consideration the Report of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the case of the Reverend James Godfrey MacManaway, elected a Member to serve in this present Parliament for the constituency of Belfast, West, declares that he was at the time o£ his election and is disabled from sitting and voting in the House of Commons by reason of the fact that, having been ordained a Priest according to the use of the Church of Ireland, he has received episcopal ordination.

In the first place, perhaps I ought to make plain the relationship of this matter to the situation in the Parliament of Northern Ireland. This Motion, of course, relates only to the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The law relating to the disqualification from membership of the Northern Ireland Parliament is the same, subject to this, that Section 5 of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, provides that:

"Any existing enactment by which any penalty, disadvantage, or disability is imposed on account of religious belief or on a member of any religious order as such shall, … cease to have effect …"

We are advised that that relates only to disqualification on the ground of a particular religious belief or membership of a particular order. The disqualification now in question depends on the holding of Holy Orders, quite a different thing. But the Privy Council did not rule on that, and the matter is wholly for the Northern Ireland Government.

As hon. Members of the House will now be aware, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council consisting, if I might say so, and as I think will be generally agreed, of most distinguished judges, have reached the very clear conclusion that clergy ordained into any church according to the form of episcopal ordination are disqualified by the Act of 1801 from sitting and voting in the House of Commons. While the opinion of the Privy Council is not strictly binding upon the Commons, or indeed upon the ordinary courts of the land, it would be accepted by them as being of high persuasive authority.

I expect the House will consider that the very full and reasoned opinion of the Privy Council does finally resolve the doubts which previously existed about this troublesome question of law. Although not myself a lawyer, I must confess that from the beginning I thought it not impossible that the words of the Act of 1801, that no person ordained a priest or deacon was capable of sitting or voting in the House, might mean what they said. Speaking as a layman, I must say that the case put by the Judicial Committee seems cogent and compelling.

I am not going to try to discuss the legal points, but if, as I expect, the House accepts the opinion of the Privy Council that the hon. Member who sits for West Belfast, is disqualified, the question arises whether there should be a new election or whether the candidate who was second at the poll at the General Election should take the place of the hon. Member. There are precedents on both sides, and I am advised that if this issue had been raised as an election petition before an election court that court could have said that the votes cast for the hon. Member who now sits for West Belfast were thrown away and of no account. This would be justified because the electors knew that they were voting for an ordained clergyman and by that curious fiction of law must be presumed to have known that such a clergyman was disqualified. But this matter has not been dealt with by an election court and it cannot now be referred to one. It is being brought before the House of Commons, and this House is undoubtedly the master of its own proceedings. In our view the fairminded and democratic course is to give those electors who, wilfully or negligently, have thrown away their votes, a chance once more of expressing their opinion and choosing between candidates who are qualified to sit.

On Tuesday I said that if the House accepts this Motion we would at a later stage bring in legislation to indemnify the hon. Member against any penalties he had incurred by sitting and voting in the House up to and including the statement by the Home Secretary on 17th October. I do not want to develop this point unduly because it will naturally arise on the Second Reading and the other speeches on the Bill. I only say that, as I said on Tuesday, the Government does not in any way feel obliged by the undertaking given on 29th June to indemnify him for penalties which may have been incurred by sitting and voting after that date.

At a time when the whole question was, as it were, sub judice, it may well be held, and in present circumstances with some justification, that, as the matter was sub judice, the action of the hon. Member in sitting and voting in a most critical Division, when his vote might have precipitated serious constitutional consequences, was irresponsible, provocative and undemocratic. But we all knew that the hon. Member had been misled, if he required any misleading, at the hands of such self-styled legal luminaries as the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, who, on 25th May last, said:

"I wish to give notice that in my opinion, supported by a great mass of legal authority, it is the duty of the hon. Member to take the oath and take his seat at the earliest possible opportunity. That is the advice which I propose to tender to him."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th May, 1950; Vol. 475, c. 2242.]

Well, we can do nothing to bring the right hon. Gentleman to book for his misleading, tendentious and unreliable advice, and, in these circumstances, we think it would be unfair to punish the hon. Member who sits for West Belfast.

The issue of the question of degree of indemnity will come up later, but our instinct is to act in accordance with the best and highest traditions of this House. The Government, therefore, submit that it would be right to proceed in the way I indicated on Tuesday, but, in the meantime, it does seem to us that the House has no option but to declare the seat vacant, and, by implication, to declare that the seat has never been filled, despite the grave situation that might have arisen on the occasion of a certain Division as the result of one hon. Member's vote. I think this course is the only one which this House can take, and I venture to ask for favourable consideration by the House of the Motion which I have moved on behalf of the Government.

4.13 p.m.

It is, I believe, a tradition of this House that, if any Member of it should be arraigned for any reason, he has the right to stand up here and defend himself before his fellows in this House. I thank you, Sir, for according that right to me this afternoon.

I have always heard that the classic definition of democracy is "government of the people, by the people, for the people." I have been returned to this House by the will of the people in the biggest working-class constituency in the whole of the United Kingdom, but apparently their will is not to count for anything. It is to be brushed aside because of some archaic legal enactment. [Interruption.] For the benefit of hon. Members opposite, I will say that the date is 1801, and I do not think that any of them were living then. I say the will of the people is to be entirely brushed aside in order that that archaic legal enactment may be given effect.

I should like to thank the Lord President of the Council for the way he spoke this afternoon, but I hope that he will forgive me if, as I feel I must, I disagree emphatically with some of the things he said. In the Motion before the House, it is stated that—

"having been ordained a Priest according to the use of the Church of Ireland, he has received episcopal ordination"

and is, therefore, disabled from sitting. Any clergyman of the Church of England—and any clergyman of the Church of England must have received episcopal ordination—who resigns his benefice tomorrow and any emoluments accruing can come and sit in this House. The fact that he has been episcopally ordained is not the bar. There is the Welsh Church Act, 1914, and, if I were to join the Welsh Church tomorrow as a curate, nobody could stop me coming to sit in this House, because it is laid down in the Welsh Church Act that its clergymen are entitled to sit in this House.

Therefore, it is not true to say that episcopal ordination is the bar. I cannot for the life of me make out what the bar is. It would appear that, in the case of the Church of Ireland, there must be something particularly virulent in our Orders which differentiates us from the Church of England or the Church of Wales, inasmuch as though we are all episcopally ordained, we only are debarred from sitting.

I know that, if I may say so, I am really in one sense wasting the time of the House and my own time in speaking now, because apparently the result is a foregone conclusion. but may I say that a candle has been lighted in Ulster today which will not be extinguished in the life of any hon. Member here.

The issue before the Privy Council was an issue of law; we must accept their verdict, whether we like it or not. The issue before the House is not a question of law but a question of fair play and British justice. Are you going to tell the clergymen of the Irish Church that they are penalised when you are not penalising clergymen of the Welsh and English Churches? If that sort of discrimination is to be practised, very well, then, there is nothing that we can do about it.

All I can say is that I have had the honour to serve this country and His Majesty in two wars, and, if necessary, I will serve in a third, but we in Ulster do not expect, on a question like this, any party in this House to play party politics. We expect and we hope that the tradition of fair play and justice which is the proud possession of this House will always be shown, and that in a question of this kind party politics will be discarded and that cricket will be played.

The hon. Member then withdrew from the House.

4.20 p.m.

The House of Commons, except where it has surrendered its privileges by statute, has an exclusive right to determine all matters touching the election of its Members, and I believe that it must be made crystal clear that any action taken today on the advice of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council does not derogate from that position. On the other hand, when the House of Commons has asked that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council should be consulted, it would be fruitless and bad taste to canvass the Tightness of its decision.

Perhaps, however, the House will not take it amiss from me personally, as my views on the subject are well known, if I make two quotations, the first that "a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still," and the second, in order to keep myself in the proper frame of mind, a well-known story of my profession about Rufus Isaacs and Marshall Hall. When that great champion of difficult causes was about to begin one of his brushes with the judicial bench. Rufus Isaacs plucked his gown and said, "Marshall, for goodness sake remember they are there and we are here." I remind myself of that today.

With regard to what the Lord President said about Northern Ireland, I do not intend to follow him into that because obviously that is a matter which the Northern Ireland Government must consider, and, again, I do not think it would be profitable for us to discuss that point in this House. Equally, with regard to the indemnity Bill, I think it would be right and proper to wait until we see the Bill before we make any remarks upon it. The Lord President has dealt facetiously with certain advice. I want it to be quite clear that I take full responsibility for the advice which I obviously gave, and if my view and the view arrived at by the Attorney-General has been found to be wrong, well, then, our shoulders are quite strong enough to bear it. But the object of the Amendment which I desire to move is to draw attention to the anomalies which now exist with regard to the election of clergymen to Parliament.

If some of these anomalies reach the far side of absurdity, I do not want anyone in this House to think that I am being flippant in pointing them out. My fellow countrymen in this House know the great tradition of serious discussion of doctrinal differences and Church management in which most of us have been bred, and the last thing I would do would be to differ from that approach to these serious matters. But I want to point out the situation in which clergymen are left by this decision because I believe that the dignity of this House requires that we should face it. The report of the judicial Committee emphasises the point that the doubts of Parliament with regard to the sitting of clergymen had ceased to be based on the idea that the clergy were a separate estate, and it came to depend on the compatibility of the spiritual office with the mundane activities of politics as early as 150 years ago. But we must consider, although the Judicial Committee debarred itself from considering the point, what has been the attitude of this House in the intervening years.

By the Clergy Disabilities Act, 1870, the House allowed a clergyman of the Church of England, after having resigned his benefices and any preferment, and after giving the necessary notices, to be free of all prohibitions and to sit in this House. Mr. Speaker, you and I remember a friend of many of us in this House, the late Sir Edwin Brocklebank, who was in that position and who fulfilled his duties with the respect and affection of Members on all sides of the House. By the Welsh Disestablishment Act, 1914, a clergyman holding ecclesiastical office in the Church in Wales or whose last benefice or office was in the Church in Wales, is not disqualified, and I refer without quoting, because I am sure most hon. Members have read it, to the letter of the Registrar of the Archbishop of the Church in Wales which appeared in "The Times" this morning.

I wonder if the right hon. and learned Gentleman would allow me to deal with that point now? It was suggested in that letter in "The Times" that that point had not been brought to the notice of the Privy Council. I can correct it now; it was expressly drawn to their attention. I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way.

Yes, if I remember rightly, both the right hon. and learned Gentleman and myself drew attention to the point in the memorandum which we submitted to the Select Committee, and it was before the Select Committee of this House. I am sure the right hon. and learned Gentleman would draw it to the attention of the—

Is the purpose of the Royal Commission to be set up to remove the disabilities of all clergy?

If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I propose to point out what are the disabilities and to deal with that point. I know the point he has in mind, and he will find that I shall deal with it as I go along.

I hope the House will not think I am occupying too much time, but I want to show hon. Members what the position is at the present time because I think they ought to know it. If hon. Members are not interested in the ecclesiastical point they have their remedy, but I think most hon. Members, at any rate, are interested in the dignity of the House. These points that I have mentioned, first of all the one dealing with the Church of England, and, secondly, the one dealing with the Church in Wales, show that this House had no objection to a person ordained by an episcopal Church being a Member of this House because it is quite clear with regard to members of the Church of England who resign and with regard to members of the Church in Wales who, of course, at the time of the passing of the Act had all been ordained by the Church of England.

May I turn to my native land? The Church of Scotland differs of course by being a Presbyterian Church and the words of the disqualifying Act are:

"having been ordained a priest or deacon or being a Minister of the Church of Scotland."

The Judicial Committee apply that to the Church of Scotland, the Presbyterian Church. But it has always been accepted that by the power which ministers of the Church of Scotland have of demission, they can by demission of their office free themselves of the prohibition and be elected to this House. I think I am right in saying that an hon. Member, again held in great affection on every side of the House, the Rev. Campbell Stephen, was in that position. [HON. MEMBERS: "And the Rev. James Barr."] Yes, and the Rev. James Barr as well. I was not quite sure to what branch of the Church of Scotland the Rev. James Barr belonged, but that augments the position.

Taking them in the reverse order in which I have dealt with them, Scotland, England and Wales are all provided for and their clergymen of the Established Church, or the Church in Wales, can sit in this House. The only explanation that one can think of as to why the Church of Ireland was not in the same position is that the Law Officers who advised Mr. Gladstone, and afterwards adorned the judicial Bench, fell into what is now considered the error into which the Attorney-General and myself have also stepped.

Before I come to the Church of England, may I first deal with the position of other churches, because I have now shown the House whose members can sit? May I point out the other side of the picture? The Roman Catholic Church was dealt with by a statutory Act, the Roman Catholic Relief Act, 1825, and by Section 9 it was provided that no person in holy orders in the Church of Rome shall be capable of being elected to serve in Parliament as a Member of the House of Commons. I am not a member of that Church and I do not know, but no doubt we shall hear from the hon. Member for Liverpool, Scotland Division (Mr. Logan) who interposed, or from somebody else, these important points of what is the view of that Church on this matter in 1950, and whether the authorities of the Church and its priesthood desire that they should be changed. That is a matter of which this House would want to be informed, and it would want to know what is the view of hon. Members of public opinion on that matter.

May I point out another anomaly? The Old Catholic Church which differs on an important matter from the Catholic Church—and one of the bishops of the Old Catholic Church was well known at Oxford some years ago—conducts episcopal ordination. Anyone ordained in the Old Catholic Church would now be disbarred from membership of this House by the decision we have in front of us.

Nonconformity in its popular sense—I am using it in the sense in which it is understood—has never suffered from any interdict. I think every hon. Member in the House would agree that the House of Commons would have been poorer without the contribution which Nonconformist ministers and preachers have made to our Debates. They have contributed that special moral earnestness and wealth of impressive Biblical language which is one of the great strains of British oratory, from whatever view one may regard it. Again, if the House will bear with me, I have a special tenderness in that direction, as the first service after the disruption of 1843 of the Free Church of Scotland happened to have been held in a tent made out of my grandmother's blankets. So I have always had a sympathy with those who break away from an established body.

May I for a moment deal with another aspect of the Scottish problem? The Episcopal Church of Scotland, although not Nonconformist in the ordinary sense in which that word is used, has a proud tradition of refusal to conform. Many of its churches were burned by the Hanoverian army in 1746, and from 1714 to 1788 the clergymen of that Church prayed for King James III and King Charles III. Therefore they carried their refusal to conform, to what the Home Secretary will agree was a remarkable extent. But that Church, although it has gone that length in its refusal to conform, and is of course entirely different in its ordering from the Established Church of Scotland, is in the position that no clergyman of that Church by any means, whatever step he takes, can, by this decision, submit himself for election or serve in this House.

Let me take it a little further. The Episcopal Church in the United States of America received its orders by sending someone to receive them from a bishop of the Episcopal Church of Scotland. It is not for us to pronounce on who is in schism or who is not, but everyone knows there have been splits from the Episcopal Church in America. But the position under this decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is that if a Canadian who, for a year or two, had been a resident clergyman in an Episcopal Church in America having left that and been in business or any occupation for some years then came over to this country, he would be debarred from submitting himself to election or sitting in the House.

I want to be helpful on this. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is raising what is obviously a very interesting and important point. One can conceive of this Parliament legislating with regard to our State Church here. Is he suggesting—it is very interesting—that it would be proper for us by statute to provide that those ordained into other Churches, for instance into the Church of Rome, could relinquish their Orders? Is not that really the point?

I am very glad that the Attorney-General has raised that point. That is not the point. As I understand it, no lay power can interfere with orders at all. What we can do is to make the proper test. We can either wipe out altogether the prohibition on those who are clergymen, to use the generic word, or we can take the test of the State Church in order to conform with ideas of offices of profit under the Crown, or we can take the course taken with regard to the Church of England—that the resignation of benefice and office is sufficient. as also applies in Scotland. We can lay down our test. What I am saying is that the test of 1801, as interpreted and accepted, is one which has now become completely illogical and full of anomalies. Therefore we have to substitute another test.

I will take one more example, because I am sure hon. Gentlemen who come from the North of England will appreciate this case. There is a not very large body, but a body for which I have great respect and affection. the Free Church of England. The Free Church of England again claims its orders from an American bishop and, therefore, comes under the prohibition. But really it is the height of absurdity to go to one street in Liverpool. There is there a Free Church of England in what I might call a chapel, from the point of view of indicating the size of its place of worship, and the minister is debarred because there is episcopal ordination. One goes round the corner, in exactly the same street, and one finds one of the other Nonconformist bodies which are not under this prohibition. They are the same sort of size, the congregations are exactly the same, and yet this indefensible difference exists. I have tried to point out a few trees in the forest of paradox with which we are dealing.

May I remind the House that the Select Committee appointed by this House recommended legislation on this matter, and I hope that what I have said today emphasises the Tightness of their recommendation. I feel that whatever the Government of this country, whatever its political colour, it ought to be informed on this point. My right hon. Friends and I have suggested that a Royal Commission might examine the matter. I do not see any difference between the two; a Select Committee might be preferable and if a Select Committee of this House were felt to be the better body, because we are dealing with a matter concerning the House, I should accept it at once. We should get consideration from it.

I venture to support my point of view by the very weighty words of "The Times" leading article of yesterday, which said:

"Any revision of the law might well rest on the foundation that a constituency has a right to he represented by the candidate of its choice, unless he or she is disqualified for a specific and necessary reason, directly related to contemporary life and government. By that test, the exclusion of the minister of any religion merely on the ground of his spiritual status clearly fails."

Let us restrict it to felons, bankrupts and Peers of Great Britain, England and Scotland. The article goes on—and this is important:

"The authority of his own communion may no doubt wish, by their own discipline, to dissuade him from entering secular politics; but if they permit him to offer himself, it is not for the State to refuse his services."

I submit that that is the right view.

On the other hand, I see that we have got to get information not only as to what this House thinks of parsons, but of what the churches think of service in this House. That is a matter which has to be considered. I hope, however, that the Government and all hon. Members will approach this problem from the point of view of equity and not from any party political angle. It is not right that this House, the mother of democracies, should be held up to ridicule as the foster mother of indefensible anomalies.

I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Motion, at the end, to add:

"but at the same time urges that a Royal Commission be set up to deal with the state of the law as disclosed in the Report, thus avoiding in future an inconvenience similar to that now caused to the electors of Belfast West."

4.45 p.m.

I think that on all sides of the House that we can agree with the remarks of the right hon. and learned Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe), that this is a matter which should be decided by the House of Commons. If we all agree on that, then the Amendment, as I see it, is disposed of straightaway, because it is a proposal that the Membership of this House and the proper constitution of it should be handed over to a Royal Commission.

I thought I had made clear that either a Royal Commission or a Select Committee should advise on the position as it exists, which, as I have tried to make out, is one of difficulty, and should make recommendations thereon. I am sure the hon. and learned Member does not wish to make a false point. There is no suggestion of surrendering our rights. It is a question of collecting information on a most difficult matter.

If the right hon. and learned Gentleman means that the words "Royal Commission" in his Amendment should read "Select Committee," and we can proceed on that basis. then that is what has been urged on this side of the House for some time, and there is probably general agreement on it. But I must say that although we on this side of the House probably feel bound to resist a Royal Commission investigation, such a Royal Commission investigation in the terms which have been set out in the Amendment would produce a number of interesting and very startling results, which, possibly, have not as yet occurred to the right hon. and learned Gentleman and his hon. Friends. but with which I will deal in a moment.

I should like to deal with the argument which fell from the hon. Gentleman who was returned for Belfast, West (Rev. J. G. MacManaway). The duty falls on me, in default of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, to congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his maiden speech. If I may say so, I think it was very worthy of the part of the world which has elected him, and we all regret the circumstances which prevent his being here with us any further. But he was a little mistaken as to the nature of the law with which he was dealing.

If, indeed, this is an extraordinary legal anachronism, it is a peculiar thing that having sat, as I understand it somewhat irregularly, for some 3½ years in the Northern Ireland Parliament, he did not realise that these anachronisms of which he complains exist and are continually enforced by the Northern Ireland Government. The reverend gentleman could not stand as a parish councillor in Northern Ireland. No person in Holy Orders can stand for any purpose whatsoever. It is quite true that a clergyman of the Church of England—Sir Edwin Brocklebank was mentioned—can divest himself of his Orders for the purpose of entering this House. He can divest himself of his Orders for every purpose save one, and that is being elected to any elective office whatsoever in Northern Ireland. Sir Edwin Brocklebank, under existing law, is a layman for every purpose save one, and that purpose is standing for a parish council in Northern Ireland. That is a law which has been continually enforced by the Northern Ireland Parliament, and after all these years they have taken no opportunity—

It was a British law imposed by the British Parliament on Ireland.

Perhaps hon. Gentlemen would wait until I have had a moment to deal, I hope fairly and justly, with the legal point.

It is true that such a law was enforced by a Tory majority against the wishes of all the Irish Members. That is quite correct. But when this Parliament saw fit to repeal those laws in so far as they affected this country, the Parliament of Northern Ireland, to which we had handed the exclusive power of doing the same over there, refused to do so. It was, therefore, no longer in the power of this majority here to effect this very necessary reform. It is a little peculiar that they should come complaining to us now that this has not been done.

In this question there is not only an issue of law. There is also a quite important issue of politics and, as the hon. Member for Belfast, West, said, there is an important issue of fair play. I will leave it for the House to judge whether the decision still applies to Northern Ireland or not, but the original argument for excluding Irish clergy from any elective office whatever was that they would exploit their sacred status for the purpose of obtaining votes on the one side or the other. I possessed myself of the address delivered by the chairman of the meeting at which the reverend gentleman was first chosen as candidate. Mr. Wallace Kennedy, O.B.E., D.L., who presided, said:

"There are only two parties—the Protestants and the Roman Catholics. The Protestants are loyal to the King and Empire, but the Roman Catholics are disloyal to the King."

In those circumstances there may be an argument against permitting a person to come forward and exploit his clerical character for the purpose of obtaining votes on that sort of issue.

If hon. Gentlemen opposite wish to press their Amendment, let me ask them a question: Are they prepared or are they not, to give exactly the same exemption to Roman Catholic priests as they give to Protestant clergy? Would they introduce a Bill, if they were in power? Perhaps that is the test one should apply. [HON. MEMBERS: "Your party is in power now."] After all, while this party may be in power in this country, the representatives of hon. Gentlemen opposite are in power in the North of Ireland, and what we are considering is what is happening in constituencies in the North of Ireland. It would be very wrong and very improper if we here were to make a rule entirely different from that which the North of Ireland Parliament itself made. Let us have an answer from one of the hon. Gentlemen sitting for Northern Ireland constituencies. Is the Government of Northern Ireland prepared to repeal the legislation which at present prevents any person in Holy Orders from standing for any local election whatsoever?

On a point of order. This may well be very germane to the Debate as it continues. After reading the Motion and the Amendment before the House it occurred to me that it was not in order to discuss the law of Northern Ireland. If it is in order to discuss the law of Northern Ireland, then I see no objection to what the hon. and learned Member is saying. [Interruption.] I will wait for hon. Members to become quiet before I continue. My submission to you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, is that what the hon. and learned Gentleman is talking about is not relevant either to the Motion or to the Amendment before the House.

We are dealing with an Amendment which seeks to set up a Royal Commission to inquire into the law, but if the hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) is dealing with the law he is going beyond the Amendment.

Did not the right hon. and learned Gentleman who moved the Amendment stray into the same field? If the right hon. and learned Gentleman had reason to use arguments such as he did use, that justifies the use by my hon. and learned Friend of arguments to refute them.

If the right hon. and learned Gentleman had done so, I should have stopped him. Certainly, on looking at the Amendment, I find it is perfectly clear that it refers only to the setting-up of a Royal Commission.

Further to that point of order. When the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite was opening his speech and explaining what this proposition meant, he dealt with the disabilities. As he has dealt with them, I take it that the question of the disabilities comes within the purview of a Royal Commission. Are we not to take it that the Royal Commission would have the power to deal with the religious disabilities?

I do not know what the terms of reference would be for the Royal Commission. This Amendment deals only with the setting up of a Royal Commission.

Is it not correct, Sir, that, if a Royal Commission were set up in accordance with the Amendment, then the practices now operating in Northern Ireland would have to be examined together with the practices with regard to prohibitions of this kind operating in this country? Is it not correct that the Royal Commission, therefore, would not be in a position to exclude the consideration of such practices in the North of Ireland?

That is a hypothetical question, which I cannot answer.

I think I can get round all this procedure, if I may say so with respect, by putting to hon. Gentlemen opposite a question which I hope, this time, they will answer by something other than a point of order.

What is the nature of the inconvenience which has been suffered by the electors of Belfast, West? Is the inconvenience that, when the reverend gentleman presented himself to the electorate in the form of "the fighting parson," it was impossible for the electors to present as his opponent "the battling priest"? Is the view of hon. Gentlemen opposite that the inconvenience was, as quite clearly the law now provides, that no Roman Catholic could stand; or was the inconvenience the fact that they were not able to secure a Protestant priest as a candidate without having all this legal fuss made about him? I think that is a perfectly straight question to which I hope we shall receive an answer.

They can only answer easy questions.

Perhaps the right hon. and learned Gentleman will answer this question without asking any hon. Members who happen to profess one faith or another, because they are no more capable of speaking for their churches than is anybody else; they are not elected for that purpose: is the right hon. and learned Gentleman, and is his party, in favour or not of a Roman Catholic priest being permitted to stand for a Northern Ireland constituency?

I am in favour of that matter being examined by a Royal Commission, and that is the proposition I have put before the House. I am not a Roman Catholic and, as I said quite clearly, I do not know what is the feeling of that church. I have, naturally, the greatest respect for both the hierarchy and members of a church whose faith I do not share. I want to find out what is their view. If the hon. and learned Gentleman, whose religious convictions I do not know, can tell us, then I shall be only too grateful to him. I hope he will tell us.

rose—

If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I must first deal with the question which has just been asked. I cannot answer that question. All I know is that I think it is wrong that this House should decide what any particular church should do. Let us leave it to that particular church. I am sorry that the right hon. and learned Gentleman and his party will not give a straight answer to my question. My answer to the right hon. and learned Gentleman is quite a simple one. I am not in favour of any disabilities of this sort, and the right hon. and learned Gentleman should know it quite well, because I have made no secret of my views; indeed, I have written a number of articles and made a number of speeches about this matter. It was, indeed, just the point I was coming to; but before I come to it, I will say this. It is not really very honest of hon. Members opposite to talk about the inconveniences suffered by the electors of Belfast, West, and then not be prepared to remove what may be, for all they know, the greatest of all inconveniences—that is, that a religious minority may not put up one of their pastors as their candidate.

Are we to remove these anomalies at this time? I do hope that when we have a little more time we can have some opportunity of discussing the anomalies as a whole; because, of course, it is not only the Church position that is affected; there are a great number of other anomalies, and it would be very wrong were we to set up a Royal Commission to deal only with this, and not, for instance, to deal with the difficult position in which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) may find himself some time in view of his position of Constable of Dover Castle.

rose—

Oh.

I should be out of order if I were to develop this point in any way. None of us wishes to lose the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford, and, therefore, it would be prudent if we were to look into all these disabilities, which, obviously, affect us on all sides of the House.

Is not the hon. and learned Gentleman confused in his geography? He talks about the Constable of Dover Castle. Does he not really mean Deal Castle?

No. I do not want to spend too much time with those who cannot understand. The public office of Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports itself no longer disqualifies the holder, though it did disqualify the gentleman who kept the bookstalls, W. H. Smith, one of the leading occupants of the office before the right hon. Gentleman. But in the case of the office of Constable of Dover Castle, which happens to be attached to it, the position is somewhat doubtful.

But the point which, I think, should be made, and which should be fairly made, is this: that when we on this side of the House on a very appropriate day—which was possibly the reason why hon. Gentlemen from Northern Ireland were not here—12th July last year, discussed this question, which arose out of the discovery which was made, I think on the other side of the House, that for 30 years Conservative Members who had been appointed to sit on the General Medical Council were, by that fact, disqualified from membership of this House—though it arose, by one of those curious political coincidences, in the discovery of a Labour appointee—Conservative Members took up that position which they did.

I did, at that time, raise this particular point here in the House—the question of the disqualification of reverend gentlemen, and the whole question of all these other disqualifications. Then right hon. and hon. Gentlemen on the other side brushed the whole thing aside. They had no time for that then. Well, let us in this Debate offer this warning. It would be a good thing for the parties on both sides of the House to choose an opportunity to look into all these ridiculous disabilities, and to do away with a great many of them, because one never knows whom they will strike next and what injustices they will perpetuate.

Now let me turn briefly, because I do not want to take up the time of the House too long—[HON. MEMBERS: "Go on."]—to the question of the inconveniences which have been caused to the electors of Belfast, West; because if we were to have a Royal Commission on this subject, it would, I feel, be of the very greatest constitutional value. The only thing I regret about the right hon. and learned Gentleman's Amendment today is that it should be in some way restricted to or connected with the Report of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Of course, the inconveniences suffered by the electors of Belfast, West, were far greater than those within the ambit of that Report, because I think one of the inconveniences was that the one elected had to represent two seats in two Houses. That was dealt with by the late Member for that seat, Mr. Beatty, rightly or wrongly, by his attending here only on matters that dealt with Ireland—

That has nothing to do with it.

but I understand it is now the policy of hon. Members to pursue a different policy, and to come here to deal with matters which affect exclusively this Parliament and do not affect at all Northern Ireland.

Now, this is a very important and interesting constitutional issue, which we should look into. It is a considerable inconvenience that, while hon. Gentlemen on the other side can come here and discuss on behalf of their electors matters which relate exclusively to this country, we are debarred from discussing matters which affect us but which they have exclusive jurisdiction for dealing with. I do not want to develop this too far because it is a point which, while it arises on the Amendment, is a little outside what we are generally considering. I should, however, like to give one illustration. It has been impossible for this Government to ratify the Geneva Convention because of the repressive laws in Northern Ireland, but we cannot discuss those laws here. Yet when we come to the question of the repeal of the Trade Unions and Trade Disputes Act, which applies only to this part of the country, Members from Northern Ireland come over and vote against it.

There is a second inconvenience—and I do not know if this is one the right hon. and learned Gentleman had in mind—that the electors of the constituency of Belfast, West, will be forced into another election. But if they are, that is entirely due to there having been no election petition, because, for reasons with which I shall deal very shortly a little later on, it is quite clear that, if there had been an election petition, the second candidate would have succeeded, without any need for an election at all.

The inconvenience can easily be dealt with by the right hon. and learned Gentleman's not moving for a Writ, because it rests with right hon. and hon. Gentlemen on the other side to move the Writ; and, if they wish to deal with this inconvenience, that would be covered by the law. They would merely have to make a Motion in the usual form that the Clerk of the Crown should bring out the Return and amend it. They would be acting strictly legally. Otherwise, they take advantage of the situation afforded by the generosity of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary.

But this is the question we, perhaps, should ask ourselves. Why was there, in fact, no election petition? It would be improper for me to go into the law which we so recently passed, but if there is to be a Royal Commission to study it. it may, for instance, consider whether, in such a small area as Northern Ireland, where, naturally, the judiciary happens to be drawn from those people who have considerable experience in the majority party in the Ulster House, in those circumstances, there is sufficient—

Does the hon. and learned Member know that the last judge appointed was a judge of Labour opinions?

With the greatest respect, I think it would be very wrong in this House to suggest that any Member of the judiciary held any political opinions at all. [HON. MEMBERS: "The hon. and learned Member has just done so."] I am sorry that that suggestion should be made.

It is generally considered undesirable that a judge who has recently sat as a Member of Parliament on the one side or the other should then be the judge to decide an election petition, and it may well be that it should be considered, if we are considering this issue, whether we should not bring the venue of election petitions from Northern Ireland to this country. Who knows, if that had been the position, but that we should not have needed now to have a new Writ at all, and that an election petition would have been brought?

On a point of order. Is it in order for an hon. Member to cast reflections upon His Majesty's judges.

I do not want to take up too much of the time of the House. Before the issuing of the Writ is moved by hon. Gentlemen opposite I think it right that they should this time be under no misapprehension as to the law. I would be the last person to attempt to lay down the law to the right hon. and learned Member for West Derby, but at times the most surprising views of the law seem to be the correct ones. Therefore, if I very humbly permit myself one or two legal observations, I hope he will not take them amiss. He is probably well aware that the election law is perfectly clear, and dates from the case of a Conservative candidate, a certain Colonel Deakin, who was elected for Laureston, and who performed what I always considered a belated act of social justice when he published a notice in the newspapers saying that it was permissible for all voters and electors to shoot as many rabbits on his estate as they liked.

This was held by the Election Court, taking a rather stern view of the matter, as some form of corruption and he was unseated. In consequence of the judgment laid down there, and affirmed at a subsequent date, when Lady Sandhurst rather surprisingly stood for the L.C.C. as long ago as 1889, it was held—and I know the right hon. and learned Gentle man will correct me if he thinks I am wrong on the law—that provided the electors have knowledge of the status—

I do not see how this is connected with the Amendment to set up a Royal Commission.

With great respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, if I may say so, I think it is extremely relevant. This is the consequence of passing the main Motion which we are discussing.

We are not discussing the main Motion. We are discussing the Amendment.

With great respect, I understood that the discussion was ranging over both subjects.

An Amendment has been moved and we are now discussing it.

On a point of order. In view of the fact that nobody on this side of the House has been called on the Motion, except the mover of the Motion, can we be told whether the House will revert to a consideration of the Motion?

After the Amendment has been dealt with the main Question will be put again.

Perhaps I can put myself in order by saying that what I conceive to be one of the inconveniences which this Amendment aims at dealing with is the need for having a second election in the constituency of Belfast, West. I am dealing with the point that such an election is quite unnecessary, and I am explaining to the right hon. and learned Gentleman and the House generally why it would be quite possible for that inconvenience never to arise. The Amendment refers to

"avoiding in future an inconvenience similar to that now caused to the electors of Belfast, West."

Well, provided hon. Members opposite are prepared to accept the law, this inconvenience will never arise at all, and that is surely a reason for not appointing a Royal Commission, because we are able to deal with the matter in a different way.

The position is, shortly, this. If the status of the person is known, it does not matter that the electors may have been advised from the very highest quarter, because in Lady Sandhurst's case, if I may say so with the greatest respect to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, there was also very weighty opinion that a woman was able to stand for the L.C.C., and that opinion was afterwards held to be as erroneous as the one which suggested that an ordained priest could stand. At the time, however, that opinion was given, and was indeed believed by a great number of the electors. The real issue here is that had this matter gone to the Election Court they would undoubtedly have decided in favour of the second candidate, and in those circumstances I think that the House ought carefully to consider what their action ought to be.

I want to say just one final word. What has been suggested here is that the right course is that a candidate should be free to abandon his clerical position, and that then he is in a position to stand for Parliament. I think there is a great deal to be said for that proposition, but with the greatest respect that has nothing whatever to do with this present case. The reverend gentleman who sat in this seat, far from abandoning his clerical position, used it as one of his principal election assets. It is said that he gave up his pension and his rights. But he did not give up the propaganda value of his sacred calling; and if one wants to see official proof of that one has only to look at his notice of nomination, in which he describes himself as a clergyman.

The legislation in England which enables a clergyman to give up his clerical position in order to stand for Parliament expressly forbids him doing anything of that sort. Now had the reverend gentleman done that, there might have been some case for the House saying, "Well in those circumstances, this is merely a technical matter." But the offence in the eyes of myself and many of my hon. Friends is that there was a one-sided use of a spiritual position; a spiritual position denied to other religious minorities; a spiritual position which the Government of Northern Ireland refuse to admit even in their own local elections; and this was used in a critical constituency in the hope of swinging votes which would not otherwise be attracted by the political propaganda put forward by the reverend gentleman. In those circumstances, I hope the House will reject the Amendment and will carry the main Motion.

5.17 p.m.

While we have party alliances in this House, the Motion moved by the Government this afternoon and the Amendment proposed by the right hon. and learned Gentleman are not party issues. The condition of membership of this House is the concern of every one of us as Members of this House, irrespective of party. The right to be elected to this House is the same for every Member of every party. As the right hon. and learned Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe) pointed out, there are anomalies arising from the advice given by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and from the position accepted by the Government—anomalies that have been represented and accepted by the hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing). Those anomalies, I believe, cannot be left where they are They leave, for instance, the Welsh Church, which was mentioned earlier, and the Church of Northern Ireland in a totally different position.

The question is: Are we to leave matters as they are, and leave the anomalies, which are admitted by every party to be unjust, or are we in some way to alter them? If they are to be altered, in what way are they to be altered? Those seem to me the plain and simple issues. If matters are left as they are, there is the odd anomaly pointed out this afternoon by the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Rev. J. G. MacManaway) himself that had he maintained his position as an ordained priest in the Church of Northern Ireland and chosen to come across to Wales and taken a benefice in Wales, he could have stood for Parliament in Northern Ireland.

That is an anomaly which should be removed. It is not a disability upon Northern Ireland. It is not something which affects the electors of Northern Ireland. It is something which affects the right of the subject to stand for Parliament. To remove the anomaly is not a simple matter for a Royal Commission or a Select Committee. This is something which has grown up historically. There are two reasons, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman said, for excluding the clergy from this House. One is the legal reason imposed by Parliament itself. There is also the reason imposed by the Church itself, with which we have nothing to do. The Church say that the spiritual office and the more mundane political affairs are inconsistent with one another. That is the reason imposed by the Church, but that does not concern us.

The clergy were excluded originally for a very good reason. They were regarded as the fourth estate of the realm. Gradually, they found their duties to be too onerous. The lower clergy gave their rights to the higher House of Convocation, and we have the clergy still represented in the House of Lords, the Lords Spiritual. Prior to the Disestablishment Act, 1914, the Welsh Bishops, in common with the other Bishops, sat in the Upper House. After the passing of that Act, they were excluded. Clauses were put into that Act by which this privilege no longer obtained, and the Welsh Bishops no longer had the right to sit in the Upper House. Because they were excluded from the Upper House, it was felt that they were in the same position as ordinary citizens and should have ordinary citizens' rights of being entitled to sit for Parliament. Clauses were put in the 1914 Act to enable them to do so, and I do not think that anyone will deny the justice of that decision.

The same thing could have happened in the Act of 1869, and the matter was raised during a Debate in the House, but the reply of Mr. Gladstone was, I think, that the matter had been raised too late and it could not then be dealt with. He said, at a later stage, that the matter was urgent and should be remedied as early as possible. It is true that that was in 1869, and it never has been remedied. The passing of the Act of 1914 and the Welsh Church Act has made the position completely anomalous. Nothing could be more ridiculous than to allow the hon. Member for Belfast, West, to come to Wales and take a benefice there and then go back to Belfast, West, with all the privileges of being a clergyman of the Church of Wales.

Parliament cannot leave the position where it is. I agree with the Government's Motion, but I do not agree that a Royal Commission is what we want. A Royal Commission will not meet the position nor will a Select Committee. It is a matter of major constitutional importance. There might be a Speaker's conference because this is a matter which involves the constitutional position of the Lords Spiritual in this Parliament. While this involves the Catholic Church it does not involve Nonconformist Ministers. I suggest that the Government should consider setting up something analogous to a Speaker's conference to deal with the very major constitutional problem which this question involves.

5.25 p.m.

I do not intend to deal with the legal arguments on this problem. Having delved into this matter for the last six months I find that like many legal problems it tends to lose its interest. I am bound to say that I gave an opinion which was not upheld by the Privy Council and which was not even, I learn now to my astonishment after the event, shared by the Lord President of the Council, although I should have thought more of his legal view had it been expressed before the event rather than after. However I was wrong, and I do not suppose for the last time, and the matter is now clearly decided.

I do not think that anyone can quarrel with the view that the seat must now be vacated. I am sorry that I gave the wrong advice to my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, West, but there the matter rests. There is one thing that perturbed me somewhat when I heard it was suggested by some hon. Members that the indemnity which the Government had given—and I think properly given up to this date—should, as it were, have been in abeyance when the matter was sub judice. I think that shows a rather vindictive spirit that is foreign on the whole to this House. After all, the hon. Gentleman was sent here by his electors, acting on advice which has since been shown to be wrong, but which, so far as he was concerned, seemed good advice to him at the time, and the matter has been decided.

Supposing that the Privy Council had decided the other way, and he had been faced with his electors who said: "You should have had the courage to vote while this was going on." Surely we can understand that position. The hon. Gentleman could do nothing else, having been sent to do that very thing. I think that he could do nothing else than take his part, as well as he could, in this House until the matter was finally decided. Today, as we have heard, he made his first and last speech in this House.

On a point of Order. Are we, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, now to take it that the question of the indemnities, so far as this hon. Member is concerned, may be discussed by any of us in connection with this Debate? Was that not to have been referred to a latter period, when a Bill is to be introduced?

I was on the point of stopping the hon. Member. We are now dealing with the Amendment and the question of a Royal Commission.

I am obliged to you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I had in fact finished what I was going to say on that matter.

Speaking for myself, I always feel sorry when any hon. Member, for whatever reason, is leaving this pleasant and attractive place, which many of us enjoy so much. I think that so far as the hon. Member for Belfast, West, is concerned the matter could be left there.

We now come to the far more important aspect of this matter, and that is the lessons which we are to draw from the extraordinary state of affairs which have been revealed, and which I do not think were known to many hon. Members here. It would be perfectly simple to put this matter right. It would be quite easy to say that any clergyman of any denomination who did, as a clergyman of the Church of England can do now, namely, renounce his benefice, emoluments and appointments, should be entitled to sit. That could be done by a very short Bill without any difficulty at all.

I am sorry to interrupt, but before I put my question, I should like to take the opportunity of expressing my great appreciation to the hon. Member for the assistance which he gave me in this matter. As he suggested, I did put a similar point to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, that this Parliament should pass a law enabling a priest of the Church of Rome to leave his benefice, his priesthood, in such circumstances that he could never resume them, because that it what we have been able to do for the Established Church. Is the hon. Member suggesting that this Parliament can do that for any church other than the Established Church?

The Attorney-General will remember that the 1871 Act provided for a solemn act of renunciation; but there are circumstances in which a clergyman of the Church of England can return to his status. I suggest that the House could say that, as far as we are concerned, any clergyman of the Church of Rome can sit as a Member if he likes to cease to officiate as a priest and does not draw any emoluments in respect of his priesthood. Whether his church would permit him to do so, is quite another matter. I think we are entitled to say that any member of a particular church is entitled to become a Member if he does certain things.

The hon. Member is suggesting that we should pass legislation so that a Roman Catholic or a clergyman of some other episcopal church should be entitled to say "I relinquish my benefice," and, having said that, should be entitled to sit in the House, although he will remain a priest and can assume his priesthood whenever he wishes.

It would be perfectly easy to put it in the Bill, that if he does that he again disqualifies himself. I think we could do it, and I think it is the proper thing to do. It might, of course, launch the Government, as the Lord President of the Council has pointed out, into difficulties, as religious matters often do, but I am expressing my view, that I think it could and should be done. In an Amendment on the Order Paper to add at the end of the Motion:

"and further declares that it is of opinion that legislation should immediately be introduced to enable any clergyman of the Church of Ireland who relinquisheshis living, appointment and emoluments by solemn deed of renunciation, as is the case with clergymen of the Church of England, to be eligible for membership of the Commons House of Parliament."—

the point is covered for clergymen of the Church of Ireland, although I understand that this Amendment is not to be called. It is obviously very much less controversial to confine it to clergymen of the Church of England than to make a much wider provision, but if it is done in the one case, it could be done in respect of all cases.

My own view, which I have constantly expressed to my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, West, is that clergymen should not sit in the House at all. I personally do not care to see a person who exercises a spiritual calling sitting in this House, but I am also peculiar in many other ways. For instance, I do not like to see trade unionists sitting in this House, because I think they could be much better occupied in doing the work of looking after their comrades. I might say, if I were impertinent enough—of course, I would not say it—that I do not like to see the hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) or the Lord President of the Council sitting here. I might say that it would be very much better for the country if they were not allowed to be members of any elected assembly, except, perhaps, the Lewisham Borough Council.

Obviously, we all have our idiosyncrasies when it comes to a question of who is to sit in the House of Commons. Far from it being an asset to the Unionist Party in West Belfast, as the hon. Member for Hornchurch seemed to imply, I take the reverse view. I do not think it was an asset that the hon. Member happened to be in holy orders. The position is, whatever personal idiosyncrasies one has, that the House should not prevent anyone from standing as a Member, save felons and peers. I think it is utterly wrong that, because a person follows a particular calling or has a particular office, he should be precluded ipso facto. Everyone should be given an opportunity to be elected.

This is a sad case in many respects, but it will have done some good by showing that these anomalies exist. I would make any legislation apply to all churches, whether they are established churches, episcopalian churches or denominational churches. It will be remembered that we had a peculiar case in the last Parliament. A very respected and robust Member, Dr. Little, sat for the County Down Division, while at the same time he was the Presbyterian minister holding a kirk in his constituency. No doubt, although I never heard him, he was accustomed on Sundays to express to his flock, in the robust terms he used here, a suspicion of some of the more secular views he expressed in the House on Mondays and during the rest of the week. How can we say that that is a right and proper thing for someone to do, while the hon. Member for Belfast, West, who has given up his living and does not officiate as a clergyman, and has not done so during the past few years, cannot sit here because he has been ordained? The position is obviously absurd.

There is clearly an objection to a clergyman who is officiating, particularly if he is officiating in his own constituency, sitting in the House, but that can be easily altered by a short Act, such as the one I have described, introducing the provision that applies to clergymen of the Established Church of England, to all denominations. I hope the Government will give serious consideration to this. If they do so the time that the Attorney-General and I have spent working together on this matter will not have been altogether wasted.

5.39 p.m.

The House has heard the views of several Members on this issue. I think the more views that are expressed the more plain it becomes that it would create a fresh anomaly if we dealt only with this one disqualification in considering this question of disqualifications. May I say how much I agree with the first resonant sentence of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe), when he pointed out that this House has always preserved for itself the right to say who shall and who shall not be a Member of Parliament? If anybody is to advise us on this matter, we should be quite certain that they are persons steeped in the traditions and history of the House.

That is why I could not myself contemplate in any circumstances that this matter should be referred to a Royal Commission, as the Amendment asks us to do. I think it would be particularly difficult for His Majesty to find people to serve on a Royal Commission whose suspected political affiliations would not be canvassed very carefully by this House and by people outside. [Interruption.] Of course, if it was confined only to this matter, it might be their religious affiliations, but, while this matter has thrown itself up, it would be difficult, I think, to justify having an inquiry into only one of the many anomalies that exist.

We all know the problem that presents itself from time to time when some Member or other has found himself a member of a court of referees and then it is discovered that that is an office of profit under the Crown. I recall that when I was at the Board of Education it was felt that because my right hon. Friend the present Colonial Secretary had been asked by the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler) to be a member of the National Youth Council of Wales, he had been appointed to an office of profit under the Crown. Of course, there is outstanding the whole of that matter as reported to us by the Select Committee over which Sir Dennis Herbert presided during the war-time Parliament.

I should like to say this, and I think it ought to be said in view of what was said by the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Rev. J. G. MacManaway). I under stand the stress under which he was speaking, but I regretted that he should have made some allusions which indicated that there was some party spirit about the action which has been taken. Let us be quite certain of this. No one can accuse the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council of being actuated by any party spirit one way or the other in this matter. [HON. MEMBERS: "Nobody did."] After all, we are discussing the result of the Report of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council—

I thought we were discussing the Amendment.

and any partisanship which has been introduced must have come from that.

The Government recognise that there are anomalies in this matter. We are grateful for the way in which the advice of the Privy Council has, I understand, been unanimously accepted by the House this afternoon. I gather that the Amendment is not moved in any spirit hostile to the Motion.

I have given our reasons for thinking that if an inquiry has to take place, it should not be a Royal Commission. The hon. and learned Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Hopkin Morris) suggested that there might be a Speaker's Conference on the matter. That, after all, would keep it within the Parliamentary ambit, although as far as membership of the House is concerned I should not care to have the advantage of any interference from another place. I have never been quite sure, if we did what has been suggested today, what would be the position of a clergyman, if he was allowed to come here, who was appointed a bishop but had not a seat at the moment in the House of Lords. Would he be disqualified because in a few years' time, if he lived long enough and his brethren on the episcopal bench died off quickly enough, he might get a seat in the Lords? There are all sorts of amazing anomalies which can be thought of, which, perhaps, are conceivable although not always probable.

Are not bishops appointed by the Crown?

Yes. After all, during the reign of Queen Anne and some of her predecessors, Whig Governments took particular care to see that they had the right people there to vote among the Tory peers.

The Government are quite willing to consider this matter. It is the kind of matter that might very well be discussed through the usual channels, as it is said, to see whether we could arrive at some agreement as to what exactly are the things into which we want to inquire and, if we could get some agreement on those lines, what would be the most appropriate tribunal to consider them. I am quite certain that to appoint a Royal Commission to deal with this very narrow point would not either be in accordance with history nor would it serve the most useful purpose.

Many of my hon. Friends behind me have heard of anomalies. My hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Hayman) the other day drew attention to the very amazing one that a schoolmaster employed by a county council is ineligible to stand as a candidate, but that if he is employed by a county borough council he can stand as a candidate. There are many things like that which, I think, need clearing up. I hope the House will be prepared to accept the view that we must today declare this seat vacant and the fact that it has thrown up the kind of doubts that may exist cannot be lost sight of.

Of course, the House today could proceed on the basis that it would appoint the second candidate to fill the vacancy. The precedent for doing it, while it is a good, sound Tory one, is not one which I commend to the House. That was what the House did when John Wilkes was returned for Middlesex after being declared here ineligible and getting a vast majority of votes. The House decided that they did not want him and they elected the second candidate. I do not suggest that course to the House, but I do suggest that the Motion should be passed, and that consideration should be given between the parties and other Members who may be interested to what is the best way of dealing with the numerous anomalies which undoubtedly exist.

5.47 p.m.

Perhaps the House will allow me. As I understand the right hon. Gentleman, he accepts the principle that a body will be established to consider the matter and leaves to discussion, according to the usual methods of the House, the terms of reference of the body and what that body will be. If I have rightly interpreted the right hon. Gentleman, I should ask the leave of the House to withdraw the Amendment.

There should be a general discussion about the whole of the issues involved.

The right hon. Gentleman will not, I hope, think that I am pressing too far, but, obviously, this is a matter on which people feel deeply, and he will appreciate the position. If the right hon. Gentleman will give us the undertaking that a body will be established—I am not asking him to tie himself to the body—then I should ask the leave of the House to withdraw the Amendment. I must, however, ask the Home Secretary to go as far as that, because otherwise I have nothing tangible to hang on to.

indicated assent.

The right hon. Gentleman has indicated—

I take it that the nodding of heads signifies that an agreement will be arrived at in regard to all the anomalies. If so, that is all right.

The Home Secretary conveyed his answer by House of Commons wireless, but I understood it; he nodded affirmatively and agreed with what I have suggested, that a body would be set up—what the body is and what the terms of reference to be decided by discussion in the usual way. On that assurance, which I accept, from the Home Secretary, whether it is conveyed by nod or by word, I ask the leave of the House to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Main Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved:

That this House having taken into consideration the Report of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the case of the Reverend James Godfrey MacManaway, elected a Member to serve in this present Parliament for the constituency of Belfast West, declares that he was at the time of his election and is disabled from sitting and voting in the House of Commons by reason of the fact that, having been ordained a Priest according to the use of the Church of Ireland, he has received episcopal ordination.