Commons Chamber

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House Of Commons

Friday, 27th January, 1956

The House met at Eleven o'clock

Prayers

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Orders Of The Day

Leeward Islands Bill Lords

Considered in Committee.

[Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

Clause 1—(Constitution As Separate Colonies Of Leeward Islands Presidencies)

11.5 a.m.

It might be for the convenience of the Committee if I indicated which Amendments I think are linked together. The first Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) is the forerunner of a number of Amendments which might be taken with it. They include the second Amendment to Clause 2, and the first three Amendments to Clause 3, and then, missing the next one on the Notice Paper, the next three.

The third and fourth Amendments to Clause 2, which are in the names of the hon. Members for Salford, West (Mr. Royle) and Oldham, West, are both outside the scope of the Bill and, therefore, out of order.

In due course I propose to call the fourth Amendment in page 1134 of the Notice Paper in the name of the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway) which is to Clause 3, page 3, line 1, and the last Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Oldham, West, to Clause 6, page 4, line 22.

On a point of order. I want the position to be clear. You say, Sir Charles, that the third Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Royle) and myself is out of order?

Yes. The two are out of order. They go beyond the scope of the Bill.

That is the third Amendment on the Notice Paper?

And the fourth. The Amendment to Clause 3, page 3, line 1, in the name of the hon. Member for Eton and Slough will be called by itself.

I beg to move, in page 1, line 5, to leave out from "as" to the end of the line and to insert:

"the Secretary of State for the Colonies may by statutory instrument made under the Statutory Instruments Act, 1946".

I am much obliged for your help and guidance, Sir Charles. While I have no power whatever, in almost any circumstances, to speak for anybody else, so far as I personally am concerned it seems to me that the suggestion you have made about taking the Amendments together is the one which one would have liked to adopt. Indeed, they are all consequential. If the first one were accepted, I have no doubt they would all be accepted, and if the first one were rejected then no doubt the others would fall automatically.

It is rather an arduous job to put all these Amendments on the Notice Paper when they can be discussed together, especially when they are due for discussion on the day for which I do not even get a subsistence allowance; but we have done it and I hope that some notice will be taken of the value of our efforts.

Overtime without pay.

Yes, overtime without pay.

I hope that it will not be out of order for me to say, before proceeding, how much we should like to congratulate the new Minister of State for Colonial Affairs on his presence on the Front Bench. Reasons for congratulating a Minister are sometimes associated with his own pleasing personality and sometimes associated with the fact that some of us thought that a change was necessary. I should not like for one moment to be sufficiently ungenerous either way as to emphasise which particular factor is the operating one in this case.

We know that if the Minister brings his normal charm to the Front Bench and if he answers our questions in the way we want, then he will be a success. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not be misled by today's news into thinking that the wrong answer always wins the jackpot. The 52-dollar question which the Minister will be asked in the course of the debate is the one put by a noble Lord in another place from the Opposition Front Bench. That noble Lord is, of course, a Hare of another colour, but the question remains to be answered and we hope that it will be.

I put myself in a difficulty with this Amendment which is an important and serious one which, I hope, will be fully discussed. I feel that I am the wrong person to be criticising by implication Her Majesty's Privy Council, and I doubt whether I should have the temerity to do so were I certain that such a body ever really existed. So far as I can gather, the Privy Council is very like the Board of Trade, which I believe is, technically speaking, a department of it. The Board of Trade never meets. Certainly, it has not met while the present Government have been in office—and there are other reasons for that. I gather that the Privy Council meets on the demise of the Crown, and as we are all passionately hoping that no such occasion as that will arise in the twentieth century, we cannot hope to see the Council meeting in full and collectively, and giving Her Majesty the benefit of its collective wisdom, on many occasions.

The provisions of the Bill are wide and, indeed, in any constitutional Measure it is right that we should draw a Bill widely. But the whole operative powers are vested in the Privy Council. Who are the Privy Council? They are 285 gentlemen of great learning and wisdom, most of whom have been appointed to the Privy Council because they have obtained high political or judicial office and are now important in colonial affairs.

A couple of Ministers can meet anywhere in the country. On the occasion of the discussion of the suspension of the Constitution of British Guiana, which is perhaps the most important colonial event of the past few years, a meeting took place at Balmoral at 2.15 in the afternoon. I tried to discover how long it lasted; my recollection is that it was ten minutes, but I may be wrong. The only persons present were the Secretary of State for the Colonies himself, the Home Secretary and Sir Sidney Abrahams, then a distinguished member of the Colonial Service. I believe he is still a member of the Service or, at any rate, his name is closely associated with colonial affairs.

The meeting lasted a very short time and decision was made. An Order in Council was made some days later, and some days after that this House was informed that a decision had been made. What is the good of that? We had a Select Committee on delegated legislation which went into these matters with some care and consideration. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), who is a great expert in these matters, will correct my defective memory if I err, but my recollection, without having looked up the point, is that we had considerable difficulty in finding out when an Order in Council is subject to affirmative Resolution and when it is subject to negative Resolution—and I believe that there are some which are not brought before this House at all.

It was because of such considerations that this House, in its collective wisdom, passed the Statutory Instruments Act, in 1946. It was said that there are all sorts and sizes of Measures and all sorts and sizes of bits of paper. If we wish to provide £25,000 for veterinary science we promote a Bill. If we desire to provide £5 million for the "blokes in the City," we do it by Treasury Minute, which is not even laid on the Table or, if it is, it is not visible to the naked eye. This fantastic mixture of procedure reached such a state of complexity that the time came to lay down an ordinary sensible method, so it is said, "You do it by Statutory Instrument."

What is the objection to that? It will be the Minister of State, or his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies, subject to the Cabinet, who will make the decision. So it would be with the Privy Council. It would be the Minister. We then say that there are two days of dealing with Statutory Instruments. One is to say that they may be revoked within 40 days by means of a Prayer, and the other is to say that they do not come into force until there is an affirmative Resolution of the House; or at least that an affirmative Resolution must be moved to complete the operative process. What can be wrong with that in a matter of this kind?

11.15 a.m.

I wish now to come to one general consideration. I hope that the Minister of State will forgive me if I make a small complaint about the Colonial Office which I do not associate with his arrival in office—it is a repetition of something which has happened before. At this moment not a very large number of hon. Members have considered the question of what are sometimes called the "Loo'ard Islands" and sometimes the "Leeward Islands", and which I shall call the "Leeward Islands", because that is what they are called there—never mind what they are called in the Royal Yacht Club. Having made that concession, I am prepared to call Antigua, "Anteega", although in the days when limericks were my favourite form of poetry it would have spoilt the rhyme.

But there is no information in the House about the Leeward Islands. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway), I do not often get selected for colonial trips. I do not think that either of us has been selected since I have been a Member of this House. I was once selected, but upon reflection I was dropped, and was promised that I should be put on the next one. That was in 1946 and I am still waiting for the promise to be carried out. Therefore, we do not have the opportunity of seeing the Colonies at first hand and have to obtain our information from official documents.

Hon. Gentlemen opposite may say, "What right have you fellows to talk about colonial matters when you have only read the blue books? "There is, of course, the grave moral question of whether any party at Westminster ought to be discussing Colonies at all. But so long as one has that responsibility, one has to discharge it in the best way one can and with the means at one's disposal, to the satisfaction of the electors of Oldham, West and not the electors of the Leeward Islands.

rose——

Did the hon. Gentleman wish to interrupt?

I was wondering why the hon. Member was complaining about the Colonial Office.

I was coming to that. Every other Ministry tries to see that there is relevant information in the Vote Office and the Library before a Bill is presented to this House. The Second Reading debate on this Bill was on 24th November, last. The Library staff are very courteous and will get almost anything, if one gives them reasonable time. One receives a tremendous amount of help from the Library staff—

The Colonial Report is in the Library.

It is not in the Sales Office or the Vote Office. [HON. MEMBERS: "It is."] I have inquired and I am told it is not there.

It is in the Library; I am sure it is.

There is one copy of the Colonial Report for 1949–50 in the Library, and I am told that that was missing for a great number of hours last night. There is also an odd collection of reports. One relating to Montserrat's education and an index of social services, and so on.

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman again, but he should complain to the Library and not about the Colonial Office.

The hon. Gentleman says that I should complain to the Library. I have received the greatest help from the Library staff, who promised to go to the Colonial Office and get it for me. It was my fault for asking too late for the information, but a month previously it was not there. The reason I am complaining about the Colonial Office is that during the whole of the ten years I have been a member of this House other Ministries have always seen that there is information at the Vote Office and a sufficient number of copies of White Papers, and so on, so that hon. Members do not have to queue up and say, "Please may I have that White Paper when the hon. Member for Eton and Slough has finished with it." I should have thought that hon. Gentlemen opposite would be too keen on the rights of hon. Members to make these foolish interruptions.

Now, if I may leave these prodromus remarks and return to my point I will explain why I disapprove of the Privy Council as the legislative body for colonial affairs. One of the reasons why it should be this House is that Colonies vary so much in size, pride, history and importance. The right hon. Gentleman, referring to the Leeward Islands in the early part of the Second Reading debate, mentioned the three hundred years during which those islands have not benefited very much economically. There are still the Virgin Islands perhaps with a population of only 7,000 or 8,000, and thirty-six islands, of which only eleven are inhabited, lying far away from the rest and having their own terrible problems of transport.

People move out in whole populations to the American Virgin Islands for weeks of work each year. The American Virgin Islands have the finest harbour in the whole Antilles and possibly in the Caribbean, and a much higher standard of life. It is a very real problem and one which should not be settled by the Colonial Secretary meeting the Home Secretary at Balmoral and saying, "Someone has jotted down a document for me, and this is it "This is a problem which should be settled by debate in this House, and that is why I have moved the Amendment.

I wish, first of all, to thank the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) for the very kindly remarks he made about by new appointment and to tell him that I deeply appreciate the courteous thought behind what he said. I have always been spellbound by the oratory of the hon. Gentleman, and I rather hoped that perhaps my first task would not be to have to refuse him something for which he has pleaded so very skilfully. However, I am afraid that is the position in which I find myself.

This set of Amendments is designed to substitute Statutory Instruments made by the Secretary of State for what is in the Bill, Orders in Council made by Her Majesty, and, secondly—and this, of course, is the really important point made by the hon. Gentleman—that these Statutory Instruments should be subject to the affirmative approval of both Houses of Parliament.

There is a number of reasons why Her Majesty's Government are unable to accept these Amendments. The first is that if they were accepted we should be putting the Leeward Islands in an almost unique position among Colonial Territories. It is at present, and has been for many years past, the practice that subsidiary legislation for Colonial Territories made under an Act of Parliament is enacted by Her Majesty in Council and not by an instrument made by the Secretary of State. I think the Committee will agree that it is a long-established practice with which Colonial Governments and colonial peoples are thoroughly familiar. I believe that the Committee would also agree that, in spite of the skill with which the hon. Gentleman deployed his argument, nothing has so far been said which would justify us in departing from what is, in fact, a well-tried and well-established practice.

I will quote a perfectly straightforward example of this. In 1946 when hon. Members opposite were in power, the Straits Settlements (Repeal) Act was passed, which provided that the former Straits Settlements should cease to be a single Colony, and empowered His Majesty at that time to make provision by Orders in Council. That Act provided by Order in Council, firstly, that power should be given for determining which laws should remain valid in those territories, notwithstanding the change in their government, secondly, the adapting or modifying of such laws, and, thirdly, for dealing with incidental, supplementary and consequential matters. I do not think that at the time that was challenged by any of the supporters of the Government of the day, and I merely use the illustration to show that, in fact, all parties have used this method in dealing with this type of legislation.

I think that the hon. Member for Oldham, West would agree that, taking the first two Amendments affecting Clauses 1 and 2, if he got his way, he would really be creating a somewhat illogical position, because what is being suggested is that in Clause 1 we should deal with a proposal that has not met with any fierce opposition from the inhabitants of the territories concerned, or even from a minority of them. I could have understood, if there had been strong opposition to the proposals, that there might be reason for the anxiety that this Bill should be discussed over and over again.

The spectacle conjured up by the right hon. Gentleman of the angry Virgin Islanders setting out across the Caribbean to protest against the Privy Councillors is rather more in the nature of a cartoon than a work of art.

That is a delightful thought, but I am trying to point out the illogicality of this Amendment as it applies to Clause 1. The House has had plenty of opportunity of debating the proposal, and I do not think that it wishes to go over the whole ground again, which would be the position if the Amendment were carried.

Again, if we look at Clause 2 (2), to which this Amendment applies, I can assure the Committee that it is only intended to deal with certain entirely uncontroversial matters consequential upon the dissolution of a federation into its separate parts. It will, in fact, enable Her Majesty by Order in Council to provide for the transfer of certain functions now performed federally by the individual Presidencies set up under the Act, and, as far as subsection (2, b) is concerned, there are provisions for such things as pensions to retired civil servants, of whom there are not many, and the assets of Federal Government which, again, are fairly small.

I honestly do not think that the Committee would wish to discuss these matters in principle, but, if the Amendments were accepted, we should be in the position where that would almost certainly have to be done. We come to the real point of the Amendments when we reach Clause 3. The main object is to curb the power to make emergency laws. The mover of the Amendment wishes to secure that the power to legislate for an emergency shall be subject to an Affirmative Resolution of the House of Commons. That would be the effect of the Amendments proposed to Clause 3, when read together with the Amendments proposed to Clause 6.

Before dealing with the question of the emergency powers in the Leeward Islands in a little more detail in a moment, I would point out that it would be really irresponsible to suggest that an Order in Council or a Statutory Instrument to deal with an emergency in the Caribbean should be held up while Her Majesty's Government seeks the approval of Parliament. Such a procedure would be entirely irresponsible. It is obvious that such an eventuality might well arise while Parliament was in Recess. I know that Acts of Parliament are sometimes rather difficult to comprehend, but the words used in them often really mean what they say. I think that is true of the word "emergency." Emergencies are things which arise suddenly and which have to be dealt with swiftly. I hope the Committee will agree that is common sense.

What the hon. Gentleman is really asking is why we need a provision for emergency powers in this Bill. Have the Leeward Islands not got on well enough without having those powers? What new factors have arisen which make the Government consider a provision of this kind necessary and desirable? Those are all perfectly legitimate and sensible questions to ask. It may be in the recollection of the Committee that, in his speech on the Second Reading of the Bill, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State touched on this matter, and I should like to amplify what he said. He pointed out that a state of emergency has to be declared, not only to deal with a political crisis, but with such things as acts of God, which, unhappily, are out of our control.

There might be a hurricane on Wall Street.

11.30 a.m.

Yes. They may have certain similarities; I do not know. I have never been to Wall Street. In the West Indies, in recent years, we have seen whole societies temporarily disrupted by the sudden onslaught of hurricanes. Only recently the hurricane "Janet" provided a particularly unhappy example. The Committee should realise that, with the growing population of West Indian territories and the growing complexity of their societies, the effects of these hurricanes are becoming more and more devastating each time. It is the view of Her Majesty's Government and the Governor that power should be given to make emergency laws if the need arises.

There is also a second reason—the political and constitutional one, which my right hon. Friend also mentioned. I would point out that a Ministerial system has just been introduced into the largest of these territories. "Just" is the operative word; it was introduced about a week ago, on 19th January. Details were published in our Press at the end of December, 1954. From last week Antigua—and I rather agree with the hon. Member about its pronunciation—and St. Kitts have had an executive council, with a majority of elected members from the legislative council. That has become the principal instrument of policy, whose advice from now onwards the Governor will normally be bound to accept. I think that the Committe will agree that this is a vital and important step forward in the march towards self-government.

At the time when these new constitutional changes were agreed to they were made subject to certain conditions by the Secretary of State, one of which was the introduction of the legislation which we are now discussing, to give the Governor power to make emergency laws. Clause 3 carries that arrangement into effect. I hope that hon. Members will accept what I say on this point and will not feel uneasy, or regard it as a retrogressive step. I can assure hon. Members that it is not so. Her Majesty's Government have every confidence in the capacity of the elected members of these territories, who have now assumed Ministerial responsibility, to discharge their duties faithfully and fairly.

As my right hon. Friend said during the Second Reading debate, the development of a Ministerial system in Colonial Territories has to be carried out carefully and patiently, and it is not unreasonable that it should be accompanied by a power placed in the hands of the Governors. The power of the Governor to deal with a sudden emergency is no new thing; it exists in regard to practically every other Colonial Territory, however advanced that territory may be. The Committee will probably agree with me that this is a form of insurance, which enables us to take this constitutional step forward with even greater confidence. I hope that the Committee will support me when I suggest that the Amendment should not be accepted.

I join with my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale)—with all his qualifications and explanations—in congratulating the right hon. Gentleman. I believe that his family is creating a record. I understand that this is the first time in which two members of the same family, sitting on different sides of the House, have occupied the same office. Lord Listowel was Minister of State for the Colonies in the first Labour Government. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will live up to the tradition of his family in this field.

I should like to refer to the point mentioned by my hon. Friend in connection with the availability of reports. I am disturbed to hear that he found it difficult to obtain from the Library reports dealing with the Caribbean Islands. The Colonial Office produces an enormous volume of reports about the Colonies, including reports on separate Caribbean Colonies and on the economic and social life of the whole Caribbean area. The complaint which was made in my period of office was that the reports were rather late in being published.

I do not complain of a difficulty in obtaining reports from the Library; my complaint is that they are not in the Library. When I asked for them the Library at once offered to send someone to the Colonial Office to get them—as the Library always does—but they were not there, and they ought to be.

That question should be looked into. I would point out that between 200 and 300 hon. Members are on Sir William McLean's list. He regularly provides all those Members with a complete list of colonial publications. He himself, with the assistance of the Colonial Office, has produced a series of memoranda dealing with various aspects of colonial policy, economic and social, and also with political developments and constitutional changes. I mention these facts now so that those hon. Members who want to keep informed on colonial matters may apply to be placed on Sir William McLean's list.

I want to pay tribute not only to the Service which he rendered while a member of the Colonial Office, but also to the very distinguished service he is. rendering in his retirement. He has found a niche in which he can provide-a very valuable service to hon. Members. I hope that the OFFICIAL REPORT will record the fact that if hon. Members apply to Sir William McLean they will be placed on his list and will be able to have the advantage of reading his very valuable memoranda, which are issued from time to time.

One attraction of the proposal put forward by my hon. Friend arises from the fact that since 1945 immense changes have taken place in our Colonies. It may be that I am not giving him enough notice, but I wonder whether the Minister could tell us how many new constitutions have been brought into operation since that date. Many of those changes have been brought in under the procedure which obtains in this case. There have been the Gold Coast constitutions, constitutions in the Far East, the Caribbean, Nigeria and other parts of Africa, the Mediterranean and elsewhere.

One of the disadvantages of this procedure is that a new constitution is arranged and settled following a report of a commission, or after discussions or negotiations. Then the instruments for bringing the new constitution into operation are prepared, and it is brought into force by an Order in Council. It is not brought to the House, as are Statutory Instruments. One of the advantages of the course advocated by my hon. Friend would be that if it had operated in the last ten years our people would have been very much better informed about the changes which have taken place than they now are. The present procedure is a matter of doing good by stealth, with a vengeance.

If all these matters had been brought before the appropriate Committee of the House and had been made subject to an affirmative Resolution, thereby allowing the House sufficient time to discuss them, Members of Parliament and the rest of the country would be very much better informed. I should, perhaps, point out that the pace at which development has taken place in the last ten years would have meant that such a procedure would certainly have added to the business of the House, but I have always felt that the opportunities available for discussing and considering colonial problems are altogether inadequate.

Many years ago—long before I came to the House—I was attracted by the view put forward with so much force and eloquence by one of the early Labour Members—Fred Jowett, from Bradford. He came here from local government, and found it very frustrating. He had been used to serving on local government committees, where officers provided him with all the necessary information, and where there were many opportunities of taking a positive and active part in local government work. He came to the House and found that he had to sit here for long periods, trying to catch Mr. Speaker's eye in order to make a speech. He served occasionally on a Private Bill Committee or on a Standing Committee of the House, but he found that he missed the many opportunities he had had, in local government, of participating in affairs.

His idea was that the whole procedure of the House of Commons should be reconstructed upon the basis of local government procedure. There would be a Standing Committee associated with each Department and Minister which Would sit and consider problems from time to time. The Scottish Standing Committee does that now, but the plan would apply generally. Whether the system would work for all the Departments I do not know, but I have often felt that it would be an enormous advantage to the Secretary of State for the Colonies and to the House of Commons, as well as to the people in the Colonial Territories, if a continuous opportunity had existed for Members to take an active interest in colonial affairs.

Both the major parties and the Liberal Party have groups of people who take a keen interest in colonial matters and who come together within the precincts of the House to discuss the problems, but as a whole the House has not an adequate opportunity. If this proposal had been in operation since 1945 this country might be much better informed of the changes that have taken place.

Would it really have that effect? I heartily sympathise with what the right hon. Gentleman is saying. There should be more time for debating colonial matters in this House, but I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would agree that the reason is not that the Colonial Office does not welcome discussion, but that those right hon. Gentlemen who are in charge of the business of the House are unable to find the necessary time. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman recalls that when he was Secretary of State that was true of his right hon. Friends who were in charge of business. Some of them are on the Front Bench opposite at-this moment. If, theoretically, there were the opportunities he desires to discuss all these matters, does the right hon. Gentleman think that the Leaders of the House, of either party, would be able to find the time?

If we reconstructed the procedure of Parliament on the basis suggested by Mr. Fred Jowett the opportunity would, at any rate, be there. Let me say to Leaders of the House, past and present, that in past years we never had an adequate opportunity of discussing colonial affairs. When I first came to this House almost the only debate on Colonial affairs took place on a day in July which coincided with a garden party at Buckingham Palace. Only 20 or 30 Members used to take part in it. We have had many more opportunities in recent years. I hope we shall have even more in the future.

The Minister has referred to emergencies such as hurricanes in the West Indies. In these days, when we can do so many wonderful things, it strikes me, as a layman, as very unfortunate that we should know that a hurricane is approaching the West Indies but should be unable to do anything about it. Almost the last act of mine as Secretary of State for the Colonies, in 1951, was to grant financial aid to Jamaica after one of these disasters. We knew that a hurricane was moving towards the island, but all we could do was to sit down and wonder whether it would hit it. In these days of nuclear energy and inventions which are almost miracles is it necessary to have to sit down and let these terrible things hit the islands? Are we, in these days, to wait for three days in those circumstances without doing anything? I hope some investigation will take place on the possibility of dispersing hurricanes before they reach the islands.

11.45 a.m.

I hope that the Minister will not close his eyes to the possibility, on the political side, of reconsidering what should happen in political emergencies. It may not be in order to discuss British Guiana, but there would be some advantage if, before we took the final step of suspending a colonial constitution, a discussion took place in the House of Commons. There might be a pause for a week or ten days before the final step was taken from which it is difficult to recover. It is difficult to start the constitution again in a place like British Guiana.

My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West is to be congratulated on moving this Amendment. He will agree with me that it is not necessary to divide the House upon it, now that the matter has been well ventilated.

indicated assent.

I hope that the Bill will get a Third Reading. Behind it is the desire that the Leeward Islands, with their wonderfully attractive names, will make further progress. Their representatives will be here very shortly. In fact, I believe they are in process of arrival. I understand that the Bill will facilitate the association of these islands with the new Caribbean Federation, the new Dominion which we hope may be taken towards its decisive stages in the conference which is about to take place in this country.

We shall welcome the visitors from all these West Indian islands. The conference will consider big constitutional changes which will bring a new Dominion into the British Commonwealth. I hope that it will be accompanied with a bold and imaginative plan of social and economic development for the Caribbean as a whole.

Let us have a Colombo Plan for the Caribbean. Let the political changes be accompanied by a bold economic programme. Let us hope that Her Majesty's Government will be generous in this matter. Our experience in the Colonies in the past few years is that of waiting until there is a crisis of some kind, as in Cyprus, Kenya and elsewhere. After the crisis we pour money in. Perhaps if we had been a bit more generous before, the crisis would have been avoided.

This is a new venture in self-government unlike anything which has taken place anywhere in the world. It is a federation into a federal dominion of islands separated by hundreds of miles. It is a tremendous venture. No one has ever attempted anything like it in the history of the world so far as I know. It seeks to bring together the people of the islands, charming people, whom to know is to like and to admire. I hope that the conference will be a very great success and that the Bill will facilitate the possibility and the practicability of the joining of these islands. As to the Virgin Islands, it is a reflection upon us that the American Virgin Islands have a much higher standard of life than exists in our part. I hope that more attention will be paid to the British Virgin Islands so that their people can make greater economic progress.

There should be a conference of representatives of the Colonies. It would be an advantage to have a general discussion on all the immense changes that have taken place. Power is gradually leaving this House and going out to the Colonies. A discussion between us and representatives of the Colonies on these changes might be very desirable.

The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) has taken this occasion to fly a great many kites—the sky is absolutely full of them. I think he was quite right. He has raised many topics about which it is valuable to think, although I am sure he would agree that it may be premature to come to conclusions about them. He founded his arguments in support of the Amendment on the allegation that it would enable the House to discuss colonial affairs more fully, but, at the same time, he really kicked away the Amendment's main prop. All of us who know how business is conducted here must surely realise that the limiting factor is not whether a particular subject is technically discussable; the limiting factor is time and the conduct of business.

Anyone who has seen anything of the inside of any Government Department must know all too well the struggle among Ministers to secure time for the discussion of particulars matters. There are, of course, innumerable hon. Members on both sides who do a tremendous amount of quiet work on colonial matters and who would like to be able to debate them in this House, but I suggest that were this Amendment accepted those hon. Members would be in the same intolerable position, because it would be a physical impossibility to provide any substantially greater amount of time to debate such subjects. It could be done only by sacrificing something else.

What the right hon. Gentleman says may be—and I think is—a very valid argument for revising our procedure. The House of Commons in many ways is an extremely unsatisfactory place to discuss, say, colonial matters, because no one has sufficient time to go in detail into matters of great importance to the territories concerned. If we had better procedure and more time for discussion there would be nothing whatsoever to stop any hon. Member raising any of those matters in debate. There is always the Supply Day procedure, or the right hon. Gentleman might at some time seek to introduce new procedures, but I am sure that the mere passing of this Amendment would not mean that there would be more time available for the discussion of colonial affairs.

It is a very great pleasure to break with the usual practice of the House and to follow the hon. Member immediately preceding me. The normal practice is to congratulate an hon. Member on what he has said and then to ask to be allowed to develop one's own points. Today I can follow the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Smithers) by telling him that Statutory Instruments are exempted business and create their own time. Were this Amendment to be passed, therefore, the House would have the necessary time to discuss these matters—despite the tragic picture he has painted of Ministers jostling for time in the Cabinet Room.

That is, of course, technically the case, but one of the principal objections to our present procedure is that these matters are then discussed at unearthly hours of the night—and hon. Members opposite are the first to raise such objections. I am sure that if that were to be done the Colonial Office would be accused of bringing all its business to the House at the dead of night when few hon. Members were present to discuss it.

The hon. Member destroys his own argument, because to get up and admit that his argument was theoretically wrong, but that if the procedure were altered it might be theoretically right, does not add emphasis to what he says.

I want to join with other hon. Members in congratulating the new Minister on his appointment. Those of us who have watched political events in this country feel strongly that the qualifications he brings to his office are great ones. As a former vice-chairman of the Conservative Party he should be well fitted to look after the backward peoples. Having said that, I should like very briefly to deal with the arguments advanced by him in his maiden speech as a Minister. The most important of his arguments was that no case has been made out; there was no pressure in the Islands or in this House for this procedure, either in the past or now. The answer to that is surely very simple. We are the Members of Parliament for the Leeward Islands. The population of the Islands is about 114,000, which, even with the uncertainties of the Boundary Commission, amounts to about two ordinary constituencies in the United Kingdom. For the sake of argument and to make it personal, it amounts to about the Minister's constituency plus my own. Our case is that, as the people ultimately responsible for the future of these Islands, we demand the right to have advance information about acts which the Government propose to take concerning them.

I find it constitutionally very objectionable that the Order in Council procedure should be used for matters as important as this. I speak as a relatively young Member of this House, but I have enough Parliamentary history to know that the whole history of Parliament is the gradual control by the House of Commons over the acts of the Executive. The Order in Council procedure is tolerated in modern circumstances only because it is known that on domestic issues the House of Commons can at any time throw out the Government, and thereby throw out the operative members of the Privy Council who have made the Order.

It is quite a different matter when we turn to colonial affairs, because, although they are the responsibility of individual Members of Parliament, such affairs do not come as much to the forefront of our minds as do those affecting our own constituencies. I do not think that any hon. Member would be willing to tolerate an Act of Parliament which allowed the affairs of his own constituency to be arranged by Order in Council. There are many reasons for this. The one which sums it up best is that the only place where one can find out what the Privy Council is doing is in the Court Circular.

Although it may be attractive to some of our traditionally-minded hon. Members to look through the births and deaths of titled people in order to find out what is happening in the political world, most of us prefer to refer to HANSARD. One glaring example of the present procedure is that the only indication given of the suspension of the constitution in British Guiana was in the Court Circular—Balmoral on such-and-such a date. Such a procedure is offensive, not only from the legal and constitutional aspect, but from the point of view of common sense.

What is the real point that lies behind this Amendment? It is that this is an attempt to obtain for hon. Members some control over what is done so that they can exercise the responsibility which is theirs in law. How can that be done? First of all, it can be done by getting information. It is difficult to get information about the Colonies when one goes to the Library. Here I make no attack on the Library staff, nor, indeed, upon Sir William McLean's work in the Colonial Office, because along with other hon. Members I get a regular stream of stuff from Sir William.

I was able to find out something about the Leewards only because two years ago I ordered the Economic Survey of the Territories which contains quite a section on these Islands. After Sir Bernard Docker's passionate appeal for national economy, I am ashamed to say that it cost the Government £2 to provide me with that survey—perhaps in future we may have to get the information from the British Museum.

We also want more control. It may be argued that the Government always gets its own way in any case. That is perfectly true. Indeed, when hon. Members reflect too long upon the frustration of being back benchers they sometimes get depressed. I understand that Mr. Christopher Hollis, who until recently was a most distinguished Member of this House, left politics because he said that his function as a back bencher could be performed by a well-trained dog. That, however, is a counsel of despair, and even though we may always be beaten in the Division Lobby, hon. Members always have the right to get information from the Government.

12 noon.

This Amendment is a legitimate and constitutional attempt to get information out of the Government. It does not mean that we shall accept a Statutory Instrument if we do not like it, but it does mean that when we reach a decision it must be taken to the House of Commons. That is the virtue of this procedure. The Government are made responsible to the people who are responsible.

We never use the great weapon of dismissing the Government. I sometimes feel that the House of Commons is less privileged than the American Congress. They cannot get rid of the President unless they try to impeach him, but as a result of not having supreme power they are able to vote as they like. I would rather be a back bench Congressman—which is a contradiction in terms, because there is no such thing as a front bench Congressman—than be a back bench Member of Parliament——

Think of the salary.

—quite apart from financial considerations, which would apply even more to Members of the other place.

Does my hon. Friend agree that in democratic development we are generations ahead of the Americans?

When I argue with American Congressmen about the relative merits of our two systems, I always point out that we can get rid of our Government. But what is the result? The result is that we are like a man with a lot of jewels, defending them with a hydrogen bomb. We dare not use it. If the only method that the police had to deal with burglars was the use of hydrogen bombs, the burglars would get away with murder, which is what the Government do all the time.

Let us use our power today to force something innocent from the Government—information. Let us compel the Government to give us the information on which they wish to base their policy in the future. I do not think that even the Minister himself, reading his speech in the OFFICIAL REPORT, would wish to base himself on the claim that this is an irresponsible Amendment. It is a responsible Amendment in the true sense of the term. We are asking that we should be allowed to exercise the responsibility of surveillance and not that the Government should do it without responsibility to Parliament.

I believe the case is a cast iron one. I do not believe that the argument that it has never been done before is of great importance, because apart from the argument about precedents—and everything has to be started once—in the last ten years there has been an enormous change in public thinking about colonial and dependent peoples, and not only in this country. My right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) gave a good example when he said that Parliament now discusses these colonial affairs much more. We are now conscious of our responsibility.

There is now, however, a much wider forum where problems of the future of colonial peoples are considered. The United Nations is limited by its procedure and traditions in discussing these matters in too great detail, but let us make no mistake that what happens in Cyprus, Latvia, Esthonia, Lithuania or Formosa is now the subject of world discussion and comment. Anything which helps to bring out information which helps those who are responsible to exercise that responsibility is worthy of consideration by the Government.

For those reasons, I hope that the Government will consider postponing this provision until the Report stage so that we may see whether some such arrangement as is proposed in this Amendment would be practicable.

May I also begin by congratulating the Minister of State for Colonial Affairs upon his appointment? I dare say that I shall be regarded as "difficult" by him occasionally, but my personal relations with his predecessor were always very happy and I have not the least doubt that they will be so with the right hon. Gentleman as well.

I should like to express my appreciation to my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) for putting down these Amendments, because they go to the very fundamental depths of democracy in the Colonial Territories. I think that the point which he has raised is the point on the top of a pyramid of an absence of democracy in the Colonial Territories. When we are elected to this House we represent not only 50 million people in this country. but 77 million people in the non-self-governing territories.

Although, personally, I have taken the step of having a representative of the Colonial Territories at every Election meeting during my campaign, it is inevitable that in our Elections our attention is concentrated upon domestic and immediate issues around us. But in addition to that fact that this House is responsible for the welfare of these 77 million people who have not yet attained full self-government, there is the power at any moment to suspend such constitutions as exist, and that power can be exercised by the extraordinary, undemocratic process of the Minister of State, the Secretary of State and one other person going to the residence of Her Majesty, wherever it may be, and in ten minutes decreeing that the whole constitution of a Colonial Territory shall be suspended.

From a democratic point of view, that is absolutely outrageous. We saw it done in the case of British Guiana. This Bill gives power for it to be done in the case of the new constitution which will be set up in the Leeward Islands.

We are making a plea that at least before constitutions are destroyed in the Colonies, this House shall have the opportunity to discuss the matter, that a Statutory Instrument shall be brought here and that we shall have the right to make a decision. Even that would not be full democracy, but it would be a very great addition to the powers which this House ought to possess.

I was very interested indeed to hear the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) about the proposals which Mr. Fred Jowett made for more democratic procedure in this House. I had the honour to be the biographer of Mr. Fred Jowett and a very close and intimate friend of his. He was not a very spectacular figure, but the Labour movement and indeed the political life of this country has never had a more devoted and faithful servant than Fred Jowett. He made the proposal, as has been indicated in the speech of my right hon. Friend, that for the various Departments there should be Standing Committees which would have the respon- sibility of regularly discussing the matters relating to each Department.

I can see no sphere where that is more important than the sphere of the Colonial Territories, where those who are specially interested in the Colonies might from day to day discuss these issues which are continually arising. I do not suggest that we should press this Amendment to a Division. In a sense, my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West has been exploring a new idea, and I think those who have listened to the debate will agree how useful that idea is. Nevertheless, I ask the Minister, who is entering upon his new post—

And the new Leader of the House, who has just arrived.

Yes, I extend my appeal to the new Leader of the House. The right hon. Gentleman has not had the advantage of listening to the debate. I hope he will read the OFFICIAL REPORT of it, because new and constructive ideas for the better procedure of the House have been put forward during the debate. If we do not divide on the Amendment, I hope that, in return, they will at least consider the new ideas which have been expressed here today. I believe that those ideas will be of benefit to democracy in this country and will give greater confidence to the people in the Colonial Territories.

I should not have intervened but for the remarks of the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Smithers), who managed to indicate that in some way I had been the villain of the piece in past days. Let me assure him that that is not so.

I want to disabuse the mind of some hon. Members about what happens when there is an emergency. Listening to what they have said today, one would think that when an emergency arises the Department whose jurisdiction it is to deal with the matter then considers it for the first time. I was Chairman of the Emergencies Committee of the Labour Government throughout the whole period, and I can tell hon. Members that that is not what happens. Even a Labour Government are not caught like that. I say "even" because I recognise that the majority is on the other side of the House, and it is as well to be respec-ful to the majority if one is a democrat.

Each Government Department has, as it were, its wall book for dealing with emergencies. The various documents are all ready. In this country, when there is an emergency, we do not proceed by Order in Council; we announce what we intend to do, the document is presented to the House and becomes operative from the moment it is presented, but we have to get the consent of the House within a limited number of days, and if we want the document to continue in force we have to come back to the House at the end of a month and obtain consent for its continuance.

I had to deal in that way with docks strikes, with a strike at Smithfield and other events of that kind. While we are responsible for the lives and destinies of these people in the Colonial Territories, there is no reason why the same procedure should not also apply there.

That is all that my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) asks. My right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) has said that there will not be a Division. Far be it from me to express disappointment at anything he does, because I am told that in a week's time he will be able to make it very uncomfortable for me if I do. Let me again err on the side of discretion. As my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway), who does not always follow what is said from the Front Bench, takes the same view, it will be even too heretical for me to suggest that any other course should be followed.

I will tell with my right hon. Friend.

No. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) is an hereditary rebel, and I am not going to get mixed up with him. I was disappointed that the representative of a house which for three generations has brought distinction to this House by its lively concern in constitutional affairs should think it is better to be a Congressman than to be a Member of the House of Commons. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West, of course, suggests that there are financial advantages.

Real estate.

12.15 p.m.

But think of the distinction conferred upon my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West today. Successively hon. Members have designated him as an existing Queen's Counsel, learned in the law, although he is only a solicitor.

Such few of us here who recall the night when the Chamberlain Government went down need have no fear that this House cannot break Governments. When there was not even a majority vote against the Government, the feeling in the House, the atmosphere, did something which the American Congress cannot do. After all, the American constitution was designed so that the American people should never be governed—such checks and balances that it is always a position of stalemate.

If my hon. Friend's Amendment were adopted in principle, if not in the Bill but as the means by which this House should make it plain to the colonial peoples that it desires, as a House, to supervise as closely as possible all acts of Government in the Colonies, it would be a tremendous advantage in our relationships with the Colonies in these days when people are increasingly hoping that they will be treated as equals inside what I believe to be the greatest democratic group and form of government that has ever existed in the world. I share everything said by my hon. Friends the Members for Oldham, West and Eton and Slough when they said that we ought to have greater opportunities in the House for discussing directly the things which the British Government do for these colonial people.

Before the right hon. Gentleman sits down I should like to put a point to him. He was good enough to indicate that it was some words of mine which drew him to his feet. I am very glad that they did, because I should very much like to have the benefit of his long experience of this important matter of how to get colonial matters more fully discussed in the House. His right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) contended that if we passed this Amendment we should have more discussion.

No.

It has been pointed out by the hon. Member for Oldham, West that it would be possible to discuss Statutory Instruments late at night. Does not the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) agree with me that, with the pressure on the time of the House of which all present and past Leaders of the House must be aware, we could not have more effective discussion of colonial affairs in the House by extra emergency procedures or by having discussions late at night on Statutory Instruments. My contention is that to pass the Amendment will not promote better discussion of Colonial affairs in the House.

I certainly could not agree with the hon. Member—I could never do anything as uncomfortable as that. I believe that if the Amendment were inserted it would have a necessary restraining influence on Ministers. They would know that if they did something to which this House objected they could not hide it, as the revocation of the constitution of British Guiana was hidden for two or three days; it would have to be announced to the House straight away.

I would not have wished to intervene in the debate on this Amendment, although I know the Leeward Islands and love them—I was there last summer—but for the speech of the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway). He cited British Guiana as an example of undemocratic procedure.

I well understand the sincere conviction with which the hon. Member holds that view but, having been there last year and asked many people, not only from British Guiana but other West Indian Territories, their opinion, from a practical point of view I think that that was the best method for us to follow on that occasion. If the Government had not taken decisive action straight away and if there had been the kind of time lag which has been suggested, although a pause for thought might be good, I wonder what might have been said in the House of Commons.

I would remind hon. Members that all of us were rather in the dark about the situation out there until our sense of proportion was restored by receiving expressions of opinion from other leaders of political thought and other Colonial Territories in the Caribbean. Then we were able to view the situation in a much clearer and better perspective.

I think the hon. Member has overlooked one or two facts in his contribution to a debate, to which he has not listened from the start. The order was made at 2.15 p.m. on Sunday, 30th October, and not put to the vote until a day or two later. It was not reported to the House until the Secretary of State for the Colonies published a White Paper in which he suggested that there had been a plot to burn down the offices of the Governor apparently with no more petrol than could be obtained from petrol lighters. No evidence has ever been brought before any court in support of that and the House was not informed until eight or nine days later, although they would have been informed by a competent colonial administrator.

I was a little late coming into the debate—a quarter of an hour—and I realise that I must have missed a very important part of it. Although was not in British Guiana at the time, I have been there since and I think the conditions were far more serious than have been suggested. I think that we were right in the action we took. I wish only to make that point and to use it as an argument that the Executive simply must have this power in the event of an emergency. The example of British Guiana does not detract from that argument. It reinforces it.

I wish to say a word or two in reply to the speech we have just heard from the hon. Member for Surbiton (Mr. Fisher).

Whatever might have been the case for the suspension of the Constitution of British Guiana—there are two views about that, even today—some of us had the opportunity of meeting both sides even at that time. The important thing is that if the case was as sound as has been claimed by the hon. Member for Surbiton surely there could have been no harm in bringing that case to the Floor of the House. If the Colonial Secretary had a cast iron case such as the hon. Member has alleged, surely the Members of this House are responsible people and could reach a conclusion equally as satisfactory as that of a Colonial Secretary.

I am not arguing now the merits or demerits of the suspension of the British Guiana Constitution. Even if it was urgent, no one will argue that it was in the post one morning and the British Colonial Secretary was informed the next. Things in British Guiana were not going so well as people believed. The important thing is that these Amendments would make it imperative, if the Colonial Secretary desired to suspend the Constitution, to come to this House with the information.

It was suggested by the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Smithers) that it was difficult to debate Statutory Instruments late at night, but that could be put right by the Government of the day.

At the expense of other business?

Not exactly, we could shorten the recesses. There is no need for hon. Members to be away for four weeks at Christmas time.

If interest in matters relating to the Colonies is so great, obviously there is nothing wrong with Members of the House interested in the Colonial Territories coming to the House before the House normally resumes its sittings. If other hon. Members want to stay away we may remember, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) indicated, that before the war colonial affairs were debated on days when it was convenient for most hon. Members not interested in them to be in some other place. It seems to me that there would be no difficulty whatever. Even if the Standing Committee idea did not appeal, days could be set apart for debating colonial matters provided there were the will so to do. I agree that that would be a revolutionary change. Whatever may be the view about that, I can never understand why it is possible for a city like Birmingham, with a million inhabitants, to conduct its business by the committee method satisfactorily and not possible in this case.

If these Amendments were carried it would be obligatory on the Coloniel Secretary of the day to come to the House and lay an order, which could be debated. If the only time at which that could be done is late at night, I can remember what happened in 1945 to 1950 and 1950–51. The hon. Member for Winchester and some of his friends made excellent speeches when they were in Opposition and kept us on the Government benches until our last trains had gone.

The hon. Member always complained of that.

Of course I complained, because it involved a walk of two or three miles at 2 o'clock in the morning for me.

If it is necessary for these things to be debated at 2 o'clock in the morning I can think of other matters which were debated at that time which were not nearly so important. The stronger the case for doing the type of thing that was done in British Guinea the more important it is that the Colonial Secretary should come to the House before such an order is made so that hon. Members should exercise their right to determine such a decision.

12.30 p.m.

I think it might be convenient if I made a few remarks on the wide and very large number of subjects which have emerged from what I thought would be a rather limited discussion. We have covered with your permission, Sir Rhys, a very large amount of ground. I think that one thing which has emerged out of what has been almost a debate on colonial affairs has been the fact that on both sides of the Committee we are very anxious to get more information and to have more discussion on colonial matters. I am glad that the Leader of the House looked in a moment or two ago and was able to hear that view put forward from both sides of the Committee.

I should like to thank the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) for his very kind personal remarks, and also those other hon. Members who have been good enough to wish me well.

May I say a word or two about the right hon. Gentleman's speech? I was very glad that he paid tribute to Sir William McLean. We are extremely grateful to Sir William for supplying us with the information that we want. I assure the hon. and learned Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale)—

Not learned.

—and others, that I will look into the possibility of supplying the Library with more than one copy of these vital papers which he, and the hon. Gentleman the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) were apparently competing for together at one moment last night. I am sure that something can be done to make more copies available.

The right hon. Gentleman made, I think, one or two most interesting points. I agree with him when he said that surely the time must come, with the modern science available to us, when scientists will be able to evolve some way to control the path of the hurricane. I am sure that the best brains in the world will be concentrated on that problem.

The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned the fact that the Virgin Islands do not wish to join in the federation. I can assure hon. Members that we are aware of the wishes of the Virgin Islanders on this matter. I think that in view of the fact that the federation conference is about to open in London, he would not wish me to pre-judge the decisions. I should like to join with him also in saying how much we are looking forward to welcoming the delegates from all over the Caribbean who will be arriving within the next few days for the conference, which starts in the middle of the week.

I think that it was my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Mr. Smithers) who, in some of the detail of what he said, may have caused disagreement in the Committee. He did, on the other hand, make the point that we would like very much to have more opportunity to discuss colonial matters on the Floor of the House. I can assure him that so far as my right hon. Friend is concerned and I am concerned, the Colonial Office would welcome opportunities for this, but it is a question of the business of the House and Leaders of the House, of whatever political party, are apt to be not so co-operative as some of us who are enthusiasts in this matter would like.

Everyone here is, I am sure, deeply interested in the future of the Colonial Empire and the Commonwealth as a Whole. But what a small Committee it is present today. Admittedly, it is a Friday, but it is a pity that more of our colleagues do not take the same interest as those present today do in these matters.

I am afraid that despite the eloquence and the persuasiveness of speakers like the hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) and the hon. Member for Eton and Slough, I must still ask the Committee to reject the Amendment.

The main point of the argument which I put forward earlier has not been met. How can one deal with emergency matters, like hurricanes, when this House is not sitting? It is essential, in the interest of good government, to see that these powers are available to the Governors of these territories, because delay caused if an affirmative Resolution were necessary before effective action could be taken might mean the loss of many lives.

How did the right hon. Gentleman's colleagues deal with floods in Essex?

I am talking about hurricanes. I might be out of order if I discuss the floods in Essex. We are talking about the Leeward Islands, which are rather further away than Essex.

I ask the Committee to accept my recommendation that the Amendment be rejected.

I think that the right hon. Gentleman has not done himself or the Committee justice in his reply to the very cogent arguments which have been advanced. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) mentioned the case of floods in Africa, I think that the Minister of State dismissed the point in far too cavalier a fashion. He said that Africa was a long way from the Leeward Islands.

The right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) said floods in Essex, not Africa.

Nevertheless, the Minister of State said that it was some distance away. Some of us recall the time when there was trouble in Czechoslovakia, before the war. Mr. Chamberlain then said that that was a long way away, but that does not deprive the House or the Committee of its responsibilities.

I hope my hon. Friend will agree with the point which I am trying to make, that the Minister of State has not to any extent answered or disposed of the validity of the arguments which my hon. Friends have put forward. In these circumstances, if my hon. Friends decide to press the Amendment to a Division, I shall be only too happy to go into the Division Lobby in support of the Amendment.

I am very grateful to the Minister for the kindly reference which he made to the way in which this Amendment was moved. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) somewhat ungallantly called his attention to the fact that I am not "learned." Some of my colleagues have often said that I am not honourable; and I would be the last person to call myself a gentleman. But I appreciate the generosity shown to me from the benches opposite.

Before I take a course which has now become almost inevitable, I should like, as passionately as I can, to say that whatever may be the duties of Devizes the duties of Oldham could not be performed by a well-trained dog. As my former Friend the late Professor Joad would say, "It all depends on what you mean by a well-trained dog." I am reminded of the story of the dog which played chess. A bystander said, "That must be a very clever dog," and its owner replied, "I do not think so. I have licked him twice." The duties I have to perform could not be performed by a well-trained dog, although I think that the duties of a Whip could be performed by a well-trained sheepdog.

This has been a very important and useful debate. The Minister made a notable beginning. In the course of a very well-reasoned and courteous argument, my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) was able to make suggestions of very great importance, which I am sure all of us would want to consider. Perhaps I may be permitted to say that my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields is actually engaged on colonial affairs elsewhere at the moment, and has asked me to apologise for his absence because he is dealing with the vital affairs of another Colony.

My right hon. Friend made the most interesting suggestion that we could have something like the Scottish Grand Committee to consider colonial affairs. It is not really a question of what that Committee could achieve in terms of altering legislation. It is a question of the fact that there would then be a direct connecting link with Westminster spreading over the widespread territories for which we are responsible. Although I passionately believe in the march to self-government, many other things may appear just as important to the woman in poverty with children to raise—questions of full bellies, of economic development and of security are mixed up in all these matters.

If we could think of establishing a Committee of the House, concerned in the way that the Scottish Grand Committee is concerned with Scottish Measures, for dealing with colonial affairs and discussing them at leisure and at length, I am sure that the psychological importance of the recognition of what we were doing and of the chance of expressing views and of the chance of communication might be one of the most important things to have happened in the course of the House.

Having said that, I do not want to delay the Committee any longer. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Brixton (Lieut.-Colonel Lipton) and my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields have suggested that this is a matter of importance which, in ordinary circumstances, we might well have pressed to a Division; but it has become almost a tradition that on a Friday morning one is not really anxious to divide the House, for more than one reason. I hope it will not be thought that we do not regard this as a matter of great importance, that we might not raise it again and that had the matter been discussed on an ordinary day, when there was a fuller assembly in the Committee, we might not indeed have thought fit to call a Division. Having said that, quite seriously, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 3—(Power To Make Emergency Laws For The New Colonies)

I beg to move, in page 3, line 1, after "community," to insert:

"provided that a law made by or by virtue of an Order in Council under this subsection for a colony shall, if it contravene the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, be confirmed within three days by the Legislature of the Colony."

The Amendment asks that before a state of emergency be declared any proposals which are made and which contravene the Universal Declaration of Human Rights should, before they are put into operation, be confirmed within three days by the Legislature of the Colony. It is of some significance that the Clause had no counterpart in the Constitution or in the Act which empowered the Constitution of the previous Federation of the Leeward Islands. It is a new proposal so far as the Leeward Islands are concerned, and, in my view, it is a reactionary proposal.

When we drew attention to this matter during Second Reading, the Secretary of State justified the inclusion of the Clause on the ground that emergencies might arise in the Leeward Islands due to hurricanes or other acts of God and that these powers were not necessarily sought to deal with disturbances which might arise in the Islands. Therefore, in drafting the Amendment, I have limited the right of the Legislature to decisions which contravene the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

I need not remind the Committee that this country has accepted the Declaration of Human Rights and that we apply it within the British Isles. Unfortunately, we do not apply the Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations to the Colonial Territories. On one occasion when I had the good fortune to win the Ballot for a Private Member's Bill, I introduced a Bill the purpose of which was to apply to our Colonial Territories the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. I attempted in that Bill to include Clauses covering every case in which the Universal Declaration was not met. The consequence was that it was one of the longest Bills introduced by a Private Member. It contained 64 Clauses, which showed case after case in our Colonial Territories of the Declaration of Human Rights not being observed.

12.45 p.m.

By the Amendment, I am asking that when a state of emergency is declared in the Leeward Islands, when any laws or orders are issued which repudiate the Declaration of Human Rights, at least the Legislature in the Leeward Islands should confirm them within three days of their declaration.

It is important that we should appreciate the possibilities of action which might be taken under an emergency. The whole of the Colonial Territories are scattered with precedents: deportation of individuals without trial; banishment for life of individuals without trial; the repudiation of the right of freedom of speech and of free Press; the prohibition of individuals to move from the town in which they live; imprisonment without trial; and, in an extreme case, the suspension of the whole Constitution. All these things could be done in the Leeward Islands under Clause 3. The very modest proposal contained in the Amendment is that before these things are done, any orders which repudiate the principles and declarations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights should be confirmed by the Legislature of the Colony within three days.

In these Colonies, there is the right of adult suffrage. The people themselves are now electing their Legislatures. In Antigua, Ministerial responsibility is now accepted. Surely, the least we can say is that in those Colonies their Legislatures, elected by adult suffrage in this way, shall have the right to confirm any repudiation of the Declaration of Human Rights and that such orders should not be enforced unless within three days they are confirmed by those Legislatures. That is the simple proposal of the Amendment, and I hope that the Minister will be able to indicate that the Government are prepared to accept it.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway), who moved the Amendment, I do not want to detain the Committee for very long. I felt, however, that there was something more general that could be added to the plea which my hon. Friend has made and with which he has become associated over the years of his membership of the House.

We in Britain have responsibility for many Colonial Territories in different parts of the world, and the view has been taken—I dare say there is some substance in it—that as a nation we are very well qualified to exercise power in Colonial Territories because of the experience and integrity of our Colonial Civil Service. I suggest to the Committee that the task of transferring power calls for qualities different from those called for in the exercising of that power. The Amendment suggests that there should be for the people of these islands, not a written constitution, but some objective test against which their laws may be judged.

In this country, of course, our whole tradition is to resist anything that is written down. I remember that a year ago when we got into a muddle about the Boundary Commission, we had a great debate on whether the Commission had acted within the law or not and a judge gave an interim ruling to restrain a Minister, and so on. I remember that when I was walking along a corridor I heard a senior Member and ex-Minister saying, "That is what happens when you write anything down." Erskine May does not bind us. Erskine May is a list of practices, very carefully collected, of what has actually happened in the House and we go by these practices. The learned Clerk himself cannot correct me if I am wrong, but it has become the practice of the House and everything else in the country that we do things because of what has happened in the past.

Things are either done or not done. We assume that an election will work properly and a policeman stands in the voting room and chats with us and tells us how many people have voted, and so on, but we do not fear that our basic traditions of political liberty will be challenged. It is with this idea of the way government should be conducted that we approach the problem of giving freedom to the Colonial Territories.

The fact of the matter is that although they may share our desire for the same sort of Government, they have none of the circumstances which give us the stability on which our form of government actually rests. This great volume of an economic report on the British West Indies includes figures about the Leeward Islands. There are the usual circumstances and literacy figures, figures of the literacy rate, infant mortality and overcrowding, diseases and deficiency diseases. I make no point of any one of those figures except to say that one must realise that the framework within which a constitution has to work is totally different from that which exists in this country.

We ought again to look at this problem of written constitutions, written safeguards or written charters of human rights when we come to Colonial Territories. I will limit myself to two examples of written constitutions and written safeguards which are now being put to the test in very different directions. Despite the punishment which I got from my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) about envying the liberty of American Congressmen, I come again to the American Constitution. Although, when it was written and devised, 170 years ago, nobody thought of the African negro other than as a slave having no rights under the Constitution—it was very far from the intention that they should—it is that very same Constitution which has now led to the famous decision on segregation in American schools, which puts the Americans, with all their difficulties, ahead of any other multi-racial country in their handling of this problem.

My hon. Friend is saying what I was saying three months ago until I read the recent news from America that the Southern States will overthrow that and re-establish the old system.

Although I am the last person to lecture about the United States, my hon. Friend should not think that the Supreme Court is as easily put aside as that. It may be twenty years before this is done, but he should remember that the Northern States were willing to fight the Southern States on the issue of the status of the negro.

It is the only Supreme Court that has over-ruled itself.

We are getting a little far from the Amendment.

I am not going far from the Amendment, because we are talking about human rights. I took the trouble to write a book recently on this very point and humbly paid such tributes as I could to the Supreme Court of the United States for some of its humanitarian decisions and to such names as Marshall and Oliver Wendell Holmes; but I also pointed out it has a history of a long period of reactionary, bitter, partisan, Tory judgments supported by Republican Presidents repressing libertarian laws.

Much as I enjoy listening to the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) on American history, this has nothing to do with the Amendment.

We congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West on his book, and hope that there will be sufficient copies in the Library for us all to read them.

We bow to your Ruling, Sir Rhys. I congratulate my hon. Friend on taking the trouble to write a book and I hope that he will not think it un-courteous of me to say that I have read the book and that I greatly enjoyed it.

There is no other part of the world where British people are living in conjunction with people of coloured races where there is the same approach to the difficulties of the colour bar which we find in the United States today—although it will take a very long time to reach desegregation—and where there is an example of a document, ahead of its time when it was introduced, turning out to be a fruitful instrument for the achievement of human rights in the future.

I hope, Sir Rhys, that you are looking at me more than in interest than in warning. I am coming to the second example of a constitution and of a constitutional safeguard which is fighting a rearguard action and I hope that in this I shall not come into conflict with my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West. It is the South African Constitution, into which we did put written safeguards and where we entrenched them. The South African Parliament is now engaged in a bitter struggle to remove the entrenched position to achieve objects which nobody in the House can want to see achieved. In South Africa, the Constitution may be set aside after a bitter struggle inside and outside Parliament, and the struggle for segregation may take a long time and be frustrated by judges. In both cases safeguards have been made. In the one case there has been fruitful progress and in the other a long and more or less defensive battle.

In transferring power we must not forget something entrenched, something written, a safeguard available to the people of the territory to whom we giving power, may be a rock on which they can build something stronger and more permanent and which, in the end, will give them the freedom which we ourselves enjoy.

The hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) and the hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) have made speeches with the skill which we expected and I would be the last to doubt for a single moment the very real sincerity with which their arguments have been put forward. I regret very much that once again I have to say "No". I do so because I believe equally sincerely that the Amendment is not something which can practicably be accepted. I want to expand the reasons why I think that it would not be right to accept the arguments that have been made.

I must remind the Committee that the Declaration of Human Rights is not a legal document, setting out obligations in legal language. That is one of the real difficulties posed by the Amendment. The hon. Member for Bristol, South-East quite fairly pointed out that in this country, on the whole, we dislike writing things down and he fairly made a point that in newer countries where the constitutions are newer there may be arguments for writing things down. To write down in the form of legislation the Declaration of Human Rights presents immense difficulties.

An effort is now being made to put the principles of the Declaration of Human Rights into legal form, in a convention. When that convention is internationally adopted, would it not then be possible to insist that its terms should be accepted in cases like this?

1.0 p.m.

Goodness knows how long that will take, which rather proves what I was saying. This is a most difficult thing to put into legal words. I think it was said in the resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations, at which the Declaration was adopted, that this is a common standard of achievement for all peoples of all nations. In other words, it is, in fact, a statement of aim for the guidance of Governments and not a legal obligation. I believe that its terms, as I am sure legal experts in the Committee will appreciate, are really almost impossible to include in a law, either directly or by reference. Earl Attlee made that point very clear when he was questioned on this subject in the House of Commons as far back as in 1949.

If we were to accept the Amendment I am afraid that by doing so we should place an intolerable burden upon the courts in determining whether a law passed under Clause 3 had, in fact, contravened the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I see vistas and endless prospects of litigation which I do not think the Committee would wish to contemplate. Of course, the Government subscribe just as much as did our predecessors to all the ideals embodied in the Declaration.

It is our consistent endeavour to work towards those ideals and to uphold them. If it should ever be necessary—I hope that it will not—to introduce emergency laws under this Clause, I know that I can speak for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State when I say that it would be his function to see that the aims and objects of the Declaration were constantly borne in mind by those who had to administer those laws.

Those are the reasons why I regret that I cannot accept the Amendment, although I appreciate the sincere motives which have led to its being moved.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths), in the very interesting and informative speech which he made on the first Amendment, made a suggestion which I described in his absence as one of very great constitutional importance and interest and which, I hope, will be pursued. I believe it to be of great importance, but I should humbly like to suggest——

I listened very carefully to my right hon. Friend, and I am in complete agreement with him provided that the committees have power and are not merely advisory.

I have always taken the view that the period of gestation which goes between the conception of an idea and its realisation is not the period for argument about the precise appearance of the child which is to be born. Once the idea is conceived, we should let it develop without trying to limit it too much. It would be a matter of importance——

May I remind my hon. Friend that Mrs. Beatrice Webb used to say and to deplore that from the beginning of an idea until its adoption in this country the average period was 30 years.

I forget the period of gestation of an elephant. One of my hon. Friends says that it is 18 months, but I would not be sure.

I remember, because it is 10 per cent. of the period that it takes for the recommendations of Royal Commissions to be implemented.

My hon. Friend is generous to Royal Commissions. The one I have in mind was a Resolution of the House of 1848 about breaches of promise, and the distinguished services of my most brilliant predecessor, the ablest man who ever represented Oldham, John Fielden, who, in the Parliament of 1832, moved for the abolition of corporal punishment, capital punishment and long hours in factories. If I pursue that line of thought, perhaps I shall be out of order.

On the whole question of human rights, the question of the American Constitution is indeed of singular importance. There is a great and fascinating contrast in procedure between the laying down of certain fundamental rights by Hamilton, Jefferson, and probably by Tom Paine, as a conception of human rights and a bulwark which brings with it, as we have seen, one great advantage and one great disadvantage. It means—and this is of vital importance in our Colonial Territories if we apply it—that the humblest individual can take his case to the Supreme Court of the United States.

That is a very great power. It is no use saying, "How can the child of a negro do this?" because they do. The Association for the Protection of Civil Rights, and the various organisations concerned with freedom of thought and expression make it possible in the United States for the humblest person to take his case before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court can say that the act of the State Legislature is ultra vires because it is beyond the Constitution, or that the act of the United States Congress is ultra vires. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) will remember that the court found invalid nearly all President Roosevelt's early measures for dealing with the economic crisis of the thirties.

But, of course, it has its disadvantages, too. It enables a reactionary court to use what was designed as a safeguard of liberty for the restriction of rights. My hon. Friend will recall that the Sherman Act passed to deal with monopolies was in fact applied to deal with trade unions, to enforce the colour bar, to enable the Yellow Knife contract to survive, and so on.

The history of the Supreme Court is a history of a period of extreme Tory, reactionary judges giving shocking decisions. Then the alteration that came in with Evans Hughes supporting Oliver Wendell Holmes and giving a five to four majority brought back a new Liberalism to America.

These are the difficulties, I venture to say, though on this subject I always speak, I hope, with humility; but I would say that perhaps I have spent more time in considering and reflecting on this than on any other subject. If we consider the vast complexity of our Colonial Territories—whether they be the Leeward Islands or the Colonies of Africa—and if we can device a procedure which would guarantee a human being against the invasion of a few fundamental rights one can see how easy it would be in respect of those Colonies for which we still retain full legislative functions to have a system without expense.

The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is gradually ceasing to function as a committee in respect of many Colonial and Dominion Territories. More and more the right of appeal is being abrogated. More and more countries are saying, "We have now achieved self-government and we are not going to submit to a right of appeal to Westminster." the Judicial Committee has not very much to do. With a few new ideas it would not be difficult to apply a fundamental human right by statute, superimposed on the legislature of the Colonies, and to say that where before any magistrate a question of an invasion on human rights occurred, he should have the right to refer it, in the first place, for advice, to the staff of the internationally manned tribunal which was there to deal with human rights.

It would be referred, in the first place, for advice. Even to arrange for a sort of travelling assize, an international tribunal, to go to the Colonies, would not cost very much. We could have a competent staff issuing provisional rulings and advice to guide magistrates in the exercise of their duties, with the right still for an appeal to be submitted by affidavit and finally the right of the court itself to order an oral hearing when it is satisfied by affidavit that a matter of such importance has arisen that an oral hearing ought to be held. That would not involve the individual or anyone else in great expense. I am certain that the wealth of humane libertarian opinion would produce the finance to enable any individual or collection of individuals to challenge a fundamental invasion of human rights.

If my recollection is right, the Government have, in fact, accepted and applied to the Colonial Territories the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms which is in force until notification is sent to the Secretary-General of the Council of Europe. Does not that go in some direction to meet this case?

It depends what is meant by "some direction." The Minister—I do not wish to criticise him, because he has dealt with this debate so ably and courteously—announced with delight that we had made one step in the direction of reform in connection with a Colony which we have possessed for 330 years.

When I was about 12 years of age, I used to sing, in a piping treble, a deeply moving hymn. I should not for a moment like to quote that in terms which might be regarded as irreverent, but in the days when, possibly, I was even more innocent than I am now, I used to sing about viewing the "distant scene" and one step being enough. It may well be doubted whether those words when applied to colonial affairs are really satisfying to people who have been waiting for a step for 327 years.

What happened was that the Colonial Office did make an announcement. My hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough and I tried to find out what was meant. We have not found out. The European Convention contains no provision for enforcement. There are no sanctions.

I do not think that the hon. Member is quite right there. If the application is to be suspended, there must be a report to the Council of Europe, and, while the Council cannot impose a penalty, it can debate it and give unfavourable publicity to it.

I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman and I will accept that. I do not for a moment wish to be thought to be criticising this. It was a step in the right direction. Indeed, in the circumstances it was a courageous step to take. But there must be some form of legal sanction. One does not particularly want punishment so long as a decision on the matter can be enforced. Of course, there might be punishments in cases of flagrant physical invasion of human rights.

I have no wish to detain the Committee. We have profited greatly from a debate which has ranged over a wide sphere. But I make the suggestion with all the seriousness at my command. I believe that it could be done. I sometimes think that there is a very real danger in talking airily about advancement and self-government without thinking that there are many colonial territories which are not of themselves economically viable. There are others who, given self-government, would, because of the absence of communications, ports and seaboard, face vital difficulties.

Therefore, while I do not disagree about the overwhelming importance of self-government—were I an African I should regard that as most important of all—sitting in this chamber, I reserve the right to say that economic advance and the preservation of human rights may be equally important in preserving the fundamental needs of humanity in Africa; in preserving Africa as a unit which can make a contribution to the world.

It is all very well, but I do not think that a transfer from a fairly inefficient white Government to a fairly inefficient black Government, of itself, will solve the economic problems or indeed, any of the social problems, however important it is that this should be so. That is why I think that this Amendment has raised an issue of principle of the first import- ance. I do not press the Minister to reply again on a matter of this kind. I appreciate that I have raised rather wide issues, but I have raised them with all sincerity. It may be that in this particular field of thought it would be a good thing if we had the kind of Standing Committee suggested by my right hon. Friend. Were we to have more frequent discussions on colonial affairs, these are issues which would bring new hope, new faith and new courage to several hundreds of millions of people who have been waiting for a very long time to see a little more light.

1.15 p.m.

I do not wish to delay the debate, but I want to say one thing. In the present situation in all the Colonies the Minister will know that the one outstanding problem upon which the success of our national policy will depend is the problem of the colour bar. Indeed, in my view it puts Africa in the centre of a great human drama. We have a tremendous responsibility regarding Africa, where the great problem of the future relationship between white people and black people is being worked out. We know how difficult it is to remove discrimination by legislation. Sometimes a decision can have a purpose not only to enforce a law but to be a gesture, and one sometimes wonders whether it might be possible for us to frame a Bill ourselves. In this respect our example is much more important than our words.

As I have said when I have had opportunities to speak about this matter, any single act of racial discrimination committed in this country reverberates throughout the world. It may be only a minor incident which the people in this country would have to search for in the newspapers, but such an incident, in some town or somewhere in this country, is front-page news in Africa. Two things result from it. It becomes an alibi for the racialists, who say, "Who are you to talk to us in South Africa or anywhere else? Clear your own doorstep first." The second thing is that it creates a good deal of suspicion about our intentions among coloured people all over the world. It may be that in this field such a declaration of the kind referred to would have so many things in it that we should not be able to perform any of them.

I said that.

I agree that my hon. Friend referred to that point, but if we did one thing only which was of importance it might be an advantage.

I hope that the Minister will consider whether at some time this matter might form the subject of a Private Member's Bill. I think that my right hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) brought in a Bill of that kind, but perhaps we might make another attempt. On the whole, I think that we may be proud of our country, and we need not be ashamed of our efforts, though sometimes things happen here which disturb us very much. But by our own acts we can show that racial discrimination is something which we abhor, and something which is an offence to the law as well as to the spirit and morality of any country in the Commonwealth, which is the greatest multi-racial community in the world. We have a marvellous opportunity to show the world that people of different colour, religion and creed can live in dignity and equality with one another.

Whatever happens to this Amendment, I hope that we shall have the opportunity of considering whether we can do something in this country and, by our example, give encouragement to others to do the same.

Before tie Question is put to the Committee, I should like, as the mover of the Amendment, to make a few remarks, the first of which is a general remark, that I think it very likely indeed in the future that today's debate will be regarded as significant and important, not so much for the declarations which have been made by the Minister as for the declarations which have been made from the Opposition Front Bench. I wish to say to my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) how much I welcomed his contribution, both on this and the earlier Amendments, because I think that they can be tremendously important for the future.

The Minister has rejected this Amendment on the grounds that it would be wrong to introduce into the actual terms of a constitution or legislation references to the Declaration of Human Rights. May I remind the right hon. Gentleman that several countries have constitutions which actually include the statement that they will maintain the principles of the Declaration of Human Rights. I have no doubt that such a statement is of real value to the peoples of those territories, because it enables them to appeal to the constitution whenever they feel wronged.

Although I welcome the Minister's statement that in this Constitution the Government will seek to apply the principles of the Declaration of Human Rights, I am sure he will forgive me if I am a little sceptical about it because of my knowledge of what has happened after similar declarations have been made. We have only to look at our Colonial Territories to see the way in which individuals who are standing up for the rights of their peoples are deported without trial, how the Press and public meetings are suppressed, how literature is not allowed to be introduced into those Territories and how people have been kept to a particular town.

In view of all this record which has stretched over Colonial Territory after Colonial Territory, the right hon. Gentleman must forgive us if we are not satisfied by his declaration that the Minister will, whenever these issues arise, seek to apply the Declaration of Human Rights. I say to the right hon. Gentleman that this Parliament ought not to apply in any Colonial Territory any order which it would not dare to apply in this country. We are repeatedly doing just that because of the idea that the colonial peoples have no right to determine these things for themselves and that they are children who must be educated up to our standards, a self-righteous and patronising attitude which has been repudiated by territory after territory as it has moved towards self-government and independence and which has shown a greater ability—as the Gold Coast Government are now doing—to change conditions in those territories than we showed when we were responsible for them. We must thrust aside the whole idea of patronage to the colonial peoples, and the Committee ought to accept the principle that we should never apply to any of these territories infringements of liberty which we know that our own people would never accept for themselves.

In view of the fact that we have been able to ventilate these ideas, I am prepared to withdraw the Amendment. I hope the result will be that in his new office the right hon. Gentleman will endeavour, as far as he possibly can, not to apply in the Colonies actions which we would not tolerate in our own country. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I beg to move, in page 3, line 19, to leave out from "declaration" to the end of line 23 and to add:

"of the Legislative Assembly of the Presidency that a state of emergency exists."

This Amendment has to some extent been covered in the previous discussion. We had some discussion on the suspension of constitutions and some detailed discussion on the suspension of the Constitution of British Guiana. The really important fact, of course, is who decides when a state of emergency arises. Does the Parliament of the country decide or does it not?

In order to take a fairly simply and non-controversial example of the sort of situation which arises, I want to speak quite bluntly. My right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths), with whose almost every remark I find myself in agreement, referred to the number of constitutions granted. Let us say that some have been bogus constitutions. It may well be that they were the maximum measures which in certain circumstances could be accorded. But it is a little tough to describe as a constitution something which can be suspended at Balmoral on a Sunday afternoon without consulting anybody.

I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would regard it as particularly felicitious if, as an example, I went back to the Irish Constitution of 1782, which is almost the same Constitution as that which we are granting to Colonial Territories 150 years afterwards. The right hon. Gentleman would regard it as felicitious because the final abolition and suspension of that Constitution was the cause which now permits him to claim association with a member of another place. The Unionist peerages followed the peerages given to Townsend and others to secure the subservience of an Irish Parliament. Perhaps a happy result is that so brilliant a representative is able to talk about colonial affairs in another place which, on the whole, perhaps, was not the best possible means of securing recognition. Grattan was given his £50,000. He thought that he had secured a victory, but he found that the whole right of veto was there. The Viceroy and the Lord Chancellor were appointed from Britain. Fitzgibbon was the man appointed. The Privy Council existed in Westminster, and it could still advise certain statutes. When Grattan passed the Measures, they passed through the Irish Parliament and came here to be enacted or amended. When they went back, the Irish Government could not amend them, and overall was the veto of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

If we apply this procedure to the question we are now considering, a great deal of importance attaches to who is appointed as Governor in the event of a Caribbean Federation. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will tell us that in dealing with this new great venture and with what my right hon. Friend has very properly referred to as one of the most romantic, courageous and important experiments in federation which we have ever seen, there is no intention of sending some discarded and rejected Tory M.P. who has been bunked up to another place as the Governor. It would be a tragedy if that were done. This is too big an experiment to be tarnished by the soiled and cast-off clothing of past politics.

We must try to select the best man regardless of party failures and personal humiliations, a man who can go there with the entire confidence of the people. I hope that we shall look back on the past and realise that it has sometimes been a sorry past regarding one or two of these aspects, and that when we appoint the new Governor we shall not consider that failure in public office in this House is a qualification for being appointed Governor in charge of a great new federation. I am trying to say as little as I can. It is not associated with any sort of Lobby rumour, private information, or any sort of suggestion. I can only say that if this sort of fantastic and no doubt untrue rumour had the slightest justification, there might be a very considerable resurgence of opinion in both the West Indies and Westminster.

1.30 p.m.

Are we to suspend the constitution without the advice of Parliament? I am glad to see that the hon. Member for Surbiton (Mr. Fisher) has returned. He made some interesting interventions about British Guiana. Does he think that anyone here knows the truth about British Guiana?

Yes.

Does he think that anybody besides himself knows the truth about British Guiana?

Yes.

Then the circle is widening. I have the gravest doubts about the truth, to this day.

I have the gravest doubts whether the hon. Member is in order.

So long as we have only reached the stage of doubts, Sir Charles, perhaps we can continue to refer to the matter until we have resolved those doubts.

I was merely being polite. The hon. Member has got out of order.

I am very grateful to you, Sir Charles. You have been very good, and I would not wish to abuse the generosity which you have shown to the Committee, which has made our debate shorter, extremely useful, and interesting.

I do not want to detain the Commitee for more than a few minutes upon the question of the suspension of the constitution. I hope that the Minister of State will consider for a moment what has happened in the last 12 or 18 months in regard to British Guiana; British Honduras; Guatemala, and Argentina. I wonder whether he is satisfied with events in those places. If he investigates them he will find a curious chain of circumstance. It is what those of my hon. Friends or hon. Members opposite, when they wish to abrogate a principle, call "taking a realistic view of the situation."

In British Guiana there was the question of the Aluminium Corporation; in Guatemala it was the United Fruit Corporation, and in British Honduras it was another big corporation with its offices abroad. In Argentina it was our old friend the Standard Oil Company making a come-back in international affairs. In almost every case, what we used to call a sine qua non if not a causa causans, was some great company, interested in cheap labour. The Standard Oil Company sought to establish something in the nature of a Panama Republic in the Argentine, perfectly reasonable from its own point of view.

That is why we want advice from people on the spot, who know the facts. I had the very greatest respect for the former Secretary of State for the Colonies who is now a noble Viscount in another place—Lord Chandos. I always had a very great respect for his integrity, courage and sincerity. I disagreed with my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway) about that—and I very rarely disagree with him upon estimates of the respective merits of the holders of the office. But I am not sure that even Lord Chandos, at 2.15 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon at Balmoral, was necessarily in a position to be able to estimate and evaluate all the circumstances of a development in a Colony merely upon the strength of a telegram from the Governor. However good the Governor—and everybody respects the Governor of the Leeward Islands—it is really a matter for the legislature.

I do not know whether I was insulting or honouring the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) when I referred to him as "the hon. and learned Member." He has always impressed me as being a very learned person. I am sorry that I made that mistake. As the hon. Member indicated, we have already touched upon the main points which are at issue in the Amendment. That being so, I hope the Committee will forgive me if I do not answer the hon. Gentleman in too great detail. If I did I should merely be repeating some of the arguments which the Committee has already heard.

The effect of the Amendment would be that before a state of emergency could be declared in any presidency the legislative assembly would have to be called together in order to declare it. I must again refer to what I said about an emergency. Emergencies can arise when legislative assemblies are not sitting—when they are prorogued or dissolved—and events such as hurricanes move with immense speed. It may be that the hon. Member still fails to appreciate the element of emergency and crisis with which emergency legislation is designed to cope. I think it is because of these considerations that in all Colonial Territories—so far as I know—the power to declare an emergency is vested in the executive government and not the legislative chamber. The provisions of the Bill merely follow what is common form.

As to the reasons why we need the powers, I went into them at some length earlier on. I end by saying that Her Majesty's Government think it essential that the Governor of the Leewards, like the great majority of other Governors, ought to have these powers, now that we are taking the responsibility of ending the Federation, setting up these new Colonies and establishing Ministerial systems in the two largest of them.

Hon. Members opposite may not agree, but the Government feel that it is only right that at the same time as we do these things we should take the responsibility of providing the Governor with the necessary powers to deal with any sort of emergency which may suddenly arise. I am afraid I have to say "No once again to the hon. Member, and ask the Committee to reject the Amendment.

I do not regard that explanation as satisfactory—but at least it is as satisfactory as I could have hoped from the Front Bench opposite in the circumstances. Therefore, in view of the hour and the day, and the fact that we have made our points clearly understandable, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 4 to 7 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule agreed to.

Bill reported, without Amendment; read the Third time and passed, without Amendment.

Lady Mabel College (Principal)

Motion made, and Question proposed. That this House do now adjourn.— [ Mr. Barber.]

1.38 p.m.

I welcome the opportunity of introducing a subject which is not only a constituency problem, but has been causing grave anxiety and concern to many people who are interested in education and the relationships between members of local education authorities, local governors, and schools and colleges. The college to which I wish to refer was opened in January, 1950. It is the Lady Mabel College for Physical Education, at Wentworth Woodhouse, in Yorkshire. A Miss Nancy Moller was appointed principal of that college.

If we are to retain the good relations and good government which have existed in education the Minister of Education—who, I am sorry to say, is not here—must consider the position once again and institute an inquiry. I realise that this may be a late hour to ask for that sort of thing, as it will be a physical impossibility to get Miss Nancy Moller to return to be the principal of that college. I am certain that I am voicing her views when I say even if an inquiry were held she would not go back to be principal of the Lady Mabel College under the governors who have been conducting its affairs.

Miss Moller was appointed as first principal when the college was opened in January, 1950, and never has there been one moment of anxiety or complaint. She carried out her duties efficiently and well, and until she resigned in June last year she did so with undoubted ability, sincerity and efficiency. That was the opinion of everybody concerned, from the most humble student to the most distinguished county councillors at Wakefield.

The facts about this lady's work and abilities resulted in her being besought by the Director of Education of the West Riding County Council to become the principal of the college. Let me quote a paragraph from the letter sent by the Director of Education to Miss Nancy Moller, on 21st June:

"When I besought you to apply for the Principalship, and I think that the word besought' fairly describes what happened, I believed that you were just the person needed to establish the new College on sound lines. I think I have been proved right, and I am deeply grateful for all that you have done."

He went on to say:

"I do not know what you propose to do, but whatever it is, if I can be of any help, I hope you will not hesitate to call on me"

In view of that letter there must have been something definitely wrong. Here is a woman who has had for a long period the confidence of everybody concerned, and then all this comes along. The Minister himself will agree that the competence of this lady at this institution has never been in question. I have a feeling that the right hon. Gentleman has in mind something similar to what the county council has. I hope that that is not so and I hope that before this Adjournment is ended he will be convinced otherwise.

I emphatically deny that Miss Moller knew anything about the letters that were sent to Members of Parliament of all shades of opinion. It will be accepted that for many years there never has been, about the principal of a school or college, so much public indignation as has been displayed from pupils, parents and various public people, not only within the village but throughout this country. That position condemns some of the actions which have led up to it. I tell the right hon. Gentleman that these are spontaneous expressions of opinion and are not produced by any organised effort whatsoever. I deplore the attitude of the West Riding County Council in accepting a narrow-minded view of this aspect of the matter.

Letters have been written. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that the agitation is not by any organised effort. It is true that a meeting was held in the junior common room. The principal of a college should know what takes place and should see the agenda at junior common room meetings. The matron saw the agenda, but there was nothing on it about the business that ultimately took place, and which expressed the indignation of the pupils in the suggestion that their parents should circularise Members of Parliament. Please believe me that this lady was entirely ignorant of what took place and was not aware of anything about it. In my firm conviction she has acted with the utmost possible decorum.

I would recount, very briefly, some of the events that led up to the resignation of Miss Moller. It was not a spontaneous outburst by her, because there was a good spirit in the relationship that existed there for the welfare and well-being of the school. The previous remarks of the right hon. Gentleman were in relation to the well-being of the college. Although we cannot get Miss Moller back let us make inquiries to see what happened to lead up to the unfortunate events that took place.

These were many and various. The ultimate conclusion is that there was undue interference with the provision of fish, fruit, vegetables, etc. I appreciate that spending departments must have regard to estimates and act as nearly as possible within them. One accepts also that one is entitled to accept the lowest tender, other things being equal, although anyone with public experience knows that it is very often most unwise to accept the lowest tender. In this case, the governors of the school recommended the proposals of the principal and of the domestic bursar, but the county council turned them down. The governors accepted the county council's decision.

Was that fair to the two ladies who had been conducting the affairs of the school for so long and so well? Miss Moller proved conclusively that she was getting unsatisfactory supplies and deliveries, that the amount of waste was colossal. and that it was more economical to accept a tender slightly higher than the lowest. I am sure that the Minister will have been given many figures by the county council. I, too, have been given some figures, but my experience is that figures can mean what they are made to mean.

The important thing here is the broad principle. I am sure that this dispute arose primarily over foodstuffs, and that, when Miss Moller and the domestic bursar could no longer tolerate what was going on Miss Moller handed in her resignation. It is very significant that there were four domestic bursars in as many years. That fact alone demonstrates that there was something not quite right. It is perfectly true that the present bursar has been there since September, 1954, but she also intends to leave as soon as she can get another post.

One of the most disgraceful incidents in the whole business was the refusal of the governors to allow the domestic bursar to state her case about the unsatisfactory kind, and delivery, of vegetables and fruit and the large volume of waste. That refusal was most discourteous; it was in bad taste and bad judgment. Furthermore, that sort of undue interference in such matters is a challenge to the wisdom and judgment of the principal, and Miss Moller, knowing that she had a most satisfactory domestic bursar, could hardly tolerate such a situation. To any woman of moral courage and character it would be tantamount—and in Miss Moller's view was tantamount—to the governors saying they had no confidence in her.

I do not accept as a fact that the governors lacked confidence in this lady. I am satisfied that, by and large, the governors had the utmost confidence in Miss Moller, but that petty bureaucracy in County Hall, Wakefield, prevented the college governors from doing what, in the opinion of Miss Moller and the domestic bursar, was in the best interests of the college and its staff. I suggest that the governors were over-ridden by the West Riding County Council. That is not a good thing. I know that there have to be over-ruling bodies, but very often the West Riding County Council, like Whitehall, is far too remote from many local matters. People on the spot must know better than those living miles away.

I do not think that I have expressed my views too extravagantly. We want to retain good relationships with the local authorities. Our local government system is not beyond reproach but, for administrative morality, dignity and sincerity it cannot be matched anywhere in the world. I want to retain the loyalty that is given to the public, but this is a case where people who were carrying out their duties most efficiently have been over-ruled by county bureaucrats.

I ask the Minister to consider the welfare and well-being of this college. We cannot get this lady back, but if there is or has been something wrong let us put it right. I recommend the Minister to look at the magazine which I hold in my hand. It contains clear evidence of the confidence Miss Moller enjoys on all sides. I do not hesitate for one moment to suggest that there is much more in this case than the question of vegetables—an important principle is involved.

I know that it is difficult for a Minister to revoke something done by a junior, and the right hon. Gentleman will probably argue that he must not interfere in such a matter. I would remind him that his predecessor interfered with Socialist authorities in the matter of comprehensive schools. If it was logical for his predecessor to do that then it is quite within the bounds of practicability for the right hon. Gentleman to look into this affair once more.

1.58 p.m.

I intervene in the debate because I think that here there is involved a general principle of some importance. Important as the case of the Lady Mabel College is in itself—as my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. D. Griffiths) has amply demonstrated—there are wider aspects. The general tenor of the Minister's replies to earlier Questions about this was that he did not think an inquiry would be desirable, and that he could not interfere between the employers—the local authority—and the former principal of the college.

I know quite well that Ministers of Education are reluctant—and, on the whole, rightly reluctant—to interfere with the autonomy of local education authorities, but I think that the right hon. Gentleman will agree with me that the Education Act places on him the responsibility for directing the country's educational system, of which the training of teachers is an important part. In this the central and the local authorities are partners. One of the requirements of the Education Act is that local authorities shall appoint boards of governors for the schools, colleges and other institutions within their jurisdiction. That is an important statutory duty and I believe this to be its purpose.

County councillors cannot possess adequate local knowledge, and particular knowledge, of all the schools and colleges for which the county council is responsible. The device of appointing boards of governors enables those local authorities to call in the help of people who, though not members of the council, can devote special time and care to the particular institution of which they are appointed governors. When a local authority sees its appointment of governors in that light most valuable work is done. Persons who are not members of local authorities are brought in to give valuable help in running the public services.

But all too often local authorities interpret their duties of appointing governors far too narrowly, and the board of governors is often, as is the case in this instance, merely a sub-committee of the local education authority. The result very often is that the so-called governors have not a sufficiently intimate knowledge of the institution that they are supposed to be running.

Some time ago I put to the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor the question whether she would inquire into the use made by local education authorities of the power and duty of appointing governors. She took the view—I think mistakenly—that that would be an interference with the rights of local authorities. But surely that is not so. It is the duty of local authorities to appoint governing bodies, and the implication of that is that it is their duty to see that the relationship between the local authority, the governing body and the staff of the school or college runs smoothly and pleasantly. If there are reasons to suppose that this part of the Act is not working well, surely it is a matter for the Minister to concern himself with.

Part of the importance of this case of Lady Mabel College is that it illustrates what can happen when relationships between the local authority, the governing body and the staff of the college are not satisfactory. As my hon. Friend said, we pride ourselves on the working of local democracy in this country, but if local democracy is to work well, one thing that members of local authorities must understand is that when they appoint people to responsible positions, to be head teachers or principals of colleges, having appointed them they must be prepared to give them confidence, trust and responsibility. If they create a situation in which those people cannot do their work without constant interference and reference back over details to a more distant body, what they do is to bring the whole principle of local democracy into disrepute, and that again is a matter in which the Minister ought in general to interest himself.

I want to refer now to the particular incidents that were connected with Miss Moller's resignation, because that exemplifies this principle of a local authority not understanding properly what ought to be the relationship between itself and the people whom it appoints to responsible positions. It was clear that Miss Moller, as principal of the college, was rightly concerned over the fact that the quality of the food supplied to the college was not satisfactory. There had been several changes of domestic bursar, and the lady most recently appointed to that post had, with Miss Moller's support and encouragement, set to work to deal with this problem of unsatisfactory food supplied to the college.

That involved the changing of a number of contracts, and the interesting thing is that, as a result of this activity of the principal and the domestic bursar, not only was the quality of food in the college improved but the cost of supplying it went down, and the cost was kept within the estimate which the local authority had required. That was something that had not happened in previous years. The administration under this domestic bursar was both better in quality and more economical and ought to have been, therefore, more gratifying to the local authority.

As time went on, however, it appeared that the local authority was not satisfied with the arrangements made about contracts, that further they would not sanction some further changes of contract which Miss Moller and the domestic bursar required, that when complaints were made by Miss Moller with regard to the contractors who had the contracts at the time those complaints were dealt with in a most dilatory manner. That is partly the result of not having a really effective governing body with whom the principal can be in close contact. It is the result of the local authority restricting its conception of a governing body to merely a sub-committee consisting of members of the council.

This kind of irritation, of an attempt at control at a distance by people who have not adequate knowledge of the real circumstances, went on until an intolerable situation was created. I would instance one episode. At a certain stage in this long argument about contracts, the local authority announced their intention to over-ride the wishes of Miss Moller and the domestic bursar on a particular matter, and they refused even to hear any representations from the domestic bursar before making their decision. That is not the way in which local democracy is supposed to work. They appointed this principal and this domestic bursar. They ought to have regarded them—I presume they did—as people thoroughly competent to manage the college. Surely, before reaching a decision on a matter which was very much within the domestic bursar's province, they might at least have been prepared to hear what she had to say.

The general point I wish to make is that when we have an instance which shows local democracy to be working so badly, it is a matter in which the Minister ought to interest himself, and that really is all we are asking him to do at this stage. We know that all of the mischief which has been done cannot be undone. Nobody suggests that the right hon, Gentleman is to blame for it, but we do suggest that the events indicate a state of affairs into which the Minister ought to inquire so that they shall not be repeated in other localities through the failure of local authorities to understand how the machinery of local democracy ought to work.

I wish to make two other points. It is interesting to notice that when Miss Moller had resigned, she was at first, very surprisingly, refused benefit by the Ministry of Labour on the ground that she had resigned without proper cause. It is gratifying to know that that decision was set aside on appeal, and it was decided quite categorically that it would be entirely incorrect to say that Miss Moller had resigned without proper cause.

This matter first came to my attention some time ago because constituents of mine who had daughters at this college wrote to me in some concern about the matter. I believe that they had been urged to do so by their daughters. My hon. Friend referred to this matter, and I should like to amplify what he said. Apparently, what happened was that the students at the college, who had the greatest admiration for Miss Moller—nobody disputes that, and plenty of evidence can be supplied for it—were, naturally, very indignant at the way she had been treated and put in a position where it was almost impossible for her to continue in her work. They therefore met together and decided that they would take such action as would show their support and sympathy for her, and they agreed to urge their parents to write to their Members of Parliament about the matter.

I understand that the entirely improper and unworthy suggestion has been made that Miss Moller put the students up to this. Nobody who knows anything about student bodies will swallow that for a moment. A number of us have been members of student bodies. We are well aware of the natural generosity and indignation of which young people are capable. They came together and decided. One may argue whether their judgment was right, but one cannot question the generosity or spirit that inspired them. The fact that they took that action is again indicative of the respect and affection which Miss Moller acquired during her five years' principalship of this college.

The Minister knows how difficult it is to get enough really competent people into all branches of the teaching profession, whether into schools or training colleges. Here we have lost the services of a very able and respected principal. We are likely to lose the services of a very able and competent domestic bursar. It has happened because of a failure of the working of the local democracy which is inherent in the Education Act, for the good working of which the Minister is responsible.

We are not asking him now to make a final pronouncement on the merits of this matter. What we are suggesting to him is that what has happened is sufficiently disquieting to justify his holding an inquiry and informing himself fully of the facts. I hope that he will also consider this as part of the general question of the proper appointment of governors and the proper operation of those parts of the Education Act which deal with the relationship between local education authorities, governing bodies and the people whom they appoint to responsible posts.

2.11 p.m.

I think we are all agreed that the Lady Mabel College is a very valuable experiment. It is the first college where we had a three-year course on physical education started for that purpose and where the students are taught other things—and very rightly, too—besides their own specialised subject; and it is of great importance, not only to the West Riding, but to the educational system as a whole, that this college should be a success.

I agree with what was said by both the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. D. Griffiths) and the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) about Miss Moller's good work in starting it off and building it up. There is no doubt that it had a good start. But of course the case which we are discussing is one of those regrettable incidents which occur from time to time where the employer and the employee fall out and part company because they do not see eye to eye. I could find nothing improper and nothing discreditable in the record, which I looked at very carefully. I am sorry that Miss Moller tendered her resignation and that what might have been a long and fruitful period as principal had to stop; but it is the local authority who is the employer of the principal of the college and the Minister's duty is to leave the local authority to get on with that job, unless he is made aware of circumstances which lead him to think that something improper has occurred. I do not think that can be alleged in this case.

This was by no means the first instance of friction. Indeed, Miss Moller said so in her letter of resignation to the chief education officer of the county council. Within the Act which governs local authority contracts, there is no doubt at all that the governors had full right in the stand which they took on the question of accepting tenders other than the lowest. The relevant words of the West Riding's standing orders, which derive from the Act, are

"a tender other than the lowest shall not be accepted until the committee or subcommittee concerned have considered the written report of the appropriate officer or other person."

For the purpose of this standing order the Governors are considered as a subcommittee.

Well, there it is; they looked on their duty as one which concerns public money and they found that they did not see eye to eye with Miss Moller on the most advantageous way of running the feeding arrangements of the college. I cannot say that I have any judgment on who was right from the point of view of the feeding of the students, but I must say that one has the feeling that the subcommittee of the local education authority might be expected to take a keen interest in the domestic running of the college. After all, this is not a small bureaucracy the governors are a sub-committee of the authority itself and, not just for the last year but for several years, have, I understand, taken a particular interest in the financial running of the college.

That, of course, has a compensating advantage for the principal in that, whatever else one may say about sub-committees of local education authorities being the governors of schools, it generally results in their leaving great freedom on the academic side to the principal to work out the organisation of the studies. I think no one would say that these governors have done other than give Miss Moller a very free hand in organising what is, after all, her chief duty of being a head of a college—namely, the studies and curriculum.

I very much regret that this incident has happened, but since Miss Moller herself tendered her resignation to her employer, and since I find nothing in the record which is improper or discreditable—indeed, the hon. Member for Rother Valley said it was a question of discourtesy, bad taste and bad judgment on the part of the governors—I see no sufficient reason for an inquiry into the circumstances of Miss Moller's resignation.

I appreciate that the Minister is saying that there is nothing in the record to indicate that he should have an inquiry conducted. Our view is that it is not a matter of what is there but of what ought to have been there.

The hon. Member is entitled to hold his view, but, as Minister, I have to consider the proper relationship between my office and the local authority. The local authority is the employer. One of the local authority's servants resigns and the resignation is accepted. For me to inquire into that requires some evidence that something wrong of a fairly substantial nature took place. I see nothing. All I have is a record of a number of incidents where the employer took one view and the employee took another. People do differ quite often, and it is not uncommon that employers and employees part company because they do not see eye to eye on how to run the job in question. That appears to me to be the case here.

The hon. Member for Fulham has raised the question of the appointment of governors to institutions such as training colleges for further education. That is a very important subject and one to which I am now giving some attention. The regulations were amended last year by the Training of Teachers Grant Regulations, 1955. The old Regulation No. 6 has been amended to include a statement, in the new Regulation No. 5, that every college shall have a suitably constituted governing body. That is a matter of great importance; and it will also be of very great importance in the technical college world, where it is essential that we should have governing bodies drawing on local interest which can be of use to the principal in bridging what he is trying to do and the people in the area whom he is trying to serve. The same is true of the training colleges. I am in favour of having outside members. There are two on the governing body of the Lady Mabel College, one who is from the Sheffield Institute of Education and the other the chairman of the divisional executive. So it is not quite true to say that the governors are 100 per cent. a sub-committee of the L.E.A.

I hope that perhaps this debate may have served the purpose of drawing attention to the need to widen the composition of the governing bodies of training colleges and other institutions. I think there are a lot of men and women ready to come forward to give public service in this field. I have never thought we should have any difficulty in getting people of wide experience to serve on the bodies of these colleges. Whether or not that today local education authorities are sufficiently interested in this matter to recruit these people, I cannot say, but it is a question into which we shall have to look.

On the point of Miss Moller's resignation, I cannot see any grounds for the Minister interfering where the employee and the employer have fallen out on what really is a question of the handling of the business of the college.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-one minutes past Two o'clock.

Volume 548: debated on Friday 27 January 1956

House Of Commons

Prayers

Orders Of The Day

Leeward Islands Bill Lords

Clause 1—(Constitution As Separate Colonies Of Leeward Islands Presidencies)

Clause 3—(Power To Make Emergency Laws For The New Colonies)

Lady Mabel College (Principal)