Debate on the Address

Part of Orders of the Day — Queen's Speech – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 3 November 1959.

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Photo of Mr R.A. Butler Mr R.A. Butler , Saffron Walden 12:00, 3 November 1959

I am sure that the first thing the House will wish me to do before I mention the maiden speeches is to say with what pleasure we listened to the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan). If there is one matter upon which we can all be agreed as the result of the General Election, it is that by retaining the right hon. Gentleman in opposition we keep him free to make speeches of a high Parliamentary quality which he would be quite unable to make from the Government Front Bench. If I may look back on a very distinguished predecessor of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, Ernie Bevin, one of our great patriots and one of our great Englishmen, he once said to me after a few years at the Foreign Office, "Them tours d'horizon I cannot stand". If the right hon. Gentleman was obliged to make the tour d'horizon of a Foreign Secretary, the House of Commons would be a poorer and a cheaper place.

I shall be referring again to the right hon. Gentleman's speech, but before I do so I should like to refer to some of the maiden speakers. I am afraid that on this occasion I am unable in the tradition of the Leader of the House to refer to all of them, because there are so many. I should like just to refer to the speech of the hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. C. Johnson), whom we knew in our corridors before, who spoke from the other side and made a most graceful tribute to his predecessor, which I am sure we would all wish to endorse. I should also like to wish him well now that he is a real Member of Parliament. As to his reference to accommodation, which was referred to also by the right hon. Gentleman, by all means let us get together. There is a great shortage of accommodation, and sometimes that shortage of accommodation is spoken of in terms of a restriction on the accommodation provided for yourself. It is therefore a very controversial matter which, I think, we should look at together in the coming Parliament.

I should like to refer to the hon. Lady the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart), who made a speech in which she referred not only to the older parts of her constituency but also to the new town of Kilbride. I should also like to mention with what regret we notice that her opponent at the General Election is not now on our benches. We hope that at an early date he will find an opportunity of returning to us. At any rate, the hon. Lady has the power of speaking freshly and without notes. We hope that she will take part in our debates again.

The hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. A. Brown) referred to the Spurs, and, I think, thereby gained his own spurs. I hope we shall hear him again.

I should like to refer to the hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. Gardner), who spoke in moving the Address on our side, but I am afraid that I cannot refer to all the other many maiden speakers who contributed to the debates on this occasion.

However, there was one speech made from our side of the House by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Mr. Hirst). I refer to it in the traditional manner, because he has an Amendment on the Order Paper. The abuse to which my hon. Friend refers was put to me and to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government before the election and since. My hon. Friend made a speech today on the subject. We have taken note of it. While it is difficult to find an immediate solution, we are glad that he took part in the debate, and we have registered what he has to say.

The right hon. Gentleman referred to this debate as being a debate on the state of the nation. This was certainly the position in the last century, and the first point I make is that on this occasion the state of the nation is pretty good. If we had listened, as many of us did, to the account given by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I think we should have been satisfied that the country was right in preferring a continuation of the policy of free enterprise, of increased savings, of more competitive exports, of expanding production, and greater hope for us all, on the understanding—I accept the view of the two right hon. Gentlemen—that we should accept our victory in a proper spirit of humility, take advantage of the occasion to serve our country, watch all tendencies towards inflation, and deal with the situation in the interests of all classes.

At the beginning of this Parliament, I must, as Leader of the House, take up some of the points raised by the two right hon. Gentlemen. We naturally desire the maximum freedom of opportunity for debate. My right hon. Friend the Patronage Secretary and I have already noticed a certain freedom of expression amongst hon. Members, which does not frighten us, and of which we hope to take full advantage. We entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the House of Commons should be the centre of the country's important matters; that there is a gap between us and the public, and that there is a fault in public relations, of which we are well aware. Provided right hon. and hon. Members will respond occasionally to the bridle, if not necessarily to the whip—which is not a very good Parliamentary instrument—we will be able to occupy this Parliament by giving it a freedom of expression that perhaps was not present, at any rate in the last months of the last Parliament.

I would say this to all hon. Members in relation to private Members' time. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the last Select Committee on Procedure. It is quite true that that was at the end of the last Parliament, and I should like to invite right hon. and hon. Members to express their opinion in the next few weeks with a view to a proper assessment being made of the future of procedure before the time comes for laying any Motions which, as I undertook to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ebbw Vale, should be after the Christmas Recess. If hon. Members will accept that invitation, we may be able to improve the procedure of the House. We can only go bit by bit. It is a great mistake in Parliament to think that one can make a great revolution, but one can go bit by bit, and if hon. Members will get in touch we shall be able to discover their opinions.

The right hon. Gentleman referred to the revolutionary suggestion, which has often occurred to us before, that Parliament might be televised. I noticed that the right hon. Gentleman's right hon. Friend was not consulted. The right hon. Gentleman very wisely said that this might involve a completely new channel. That is a fact that we must face, because one of the great problems that has always interested us in considering the televising of Parliament is the problem of who is to edit the business. If there is a completely independent channel to be turned on and off the public can do as they wish, but whether an independent channel is physically possible, I do not know. There are great physical difficulties in this proposal. It will certainly be looked at in the light of what the right hon. Gentleman desires, but there are great physical difficulties, and it will be necessary to get voices from all sides of the House before we come to any conclusion—