Mr Malcolm McCorquodale: On a point of order. I wonder if the House is aware that Mr. Deputy-Speaker has just been elected the Captain of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club. I am sure we would wish to join in congratulating him on this honour, because we are very pleased that it has been conferred upon him.
Mr Malcolm McCorquodale: May I ask the hon. Gentleman which room he finds so squalid?
Mr Malcolm McCorquodale: I do not think there is any hon. Member on either side of the House who could in any way complain of the tone of either of the speeches which we have heard. They were both refreshing in their non-party approach to the matter and in the touches of humour and sincerity with which the hon. Members pleaded their cause. The hon. Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies) deserves great credit for having...
Mr Malcolm McCorquodale: Since I have been privileged to be a Member of the House, I can remember such Acts as the Food and Drugs Act, 1934, and the Factories Act, 1937, about which the hon. Member for Leek spoke. The Factories Act, 1937, was a tremendous Measure containing 200 Clauses. The present Home Secretary was the Chairman of the Committee upstairs in which we dealt with about 1,500 Amendments, although it...
Mr Malcolm McCorquodale: I would point out to the hon. Gentleman that if we are going to compare these Bills, we are going to get into difficulties. He knows very well that Bills about birds and horses are minor Measures which can go through this House in a week or two. This is a major Measure, requiring perhaps three or four months' work, with a matter of hundreds of Amendments, and all the rest of it. It is quite a...
Mr Malcolm McCorquodale: That may well be true, but I want something provided that can come before the House and be amended. Statutory Instruments have to be passed en bloc or the Government falls. I want something which will give the House of Commons, and not only the Government, control, and something which is capable of being amended. I am sure that is the type of Bill which will give satisfaction to the great...
Mr Malcolm McCorquodale: Yes; we amended the Factories Acts, I quite agree, but whether this Bill, when it goes upstairs, can be so arranged as to come within the type of legislation illustrated by the Factories Acts, in which the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith) and I are very much interested. I do not know.
Mr Malcolm McCorquodale: I do not think I had better answer that as I am trying to keep the debate on non-party lines. I am surprised at the interruption of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South because I remember many of the things he said in that Committee, where he was a great help. What can we do? It is up to the House of Commons, and I want to make some suggestions. All of us in this House have sympathy...
Mr Malcolm McCorquodale: If the hon. Member will read the Gowers Report he will see that the Committee went on the basis that its proposals were not immediately practicable in the conditions obtaining after the war. That must be recognised by all considering these matters.
Mr Malcolm McCorquodale: "Nothing has been done," says the hon. Member. I do not know whether anything was done in the years when the Labour Party was in power, but since the Conservative Government came in, as I have attempted to enumerate, a great many things have been done. I do not want to introduce party points.
Mr Malcolm McCorquodale: I think we want the minimum of regulation and the maximum of legislation in these matters. I have not great sympathy with the methods of this Bill, but I think we all have sympathy with its intentions. Whether it can be so amended in Committee as to make it practicable, I could not say. I doubt it at present, in spite of the experience over the Baking Industry (Hours of Work) Bill which I...
Mr Malcolm McCorquodale: I want to add my plea to that of the hon. Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Viant). It was 25 years ago that I fought an election in that area, but I can well remember that portion of the constituency, which is occupied largely by the best type of small owner-occupiers, and I can well understand the distress that has been caused. It seems to me that there is a real gap in our national financial...
Mr Malcolm McCorquodale: The right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) has shown a partial Christmas spirit, a Christmas spirit towards my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of Labour and National Service, but not a general Christmas spirit towards his colleagues. I am surprised at that. I am sure that the Minister is wise in bringing the Measure forward. It is a very small Bill, which has certain com-...
Mr Malcolm McCorquodale: I do not agree with the deductions of the right hon. Gentleman. What I want to complain about is that he went so far as to cast doubt—and serious doubt, too—on the accuracy and the honesty of the medical grading and arrangements. I took down his exact words, and he said, "I wonder if everything is all right?" That is a very serious charge. That expresses a doubt, which he did not go on to...
Mr Malcolm McCorquodale: It is not fair in this House to go into particular cases of people who are medically unfit, because it might react against their future careers. Therefore, I do not propose to pursue that subject. I happen to know something about it personally, and if the hon. Gentleman likes to speak to me afterwards I shall tell him about it. My right hon. and learned Friend has said that this person is...
Mr Malcolm McCorquodale: asked the Minister of Labour to make a statement as to his plans for the development of industrial health services.
Mr Malcolm McCorquodale: While thanking my right hon. and learned Friend for his statement, which we all welcome, may I ask him whether his plans have the support not only of both sides of industry but of the medical profession as well and whether he will use his best endeavours with the Leader of the House to see that we have an opportunity in due course properly to debate these matters?
Mr Malcolm McCorquodale: In order to get the matter quite clear, may I ask the Minister whether I should be right in assuming that the stevedores union could have gone back to work at any time, maintaining their ban on overtime, and leaving the whole question of overtime to be discussed by the court of inquiry?
Mr Malcolm McCorquodale: We have had an interesting debate and we have heard some forthright speeches. I am one of those, even after a long time in this House, who never quite know how Select Committees are selected. Sometimes we see the most docile of Members on Select Committees and at other times we see the most forthright of Members put upon other Committees. But I suggest to the House that they look at the names...
Mr Malcolm McCorquodale: I do not quarrel with what the hon. Gentleman says, but I do not believe that those are questions for the Library Committee to decide. They are too big for the Library Committee, and it is not fair to ask the Library Committee to handle them. The job of the Library Committee is to carry out the instructions of the House.