Clause I. — (Power of Secretary of State to make Orders.)

Part of Orders of the Day — Prevention of Violence (Temporary Provisions) Bill. – in the House of Commons at on 26 July 1939.

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Photo of Mr Richard Acland Mr Richard Acland , Barnstaple

There is one part of our Amendment with which the right hon. Gentleman has not really dealt. I am not going to insist on the exact words of our Amendment, but I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider the principle involved and see whether there is not some way in which it might be incorporated in his own Amendment. The right hon. Gentlemen have led the Committee to assume that nobody is to be dealt with under this Bill unless he is, in fact, taking part in a conspiracy. I would like them to face fairly and squarely the fact that some people will be dealt with under this Bill who are entirely innocent. [Hon. Members: "How?"] Because it is the essence of the right hon. Gentleman's case that the police cannot deal with this matter if they are asked to comply with the very high standards of proof which are required in our criminal courts—standards of proof which are so high that we can say that out of a thousand people who are convicted of high crimes probably not one was innocent the whole time. Therefore, the Ministers are asking the Committee to allow action to be taken against individuals on a lower standard of proof. In the case of high crime such as burglary, the country is prepared to allow a number of guilty burglars to be acquitted rather than run the risk of one innocent person being convicted. Now we are asked, in view of the great danger to life and property involved in the present conspiracy, that we shall slide down to a lower standard of proof and that we shall not run the risk of even a few of these conspirators being at large.

By adopting a lower standard of proof, surely we are doing something which makes it almost certain that although in each single case the Home Secretary may say "The suspicion is good enough for me," yet in the course of action taken under the Bill a number—the number may be small—of wholly innocent people will be tampered with. The right hon. Gentlemen opposite have an extraordinary confidence in their own judgment if they can be quite certain that with a lower standard of proof it will not be the case that a man who is wholly innocent will be suspected by the police. What will be the position of an Irishman who has not been living here for the full 20 years but has been living an ordinary, decent life, and he suddenly receives notice of an expulsion order which has been made against him? He will have to take advantage of the Amendment which the Minister has put before us. What can he do if he has no more knowledge than that the order has been made against him? The only thing he can do is to write on a piece of paper and send it to the Home Secretary saying that he is entirely innocent. He can do nothing else. Surely, in order that he may have a chance of submitting his case to the Home Secretary he must have more information than that.

There is nothing in the Bill which requires anybody to tell him whether he is accused of preparing an act of violence, instigating an act of violence or harbouring a suspected person. Without revealing any source of evidence, it ought to be possible to give the man some information as to what he is supposed to have done, so that he may be able to state his case to the Home Secretary. If he is given no information, he can merely say: "I am completely innocent of any of the acts charged against me," but in nine cases out of ten the Home Secretary will say that that is frivolous. I submit, therefore, that there ought to be one further stage, so that the person on whom such a notice is served may ask for an amplification of the reasons for which the notice has been served upon him, and after receiving them he may be able to deal with them in writing to the Home Secretary. If that is not done, you are not giving the man a chance. In the case of an entirely innocent man who I submit will, through inadvertence, be charged—and I submit that innocent men will be charged in order that you may make certain that you are charging the guilty—you will be aggravating the bitterness felt already, if such a man is not given a better chance of dealing with the charge that it made against him. He ought to be given such information that he can send to the Home Secretary an answer which will be coherent and which the Home Secretary will not be able to dismiss by merely saying that it is frivolous. I would urge the right hon. Gentleman to adopt some of the essence of part of our Amendment.