Orders of the Day — Parliament Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 11 November 1947.

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Photo of Mr Stanley Awbery Mr Stanley Awbery , Bristol Central 12:00, 11 November 1947

The Leader of the Opposition came down to the House this afternoon and made a speech with which he created heat, interest and enthusiasm. It is apparent that during the last two hours those three have entirely vanished from the Benches opposite. I have noticed that the number of hon. Members there has been five or six for the last two hours. We are discussing a rather important subject, yet the number present has been very small.

I was interested in the argument put up by Members representing the Liberal Party. One of my earliest recollections of the political movement was the cry, the slogan, "End or Mend the House of Lords." They have told us today that because we are not prepared to bring in a Bill fundamentally to reorganise the House of Lords they are not prepared to support us. If they cannot get it all, they will not take a bit, so they are going to vote against the Government on this important Bill, which they initiated in 1911. I listened also with a great deal of interest to the speech made by the Member for the Opposition. [HON. MEMBERS: "Who is that?"] The champion—[HON. MEMBERS: "Which one?"]. The Leader of the Opposition, the one who championed the Parliament Act and the cry in 1911 of "End or Mend the House of Lords." I will make a quotation in a moment from one of his speeches.

As I listened to his speech I thought I had heard that voice before. [Laughter.] Wait a moment. We heard him as Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party. We heard him in 1926, leading against the general strike. We heard him when he was outlawed by the Tory Party in this House. We heard him as Leader of the Opposition, and we have heard him as a magnificent leader of this country during the war. His speech today was neither for nor against the Bill. It was entirely a propaganda speech intended for the country and not for or against the Bill. It was the usual criticism of a Labour Government. There was not a word about the nation's difficulties and the great task that lies before us of trying to get out of them. He made statements which were as inaccurate as they were irrelevant regarding unemployment.

I want to say one word on this question in order that the figures may be put right. The average unemployment in this country between 1919 and 1928 was 1,250,000. In June, 1921, two years after the last war—we are now in a similar period, two years after the recent war there were 2,500,000 unemployed workers, which represented 22 per cent. of the insured workers. That was two years before the first Labour Government came into office.