Orders of the Day — Parliament Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 31 October 1949.

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Photo of Mr Alan Lennox-Boyd Mr Alan Lennox-Boyd , Mid Bedfordshire 12:00, 31 October 1949

We are now coming to the end of a very long Debate which has occupied the time of both Houses of Parliament during the last two years. This is a Bill of considerable importance, and no attempts by His Majesty's Government to minimise its importance or its scope will deceive the House or later generations. It is, incidentally, the first time since 1914 that the procedure of the Parliament Act has been invoked. The Home Secretary himself said it was by no means the first time that this procedure had been invoked. It is actually the second time and his description I thought was a shade extravagant.

Apart from the fact that this is important because it involves the second invocation of the Parliament Act, it is also of the greatest possible constitutional importance. We look beyond the present controversy to the future history of our country and we are glad that we can snatch some advantage from all the controversy of the last two years. For there are some advantages from this subject having been raised, though the wrong and temporary solution is now being arrived at. Tonight we have had a series of remarkable speeches, not the least remarkable of which was that just made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Maude). We have also had an historical and objective speech from the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Hollis) and we have as well, from the hon. Member for Queen's University (Professor Savory), a survey which I hope will fill some of the more glaring gaps in the historical equipment of the Lord President.

Over a wider field and in a more important way we have gained some advantage as a nation from this controversy; the report of the all-Party Committee that met in 1947, and the agreed statement that party leaders made at the conclusion may one day provide the basis of an agreed solution of this problem of our Constitution. When we saw some of the representatives of the Socialist Party who were present at that conference we on this side of the House rejoiced that they had accepted the idea of a Second Chamber with definite but limited powers.

I must confess that in common with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Exeter I heard with some alarm the phrases used by the Home Secretary today which seemed to suggest that this was only an instalment of the curtailment of the Lords' powers and that further Measures were intended. The cheers that have greeted all references to the total abolition of the Upper House and some of the speeches that have also been made all go very ill for those who want to have an agreed all-party solution. They make it also all the more incredible that the Socialist Party should have expected an all-party agreement to emerge from this Conference when such a large proportion of their Members are really anxious wholly to abolish the Upper House itself.

I hope that the right hon. Gentleman the Lord President of the Council, when he replies to the Debate, will deal with those two extracts from the speech of the Home Secretary. I hope that he will make it plain that the Home Secretary accepts the tentative arrangements arrived at at this party conference, in so far as they involve the retention of a Second Chamber, so that we can at least rely on him to be loyal to the conception of our Constitution which it is one of his duties to maintain.

The only other suggestion of a novel kind which has emerged from the Debate was that of the hon. Member for East Islington (Mr. E. Fletcher) that all nationalisation Bills should be withdrawn from the scrutiny of the Upper House. In the course of the last four years I think there have been some 1,100 or 1,200 Amendments dealt with there. The vast majority of them have been moved by the Government on the various nationalisation Bills. If the hon. Member really believes that the proper discharge of Government Business would be aided by the abolition of that revising Chamber, then he had better tell that, if not to the marines, then to the Lord Chancellor.