Orders of the Day — Homicide Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 6 February 1957.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Miss Alice Bacon Miss Alice Bacon , Leeds South East 12:00, 6 February 1957

The hon. Member is quite wrong in assuming that there were only 163 hon. Members in this House at three o'clock, when we moved, "That the Question be now put." Several hon. Members went home and it was at four o'clock—after it was quite certain that my Bill was not to be debated—that 163 hon. Members were present.

I ask the Government why they were afraid to let my Bill go to a vote. Was it because this was a Private Member's Bill and without the Whips on they were afraid that the House would again assert its opinion on this matter? We have a Bill before us today which, as all the debates on it have shown, is complicated, ambiguous, unfair and in some cases, I suggest, even silly. I wish to reiterate what my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne said about another place. This Bill can go to another place and can be changed there. If my Bill had been read a Second time last Friday the Parliament Act would have been put into operation and that Bill could have been passed whether the other place agreed with it or not.

During the passage of this Bill we have been told that the effect will be that the number of convictions for murder will be reduced from about 25 to six and the number of executions will be reduced from 13 to four. As my hon. Friend said, it seems rather ludicrous to keep in operation all the paraphernalia of executions for that small number.