Standing Orders

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 18 December 1957.

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Photo of Mr William Ross Mr William Ross , Kilmarnock 12:00, 18 December 1957

I did not think that my enunciation was so bad, but I should never label English Members of that Committee with the word "fiends". I should not describe his hon. Friends in that way. They have never behaved like that.

This matter calls for examination to find a suitable name for the Committee. I cannot understand how we can possibly accept that it is a Standing Committee when it does not stand. It has, in fact, no existence. I want to know exactly what the administrative machinery will be. We have a nucleus in relation to every other Standing Committee, but there is not a nucleus for the Scottish Standing Committee.

I know that the effect of my Amendment is to propose a nucleus of 30 Members, but frankly I do not want that. [Interruption.] I can understand the difficulty of my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren) about this matter. I have said before that my main purpose is to draw attention to the illogicality of naming this Committee the Scottish Standing Committee. I suggest that the Secretary of State should find some other way of describing this Committee. It is not comparable with any other Committee of the House. Standing Committees are made at the beginning of the Session, the names of the nucleus are printed and names are added thereto.

There is another point to which I want to draw the attention of the Secretary of State. I suppose he will be concerned with this. When a Committee is formed a Motion has to be put down on the Order Paper. We have already heard tonight that there are many people concerned about the fact that they may not or will not be members of the Scottish Standing Committee. I think that there will be anything from 21 to 40 Scottish Members so affected. It may be fewer or it may be more.

The Committee of Selection, having first drawn up the nucleus and then the list of additional Members, will have to put a Motion on the Order Paper and it will be open to Members to object that their names are not included. This has never been done in regard to the Scottish Committee. The Scottish Grand Committee consists automatically of every Scottish Member with additional Members, and the only thing in relation to this which appears on the Order Paper is whether one of the martyrs feels that it is time he should be released; and one added English Member comes off and some other woebegone newcomer is put on. Now, in the case of every Bill that goes before the Scottish Standing Committee, a new Committee has to be selected and a Motion must be presented to the House that certain Members be members of the Scottish Standing Committee—if we are still to call it the Standing Committee.

There are three things I want to know. What is to be the administration in relation to selection? Bills are to be sent to a Committee that does not exist, will not exist and cannot exist, until a Bill is committed to it. How a Bill can be committed to a Committee which does not exist is something I have not quite been able to understand; but that is what the Standing Order is intended to say. That is the stupidity of it.