Orders of the Day — Emergency Laws (Re-Enactments and Repeals) Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 3 June 1964.

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Photo of Mr Charles Fletcher-Cooke Mr Charles Fletcher-Cooke , Darwen 12:00, 3 June 1964

The hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) worked himself up into a frenzy of suspicion about the Bill, but when he considered its terms he had nothing but praise for it. The suspicions are clearly quite unfounded in view of the assurance given by my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary in his very clear introduction of the Bill, when he said that this had been looked at entirely from the point of view of administration, and without taking into account any doctrine one way or another.

That must surely be the case when we come to the question of State trading in jute. State trading in jute cloth and jute yarn is a matter to which many of us who are interested in the textile industry have seriously objected for many years, and, indeed, it is the precedent on which at one time—though I am not sure now—the Wilson plan for the textile industry, and particularly the cotton textile industry, was founded. Whenever we objected to the plan, we were told by the party opposite, "You have a very good precedent in the case of jute. You have done nothing to alter State trading in jute cloth and yarn. How can you object when we extend it to cotton cloth and yarn?"

I do not believe that it is a good thing to continue this indefinitely. I do not understand why it has gone on for so long, and why it is to go on for another five years. I am not sure that it is really in keeping with our international obligations in the matter, because it undoubtedly breaches the principle of freedom of import and export to which we adhere rigidly when it comes to any question of protection for our cotton and man-made fibres.

It seems to me that to continue it for another five years for certain, and thereafter for an indefinite period, is something which is not commendable to this side of the House. But, at any rate, whether it is commendable or not, it shows quite clearly that the suspicions of the hon. Gentleman that this is somehow a slanted Bill—slanted in favour of the Government—are completely untrue. If anything, it is slanted the other way.

The hon. Gentleman found nothing seriously wrong with the Bill, and nor do I. The suggestion that we ought to have had a holding Bill, and then presumably this Bill next year—two bites at the cherry instead of one—surely is an abuse of Parliamentary time. My only small criticism about this method of legislating—and it is one which perhaps concerns my profession rather more than the House as a whole—is that it makes it very difficult to find out what the law is if one has an omnium gatherum Bill like this one, instead of Bills amending the subject matters concerned.

For example, on exchange control, in Clause 2, it would surely be more convenient, neater, and better for good order and government if that had been made an amendment to the Exchange Control Act, and so on, throughout the Bill. But that is a small complaint, and I have no doubt that with the excellent cross-indexing which we now have we shall get over that difficulty.

This is a courageous thing for the Government to have done, because a lot of the things which the Bill makes permanent are not altogether palatable to some of my hon. Friends. But with the assurance of my hon. Friend that the Government have looked at this not from the doctrinal point of view one way or the other, I suggest that we should pass it, and pass it quickly.