– in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 15 June 1964.
Mr Eric Johnson
, Manchester, Blackley
12:00,
15 June 1964
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what arrangements exist for him to be informed of cases where traffic or parking regulations have been broken by drivers of cars with diplomatic immunity so that he can inform the ambassador concerned.
Mr Robert Mathew
, Honiton
Arrangements have recently been made for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to provide the Foreign Office with regular weekly lists of fixed penalty violations of parking regulations involving persons entitled to diplomatic immunity. These lists are compiled by the Metropolitan Police. More serious traffic offences are individually reported to the Foreign Office by the Home Office.
Mr Eric Johnson
, Manchester, Blackley
Is my hon. Friend aware of the great need for these arrangements, because infringements of the parking Laws by cars which have diplomatic immunity or which carry a disc are extremely frequent? Is he aware that only this morning, a traffic warden showed me four such cars which were illegally parked in a very short length of street and said that they were there every day, that the occupant of one car stayed to lunch and that there was nothing that the warden could do about it? Is it not absolutely wrong that our motorists should be penalised by these people? If they cannot keep our laws, cannot they be asked to leave the country?
Mr Robert Mathew
, Honiton
It is for the reasons given by my hon. Friend that new arrangements have recently been instituted to report fixed penalty offences to the ambassadors concerned with a request that the regulations should in future be observed. The more serious offences have always been reported to the ambassadors individually. We must wait and see how the new arrangements work. I may say that the Diplomatic Corps has, in general, shown a considerable willingness to co-operate.
Mr Jon Rankin
, Glasgow Govan
Was the person who killed a cyclist outside the precincts of this House last Monday evening travelling under diplomatic immunity? Is that the reason why nothing has been heard of the accident and so far nothing done in regard to the person who caused the death?
Mr Robert Mathew
, Honiton
I have no information about that individual case, but if the hon. Member cares to put down a Question I will do my best to answer it.
Mr Jon Rankin
, Glasgow Govan
Questions are already down.
Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
Laws are the rules by which a country is governed. Britain has a long history of law making and the laws of this country can be divided into three types:- 1) Statute Laws are the laws that have been made by Parliament. 2) Case Law is law that has been established from cases tried in the courts - the laws arise from test cases. The result of the test case creates a precedent on which future cases are judged. 3) Common Law is a part of English Law, which has not come from Parliament. It consists of rules of law which have developed from customs or judgements made in courts over hundreds of years. For example until 1861 Parliament had never passed a law saying that murder was an offence. From the earliest times courts had judged that murder was a crime so there was no need to make a law.
