Representation of the People (Extension of Voting Facilities) Bill

Part of Order of the Day – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 12 February 1965.

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Photo of Mr Iain Macleod Mr Iain Macleod , Enfield West 12:00, 12 February 1965

I do not rise, any more than did the Joint Under-Secretary, to close the debate. There are many voices, including that of the Liberal Party, that we have not yet heard. However, having heard the view of Her Majesty's Government, it is only right that the view of Her Majesty's Opposition should be stated shortly.

I join the Joint Under-Secretary in the congratulations he gave to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Winchester (Rear-Admiral Morgan Giles). My hon. and gallant Friend was fortunate in the Ballot and in his speech, and also in picking a subject of this nature, which has afforded a debate which all hon. Members on both sides have enjoyed. It has been a wonderfully good-tempered and extremely interesting debate.

One of the essential things in government is, when there is a hopelessly weak case, that there must be somebody who can argue it with the maximum amount of charm. The Under-Secretary fulfils this rôle absolutely to perfection. Every time the Government get into this sort of trouble, the cry "Send for George" goes out. It was thought on this occasion that, if the Under-Secretary could charm a bird off a tree, which normally he could, he might have a shot at charming an admiral off the bridge. I think it right to say—the hon. Gentleman will not regard this as personal in any way—that his speech was delightful, delicious and deplorable. Indeed, with the exception of my hon. and gallant Friend's, it presented the most convincing case that has yet been given to the House for giving the Bill a Second Reading.

I do not propose to dance a careful minuet up to my conclusion. I believe in the Lewis Carroll version of sentence first and trial afterwards. Therefore, for my part I advise my hon. and gallant Friend not to listen to the blandishments of the Parliamentary Secretary but to ask the House to give a Second Reading to the Bill.

The Bill has had a rather odd history, because a very similar one came up at 2.49 p.m. on Friday, 10th April, 1964. It was talked out by the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees). I hope that by saying that I shall not be thought to be criticising the hon. Gentleman. Although I was a supporter of that Bill and had my name on it as one of those supporting it, as I do on this Bill, I thought that the hon. Gentleman was quite right, because an hour and a quarter on a Friday is quite inadequate to discuss a matter of this nature.

Clearly this does not apply to this debate. That Bill having failed to get a Second Reading on that day, the Second Reading went on the nod by mischance and the then Opposition, now the Government, saw to it that the Bill died of malnutrition at the Committee stage.

Perhaps I may clear up one point in reference to the Home Office. I think that this is important, although I do not think that there is any dispute about it. Both the Under-Secretary and my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. R ees-Davies) are right. The position was that, after that Bill obtained, by chance, a Second Reading in the last Session of the last Parliament, the Home Secretary and the Home Office did what they could to iron out some of the difficulties and make it a more acceptable Bill. That obviously was clearly right and appropriate. It is obviously clearly right and appropriate that we should be clear that Her Majesty's present Ministers at the Home Office and the Home Office have no responsibility for this Bill.

The purpose of the Bill is quite clear and the main arguments for it are quite clear. We have been moving for some time now towards a position—this has been encouraged by Governments of both parties—in which holidays should be staggered over a longer period. It has been rightly said that special arrangements were made as long ago as the 1945 General Election to take account of special circumstances. How much more, therefore, should we 20 years later see whether we cannot meet this point.

It has been rightly pointed out that yesterday an hon. Member opposite asked the Leader of the House for information about the Summer Recess. Having held that office, I have some sympathy with the Leader of the House's response, which was that one step at a time was enough for him and he would be—he did not quite say this, but this is how I gathered it—happy enough to get to Easter and then see what happened after that.

There is a very important point here. The House knows that the Press is drenched with travel supplements and travel articles in the very early weeks of the year. It is in those weeks that holidays which simply cannot be postponed are planned, because a large part of the income going into many homes is mortgaged, as it were, for this family holiday. The hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock), whose name is on the back of this Bill, as is mine, said in the debate on 10th April, 1964, that 80 per cent. of the holiday bookings for each calendar year are made by the end of January.

The question is whether it is reasonable—I will come to the Speaker's conference point later—to recognise in our electoral arrangements something which beyond argument has become part of the way of life of this country. We do not live as we used to do. We do not take our holidays in the same places, or even in the same countries, as we used to do. The spread of people taking holidays is vastly greater than it used to be. The question before the House is basically whether we are prepared to recognise this fact—because nobody can dispute that it is a fact; the tourist figures are there and are known—and make arrangements for it, or whether we are not.

The arguments against are these, to summarise them briefly. There is, first, the argument—I hope that this is not one to which the House will listen—that because there are other anomalies we should not put this one right. This has never been an argument to which the House has been at all sympathetic, and it certainly should not be sympathetic to it on this occasion.

The hon. Member for Leeds, South dwelt on this and made it an important part of his speech, as indeed he did in the debate last April. He painted a fascinating picture of his wife going out in search of postal votes. He said that on these occasions she liked to look like a Tory. I was not clear whether she made herself less attractive or more attractive than she undoubtedly is when she was carrying out this particular exercise. If you want to get a vote get a hat.

I am sorry that the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) is not here. Apart from his speech, his contribution of calling a Count on a Friday on a matter like this I think was a deplorable one. That is a point of view I take not just because of this Bill. I took it consistently also when I was Leader of the House. It will be noted that a Count was called and that Labour Members who were within the Palace of Westminster did not respond to that Count when a matter of first importance was being discussed.

We heard from the hon. Member for Leeds, South what was basically the simple, cloth-cap approach. He and some other hon. Members opposite simply believe that the Bill may work to the advantage of the Tories. Oddly enough, I do not think that that is so. The vast spread of holidays abroad, which, as I say, is part of the pattern of the way of life of our country, and—accepting the hon. Gentleman's argument as being valid—the greater ease with which Tories can come back especially to vote—do not mean that if it were possible to obtain this sort of vote, party advantage would fall to any one side.

Nor do I think that he is right to think, as he apparently does, that there are vast numbers of paid Tory canvassers in all the seats to look after postal votes. I can give the experience of my own constituency. I have an agent who looks after not only my constituency, but that of Enfield, East, two seats, and he has no other paid help. The postal vote is looked after in every ward by voluntary unpaid workers. That is typical of practically every constituency in the country. The example quoted by the hon. Member for Fife, West, who said that two or three paid Tory workers looked after the postal vote in West Fife, was almost too funny to require contradiction.