Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 18 March 1965.
I have no recollection of any precedents on that, but I have a mind that I can find them, and if I can I will see that they are reported to the House. The hon. Gentleman's intervention is a fair one, and, whether it is true or not, perhaps I might say that when there was a Conservative Government I heard many appeals from this side of the House to Members oppo- site to take the same attitude, and Members on that side, followed that advice on many occasions, which only proves what a bad Chief Whip I was.
The phrase in the Queen's Speech was
a free decision by Parliament",
and I ask whether Parliament is properly represented by morning sittings, hastily contrived to suit the Government's convenience, and whether they are any better than the proceedings of a Standing Committee. We ought to study how complete the representation of the House will be. Ministers will inevitably be poor attenders, because the machinery of government will grind to a halt if Ministers are kept in the House on these occasions. Many Members must find attendance difficult because, for all the talk that we have from time to time from Members opposite, the opportunity to do useful work outside, in the professions, or in industry, or in commerce, is not confined to this side of the House alone. Indeed, Members of Parliament would be far less capable of doing their duty if they did not undertake these other occupations.
Therefore, on many days—and this applies particularly to the law—many Members will not be able to come at all. On other days many will miss the earlier hours of these short debates. I am thinking of those who have been engaged in their constituencies or elsewhere the night before, and are travelling back. Others will have to forsake the House at a critical moment during the debate to leave for a perfectly proper and useful function at lunchtime. They may have to leave at a time when the hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill may greatly need their help and presence here.
I do not believe that these morning sittings will produce anything but scrappy and inconstant attendance in a matter which is of the most lively interest to every Member of the House. I say quite seriously that these morning sittings will not be Parliament in the sense of Parliament assembled because the difficulties which will face Members in attending will be too great. Nor do I think that the proposition is particularly good management by the Lord President of the Council, for another reason. It has been said —I believe that it was said on 5th March —that Wednesday was a convenient day for this operation because Wednesday is free from sittings of other Standing Committees except in respect of Standing Committee C, dealing with Private Member's Bills.
But I wish to put to the Lord President of the Council, who has equal experience with me in these matters, this question: when members of Standing Committees sitting on Tuesdays and Thursdays are asked to sit more often, do they ever choose a Wednesday morning for the extra sitting? The right hon. Gentleman knows that they never do. They will sit on Tuesday afternoon and, if necessary, all night, or on Thursday afternoon, but they say, "Pray leave us Wednesday to ourselves." The right hon. Gentleman smiles, but he knows how very true that is. Those hon. Members always ask, "Please leave us Wednesday so that we can look after our own affairs".
Then, what of the staff of the House and others who serve us here: the police who have to come in all day when the House sits; the refreshment rooms will need to be more fully manned; there are the Clerks of the House, whose mornings are already full, will have to be in attendance. Then there is the Press. We pretend not to observe them, but we are well aware of their presence here and they will have to work extra shifts in order to report us. [Laughter.] I do not see that these are laughing matters.
All these people will have to be here. So, too, will the staff of the OFFICIAL REPORT, the engineers, the boiler-room men, and others. I think that some hon. Members, particularly if they have not been about the House so much as some of us who have worked here long and late do not realise how many men and women are needed to keep this place going. Even the ladies who clean up the mess after we leave every day—and we leave a good deal of mess from time to time—must be extra nippy on these Wednesdays if they are to have the place neat and tidy before hon. Members arrive in the afternoon.