Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 18 March 1965.
I was only following the right hon. Gentleman's example. If I stray any further, I am sure that he will pull me up. Shall I refer to Select Committees on Procedure in general and none in particular? I studied them when I allowed myself to be appointed to a Select Committee on Procedure, one of the most foolish actions that I have taken in my whole career. I have wondered ever since whether the best course that the House could take would be to appoint a Select Committee on Procedure to examine the procedure of the Select Committee on Procedure. If only that were done, perhaps the whole procedure of the House could be speeded up.
The right hon. Member for Rushcliffe must be generous in these matters. It is perfectly possible to filibuster in the Select Committee on Procedure and for the proceedings there to be extended almost indefinitely and for no decision to be reached. Therefore, if the House accepted the proposition that no alterations in Government business or in the business of the House should be made while the Select Committee on Procedure is examining the question, it would give all power over the business of the House into the hands of the Select Committee. This follows absolutely.
I am not a member of the Committee which has been examining this Bill but I am told by those whose opinion I respect—and I am not referring to the right hon. Gentleman—that there has been filibustering there. Hon. Members opposite must not imagine that we are so innnocent as to think that they would not in any circumstances filibuster, and if the proposition put forward by the right hon. Gentleman were accepted by the House it would be an invitation to hold up the business of the House not only on the Floor and in Committees but in the Select Committee itself. Therefore, we need not take that argument from the right hon. Gentleman.
The right hon. Gentleman's second and most astonishing proposition is that Committees of this House examining Bills are not really Parliament. I do not know what right he has to say this. He said that it is not really Parliament if we have something in Committee. I do not see how he is allowed to say it. This is a procedure which has been accepted year after year and, as one of my hon. Friends has said, it is a procedure which more and more people are coming to believe must be followed. More and more people are coming to believe that if the House of Commons is to function successfully more and more matters must be referred to Committees. Yet the right hon. Gentleman says that this is Committee and not part of Parliament.
The right hon. Gentleman read out extracts from Erskine May and tried to apply them to the position, but business conducted in Committees is as much business conducted in Parliament as is business conducted on the Floor of the House itself. We can argue among ourselves which Bills and which parts of Bills should be taken on the Floor, but it is not merely wrong but reprehensible for the right hon. Gentleman to arrogate to himself the right to say which parts of business are being properly conducted and should properly be dignified with the description of the business of Parliament.
Part of the right hon. Gentleman's objection to sitting in the morning is that it would not be Parliament if we sat in the morning—that it would not be quite the right thing, not the done thing. That is an old public school slogan, not an argument. The House of Commons sat through a number of years in the mornings. There happened to be a war on at the same time. Some of us think that we might win the peace better if we sat in the mornings. One of the troubles with right hon. Members opposite is that they know so little of the history of their country. If they applied their minds to it they would discover that not only in the last war but in previous wars won by this country the House of Commons has sat in the morning.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) said that the House used to sit at 8 o'clock in the morning, not for the reason that he would have wanted the House to sit but for other reasons. It is quite wrong historically to say that Governments would not be able to conduct their business while the House was sitting in the morning. It was done throughout the war. The House met on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 10.30 or 11 o'clock in the morning and the Government's business was transacted.