Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Bill (Committee Stage)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 18 March 1965.

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Photo of Mr Robin Turton Mr Robin Turton , Thirsk and Malton 12:00, 18 March 1965

The hon. Gentleman the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) gave us the "Saying of the Week" when he said, "I never like to overstate an argument". I have never known any hon. Member use more skill and apparent plausibility in leading the House away from the correct argument under debate. The hon. Gentleman and I are both in the difficulty that we are gagged in one respect and cannot say anything about what has happened in the Select Committee on Procedure beyond what is recorded in the Journal, that the Committee has been summoned to meet six times already.

The Government's proposal is a complete innovation in our procedure. It is no good the Lord President of the Council saying that the House has met before in the mornings. Never in our history have we had the hours for sitting from 10.30 in the morning until 10.30 at night. Not on Fridays, not on the days we adjourn, and not during our wartime sittings did this happen. As my hon. Friend the Member for Holland with Boston (Sir H. Butcher) reminded us a few minutes ago, we rose at five o'clock during wartime. It is proposed to do something completely new and something which will have great repercussions on those who serve the House and on hon. Members themselves.

It was for this reason, I thought, that the Government remitted the matter to a Select Committee to make inquiries and see what would be the implications of such a recommendation. If the Lord President of the Council had strong views on it, they should have been communicated in due course to the Select Committee, and not kept away from the Select Committee to be ventilated this afternoon on the Floor of the House.

So far as I am aware—I stand to be corrected if I am wrong—on no occasion in the history of the House has a matter of procedure been remitted to a Select Committee and then, while the Select Committee was in process of considering it, taken away again and put down by Motion of the Government on the Floor of the House. This is my charge against the Government today. It is an unconstitutional way of dealing with Parliament's affairs. I do not raise the matter from the point of view of being for or against the Bill promoted by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Sydney Silverman). In fact, I purposely avoided voting on Second Reading, because I thought that the 1957 Act had been highly unsatisfactory and wanted the matter discussed—preferably on the Floor of the House.

I suggest to the Leader of the House that the course he is adopting is doing grave damage and is an affront to the Select Committee on Procedure. In future, hon. Members will not be keen to serve on a Select Committee on Procedure when they know that the Government will anticipate their decisions by bringing in a Motion such as this on the Floor of the House.