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 Humphrey Berkeley Mr Humphrey Berkeley , Lancaster 12:00, 18 March 1965

With great respect, Mr. Speaker, it occurred to me that the Motion is the result of a considerable degree of incompetence and, I think, a certain degree of bad faith on the part of the Government in their dealings with myself and the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne. I thought that I would be in order in chronicling the events which took place leading up to our very parlous situation now. It was for that reason that I hoped that I would not be trespassing beyond the bounds of order.

To proceed from there, it seems that we who are the promoters of the Bill, and who wish to get it through, have a perfectly legitimate right to query what the Government are asking the House to do today. The Government and the Chief Patronage Secretary have behaved with extraordinary discourtesy to the promoters of the Bill on this side of this House and with astonishing discourtesy to the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne because the hon. Gentleman did not know at 8.45 p.m. on the day on which this matter was first debated that at 10 p.m. —[Interruption.] I should say 11 p.m.—Government tellers were to be put on and that there was to be a whipped vote.

Two and a quarter hours before this decision was taken the main promoter, for whom the Government were finding time, did not know what decision the Chief Patronage Secretary and the Leader of the House had taken. That is, by any standards, a most extraordinary situation and one which I should have thought showed a maximum lack of consideration and a lack of thought for their hon. Friends who were the promoters on the benches opposite and to my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, North and myself, the promoters on this side of the House.

Whether the Chief Patronage Secretary thought that if he told his hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne a little earlier what his intentions were his hon. Friend would, quite naturally, have resented it and objected to it, I do not know. But the fact remains that lie chose to keep the promoters of the Bill, in particular the hon. Member for Nelson and Cone, in complete ignorance as to what his intentions were until the very last minute. I fully understand the dilemma in which the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne found himself. He explained to the House that he was dependent on the Government for Lime. He was told—I imagine very abruptly and at short notice—that what he supposed would happen was not to happen. Had he not accepted then and there a shotgun ultimatum he would have lost any chance of time for his Bill.

Being keen on his Bill, the hon. Member had to surrender to the ultimatum. Had I been treated to similar peremptoriness I might have chosen the same course of action. In any case, I am not suggesting that the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne is blameworthy. The person who is blamworthy is the Government Chief Whip, who has been responsible throughout for the muddle in which we now find ourselves.

Hon. Members an this side of the House who are, first, anxious to get the Bill through and are, secondly, not in this instance anxious to make a great party issue of this are resentful of what I believe to have been the arrogant behaviour of the Government in refusing to see that they would not, through their actions, get us into the trouble in which we find ourselves.

I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Sir M. Redmayne) was right in saying that if we could have four days on the Floor of the House we could dispose of the Bill. The alternative, as he equally rightly said, is to have up to perhaps 12 morning sittings from 12.30 p.m. to 1 p.m., which will delay the passing of the Bill by three or four months.

I find it extremely difficult to understand what has been the motive of the Government Chief Whip. It may be muddleheadedness or inexperience. I do not know. The plain facts of the situation are that between December and now we could have finished the Committee stage of the Bill and not sacrificed a single valuable day of parliamentary time. The fact that he finds himself in this difficult position now is entirely due to his ineptitude and is not in any way the responsibility of those who were either for or against the principle of the Bill.

I begin to wonder, as the Government majority dwindles away, whether they will ever be able to get a Parliamentary majority now for the Second Reading of the Steel Bill. If we have any more happenings like Leyton, the Chief Whip may find that he has time on his hands.