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 Sir Charles Mott-Radclyffe Sir Charles Mott-Radclyffe , Windsor 12:00, 18 March 1965

I hope that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Mr. Victor Yates) will forgive me if I do not take up some of his remarks for a minute or two, but I want at the outset to say to the House that I do not think that the Motion which we are discussing has very much to do with the merits or otherwise of the Private Member's Bill which was introduced by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Sydney Silverman). This is a Motion on procedure. It involves a complete departure from procedures which we have known hitherto. It affects abolitionists and retentionists and a whole lot of hon. Members who do not take a rigid view either way.

As has been said several times, a Select Committee on Procedure is now sitting and has been sitting for some months. Presumably, it is discussing quite a number of proposals which have been put to it. The hon. Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Wilkins), who, I am sorry to see, is not now in the Chamber, told us that one of the proposals which he put to the Select Committee was that the House should sit in the morning and rise earlier in the evening. But the Committee has not yet reported and we do not know what view it will take. Hon. and right hon. Members on both sides who are members of the Select Committee are, of course, "in baulk"; they are, quite rightly, inhibited and cannot disclose what the proceedings in the Committee have been.

The hon. Member for Bristol, South said that he hoped that the arrangement now proposed would be a pilot scheme. This is a most interesting suggestion. To be fair, it was not the line taken by the Lord President of the Council. The right hon. Gentleman went almost out of his way in his speech to convey the impression that in no circumstances would what he was proposing be a pilot scheme. Those who want the House to sit in the mornings and afternoons as well, in the hope that it might rise rather earlier at night than we sometimes do, overlook several grave objections. In the first place, no matter what the hon. Member for Ladywood and others may say, morning sittings of the House not only on this Bill but on other business as well would make the task of Ministers very difficult. It is part of a Minister's duty to be in his Department and to administer it. One cannot administer a great Department of State from rooms in this building. In the second place, it would be impossible or, at least, very difficult for hon. Members to fulfil any outside commitments, business or otherwise.

I may be in a minority in this, but I should not like the House of Commons to become a legislative body composed of 630 wholetime professional legislators with absolutely no stake outside, no interest outside and very little contacts outside, never feeling the effects of their legislation at the receiving end. I should not like to sit in that sort of House. One of the remarkable characteristics of the House of Commons, as all hon. Members who have been here any time know, is the extraordinary breadth of view and variety of experience possessed by hon. Members on both sides. This is its great strength. No matter what subject is being discussed on any day, however technical or however obscure, one can always find an hon. Member who brings to bear upon that subject a whole wealth of experience acquired, perhaps, from a lifelong interest in the subject. I should be very sorry to eliminate that breadth of view and experience which can come only from contacts outside the House.

The proposal now before us offers the worst of both worlds, of course. It is not a proposal to take the Committee stage on the Floor of the House in the morning, and, then, as the hon. Member for Ladywood would like, for the House to rise earlier in the evenings. It is the worst of both worlds. The House is still to sit just as late as ever to get through Government business. Moreover, this proposal has been foisted upon the House in a somewhat peculiar way due entirely, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Mr. Berkeley) said, to the absolute jam the Government have got into with their legislative programme. Their business has got clogged up in the pipeline and this is one of their ways to try to overcome the difficulty.

The Patronage Secretary is not here at the moment, but I feel that I must say this, even in his absence. The right hon. Gentleman did indulge in a little sharp practice.