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 Peter Rawlinson Mr Peter Rawlinson , Epsom 12:00, 18 March 1965

The hon. Gentleman must forgive us if we look with a little scepticism upon that. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] I do not suggest that it is not a perfectly honourable attitude for the Government to adopt to say, "This is a matter of consultation. We will get the Parliamentary draftsmen to draft the Bill and we will have a free vote on it". That is a perfectly sensible and honourable attitude for the Government to adopt.

That is what happened until such time as it was decided—nobody seems to know when it was—that the Government would not do what previous Governments have done, and that is to take the Bill through all its stages on the Floor of the House. They permitted my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne to believe and anticipate that it would be taken on the Floor of the House. They must have known the precedents. Why should this occasion be different? It is reasonable to assume that the Patronage Secretary would treat the matter as similar matters had been treated before.

But the Leader of the House, on Friday, 5th March, said that the Government assumed that there would be no objection to the Bill going to a Standing Committee. Why should there be such an assumption, which is completely contrary to what had happened in the past and certainly contrary to all the precedents. There was not a word to the promoters—we have heard that—and no consultation at all with anybody as to what they intended to do. This is the shabby political manoeuvre. They hoped to slip in this Bill—and the right hon. Gentleman must know it—and send it to a Committee upstairs without bringing before the House the issue of whether it should go to a Committee of the House.

The right hon. Gentleman the Patronage Secretary could very easily, if he had so wished, have advised either the opponents of the Bill or the promoters that this was what, in his judgment, should be done. But he did not do that. It was only when I moved the Motion after the Division that the House was able to take a vote on it. The whole resentment begins from the time when he took the tellers off and put the Government Whips on. As we thought that the matter had been ill judged, a Motion was tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) and myself before the Committee stage started upstairs suggesting that the Bill should come back to the Floor of the House and be debated on the Floor of the House. No notice was taken of that. That was before the Committee stage started and before my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Sir Rolf Dudley Williams) put down his Motion. We therefore started the Committee stage amid the protests taken up in the Committee that the Bill should proceed there at all.

Then it was the good fortune of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. Hendry) to win in the ballot the right to put the Motion before the House. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where is he?"] It was a valid expression of the opinion of the House on Friday, 5th March, that it should come back to the Floor of the House. That is our condemnation of the Government's conduct.

Now we have the procedure Motion to try to salvage something from the difficulties into which the Patronage Secretary got the Government. Either it is a serious and considered experiment to see whether or not the House should sit in Committee at 10.30 on Wednesday mornings or merely an expedient. If it is a serious experiment, why was there not consultation before it was suggested? Why was it not discussed? Is it not customary in the House that when charges of this kind are made discussions should take place? Does the right hon. Gentleman really think that if this is a serious experiment this has been the right atmosphere in which to debate it?

This is a House of Commons matter and should be treated as such. If it is a House of Commons matter, why are the Whips on? If it is a serious experiment, why have the Government put the Whips on? Is the alternative—the truth—that this was a slick and rather petulant attempt to punish the House for daring on Friday, 5th March, to have reversed the earlier decision? The decision taken that day was taken after debate, whereas on 21st December, when the Division followed the moving of the Motion, there was no debate whatever.

Does not the Lord President of the Council, who tonight will be having to reply to the House on this procedural matter, think that this is a matter of constitutional importance? If he does, does he think that this has been the hest kind of atmosphere in which to have such a debate? Will he tell us how long the question whether there were to be sittings of the House at 10.30 in the morning has been considered? If he considers that the Select Committee on Procedure is important, as it is, it should be allowed to examine this matter and consider whether these mat- ters should be taken by the House sitting at 10.30 a.m. in full Committee. How is the Select Committee to be treated if it is not to have close examination of people from all quarters of the House, so that they can give their opinion, and then report back to the House, so that the House can discuss it as a House of Commons matter?

There are few occasions, I suggest—and there ought, some people think, to be more—when the House of Commons can speak and vote as individuals and without the pressure of party politics playing upon it the whole time. [Interruption.] Hon. Members opposite who are shouting do so from guilty consciences at the way they have treated the House of Commons in this matter. Of course, they will go off to vote as they voted for the Bill, which was a Government Bill. With one exception, they voted for it, whereas on this side of the House there was a division, and a division according to judgment and conscience.

Right hon. and hon. Members opposite will go into the Lobby at the behest of the Patronage Secretary and the Leader of the House, but the Leader of the House knows perfectly well that this is a matter and issue which needs much more careful consideration than has been given to it. I can only repeat, as I said before, that I believe that the Government have been guilty of a shabby political manoeuvre.