Orders of the Day — Clause 1. — (Abolition of Death Penalty for Murder.)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 19 May 1965.

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Photo of Sir John Hobson Sir John Hobson , Warwick and Leamington 12:00, 19 May 1965

I beg to move Amendment No. 30, in page 1, line 7, in lieu of the word "life" left out, to insert: such period as the court shall determine". I am sure that the whole Committee supports you, Dr. King, as it has shown by the way in which it received your thanks to the servants of the House who attend upon us and whose duties have been made far more onerous and more lengthy by the proceedings of this Committee every Wednesday morning, particularly at a stage when this coincides with the period when the Finance Bill is also being considered.

I bow to your suggestion, and will confine myself to the Amendment and treat it not so much as a proposal as a way of inquiry to ask, first, the sponsors of the Bill and, secondly, the Government, whether and in what way they propose, as it is their Bill, that the matter should be dealt with. The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Sydney Silverman) said last week that the Committee … will certainly have to decide what it shall do about the position and he supported the Motion to report Progress. The hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) said: I agree that we must reconsider this situation."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th May, 1965; Vol. 712, C. 474–7.] The situation is certainly anomalous. We spent many days in Committee considering whether capital punishment should be retained at all. That was the first step, and having decided that it should not be retained for any case of murder the vital question arises as to what is to be the alternative in such circumstances. We had some discussion, and there is now a complete hiatus in the Bill and, apparently, after all our labours, the Bill will not produce an answer which makes any sense at all. I had hoped and expected that either the sponsors, or the Government, or both, would put down an Amendment to deal with the situation, but, to my astonishment, nothing has happened. I thought it right, therefore, to put an Amendment down so that the gap would be filled.

I did so so that we might ascertain what the sponsors proposed, whether the Government would make up their mind now that it was really time they took over the Bill, as they ought to have done from the very beginning, or whether, as a result of our labours and deliberations, we were to send back on Report to the House a Bill with a gap in it which did not make sense and did not deal with the vital question of what is to be done if the capital penalty is abolished.

I have moved the Amendment for those reasons and so that we may as a Committee consider the consequences and ascertain whether those in charge of the Bill, or the Government, have any proposals for dealing with it.