Selective Employment Payments Bill (Allocation of Time)

Part of Bill Presented – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 18 July 1966.

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Photo of Mr Cranley Onslow Mr Cranley Onslow , Woking 12:00, 18 July 1966

I am glad to hear it.

Four arguments are advanced against the opponents of the Motion. Rather than being advanced in support of the Motion, they are advanced against its opponents. The first is that the Bill is urgent. This is a curious view. Events during the last few weeks have made the Bill increasingly irrelevant. The purported objective of securing some free disposition of employment is perhaps all to likely to be achieved by other developments which have taken place since this interesting gimmick first flashed across the Chancellor's firmament.

Secondly, we are told that other urgent legislation is coming on—such as the Iron and Steel Bill. The events of recent weeks and days have made that piece of legislation even more irrelevant, unnecessary and undesirable than it has been throughout its long, unnecessary and undesirable history.

Thirdly, we are told—perhaps this is the argument advanced with the greatest fervour—that it is necessary that hon. Members on both sides of the House should be able to get away from here and take their families to the seaside. Speaking for myself, I do not ask a Government—I do not expect a Government—to show any particular solicitude for myself and my family. This is up to me. I will take all the care I can of them. I do not want the Government of the day to pat me on the head paternally and say, "My boy, you ought to be off with the bucket and spade brigade". What business is it of the Treasury Bench whether I go and build sandcastles or not? I regard my business as being here. The Treasury Bench would no doubt be much better employed making mud pies than they are in their present occupation.

Fourthly, we are told—this is another curious argument—that our opposition to the Motion is in some way insincere because we ought to be sitting in the mornings. I have no doubt that we shall find ourselves sitting into tomorrow morning. I would not mind if we sat into some other mornings, starting at 3.30 and going through. My guess is that we should get more time for debate if we used the mornings in that way than if we marched up here only at 10.30, by which time the sun has been up a long while.

This argument again ignores the inconvenience which would be caused to Scottish Members—my hon. Friend the Member for Moray and Nairn (Mr. G. Campbell) mentioned this—and to Members serving on Standing Committees. I do not believe that we are all that long way through the Land Commission Bill. There is work to be done on that Bill on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. That Bill could well be dropped. It it were, we might well take a slightly different view of sitting in the mornings. But the Bill is there and we have to oppose it in Committee. That is our duty.

The Government's arguments are only sham arguments. I believe the truth of the matter is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Barkston Ash has said, that the Government are scared stiff of being forced to defend the Bill in detail against critical, sustained and incisive questioning and attack. It is a Measure of which the Government have become increasingly ashamed and which they have come increasingly to regret. I believe, also, that this is true of back bench Members opposite.

I do not suppose that hon. Members on this side of the House are unique in having received on this Measure more correspondence from their constituents than on any other Measure, certainly in my short experience in Parliament and probably in the experience of hon. Members who have been here much longer.