Code of Practice for Night Assemblies

Part of New Clause No. 2 – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 5 May 1972.

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Photo of Mr Leslie Huckfield Mr Leslie Huckfield , Nuneaton 12:00, 5 May 1972

If my hon. Friend can keep his hair in a place like this—if it is his own hair—I congratulate him, and indeed yourself, Mr. Speaker.

It was, then, as Major Wiggin that I first came to know the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare.

I cannot help feeling that the whole basis and suggestion and the whole ethos of the Bill is a little militaristic. We have a little too much legislation such as this already on the Statute Book and it is capable of being interpreted in a highly restrictive way. I am very much afraid that we shall now have a little more, thanks specifically to the hon. Gentleman's endeavours.

When one recalls the speech made last week, I believe, by the Lord Chancellor, about punishing people too hard because the appeal court can always reverse it later, some of the sentiments about alleged illegal picketing and some of the suggestions about alleged industrial anarchy that we have had from the benches opposite, I am afraid that the Bill fits in very much to that kind of trend in legislation. Ideas of restriction, of making festivals orderly, regularised and thoroughly decent and aboveboard—