Sir Eric Fletcher: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It must be embarrassing to some of us who have been in the House a long time that twice within a comparatively brief period there have been a number of criticisms of Rulings which you have given on matters which hitherto I had always thought were regarded as solely within the discretion of the Chair and not open to this kind of challenge and debate, even...
Sir Eric Fletcher: May I try to help the House? I am sure that the whole House is always interested when a procedural question without precedent arises. A great many hon. Members on both sides of the House will not regret that there has been a fairly full discussion about a procedural question of some novelty. Your Rulings, Mr. Speaker, have been criticised on the other side of the House chiefly on one...
Sir Eric Fletcher: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the trustees of the British Museum welcome the Government's decision to set up a national library authority, presumably on the Bloomsbury site. But, in so far as the British Museum Library will presumably form the nucleus of a large part of the new establishment, will he assure us that the trustees of the British Museum will be consulted between now and the...
Sir Eric Fletcher: I understand, Mr. Speaker, that on two occasions you have invited the hon. and gallant Member for Down, South (Captain Orr) to withdraw remarks to which you and the whole House have taken serious objection. Am I to understand, Mr. Speaker, that it is considered consistent with the dignity of the House that we should continue with our business until the hon. and gallant Member has complied...
Sir Eric Fletcher: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I return to the point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell). Surely I am right in saying that, hitherto, the House has never drawn a distinction between a request by the Chair to an hon. Member to withdraw and an instruction to withdraw. Surely the truth is that, hitherto, a request to an hon. Member to withdraw has...
Sir Eric Fletcher: I am interested in the suggestion that there should be fixed elections. Is my hon. Friend suggesting as a corollary that if a Government were defeated they should not resign but should go on for the full period of the fixed term of Parliament?
Sir Eric Fletcher: I am sure that the House will be grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for the fullness and care with which he has addressed arguments to the House in support of the Amendment. As he said, it is a highly technical and somewhat abstruse and narrowly balanced question. The House should be aware that what the Government are asking us to do is to reverse a decision of the Committee which...
Sir Eric Fletcher: Hon. Members may make what comments they like on this aspect of the matter. I think it would be futile at this late stage of the proceedings to reiterate what I have said before, but I repeat that I am totally unconvinced by the arguments which have just been addressed to us. I console myself with the thought that the whole of these proceedings on Clauses 12 and 13 for the so-called...
Sir Eric Fletcher: I beg to move, That the Synodical Government Measure, passed by the National Assembly of the Church of England, be presented to Her Majesty for Her Royal Assent in the form in which the said Measure was laid before Parliament. I am moving this Measure in the absence of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Brigg (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu), whose name appears first on the Order Paper, together...
Sir Eric Fletcher: I beg to move, That the Clergy Pensions (Amendment) Measure, passed by the National Assembly of the Church of England, be presented to Her Majesty for Her Royal Assent in the form in which the said Measure was laid before Parliament. This is a very short and simple and highly technical Measure, passed without division in the Church Assembly. I think that it should commend itself to the House.
Sir Eric Fletcher: I am opposed to the Amendment, because it seems to me to take away the very desirable degree of flexibility there is in the Clause as it stands.
Sir Eric Fletcher: I have no hesitation in supporting the Bill, but at the moment we are concerned with a narrow Amendment, whether or not we shall make retrospective the severe penalties which, quite rightly in my view, are being introduced by the Bill. The hon. Member for Richmond, Surrey (Mr. A. Royle), in an intervention, said that there was some other purpose behind the framing of this Amendment.
Sir Eric Fletcher: I was not criticising the hon. Member, but since his name is attached to the Amendment—because he is allied on the Amendment with his right hon. Friend the Member for Reigate—I attached importance to his intervention. It is quite legitimate to put down an Amendment of this kind, not merely for the immediate purpose of discussing the merits or demerits of retrospective legislation, but it...
Sir Eric Fletcher: I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in a few moments. I want to pursue this line of thought as it is relevant to the matter we are discussing. Before coming on to the criminal law, it is pertinent to observe that there is an intermediate class of legislation between the civil law matters about which I have been talking and the criminal law, namely, financial legislation. Hon. Members will...
Sir Eric Fletcher: No, I will not discuss the merits. I was saying that as far as I know—and you no doubt, Mr. Speaker, will be the first to correct me if I am wrong—that was the last occasion in which retrospective legislation was attempted. As you will remember, the impeachment having failed, an Act of Attainder was passed so that Thomas Wentworth could be executed for having done something which was not...
Sir Eric Fletcher: I am seeking to explain how very rarely and in what different circumstances this House has ever attempted to deal retrospectively with criminal acts.
Sir Eric Fletcher: I will give way to my hon. Friend in a moment. There is one other possible precedent for retrospective action in the criminal field, and that relates to the Nuremburg trials. Some of us thought that it was very wrong to participate with other nations in bringing to trial the German war criminals for acts which were not criminal by international law or any law at the time when those acts were...
Sir Eric Fletcher: In any case it was done. I thought that I would be remiss in dealing with the arguments of the hon. Member for Clitheroe (Sir Frank Pearson) if I omitted that reference to a case in which it could be said that the House has been a participant in retrospective legislation of a criminal character. But, with that exception, I am not aware that the House has ever adopted the view that any...
Sir Eric Fletcher: In answer to the hon. Member for Clitheroe, I would say this. I would welcome the investigation being conducted by the Ombudsman. I do not know what results it would produce. I hope that it would have the desirable effect of bringing to the light of day the circumstances concerning this Duccio transaction, but it does not seem to me to follow that whatever facts are revealed by the...
Sir Eric Fletcher: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. I confess that I am not very familiar with what the Ombudsman is doing or, indeed, with the details of the Duccio affair. That, I think, is veiled in a great deal of obscurity. I know that there has been a great deal of indignation and that it is the occasion for this Bill, but I thought that I might be out of order if I said too much about the...
