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7.30 am
However, the hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) was more concerned that there would be two classes of person in the House. One group would be eligible for the office of Speaker or Deputy Speaker, but the other would not. There would be two different classes in any case, as some individuals would also be members of another legislature. They would have duties, concerns and responsibilities in that regard which would inhibit their capacity fully to perform their duties in this place.
That would give rise to a grave difficulty. Indeed, that difficulty springs from the intention of the Bill to allow outsiders to become Members of the House while they are members of another legislature. That is a basic flaw in the Bill and we should acknowledge it.
The Bill has great flaws. The Minister has not satisfied hon. Members--he certainly has not satisfied me--by what he said earlier. He has not adequately explained why it is possible for the Government to accept amendments Nos. 7 and 9, but not to accept other amendments, even though they are similar. He has given an extremely inadequate explanation as to why he refuses to accept amendments Nos. 14 and 18.
Mr. Jonathan Sayeed (Mid-Bedfordshire):
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for tabling the new clause, because it demonstrates the absurdity of the Bill. Was that why he tabled it?
Mr. Ross:
I thought that the Bill was absurd, that it fell far short in the expertise of its drafting, and that it fell below the philosophical standards to which we are accustomed. However, I realise that the Government have a huge majority. In Northern Ireland, we have the word "thrawn"; it means being awkward for the sake of it. That describes the attitude of the Government. They have a huge majority; their followers expect to be able to sweep every measure through the House, so the Government have become careless.
The Bill is careless and badly drafted; it fulfils no useful purpose. As it is wrong and the Government are intent on putting it through, we should try to improve it.
Mr. Sayeed:
The hon. Member has been a Member of the House for many a year. Does he believe that the Bill would have been presented in this form, if, for example, Walter Harrison or Michael Cocks had still been Whips?
The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr. Michael Lord):
Order. The hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr. Ross) should not answer that question; he should return to the amendment.
Mr. Ross:
Fond as my memories are of the two gentlemen in question when they were Members of the House, I will not follow up the question put by the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Sayeed), other than to point out that if Mr. Harrison were still a Whip, there would not be so few Labour Members in the Committee--they would all be here. They would all have to answer to him--heaven help them if they were missing.
I am sure, Mr. Lord, that you recall Mr. Harrison as well as I do. He was a most remarkable man. I found him most congenial, but of course he was not my Whip. I got on well with him. He was a man of high moral and religious standards, having--
The Second Deputy Chairman:
The hon. Gentleman is now doing precisely what I asked him not to do. Will he please address the amendment?
Mr. Ross:
Of course, Mr. Lord. However, I hate to leave the subject of Mr. Harrison because I had such high
The Bill is a bad one. We have endeavoured to improve it with these amendments and others. The Government know that all the amendments are perfectly acceptable, but they cannot admit that they got it so wrong. It is only because they are forced by logic--a rare matter in government--to admit that the principle behind two of the amendments would improve the Bill that they are prepared to accept them. They therefore want to accept them, but they are not prepared to accept the same principle in regard to the other amendments. We heard the very weak argument that the Minister made against these sensible amendments.
I believe that the Minister should reconsider and I should be grateful, Mr. Lord, if you would advise me, because I need some advice. As you say, I have been in the House for a long time. However, as I have not been a member of one of the main parties, it has not been my responsibility to ask questions of the Chair and to discover how these different amendments will be dealt with. As has been said, the Government accept the principle underlying amendments Nos. 7 and 9. Will they accept those two amendments as they stand? If they accept those, does it mean that we must have a series of Divisions on them? What is the position regarding amendments Nos. 21, 14 and 18 and new clause 3? May we have separate Divisions on those amendments? I should be grateful if you would let me know how it is proposed to deal with this matter.
The Second Deputy Chairman:
As the hon. Gentleman has said, he has been a Member of the House for a long time. He therefore knows exactly how we deal with these amendments. He should address his amendments, not the procedures of the House.
Mr. Ross:
The problem is, Mr. Lord, that the procedures of the House will determine whether we can have a separate Division on each amendment, so I am just serving notice that we want separate Divisions on them.
There is also the question of amendments Nos. 7 and 9. I want to know whether the Minister is prepared to accept the wording of those two amendments, or whether he will go away, think about them and come back with a different wording at a later stage--either by tabling a manuscript amendment on Report, or by taking care of the matter in another place.
There is much more that one could say on these matters, but I think that, in these few minutes, I have addressed the thing as best I can. I would leave it there, and I should be grateful if the Minister replied.
Mr. George Howarth:
I have listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman, as I always do, and he has not asked me to cover any ground that I have not covered already or that, as in the case of hybridity, has not been ruled on by the Chair. Fascinating though some of the points that the hon. Gentleman raises are, I would be in danger of tedious repetition if I discussed them and, mindful as I am of the previous strictures from the Chair, I do not intend to do so. With the assurances that I have given on amendments
Mr. Gale:
I am sorry, Mr. Lord; I was hoping to catch the Minister before he sat down. I should like to ask him two absolutely straight questions, to which there are yes and no answers. One: is the Speaker of the House of Commons the holder of an office under the Crown--yes or no? Two: if not, is it, under the Bill, technically possible for the Speaker of the House of Commons to be a Minister in another Parliament--yes or no? If so, we could not possibly support clause 2.
Mr. Howarth:
The hon. Gentleman is well aware of the answers to his questions. He has checked the matter out. I will not be involved in any games that he might be playing. The Speaker of the House, as the hon. Gentleman well knows--I recall that he is a member of the Chairmen's Panel--is elected by the House and the House alone. When the Bill comes into force, technically speaking, the Speaker of the House could serve in another legislature and could, technically, hold office in that legislature, but I think that any Speaker who contemplated taking such action might find it difficult to gain the support of the House.
Mr. Gale:
Forgive me, Mr. Lord, but I do not know of any procedure--you will correct me if I am wrong--for removing a Speaker from office during their holding of that office, and if, as we have now agreed, the Speaker is not a Minister under the Crown, the Speakership is not covered by clause 2(2). That must be nonsense, because it means that the Speaker could hold a non-partisan office and a partisan office simultaneously.
Question put, That the amendment be made:--
Mr. William Ross:
Mr. Lord, I beg to ask leave to withdraw amendments Nos. 7, 14, 18 and 9, but to move new clause 3 separately as it deals with an entirely different matter. The new clause deals with the Speaker, you and your colleagues in this House, and you are of far more importance than any of the subjects covered by the other amendments.
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