Reform Plan Rejected

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27896, 18 February 1956, Page 9

Reform Plan Rejected

The motion on which the abolition vote was taken—and which the Government opposed—urged the JHouse to abolish or suspend the death penalty.

The Government had indicated during the debate that it would act on the vote if it favoured abolition. The Lord Privy Seal (Mr R. A. Butler) said “When we have a free vote we naturally expect to base our actions, if perhaps after deliberation, on the decision of the House.” He warned members that their position, therefore, was “a very serious one.” After the vote, Mr James Chuter Ede, a former Labour Home Secretary pressed the point further. He asked whether the Government would take steps to carry out the decision of the House. This time the Prime Minister. Sir Anthony Eden, replied: “Mr Ede can be assured that the Government will £ 2 y e full weight at once to a decision taken by this House on a free vote.” The Government proposed to reform the law so that only for the worst type of murders would killers go to the scaffold. * Home Secretary (Mr Gwilym Lloyd George) made this clear in the debate. His proposal was taken as an attempt to influence some of his supporters who might vote for the aboIff’on of the death penalty, which the Cabinet considers still necessary Mr Lloyd George said he believed that hanging was the best deterrent to murder. He urged the Commons to agree to a motion to retain the death penalty while reforming the law. Members favouring abolition then countered with an amendment urging the abolition of the death penalty outright or for an experimental period. Mr Lloyd George gave the Government’s proposal: A person accused of murder should now be able to plead provocation. The Government would be willing to change the law of constructive malice. (Under this law a man was guilty of murder if he killed a policeman trying to arrest him for another crime, even if he had no intention of killing.) The Government accepted a recommendation by the Royal Commission on Suicide Pacts. (This was that where a survivor of a pact had only aided or abetted his companion to commit suicide, ho should be guilty only of helping and not of murder. He should be liable to gaol for life.) Mr Lloyd George, who spoke for two hours, said: “I do not believe that in recent times there has been any

case in which an innocent man has been hanged." Most speakers in the debate favoured the abolition of hanging. These included two former Labour Home Secretaries. Mr Chuter Ede and Mr Herbert Morrison, who both said they had been “converted" since 1948. But a Conservative, Mr Samuel Nunningham. admitted that he once had a grave temptation to commit a murder and one of the factors which influenced him against it was the death penalty.