Labour Attacks Home For Part In Munich

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29270, 30 July 1960, Page 13

Labour Attacks Home For Part In Munich

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

LONDON, July 29.

The Labour Party last night went back 22 years—to the time of Munich—to attack the appointment of Lord Home as Foreign Secretary.

The Leader of' the Opposition (Mr Gaitskell) began the attack by recalling that Lord Home had been Parliamentary Secretary to Mr Neville Chamberlain when he went to Munich.

Lord Home had possibly changed his mind since then, but “to put in the post of Foreign Secretary someone so closely identified with that agreement, at a time when we are still hoping to negotiate an agreement with the Soviet Union seems a trifle unwise,” he said.

“It certainly lays us open to very great propaganda from Russia,” Mr Gaitskell said. The Labour motion of protest—virtually a motion of no-confl-dence—was defeated by 332 votes to 220. Mr Gaitskell also attacked Lord Home’s speech at the time of the Abadan oil crisis in Persia in 1951. Lord Home had then suggested dispatching British troops to Abadan “not just to protect the lives of British nationals but to protect their property as well.” Mr Gaitskell said the House of Lords, which many Labour members would like to see abolished, was in political terms “only an appendage and not a • rival of the House of Commons.” That was the constitutional point. It was essential that a Foreign Secretary should be in the Commons. He could then be in constant touch with public opinion through elected members of Parliament and could also be “exposed to criticisms and questioning like any other Minister.” Lord Home heard the attack

from a seat In the peers’ gallery. His wife was in the Speaker’s gallery with Lady Dorothy Macmillan, wife of the Prime Minister.

Mr Macmillan replied to the attack quite simply. He said Lord Home was the best man tor the job “I have watched Lord Home’s work with admiration, especially the way he operated during the two Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ conferences,” he said. He rejected charges that Lord Home should not be chosen because he was a member of the House of Lords and therefore not directly responsible to criticism in the Commons. The accident of birth should not “debar me from the right to choose the man I want at my side.” The Prime Minister said .e realised the appointment of a Foreign Secretary in the House of Lords after an interval of 20 years would raise difficulties. He also thought it might arouse some anxieties among his own supporters.

“If I had not been absolutely convinced Lord Home was the best man for the job why should I have risked such a complication?” he asked.

The prestige of the House of Lords had risen and its authority was growing. He had not noticed any undue reluctance of

Labour members to become peers and go there, he said. Lord Home’s appointment was also criticised by a Government member, Mr Gerald Nabarro. The first mention of it had been received with incredulity by Government supporters, he said.

Mr Nabarro also wanted to know' how news of the appointment leaked to every national newspaper almost a week ago. In his. reply, Mr ■ Macmillan denied that any * leak had come from his office at 10 Downing Street.

The Government’s majority In the' protest margin was the biggest of this Parliament. Its normal majority over all other parties in a full House is at present 94. Labour members’ explanation of. the increased majority was a charge of bad faith by some Conservatives. Under a system of pairing, Conservative and Labour members keep engagements outside Parliament by both agreeing not to vote.

Labour members contended that some Conservatives broke their pledge. Conservative members emphatically denied this.