FRUSTRATED HOUSE

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 32, 6 August 1936, Page 9

FRUSTRATED HOUSE

BRITISH PARLIAMENT

LACK OF ANY PROGRAMME

FIRST SIX MONTHS

.To the reader of Hansard, if not to the members of Parliament themselves, this House of Commons appears to be one of the strangest we have seen, said: the" "Manchester Guardian" recently, when ' reviewing the first six months of the new British Parliament. Cer/tainly there has been nothing like it since; 1921. In spite of the diversion of its attention, to external affairs, politically the Government ought to be in a strong position. It has a solid majority. It can ignore the House of Lords. A policy of armaments is one ■which appeals to all the preconceptions of Conservative back-benchers. But this majority, like all Conservative, majorities, asks to be led. Its actions and its speeches suggest that it feels that the Government is dithering arid the. House wasting its time. In part, no doubt, this arises from purely political reasons, but there is more in it than weakness of personnel or the troubles of a coalition. One obvious point is that the Government has no legislative programme which rouses enthusiasm. The big Bill ,of this session is,-presumably, the Education Bill, a typical compromise, which pleases nobody and displeases nearly everybody. The Tithe Bill has been received even less eagerly. The Coal Bill has been withdrawn. The rest of the programme has' consisted of minor Bills prolonging doles to industry, sectional bills like that extending unemployment insurance to agriculture ■ and the Cotton Spindles Bill, arid small Bills which could be taken late at night whenever the. 11 o'clock rule was suspended. HOUSE OVERWORKED. Nevertheless the House, has been overworked. During February and March the 11 o'clock rule was suspended on nearly every day on which Government business had precedence. The Government did not take private members' time, and private members' days have been about as useless as usual. Even so, the Government had three full days a week until Easter and four full days a week since. As n*- has ■ introduced no major legislation, what has it done with the time? ..There has been one vote of censure, some time has been occupied with the -consequences of the death,.of King George V, and the minor annual Bills —most of which-could be dispensed with if the Government took the trouble to pass permanent legislation .—have passed. For the rest, much of the time has been occupied with so-called financial business. The Government has secured the Supplementary Estimates, the Votes on Account, the Ways and Means resolutions and some of the Estimates. " _ Of all the time-wasting devices that Parliament uses, Supplementary Estimat€S^? the W orst, If a Supplementary Estimate is for a new service; that .service can, be debated. Since k^^ 3!? 0* 11 almost certainly have been fully debated on.the Bill which provided for the service, this is a small matter, but it is at least something. ■Most Supplementary Estimates, however, are not of this character. They arise from excess expenditure on an existing service. -Accordingly, only A?-excess "can be debated and not .the S oe^ lCe- If the?H6nife Office' has speni £1° J°o much on' approved schools 'a member cannot. discuss the general. ; administration of the Home Office; he' cannot even debate the desirability of approved, schools; he ' can. criticise tneir administration only so far as there has been excess expenditure. Time after time members have been ruled out of: order. . . CHAIRMAN AS LEADER. .v-It is hardly an exaggeration to say that on the Supplementary Estimates the Chairman and the Deputy Chairman spoke -more lines of Hansard than any other member. The reductio ad absurdum occurred in the all-night sitting when members tried to debate •an Office of Works Vote. After many interventions-by the Chairman, they found that they could debate the lavatory accommodation at the Newcastle Employment Exchange. It is true they thought they were being humorous; but the example is no more than a caricature of the normal procedure This is work for a small committee, not-for 614 members. ; ■;, The debates on the Estimates, on the Votes on Account, on the Consolidated Fund Bills, and on moving the Speaker out of the chair were sometimes more interesting arid useful. In respect of the last there was the usual futile process of balloting in order that private members might raise '"grievances." On one of them, indeed, on the. question of women in the i Civil Service, the Government was defeated. But, generally speaking, these debates have: been discussions on general policy, and many of them have related to defence. The honourable and gallant have had some magnificent manoeuvres. The Air Force has bombed the navy, and the navy has brought, out its pom-poms. One member has made the same speech in'somewhat different words at least six times. NOT COMPREHENSIVE. These debates, necessary perhaps, could never be comprehensive discussions. They had to be hung on a variety of pegs/They were brought up on Supplementary Estimates, so that they had to relate to the services actually provided for in the Estimates They were attached to the ordinary Estimates, so that it was out of order .to .suggest legislation. On moving the Speaker out of the chair, members who were not honourable and gallant insisted;on talking about other things. Just as the "Government was being pressed to do something for the protection of naval bases, or for collecting huge stocks of wheat / and oil, the Minister concerned moved the closure or the Chairman brought the debate* to an end without putting-the question —though for that matter the question to be put really had nothing to do with the questions which members wanted answered. .Nor has procedure'on actual legislation been more satisfactory. TheGovernment has limited , committee debates by drafting long and complicated financial resolutions which bound the committees subsequently. Conservatives have not hesitated to suggest that this is deliberate. The importance of this technical matter is that the. committee is bound by the 'financial resolution, and hosts of amendments have been ruled out of order on the ground that they went beyond it. Even on the financial resolutions many amendments have been ruled out of order on the ground that they involved an increased, charge. For this reason that on the Tithe Bill could hardly be amended at all; and now that the resolution has been passed it will be difficult to amend the Bill in committee because the resolution contains so much. USELESS RESOLUTIONS. The real remedy has not been mentioned in the protests that the use of the Standing Order brought forth. These resolutions are useless. It is said that their purpose is to enable the finance of a Bill to be discussed separately, and that the House ought

to pay particular'- attention to the financial implications of legislation. The answer is simple. The debate rarely mentions finance. It is another second reading discussion under artificial limitations. Those members who speak on both occasions make the same arguments. . Those who speak to the resolution and not to the second reading bring forth the arguments which they would have pro.duced if they had caught the Speaker's eye. Of course, Parliament ought to consider finance; but the fact is that finance is never debated except on the Budget resolutions.

These apparently technical difficulties are among the underlying reasons for the general feeling of frustration. The proportion. of , new members on the Conservative benches is small. The Government's supporters are not content to let the House be managed while they learn the complicated methods by which it is done. They know all about it because they have been there since 1931,. and now they want to do something. The Government has given them nothing to do that is worth doing, and Parliamentary procedure prevents them from doing things for themselves. Few of them, probably, would agree with the decision of the last Select Committee on Procedure that "the procedure.of Parliament is sufficiently flexible to meet all demands made upon it."