SECRET SESSION

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 27, 31 July 1940, Page 7

SECRET SESSION

THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

FOREIGN AFFAIRS DEBATE

FREE EXPRESSION OF OPINION

LONDON, July 30

The House of Commons decided by 200 votes to 109 to have a secret session on foreign affairs. Mr. Churchill said that last week the Government was led to believe that it was the wish of the House to hold a debate on foreign affairs in secret, so that members of all parties could say what they ideally felt about foreign countries without any danger of adding to the number of those countries with which Britain was at present at war. It had since appeared that some newspapers would prefer a public debate, because secrecy was undemocratic, especially in time of war. The Government was now in the embarrassing position of a servant receiving contrary orders. He therefore moved that the remainder of the day's sitting should be a secret session and that strangers be ordered to withdraw.

Mr. Churchill pointed out that this motion could be debated. The Government would not attempt to influence the House, and Ministers would take no part in the debate.

Lord Winterton suggested that the question was of some constitutional importance, and that although hostility had been almost completely disarmed by the Prime Minister's speech, it could not be disposed of without some debate. He pointed out that in the whole of the last war there had been only seven secret sessions, whereas in this Parliament there had already been five. He maintained that secret sessions could only be justified in the most exceptional circumstances, and that this was surely not an occasion for giving even a suggestion of secret diplomacy.

The House was obviously eager for a secret session, and while Colonel Wedgwood suggested that it gave an. impression of weakness, another member raised the traditional cry, "I spy strangers," and the House divided.