PEERS’ VETO POWER

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22484, 13 November 1947, Page 5

PEERS’ VETO POWER

DEBATE IN COMMONS OPPOSITION MOVE FAILS LONDON, Nov. 12. The Conservatives’ amendment to the Parliament Bill was defeated in the House of Commons by 345 votes to 194. Mr. Churchill said there was no guarantee, except the House of Lords’ suspensory veto, against a measure that was never voted on at the elections. “As a free-born Englishman what I hate most is the sense of being at anybody’s mercy—be it Hitler or Attlee,” he said. “We are approaching very near a-dictatorship in Britain—a dictatorship without either its criminality or efficiency. This nation, more than any other, knows how to control its rulers. There are incompetent Ministers who have brought upon us many miseries and who say, 'to hell with the people’s will.’ These are the men who are bringing us to ruin.”

Mr. Churchill said the Ministers on the Government bench were going to be more hated than any Government which had held office since the franchise was extended in 1932. Conservatives’ Delusion

The Home Secretary, Mr. Chuter Ede, replying to Mr. Churchill, said the Labour Government sought no privileges, desired to obtain no handicap nor seek any facility which the Conservatives had now long enjoyed. Labour did not want to be mixed up in any arid controversy about the peers versus the people. The restricted powers which the Bill provided were the maximum powers that should be allowed to apy second chamber, no matter how constituted. Mr. Chuter Ede said the idea that a Parliament Bill was required to nationalise the iron and steel industry was one of the Conservatives’ delusions. There were other Bills coming forward which might equally need the opportunities afforded by the Parliament Bill if they were to receive appropriate treatment from the Legislature.

“If we propose that tire Lords should be abolished or drastically reformed—that would be an issue which would have to be submitted to the electorate,’’ he declared

Mr Anthony Eden, winding up for the Opposition, said the objectionable aspect of the Bill was that it embodied the principle of retrospective legislation which all parties should guard against. The Government might find itself with a second chamber far less ready to pass the Iron and Steel Bill than the presert House of Lords. It was a murky, miserable little Bill and the clumsiest blunder the present Government had ever permitted. The Bill was read the second time. The Conservative amendment was defeated by 345 votes to 194. The Prime Minister, Mr. C. R. Attlee, replying to the debate, said that during the second half of the life of the present Parliament Mr. Churchill might appeal for the House of Lords’ aid. “And I should like to remove temptation from his path,” he said. "We are entitled to take up the matter as a practical problem that faces any Government of the Left'” The House of Lords was responsible to no one. It represented no one but exercised its own sweet will at its own sweet pleasure. He never yet heard a proposition submitted to the House of Commons for reform of the second chamber which suggested that there could be a labour majority in the House of Lords. , . , , t The Government was ready to look at any proposals for reform of the constitution of the House of Lords, but the House of Lords must not be allowed. to interpret the opinion of the nation against the House of Commons. A reformed second chamber must not be given concurrent powers with the House of Commons and must not have a permanent majority for any political party. . ~ “We know that the great mass of the people think it is anomalous that the House of Lords should have its present powers,” he added.