Cases of Mr. Allig han and Mr. Walkden

§ Mr. Speaker

Direct Mr. Heighway to be brought to the Bar.

The Serjeant at Arms then brought Mr Heighway to the Bar.

§ Mr. Speaker

Mr. Arthur Heighway, you have been summoned to appear at the Bar of this House in consequence of a Report made by a Committee of this House. That Committee was directed to inquire into the matter of an article written by Mr. Garry Allighan, a Member of this House, and published on 3rd April, 1947, in the "World's Press News" newspaper, of which you are the editor and publisher. You did not seek, so the Committee have found, to establish the truth of the article, nor did you appear willing to admit its obvious implications, but, after prolonged examination, you made what the Committee were only able to regard as an entirely inadequate apology. I have to inform you that the House is willing to hear anything that you should now say to us in answer to the findings of the Committee.

§ Mr. Heighway

Mr. Speaker, Sir, the responsibility for the publication of that article, with its references to Members of the House, for which I desire sincerely to apologise, is entirely mine. I would like to say, however, that the article came 1095 from a Member of Parliament who is a professional journalist and publicist, and, because of these two factors, I wrongly allowed my guard to be lowered in respect of factors which I should have considered. For that I make no excuse. The fault was entirely mine. I accepted the article in good faith as a matter of interest to the specialised and restricted readership of my paper, and without any thought that it would be an affront to the Members of this House.

After I received the manuscript from Mr. Allighan, he did have second thoughts, and asked that he should make some adjustments and even suggested withdrawing it. At that point, I telegraphed him that the topicality of the article would be lost if deferred, and asked him if he would expedite the alterations which he had in mind. On that, he did send forward the alterations, and wrote me to go ahead with the article. I feel that it was that representation on my part, at a time when he was hesitating as to publication, which might have influenced him against his better judgment to authorise publication.

As to the contents of the section of the article, I should like to say that I did not appreciate then that they could be interpreted as an affront to the dignity of this House. It was not my intention at any time so to do. I now appreciate that, and, for that lack of understanding and serious error of judgment on my part, I do desire to tender my regret and my sincere and humble apologies to Mr. Speaker and to the Members of this House.

§ Mr. Speaker

I now direct you to withdraw.

Mr. Heighway withdrew accordingly.

§ Mr. Speaker

I now have to ask if Mr. Garry Allighan is present, and, if so, he is entitled to be heard in his place if he has anything to say.

§ Mr. Garry Allighan (Gravesend)

rose in his place and said:

Mr. Speaker, Sir,—In the first place, I desire to express to the House, through you, my grateful appreciation of their consideration in agreeing to the Lord President's proposal before the Recess 1096 to postpone this Debate until I was able to be present and make this statement. It is now some seven months since the offending article, which was the subject referred to the Committee, was written, and most Members will have arrived at the just assumption that I did not sit down and deliberately and calculatedly decide to insult this House and malign its Members. That was not my intention, and, at the very earliest moment in time that I can, I want to express my deep regret for having written the offending and offensive article, and to apologise, humbly and sincerely, for writing in such a way as to be an affront to the House.

I have no excuse for what I did. Looking back on it, I am at a complete loss to understand why I ever wrote such an article. It could not possibly do me any good, and, as the evidence shows, there was to be no payment for it and I could derive no advantage whatever from writing it. I cannot explain my action except that it was written during a period of intense mental strain, when I was undergoing treatment for a serious nervous disorder. I do hot seek to shelter behind the controversial issue as to whether or not party and caucus meetings are protected by Parliamentary Privilege, but I do assure the House that it never entered my mind, when I wrote the article, that I was committing a breach of Privilege. Had I given that aspect any thought at all, I should have concluded that, in writing about these subjects, I was not committing a breach of Privilege.

In withdrawing publicly all the unfounded imputations against the integrity of Members, I particularly regret and apologise for the allegation of insobriety which I made against unnamed Members. That was an offensive imputation which the evidence shows to have been unfounded, and I deeply regret being the author of that particular allegation, and humbly ask the House to accept my sincere apology. I do ask the House to believe me when I say that, of all the aspects of this regrettable and deeply regretted business, I most particularly regret that I have acted in such a way as to cast suspicion on innocent people. Although that was not the motive, I can now see how the article could not fail to have that result. That realisation has given me more distress than I can say, and 1097 I want, quite frankly, to admit the enormity of that offence and apologise sincerely for it.

While not trying, as the House can realise, to excuse or justify myself, I may be permitted to refer to the instance, cited in the Report, of my misleading the Committee. That is in Questions 272 and 275. At that juncture, I did not want to give away another Member, feeling sure that his identity would be revealed later, and I honestly made the mistake, in my own mind, of thinking that that question referred to other Members. I made that clear, in later cross-examination, when I said that I did not know of any of my colleagues who had disclosed information for payment. I made the mistake there of not thinking that the question referred to myself. To the best of my recollection, I did not deliberately set out to mislead the Committee, but, reading my evidence in cold print, I can fully understand Members agreeing that, at times, it was, as the Report described it, "of an evasive and contradictory nature." I can only ask them to try to imagine the circumstances in which I gave that evidence.

It was a terrifying ordeal, the memory of which will always be with me. My state of mind was worsened by the knowledge that I could have no legal help, and I had to face the crossfire of four eminent K.Cs. I felt helpless and alone. Half an hour of the Attorney-General's forensic skill was more than enough completely to demoralise me. I faced that ordeal at a time when I was in the middle of medical treatment for a seriously disordered nervous condition. They were some of the circumstances which formed the atmosphere and created my state of mind. I hope the House will be sympathetically understanding enough to appreciate that I allowed those circumstances to demoralise me, and bring me to a condition in which I gave answers which, had I been more collected and able to think more clearly, I would not have given. That is the explanation of the evasive and contradictory nature of my replies, and I can only rely on the broad humanity of this House to deal charitably with this aspect of a matter for which months of mental torture and self-accusation have already been a terrible punishment.

On the third aspect of the case, I have a clear conscience. I do not feel that I 1098 in receiving, and the editor in paying, were jointly or separately involved in an act of bribery. I do not shelter behind the ruling of the learned Clerk of this House, in Question 1869, that, even if a transaction of payment did take place in those circumstances, it would not be an offence. I prefer to stand on the fact that no act of bribery took place. My position was, as every Member of this House and most Members of the public have well known, that of a professional journalist, and as a professional journalist I received a salary from the paper for which I worked. I cannot believe that it would be claimed that the editor who pays, and the working journalist who receives, are involved in an act of bribery.

For more than 20 years, I have been a professional journalist, working on both sides of the Atlantic, and, at different periods during the past eight years, I worked as a salaried reporter, war correspondent, news editor, picture-news editor, industrial correspondent and political news-reporter on five different papers. Immediately previous to rejoining the ", Evening Standard," for which I had worked for the seven years before the war, I was the special political reporter of the "Daily Mail," my particular job being to report Labour and trade union news. I worked as such, to the general knowledge of most Members of this House, for a year before the last General Election and for more than a year after my election to this House, my news stories including news of party meetings and party matters.

It is only fair, both to' the newspapers to which I have worked since the Election and to myself, that I should emphasise that there was never any suggestion or thought of those newspapers offering me a bribe or of my accepting one. I have been a salaried newspaperman for years, and it never occurred to me to regard fees and salaries paid to working journalists in the light of bribes; nor, I am sure, did either the editor of the "Evening Standard," or, before him, the editor of the "Daily Mail," intend it to be a bribe. Journalism is my livelihood, as most other Members of this House practise their professions as their livelihood. It was as a professional journalist that I worked, and, in that capacity, received my salary.

I would also like to emphasise that when the editor of, first, the "Daily Mail" and, later, the editor of the 1099 " Evening Standard "appointed me special political reporter, it was never even remotely suggested that I was being engaged and paid either solely, mainly, or even at all, in order that I should report the secrets of party or caucus meetings. Neither that nor any other political activity was ever specified. I was engaged to report items of news about politics and politicians in general, and was given an entirely free hand on the job. Most of my reports were, in point of fact, of political matters not connected with the party—others were not even connected with politics—and I should have received my salary just the same had I not reported the Parliamentary Labour Party meetings at all—and, different from the case of the "Evening News," I did receive my salary during every Recess when I could not, and did not, report either party or other political news.

I think that the instinctive fairness of the House would permit me to emphasise for the record that it has never been suggested by the Committee that, in such reporting, I ever divulged State or Parliamentary secrets, although that allegation has gained currency. In my journalistic zeal—I now see, misdirected zeal—I considered it my duty to report all news that could be reported in the public interest, including news of private party and caucus meetings held in Committee rooms upstairs. While never, for one moment, suspecting that such work was a breach of Privilege, I do not pretend that I was unaware that it was both a breach of confidence, in which I departed from the high standards of Parliamentary conduct, and also of party discipline, which, I fully realised, would, at some time or another, -be dealt with by the party as a domestic matter. I plead guilty to those breaches, but that, I understand, from the evidence of the learned Clerk, is not necessarily a breach of Parliamentary law.

While I humbly submit myself to the decision of the House, I do ask Members to absolve me from the charge of bribery, and to accept my expression of regret for having departed from the high standards of Parliamentary conduct in reporting information which I was expected to treat as secret. I cannot undo what is done, nor can my apology sufficiently atone for my error of judgment in writing the 1100 offending article, but I can, as an earnest of my sincerity, ensure that I never repeat the offence. My offence has derived from the impossible situation I created for myself by attempting to reconcile the two functions of working journalist and Labour M.P., and putting my duty to my profession first. I decided, during the past six months of bitter reflection, to end that impossible situation, and have now taken the necessary steps to implement that decision.

Mr. Speaker, I have humbly acknowledged my mistake, and nothing could be more sincere and heartfelt than my remorse for my action. Having done all that it is humanly possible to do to put this deeply regretted affair straight, I am content to submit myself to this House, confident that it will act in its traditional spirit of justice and generosity.

§ Mr. Speaker

The hon. Member will now please withdraw.

Mr. Allighan then withdrew accordingly.

§ The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison)

I beg to move, That the article written by Mr. Allighan, and published in the 'World's Press News' of 3rd April, 1947, in its general tone, and particularly by its unfounded imputations against unnamed Members of insobriety in the precincts of this House, is an affront to this House; and that both Mr. Allighan, as the writer of the article, and Arthur Heighway, the editor and published of the 'World's Press News,' are guilty of a gross contempt of this House. The House is meeting today in what may be described as its judicial capacity for the discharge of its responsibilities in administering the Parliamentary law of Privilege. In coming to its conclusions, the House has the great advantage of a valuable Report from the Committee of Privileges, and, as Leader of the House, I should like at the outset to express appreciation of the ability and thoroughness with which the Committee of Privileges, under the chairmanship of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Arthur Greenwood), investigated the cases now before us. They were, in some respects, of peculiar difficulty, and our deliberations today will be much facilitated by the Committee's work. I think it is true to say that this Parliament has had, perhaps, well above the average of Privilege cases, and the Committee of 1101 Privileges has been kept fairly busy. I think of all the cases that have occurred in the present Parliament, these cases, perhaps, present the greatest difficulties we have so far met, and there is room for legitimate difference of opinion or approach about them.

I can only say that we have given the matter the most careful thought, and I am about to give the best advice that we have been able to think out for the consideration of hon. Members. But it is for the House, and the House alone, to pronounce judgment. It is right that the House should take full account of the views expressed by its Committee, but they are not binding upon it. If, therefore, I venture, as I shall, to differ on one important point from the Committee—though, in the main, I personally endorse their Report—I wish to make it clear that while I do so with the greatest respect to the Committee, at the same time I believe this pre-eminently is a matter upon which it is the duty of every hon. Member to make up his or her own mind. The Government think it proper, therefore, that the issues before the House should be left to a free vote; but, in accordance with tradition, the House will expect to have the considered views of the Government upon the matters which it is about to consider. Those views are embodied in the Motions on the Order Paper, and it is my duty to the House to explain them.

My first task is, to the best of my ability, to recall to hon. Members the salient facts about the cases before them as set out in the Report of the Committee of Privileges. Even though the extracts are somewhat lengthy, I do not think that I can do better than begin by quoting from the Report. Paragraphs 4 and 5 say: On the 3rd April, 1947, there appeared in the 'World's Press News' an article written by Mr. Garry Allighan, the Member for Gravesend, which referred to Mr. Nally's imputation and withdrawal.…Mr. Allighan admitted writing the article, but said he was not responsible for the heading, 'Labour M.P. reveals his concept of how Party news gets out. Public that pays is entitled to know,' or for the other cross headings. The article was mainly directed to showing how information concerning what took place at meetings of the Parliamentary Labour Party is obtained by newspapers. It is, however, to be observed that Mr. Allighan did not in the article confine his statements as to the manner in which such information is obtained to information obtained merely from Party meetings, but stated that the informa- 1102 tion is obtainable and obtained in the way he described from Members of Parliament generally including information relating to proceedings, current or future, of Parliament. The article contained the following assertions:—

1. "(a) Private and confidential information as to what took place at Party meetings is conveyed by Members of Parliament present at such meetings to newspapers.
2. "(b) One way such information is obtained is in return for a consideration paid by newspapers. Such consideration may be a retaining fee, payment for what is produced by the Member in each particular case, or by personal publicity, which Mr. Allighan described as payment in kind.
3. "(c) Another way in which newspapers obtain such information is from Members who are under the influence of drink; in order to obtain information in that way, newspapers' representatives offer intoxicants to Members and pay for them and Members accept. The expenses sheets of Parliamentary Reporters are full of such expenses."

The Committee examined the hon. Member at some length, and they stated that his evidence seemed to them to be of an evasive and contradictory nature. They thought that at the first stage he was in effect seeking to justify the allegations contained in his article, and, as they said, the state of affairs which his article described was, if it in fact existed, one which would have at the least involved grave discredit to the Members of the House as such. The Committee of Privileges, therefore, went exhaustively into the question whether the hon. Member's allegations were true. The general effect of the evidence was an indignant repudiation of the suggestion that the Press sought or obtained confidential information from Members of Parliament either by paying them in money or in kind or when Members were under the influence of drink. There were two exceptions to this general evidence. With one the House will be concerned later in the day. In the other, as hon. Members will be aware, the central figure was the hon. Member for Gravesend (Mr. Allighan) himself. After he had been named by the Editor of the "Evening Standard," he admitted that he was the author of a report of a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party on 23rd April which had been received from the Transatlantic Press Agency, to which the "Evening Standard" paid a regular fee of £30 a week for reports of such meetings 1103 and other political matters. It was further established that the hon. Member had supplied such reports regularly over a considerable period, and that the Transatlantic Press Agency, in which he appeared to hold a controlling interest, acted as his agent.

Here, perhaps I may say that it has been a fairly common practice for hon. Members, especially those of them who are professional journalists, but including others, to write for the Press on Parliamentary matters. The propriety of such journalistic activities is, of course, not in question here, and nobody would wish to impose restrictions upon their exercise within proper limits, though—and here I speak personally and entirely for myself—I always think it is perhaps to be regretted that in some cases reports which are critical of other Members of the House appear not under the name of the author in such cases but anonymously or under a pseudonym. But that is by the way. There is no question of Privilege there, except perhaps to the writers.

The Committee also had before them Mr. A. J. Heighway, the Editor and publisher of the "World's Press News," in which the hon. Member's article had appeared. They report that Mr. Heighway did not seek to establish the truth of the article, nor did he appear willing to admit its obvious implications, but after prolonged examination he made what the Committee could only regard as an entirely inadequate apology.

There will be general agreement with the Committee's conclusion that on any view this is a case of great seriousness. That is in Paragraph 14. It is also, as they point out, one of much difficulty from the point of view of the law and custom of Parliament. Nor do I think that there will be any disagreement with the Committee's main findings. First, there was no evidence whatever to justily the general charges made by the hon. Member for Gravesend, and they regarded those charges as wholly unfounded and constituting a grave contempt. Secondly, this contempt was aggravated by the fact that he was seeking to cast aspersion on others in respect 1104 of the very matter of which he knew himself to be guilty—

§ Mr. Pickthorn (Cambridge University)

Will the right hon. Gentleman allow me? I am sure he would wish this to be accurate. "Suspicion" not "aspersion." "Suspicion" is the word.

§ Mr. Morrison

I am much obliged to the hon. Member. That is quite right—to cast suspicion upon others in respect of the very matter of which he knew himself to be guilty—and that he persistently misled the Committee. Thirdly, he gave evidence to the Committee which they were quite unable to accept. Fourthly, he accepted what was in the nature of a bribe for the disclosure of confidential information.

It is to be noted that they—that is to say, the Committee—do not hold that the actual disclosure of the information constituted a breach of Privilege though it was a gross breach of confidence; but they came to the conclusion, in what they admitted to be a difficult matter from the point of view of Parliamentary law, that, in the particular circumstances, the disclosure of the information for payment was such a breach. This opinion flowed from their general conclusion that attendance of Members at a private party meeting held in the precincts of the Palace of Westminster during the Parliamentary Session to discuss Parliamentary matters connected with current or future proceedings of Parliament is attendance in their capacity of Members of Parliament. That is an important point, and I would draw particular attention to the words: to discuss Parliamentary matters connected with the current or future proceedings of Parliament ", because this is the crux of the matter.

What, in substance, the Committee said was, that in certain though not in all respects, the law of Privilege applies to private party meetings in the precincts of the Palace of Westminster when they meet to discuss Parliamentary matters connected with the current or future proceedings of Parliament. With great respect to the Committee, this seems to be going too far. Their opinion is based on the conclusion that Members attending such meetings attend in their capacity as Members of Parliament. According to the precedents, however, Members are only regarded as acting "in the capacity 1105 of Members "when they take part in Parliamentary proceedings. Indeed, even in transactions with constituents Members have never been regarded, for purposes of Privilege as acting in their capacity as Members. The possibility of extending the notion "proceedings of Parliament" to private party or other meetings is derived from the Report of the Committee on the Official Secrets Act in 1939. In this report, which arose out of a complaint by Mr. Duncan Sandys relating to the privilege of freedom of speech, what was assimilated to proceedings in Parliament was the draft of a proposed Parliamentary Question. There was thus something much more specifically related to actual Parliamentary proceedings than a general discussion of Parliamentary Business in a party meeting.

There are, of course, arguments both ways, but, without positively taking the line that the Committee are mistaken, the Government think that, especially in a matter in which, by tradition, Parliament is conservative, and in view of the substantial doubts about the validity of the Committee's conclusion—some of which were expressed by a minority of the Committee—the House would be wise to be cautious before endorsing its finding. We do not say that there can never be any transactions of a party meeting in respect of which a Member is not acting in a Parliamentary capacity; we do not say that that may never be the case; but we consider that the implications of the wider view expressed by the Committee are such that we would do well to pause before accepting it.

Let us examine some of these implications. In the first place, though the Committee were at pains to say that their conclusion as regards party meetings did not attract to such meetings all the Privileges which are attached to the proceedings of Parliament as a whole, I suggest for the consideration of the House that that distinction is a fine one. I do not see what logical ground there is for stopping where the Committee do, and I think we might find ourselves moving forward to a position in which party meetings acquired something akin to the status of meetings of officially appointed Parliamentary Committees. I am sure that it would not be the wish of the House that this should happen, and it would, I sub 1106 mit, be regrettable if we gave the impression to the public that the House was seeking to establish a privileged or semi-privileged position for private unofficial meetings of its members. Nor can I see how in logic it is possible to maintain the distinction which the Committee draw between meetings within the precincts of the Palace of Westminster and meetings elsewhere, nor between party meetings and other private meetings of Members, of which, of course, there are a great many.

The only safe course in the Government's view is, therefore, to interpret the precedent of the Sandys case strictly in its application to party and other private meetings, and to take as the crucial test the question whether, wherever the meeting may be held or whatever its character may be, the Member concerned is acting in a Parliamentary capacity, in the sense that he is doing something which is specifically related to actual proceedings of Parliament.

What I have said does not, however, mean that I think that the hon. Member was not guilty of a gross contempt of the House, which deserves to be punished. The Committee found him guilty of, first, a libel upon the House, and secondly, the acceptance of a bribe; and they stated that these offences were aggravated by his evidence, in which he sought to cast suspicion on others and persistently to mislead the Committee. I refer to paragraph 23 of the Report. It has often been held that wilfully misleading evidence is a substantive offence, and it is flagrantly contrary to the Sessional Order on the subject. The particular resolution applicable at the time was that passed by the House on 12th November, 1946: That if it shall appear that any person hath given false evidence in any case before this House, or any Committee thereof, this House will proceed with the utmost severity against such offender.

§ Mr. Pickthorn

On a point of Order. I deeply apologise to the right hon. Gentleman for interrupting him in what is a difficult task, and I am sorry. But what I want to know is whether we are now, as I take it, upon the Motion which begins with the words, "That the article." What I wish to know and to have your guidance on, Sir, is: are we, while upon that, considering the two succeeding Motions as well, or are we to take them 1107 separately? I do not feel quite clear from the Lord President's argument whether we are solely on the first, or whether all three are open to Debate.

§ Mr. Morrison

The width of the Debate, of course, is a matter for Mr. Speaker, and upon that I have no views. What I am seeking to do in this speech is to make the case for the first Motion, and I myself think that the whole of the argument I have made so far, and will make, is relevant to that first question. If the House desires the Debate to go very wide and free, and you, Mr. Speaker, so rule, I have no objection.

§ Mr. Speaker

Naturally, I am bound to call all three Motions separately. Anyhow, I thought there was that first case which the Leader of the House was making, and if to some extent it covered all three it was really based on the first one. I propose to put them all separately, and to Debate them separately if necessary.

§ Mr. Morrison

By this conduct, and by seeking to cast suspicion on others, the hon. Member was, in my view, guilty of a gross contempt of the House. Secondly, by corruptly accepting payment for the disclosure of information about matters to be proceeded with in Parliament, obtained from other hon. Members under the obligation of secrecy, he was, I consider, guilty of dishonourable conduct, which tended to destroy mutual confidence among Members and to lower the public esteem of the House. That the' conduct was dishonourable is not in any way affected by the question whether he was acting in a Parliamentary capacity, and though there is no precisely analogous case, there are precedents for the punishment by the House of conduct which falls seriously below the standard which the House expects of its Members.

§ Mr. Churchill (Woodford)

It would help, I think, if the right hon. Member could cite one or two of the precedents.

§ Mr. Morrison

Perhaps the one which illustrates the situation best, because it was part of a commentary made by a former Speaker of the House, would be the one of March, 1812. This was in the case of a Mr. Walsh who was expelled, after a long Debate, by 101 votes to 16. I quote an extract: 1108 The principle of the expulsion: The facts incontrovertibly proved (upon the trial at the Old Bailey) of his having plotted and practised a gross and infamous breach of trust in a money transaction, to his own emolument; and the. precedent (by which that principle had already been extended to transactions respecting not only public, but also private property in the case of individuals) argued and relied upon was that of the Charitable Corporation in 1732, when, for indirect and fraudulent practices, three members were expelled; and the legal conviction of any indictable offence in those practices was held to be so little necessary to precede the expulsion, that they were expelled first, and the legal prosecutions were ordered afterwards, as is commonly the practice of Parliament, where it first vindicates its own honour, and then consigns the individual to legal prosecution, which may or may not be able to fix legal guilt and punishment on the delinquent. That is a passage from a statement by Mr. Speaker Abbot, Lord Colchester, who was Speaker from 1802 to 1817. I do not want to weary the House, but there is a whole series of other cases which, in themselves, were not specifically related to Parliamentary proceedings, but in which the House took action.

§ Mr. Churchill

Which in themselves were not specifically related to Parliamentary proceedings, and were not themselves confirmed by criminal proceedings in the courts.

§ Mr. Morrison

Some were—here I am speaking from memory—and some were not, so, whichever way it is argued, the case is a strong one, that the House has every right to deal with its Members if, in their, view, the conduct of the Members is such that it brings discredit and contempt on the House as a whole.

§ Mr. Paget (Northampton)

Is it not a fact that in the case of Mr. Walsh this House acted after the Court of Crown Cases Reserved had found that there was no case against Mr. Walsh? This House then decided that the evidence showed his conduct, although not criminal, was such as to be not honourable.

§ Mr. Morrison

It does not look like it from this extract—

§ Hon. Members

Speak up.

§ Major Sir David Maxwell Fyfe (Liverpool, West Derby)

The hon. and learned Member who, a moment ago—

§ Mr. Ivor Owen Thomas (The Wrekin)

On a point of Order. May I, through you, Mr. Speaker, appeal to right hon. Members of the Front Benches on 1109 both sides of the House to speak up? Hon. Members below the Gangway have the greatest difficulty in hearing the private conversation which is going on.

§ Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe

The hon. and learned Member who interrupted a moment ago is, if he will allow me to say so, speaking in accordance with my recollection of the case. Mr. Walsh was convicted at the Old Bailey, but that conviction was upset by the Court of Crown Cases Reserved, a meeting of judges which at that time dealt with the functions of the Court of Criminal Appeal; and then, if I remember rightly, he was given a pardon under the Great Seal.

§ Mr. Morrison

Who am I to cut in between the right hon. and learned Member opposite and my hon. and learned Friend? Quite frankly, I looked up the records and found these cases, in order to be sure of my ground. However, I admit, when it comes to cross-examination upon these finer points, I had better retire from the fray and ask for notice.

§ Mr. Churchill

I am only anxious to assist the discussion. I think it would be a great help to many of us in judging these matters to have it clearly established that Parliamentary action had been taken against the conduct of particular Members, irrespective of the well-known Privilege of the House, and irrespective of the judgment of a court of law.

§ Mr. Morrison

Oh, yes, Sir. There is no doubt that the right hon. Member is quite right on that point. Perhaps I can quote, quite shortly, two other cases which confirm the view I had expressed, and which he also has expressed.

There was the case of Sir J. Bennett in 1621–[Laughter.]—Do not let hon. Members laugh about these dates. These are the periods from which the great vigour of Parliament came, and they are all relevant. Sir J. Bennett was charged with bribery. Charge framed by Committee of Whole House That is the way they used to do things in those days. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I suspected I was asking for it in saying that. Bennett then tried in the House, found guilty and expelled. The other case is that of the Commissioners of Forfeited Estates, on 30th March, 1732: 1110 On consideration of report from Committee on the sale of the Estate of the last Earl of Derwentwater (who has been attained). '… and some parts of the Report having relation to Denis Bond, Esq., a Member of this-House; He was heard etc.… Resolved, that Denis Bond…is guilty of a notorious Breach of Trust, reposed in him, as Commissioner and Trustee for the sale of the forfeited Estates for the use of the Publick. Resolved, nemine contradicente, That the said Denis Bond be, for his said Offence, expelled this House.' Identical proceedings against John Birch. M.P. Therefore, I do not think there is any doubt as to the right of the House to judge the conduct of Members outside or inside the House, to come to conclusions about standards, and to decide whether their conduct is such that it brings contempt on the House in its corporate capacity.

The House has the right, if it so wishes, to expel in such cases, and the offences need have nothing to do with Parliamentary proceedings or Privilege. It follows, in my opinion, though on different grounds from those advanced by the Committee of Privileges, that Mr. Heighway, as editor and publisher of the "World's Press News," was also guilty of a gross contempt of the House. That is the considered judgment which I and my colleagues have reached. It is a case of great difficulty. I am afraid that there is a considerable number of Motions to be dealt with. I am anxious, if the House will forgive me, to try and deal with them with fairness and expedition. It would be a great pity, as we are sitting in a judicial capacity, if we were voting on them and discussing them in the early hours in the morning. I have tried, as fairly and as judicially as I can, to sum up the issues on behalf of the Government, and to give the House the advice we think is wisest in all the circumstances.

§ Mr. J. S. C. Reid (Glasgow, Hillhead)

When I first saw this Motion, I observed that whereas in the two earlier Motions we were told the nature of the offence which had been committed, namely, a gross contempt, there was no mention in this case either of contempt or of breach of Privilege. I was in considerable doubt whether that omission was deliberate or inadvertent. It now appears, from what the Lord President of the Council has said, that the admission was deliberate, and that what we are now asked to do is to condemn a Member of this House for conduct which is neither a breach of Privilege nor con-' tempt of the House, but which is highly dishonourable. I agree at once that the conduct of this Member was in the highest degree dishonourable and discreditable, but it seems to me to be a matter well worthy of consideration by this House whether it is consistent, not only with precedents, but with the principles which should guide our actions in the present day, that we should proceed to punish a Member for something which is not an offence against the law or against any Order of this House, or in any shape a contempt of this House.

I understood the right hon. Gentleman to argue that there was a contempt of this House in a technical sense. He founded his argument, if I understood it aright, on certain precedents when the House took 1112 action against Members for something which they had done—entirely apart from their position as Members of Parliament—in their private capacity. I agree at once that if a Member of Parliament has committed a serious crime, then that Member ceases to be a Member of this House. I further agree that there are some ancient and shadowy border-line cases where the House has taken action where a crime was not committed, but I think these cases are ancient and shadowy and that we should think twice before following them.

I do not think any of the cases quoted by the Lord President of the Council really are precedents for what we are doing now. If I understand it aright, the House took the view that Mr. Walsh had committed a serious crime, and that was the ground on which they expelled him. It is quite true that they did not attend to the question of whether he had been convicted of that crime, or whether his conviction had not been upheld; it was on the basis that what Mr. Walsh had done was criminal conduct. I do not know what were the circumstances of John Bennett's case. I think that these cases raise a question of principle which might guide us, but certainly we should not base our actions on them.

The case of the hon. Member for Gravesend (Mr. Allighan) arose properly as an alleged breach of Privilege, and the House has just found on that. There were two breaches of Privilege committed by that Member, and no one has dissented from that finding. But this is a third matter which we are now discussing, and the same Motion appears on the Order Paper with regard to the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Walkden). In that case, however, no other allegation has been made or substantiated against him. It was treated as a prima facie breach of Privilege. It was remitted to the Committee of Privileges, and they have said that they thought a breach of Privilege was committed. The Lord President of the Council now says that he does not think any breach of Privilege was committed, but we are nevertheless invited later on to condemn the hon. Member for Doncaster, not for the breach of Privilege which was first alleged against him, but for conduct of an entirely different character.

It is, therefore, with regard to the hon. Member for Doncaster that the issue sharply arises. With regard to the hon. 1113 Member for Gravesend, it may be that, if the House passes this Motion, it will have some effect on the punishment which the House may decide later on to inflict, but it can have no other effect, because the hon. Member for Gravesend is already convicted on two counts. Therefore, the importance of this Motion with regard to that Member is secondary. But it is crucial and vital when we come to the hon. Member for Doncaster. In his case, on this and this alone depends whether he is to be found guilty at all. I say that in these times to find a Member of this House guilty, not because of any breach of the law—he has committed no crime, and no crime is alleged—not because of any breach of Privilege—he has infringed no Privilege—not for any contempt of the authority of this House, but because he is a dishonourable man, seems to me a wrong line for this House to take, whatever the House may have done 200 years ago. The precedents are not very strong, and even if they were stronger I would still take the view that I am advocating. May I remind the House of the terms of this Motion? That Mr. Allighan, a Member of this House, in corruptly accepting payment for the disclosure of information about matters to be proceeded with in Parliament obtained from other Members under the obligation of secrecy, is guilty of dishonourable conduct which deserve, to be severely punished… That makes it perfectly plain that what the House is invited to do is not to administer any law, but to punish one of its Members for being dishonourable. I do not think that that is a proper thing for this House to do. It is a matter on which undue argument is somewhat futile, because one's view of this is perhaps not wholly guided by meticulous argument, and it might not be to the advantage of the House that I should go into lengthy argumentative details about it. I think it is very much a matter of first impressions. But I do say this, that in other legislative assemblies proceedings are sometimes taken against members of those assemblies on what I might call subjective grounds—grounds that other members dislike them and their actions, and not on grounds that they have infringed any established law of the Constitution. Nobody would suggest that that sort of thing could happen in this country today, or tomorrow, but I suggest that in considering this as a question of general principle we might have at the 1114 back of our minds a recollection that the line we are invited to take today is one step in the direction of a goal which all of us would repudiate with indignation

I do not know that it is very useful to quote authorities from Erskine May or elsewhere, but the passage in Erskine May which comes nearest to what we are now being asked to do is that on pages 104 and 105. I do not propose to read it, but it deals with the expulsion of Members, and it says that nowadays expulsion is practically reserved for Members who have committed grave misdemeanours. I can find no other chapter in the book which deals with conduct that is in relation to Parliamentary Privilege. Although it is true that there are some old cases where there was no misdemeanour in a technical sense, the view of Erskine May today—I have not checked the old edition—is that this power to deal with offences other than offences against this House and its Privileges is, in practice limited to cases of misdemeanour. The distinction between misdemeanour and felony is a somewhat closed book to me, but it is clear that felony vacates a Member's seat without proceedings, whereas in the case of misdemeanour this House has to expel him. It is in those cases that this doctrine of extra-Parliamentary misdeed is invoked, and it is only in those cases that it has been apparently invoked within recent times. I suggest that it is only in that sort of case that we would be well advised to invoke it now.

Where is this to stop? It is highly dishonourable to take money for revealing secrets, but I doubt if any Member would say that that is the most dishonourable thing that a man can do without breaking the law. Once the door is opened to this doctrine, that if a man is sufficiently dishonourable he must be condemned whether he has broken the law or not, I do not see where we shall stop. It will always be a matter of opinion whether a man has acted dishonourably, and whether he has acted so dishonourably as to warrant the animadversion of this House. I dislike this idea of punishment turning on what is, at bottom, a matter of opinion. I would much rather see it turn on the plain question: has the man, or has he not, infringed a known rule? It would perhaps be wrong to go back now to the controversy which divided Members of the Select Committee, and I would not 1115 do so, were it not for the occurrence of certain words in the third line of this Motion. I should be glad of an explanation of what they are intended to mean. I think they may go rather a long way. The majority of the Committee took the view that there was a certain Privilege attached to certain meetings of Members upstairs, but not to other meetings of Members. Therefore, they took the view that if the secrets of the meeting to which Privilege attached were sold, that sale was a breach of Privilege; but I think it is obvious from the reading of the majority Report that they necessarily must have taken the view that if that sale was the sale of secrets gained at a meeting to which Privilege did not attach, there was no breach of Privilege.

§ Mr. Sydney Silverman (Nelson and Colne)

Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman attach any importance or not to the word "corruptly"? Is there any difference or not between accepting payment for a thing corruptly, and merely accepting payment for it?

§ Mr. Reid

I cannot imagine any acceptance of payment to give away a secret which is not corrupt. I should have thought that if someone accepted payment to do something of that character, the word "corrupt" would be an apt word, in the popular sense, to attach to that.

§ Mr. Silverman

Then would not that dispose of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's argument? If payment was corruptly received, then the condition he demands, namely, that a criminal offence, should be committed, would be satisfied.

§ Mr. Reid

I have just said that I think the word "corrupt" applies here in the popular sense. If the hon. Gentleman is asking whether I think that in this case there was any breach of any Statute or common law, I am at a loss to find it. I feel quite sure that if that had been the case we need not have gone into all this elaborate investigation upstairs. It would have been sufficient to say that there had been an infringement of an Act and, therefore, the Member had been guilty of, at any rate, a misdemeanour. I speak subject to correction, because I do not profess to be an expert on English law, but if I were asked, as a Scotsman, to draw an indictment against a man on the ground that he promised certain other 1116 persons not to give away a certain piece of information, and then gave it away and received £5 in return, I do not think that I could construct an indictment which would pass the test of relevancy.

There is no question here of agent, master or servant, or anything of that kind. If anyone can suggest now a good indictment in criminal law in this case against the Member for Gravesend, that puts an entirely different complexion on it, but neither in the course of the proceedings upstairs nor in the course of the argument, so far as it has gone up to date, has anyone suggested that the Member for Gravesend committed in this respect an indictable offence. If he did, I agree that my argument goes by the board because if a man has committed an indictable offence and this House is satisfied that that offence has been committed, either by a copy of the record of the conviction or by evidence which satisfies the majority of us sitting here, then the House is entitled, and, indeed, bound, to proceed against that Member. What I have said so far is based on the fact that no one has suggested that such a crime has been committed. If someone now suggests it, and the House accepts it, that is a different matter altogether.

I would like to say a word about the third line of the Motion. It may be that this is merely descriptive and is not intended to have any definitive effect. The words are: matters to be proceeded with in Parliament obtained from other Members under the obligation of secrecy, If these words are to be read as anything more than a bare description of anything that happened in this case, do they mean that there is some distinction in Parliamentary law of Privilege between two or three of us meeting together, it matters not where, when, casually or by what arrangement, and exchanging information and some of us meeting with somebody who is not a Member? I do not know what this means. It means, if I read it aright, that if two or three of us meet together in the smoking room, or in a train going north, or in a private house and agree among ourselves that what we are going to say is to be secret, and one of us says to the other something with regard to approaching Parliamentary business, that the giving away of that for money is something which this House should take note of; but, apparently, if 1117 we give it away for money to somebody outside the House, it is different. Why, I cannot think. If this is intended to be definitive in any way, I do not see that it is limited by those words at all.

It the basis is not dishonourable conduct of any kind which this House regards as worthy of punishment, then these words are simply descriptive of what happened here, and in no way limit the general nature of the offence which we are finding proved. I seek for information here. Is the proposition, as it appears to be, that any dishonourable conduct of any kind, providing it is sufficiently dishonourable, incurs the animadversion of this House, or is it only dishonourable conduct in connection with secrets about Parliamentary affairs? If it is the first, I have already said what I want to say, and I think it would be most injudicial of this House to proceed with the other charge. If it is the second, we are back at the Committee's Report. That is why I have raised the matter. If what the Lord President has in mind is not that dishonourable conduct of every sort and kind is to be subjected to our animadversion, but only dishonourable conduct in connection with the giving away of Parliamentary information, then far from disagreeing with the view of the majority of the Committee, the right hon. Gentleman has gone far beyond it.

I and my hon. Friends said that there is no Privilege attaching at all, and as this is not a court of morals, and as there is no breach of Privilege, we may think that the giving away of secrets is in the highest degree dishonourable but we cannot attach the offender. The majority said we can attach the offender, but only because Privilege attaches to the occasion on which the disclosure was made, and then they go into a long story, with which we disagree, about the occasions to which Privilege attaches. It is now being suggested that some form of Privilege attaches not only to party meetings but to every occasion on which two or three Members gather together in order to exchange information confidentially. In my view, that must be wrong. Therefore, I put this dilemma, and I think that it is a dilemma: If this Motion is intended to be limited to occasions to be founded on a doctrine which relates only to the disclosure of Parliamentary information, then I say that far from throwing over or disagreeing with 1118 the view of the majority of the Committee of Privileges, this Motion goes immensely beyond anything they suggested, and, therefore, on that view, I say that this Motion should not be accepted.

If, on the other hand, these words are purely descriptive, and the proposition put before us is, in fact, that any form of gross dishonour is something which ought to be punished by this House in order to maintain an honourable standard among its Members, then that proposition would not in the least be subject to any attack on the ground of where Privilege begins and ends, but subject to attack on an entirely different line altogether, namely, that we are going right away from the whole chapter and field of Privilege and embarking on a quite different field. We are setting ourselves up as a court of morals. It seems to me that one or other of these two things must be the meaning of this Motion. Either we set ourselves up as a general court of morals, with which I wholly disagree, or we found this upon some view of Parliamentary Privilege attaching to conversations between Members of Parliament, which goes immensely beyond anything which the Committee of Privileges ever suggested.

I suggest, therefore, that unless we are prepared to turn ourselves into a court of morals, it necessarily follows that anyone who disagrees with the view of the majority of the Committee of Privileges must reject this Motion. It follows also that there may be many people who would be prepared to accept the view of the majority but who, nevertheless, would reject this Motion. On the narrow argument, excluding the court of morals, this Motion is worse than the view of the majority of the Committee of Privileges. It can only be supported by anyone who disagrees with the majority of the Committee of Privileges on the ground that we are now constituting ourselves a court of morals on the behaviour of our fellow Members.

§ Mr. Sydney Silverman (Nelson and Colne)

I should like to begin by expressing some surprise that there is not present in the House either of the Law Officers of the Crown. I quite recognise and welcome the Government's decision to leave these matters to a free vote of the House, and I recognise, too. that the function of the Law Officers of the Crown 1119 is to advise not so much the House of Commons as the Government. Nevertheless, the Attorney-General at any rate was a Member of the Committee of Privileges, and unless I have misread the account of its proceedings he took rather an active part in them. [Interruption.] I am much obliged. I am reminded by one of my hon. Friends that the Attorney-General could hardly have been here. He is doing at the moment elsewhere what we think is far more important work than is involved in this question. One would think perhaps that the other Law Officer would be here to deal with legal questions that arise. I am in a considerable difficulty about a point which was made by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Hillhead (Mr. J. S. C. Reid) when he was speaking. I cannot think that the word "corruptly" in this connection is an unnecessary word. I think "corruptly" means that the thing was done in such a way as to be a breach of our Bribery and Corruption Act involving either a statutory law offence or a common law offence.

§ Earl Winterton (Horsham)

Surely the point is if he were guilty under the ordinary law he should have been prosecuted under that law.

§ Mr. Silverman

It may be not. We are not considering the question of prosecution; we are only dealing with the right hon. and learned Gentleman's argument. He would have no objection to this third Motion if it had been founded upon the commission of a crime, whether that crime had been prosecuted to a conviction or whether it had not. I think they wrote "corruptly" into this Motion intending to convey that there had been an offence committed against the criminal law. That is why the word "corruptly" is put into the first line of the Motion, and if that is not what is intended I do not know why it is there.

§ Mr. J. S. C. Reid

The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) is a lawyer, and perhaps he will tell the House whether he thinks there is a criminal offence involved and if so what, because I am still at a loss to know what.

§ Mr. Silverman

What I have in mind—I hesitate very long and am very diffident about expressing any dogmatic opinion upon the point—is that the Bribery and 1120 Corruption Act in England makes it an offence to take payment or to show favour to any person in the discharge of his duties.

§ Mr. Reid

As a servant.

§ Mr. Silverman

Not necessarily as a servant. Even if it were as a servant there is a contractual agreement of service between a newspaper and a writer. I am not attempting for one moment to give anything like a final opinion, but I thought it would have been a good idea if one Law Officer of the Crown had been present on such an occasion to keep us right or offer his advice on points of this kind.

I cannot help saying that I have considerable sympathy with the right hon. and learned Gentleman's argument, assuming that no crime has been committed or that no crime was done, that this Motion, which we are being asked to pass, goes far beyond the recommendation of the Committee of Privileges, which the Government advise us to reject, because whereas that invites us to treat as a breach of Privilege only the disclosure of information in certain closely defined and restricted circumstances, this invites us to punish as though it were a breach of Privilege any disclosure of information committed in much wider and less closely defined circumstances. If the Government are right in asking us to reject the recommendation of the Committee of Privileges, I cannot see how it can be right at the same time to ask us to accept this Motion. I, personally, could not vote for it on that argument.

Where I differ from the right hon. and learned Gentleman and I am afraid from my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is that I think the Committee of Privileges was right. They proposed to deal with this matter on a very simple and easily intelligible basis, and I cannot for the life of me understand why it would be dangerous to accept it, certainly if we are going in its place to invite the House to accept something much wider. What they said was this—and I am quoting from paragraph 21: This, however, does not dispose of the matter. It is clearly a breach of Privilege to offer a bribe or payment to a Member in order to influence him in his conduct as a Member. Is there any dispute about that? Indeed, could there possibly be any dispute about it? There is just as much a breach of Privilege in the offering of the bribe as in the taking of the bribe, and if it were 1121 a threat instead of a bribe no one would have the slightest difficulty in regarding it as a breach of Privilege. I should have thought that the position stated in that paragraph was hardly capable of serious controversy at all.

§ Earl Winterton

I think the hon. Gentleman will agree that in fact it could not be held that the hon. Member for Graves-end (Mr. Allighan) got his information in his capacity as a Member of Parliament, because the representative of the "Daily Herald" got the same information and he is not a Member of Parliament.

§ Mr. Silverman

With all respect to the noble Lord, I do not think on reflection he will consider that that is a really logical distinction, because the hon. Member for Gravesend was not the editor of the "Daily Herald." However, the editor of the "Daily Herald" got it, the Member for Gravesend got it because he was a Member of Parliament. It he had not been a Member of Parliament he would not have been entitled to get that information. Therefore, whatever may be true of other people he got it as a Member of Parliament. What was his duty? It would obviously be a gross breach of trust if anyone who got confidential information in any way disclosed that information. I 1122 can conceive of circumstances in which a man can say to himself, "A breach of trust or not, there is a higher, more overriding duty which compels me to disclose it." If he disclosed it in the exercise of his conscientious judgment, taking his responsibility, deciding for himself in a conflict of loyalties which was the greater loyalty and deciding to commit a breach of confidence, he would not commit a breach of Privilege at all. He might do it merely as an indiscretion, or because he had determined, having considered it, that it was the right thing to do.

Surely it makes all the difference in the world if the man discloses that information, not after a careful balancing of one responsibility against another, not in the conscientious exercise of his judgment as a Member of Parliament, but because somebody has paid him to do it. That makes all the difference in the world. It was not the disclosure of the information which was the breach of Privilege, although he obtained it as a Member of Parliament. What was the breach of Privilege was the decision to disclose for reward the information which he had received as a Member of Parliament. In the words used in this paragraph, he was influenced in his conduct as a Member by the offer, or indeed by the receipt, of payment.

I cannot quite see why the Government were not prepared to accept that view, which is much easier to accept than the view which they invite us to accept. It commits them to far less, and it opens the door to far fewer embarrassments, difficulties and complications. All it involves is coming to the conclusion that, in the particular circumstances of the case, a Member of the House of Commons was influenced in his conduct as a Member by the offer of payment. It is merely a question of fact. The Motion before the House, if we were to accept it, would not mean the acceptance merely of a question of fact to be determined by evidence but would be the adoption of a not very clearly or unequivocally expressed principle which looks as if it goes beyond questions of fact, especially if the right hon. and learned Gentleman is right in holding that no criminal act is contemplated.

I do not know what course is open. There is no Motion on the Paper accepting the recommendations in paragraph 21 of 1123 the Committee's Report. If there were such a Motion my difficulties would disappear. If not cheerfully, at any rate without hesitation, I could come to a clear conclusion about the matter. In the absence of such a Motion I am in considerable difficulty. I do not know whether you can advise me, and other Members of the House, Mr. Speaker, whether there is any step open to us to enable the view of the House of Commons to be taken by the free exercise of our own view on whether the Committee of Privileges, in paragraph 21, came to a right or to a wrong conclusion.

§ Mr. Bowles (Nuneaton)

It might be done by a manuscript Amendment.

§ Mr. Silverman

It is suggested to me that it might be open to me to submit a manuscript Amendment in order to enable the House to express its opinion on this matter.

§ Mr. Benn Levy (Eton and Slough)

I would like to ask my hon. Friend a question before he resumes his seat. He has raised the point about the position of a Member of Parliament disclosing information which he had obtained because he was a Member of Parliament. The noble Lord has said that in this case and in other cases it might be possible for the information to be obtained by people who are not Members of Parliament. Is not the point therefore whether it is information which he could have got only as a Member of Parliament, or whether if is information which nobody but he could get? There is that distinction to be borne in mind. Otherwise we may be penalising a Member of Parliament by making it impossible for him to give information which a non-Member of Parliament can give.

§ Mr. Silverman

Nobody is being penalised. It is a question of fact upon which each Member must decide for himself. It may be perfectly proper, at any rate no breach of Privilege, for the editor of the "Daily Herald" to report what he heard at a party meeting. There would be an obvious breach of confidence or breach of trust, but no breach of Privilege. Any Member can do it without breach of Privilege, provided he is doing it in the exercise of his clear unfettered judgment as a Member. If he did it 1124 for reward I think he would be committing a breach of Privilege, upon the principle contained in this paragraph.

§ Earl Winterton

If Mr. Morgan Phillips gave this information he would not be guilty of bribery and corruption, as would a Member of Parliament, although they were both in the same position in the meeting.

§ Mr. Silverman

I would say, in answer to that, that they were not in the same position in the meeting. Mr. Morgan Phillips, if he attended as an observer and if he committed a breach of trust or a breach of confidence, or went outside his rights in some way, may be answerable to someone or other. A Member of Parliament is answerable here. A Member of Parliament is completely free to do what he likes and what he thinks it is right to do, provided he does it because he thinks it is right to do it, and not for reward.

§ Mr. Quintin Hog g (Oxford)

This is admittedly a difficult question. In some ways I sympathise with the speech which has just been delivered by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), but I hope none the less to persuade him that the Government have been perfectly right to put the Motion in this form and that, so far from widening the issue, they have in fact narrowed it. I myself shared with him the agreement which he holds with the original Report of the Committee. But there is no doubt at all that the Report, which would have raised very highly controversial issues, would have been incapable of forming a sound basis of action for the whole House. If it be true—and I shall strive to show that it is true—that whether or not this is a breach of Privilege and a matter which would be disputed between us if it were raised, it undoubtedly comes within another category of conduct, without prejudice to that issue, namely, those dishonourable acts over which the House is entitled to exercise a disciplinary function; if I can show that that is the case, I feel sure that there is a solid basis of agreement upon which the House can act in a corporate capacity, without unnecessarily deep divisions of opinion.

I want to avoid, perhaps because I am the third lawyer to speak, making any legalistic approach to this question be- 1125 cause I must say, although I am intensely proud of my profession of the law, that this does not strike me primarily as a legal issue. It strikes me primarily as a simple issue of common sense and a direct issue of professional morals. I shall have to deal with the technical points raised by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hillhead (Mr. J. S. C. Reid). It is fair, as he has raised them, that they should be dealt with in the course of argument, but I do not want to begin with them. I want to present the House with what seems to me the commonsense of this matter.

All professions—the law, accountancy, medicine, dentistry and all others—have to maintain a standard of ethical conduct among their members, and all of them maintain—privilege or whatever they call it—inherently and of necessity the right to deal in a disciplinary fashion with those members of the profession who, for whatever reason, disregard the ethical rules of conduct without which the profession cannot be carried on. It is impossible in advance to prescribe for any profession or to ask any profession to prescribe for itself, a comprehensive definition of what amounts to unprofessional conduct requiring disciplinary sanction. In each case the common sense and judgment of the profession whether as a whole or acting through its disciplinary committee has to be brought to bear on the particular circumstances of that case, and they have to say, looking upon it in that way as judges of fact and as experienced members of that profession, whether conduct of a particular sort is tolerable in a member of that profession.

Solicitors are struck off the roll and doctors are deprived of their right to practise, sometimes because they commit criminal offences against the law—forging a cheque, stealing money and the like—or sometimes because they do something which so upsets the prestige and position of that profession in the world, or so alters the degree of confidence which must be expected between its members for the proper conduct of their work, that if it were permitted to take place without punishment the profession could no longer exist as an honourable body. If is utterly wrong and misguided to try, as the right hon. and learned Member for Hillhead sought to do by a tortuous legal argument, to read into this simple 1126 Motion wide general implications when all we are being asked to do is to decide upon the facts of this case whether a particular set of actions by a particular honourable Member is outside the rules of our profession.

Our profession is, although we are deeply divided on many matters, an honourable one. We are professional politicians. We are Members of this House of Commons and we owe it to this House and to the world that we insist upon disciplinary action and a standard of conduct which will enable us to hold up our heads as such and carry on our business in the proper manner. If we do not do that, be sure of this, no profession in the world can maintain its prestige or position unless in the last resort it is prepared to impose sanctions on its members; and that is all we are being asked to do this afternoon. We are not being asked, although it will be necessary to inquire, to search diligently into the files of the Journals of the House of Commons to find out if ever there has been a case precisely similar to this before. We are being asked to decide things as men of the world and as Members of the House of Commons with some experience of our profession.

That leads me to the question of precedent. Make no mistake about it, we are, in a sense, creating a precedent this afternoon. That precedent is created not by the exact terms of the Motion, not by its possible implications if some tortuous meaning is given to it, but by the nature of our decision on this particular case. I am profoundly of the opinion that if we were to refuse to pass this Motion, we should not merely be failing our duty, but we should be creating the most dangerous precedent in the world which would let into the conduct of Members of this House of Commons types of behaviour which would render it impossible to carry on our business here. It is because I take that general broad view of the matter that I beg the House to pass this Motion. That disposes of what seems to me to be the totally false dilemma put by the right hon. and learned Member for Hillhead. He was seeking to create law by looking at the terms of the Motion. What we are really being asked to do is to create law by looking at the facts of the case, and once we have established that, we are free to act.

1127 May I now indicate the sort of way in which the vicious precedent which we should be creating if we refused to pass this Motion might act? The argument of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hillhead amounts to this—we cannot punish a Member of this House for something which is neither a breach of Privilege nor contempt nor a crime cognisable by the ordinary law of the land. That is the precedent he seeks to create, and in my submission, it is a totally vicious one, especially if we attach to the word "Privilege" the more restricted meaning which he seeks to attach to it. Let me give an example. Some few years ago—three or four I think—it was established by a Committee of this House in pursuance of many and honourable precedents that if one of our number took a fee as an advocate for prosecuting or presenting a claim by speech in this House, he was acting against the rules of our profession and acting dishonourably. I need not remind honourable Members of the particular circumstances of that case, because they will be sufficiently in the recollection of the House, but that was what was decided.

Allow me to point out what would happen if the precedent which my right hon. and learned Friend wishes to create today were allowed to pass. Suppose the Society of Bookmakers were to come to me and were to say to me, "Mr. Hogg, here is a fee of 500 guineas if you will prosecute some particular claim upon the attention of the House." I am only using this as an example; I am not intending to cast aspersions on a very honourable body. Under the former decision I should have to say, "No, I am an honourable man. I can take no bribe." But if my right hon. and learned Friend had his way I should know a very different course which it would be open to me to adopt. I should say, "I must not do exactly what you ask, sirs, but thanks to the advice I have received from my right hon. and learned Friend, I can achieve the same result and be perfectly immune from the law because all I have to do is take your fee of 500 guineas, go up to the 1922 Committee of which I am a Member and make such an inflammatory speech about the wrongs of bookmakers that five or six people tar abler 1128 than I, will be so inflamed with a sense of your wrongs that they will come down to the House and do exactly what you suggest."

According to the right hon. and learned Member for Hillhead, for whose legal genius in the Scots law I have nothing but respect, I should have committed no-offence whatever against the traditions of the House, or, at any rate, no offence for which the right hon. and learned Member for Hillhead would permit me to be punished. To my mind it is absolutely impossible, either on precedent or on principle, to confine the case on unprofessional conduct, which is what we are in substance considering today, to cases in which an actual crime has been committed, or in cases in which a clear and acknowledged breach of Privilege or contempt has been committed.

§ Mr. S. Silverman

Would not the extremely interesting and lucid case which the hon. Member has just made be more easily covered by paragraph 21 of the Committee's Report than by this Motion? It would be a clear case of the hon. Member allowing his conduct as a Member to-be determined by a reward offered.

§ Mr. Hog g

As I said at the beginning, I have always taken that view myself, but I realise that the House is deeply divided about that very point, and in order to avoid the House deciding upon some technical or narrow issue of precedent, I think it is wiser—and the Government have been wiser, if I may say so— to put down a Motion in this general form which enables us to deal with it on the broad merits of the case. Therefore. I hope this Motion will be passed.

I was saying that I thought it was impossible so to crab and confine the type of conduct which we could deal with in a disciplinary fashion, and I am sure that is right both in principle and according to precedent. In principle, for the reasons I have given, but according to precedent also because it so happens that the House has always refused to be so crabbed and confined. There is a long series of cases in which Members of the House have usually been expelled—I am not sure that has been the only penalty imposed—for conduct which comes under this definition The commonest' case, of course, is when a man is convicted in the criminal courts of a misdemeanour. The last case of 1129 that was Mr. Bottomley, who was expelled by Resolution of this House, not because he had committed a breach of Privilege or contempt, but because he had committed a civil offence, namely, the offence of obtaining money or valuable securities by false pretences. The fact that the principle upon which the House acts is the wider one appears clearly from the language used in that connection by Erskine May. Dealing with the penalty of expulsion he said: The purpose of expulsion is not so much disciplinary as remedial, not so much to punish Members as to rid the House of persons who are unfit for membership. When one comes to examine the actual cases, one finds that there are quite a number in which not even a crime at law was committed. One was the case cited by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, the case of Walsh. I happened to light upon the same instance, and it is a particularly good one because the judges had decided that, on the facts of that case, no crime had in fact been committed; all the man was guilty of was a gross breach of trust without any relation to his action as a Member of Parliament. I cannot understand why the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Hillhead should laugh at this precedent as a very old one. It was not very old. It was in the year 1812, which is a respectably recent date, and it was in the Speakership of that great Speaker, Mr. Speaker Abbott. I took the trouble to look up the journals of the House of 5th March, 1812, when that expulsion took place, and the terms of the Resolution which was passed after exhaustive debate makes it clear beyond question that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is quite mistaken in thinking that the commission of a crime was in fact the essential ingredient of this expulsion; the contrary is the case. It is recited that Mr. Walsh had been convicted at the Old Bailey and then the Resolution reads as follows: Having been tried…for felony and convicted thereof, and having received a free pardon by reason of his offence not amounting to felony in the opinion of the judges, but gross fraud and notorious breach of trust having been proved against him on the said trial, he is unworthy and unfit to continue a Member of this House. It is perfectly plain upon that precedent that the commission of a crime was not the essential ingredient in the decision of 1130 the House to expel him from membership.

I need cite only one other case, the case of Colonel Crawford, who had committed no offence in law but was found guilty of conduct unbecoming to an officer and a gentleman. The conduct, I think, would admittedly be considered unbecoming to an officer and a gentleman, because what he had done was to sell the demobilisation papers of his troops which, in the palmy days of the 18th century, had not been compassed by the strong arm of the law, and the House, quite rightly in my opinion, decided that, notwithstanding that the lawyers had not yet invented terms to make an offence of that, he was not fit to be a Member of this House.

I do not think any useful purpose would be served by my prolonging my arguments. I have submitted to the House what I think is a general case for passing this Motion. It would be the greatest pity if it were argued out of any determination to do so, by arguments which seem to me at any rate, with all respect to my right hon. and learned Friend, to be of a pedantic or legalistic character. This is fundamentally a question for Members of the House of Commons acting as the disciplinary committee of our profession, and in my judgement, at any rate, it would be a disaster for the prestige of the House of Commons if this Motion were not passed. I cannot conceive how we could decently continue to carry on our business if we did not know from one moment to the next whether a man might not corruptly sell that which we had imparted in confidence, whether between members of the same party or, indeed, in certain circumstances which I do not seek more precisely to define, between Members of opposite parties.

A certain measure of professional conduct and good faith is necessary between us. In one age the danger to Parliamentary honesty was the danger that the King might come up the Floor of this House and sit in Mr. Speaker's Chair, or that he might prosecute us and lock us up in the Tower. In another age it might easily be that a man might buy our votes and render us corrupt by bribing us to go into one Lobby or another. But those ages are long past and they are not real dangers. The real dangers in this age lie in the corrupt use of the party system, and 1131 if we fail to recognise that fact and fail to impose adequate sanctions upon it, the time will yet come when wicked men will be found ingenious enough to take advantage of loopholes in the law created by lawyers who are afraid to proceed with courage in the changing circumstances of the time.

§ Mr. Gallacher (Fife, West)

On a point of Order. I am very concerned about this because I feel that the discussion on this Motion will prejudice the discussion on the next Motion. It seems to me that the best way to conduct it would have been to bring the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Walkden) in to make a statement, and then discuss the two Motions together. It looks very strange to me.

§ Mr. Speaker