The right hon. and learned Gentleman has, perhaps, made his speech prematurely and, certainly, he has not been sparing in the comments he has been making about hon. or hon. and learned Members who spoke previously. I will not say much about these two cases which were found by the Select Committee to be cases of inadvertence. I would not think that there had been a deliberate instance of a breach of these penal provisions for a very long time indeed. It seems to me almost inconceivable that there should be one nowadays, and, therefore, every case is likely to be, for one reason or another, an inadvertent one.

I am bound to say, however, that if Mr. George had not been a new Member, I should have regarded it as a remarkable piece of inadvertence. He was appointed by the Ministry and, whatever the motives were, he was appointed in circumstances when he could, under certain conditions, have been paid as a director. Due to what he describes as an internal rebellion among his fellow directors—no doubt he knows the difference between an internal and an external rebellion among directors; I do not—he found himself obliged reluctantly to claim expenses which he received. I should have thought that it was tolerably clear, if he had long experience, that he was, at any rate, near enough to the line to make some inquiries and to get himself reassured about it. However, he did not do so, there has been a finding that it was inadvertence, he is a new Member. Let us, for the moment, leave it at that.

The case of Sir Roland Jennings seems to me to raise a much more serious matter, not as regards Sir Roland himself, because his seemed to me to be a thoroughly excusable piece of inadvertence. I am not really clear about what was the form of the society which required a public auditor for its accounts. It does not matter and I am sure that many hon. Members of this House must, on a voluntary basis, at some time or another have audited the accounts of a local body or have done something of that kind to help them. Frankly, I asked myself, would it ever have occurred to me to consider that an office of profit under the Crown, and my own answer, and the honest one was that I would never have thought of it.

It is a different matter when we come to consider the position of Government Departments in relation to that position and there is a recommendation in this Report that something should be done in that respect. Now, Sir Roland Jennings has not merely been excused and indemnified as regards the two years during which he was at risk but he has been indemnified entirely to make the matter tidier. I am glad to see the Leader of the House in his place, because I remember when he was Minister of Health and it was he who found the skeletons in the corridors of Government Departments. The skeletons he found on that occasion had some relation to the doings or the misdoings of the previous Government, but it seems to me that this legislation and this matter must have left a quite incredible number of skeletons among the Government Departments.

For one case that comes out, if these are typical cases, there must have been many which escaped notice, with perfect good faith on the part of all concerned. As regards another case that is at present before the Select Committee, at least one parallel in the past occurs to me. I will not say any more now because the matter is under consideration, but it is exceedingly important that the Government Departments themselves, whether under the legislation as it now is or as it is going to be, should take the action that was recommended by the Select Committee.

I agree that it is not a matter for the right hon. and learned Gentleman. He cannot go round all the Departments with a duster, but they can open the cupboards and have a look. And it should be done not just when the question crops up, not just in the case of the more obvious and responsible offices, but in the cases of the very small things, if they still subsist, as I believe they will, after the next Bill we are to consider. It should be done in all cases, and done as an important and serious matter.

We ought not to be troubled time and time again to consider this kind of case. We ought not to have to know, as we all know, that for the few cases we consider there may well be many that we never hear of and that no one hears about. As long as any legislation of this kind subsists, I suggest that it is the duty of every Government Department to assure itself that it is not promoting, allowing or encouraging a breach of what is, after all, penal legislation.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman has been giving some of us a lecture today. He might direct some of his activities to seeing that the Government Departments do this job and he might make it his business to assure himself, since he has a certain responsibility by virtue of his office, that this is done, done at once, and done thoroughly, so that we do not get honest and respected Members of the House—in this case a member of his own party—going on year after year, election after election, breaking the law at the risk of £500 a time for the common informer.

Even if we abolish the common informer it does not make the matter any better. It is the business of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, therefore, not merely to lecture us in this House about our conduct, but to see that the law is carried out, and carried out by Government Departments in this respect. He has had a straight request to do it from the Select Committee, and I hope that he will do his own business better and more promptly in future.