I hope, now that the Lord Privy Seal has once again been led by the House into a proper path, that he will stay for a moment to contemplate the possibility of having a debate upon the Herbert Report before we come to the Second Reading of the Bill. It was monstrous to ask the House to dispose of the House of Commons Disqualification Bill as the second Order on a Friday. I must confess that I am astonished to hear that such an arrangement was made with the agreement of the Opposition. Perhaps I am old-fashioned and have been in the House for too long, but I have always thought it was the business of the Opposition not to facilitate Government business but to oppose it.

It is clear that from what my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) has said that it was never the intention to give the Government this business automatically at 4 o'clock. Now that the Government have once again been taught their manners, I hope they will come back and learn the lesson to advantage. Let us have a debate upon the Herbert Report, which is already fifteen years out of date. It discusses a situation which existed in 1941 in the light of a principle laid down in the eighteenth century. We are now in the fourth Parliament after the war, and we ought to be looking at questions like the disqualification and the rights of Members and the efficient working of the House of Commons in the light of conditions today.

There is very valuable material in the Herbert Report and it would be of advantage to the Government, before we had a Second Reading, if we could debate that Report rather than have a Select Committee going into the whole matter again.

Had the Second Reading come up today, that was a point I would have made. We ought not to have a Second Reading until there has been a much more careful examination of the Herbert Report. It is clear that the Government put the Disqualification Bill down as a sort of sop to Cerberus. They said. "Fifteen years have gone by, so the House will readily agree to accept half the recommendations of the Herbert Report. The Government may have a tame lot on their side, but we are not a tame Opposition. I hope that the Government will have second thoughts.