Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 18 Rhagfyr 1973.
I support the contention made by my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth). Unfortunately, I was present to hear only the latter part of his speech. However, I am aware of the point that concerns my hon. Friend and others who serve on the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.
I wish that the position were as simple as that described by the hon. and learned Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Waddington). If Regulation 32, under the heading "Sabotage", could be applied only against people who were seeking deliberately and for no other motive to undermine any emergency provision, it would not have been thought necessary or appropriate to provide in Regulation 38 the exemption for those taking part in a strike.
It is the view of learned counsel who has advised the Committee that as the emergency regulations are drafted they could be open to the interpretation that whereas Regulation 32 could not be applied to someone on strike it could be applied to someone taking industrial action short of the actual withdrawal of labour.
A representative of the Department tried to draw a distinction between an omission, referred to in Regulation 32(2), and what he described as inactivity on the part of workers. Frankly, no other lawyer has so far been prepared to support that view and no precedent to establish that in legal terms there is a distinction between an omission to perform a duty and the inactivity so conveniently used and put forward in evidence was given to the Select Committee. The Secretary of State's advisers ought to consider whether, in the event of any future emergency regulations, this point ought to be completely clarified.
When a Government, for good reasons or bad—no doubt for reasons which appear good to that Government—decide to recommend the declaration of a state of emergency and to introduce emergency regulations, that is an acknowledgement or recognition that normal administrative arrangements, legislative processes and recourse to law have broken down because of the emergency. It would not be right to argue the merits or otherwise of the declaration of the state of emergency. The point is that in a national catastrophe, an earthquake, an outbreak of plague, or some other disaster—a situation that can arise once in a lifetime, or even once in a decade—it is reasonable for a Government of any party to declare that the normal process of law has broken down and that certain Members of Her Majesty's Government must act in certain spheres by edict or decree rather than by normal parliamentary processes.
Regardless of the merits or otherwise of the situation, when emergency regulations are introduced on no fewer than seven occasions in three and a half years some re-examination of those emergency regulations is called for. For seven months in three and a half years the Government have had to use the emergency regulations. That means that on one day in seven in those three and a half years the normal processes of Government administration and law are acknowledged to have broken down.
Although it has been the practice to introduce the same or similar regulations in states of emergency that have occurred since 1945, I suggest that it might now be time to re-examine and review the emergency regulations that obtained before against the broad canvas of public attitudes and what is now on the statute book.
The powers that the Government seek to take for two months in these emergency regulations go far beyond what could reasonably be thought to be necessary. In asking the House to renew these emergency regulations now—and perhaps yet again in another month—the Government should try to justify the argument that there has been a breakdown in the normal processes of law.
As a Member who likes to feel that he is a champion of civil liberties and the ordinary citizen's rights, I am worried not only about Regulation 32 but about Regulation 36, which provides that
Where a constable, with reasonable cause, suspects that an offence against any of these Regulations has been committed, he may arrest without warrant anyone whom he, with reasonable cause, suspects to be guilty of the offence.
Under the regulations, therefore, somebody can be arrested on suspicion without warrant.
It is also argued that the regulations provide for offences only where someone prevents a person from carrying out a public duty. There is not time to go over every one of them, but in many of the regulations power is given to the Secretary of State concerned, if he deems it necessary, to require workers and others to perform actions as a matter of duty. If, under the regulations, a duty may be determined by the Secretary of State, the hon. and learned Member for Nelson and Colne is wrong in his understanding of what is meant by "duty" and an "infringement" of the regulations.
It seems clear from the regulations as a whole that, where a Secretary of State—various Secretaries of State are involved in the regulations—determines that an action has to be performed as a matter of public duty, it is a breach of the regulations, subject to the punishments listed, if anyone not only fails to perform that duty but commits any act that might discourage others from so doing.
I recognise that there is little hope of the House doing other than approving these emergency powers, but in a state of emergency the assumption always seems to be that, because the civil servants and Ministers concerned are gentlemen, there is no danger of any misuse or abuse of the powers. I do not want to suggest that the Government and their Ministers are necessarily ungentlemanly, by that definition, but it is ironic that a House which on other occasions is so jealous of its rights and so anxious to safeguard the process of law should be approached so lightly, two months running, by a Government who proclaim so profoundly to believe in the rule of law, with the proposition, "Let us abandon normal processes and let the Government take in certain respects virtually dictatorial powers".
If we have further regulations in future, they should be examined in the light of what is now on the statute book and, most important, only if they are carefully studied should Ministers ask for powers which go beyond the normal statutory authority. They should satisfy themselves and be required to satisfy the House that each and every one of those powers is necessary and relevant to the emergency with which they claim to be dealing.
I am very unhappy that we are now to have a seventh period of emergency rule. If it happens again, in the near or distant future, under any Government of any party, I hope that care will be taken to ask for powers to go beyond what it is reasonable to expect in a mature parliamentary democracy.