Mr Michael Foot: In our debates on the Bill the Home Secretary has often claimed that the measure is restrictive and does not extend the area to which the consequences of the Official Secrets Act or other legislation of this type apply. Many hon. Members contest that view and believe that there are many other features of the Bill by which the Government are enlarging rather than reducing the operation of the...
Mr Michael Foot: I will not go over some of the previous debates in which we have expressed our belief that the Government are extending the areas to which the Official Secrets Act may be applied. We think we have proved our case, for it has not been rejected by any substantial argument to the contrary by the Government. That has applied to our debates on confidentiality and other matters. There cannot be...
Mr Michael Foot: The right hon. Gentleman disagrees. He will have an opportunity to make his case. Before the introduction of this measure, if an offence occurred in relations with our allies in terms of leakages of confidential or other information in negotiations in the Common Market, the Official Secrets Act could not be applied. By this clause, the Home Secretary is extending the operation of the Act,...
Mr Michael Foot: If the Minister is so clearly arguing, as he thinks to himself, that the word "seriously" was rightly omitted when we discussed the previous clause, does he agree that on the same logic the word could be removed from this clause? Would that alter the sense of the clause? If it would, why is it not in the other clause?
Mr Michael Foot: The Home Secretary continues to refer to advice from the Law Officers. Does he not recall that time and again in this debate we have asked that the Law Officers should be here? I cannot recall when we have asked that the Law Officers be present to answer debates or discuss matters over which there is great confusion when they have not been summoned. Previous Administrations have always been...
Mr Michael Foot: Further to that point of order, Mr. Walker. I am rather surprised by the Minister's intervention, because he seemed to be discussing the merits of the matter, but we are discussing whether new clause 11 should be selected for discussion. Anyone who listened to the debates over the past few days would be most astonished that we are not to have the chance to debate this subject on the basis of...
Mr Michael Foot: On a point of order, Mr. Walker. My previous point of order was a matter directly addressed to you and not to the Ministers, and my point of order now is addressed directly to you. I have heard this happen many times in Committee stages of Bills. We have seen the selection you have made and we have seen what we believe is a grave deficiency in that selection. We are not asking you to give the...
Mr Michael Foot: The right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) has made, as he did on Thursday, such a speech that he has carried all before him. I cannot imagine how the Government can provide an adequate reply to such a speech as he has delivered. I have to say in parenthesis that I did not quite recognise the beneficent regime that he operated when he was Prime Minister and Chief Whip,...
Mr Michael Foot: I wonder whether my hon. Friend or the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. King) has any evidence whatever that the P and O chairman ever made a complaint which was not published. That would be very different from the railwaymen.
Mr Michael Foot: May I first make one or two personal references. I do not mean them in any offensive way, but I want to refer to one or two hon. Members who have spoken earlier in the debate. The right hon. Member for Castle Point (Sir B. Braine), the Father of the House, tabled a new clause and apparently received a favourable response from the Home Secretary, who indicated that the right hon. Gentleman...
Mr Michael Foot: They should have been here.
Mr Michael Foot: One of the major weaknesses in the Government's review, as it appears to people from outside, and no doubt one of the major causes of the many defects in the plans put before us today, arises from the absence of any consultation, or what could properly be called by that name, by the Government of the people who work in the Service. Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman now tell us whether...
Mr Michael Foot: What I am agreeing with is that this piece of legislation changes what was understood to be the case pre-1938, and makes it much more difficult for people to raise matters with Members of Parliament.
Mr Michael Foot: The hon. Member for Torbay (Mr. Allason) has made an important contribution to our discussions. He has generally illustrated how hopeless it is to try to deal with this problem by the Government's proposed methods. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) at the beginning of the debate posed some direct questions to the Minister about what may happen if this...
Mr Michael Foot: The Labour party opposed from these Benches. It was from these Benches that Arthur Greenwood spoke for England and that the vote on the Adjournment was put on the Order Paper in the Norway debate which led to the destruction of the Chamberlain Government and placed in power Churchill, who abided by these principles. I ask the Government to take the Bill away and re-draft it in conformity...
Mr Michael Foot: They are old Tory trade unionists.
Mr Michael Foot: I must disagree immediately with the opening remarks by the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Whitney) when he criticised the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley). My right hon. Friend's speeches, far from becoming weaker, have grown increasingly strong on each occasion and his attack on the Government and the Bill has grown increasingly...
Mr Michael Foot: I cannot say for certain whether all the information was provided; neither can my hon. Friend. Even those who were on the committee could not know for certain whether they had all the information, but I have little doubt that many of them strove to ensure that they would obtain most of it. What is certain is that that committee, investigating as it did so soon after the event, had much more...
Mr Michael Foot: Let me say with the greatest deference, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I understand the problems of ruling on Third Reading debates. I have attended a number of such debates, on different sides of the House. Nevertheless, what is in the Bill is certainly a matter for Third Reading debate, and I am discussing what is in the Bill. Provisions that should be in it are not in it, and I am certainly...
Mr Michael Foot: Fake publicity.
