The Case for Mr Crossman POLITICAL COMMENTARY By ALAN WATKINS

ASURE sign of a genius, says Swift somewhere, k that immediately all the dunces enter into a conspiracy against him. Mr Richard Crossman may or may not be a genius, but, in the Cabinet at least, he is the nearest equivalent we have; for the purposes of the present argument, certainly, he will serve well enough as one. In the past week or so, nothing at Westminster has been so strik- ing as the way in which not only the Tories but a good number of Labour Members also have turned on Mr Crossman and blamed him for the recent procedural mishaps. And in this blame, behind those grave shakings of the head, there has been an element of glee, of the stupid relish- ing the discomfort of the clever, which has not been wholly agreeable to behold.

Of course, all politicians love to see other politicians in trouble, particularly when they are of the same party : but in the case of Mr Cross- man there are further considerations. `So old Dick is not so bright after all,' muttered those trade union MPs who are old enough to remem- ber—as, indeed, most of them are—Mr Cross- man's famous article in the Daily Mirror. 'It'll take more than Dick,' murmured the procedural traditionalists (who now include some of the 1964 intake), 'to change this place.'

The curious thing is, however, that it is very difficult indeed to get hold of an ordinary back- bench MP of either party who can explain pre- cisely why matters did go so wrong. What fol- lows is intended, not as a child's, or even a back- bench MP's, guide to parliamentary procedure; still less as a complete defence of Mr Crossman or Mr John Silkin (both of whom, as we shall see, deserve some blame at least). It is intended rather as an illustration of the simple maxim that all plans can go wrong, and well-intentioned, reformist plans wronger than most. The fact that they go wrong is not an argument against reform.

The most convenient starting-point is the debate on procedure of December 14 last year. On that occasion the House adopted some new sessional orders. (There was some suggestion that Mr Crossman had personally written these orders. In fact they were penned by the Clerk of the House, Sir Barnett Cocks.) These provided for morning sittings on Mondays and Wednes- days. They also instituted a new procedure on the Consolidated Fund Bill, under which back- benchers could take up, in one debate, a series of separate grievances, provided those grievances could be pegged to items in the Estimates.

As far as the morning sittings were concerned, the order in question laid down that no division was to take place until later in the evening, be- fore the adjournment of the House was moved. There were two principal reasons for this pro- vision. First, ministers were, understandably enough, against having to interrupt their morn- ing business in order to go down to the House to vote. Secondly, and perhaps less important, the Government did not want to cause more annoyance than it could help to the Opposition and to those of its own supporters who were dubious about morning sittings. The provision about morning sittings was, in fact, a com- promise.

We come now to the evening of Tuesday, January 31, when Mrs Margaret Thatcher ('the Finchley Nightingale,' as one of my colleagues calls her) moves that the Temporary Restrictions on Pay (No. 1) Order, 1966, be withdrawn. Mr

Roy Hattersley, the new parliamentary secretary to the Ministry of Labour, is there on the Govern- ment front bench, waiting to make his first speech from the dispatch box. Alas, Mr Hattersley did not have the opportunity to deliver his speech. The Liberals called a count, and Mr George Lawson, the Government Whip in attendance (Mr Silkin had, for once, had an early night), was to be observed forcefully discouraging Labour Members from entering the Chamber to be counted. Presumably Mr Lawson did this be- cause the Liberals, unlike the Conservatives, were threatening a division on the Order, and he did not want a division. At all events, the House was counted, fewer than forty Members were present, and at twelve minutes to midnight the House stood adjourned. The significance was that 'counts' were now in fashion; Members were conscious of them; and this had a bearing on subsequent events.

Early, possibly even bright, at 10.5 on Wednes- day morning—the first morning sitting—Mr Edward Milne was in his place to move a ten- minute-rule Bill providing for the registration of travel agents. Mr Kenneth Lewis opposed the Bill. Mr Lewis also claimed a division. However, because of the sessional order, no division was possible until later that night; this also had a bearing on subsequent events.

There followed that morning a debate on the dissolution of the Ministry of Aviation. 'Hon Members are here, lively and alert,' observed Mr John Stonehouse hopefully, 'and no doubt we are going to have a very good debate.' Whether the debate was good or not, it was certainly long. In fact, owing to Conservative tactics, a further morning session, and some additional parliamen- tary time, was necessary. However, it is im- portant to realise that the time taken to wind up the Ministry of Aviation is unconnected with the hiatus on the Consolidated Fund Bill, to which I now turn. In other words, the Government could have disposed fairly rapidly of its other business, and there might still have been trouble in the mornings over the Aviation Order. As it happened there was trouble over both the Avia- tion Order and the Consolidated Fund Bill: but

the one was not logically dependent on the other. Let us, then, cautiously and sespectfully approach the Consolidated Fund, which, as a matter of fact, does not exist. It is a par- liamentary fiction, a concept used for discussing the Estimates. On this particular Consolidated Fund Bill (as distinct from the March Bill) debate

is narrowly confined to particular grievances. It is, as I explained above, now a back-benchers'

debate: Mr Crossman and Mr Silkin had agreed with the Opposition Chief Whip, Mr William Whitelaw, that the closure would not be applied : as far as they were concerned the debate could have gone on throughout Wednesday night and well into Thursday morning. It is necessary to stress this because the impression has somehow become current that the Government managers were anxious to bring the day's proceedings to an early close. Their intention was the reverse : they wished to have a long sitting on the Consolidated Fund Bill.

Wednesday's—by this time, Thursday's— sitting was cut short when Mr Lewis, who had returned to the House to divide against his hated travel agents' Bill, called a count because he suspected that the proposer, Mr Milne, was not

on the premises. Mr Lewis was not acting on be- half of the Opposition, nor did he wish to embar- rass the Government; indeed he thought that a

quorum of forty would easily be raised. But it was not raised, and for this Mr Silkin at least must take responsibility; even though it is arguable that, in a Bill taken in a form bene- ficial to back-benchers, the back-benchers should look after their own interests. However, Mr Sil-

kin, in the four minutes that elapsed between the calling of the count and the result, did have the presence of mind to put down the Consolidated Fund Bill for consideration on Thursday afternoon.

This was the cause of the now celebrated argu- ment between Mr Crossman and the Speaker.

Mr Crossman's case was that sufficient notice had been givenlor the Bill to be proceeded with on Thursday afternoon. He rested this on a precedent of 1952, when the then Speaker refused to permit an interrupted debate on the Iron and Steel Bill to be continued without a full day's notice. The reason he gave was that the Bill was contentious. However, he went on to say that a non-contentious measure could be proceeded with without such notice. Mr Crossman main- tained that the Consolidated Fund Bill, in sub- stance a back-benchers' measure, was non-con- tentious. Dr Horace King took the view that 'the Consolidated Fund Bill, while not, perhaps, in itself contentious, is of great importance from the point of view of Common financial procedure.' He advised the Government—he did not exactly give a ruling—not to proceed with the Bill on the Thursday. Mr Crossman's mistake in tactics was first to argue lengthily with the Speaker and then to give in with a rather bad grace.

Yet he should not be blamed too easily on this account. Even Governments have a right to be heard from time to time. Certainly there has been a good deal of humbug on this whole procedural question from Mr Edward Heath. For it was the Opposition which filibustered in the two morn- ing sittings on the Aviation Order. And it was an Opposition Member—admittedly not acting under instructions—who called the count early on Thursday morning. Of course, any Opposition is perfectly entitled to make things difficult for the Government. But it does not lie in its mouth then to complain that things are not running as smoothly as they should. Labour Members, for their part, might like to reflect that Mr Cross- man is the best parliamentary reformer they have got, or are likely to get.