Report From The Select Committee On Offices or Places of Profit Under The Crown

487
REPORT
FROM
THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON
OFFICES OR PLACES OF
PROFIT UNDER THE
CROWN *
WITH MINUTES OF EVIDENCE,
APPENDICES AND INDEX
Ordered hy The House of Commons to he Printed

i^th October, 1941.
LONDON
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REPORT FROM THE SELECT COMMITTEE
Tuesday, ^th March, 1941.

Offices or Places of Profit under the Crown,Order'ed, That a Select Com-
mittee be appointed to enquire into the law and practice governing the*
disqualifications for Membership of the House of Commons by reason of the
holding, or the acceptance of. Offices or Places of Profit under the Crown, and
to make recommendations.{Mr. Attlee.)
Tuesday, iSth March, 1941.

Offices or Places of Profit under the Crown,^Mr. Noel-Baker, Mr. Barnes,
Sir George Davies, Sir Cuthbert Headlam, Sir Dennis Herbert, Mr. Neil
Maclean, Mr. Mander, Mr. Maxton, Captain McEweh, Dr. Peters, Mr.
Pickthorn, and Mr. Charles Williams nominated Members of the Select Com-
mittee on Offices or Places of Profit under the Crown: ^
Ordered, That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers and
records; to sit notwithstanding any Adjournment of the House, and to adjourn
from place to place:
Ordered, That the Committee have power to report from time to time:
Ordered, That Five be the quorum.{Major Dugdale.)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Report ...' V
Proceedings of the Committee xliv

List of Witnesses Ivi
Minutes of Evidence i
Appendices to Minutes of Evidence ... ... ... 126
Index 181
I'he cost of preparing for publication the Shorthand Minutes of Evidence

taken before the Committee was ,^94 15. iid.
The cost of printing and publishing this Volume is estimated by H.M.
Stationery Office at 256.

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489
ON OFFICES OR PLACES OF PROFIT UNDER THE CROWN iii
Page.
REPORT.
Preliminary v
GENERAL INTRODUCTION v
PART I.
HISTORICAL SURVEY .... vi
Sources of the Law ... ... ... viii
Office-holding as an impediment to the service of the House ... x
Appointment to Office as a means of increasing the influence of the
Crown over Parliament xi
Office-holding as a link between Parliament and the Crown ... xii
The Succession to the Crown Act, 1707 xii
The distinction between poHtical and non-political offices xiii
Three Chief Principles '. xiii
TERMS OF REFERENCE ' xiv

Method of dealing with the problem xiv
HOLDERS OF MINISTERIAL OFFICES xv

Parliamentary Private Secretaries xvi
Limit of number of Ministers in the House of Commons xvi
Re-election on Appointment to Office xviii
Stewardship of Chiltern Hundreds and Manor of Northstead ... xix
NON-MINISTERIAL OFFICE-HOLDERS EXEMPTED FROM DISQUALIFICATION XX

Officers and men in the Armed Forces xxi
Lords Lieutenant and Deputy Lieutenants xxiii
High Sheriffs xxiii
Members not to be appointed to disqualifying office without their
consent ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... xxiv
Recorders... ... ... ... ... xxiv
Justices of the Peace xxv
Certain Offices with Judicial Functions xxv
Regius Professors and holders of other academic offices appointed
by the Crown xxv
The King's Printer #* *
-Pensioners... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... xxvi
CERTAIN OFFICE-HOLDERS TO BE EXPRESSLY DISQUALIFIED xxvii

Judges ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... xxvii
Recorder of London ^ xxviii
The Common Serjeant xxviii
Judge of Appeal of the Isle,of Man xxviii
Stipendiary Magistrates xxix
The Civil Service xxix
Ambassadors xxx
Offices connected with Statutory Authorities xxxi
Scottish Offices xxxi
11867 ^ 2

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iv REPORT FROM THE SELECT COMMITTEE
t Page.
COMMON INFORMERS, PENALTIES AND JURISDICTION .. xxxi
O^LE/lROT' ** .. xxxiv
THE BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION .. XXXV
SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS IN PART I ., XXXV
PART II.
PRESENT EMERGENCY POSITION *
xxxvi
Emergency Period Legislation xxxviii
Termination of Emergency Legislation xxxix
Ministers of the Crown (Emergency Appointments) Act, 1939 ... xxxix
Members holding positions which would normally disqualifv ... xl
House of Commons Disqualification (Temporary Provisions) Act,
1941 ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... i?di
SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS IN PART II xliii

GENERAL RECOMMENDATION REGARDING THIS REPORT xliii


491
ON OFFICES OFi PLACES OF PROFIT UNDER THE CROWN t
t
REPORT
The Select Compi.ttee appointed to enquire into the law and practice
governing the disqualifications for Membership of the House of Commons by
reason of the holding, or the acceptance of, Offices or Places of Profit under
the Crown, and to make recommendations, have agreed to the following
Report:
PRELIMINARY.
1. Your Committee have held sixteen sittings, and have examined th6
Right Honourable Sir Donald Somervell, O.B.E., K.C., the Attorney-General,
Sir.Gilbert Campion, K.C.B., the Clerk of the House of Commons, Sir
William Holdsworth, K.C., Vinerian Professor in English Law, University
of Oxford, Mr. F. H. Lawson, Fellow and Tutor of Merton College, Oxford,
the Right Honourable the Viscount Monsell, G.B.E., Major-General the Right
Honourable Lord Hutchison of Montrose, K.C.M.G., C.B.-, D.S.O., the
Right Honourable the Viscount Simon, G.C.S.I., G.C.V.O., O.B.E., the
Lord Chancellor, and the Right HonouralJle Sir Percy Harris, Baronet.
Evidence of great value on the constitutional and legal history of offices and
places of profit under the Crown, and on the present law and practice, was
given T)y these witnesses, who in several cases were able to give Your Com-
mittee the benefit of long experience in the House of Commons und^r the
existing rules.
2. In addition to the direct examination of witnesses. Your Committee found
it necessary to seek authoritative opinion on a number of questions of con-
stitutional importance which arose in the course of their enquiry. On the
question of Recorders, for example, the Viscount Caldecote as Lord Chief
Justice, and Lord Greene as Master of the Rolls, were asked to assist the
Committee by an expression of their own views and those of their fellow
judges.^ On the question of clergy. Your Committee invited the Archbishop-
of Canterbury to submit a memorandum.^ On the question of offices of profit
peculiar to Scotland, Your Committee received a memorandum from the Lord
Advocate,^ and on civil servants from Sir Horace Wilson, Permanent
Secretary to the Treasury.^ On the question of the common informer and
penalties a joint memorandum was submitted by the Clerk of the House of
Commons and the Parliamentary Counsel to the Treasury.
Other persons of recognised authority in their respective fields were consulted
during the course of the enquiry.
The printing of appendices has, however, been restricted by considerations
of economy, and the principle has been adopted of printing only those
memoranda submitted in place of the direct evidence of a witness, or those
essential to a clear understanding of the Minutes of Evidence. Where
memoranda from witnesses have not been printed, their content appears
sufficiently from the Minutes of Evidence.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
3. The immediate occasion of the setting up of the Committee was the
recent appointment of certain members of the House of Commons to certain
offices abroad, and the debates in the House of Commons on the House of
^ See Appendix 9, p. 179. 2 Appendix 7, p. 174.
^ Appendix 4^p. 167. * Appendix 5, p. 17c.
^ Appendix 8, p. 176.
11867 3

VI REPORT FROM THE SELECT COMMITTEE
Commons Disqualification (Temporary Provisions) Bill in February and March,

1941;^ but the underlying cause was the archaic, confused and unsatisfactory
condition of the law, which was brought prominently to the attention of the
House by the discussions on that Bill. In moving the second reading of the
Bill on the 27th February, 1941, the Attorney-General spoke of the willingness
of the Government to agree to the setting up of a Select Committee and used
these words: We should have the recommendations of such a Committee
as to what are the appropriate principles on which to base the permanent
constitutional position of members of the House in regard to holding offices
under the Crown and later on in the same speech The scope of the
enquiry of the Select Committee would be to determine the proper principles
and to make recommendations thereon, on which to alter, if necessary,' the
present unsatisfactory and illogical position to a permanent peace-time and
normal position The unsatisfactory and illogical present position was made
obvious in the course of that debate, especially perhaps in the speech of the
Prime Minister who spoke of '' what every speaker has accepted, the con-
fusion of accident and anomaly of legal fiction and Parliamentary circum-
navigation into which we have fallen over generations ... in which we now
lie The terms of reference originally in contemplation would have con-
fined Your Committee to making recommendations for peace-time and normal
conditions, but the terms of reference ultimately approved by the House
cover the abnormal conditions of the present emergency.
4. Consideration of the subject of the enquiry so far as applicable to the
existing period of emergency cannot be satisfactory unless based upon con-
sideration of the pre-war period and of the adaptations and amendments of
pre-war law and practice which are desirable for normal times outside the
period of emergency. Your Committee therefore found it advisable to confine
their investigations in the first instance to ascertaining the pre-war position,
and to considering what alterations and amendments were desirable, apart
from considerations arising from the present emergency. They propose
therefore to confine the first part of this Report to this part of the problem.
A second part will deal with the subject in the circumstances of the emergency
period resulting from the present war.
PART I.
HISTORICAL SURVEY.
5. There is no comprehensive statement of the law on this subject which
can be regarded as authoritative. The standard constitutional works of
reference are mainly concerned with the statutory portion of the law, which
of itself is too voluminous to be treated by any one of them exhaustively.
But there is another portion consisting of ancient resolutions of the House
of Commons which, though mostly reinforced or superseded by later legislation,
still determine the law in some particulars. Another part of the law is
composed of judicial or quasi-judicial decisions of the House on individual
cases (mostly in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries), placing on record the
Houses interpretation of the law. These are of value in clearing up some of
the obscurities of the principal statutes, but there is no complete collection of
them in existence. Thus the law, as a whole, is composite in character, part
^ H.C. Deb. (1940-41) 369, c. 665 el seq.; ibid. c. 795 et seq.
Ibid., c. 661. ^ Ibid., c. 66,2.
^ Ibid., c. 720. 5 Ibid., c. 661. *
Votes and Proceedings, 4 March 1941^

493

ON OFFICES OR PLACES OF PROFIT UNDER THE CROWN Vll
statute and part practice; it cannot be studied in compilations, but has to be

sought for in the original sourcesthe statute book, the Commons' Journals
and the reports of select committees.
6. Your Committee were therefore faced at the outset with the difficult
task of finding out what was the existing law and practice immediately prior
to the outbreak of the present war. In this they received valuable assistance
from the Attorney-General and from the Clerk of the House, and also from
other witnesses such as Professor Sir William Holdsworth and Mr. F. H.
Lawson.^ Your Committee were also peculiarly fortunate in being able to
make use of the results of an exhaustive amount, of research work by a skilled
expert, Mr. Alexander Pulling, C.B., formerly Official Editor for the Treasury
of the Revised Statutes, Statutory Rules and Orders, and kindred publica-
tions. In the year 1922 he wrote a pamphlet, of which he had a few copies
printed privately for the use of himself and his friends, on disqualifications
for membership of the House of*'Commons, and he has been good enough
to allow Your Committee to make use of it and also to present a copy to the
Library of the House of Commons.
#
7. Mr. Pulling's pamphlet consists of a draft of a proposed consolidating

bill, with some useful notes thereon: the draft bill deals not only with dis-
qualifications arising from the holding of office, but with other dis-
qualifications with which Your Committee are not concerned. The portions
dealing with disqualification arising from the holding of offices or places from
or under the Cro\yn are a consolidation, in the strict parliamentary sense, of
the statute law on the subject as it existed in 1922, that is to say, they
reproduce the then existing statutory provisions with all their, imperfections
and doubts without amendment or alteration. Your Committee are under a
great obligation to Mr. Pulling for this assistance, which has materially lightened
their task. The clauses of his draft bill material to the subject of this ênquiry (
have provided a reliable statement of the statute law on the subject as in
November, 1922. Several Acts have been passed since then making alterations
in or additions to the law as it then stood, notably those which have done
away with the necessity for ministers to seek re-election on appointment to
office, but the collating of these recent Acts with Mr. Pullings consolidating
clauses does not present much difficulty.
8. A study of Mr. Pullings pamphlet strengthens the impression of the
confused state of the law and the obsolete character of many of its provisions.'
To take a single example of the many relics of bygone history that remain
in the law, the provisions with regard to many Irish offices seem to be still
those which were established to suit the conditions of 1801.^ As an instance
of the obscurity of the law, it may be recalled that in 1932 an Act was
required^ to indemnify all holders of the office of President of the Board of
Trade since 1909 from the penalties incurred by holding an office which had
accidentally become disqualified.'^ Another instance (given by Mr. Bonar
Law in the debate on the Re-election of Ministers Bill, 1919) is that of a law
officer himself, a member of the Coalition Government of 1915, who dis-
covered that he had incurred heavy penalties through continuing to sit when
disqualified.^ But there is no need to labour the point that the form of the
1 See Appendices i to 3, pp. 127-167, and Evidence, pp. 1-68.
2 See Appendix 1, Mr. Attorney Generals First Memo., List C, p. 133.
^ 22 Geo. 5, c. 21.
^ Qns. 1009, 1010. See also Appendi.x 3, Sir William Holdsvvorths Memo., p. 165.
^ H.C. Deb. (1919) 112, c, 614 et. seq.
11867 4

vni REPORT FROM THE SELECT COMMITTEE
statute law requires to be tidied up, its meaning made more certain, and both
form and meaning brought up to date. In order to do this and to decide
whether and what substantive alterations of the law should be recommended,
Your Committee felt the need of a closer examination of the growth of the
law, the successive changes in its objects and the purposes which* it is now
intended to serve. This, to be useful, must take account of the political and
constitutional conditions in which the different parts of the law originated
and developed, arid the relevancy of those conditions to modern times. It
involvesfirst an examination of the sources of the existing law, so as to
ascribe the various provisions to their periods of origin; secondly an attempt
to find out what remains of permanent value in the contribution of each
period to the laW; and thirdly, an attempt, on this basis, to draw out the prin-
ciples which underlie the existing law and to see how far these will serve as
a guide to future changes.

SOURCES OF THE LAW.
9. The sources of the existing law may be set out as follows:

{a) First, a series of decisions by the HoUse of Commons which pur-
ported to apply the law of Parliament (then presumed to be already
established and generally known, though waiting to be put into words)
to particular cases as they arose. These belong mainly to the first half
of the 17th century, and particularly to the reign of James I, when the
House was asserting its right to control its own composition, and busy-
ing itself with defining its privileges and jurisdiction. These decisions
do not as a rule bear explicitly on the precise question of the holding of
office under the Crown, but treat it incidentally as one of a number of
disqualifications which prevent members discharging their duties to the
House,. Still they are important, not only historically, but also as affect-
ing the existing law; and their relation to subsequent statutory law
sometimes raises a curious problem: for instance in the case of ambas-
sadors, the House appears to have regarded its earlier resolutions as
overriding subsequent statute law.
[h) Next, there is the body of statute law which begins after the Restora-
tion and includes over eighty public Acts and even several private Acts.
Incidentally this change of machinery^from resolutions of the House of
Commons to statutesaccompanies a change of attitude towards the
question of office-holding; instead of regarding it principally as a question
affecting the relations between the House and its members, a wider view
was taken which considered the question as one specifically affecting the
relations of the Commons with the Crown, and thus involving an altera-
tion of the law which needed authorisation by statute. Of these statutes
the most important is the fundamental Statute of Anne ", the Succes-
sion to the Crown Act, 1707.^ This is a general law dealing specifically
with the holding of office under the Crown by members of the House of
Commons. Its obscurity, and indeed the mutual inconsistency of its
two principal sections, is well-known and is partly to be explained by
the circumstances of the transitional period in which Jt was passed, and
by the fact that the machinery which it devised for its immediate purpose
that of limiting the number of office-holders in the House of Commons
was, half-consciously at the time and deliberately later, used to secure
another purposethat of drawing a distinction between political and
non-political office-holders, and admitting the former, while excluding the
/
^ 6 Anne, c. 41 (Statutes of the Realm) or 6 Anne, c. 7 (Ruffheads edition).

ON OFFICES OR PLACES OF PROFIT UNDER THE CROWN ix
latter. The Act of 1707 had been preceded by a series of attempts at

'legislation for the purpose of disqualifying office-holders generally, and
by one or two minor- Acts which dealt with small classes of the general
category. It was succeeded by an immense number of statutes, some
of general eifect such as the Place ".Act of 1741/ and the House of
Commons (Disqualifications) Act of 1801 (which applied the law to Irish
Offices after the Union with Ireland), but the great majority dealing with
particular cases, such as the qualification or disqualification of newly
created offices: they form an interminable series extending down to the
Re-election of Ministers Acts, 1919 and 1926, the Ministers of- the Crown
Act, 1937, the Ministers of the Crown (Emergency Appointments) Act,
1939, and the House of Commons Disqualification (Temporary Provisions)
Act, 1941, which is the origin of Your Committee's enquiry.
(c) The third of these sources of the law is'the series of decisions of
the House on individual cales, from soon after the Act of 1707 to. the
present day. These decisions form a body of precedents or case law,
interpreting the statute law and the pre-statutory decisions of the House
and applying them to particular cases. In the i8th century these ques-
tions were discussed and decided by the House itself; many are recorded
only in the Journals, and it is often impossible to discover the reasons
for a particular decision because of the, lack of reports of the debates.
In the 19th centui-3^ the more general practice was to refer questions of
disqualification in the first instance to select committees, and the reports
of these bodies were generally printed and are in many cases informative
and important: but the questions involved are seldom of much con^
stitutional interest, with a few exceptions such as the " Bryan O'Loghlen
case ", in which it was decided that the seat of a Member was vacated
through'his acceptance of the office of Attorney General of Victoria.^
These cases are principally concerned with obscurities in the Act of 1707,
such as the distinction between " from the Crown " and " under the
Crown ", and the respective meanings to be attached to " offices ",
" places " and " profit ". In spite of some inconsistencies, the decisions
in these cases have made the meaning of the law less uncertain, though
at the expense of increasing its technicality.
10. This brief review shows that the law has to be laboriously collected
from three different sourcesresolutions recorded in the Journals of the Plouse,
the statute book, and decisions on cases fully recorded only in the reports
of select committees. This mass of material, which cannot be understood
without some knowledge of the changes in the attitude of the House of
Commons to the question, is a large subject which can only be briefly-reviewed
in this Report. Your Committee, in considering it, have limited their enquiries
to two questions (i) what were the reasons underlying the decisions and enact-
ments which have had permanent effect upon the law, and (2) what principles
of permanent value are expressed in these provisions. Further, they have
thought it sufficient to concentrate on a period, of little more than a hundred
years, between the accession of James I and the passing of the Act of 1707,
since it was during this period that the problem became urgent, and that the
elements, at any rate, of the modern solution were found. Historical details
affecting the legal position of particular classes of office-holders^judges,
ambassadors, sheriffs, etc.will, so far as they are necessary, be set out in
later paragraphs dealing specifically with those offices.
^ 15 Geo. 2, c. 22. Short titlf* (TheHouse of Commons Disqualification Act, 1741)'given
by 59 and 60 Viet. c. 14. *
^ Report of Select Committee on Clare County Writ, C.J. (1878-9) 132.

1
X REPORT FROM THE SELECT COMMITTEE
OFFICE-HOLDING AS AN IMPEDIMENT TO THE SERVICE OF THE HOUSE. *
11. In the first Parliament of James I a number of cases of the holding of

offices under the Crown by Members were dealt with by the House of
Commons. These cases were those of judges,* the attorney-general, ambas-
sadors, colonial governors, sheriffs. They were treated in the same way as
cases of disqualification for other reasons than the, holding of office, that is
to say as raising questions affecting the relations between the House of
Commons and its members. A revealing example occurred in 1606. Partly
at the instance of the King, the House of Commons referred to a select com-
mittee a set of cases including certain ambassadors and certain holders of
offices in Ireland. Upon the report of this committee the seats of the Irish
officers, who were presumed to hold their patents for life, were declared void,
and new writs were ordered; but the ambassadors were permitted to retain
their seats.^ This'decision was explicitly base^ on a distinction between offices
which involved permanent and those which involved ien^porary absence
an embassy at that time was regarded as a temporary mission. In 1609 a
new writ was ordered in the room of a Member appointed governor of an
American colony.^ Absence from the service of the House was also involved
in other forms of royal service. For instance, a sheriff was bound by oath to
reside in his county during his year of office. Judges were '' assistants of
the House of Lords and it was on this ground that the first recorded cases
of Members vacating their seats on appointment as judges were based.^ The
. attorney-general, also an assistant of the House of Lords, vras also on this
ground regarded as disqualified during the first half of the seventeenth century,
though the rule was not always enforced'^ and after the Restoration was tacitly
ignored.
12. In deciding that the seats of judges and the other officers mentioned
above were vacated, the House of Commons did not purport to be making
new law but rather to be applying pre-existing law which was none the less
valid because it had been sometimes ignored. However, these decisions
may be fairly regarded as a basis of the law on these offices, being the first
positive statement on the subject by an authority capable of enforcing its
decision. The House of Commons claimed the privilege of deciding these
questions on its sole authority and was strong enough to get its claim accepted.
Some of the decisions of this period, for example in the case of the attorney-
general, were ignored later by the House itself. But most of them are law
to this day. The disqualification of judges was no doubt maintained for other
reasons than those stated in the decisions of the House of this period, but
these decisions remained the authority for the disqualification of the'judges
of the three common law courts until it was made statutory in 1873,^ when
the Master of the Rolls, who had previously been exempt, was also disqualified.
The anomalous exemption from disqualification of ambassadors, still regarded
as good law, is based on the decisions of this period, confirmed by later
decisions subsequent to the Act of 1707. The disqualification of colonial
governors, established in this period, was mado statutory by section 24 of the
Act of 1707. The disqualification of the sheriff, partly based on his duty to
reside in his county, is complicated by the fact that he was also returning
.officer at elections. His position is referred to later.
13. The decisions'of this period did not lay down any very important rules
as to the disqualification of office-holders, except that of the judges.^ Some
^ See Appendix 2, Sir Gilbert Campions Memo., para. 7, pp. 139-140.
2 I C.J. 392-3.
2 See Appendix 2, Sir Gilbert Campion's Memo., para, 33, p. 147.
I C.J. 324 (24 November 1606).
By the Supreme Court of Judicature Act, 1873.

497
ON OFFICES OR PLACES OF PROFIT UNDER THE CROWN . xi
of the most important of its decisions were given a new basis by' subsequent
statutes. But the principle which underlies these decisions should be pre-
served as one of permanent value. It may be stated as follows:position,
the duties of which entail prolonged absence abroad, or even at home, on
the King's service, is incompatible with the duties of a Member, and therefore
with y. seat in the House. An obvious modern corollary, which has been
endorsed by select committees of the House, is that a Members duties include
his duties to his constituents. And it was not long before incompatibility with
membership of the House of Commons was taken to include incompatibility
(such as that of judicial functions) with party politics. This principle was
of special importance in a period when the Commons were occupied in
establishing their legal independence of the Crown, and when the growing
distinctions between executive, legislative, and judicial functions required
expression in terms of a distinction of personnel. It retains its value at the
present day, at any rate under normal conditions, and should not be lost sight
of in any proposals for a permanent change of the law.
APPOINTMENT TO OFFICE AS A MEANS OF INCREASING THE INFLUENCE OF THE
CROWN OVER PARLIAMENT.
14. Under James I the House of Commons claimed and exercised the right
of deciding that certain offices were incompatible with membership, and of
vacating the seats of their holders. After the Restoration the Houseor a
section of itactively took up the general question of the holding of office
under the Crown. But it did not attempt to make this a disqualification on
its sole authority. It recognised the need of legislation. This was partly
owing to a shift in its point of view. It was no longer concerned primarily
with the effect of office-holding on the relations between itself and its members,
but much more with the effect on its relations with the King. The change
was also due to the fact that in the previous cases the House could regard
itself as doing no more than applying the pre-existing law. Now it was clearly
attempting to make new law.
15. The action of the House in this period was concerned with what would
now be called executive office.^ It led up to a distinction between political
and non-political executive office. But it was the general question of a large
and growing number of Members, bound by office to the support of the King,
upon which attention was concentrated; and the practical necessity of some
exceptions to wholesale exclusion received little recognition. The movement
towards total exclusion of office-holders must first be traced, the opposite
tendency which made for the retention of a link with the Crown through
the presence of ministers being reserved for a succeeding paragraph.
In 1675 a bill for declaring vacant the seats of Members who accepted
" any offices of benefit, but permitting their re-election was debated in the
House of Commons and defeated by a small majority. In 1680 the Commons
resolved that no Member should accept a place'or pension from the Crown
without the leave of the House. In 1692 a Place Bill touching free and
impartial proceedings in Parliament was passed by the Conjmons without
a division, but rejected by the Lords. In 1693 the same Bill, whose object
appears to have been to disqualify all office-holders under the Crown,, was
accepted by the Lords with a proviso permitting office-holders whose seats
were vacated to seek re-election in the same Parliament. It was, however,
refused the royal assent.^ Finally, in 1701, by a provision in the Act of
Settlement, the complete exclusion of office-holders was enacted,^ to take effect
after the accession of the House of Hanover.
^ See Appendix 2, Sir Gilbert Campions Memo., para. 31, p. 146,
Ibid., para. 14, p. 141. ^ Ibid., para. 15, p. 142.

XU REPORT FROM THE SELECT COMMITTEE
If the principle underlying this sustained effort of the House of Commons

had become effective, the result would have been a complete separation
between the House of Commons and the executive; and the later development
of the constitution towards parliamentary control and cabinet government
would have been impossible. But, with the necessary exception made, it
expresses a precept of permanent valuenamely, the need to limit, the
influence of the Crown over the Commons by limiting the number of offices
that can be held by Members. In modern terms, this carries the corollary
of the exclusion of all executive officers, except those whose offices are
political, and also the restriction of the numbers of the latter within certain
limits.
OFFICE-HOLDING AS A LINK BETWEEN PARLIAMENT AND THE CROWN.
T6. The movement during the latter half of the 17th century towards the
disqualification of office-holders involved an attack, dictated by the political
conditions of the period, upon a practice of fairly long standing. Without
taking much notice of the fact', the Commons had become accustomed since
at least the early i6th century to the presence among them of privy councillors
including the holders of certain offices, like the Chancellorship of the
Exchequer, and the Secretaryship of State. Their presence in the House
had afforded the King a means of securing the co-operation of the Commons,
and the Commons a method of making their wishes known to the King,
more serviceable in everyday matters than the formal method of messages
and addresses. With the growing financial powers of the Commons^par-
ticularly the power of appropriationthe King was becoming more dependent
upon them throughout this period. But it was just in this period that they
seriously began seeking to sever the link which had hitherto connected them
with the King. Some of the place measures of the Commons in this period,
whether designedly or not, had left a loophole by which ministers- might have
secured entrance into the House of Commons: the resolution of 1680 made
office-holding conditional on the leave of the House, and the Bill of 1693
subjected it to the will of the constituencies. But it was reserved to the Act
of 1707 to find a compromise which in the outcome enabled ministers to keep
their seats in tê House, while it laid the foundation of the exclusion of the
bulk of office-holders.
THE SUCCESSION TO THE CROWN ACT, 1707.
17. The Succession to the Crown Act, 1707, which is the basis of the statute
law on the holding of offices, was a re-enactment of a similarly entitled Act
of 1705^ for the purpose of making that Act applicable to the Parliament of
Great Britain after the union with Scotland. It is the proceedings on the
earlier Act that have to be studied^ for a record of the process by which the
elements of the eventual compromise (which it was- the work of the i8th
century to establish completely) were arrived at between the various parties
and the two Houses. The principal provisions dealing with the holding of
office by Members are contained in sections 24 and 25.^
Section 24 provides that No person, who shall have in his own
name ... or for his own benefit any new Office or Place of Profit what-
soever under the Crown which at any time since the 25th October, 1705,
have been created or erected, Or hereafter shall be created or erected . . .
shall be capable of being elected, or of sitting or voting as a Member of
the House of Commons . . .
^ 4 & 5 Anne, c. 20 (Statutes of the Realm) or 4 Anne, c. 8 (Ruffheads edition),
See Appendix 2, Fir.st Appendix to Sir Gilbert Campions Memo., p. 157.
3 Or in some editions of the statutes, 25 and 26.

499
t
ON OFFICES OR PLACES OF PROFIT UNDER THE CROWN Xlll
Section 25 provides that '' If any person, being chosen a member of

the House of Commons, shall accept of any Office of Profit from the
Crown, during such time as he shall continue a member, his election . . .
is hereby declared to be void, and a new writ shall be issued for a new
election . . . provided nevertheless that such person shall be capable of
being again elected . . .
These two sections are in form irreconcilable, and are full of obscurities.
The generally accepted niethod of reading them together is to take section 25
as meant to refer only to old offices. A further distinction is that section
24 applies to offices under the Crown '' and section 25 to offices from
the Crown. Offices from the Crown are generally understood to be offices
the appointment to which is made directly by the Crown and not through the
medium of a minister. They are now limited by law or practice to major
ministerial and Household offices. Offices under the Crown now include
all non-political executive offices and also minor ministerial offices.
These two sections embody the two opposing tendencies in the Commons
attitude to office-holders which had come into open conflict during the pre-
ceeding generationthe desire to exclude office-holders as a whole, and the
recognition of the need to make some exception so as to permit the presence
of ministers. Section 24 enacted exclusion but limited it to new offices.
Section 25 qualified the admission of holders of old offices by subjecting
members accepting offices from the Crown to the approval of their constituents.
THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN POLITICAL AND NON-POLITICAL OFFICES.
18. A great deal of later legislation was necessary in order to convert the
distinction, established by the Act of 1707 between old offices, whose
holders were qualified for membership, and new offices, whose holders
were disqualified, into a distinction between political and non-political offices,
(i) A series of statutes, the most important of which were the Place Act of
1741^ and the Civil List and Secret Service Money Act, 1782, disqualified or
suppressed a great many old offices with the eventual result that the holders
of almost all offices ceased to be qualified, except the holders of ministerial
offices. The inadequacy in this respect of the Act of 1707 is shown by the
fact that for a generation afterwards more than 200 old office-holders con-
tinued to sit in the House of Commons. {2) Another series of Acts provided
for the eligibility of the ministerial heads of newly created departments under
the same condition as that laid down by section 25 of the Statute of 1707.
The steps, by which this condition (which required the vacation of seats on the
acceptance of old offices from the Crown) was removed, are dealt with in
paragraph 27 of this Report. Provision was also made for limiting the
numbers of ministerial office-holders. The principles established by this body
of legislation may be summarised as (i) the disqualification of non-political
office-holders, and (2) the qualification within limits of political office-holders.
It is hardly necessary to call attention to the constitutional importance of the
results gradually achieved hy this legislationnamely the establishment, on
the one hand, of a politically neutral permanent civil service, and, on the
other, of the essential conditions of parliamentary control of government
through the presencein time, the necessary presencein the House of
Commons of a large proportion of ministers.
THREE CHIEF PRINCIPLES.
19. In the foregoing historical survey there can be traced the genesis and
gradual development of the three chief principles which by the beginning of
^ Short title (The House of Commons Disqualification Act, 1741) given by 59 and 60 Viet.,
c. 14.

XIV REPORT FROM THE SELECT COMMITTEE
the eighteenth century had become, and have since been, and should still be,
the main considerations affecting the law on this subject: these, in the order of
historical sequence, are (i) incompatibility of certain non-ministerial offices
with membership of the House of Commons (which must be taken to cover
questions of a Member's relations with, and duties to, his constituents), (2)
the need to limit the control or influence of the executive government over
the House by means of an undue proportion of office-holders being, members
of the House, and (3) the essential condition of a certain number of ministers
being members of the House for the purpose of . ensuring control of the
executive by Parliament. The Act of 1707 was the first effective attempt to
establish these principles in an Act of Parliament.
TERMS OF REFERENCE.
20. Your Committee were faced at an early stage of their proceedings with
some uncertainty as to the proper construction to be placed on the expression
Offices or Places of Profit under the Crown " in their terms of reference,
owing to the number and variety of offices which have been, and of others
which might be, regarded as covered by that expression. They have thought
it convenient and .right and in accordance with the wishes of the House,
judging from the debates on the subject, that they should put a fairly wide
interpretation. on their terms of reference. This enables them to include in
their considerations all such offices and places as appear to have been included
in past legislation on the subject, even though the element of profit " is
negligible or practically non-existent; and also to include certain cases of
persons holding positions which, while possibly not strictly speaking offices
or places of profit from or under the Crown, are so analogous to some of such
offices that it would be illogical as well as inconvenient to exclude them from
the consideration of Your Committee. On the other hand Your Committee
have^ not thought it right or convenient to include in their consideration the
position of persons from time to time in contractual relations with the Crown,
where such contractual relations do not result from a definite appointment
directly or indirectly by the Crown to what is generally regarded as an
'' office." Your Committee recognise that persons in certain contractual
relations (like those of standing counsel to government departments, barristers
, employed on government briefs, technical and scientific advisers, and regular
speakers for the British Broadcasting Corporation) may be in a position some-
what analogous to that of office holders. The position of such persons, how-
ever, appears to Your Committee to be a distinct and separate problem
affecting questions of conflict between an individual Member's personal
interests and his duty as a Member, rather than affecting the relations between
the Crown, or executive government, and the House of Commons, and
calculated to lead to considerations other than those which are properly within
the purview of Your Committee.
METHOD OF DEALING WITH THE PROBLEM.
21. It will be generally conceded that the existing law should be clarified
as soon as practicable, and also that it should be amended in various direc-
tions. Your Committee, howeVer, think that in the main the law and practice
as to disqualification by reason of office under the Crown is on right lines,
although numerous alterations are necessary to remove anomalies, to adapt
it to modern conditions, and to amend it in regard to various matters of detail,
while keeping in mind the chief principles enunciated in paragraph 19 above.
22. Your Committee therefore recommend that steps should be taken to
draft and introduce in the House of Commons as soon as practicable a compre-
hensive Bill setting forth the law on this subject on the lines of the existing

ON OFFICES OR PLACES OF PROFIT UNDER THS) GROWN '.'XV
law and practice, with such of the alterations or new provisions recommended
later in this Report Us the House of Commons may approve; and that existing
legislation superseded by such Bill should be repealed. In broad outline such
a Bill should disqualify for membership of the House of Commons all holders
of office under the Crown other than such as are excepted by the Bill. The
exceptions would be of two classes, one, holders of political and ministerial
posts set out in a schedule but of whom only a limited maximum number
should be permitted to sit in the House of Commons, and the other, holders
of offices, places or positions not of a political nature (also to be set out in
another schedule) not regarded as incompatible with membership of the House
of Commons. The definition of holders of office under the Crown (or
whatever other expression be used) may create some difficulty, and it may
be found necessary to include in the Bill a clause providing that certain posts,
though not strictly within the definition, are to be deemM to be covered by
the expression used for the purpose of the general disqualification. Your
Committee propose, therefore, to set out their observations on a number of
different classes of office-holders falling within orie^ or other^ of the exceptions
from disqualification mentioned above, or requiring to be specifically brought
within the general disqualification,^ then to deal with a few special points,^
and ultimately to summarise their recommendations in the form of a state-
ment indicating in outline the general purport of such a Bill.^
HOLDERS OF MINISTERIAL OFFICES.

23. It is not thought likely that much difficulty or difference of opinion
will arise in regard to the exception from disqualification of ministers or
members of the Government. That a certain number of ministers should be
members of the House of Commons is essential to the working of our parlia-
mentary system and to the control of the executive by Parliament. Many
of this class are, and must continue to be, members of the House of Lords;
but, except for taking note of that fact, they are not the concern of Your
Committee. From the House of Commons point of view it is requisite that
most if not all the principal government departments should be represented
in the House. It is usual to have two ministers in each of such departments,
and provided that in each case one of the two is in the House of Commons,
it will often be cofivenient that the other should be in the House of Lords.
A limit on the number of ministers in the House of Commons is necessary as
was recognised 'and provided for in the Act of 1707. The normal total
number of ministerial offices in government departments is about 60, and
the maximum number of ministers permitted in the House of Commons
immediately before the present war was 57, and the number actually sitting
was 47. Immediately before the outbreak of war in 1914, the number
actually sitting was 36. The tendency therefore in recent years has been for
the number of ministers sitting in the House to increase. With a House
consisting of 615 members as at present (or omitting the Speaker, the Chair-
man of Ways and Means and the Deputy Chairman, 612), 57, or say 60,
would be under one-tenth, or about 10 per cent, of the total voting strength
of the House, a number which could scarcely be regarded as a dangerous
proportion. It would permit of 13 more than the numbers sitting in the
House of Commons immediately before the outbreak of the present war.
^ See below, paras. 23-28. 2 5^^ below, paras. 2542.
See below, paras. 43-54. See below, paras. 55-62.
** See below, para. 63.
See Appendix 2, Table of Ministers of the Crown, facing p. 162.

XVI mVOm FROM THE SELECT COMMITTEE
PARLIAMENTARY PRIVATE SECRETARIES.

24. There is quite naturally a tendency (possibly an unavoidable need)
with the growing complexity of affairs generally, and government adminis-
tration in particular, for government departments to extend and for the
number of ministers to increase; but Your Committee consider that there is
not, and so far as it is possible to foresee the future, not likely to be, any '
necessity for a long period to make any appreciable increase in the number
of ministers whose membership of the House of Commons is essential to the
present system of relations between the executive government and Parlia-
ment. If this opinion is correct, it would certainly seem desirable that
definite steps should be taken in the direction of checking the tendency to
increase the number of ministers with seats in the House of Commons. In
this connection reference should be made to the class of members known as
Parliamentary Private Secretaries (unpaid) ". The P.P.S.' as he has
come to be called is a modern institution,^ but it has become the custom for
nearly every minister in the House of Commons to get a private member of
the House to act as his P.P.S.^ The P.P.S. has no recognised official position:
he acts as the confidential friend and assistant of his minister and necessarily
enjoys in very large measure the confidence not only of the minister personally,
but of the minister's department and the officials in it. Thus he must neces-
sarily be to some extent imbued with the '' team spirit " which is part of
the life blood of the ministry; thus, too, his independence as a member of
the House must be liable to be impaired^ to a somewhat greater degree than
that of an ordinary member of the party supporting the Government in office
for the time being, although it would be a great mistake to regard his relations
with the Government as being as close or intimate as in the case of even the
least important under-secretary in the Government. Your Committee cannot
disregard the fact that the existence of parliamentary private secretaries is,
not without reason, regarded as increasing the voting strength and influence
of the Government in Ihe House of Commons; it might (however improbably)
be improperly used for this purpose, and there is nothing to prevent a minister
appointing more than one parliamentary private secretary. Being unpaid
and appointed by the minister personally he is not the holder of an office or
place of profit from or under the Crown; moreover he could not be dis-
qualified for membership, even if that were desired, as the whole essence of
his position is his membership of the House, and to abolish him does not
appear practicable nor indeed particularly desirable. He performs functions
very useful not only to his minister but to members of the House of all parties
and groups as a liaison between the minister and Members. Your Com-
mittee are therefore of opinion that some steps should be taken, otherwise
than by legislation, to reduce or at least limit the number of parliamentary
private secretaries. It should usually be unnecessary for more than one
parliamentary private secretary to be appointed in respect of one govern-
ment department, and where more than one ministerial representative sits in
the House of Commons, one parliamentary private secretary should be
sufficient. It is suggested that a statement on the subject in the House on
behalf of the Government might establish a convention which would be
generally followed, or, if thought necessary at any time, the House might deal
with the matter by a resolution.
LIMIT OF NUMBER OF MINISTERS IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.
25. Your Committee are of opinion that all holders of what are usually
known as ministerial offices " should be exempted from disqualification
1 Qns, H67-1169. 2 Qns. 1124-1125. 2 Qn. 1166.

503
ON OFFICES OR PLACES OF PROFIT UNDER THE CROWN xvii
for membership of the House of Commons, but, having in mind the considera-
tions set out in the "preceding paragraph. Your Committee recommend that
not more than 6o of such persons should at any time be members of the
House of Commons. The definition of ministerial offices '' may create
some difficulty: the next follo\ving paragraph sets out a schedule of all such
offices now or recently existing, with some general words at the end intended
to cover similar offices. In preparing any Bill to carry out Your Committees
recommendations it must, as a matter of course, be left to the draftsman to
consider whether or in what way this schedule should be made use of. It
is suggested that to meet any difficulty on this point, provision might be made
for enabling the schedule to be amended by order in council, but not so
as to increase the number of holders of such offices permitted to sit in the
House of Commons. The schedule contains^bout 8o offices: but a few of
them are not now in existence, several are offices created for purposes of the
present emergency, a considerable number must in practice be held by peers,
sometimes two of such offices are held by one minister (as for example Secretary
of State for India and Secretary of State for Burma), and about 30 are under-
secretaryships (thus duplicating the representation of the department). Taking
these facts into consideration in conjunction with those stated in paragraphs
23 and 24, 60 would not seem to be an unreasonable limit on the number
to be permitted to sit in the House of Commons in normal times.
26. The following is the schedule of ministerial offices which it is recom-
mended should not disqualify:
Prime Minister.
First Lord of the Treasury.
Lord Privy Seal.
Lord President of the Council.
Minister without Portfolio.
Minister of State.
Secretary of State for the Home Department.
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department.
Minister of Home Security.
Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Home Security.
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
Parliamentar}^ Under-Secretaiy of State for Foreign Affairs.
Secretary of State for the Dominions.
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Dominions.
Secretary of State for the Colonies.
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies.
Secretary of State for War.
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for War.
Financial Secretary of the War Office.
Secretary of State for Air.
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Air.
Minister of Aircraft Production.
Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Aircraft Production.
Secretary of State for India.
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for India.
Secretary of State for Burma.
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Burma.
Minister of Information.
Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Information.

XVlll REPORT FROM THE SELECT COMMITTEE
First Lord of the Admiralty.

Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty.
Civil Lord of the Admiralty.
Secretary of State for Scotland.
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland.
Minister of dipping.
Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Shipping.-
Minister of Supply.
Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Supply.
President of the Board of Trade.
Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade.
Parliamentary Secretary or Minister of Mines.
Parliamentary Secretary or Minister for Overseas Trade.
Minister of Transport.
Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Transport.
Minister of Health.
Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Health.
Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries.
Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.
President of the Board of Education.
Parliamentary Secretary of the Board of Education.
Minister of Food.
Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Food.
Minister of Labour.
Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Labour.
Minister of National Service.
Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of National Service.
Minister of Pensions.
Parliamentary Secretarj^ of the Ministry of Pensions.
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
Minister of Economic Warfare.
Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Economic Warfare.
Minister of Works and Buildings.
Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Works and Buildings.
Attorney-General.
Solicitor-General.
Lord Advocate.
Solicitor-General for Scotland.
Postmaster-General.
Assistant Postmaster-General.
Paymaster-General.
Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Parliamentary Secretary of the Treasury.
Financial Secretary of the Treasury.
Lord Commissioner of the Treasury.
Treasurer of the Household.
- Comptroller of the Household.
Vice-Chamberlain of the Household.
Any other office of similar ministerial character.
RE-ELECTION ON APPOINTMENT TO OFFICE.

27. It should not be forgotten that until quite recent years there were many
cases where, although the holding of certain offices was not a disqualification
for membership of the House of Commons, yet an acceptance of such an

ON OFFICES OR PLACES OF PROFIT UNDER THE CROWN xvx
office by a member pf the House caused his seat to be vacated and he had" to
offer himself for re-election as a member of the House. Modification of this
state of affairs was made by the Re-election of Ministers Act, 1919, which
made re-election of a minister unnecessary if he were appointed to office
within nine months after a general election; and the necessity for re-election
was finally abolished altogether by the Re-election of Ministers Act, 1926.
The debates in the House of Commons when the Re-election of Ministers Bill,
1926,^ was under consideration are of great interest, and set out fully the
arguments for and against this necessity for re-election. Your Committee
might perhaps have been justified in thinking that they were not called Upon
to reconsider a decision by the House of Commons and Parliament on this
matter arrived at so comparatively recently as only 15 years ago; but in
course of the Committee's enquiries some witnesses have made a reference
to this subject which cannot well be disregarded.^ It has been suggested that
a Prime Minister, expecting or hoping that a pending general election would
result in a majority for his party, would, under the old system, appoint most
if not all of his principal ministers before the election, in order to avoid the
necessity for those ministers to vacate their seats and offer themselves for
re-election after the general election was over. Now that this necessity for
re-election has been done away with, there is no such reason for his appointing
members of his intended Government until after the general election is over;
thus the electorate may have to cast its votes in ignorance of what will be the
composition of the Government if the Prime Minister obtains a majority. It
is said that it is thus possible that the majority of electors, being in favour of
(let it be said for example) a peaceful policy, may after the election find a
Government appointed which is in favour of a warlike policy or vice versa.
It is contended that there are considerable adyantages in a Prime Minister ,
having to make known before the general election the approximate composi-
tion of his intended Government. It has been suggested, therefore, that some
provision might be made in one way or another, under which there.should
be at least on ixiducement if not a necessity for a Prime Minister, at the time
of a general election, to announce the names of those whom he proposes to
appoint to the principal offices in his Government if he obtains a majority,
and that this might be effected by a provision that a certain number of
ministers appointed directly after a general election should have to vacate
their seats and offer themselves for re-election.
Your Committee have given very careful attention to these suggestions,
and have carefully considered all the arguments for and against the system of
re-election which were advanced in the debates on the two Bills of 1919^ and
1926^ above referred to. While giving all proper weight to the suggestions
made to them by witnesses, Your Committee have decided not to make any
recommendation on the point. They have been led to this conclusion partly
by a feeling that the matter is one which inevitably leads to a consideration of
questions of policy which may welUgo far beyond the Committee's terms of
reference.
STEWARDSHIP OF CHILTERN HUNDREDS AND MANOR OF NORTHSTEAD. #
28. The offices of steward of the Chiltern Hundreds and of steward of the
Manor of Northstead were undoubtedly offices or places of profit from or
under the Crown in former times.^ As old offices they were held to fall under
Section 25 of the Act of 1707; and vacated the seat of any Member who
^ H.C. Deb. (1926) 191, c. 1417 et seq. 2 Qns. 893, 949-952, 1090.
3 See H.C. Deb. (1919) 112, c. 614 el seq.
See Appendix 6, Viscount Simon's Memo., i, p. 172.

XX REPORT FROM THE SEEECT COMMITTEE
accepted either of. them; r,ppointments to these offices have long been
made use of as a convenient method of enabling a member of the House
of Commons to retire from his membership. It is probable that any profits "
which in earlier times belonged to those offices were in the form of fees
which were usually taken by the lawyer or other person who did the work
in the capacity of under-steward: but for a long time past no actual profits
have ever enured to the benefit of the steward, nor has he any duties, so thal
the appointments and their profits came to be one of the many legal fictions ''
which have been of practical use. This method of enabling a Member to
vacate his seat with the approval of the executive has such a long tradition
behind it that there is much to be said for preserving it, not merely as an
interesting historical relic enshrining the principle of disqualification by reason
of acceptance of office under the Crown, but as a usetul incident of parlia-
mentary procedure.^ Its preservation has already received parliamentary
sanction in quite recent times in a remarkably definite way: the two offices
were specifically excepted from the operation of the Re-election of Ministers
Act, 1919. The Law of Property Act of 1922 (commonly knpwn as the
Birkenhead Act) abolished' all manors, thus bringing about the ultimate
extinction of all stewardships of manors: bui, as a result of attention being
called to the effect of extinction of these two stewardships, an amendment was
made in a later Act expressly preserving them as offices of profit under the
Crown. x\gain, the House of Commons Disqualification (Temporary Provisions)
Act of last March, already referred to as the occasion of Your Committees
appointment, specifically excepted these offices from the operation of that Act.
^ Youf Committee therefore recommend that in any proposed legislation deal-
ing with disqualification by reason of acceptance of offices of profit under the
Crown these offices with their existing attributes should be carefully preserved,
and deemed to be disqualifying offices.
NON-MINISTERIAL OFFICE HOLDERS EXEMPTED FROM
DISQUALIFICATION.
29. There are several classes of non-ministerial office-holders whom there
is no good reason for excluding from membership; indeed holders of such
offices have for many years formed and now form a considerable proportion
of the House, and have included and do include some of the most prominent
and most useful Members. It is therefore important to see that such persons
are not inadvertently or unnecessarily disqualified. Provided that such an
office is not incompatible with membership of the House, does not substantially
interfere with performance of a Members duties, and is not of such a nature
as to increase the influence or control of the executive government, there
would seem to be no good reason for the House to exclude holders thereof.
Moreover, it has been represented to Your Committee that electors should be
allowed as wide a field as possible from which to select their representatives.^
It' is said, with reason, that (subject to the foregoing proviso) it is for con-
stituents to decide whether or not a person is suitable to represent
therq in the House of Commons in view of his other occupations or of any
office he holds, and that Parliament should not restrict their choice
unreasonably Another consideration should be borne in mind in
reference to members of certain professions or persons belonging to
certain classes of office-holders, namely the view taken by the profession or
class in question. There may well be and indeed are cases in which some
profession or class may legitimately and properly restrict or prohibit the
rights of its members to sit as members of the House of Commons, although
^ Qns. 1065-1066. 2 Qjjg 1046, 1086.


ON OFFICES OR PLACES OF PROFIT UNDER THE CROWN
*
xxi
there is no reason for the House of Compions to disqualify them for member-
ship. In such cases it is conceived that the proper course is for Parliament
to exempt members of such professions or classes from disqualification, leaving
those professions or classes free to make their own rules and regulations for
their own members.. I
A schedule is set out in the next following paragraph of non-ministerial

offices which Your Committee recommend should not disqualify for memberr
ship, except to the extent (if any) set out, in that list, and they desire to
make observations in regard to some of those offices. Some of these are not,
or are no longer, offices of profit, but are included in this list for the reasons
stated in Paragraph 26,
30. The following is the schedule of non-ministerial offices which it is
recommended should not disqualify:
Officers and men of the regular forces of the Crown who are on
the Reserve, Retired or Emergency lists, or on half-pay or otherwise not
on the active service lists, and officers and men of any of the auxiliary or
reserve forces (including officers in any reserve of officers) as such, and
Admirals of the Fleet, Field Marshals and Marshals of the Royal Air
Force while not holding any appointment in the Royal Navy, the Army
or the Royal Air Force respectively.
Lord Lieutenant otherwise than in respect of the county of which
he is Lord Lieutenant.
Deputy Lieutenant and Lieutenant of the City of London.
High Sheriff otherwise than in respect of constituencies for which
he is returning officer in parliamentary elections and of boroughs within
the administrative county of which he is High Sheriff.
Recorder (except the Recorder of London) otherwise than in respect
of the city or borough of which he is Recorder.
Justice of the Peace.
Commissioner of Assize.
Chairman and Deputy Chairman of Quarter Sessions other than
London Quarter Sessions.
Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports.
Members of His Majestys Corps of Gentlemeh-at-Arms.
Regius Professors of the Universities of .Oxford and Cambridge, heads
of colleges in Universities, the Provost of Eton, and any other
academic offices the appointment to which is in the hands of the Crown
or a minister of the Crown.
First Church Estates Commissioner,
Unpaid member of the Forestry Commission.
Unpaid member of the Charity Commission.
The Kings Printer appointed for the printing and publishing of
Bibles and prayer books by letters patent of 25th May, 1901.
OFFICERS AND MEN IN THE ARMED FORCES.
31. Broadly speaking, officers in the fighting forces have always iJeen
exempted from disqualification. The Act of 1707 appears to have assumed
that they would continue to be so exempt under the Act as holders of old
offices : the Act contained a special provision that the disqualifying pro-
visions should not extend to a serving officer receiving any new or other
commission while he was a Member. Thus the Act clearly contemplated the
holding of a commission as not being a disqualification. But a Member
receiving a commission for the first time seems to have had to vacate his seat,
though eligible for re-election. Incidentally this is a typical example of the

xxii REPORT FROM THE SELECT COMMITTEE
unsatisfactory present condition of the law and of its ambiguities and illogi-
calities; it is at least doubtful whether officers in certain forces or units created
since the Act of 1707 are exempt from disqualification under that Act, and
some of the subsequent legislation has not tended to make matters clearer or
simpler. But the recent practice has been to regard holders of commissions
in all the forces of the Crown (other than those on active service to whom
further reference is made later) as exempt from disqualification. Members of
Parliament accepting commissions in the Royal Air Force were specifically so
exempted by the Air Force (Constitution) Act of 1917, as were officers of
the Territorial forces by the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act of 1907.
These considerations coupled with the fact that many retired or reserve officers
have sat as members of the House of Commons for well over the past
hundred years without their position having been questioned, many having
been useful and distinguished Members, would tend to show that there is
no general demand or reason for excluding them from the House as a class.
32. A question, however, arises in regard to officers on the active list or on

active service in normal times of peace; their position requires special con-
sideration, both from the point of view of the House of Commons and from
the point 6f view of the force to which they belong. Your Committee, having
obtained evidence on this from distinguished officers of the services who have
also had experience as members of the House of Commons,^ have given careful
attention to the service regulations on the point. The service regulations are
now embodied in the Order in Council of 25th July, 1927, known as the
Servants of the Crown .(Parliamentaiy^ Candidature) Order, 1927,^ and
regulations made thereunder. Briefly, the effect of this Order is to prevent
officers and men of the regular forces from being members of the House of
Commons, so long as they remain on the active list. The prohibition does
not extend to retired regular officers, officers or men on the Reserve dr on
half-pay, nor to officers or men of the auxiliary forces. In regard to Admirals
of the Fleet, P'ield Marshals, and Marshals of the Royal Air Force, who are
technically always on the active list, the prohibition only applies to them
while holding an appointment.
33. This condition of affairs appears to Your Committee quite satisfactory,

and it might be thought sufficient to exempt officers and men of the forces
from disqualification, and to leave those on the active list :o be debarred from
membership by the servicd regulations. But, on the other hand, evidence
which has been available to Your Conimittee has shown such serious objections
of a constitutional nature to officers on the active list being members of the
House of Commons, that Your Committee feel bound to recommend that
they should be disqualified by statute.^ The governing consideration which,
in such a case as this, should decide whether a class should be disqualified by
Act of Parliament or only (if at all) by regulations made by or at the instance
of the profession concerned, was very well expressed by Viscount Simon in
his evidence."^ It is whether or not the person concerned is under an obliga-
tion to act under or in accordance with orders or directions made or issued by
or on behalf of the Crown or a member of the executive government. By that
test officers and men of the forces on the active list in normal times should
clearly be disqualified. History over a long period and up to quite modem
times has shown instances of the undesirability of serving officers being
members of the House of Commons in normal times.
^ Evidence, pp. 68-88. 2 5^^ Appendix 5, p. 171.

^ Qns. 1027-1030. See also Qns. 500, 501, 603, 923. * Qns. 1023. 1027, 1030.

ON OFFICES Ok PLAGES OF' PROFIT UNDER\THE CROWN xxiii
. LORDS LIEUTENANT AND DEPUTY LIEUTENANTS.

34. The offices of Lord Lieutenant and Deputy Lieutenant (including
Lieutenants of the City of London) are probably, or might be, regarded as
technically offices of profit under the Crown, though as a matter of fact they
are now more likely to be burdensome than profitable financially. At least
one Lord Lieutenant arid a number of Deputy Lieutenants have in recent'
years been and now are members of the House of Commons, and no sugges-
tion ever seems to have been made that they were or ought to be disqualified.
These offices are probably excepted from disqualification under the Act of
1707 as old offices Your Committee see no reason for disqualifying
holders of these offices, except that in their opinion a Lord Lieutenant, as the
representative of the Sovereign in his county, should be disqualified from
sitting as a Member for that county; this disqualification, however, should not
extend to a borough or division which forms only a part of the county. It
may be said that if a Lord Lieutenant should be disqualified for sitting as
.member for the county for which he is Lord Lieutenant, he should be dis-
qualified from sitting for any part of, or any borough in, that county. While
admitting that there is much reason in such a contention. Your Committee
think that on the whole the balance of convenience is in favour of the limited
proposal; indeed they feel it might be preferable to exempt a. Lord Lieutenant
altogether from disqualification rather than to disqualify hiih 'from sitting for
a constituency not co-terminous with the county for which he is Lord
Lieutenant. The reasons for disqualifying him at all are more technical or
even sentimental than practical. No such disqualification need be applied
to Deputy Lieutenants; their position is very different from that of the Lprd
Lieutenant (unless in a case where a Deputy Lieutenant is acting Lord
Lieutenant during the absence or incapacity of the Lord Lieutenant), and
they seldom have to perform official duties as .Deputy Lieutenants. More-
over, to disqualify them would in fact disqualify, for a technical reason of
little or no practical weight, a large number of otherwise eminently suitable
persons.
HIGH SHERIFFS.
35. The question whether and to what extent the office of High Sheriff has
been regarded as compatible or incompatible with membership of the House
of Commons is obscure; the law ()n the subject has a long history extending
almost from the origin of Parliament. The High Sheriff is the lineal
descendant of the medieval sheriff, an officer of wide powers, in whose hands
most of the principal functions of government in his county or group of
counties were concentrated. But changes in the national system of adminis-
tration have gradually stripped him of almost all his powers except those
of a- ceremonial character; it may well be questioned, therefore, whether the
reasons for which the sheriff was generally excluded from the House of
Commons till the seventeenth century hold good now for the High Sheriff.
k brief review of the history of the law will be found in a memorandum by
Sir Gilbert Campion in Appendix 2' of the Minutes of Evidence. This will
show that there is considerable doubt both as to the extent of' the Sheriff's
ineligibility and as to the relevancy in modern times of the original reasons
against his presence in the House of Commons.
It will be seen that the ineligibility of the sheriff came to be based on his
position as returning officer, and that the reason against a Member being
appointed sheriff was found in the incompatibility of duties involved. Neither
of these grounds is very relevant to modern conditions A High Sheriff need
never perform the duties of returning officer, and under section 30 of the
^ See Second Appendix to Sir Gilbert Campion's Memo., p. 160.

xxiv REPORT FROM THE SELECT COMMITTEE
Representation of the People Act, 1918, a-returning officer, all of whose duties
are discharged by the acting returning officer (i.e., the registration officer),
is not disqualified. So far as incompatibility is concerned, a High Sheriff can
in these days of rapid and easy travel quite- well perform the greatly reduced
duties of his office without neglecting his duties as a Member. Resolutions
of the House of Commons passed in 1675 and 1689, however, are still
apparently good law: they declared it to be a breach of privilege to nominate
a Member for sheriff. They were as recently as 1904 declared by the then
Lord Chief Justice to prevent the nomination of a Member as sheriff.
In view of the obscurity of the law and the inapplicability of the principles
on which it is based to modern conditions. Your Committee have found it
necessary to consider the disqualification of the High Sheriff de novo, and
to recommend a change in the law so as to bring it more into accordance
with the present duties and characteristics .of the of&ce. The High Sheriff
is generally a prominent member of a class from which a large proportion
of county Members have always been drawn. On the other hand, there is
much to be said for the view that the dignity of the High Sheriff's office is
best preserved by a certain remoteness from local political controversy. Your
Committee, therefore, recommend that a High Sheriff should not be dis-
qualified for election to Parliament, except for his county on a division of his
county or a borou'gh within his county. In regard to the seventeenth century
prohibition against a Member being nominated High Sheriff, this will be dealt
with in the next follo^ng paragraph.
MEMBERS NOT TO BE APPOINTED TO DISQUALIFYING OFFICE WITHOUT THEIR
CONSENT.
36. There is, however, another important circumstance in regard to the
office of High Sheriff which may well be noted at this point. The High Sheriff
is appointed by the Crown, and unless he succeeds (which he does not neces-
sarily do) in an application to be excused," he is bound to accept the office.
It would appear, therefore, that if the office disqualified the holder from
* membership of the House of Commons, it might provide a method whereby the
government could prevent or terminate the membership of anyone whom they
regarded as objectionable. While such a course of action may be regarded
as unlikely, and would probably raise a storm of criticism. Your Committee
feel strongly that it should not be legally permissible. But, even though a
Member be not disqualified by reason of his being appointed a High Sheriff
while he is a Member, that appointment would prevent him from -being a
candidate for a constituency in respect of which he became returning officer,
if an election were to take place during his term of office. This, there-
fore, is an example of the reasons which move Your Committee to recommend
that no sitting member of the House of Commons nor a recognised prospective
candidate should be appointed to a disqualifying office (which for this purpose
must be taken to include an 'office disqualifying for candidature) without his
consent.
RECORDERS.
37. Recorders of boroughs or cities, other than the City of London, are
disqualified from membership of the borough or city in which they act as
recorder by the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882 (45 & 46 Viet. c. 50,
s. 163 (6)), but with this exception, as a result of the Municipal Corporations
Acts, 1835 and 1882, recorders were made eligible for membership of the
House of Commons. For many years a considerable number of members of the
House of Commons have from time to time been appointed recorders during
their membership (for a borough or city which they do not represent), though
prior to the' Re-election of Ministers Act, 1926, a Member accepting that office

ON OFFICES OR PLACES OF PROFIT UNDER THE CROWN XXV
was obliged to vacate his seat and seek re-election, and many persons holding
recorderships have also been elected to the House of Commons (otherwise
than for the borough or city concerned).
Their judicial duties only occupy them for a few days at four periods in the
year, and their jurisdiction is very limited. Your Committee are not aware
of any general opposition or any valid objection to recorders continuing to* be
exempt from disqualification. On the other hand they have evidence that the
Judges of the Supreme Court of Judicature see no reason for altering the
existing non-disqualification of recorders.^ From the point of view of the
judiciary Your Committee are advised that a period of membership of the
House of Commons is regarded as a useful experience for men who become
judges: a recordership is also a useful test of suitability for the judicial bench,
and every recorder is a potential judge.^ Your Committee therefore recommend
that the office of a recorder should not be a disqualification, whether or not he
be appointed or paid by Ihe Crown, except in respect of the constituency
where he is recorder. These observations do not apply to the Recorder of
London, whose position is different from that of other recorders.^ Your Com-
mittee coEsider he should be disqualified for reasons which will be given in
paragraph 47.
JUSTICES OF THE PEACE.
38. Although Justices of the Peace are unpaid and no profits attach to thdr
office,^ the office is one under the Crown and is in some respects analogous to
offices, which are a disqualification for membership of the House of Commons,
and it therefore seems advisable to refer to them. They never have been
disqualified, and there appears to be neither demand nor reason for disqualify-
ing them now. A very large number of Members are justices of the peace,
and it is very often useful and desirable in the public interest that a Member,
should be a justice of the peace. Whether or to what extent he should sit
or adjudicate as a member of a petty sessional bench in his constituency is a
question which, in the opinion of Your Committee, may and should properly
be left to the discretion of the Member. Your Committee therefore recommend
that it should be specifically provided that the office of justice of the peace
should not be a disqualification.
CERTAIN OFFICES WITH JUDICIAL FUNCTIONS.

39. There are a few other minor judicial or semi-judicial or temporary
judicial offices the holding of which Your Committee recommend should not
be a disqualification: these will be found in the schedule referred to in para-
graph 29.
REGIUS PROFESSORS AND HOLDERS OF OTHER ACADEMIC OFFICES APPOINTED
BY THE CROWN.
40. Certain Regius Professors at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge,
the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and the Provost of Eton, and
probably the holders of some other similar academic offices are appointed by
the Crown: these offices have no political significance and the stipends
attached to them are not paid by the Crown or out of public funds. The
legal position of these persons regarding disqualification for membership of
the House of Commons is not free from doubt. In at least one case in modern
times a Regius Professor has been a Member: when Lord Hugh Cecil was
recently appointed Provost of Eton, he accepted the office of Steward of the
1 See Appendix 9, p. 179. 2 Qns. 1036-1037. 3 Qn. 21 et seq.

See Appendix 6, Viscount Simon's Memo., 4, p. 173.

XXVI REPORT FROM THE SELECT COMMITTEE
Manor of Northstead/ the assumption being that his appointment as Provost

of Eton did not cause him to lose his seat.
There would seem to be no reason why The holders of any of these offices
should not be members of the House of Commons, and Your Committee
recommend that they should be exempted from disqualification.
THE KING'S PRINTER.
41. The office of King's Printer who has the right and duty of publishing
Bibles and prayer books and certain other Rites and Ceremonies is referred
to in the third memorandum by the Attorney-General.^ The office would
undoubtedly be one of profit from or under the Crown " for the purposes
of the Act of 1707, but it'is almost certainly , an old office " within the
meaning of that Act, and therefore not a disqualifying office as the law now
stands. At first sight it would appear to be an office which in future should
disqualify, but there are certain facts peculiar to the office as at present
existing which should be taken into consideration. Up to the death of Queen
Victoria it had been the practice for the letters patent appointing the King's
Printer to cease to have effect on the death of the Sovereign, new letters
patent being issued at the beginning of a new reign. After the accession,
however, of Edward VII hew letters patent were granted in a different form,
and are still operative. The grant is in favour of the late Mr. George Edward
Briscoe Eyre and his two partners and the survivors and survivor of them
and the legal representatives of the last survivor, subject to a power of
revocation at any time by the Crown. The appointment therefore continues
indefinitely until revoked. Under arrangements made by the original grantees
after their business was formed into a limited liability company, Eyre &
Spottiswoode Ltd., the office is held in trust for that company by the legal
representatives of the late Mr. G. E. B. Eyre, the survivor of the three
grantees. The actual holders of the office therefore are only trustees, and
have not as such any beneficial interest. The profits from the office, if any,
belong not to them, but to Eyre & Spottiswoode Ltd. Your Committee are
informed that, in fact, the business carried on under the letters patent has
seldom if ever resulted in a profit since the date thereof.
Under these circumstances it appears to Your Committee that the disqualifi-
cation oi rhe persons who may from time to time be the legal representatives
of the late Mr. Eyre, who in that capacity hold office as trustees for a limited
company, would be anomalous, and that there is no particular objection to
their becoming members of the House of Commons. Your Committee there-
fore recommend that the Kings Printer holding office under the letters patent
of Edward VII should be exempted from disqualification. It will be observed
that this exemption will not extend to an}^ person who may at some future
time be appointed to such an office.
PENSIONERS.
42. Under the present law, with certain extensive and important exceptions,
persons having any pension from the Crown during pleasure or for any term
or number of years are disqualified.^ The precise position of some pensioners
is somewhat obscure. But it does not appear difficult to distinguish between
pensions which ought to disqualify and those which ought not. The ordinary
pension for life, which is in the nature of superannuation benefit for services
rendered, should clearly not be a disqualification: in fact, the only pension
which, on the governing principles already enunciated, should be a disquali-
fication is one which is granted by the Crown or the executive government
^ C. J, (193^7) 89 (ist February 1937) ; Appendix 2, Sir Gilbert Campion's Memo,
para. 46, p. 152. 2 Appendix i, p. 136.
See Appendix i, Mr. Attorney General's Third Memo., p. 135.

ON OFFICES OR PLACES OF PROFIT UNDER THE CROWN xxvii
otherwise than for good and valid consideration (including services rendered
voluntarily or otherwise) and is dependent for its continuance on the unfettered
discretion or will of the Crown or the executive government. A pension of
that kind, and there can be few if any such existing or likely to be created
in these times, should be a disqualification; but with that one exception
Your Committee recommend that a pension from the Crown shall not be a
disqualification.
CERTAIN OFFICE-HOLDERS TO BE EXPRESSLY DISQUALIFIED.
43. A list is set out below of persons who Your Committee specially consider
should not be exempted from disqualification, or who should be specifically
referred to as deemed to come under the disqualification provision even
though they may be technically outside the definition of disqualified persons;
Your Committee desire to make some observations in regard to some of them.
The following is theTist referred to:
The Recorder of London.
The Common Serjeant (City of London).
All Stipendiary Magistrates, including those paid out of local funds.
The Judge of the Appeal Court of the Isle of Man.
Ambassadors.
High Commissioners.
JUDGES.
44. The question of exclusion of the Judges from the House of Commons
need not cause much difficulty, as there appears to be a general consensus of
opinion, especially among the judges themselves and the legal profession, that *
at least the principal whole-time judges should be free from any party-
political ties.^ They have on various grounds and by various methods been
excluded in the past from membership of the House of Commons. Their
exclusion by statute was mainly effected (in the case of the English judges) by
the Supreme Court of Judicature Act of 18.73, ^.nd such exclusion has been
continued and extended by various subsequent statutes. The judges of the
High Court of Justice and of the Court of Appeal are thus excluded by
statute. So also are the County Court judges.^
45. Other holders of judicial offices specifically excluded by statute include
the Vice-Chancellor of the County Palatine of Lancaster, the Chairman and
Deputy Chairman of London Quarter Sessions, barristers appointed to enquire
into alleged corrupt practices at parliamentary elections, barristers appointed
to try municipal election petitions, registrars and other officers of courts having
bankruptcy jurisdiction and certain (but not all) stipendiary magistrates.
Metropolitan police magistrates in London (who are appointed by' the Crown
and paid out of the Consolidated Fund) are treated as disqualified by reason
of their holding offices of profit under the Crown.^
46. There are, however, various judicial or semi-judicial offices, the holders
of which may well be exempted from disqualification, some of which (such
as recorderships) have already been referred to. There are others who it would
seem should be disqualified, but about whom there is some doubt as to
whether they are now in fact disqualified. Your Committee have therefore
included such persons in the list set out in paragraph 43 of persons as to
whom they recommend care should be taken to ensure that they should be
disqualified. Among these are some to whom special reference should be
made.
I Qns. 1030-1035.
See Appendix i, Mr. Attorney Generals First Memo., List A i, pp. 131-132.

XXVlll REPORT FROM THE SELECT COMMITTEE
RECORDER OF LONDON.
47. The Recorder of London is elected and appointed by the Court of
Aldermen and paid by the Corporation; consequently at one time he was not
regarded as disqualifijed by reason of holding an office of profit under the
Crown, and in the latter half of the last century the Recorded of London of
the time sat for many years in the House of Commons. It should be noted,
however, that the assent of the Crown is necessary to enable him to exercise
his judicial functions. The Recorder of London is, ir^fact, one of the chief
criminal judges in England, and his judicial position and status approximate
very closely to those of a High Court Judge of the King's Bench Division.
The question whether he could be a member of the House of Commons was
raised in a very definite way in the year 1922 when the late Sir Ernest Wild,
who was Member of Parliament for the Upton division of West Ham, was
appointed Recorder of London. A very strong opinion.was then expressed
by the Lord Chancellor, and in the House of Commons by the Leader of
the House speaking on the loth May, 1922,^ on behalf of the Government
to the effect that it was highly undesirable that a member of the House
should retain his seat after being appointed Recorder of London. This
opinion appears to have been generally approved by the House and was
acquiesced in by Sir Ernest Wild, who agreed not to seek re-election,^ but
who retained his seat till the end of that parliament. Since then it has been
generally considered that the Recorder of London is disqualified for member-
ship of tile House of Commons by convention^ if not by law; all the evidence
Your Committee have had on the point supports this proposition,and Your
Committee have no hesitation in recommending that he should be dis-
qualified.
THE COMMON SERJEANT.
48. The Common Serjeant holds an office which, though definitely
inferior to that of the Recorder, is in other respects very similar;
it is very doubtful whether he is disqualified under existing law,
but Your Committee consider that he also should be disqualified. In support
of this it would seem to be unnecessary to do more than call attention to one
fact (which incidentally applies to the Recorder also): ^The Mayor's and
City of London Court is a civil court with considerable and important juris-
diction in the City of London; there are four judges of that Court, the
Recorder, the Common Serjeant and two County Court judges. County
Court judges as already mentioned are expresslydisqualified by statute, and
it would be illogical and undesirable that the two senior of the four judges
of this Court should not be disqualified while the two junior judges are.

JUDGE OF APPEAL OF THE ISLE OF MAN.

49. There is another judge about whom Your Committee have not found
it so easy to come to a decision, namely the Judge of Appeal in the Isle of
Man.^ He is appointed under the Isle of Man Judicature Amendment Act,"^
1918, by the Crown and holds office during pleasure for five years, being
eligible for reappointment; his remuneration is determined by the Governor
of the Isle of Man, subject to Treasury approval, and is paid out of the
government revenue of the Isle of Man. He only has to sit occasionally,
^ H.C. Deb. (1922) 153, c. 2171; see also ibid., c. 543.
2 H.C. Deb. (1922) 154, c. 1705 ei seq.
Appendix 2, Sir Gilbert Campions Memo., para. 34, p. 147.
^ Qns. 21-22, 1037.
5 Qn. 1038.
Appendix i, Mr. Attorney General's Fourth Memo., p. 136.
Of the Manx legislature.

515
ON OFFICES OR PLACES OF PROFIT UNDER THE CROWN xxix
and of rec&t years the number of days on which he has had to sit during
any one year have not exceeded about six. From the point of view, there-
fore, of the time occupied by his official duties, it might be suggested that,
if recorders are not to be disqua-lified, there is no reason why this Judge
should be disqualified. But, on the other hand, his judicial position is very
different from that of a recorder, in that he sits as an appellate judge in civil
and criminal matters, and is the judge of the highest court in the Isle of
Man from which appeals lie direct to the Privy Council. While the time
occupied by his judicial duties may almost be described as trifling, his position
is one of great importance and dignity in the Isle of Man, and from a legal
stand-ppint his judicial position as an Appeal Court judge is a high one.
On the whole, therefore. Your Committee recommend that he should be
disqualified.
STIPENDIARY MAGISTRATES.
50. Your Committee see no good reason for exempting from disqualifica-
tion any of those holders of judicial offices who are at the present time
expressly disqualified by statute, such as those referred to in paragraphs 44
and 45. But, in addition to the Recorder of London and the Common
Serjeant already mentioned. Your Committee recommend that all stipendiary
magistrates, whether now disqualified or not, whether or not their magistracies
are now in existence, should be disqualified, whether they be paid by the
Crown or out of local funds.
THE CIVIL SERVICE.
51. The exclusion of civil servants from all active or public participation
in party politics, and therefore from membership of the House of Commons,
is such a cardinal point in the constitution that it is unnecessary to give
reasons for it in this Report. But some attention should be given to the
methods by which they are at present disqualified from membership of the
House of Commons, and fo the exact definition of the class which should
be disqualified as* civil servants.
Most of those usually known as civil servants are held to be disqualified
by statute, either by the Act of 1707 or by the House of Commons Dis-
qualification Act, 1741, but cases might weU arise which would at least be
doubtful. No such questions have caused trouble, however, or are likely to
cause trouble in the immediate.future, owing to the conditions of service under
which civil servants are employed, which prohibit them from becoming
members of the House of Commons.^ These conditions arise under the
Servants of the Crown (Parliamentary Candidature) Order, 1927,^ which has
already been referred to in paragraph 32 in connection with officers and men
of the Forces. But from the parliamentary point of view this is riot quite a
satisfactory position, and Your Committee are of opinion that the disquali-
f.cation for membership, with certain exceptions, of all civil servants of the
Crown should be made statutory. The exceptions in the Order in Council
are (i) Persons holding political offices (i.e. ministers) and (2) Certain persons
employed in an industrial capacity. But this exception of persons employed
in an industrial capacity is of little or no moment for present purposes, as it.
merely allows such persons to stand as candidates for Parliament, and they
are required to resign their posts if they become Members.
The Servants of the Crown (Parliamentary Candidature) Order, 1927,
above referred to provides that no person to whom it applies shall issue an
address to electors or in any other manner publicly announce himself or
allow himself to be publicly announced as a candidate or a prospective
t - -. . -. . .
^ See Appendix 5, Sir Horace Wilsons Memo., p. 170. ^ See pp. 171-172.

XXX REPORT FROM THE SELECT COMMITTEE
candidate for election to Parliament for any constituency until has retired
or resigned from such employmentThere appear to be in some of the
services concerned some variations in the practice regarding retirement or
resignation or as to the right or opportunity of an unsuccessful candidate to
resume his position: but, so far as statutory provisions are concerned. Your
Committee think it sufficient, and perhaps preferable, that in the legislation
which Your Committee recommend, servants of the Crown should not be
prevented from standing as candidates but should be made incapable of
being elected if they remain servants of the Crown. It must bemoted that
the statutory disqualification for membership must not merely prohibit sitting
or voting in the House, as that might prevent a vacancy on the election ot
a person not qualified to sit or vote.
Your Committee therefore recommend that, with the exception of holders
of political or ministerial offices, all persons employed in civilian service
under the Crown should be disqualified for membership, unless of course
they be included in any specific recopimendations in this Report for exemp-
tion from disqualification.
AMBASSADORS.
<
52. There is, however, one class of civil servants which should be particu-
larly mentioned, namely the Diplomatic Service. It is at least doubtful
whether Ambassadors are disqualified under the existing law, and undoubtedly
in earlier times they were not disqualified.^ In the earliest times in which
the question arose embassies were usually in the nature of temporary missions.
But as the diplomatic service has developed it has come to be the case that
an ambassador and his attaches and staff are, during their term, permanently
resident in the country to which they are accredited, so that in practice
membership of the House of Conunons is incompatible with their occupation
to such an extent as to justify disqualifying them for membership. But in
the opinion of Your Committee there is another conclusive reason for exclud-
ing them from the House of Commonsa reason which has already been
mentioned in paragraph 33 where reference was made to Viscount Simons
evidence. Ambassadors have to carry out the policy of, and generally follow
the directions of, the Government for the time being. The importance of
their dutiesthe conduct of the countrys relations with other countries
appears to Your Committee to emphasise in their case the necessity for-
excluding them from membership of the House of Commons and from all
party ties. The same considerations apply with almost, if not quite, equal
force to High Commissioners. To avoid misunderstanding it may be well to
recall that this part of this Report-deals only with normal times, and that con-
siderations applying to the present period of emergency will be dealt with in a
subsequent part. Your Committee, moreover, do not overlook the possibility
that even in normal times there may be occasions when the Government finds
it advisable .to send a special mission to some foreign country or Dominion
for a particular and temporary purpose. In such a case the most appro-
priate persons to be employed for the purpose, or some of them||may well
be members of the House of Commons, and the fact of their having been
active party politicians supporting and in sympathy with the policy of the
Government of the time may be an advantage rather than otherwise. But
in such cases their exemption from the necessity of vacating their seats
should be specially provided for by Parliament on their appointment, and
there is no sufficient reason for making any exception in their case from
the general law as to disqualification, which, in the opinion of Your Com-
mittee, should (in normal times) disqualify civil servants whether employed
permanently or only temporarily.
^ .\ppendi.\ 2, Sir Gilbert Campion's Memo., para. 36, p. 14S.

ON OFFICES OR PLACES OF PROFIT UNDER THE CROWN XXXI.
OFFICES CONNECTED WITH STATUTORY AUTHORITIES.
53. In recent .times a number of new bodies or corporations

established by Acts of Parliament, and the Act establishing such a body or
corporation has specifically provided that a member of the House of Commons
shall not be eligible to hold an office connected with such body or corporation,
or that the holder of such an office shall not be capable of sitting in the House
of Commons. Many of such persons would probably be disqualified for
membership of the House of Commons by the general disqualification of
holders of offices under the Crown, but in so far as that is not the case Your
Committee do not recomniend any alteration in this respect in the Acts of
Parliament referred to. A number of cases of this kind are set out in the^
First Memorandum (List A III)^ submitted to Your Committee by the
Attorney-General.
SCOTTISH OFFICES.
54. Certain judicial and other offices under the Crown are peculiar to
Scotland. For the most part these Scottish offices, although in some cases
necessarily different from English offices owing to the different legal system
prevailing in Scotland, are similar to, or fairly comparable with, English offices
which have been already considered. Your Committee received from Mr. T.
M. Cooper, K.C., then Lord Advocate, a useful memorandum^ in reference
to these Scottish offices, and see no reason for recommending any alteration
in the existing position. Any new legislation, such as recommended by Your
Committee, should preserve by re-enactment or otherwise the existing law, as
set out in that memorandum.
COMMON INFORMERS, PENALTIES AND JURISDICTION.
55. Under the Succession to the Crown Act, 1707^ there were and still are
heavy penalties by way of fines for sitting or voting in the House of Commons
when disqualified, and these are recoverable at the instance of a common
informer. There is little or no need for these penalties now, and the common
inforiner is generally regarded as an anachronism and his rights as useless and
objectionable.^ Many statutes in recent times have disqualified various persons
for membership of the ^ House of Commons, and in none of them has it been
thought necessary to provide penalties. But if procedure by way of common
informer is to be done away with, it will be necessary to consider how it
came to be established, and what provision should be made for enforcement
in future of. the law disqualifying office-holders for membership of the House
of Commons.
How procedure by way of common informer came to be incorporated in the
Succession to the Crown Act, 1707, is somewhat obscure. The procedure
dates back to long before 1707; it had been used during the Stuart period to
a considerable extent, as an instrument in the Penal Acts against Roman
Catholics and Nonconformists, and for enforcing unpopular legislation. It had
been applied to members of Parliament in connection with the parliamentary
oath by the Parliamentary Test Act of 1672 and the Act of Abjuration of 1701.
Thus even in 1707 the common informer was regarded as an odious and
objectionable person. It should be remembered that the Succession to the
Cro\yn Act, 1707, was the first effective statutory provision relating to dis-
qualification for membership through" the holding of office under the Crown,
and that prior to that date the courts had no jurisdiction in this matter.
Indeed, since the sixteenth century the House had always claimed the sole right
to decide the qualifications of its members and, since 1604, the right to
I ' - -
1 Pp. 132-133. 2 Appendix 4, p. 167.

xxxu REPORT FROM THE SELECT COMMITTEE
determine contested elections; only some three years before 1707 the House of
Commons had been engaged in a heated contest with the courts and with the
House of Lords over their claim to the exclusive right, as a matter of privilege,
to determine the qualifications of electors in the case of the Aylesbury electibn.
It is difficult therefore to believe that the Commons in 1707 had any deliberate
intention of giving the courts any jurisdiction which would interfere with
' the privileges they had been so jealously fighting to maintain, or of giving the
courts a right to interfere with the exclusive control of the Commons over
questions relating to membership of the House. But they were then very
determined to establish the principle of limiting the number of office-holders
in the House, by disqualification with certain exceptions of all office-holders.
As this was new and ^contrary to the existing law of Parliament it could only
be accomplished by statute. It can easily be understood that in its then
frame of mind the House of Commons thought fit to establish a system of
severe penalties for breach of these new statutory provisions. The machinery
of the common informer was ready to hand; at any rate it provided a method
of exposing cases which might not otherwise have come to the attention of
the House of Commons; some may have regarded it as an additional means of
enforcing the law against some future majority of the House which might be
subservient to the Crown.
56. Thus it may well be held that the Commons in 1707* not only did not
intend to, but did not in fact, give up their claim to exclusive jurisdiction in
regard to qualification for membership of their House, but that they merely
established machinery for enforcing by penalties a decision made by them.
Since 1707 Parliament has never expressly given the courts any jurisdiction
in this matter- except by the Parliamentary Elections Act, 1868, in which the
House of Commons deliberately agreed to handing over certain limited juris-
diction to the courts. The reason for their doing this was that they had long
endeav<3ured to deal with cases of contested elections and double returns, and
had found great difficulty in doing so, and ultimately came to the conclusion
that the issues involved in election petitions were more suitable for trial by
the courts than for decision by the House. It would seem therefore, that if
the provisions of the Succession to the Crown Act, 1707, relative to the
common informer be repealed, the courts will have no statutory jurisdiction
in the matter of disqualification for membership of the House of Commons,
and the original and jealously guarded jurisdiction of the House itself will
remain unimpaired. This would remove a possible cause of conflict between
the House and the courts, a conflict in which the powers of the House would
almost inevitably render a claim to jurisdiction by the courts unenforceable
in practice. This is clearly explained in the joint memorandum by Sir Gilbert
Campion and Sir Granville Ram which forms Appendix 8 of the Minutes of
Evidence.^ In fact in the 234 years or thereabouts which have elapsed since
the Act of 1707 the courts have never exercised any jurisdiction in this
matter: as far as can be ascertained there has been no case in which pro-
ceedings have been taken by a common informer under that Act. No doubt
the existence of the common informer's rights has not been entirely ineffective.
Indeed, there,have been a number of cases in which a Member has refused a
post for which he has been eminently suitable from fear that he might be
attacked by a common informer. That no such proceedings have been taken
may well be due to the risk run by a common informer, at least since 1859,
of having the penalties remitted by the Crown after he had incurred the
trouble and expense of suing for them, and by the probability that if the
offence were due to inadvertence the offending Member would be protected
by an Act of Indemnity.
^ P. 176 et seq.

ON OFFICES OR PLACES OF PROFIT imOFR THF CROWN
' ' < '
37. It remains to be considered how, if the provisions relating to the

common informer in the Succession to the Crown Act, 1707, be repealed and
not re-enacted, the law as to disqualification of office-holders can be enforced
by the House of Commons. This question is discussed in the joint memorandum
of Sir Gilbert Campion and Sir Granville Ram,^ referred to in the preceding
paragraph. The powers of the House of Commons both to enforce the law,
and to punish any intentional breach of it, are ample, but for the effective
exercise of these powers the House should set up the appropriate machinery.
This is a matter which is within the competence of the House and does not
require legislation. In order to ensure that no case of disqualification on
account of acceptance of office shall be overlooked, provision should be made
for the Crown, and for individual ministers of the Crown, to report to the
House every appointment of a Member to an Office which does not quite clearly
fall within the category of offices expressly excluded from those which dis-
qualify for membership. This would enable the House to take any necessary
steps to ensure the vacation of his seat by the- Member concerned. If any
question were raised (and it could be raised by any Member) as to whether a
particular appointment did or did not cause the Member concerned to vacate
his seat, the House would deal with the matter as one of privilege ,(subject to
the Speaker ruling that a prima facie case arose), and with the precedence
accorded to matters of privilege. But special new provisions should be made
by standing orders for dealing with this particular t3q>e of case of privilege.
The present practice is very strict in regard, to a matter of privilege being ..
raised on the earliest occasion possible: it would be Well to provide that a
matter relating to vacation of a seat by acceptance of office may be raised
at any time within a specified number of days on which the House is sitting
after the day on which the appointment of the Member is reported to the
House. .
If legislation is effected on the lines recommended by Your Committee,
there should be veiy few cases in which doubt will arise as to whether or not
a Member's seat is vacated by his acceptance of an office, but in any case
where the Speaker may find that a prima facie case has been made out the matter
would be dealt with according to the usual practice of the House in matters of
privilege. It might be well to set up a special procedure for-this type of case,
under which, on the finding of a prima facie case by the Speaker, the case
should stand referred automatically either to the Committee of Privileges or
to some other select committee to be appointed at the beginning of every
session, or to a select committee specially appointed for the particular case.
Such committee would report to the House, and the final decision would then
rest with the House.
58. Your Committee approve the suggestion in the joint memorandum of
Sir Gilbert Campion and Sir Granville Ram^ that provision might be made
whereby this procedure could be used for deciding beforehand whether a
specified office or place would, if accepted by a Member, cause him to vacate
his seat. The suggestion referred to in that memorandum might, in the
opinion of Your Committee, be carried into effect on the following lines.
An application for a decision in advance upon a doubtful case might be made
privately to the Speaker, who, if he thought the case a proper one to be thus
dealt with, would report to the House that he had received such an applica-
tion; whereupon (pursuant to provisions to be made by standing order) the
application would stand referred to the proper select committee. If provision
is to be made for this purpose, it seems obvious that it should not be necessary
for the name of the Member concerned to be divulged. *
1 P. 176, et seq. ^ Appendix 8, p. 176 el seq.
11867 ^

XXXIV REPORT FROM THE SELECT COMMITTEE <
Your Committee also agree with the suggestion in the same memorandum
for protecting a Member against inadvertently losing his seat by acceptance ot
office. This will require legislation, and Your Committee recommend that
the Bill to carry out .their recommendations should contain the necessary
provision. It would be to the effect that if the House should resolve that the
Member had accepted the office by inadvertence or without realising that such
acceptance would disqualify him, then (subject to his immediate resignation
of the office) such acceptance should be deemed not to have vacated his seat.
CLERGY.
I
59. Your Committee consider it necessa^ to make some reference to the

clergy for two special reasons:In the first place the House of Commons
(Clergy Disqualification) Act of 1801, which disqualifies ordained clergy of the
Church of England, appears to have been justified by some of its supporters
upon the view that the relationship between the Crown' and the Established
Church was such as to make the clergy officers of the Crown and that
'in so far as they held benefices they were holders of offices of profit. Secondly,
if ever the general disqualification of clergy were removed, questions would
arise whether a considerable number of clergy are not holders of offices or
places of profit from or under the Crown, such as bishops not having seats
in the House of Lords, deans and other ecclesiastical dignitaries appointed by
the Crown, and incumbents of Crown livings.
Under these circumstances Your Committee invited observations from the
Archbishop of Canterbury, and a letter from him with a memorandum from
Sir Philip Baker-Wilbraham, the Vicar General, will be found as an appendix
to the Minutes of Evidence.^ While Your Committee have come to the con-
clusion that it would not be advisable or proper for them to make a recom-
mendation on the subject, they think it well to give some description of the
problem and of the reasons for the conclusion they have come to.
60. In the medieval Parliament the lower clergy had been represented bv
proctors, but their representation gradually ceased in the course of the
fourteenth century. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there are a
few cases of clergymen who were , elected for boroughs but were excluded by
resolutions of the House of Commons. During the period between the
discontinuance of clerical representation (towards the end of the fourteenth
century) and the Restoration of 1660, the clergy were not electors for the
House of Commons and were not taxed by the House of Commons: they
were represented in their own Convocation and were taxed by Convocation.
After the Restoration, when the clergy were taxed in the same way as the
laity, the question* of their right to sit in the House of Commons was raised
in 1784, when Edward Rushworth who was in deacon's orders was allowed
to take his seat. But in 1801 came the notable case of Horne Tooke, an
active politician and supporter of the movement for reform of Parliament
who was elected for Old Sarum: he was a priest in holy orders, though not at
the time holding any benefice. A committee having reported that there were
no precedents to justify his exclusion, the Act of 1801 was passed, whereby
clergymen of the established churches in England (including Wales) Scotland
and Ireland were excluded. Owing to the disabilities of Roman Catho-lics,
no question arose as to their clergy until the Roman Catholic Relief Act of
1829 removed the disability of members of that Church, and that Act then
extended the exclusion of clergy to priests of that church.^ Clergy or ministers
of other denominations as such have never been disqualified, and for a good
^ Appendix 7, pp. 174-176.
See Appendix 2, Sir Gilbert Campions Memo., paras. 40-43, pp. 149-150.

ON OFFICES OR PLACES OF PROFIT UNDER THE CROWN XXXV %
many years in recent times there have been, as there now are, cases of such ,
clergy and ministers sitting as Members without any question being raised.
61. Your Committee appreciate that there may be thought to be something
apparently illogical in the fact that Church of England clergy are disqualified
while non-conformist clergy and ministers of other churches are not disqualified.
But notwithstanding this. Your Committee find several reasons why they
should not recommend any interference with or change in the existing dis-
qualification. There does not appear to be any general wish or demand either
on the part of the general public or on the part of the clergy themselves for
removal of the disqualificationîndeed it seems probable that the Church
of England would strongly oppose such removal and there is no reason to
believe that Roman Catholics would adopt a different attitude. Some take the
view that, if the apparent illogicality should be removed it should be done by
disqualifying other clergy and ministers of religion. But in any case the real
reasons for the existing disqualification are not founded on questions of offices
of profit, but on many and very different grounds. Any consideration of the
question would therefore lead to arguments and discussions of a nature
entirely outside the province of Your Committee.
Your Committee therefore feel that it would not be right for them to express
any opinion on, or make any recommendation for alteration of, the existing
position regarding disqualification of clergy of any denomination.
THE BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION.
62. Although Your Committee hardly feel that the relations between
members of Parliament ajid the British Broadcasting Corporation come within
their terms of reference, they consider that attention should be drawn to the
position that might arise if the present tendency to make the Corporation a
government controlled body continues.
SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS IN PART I.
63. Your Committee recommend the passing of a Bill the chief provisions
of which should be as follows:
1. Except as hereinafter provided all persons holding an office from or See para,
under the Crown shall be disqualified for election to or for sitting as a member 2a.
of the House of Commons.
ISlote.^The expression ah office from or under the Crown , or
whatever expression may bC'Used for the purpose, should be carefully
defined and.sho.uld be widely inclusive so as to cover as far as possible
all the positions specifically referred to in this Report as ones which
should disqualify. It may be impossible to frame a definition which will
cover all such cases, in which event they must be dealt with by a special
provision in the Bill. As to the form of disqualification, reference should
be made to the latter part of Paragraph 51.
2. There shall be excepted from disqualification the holders of any of the See paras,
ministerial offices set out in the schedule' contained in paragraph 26 of this 25 and 7.6^
Report, but with a proviso to the effect that not more than 60 such persons
shall at any one time be members of the House of Commons and that the
proportions between ministers and parliamentary secretaries laid down in the
Ministers of the Crown Act, 1937, shall be maintained.
Note.^This exemption from disqualification should include freedom
from any necessity for resignation or re-election on appointment to office.
A holder of more than one ministerial office shall only count as one in
reckoning the 60 holders of office so permitted to be members. The pro-
visions of the Ministers of the Crown Act, 1937, should not be interfered
with except so far as any adjustments may be necessary,

xxxvi REPORT FROM TÊ SELECT COMMITTEE
See paras. 3. There should be excepted from disqualification the holders of the nom
29 and 30. imnisterial offices set out in the schedule contained in paragraph 30 of this
Report but with such limitations (if any) as are set out in that schedule.
Note.It should be made clear that the exception from disqualification
provided for in this and the preceding clause includes exemption from
any necessity for resignation or re-election pn appointment to office.
See para. 4. It should be specially provided that the offices of steward or bailiff of
28. His Majestys three Chiltern Hundredsof Stoke, Desborough and Burnham,
and steward or bailiff of the Manors of East Hendred, Northstead or Hemp-
holme, are to continue to be deemed to be offices of profit under the Crown,
acceptance of which by a member of the House of Commons causes him to
vacate his seat.
See para. 5. No member of the House of Commons shall be appointed to a disquali-
36. fying office while he is a Member, without his consent.
See pa,ra. 6. Pensions should not be a disqualification, unless they are pensions which
42. can be determined at the will of the Crown otherwise than for good reason
such as misconduct on the part of the pensioner.
See para. 7. Any of the offices or places mentioned in the list in paragraph 43 of
43. this Report which are not quite clearly covered by the provision ffir disquali-
fication, should be specifically mentioned as deemed to be disqualifying offices.
See para. 8. Provision should be made for protecting a Member against inadvertently
58. losing his seat as mentioned in paragraph 58.
See para. 9. The sections of the Succession to the Crown Act, 1707, dealing with
22 and disqualification for membership of the House of Commons or vacation of a
i^ras. seat in the House of Commons by reason of the holding of or appointment to
55-58.
an office or place of profit from or under the Crown, including clauses pre-
scribing or relating to penalties for sitting or voting when disqualified, and
all other relevant enactments on the same subject (the effect of which with
or without alteration or amendment is re-enacted by the proposed Bill), should
be repealed, the provisions as to penalties being repealed without any re-
enactment or substituted provisions.
Note.It should be observed that the purpose of repealing and not
re-enacting provisions as to penalties is to abolish the rights of the
common informer. The reasons for this and for makiiig no alternative
provisions for penalties
*
are set out in paragraphs 55 to 58 of this Report.
10. The Act shall come into operation forthwith, subject to such provisions
as may be necessary to avoid interference with existing emergency legislation.
Your Committee further recommend
See paras. (i) That standing orders should be passed or procedure set up in the
57 and House of Commons to enable the House to deal efficiently with questions
58. or matters relating to vacation of seats through acceptance of office as
proposed in paragraphs 57 and 58 of this Report;
See para. (ii) That steps should be taken to reduce or limit the number of par-
24. liamentary private secretaries to ministers as proposed in paragraph. 24
of this Report.
PART II.
PRESENT EMERGENCY POSITION.
64. Your Committee, having considered the subject of disqualification of
members of the House of Commons by reason of the holding of offices of
profit under the Crown, have made their recommendations as to the proper

ON OFFICES OR FLACES OF PROFIT UNDER THE CJlOWN r
principles on which future legislation for normal times of peace should be

based. They have now, in this second part of their Report, to deal Svitli
problems regarding the same matter in the circumstances of the emergency
period resulting, from the present war.
65. Temporary adjustments in our governmental and parliamentary methods*
as well as in the life of the people are essential in such a struggle as the country
is now engaged in. While, therefore, it is necessary to make considerable
departures from the usual methods and principles of government to meet the
emergencies of war, it should be borne in mind that these temporary departures
are for the express purpose of defending those very principles and preserving
that form of constitutional government and the prevention in the future of
suchâ war as the present one. It follows that one guiding principle should
be borne in mind in dealing with this part of Your Committees investigations,
namely that departures from the principles which govern procedure in normal
times should be regarded as abnormal, temporary and to be entirely aban-
doned as quickly a.s possible after the need for them has passed. In the
meanwhile departures from the normal guiding principles should not be
made without compelling reason.
66. In the first instance Your Committee interpret their task as being to
examine what departures of this nature have already been made during the
emergency period, then to consider how far these departures have or have; not
been justified, and finally to make such recommeridations or suggestions as
they may think fit regarding future action by the House of Commons in such
matters.
67. In paragraph 19 of Part I of this Report three guiding principles are
set out, (i) incompatibility of certain non-ministerial offices with membership
of the House of Commons (which must be taken to cover questions of a
Members relations with, and duties to, his constituents), (2) the need to-limit
the control or influence of the executive government over the House by means
of an undue proportion of office holders being Members of the House, and (3)
the essential condition of a certain number of ministers being members of the
House for the purpose of ensuring control of the executive by Parliament.
68. Extensive and important departures have been made from the first tWo
of these principles: members of the House of Commons have been appointed
to offices normally incompatible with membership of the.. Houseoffices which
in some cases make it impossible for long periods for the holders thereof to
attend any sittings of the House, offices which Your Committee have recom-
mended should in normal times disqualify for membership. The limit on the
number of ministers sitting in the House has been repealed and the number
substantially increased; the number of Members who havewhile still per-
mitted to retain their seatsbeen appointed to paid or unpaid posts in or
under the executive is far greater than the increase in the, number of ministers;
at the same time a large number of retired officers in the fighting services
and officers in the Auxiliary or Reserve Forces normally not disqualified '
for membership have become officers on active service and have thus passed
into a class which is normally disqualified.
69. The third principle, control of the executive by Parliament, is much
modified in war-time practice, by the Governments reliance on all the main
parties, by the absence of official opposition, and by the necessity of allowing
to the Government immense powers for the prosecution of the war.
70. Your Committee draw attention to these facts as necessary for the
proper consideration of problems covered by the duties imposed upon them,
and not necessarily in order to criticise or condemn what has been done.

XXX\^1 REPORT FROM THE SELECT COMMITTEE
Indeed, so far as concerns members of the House on active service with the
forces, Your Committee entirely approve of the decision of the House and
of Parliament that those Members should not lose their seats; and they believe
that generally the constituents of those Members have readily acquiesced in
that decision. That particular matter will be automatically set right so soon
as, with the termination of the war, they cease to be on active service.
71. Practically, all provisions for disqualification by reason of holding of
office under the Crown have - during the past two years been suspended or so
dealt with that they can be suspended at will by the executive Government.
This has been effected by Acts of Parliament or by orders in council made
in pursuance of, and under powers given by. Acts of Parliament. These
Acts, passed in most cases without opposition in the House of Commons,
have been passed so recently that Your Committee assume the House would
not desire to reverse or materially alter them without very good reason.
EMERGENCY PERIOD LEGISLATION.
72. But Your Committee invite the attention of the House to some of the
effects of this recent legislation, passed often necessarily hastily and under the
stress of circumstances, and to certain facts and circumstances which lead
them to make some definite recommendations.
73. As a first and preliminary general observation they venture to remind
the House that the legislation they propose to' refer to more specifically is such
as would never have been contemplated in normal times. It should be
definitely recognised (as indeed has generally been done to a considerable
extent by provisions for limited duration of certain statutes) as abnormal and
temporary, granting to ministers of the Crown, for emergency purposes,
powers which should be definitely and completely withdrav/n or terminated
so soon as the justification for them ceases.
74. The principal Acts in question are (i) the Emergency Powers (Defence)
Act of 1939, under which most, of the orders in council are made, (2) the
Regional Commissioners Act, 1939, {3) the Ministers of the Crown (Emer-
gency Appointments) Act, 1939, (4) the House of Commons (Service in His
Majestys Forces) Act, 1939, and (5) the House of Commons Disqualification
(Temporary Provisions) Act, 1941, which was the immediate occasion of the
appointment of Your Committee.
75. The Acts numbered (i), (2) and (4) each contain a provision that the
Act shall expire on the date of the termination of the present emergency
a date which is to be fixed by an order in council, which in practice means
such date as the Government may decide upon; the Act numbered (i) also
expires at the end of one year unless continued in force for another year,
and so on from year to year, by an order in council made upon an Address
to the Crown by each House of Parliament.
76. The Act numbered (3), the Ministers of the Crown (Emergency Appoint-
ments) Act, is limited to ministers " appointed for the purpose of exercising
functions connected with the prosecution of any war in which His Majesty
may be engaged but apart from that there is no provision limiting the
duration of the Act.
77. The Act numbered (5), the House of Commons Disqualification (Tem-
porary Provisions) Act, 1941, passed in March, 1941, provides that it is to
continue in force for one year and shall then expire; there is no provision for
its being continued by order in council, so that it can only be continued
^ Section 1(1) ofrthe Act.

ON OFFICES OR PLACES OF PROF'IT UNDER THE CROWN xxxix
after the 6th March, 1942, by an Expiring Laws Gontinuanee Act or other
special legislation for the purpose.
78. It should be mentioned that orders in council under the Emergency
Powers (Defence) Act have to be laid before Parliament and may be annulled
by an Address by the House of Commons (or either House of Parliament)
within twenty-eight days.
TERMINATION OF EMERGENCY LEGISLATION.
79. As there are the various provisions above referred to for termination
of these exceptional powers on the termination of the present emergency,
Your Committee regard it as important that, if the legislation recommended
in Part I of this Report commends itself to the House, it should be passed
before the termination of the present emergency, and should include provisions
enabling it to be put in force in whole or in part as and when the emergency
legislation comes to an end.
80. It has been noted that the greater part of the emergency provisions
relating to the subject under consideration are to come to an end automatically
on the termination of the present emergencya date to be fixed by order in
council. An immense mass of emergency legislation on other subjects is
to expire in the same way, and very many matters will in one way or another
be dependent upon or be affected by that as yet unspecified date. As a
consequence, it may not be practicable to fix a date earlier than several years
after the actual cessation of hostilities.
81. In respect of at least many of the enactments relating to the subject of
their investigation, Your Committee think that there should be no sufficient
reason why they should remain in force for any considerable period after the
cessation of active hostilities. They therefore consider that the necessary
steps should be taken to bring those provisions to an end at the earliest time
reasonably possible, rather than that they should be left in force until the
official or technical termination of the present emergency.
MINISTERS OF THE CROWN (EMERGENCY APPOINTMENTS) ACT, 1939.
82. It has been mentioned that the Ministers of the Crown (Emergency
Appointments) Act contains no special provision limiting its duration. The
only restriction on its operating for an indefinite time is the fact that it only
applies to Ministers appointed for the purpose of exercising functions con-
nected with the prosecution of any war in which His Majesty may be
engaged." It may well be, therefore, that ministers appointed under that Act,
and thereby maê capable of sitting as members of the House of Commons
without any limit of number, may continue in office and to sit in the House
of Commons not only after the cessation of active hostilities but even after
the official termination of the present emergency Further than that, the
Act can be effectively operated at /any time when His Majesty is engaged in
any war; therefore it might remain effective after the real conclusion of the
present great struggle, so long as this country remained technically at war
with any country or people however small or insignificant. Further,
it might again become fully effective through the outbreak of a small and
unimportant war in any part of the world. The limitation of the number of
ministers qualified to sit in the House of Commons is regarded by You.r
Committee as of great importance; they also regard it as a matter which
should be, specially watched and insisted upon by the House, because of
the natural tendency to increase the number of government departments and
of ministers. No demand for or arguments in favour of creating additional
ministers should be allowed to over-ride in normal times the limit on the
number of ministers permitted to sit in the House of Condons. If the

xl ' liEmRT mOM THjE SELECT COMMITTEE
number of ministers increases, the Government of the "day can arrange, if

they so desire, for one minister in the House of Commons to represent there
more than one ministerial department;'
83. , Your Committee are therefore of opinion that the continuance in force
of the Ministers of the Crown (Emergency Appointments) Act, 1939, in its
present form is undesirable. They recommend that the Act should be
amended by some definite provision for its expiring not later than the termina-
tion of the present emergency, and for the limit on the number of ministers
permitted to be members of the House of Commons becoming effective on the
expiry of the Act. It is necessary to contemplate the possibility of there
being more than the permitted number of ministers in the House at the
moment when the limit becomes effective. In practice no doubt the Govern-
ment of the time will make beforehand such re-arrangements or adjustments
as may be required to prevent such a situation arising; but the legislation will
have to prescribe a method of effecting the reduction if that should be
necessary.
MEMBERS HOLDING POSITIONS WHICH WOULD NORMALLY DISQUALIFY.
84. Your Committee wish to call special attention to the position of Members
who during the present emergency are or jnay be occupying posts which in
normal times do or should disqualify them for membership, such as
Ambassadors, High Commissioners, Regional Commissioners and holders of
other civil service posts. Occupants of such posts are, as such, subject to
the orders and directions of the government or a member of the government.
They are normally disqualified for membership; the Government or the appro-
priate member of the Government has to accept liability for them and is
accountable for all their actions in the course of their duty.
85. Two considerations arise regarding members of the House of Commons
holding these positions; one, their right to protection against attack or criticism
in the House in regard to the performance of their duties in such positions;
the other (to some extent complementary of the first), whether or to what
extent their speeches or actions in the House should be restricted. Your
Committee think it would be generally agreed that Members who hold these
temporary positions should have the same protection as is given to established
or regular civil servants, namely, that the minister in charge of the depart-
ment should be responsible for the actions of those serving under him who
should not be attacked personally. This protection would necessarily be
conditional on the Member concerned not doing anything by speech or action
-in the House to invite such attack.
. The question of placing any restrictions on such Members in the House of
Commons is more difficult. On the one hand, it may be said that the reasons
which disqualify persons in the service of the Crown from membership of the
House in normal times should debar such Members, holding temporary posi-
tions in this emergency period, from taking any part in debates concerned with
their duties as temporary servants under the Crown. On the other hand it
is argued that while such Members would be expected to exercise^ wise and
careful discretion, they should not be subjected to any definite restrictions.
No doubt in the present emergency such Members can and do make valuable
contributions in debate by reason of knowledge and experience gained by
them in such service; speeches made or action taken in the House by such
Members may be quite unobjectionable; but in some cases they may be
thought undesirable notwithstanding their being useful. In this connection
it is necessary to bear in mind that such a Member may by reason of his
service under the Crown acquire very confidential information and may think

ON OFFICES OR PLACES OF PROlFIT UNDER THE CROWN !?di
it right to disclose such information to the House, notwithstanding the fact

that by doing so he may render himself liable to reprisals or disciplinary
measures or penalties of some kind. ^ Such situations occasionally arise , in
normal times, but are much more likely to occur in this period of emergency;
a Member may feel that over-riding cpnsiderations of national interest compel
him to take a course which is perhaps contrary to his duty in other ways; he
may be faced with the prospect in that case that, if he does what he believes
to be in the national interest, he may risk serious damage to, or even the
complete ruin of, his career. If a. Member feels compelled to take such a
course notwithstanding that risk, he may be right or he may be wrong; if he
is wrong, his action may not only be damaging to him personally, but may
also be diarmful to the national interest; to some extent this danger to the
national interest may be avoided by the custom of holding secret sittings
during the emergency period.
Members in this position may have an unusual measure of respoiisibility
placed upon them; they will do well to exercise great discretion, and probably *
to obtain reliable advice before deciding on a course of action.
On the whole Your Committee find it difficult to recommend that any.
definite restriction should be imposed upon Members temporarily in the
service of the Crown, beyond those which apply to every Member of the
House. But they think that something should be done to call special attention
to the peculiar responsibility which rests upon members of the House holding
such temporary positions in the service of the Crown.
86. Your Committees recommendation in regard to this problem may be
stated as follows:
That a member of the House temporarily in the service of the Crow,n in
connection with the prosecution of the present war should be entitled to claim
and receive the same protection against attack or criticism in the House in
respect.^ of his duties in that service as is customarily given to civil servants,
so long as he refrains from inviting such attack or criticism by speech or
action connected with such service. That such Members should bear in mind
the peculiar responsibility resting upon them through their temporarily holding
positions which in normal times would disqualify them for membership of the
House, and that, while the House does not impose upon them any restrictions
of the liberty enjoyed by members of the House generally, they should refrain
from addressing the House or voting or otherwise taking part in proceedings
connected with their service under the Crown, unless convinced that their
doing so will receive the general assent of the House or is urgently necessary
in the national interest.
HOUSE OF COMMONS DISQUALIFICATION (TEMPORARY PROVISIONS) ACT, 1941.
87. Your Committee have carefully considered the House of Commons
Disqualification (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1941, which will expire on the
6th March next.
The principle which has been followed since 1707, and which has been
adhered to by Your Committee, is that, subject to two recognised exceptions
(a limited number of holders of ministerial offices, and holders of offices
regarded as ones which may be reasonably and properly held by Members),
the appointment to, or holding of, an office of profit under the Crown should
disqualify for membership of the House of Commons. The two main con-
siderations affecting the practical operation of this principle are (i) the
tendency to increase the power of the Crown or the executive Government,
and (2) the compatibility or incompatibility of the office with membership of
the House of Commons.
11867 0

REPORT FROM THE SELECT COMMITTEE
This Act enables the Government to suspend the operation of this law of
disqualification, subject only to three limitations: th,e power is limited in point
of time by the provision that the Act expires in one year unless renewed; the
appointment must, in the opinion of the Government, be required in the public
interest for purposes connected with the prosecution of the war; a certificate
must be given by the First Lord of the Treasury, the effect of which is to give
notice to the House of Commons of the appointment.
In the event of it being considered desirable in the national interest for the
better prosecution of the war that the Act should be renewed in some form
when it expires next March, Your Committee consider that certain additional
safeguards might suitably be inserted.
The House may well think that the Government should not be unduly
hampered in making appointments by having to give previous notice to the
House, or to obtain the consent of the House to the Member's retention of his
seat. If the question of retention of his seat were left to the House, it would
be a serious obstacle to the efficient working of the Act, as the Member might
be unwilling to accept the office unless he knew he would not thereby lose
his seat. If Parliament does not desire thus to hamper the Government, it is
difficult to conceive a method of enabling the House of Commons to retain any
direct control over the immunity from disqualification of Members appointed to
government posts: the most effective safeguard lies in the powers of the House
to criticise and pass judgment on the Governments exercise of its powers.
For reasons which will appear from what follows. Your Committee con-
template that any renewal of the powers given to the Government by the
existing Act should take the form of a renewal of the Act with amendments,
or the passing of another Act in an amended form. They definitely recommend
the. preservation of the three limitations already mentioned, (i) The Act
should again expire at the end of another 12 months, unless again renewed
(with or without amendment) for another period not exceeding 12 months;
they do not consider it would be satisfactory that the Act should be made to
continue in force for the period of the present emergency; the necessity for
renewal at intervals of not longer than a year would be a useful method of
keeping the matter under the notice of the House and bringing it up for
re-consideration at intervals of not longer than a year. Moreover, Your
Committee hope that at the conclusion of active hostilities it will be unneces-
sary to continue the provisions of the Act during the remainder of the emergency
period. (2) The certificate should still have to state that the appointment
is required in the public interest for purposes connected with the prosecution
of the war. The form of the requisite certificate might be re-considered. At
present it might be thought to cover only the appointment of a member of
the House of Commons to an office or place under the Crown; it might be
altered so as to state that the Members retaining his membership was also
required in the public interest. (3) There should still be provision for giving
notice to the House of appointments (this is at present provided by the
certificate of the First Lord of the Treasury): the importance of this notice is
that it gives the House the opportunity of criticising the exercise of the power
and taking steps in case of need to terminate or limit it.
As regards new additional safeguards Your Committee have already called
attention to the difficulty of making any provisions of this kind which shall
not unduly hamper the Government in making such appointments as it may
Ihink necessary. How anything of this kind can be done will doubtless be
carefully considered by the House when the renewal of these powers comes to
be considered on the expiry of the present Act. Your Committee refrain from
making definite recommendations (other than those which have already been

ON OFFICES OR PLACES OF PROFIT UNDER THE CROWN xliii
made), but think that the following suggestions which are submitted for
consideration by the House are the most practicable:(a) Under the existing
Act appointments made are brought to the notice of the House by the
certificate of the First Lord of the Treasury being laid on the Table and so
appearing in the printed Votes. It might be provided that the certificate
should be formally communicated to Mr. Speaker;, then, in addition to the
certificate appearing in the Votes, Mr. Speaker would inform the House
thereof from the chair, and thus attention would be more effectively drawn
to the certificate, (b) A reasonably wide limit might be placed on the
number of certificates permitted to be given during the year the Act is, to be
in force; it should not be ditficult to fix a limit which would not be regarded
by the Government as unduly restrictive; but any fear as to that might perhaps
be met by a provision enabling the permitted number of certificates to be
increased by an order in council on an Address by the House, (c) Much
attention has been directed to the appointment of members of tlje House to
offices or posts involving long residence abroad and consequent enforced
absence from the House. In this connection, the House might consider
whether the exemption from disqualification should not be limited to some
stated period of time unless extended in any particular case by a similar order
in council or resolution of the House.
SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS IN PART I.

Shown above on pages xxxv and xxxvi.
SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS IN PART II.

88. Your Committees recommendations in Part II of this Report may be
briefly summarised as follows:
1. That the legislation recommended in Part I of this Report be intro- See para,
duced as soon as practicable. 79*
2. That emergency legislation relating to disqualification for member- See para,
ship of the House of Commons by reason of holding, of office under the 8i.
Crown be repealed or otherwise terminated as soon as practicable afteib or
even before the cessation of active hostilities.
3. That the Ministers of the Crown (Emergency Appointments) Act, See para.
1939, be amended so as to limit its duration. 83.
4. That the attention of all members of the House of Commons be See para,
specially drawn to paragraph 86 of this Report relating to restriction on 86.
and protection of Members holding offices or places such as would in
normal times disqualify them from memberehip.
5. That the House of Commons Disqualification (Temporary Pro- See para
visions) Act, 1941, be continued or re-enacted for a further limited period 87.
after it expires, subject to such amendments as the House may think fit
after consideration of paragraph 87 of this Report.
GENERAL RECOMMENDATION REGARDING THIS REPORT.

89. Finally, Your Committee would suggest that, if the conclusions they
have reached regarding the matters referred to their consideration commend
themselves to the House, the House should, for the removal of doubts, come
to a resolution expressing its agreement with those conclusions.
14th October, 1941.
11867 ^ ^

Xliv PROCEEDINGS OF THE SELEbl COMMITTEE
PROCEEDINGS OF THE COMMITTEE
WEDNESDAY, 19TH MARCH, 1941.
Members present:
Mr. Barnes. Mr. J^ôel-Baker.
Major Sir George Davies. Dr. Peters.
Sir Dennis Herbert. Mr. Pickthorn.
' Mr. Neil Maclean. Mr. Charles Williams.
Mr. Mander.
Sir Dennis Herbert was called to the Chair.
The Committee deliberated.
[Adjourned till Thursday, 3rd April, at a quarter-past Twelve oclock.
THURSDAY, 3RD APRIL, 1941.
Members present:
Sir Dennis Herbert in the Chair.
Mr. Barnes. Captain McEwen.
Major Sir George Davies. Mr. Noel-Baker.
Sir Cuthbert Headlam. Dr. Peters.
Mr. Mander. Mr. Pickthorn.
Mr. Maxton. Mr. Charles Williams.
The Right Honourable Sir Donald Somervell, O.B.E., K.C., Attorney-General,
a ihember of the House, was examined.
[Adjourned till Tuesday, 29th April, at a quarter-past Twelve o'clock.
TUESDAY, 29TH APRIL, 1941. .
Members present:
'Major Sir George Davies. Mr. Noel-Baker.
Mr. Neil Maclean. Mr. Pickthorn.
Mr. Mander. Mr. Charles Williams.
Mr. Maxton.
Sir Gilbert Campion, K.C.B., Clerk of the House of Commons, was examined.
[Adjourned till Thursday, 8th May, at a quarter-past Twelve oclock.

ON OFFICES OR PLACES OF PROFIT UND]PR THE CROWN
THURSDAY, 8TH MAY, 1941*
Membets present:
Sir Dennis Herbert in the Chair,
Sir Cuthbert Headlam. Mr. Noel-Baker. .
Mr. Neil Maclean.' Dr. Peters^. . '
Mr. Mander. Mr. Tiekthbrh'.
Mr; M^ton.- Mr. Charles Williams.},
Sir Gilbert Cainpion, K.C.B., was further examined.
[Adjourned till Tuesday next, at a quarter-past Twelve o'clock.
V ' . ' r
TUESDAY, 13TH MAY, 1941. ' . M
Members present:
Mr. Barnes. Mr. Maxton.
Mr. Neil Maclean. Mr. Pickthom.
Mr. Mander.
Sir William Holdsworth, K.C., Vinerian Professor in English Law, University
of Oxford, was examined.
. [Adjourned till Tuesday next, at Two o'clock.
TUESDAY, 20TH MAY, 1941.
Members present:
Major Sir George Davies. Captain McEwen.
Mr. Mander. Mr. Charles Williams.
Mr. Maxton.
Mr. Frederick Henry Lawson, Fellow and Tutor of Merton College, Oxford,
was examined.
[Adjourned till Tuesday next, at a quarter before Three o'clock, "

xlvi PROCEEDINGS OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE
TUESDAY, 27TH MAY, 1941.
Members present:
Sir Cuthbert Headlam. Mr. Noel-Baker.
Mr. Neil Maclean. Mr. Pickthom.
Mr. Mander.
[Adjourned till Wednesday, i8th June, at a quarter past Twelve o'clock.
WEDNESDAY, I8TH JUNE. 1941
Members present:

Major Sir George Davies. . Dr. Peters.
Mr. Mander. Mr. Pickthom.
Captain McEwen.
The Right Honourable the Viscount MonsMl, G.B.E., and Major-General the
Right Honourable Lord Hutchison of Montrose, K.C.M.G., C.B., D.S.O.,
attending by permission of tiie House of Lords, were examined.
[Adjourned till to-morrow at a quarter past Tvrelve oclock.
THURSDAY, 19TH JUNE, 1941.
Members present:
Major Sir George Davies. Dr. Peters.
Captain McEwen.
The Right Honourable the Viscount Simon, G.C.S.I., G.C.V.O., O.B.E., Lord
Chancellor, attending by permission of the House of Lords, was examined.
[Adjourned till Thursday next, at a quarter past Twelve oclock.
THURSDAY, 26TH JUNE, 1941.
Members present:
Mr. Neil Maclean. Dr. Peters.
Captain McEwen.
The Right Honourable Sir Percy Harris, Baronet, a member of the House, was
examined.
[Adjourned till Wednesday, i6th July, at a quarter past Twelve oclock.

ON OFFiGES OR PLACES OF PROFIT UNDER THE CROWN xlvii
WEDNESDAY, I6TH JULY, 1941.
Members present:
Sir Cuthbert Headlam. Dr. Peters. .
Mr. Mander. Mr. Pickthorn.,
[Adjourned till Thursday, 31st July, at a quarter past Twelve oclock.
THURSDAY, 31ST JULY, 1941.
Members present:
Mr. Barnes. Maxton.
Mr. Neil Maclean. Mr. Charles Williams.
Mr. Mander.
[Adjourned till Tuesday, 9th September, at a quarter past Twelve oclock.
TUESDAY, 9TH SEPTEMBER, 1941.

Members present;
Mr. Neil Maclean. Dr. Peters.
Draft Report proposed by the Chairman brought up and read the first time.
Ordered, That the Draft RepoH- be read a second time, Paragraph by Para-
graph.
Paragraphs i and 2 read, and agreed to.
Paragraph 3 read, amended, and agreed to.
Paragraph 4 read, and agreed to.
Paragraph 5 read, and postponed.
Paragraph 6 read:
Motion made, and Question put, That Paragraph 6 be postponed.{My
Pickthorn.)
The Committee divided: Ayes, 5; Noes, 3.
, Ayes. Noes.
Mr. Barnes. Major Sir George Davies.
Sir Cuthbert Headlam. Captain McEwen.
Mr. Maxton. Dr. Peters.
Mr. Noel-Baker.
Mr. Pickthorn.

xlviii PROCEEDINGS OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE
Paragraph 7 read;
Motion made, and Question put, " That Paragraph 7 be postponed/'(Mr.
Pickthom.)
Ayes, Noes.
Mr. Mander.
Mr. Maxton.
Mr. Noel-Baker.
Mr. Pickthorn.
Paragraphs 8 and 9 read, and postponed.
Paragraph 10 read, amended and agreed to.
Paragraph ii read and postponed.'
Paragraphs 12 and 13 read, and agreed to.
A Paragraph brought up, and read the first time, as follows:
Your Committee having set out the historical position, stated generally
the principles underlying the exclusions, and having appended lists of
permitted offices, excluded offices and borderline cases, do not feel that it is
desirable to propose new legislation in the middle of war conditions, tending
. to destroy the flexibility of the constitution at a time when changes in world
conditions, and in the relationship of nations of a fundamental kind, may
demonstrate the desirability of large scale readjustments of Parliamentary
methods. Until the ultimate results of the war are clearer. Parliament can
continue to function on the existing statutory basis, being even more vigilant
than in normal times to see that it is fully representative of the people,
capable of preventing any tendency to tyranny on the part of the executive,
and alert to see that the country has a government fully competent to direct
efficiently the complicated economic and social life of the nation.{Mr.
Maxton.)
Motion made, and Question put, That the Paragraph be read a second time.
The Committee divided; Ayes, i; Noes, 6.
Ayes. Noes.
Mr. Maxton. Major Sir George Davies.
Mr. Neil Maclean.
Mr. Mander.
Captain McEwen.
Dr. Peters. ..
Mr. Pickthorn.
Paragraphs 15 to 17 read, and agreed to.
Paragraph 19 read, and agreed to.
naturally a tendency (possibly an unavoidable
need) with the Rowing complexity of affairs generally and government administra-
tion in particular, for Government Departments to extend and for the number
of Ministers to increase: but Your Committee consider that there is not and so
far as it is possible to foresee the future, not likely to be, any necessity for a
long penod to make any appreciable increase in the number of Ministers whose
membership of the House of Commons is essential to the present system of
relation^ between the Executive Government and Parliament. If this opinion is
correct, it would certainly seem desirable that definite steps should be taken in

ON OFFICES OR PLACES OF PjROFIT UNDER THE CROWN xllX
the ditection of checking the tendency to increase the number of Ministers with
seats in the House of Commons. Iii this connection reference should be made
to the class of members known as ' Parliamentary PrivaLte Secretaries (unpaid)
The P.P.S. as he has come to be called is a inodeni institution: but it has
become the custom for nearly every Minister in the House of Commons to 'get a
private member of the House to act as his P.P.S. The P.P.S. has no recognised
of&cial position: he acts as the confidential friend and a^ssistant of his Minister
and necessarily enjoys in very large measure the confidence not only of the
Minister personally, but of the Ministers Department and the officials in it:
thus he must necessarily be to some extend imbued with the team spirit
which is part of the life blood of the Ministry; thus, too, his independence as a
member of the House must be liable to be impaired to a somewhafi^ greater degree
than that of an ordinary meniber of the Party supporting the Government in
office for ihe time being, although it would be a great mistake to regard his
relations with the Government as being as close or intimate as in the case of even
the least important undfer-secretarjr in the Governmentbeing unpaid and
appointed by the Minister personally he is clearly outside Your Committees terms
of reference; moreover he could not be disqualified for membership as the whole
essence of his position is, his membership of the House, and to abolish him does
not appear practicable nor indeed particularly desirable: he performs functions
very useful not only to his Minister but to members of the House of all parties
and groups as a liaison between the Minister and members^but his existence
should be remembered as a fact which has a tendency to increase the voting
strength of the Executive Government, and therefore as an additional reason for
keeping down the number of Ministers permitted to be members of the House,
read.
Amendment proposed, in line 25, after word Government , to insert the
words:
Your Committee cannot disregard the fact that the existence of Parlia-
mentary Private Secretaries is, not without reason, regarded as increasing
the voting, strength and influence of the Government in the House of
Commons; it might (however improbably) be improperly used expressly for
this purpose, and there is nothing to prevent a Minister appointing more than
one Parliamentary Private Secretary.{Mr. Munder.)
Proposed amendment amended, in line 4 by leaving out the word expressly.
{Major Sir George Davies.)
Question put, That the proposed words, as amended, be there inserted.
Ayes. Noes
Major Sir George Davies. Mr. Noel-Baker
Mr. Mander.
Mr. Maxton.
Captain McEwen.
Dr. Peters.
Other Amendments made.
Another Amendment proposed, in line 31, to leave out from che word
members to the end of the paragraph, and add the words:
Your Committee are therefore of opinion that some steps should be
taken, otherwise than by legislation, to reduce or at least limit the number
of Parliamentary Private Secretaries. It should usually be unnecessary for
more than one Parliamentary Private Secretary to be appointed in respect
of one Government Department, an^d where more than one ministerial repre-
sentative sits in the House of Commons, one Parliamentary Private Secretary
should be sufficient. It is suggested that a statement on the subject in the

1 PROCEEDINGS OF THE- SELECT COMMITTEE
House on behalf of the Government might establish a convention which

would be generally followed, or if thought necessary at any time, the House
might deal with the matter by a Resolution^(Ur, Mander.)
Question put, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the
Paragraph/'
The Committee divided: Ayes, i; Noes, 6.
'Ayes. Noes.
Mr. Noel-Baker. Major Sir George Davies.
Mri Neil Maclean.
Mr. Mander.,
Mr. Maxton.
Captain McE;wen.
Df. Peters.
Question, " That those words be there added," put and agreed to'.
Paragraph, as amended, agreed to.
Paragraph 21 read, and disagreed to.
A Paragraph brought up and read the first and second time, amended and
inserted.
Paragraph 35 read, and disagreed to.
Paragraphs 38 and 39 read, amended and agreed to.
[Adjourned till Thursday at a quarter-past Twelve oclock.
THURSDAY, IITH SEPTEMBER, 1941.
Members present:
Mr. Maxton.
Draft Report proposed by the Chairman further considered.
Another Paragraph brought up, and read the first time, as follows:
" Although Your Committee hardly feel that the relations between
Members of Parliament and the British Broadcasting Corporation come
within their terms of reference, they consider that attention should be drawn
to the position that might arise if the present tendency to make the Corpora*


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487

THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON

Ordered hy The House of Commons to he Printed

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Online.

Tuesday, ^th March, 1941.

Tuesday, iSth March, 1941.

Proceedings of the Committee xliv

I'he cost of preparing for publication the Shorthand Minutes of Evidence

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Online.

TERMS OF REFERENCE ' xiv

HOLDERS OF MINISTERIAL OFFICES xv

NON-MINISTERIAL OFFICE-HOLDERS EXEMPTED FROM DISQUALIFICATION XX

CERTAIN OFFICE-HOLDERS TO BE EXPRESSLY DISQUALIFIED xxvii

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Online.

SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS IN PART I ., XXXV

SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS IN PART II xliii

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Online.

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Online.

Commons Disqualification (Temporary Provisions) Bill in February and March,

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Online.

statute and part practice; it cannot be studied in compilations, but has to be

7. Mr. Pulling's pamphlet consists of a draft of a proposed consolidating

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Online.

SOURCES OF THE LAW.

9. The sources of the existing law may be set out as follows:

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Online.

latter. The Act of 1707 had been preceded by a series of attempts at

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Online.

OFFICE-HOLDING AS AN IMPEDIMENT TO THE SERVICE OF THE HOUSE. *

11. In the first Parliament of James I a number of cases of the holding of

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Online.

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Online.

If the principle underlying this sustained effort of the House of Commons

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Online.

ON OFFICES OR PLACES OF PROFIT UNDER THE CROWN Xlll

Section 25 provides that '' If any person, being chosen a member of

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Online.

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Online.

HOLDERS OF MINISTERIAL OFFICES.

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Online.

PARLIAMENTARY PRIVATE SECRETARIES.

LIMIT OF NUMBER OF MINISTERS IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Online.

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Online.

First Lord of the Admiralty.

RE-ELECTION ON APPOINTMENT TO OFFICE.

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Online.

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Online.

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A schedule is set out in the next following paragraph of non-ministerial

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Online.

32. A question, however, arises in regard to officers on the active list or on

33. This condition of affairs appears to Your Committee quite satisfactory,

^ Evidence, pp. 68-88. 2 5^^ Appendix 5, p. 171.

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Online.

. LORDS LIEUTENANT AND DEPUTY LIEUTENANTS.

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CERTAIN OFFICES WITH JUDICIAL FUNCTIONS.

1 See Appendix 9, p. 179. 2 Qns. 1036-1037. 3 Qn. 21 et seq.

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Online.

Manor of Northstead/ the assumption being that his appointment as Provost

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Online.