§ Mr. TinkerMay I ask that a correction may be made in the report of the Debate on war pensions on Friday? When the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Lansdale (Sir I. Fraser) was speaking on parents' pensions, I intervened to make the following statement:
We are not asking for a pension for all time. We are asking that it should be given up to the age of 26, or something like that.The report in HANSARD reads:We are not asking for a pension for all time. We are asking that it should be given up to 26 weeks, or something like that.I ask the House to allow the correction to be made.
§ Captain Cunningham-ReidI desire to make a personal explanation. The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Wellingborough (Wing-Commander James) is concerned, and I have given him notice of my intention. Last week the hon. and gallant Gentleman, while I was in a nursing home, without giving me notice, made a personal attack upon me. He asked you, Sir, if you were aware that since alerts had been sounded in Southern England the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for St. Marylebone had not been in his place. You, Sir, and other Members of this House were good enough to voice your objection to such defamation of a fellow Member. This personal attack, which was not only mean but, as I am about to show, also untrue, appeared in the Press throughout the country. This kind of damaging publicity, unlike the flying bomb, it is impossible to catch up with and destroy, especially as a denial has not the same news value as the original accusation made behind the privileged skirts of this House. Thousands of people will never get to hear that the accusation that they originally heard about, that ever since the arrival of the flying bomb I had absented myself from the House of Commons, was not only a lie but that it was 1580 said at a time when I was unable to answer back.
The following are the facts. Every week since the flying bombs have been over the South of England I have been in the House of Commons with the exception of the last seven Parliamentary days, when I was in a nursing home. You, Sir, will no doubt recollect my discussing with you in that very Chair, soon after an alert, the question of the Ministry of Information Vote which was coming on the following week. Incidentally, during those early weeks of the flying bomb I have no recollection of seeing in the House the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Wellingborough, but I for my part have no burning desire to do him an injustice and I feel that he must have been lurking somewhere in the House, as otherwise he could not, by throwing a stone at someone else, have drawn attention to his own gallant interpretation of "The boy stood on the burning deck."
Wing-Commander JamesIt is true that the hon. and gallant Gentleman gave me notice, about two minutes ago, that he was going to raise this matter. I do not desire to waste the time of the House at this juncture. I would suggest that the real procedure would be for him to seek one of his not infrequent Adjournment Motions——
§ Mr. SpeakerThere is always the danger in a personal statement, that personal recriminations come in and, unless the hon. and gallant Gentleman wishes merely to withdraw or not withdraw, he had better not say anything about it.
Wing-Commander JamesIn that case I may well have been misinformed in this instance and, if that is the case, I apologise.