HC Deb 01 August 1893 vol 15 cc1005-6
MR. BARTLEY (Islington, N.)

I beg to ask the hon. Member for Croydon, as Chairman of the Committee on Kitchen and Refreshment Rooms, which dining rooms of the House of Commons are reserved for Members exclusively; and whether steps will be taken to reserve them?

THE CHAIRMAN OF THE KITCHEN COMMITTEE (Mr. S. HERBERT,) Croydon

By the regulation of the Committee the central dining room is the only one to which strangers are admitted, and the Committee have ordered the attendants to see that that regulation is carried into effect.

MR. BARTLEY

Is the hon. Member aware that the hon. Member for Mayo and a large party occupied one side of the room where Ministers usually sit at a time when there was no room for Members anywhere else, and why the party were allowed in that room, which I understand is not given up to strangers?

MR. S. HERBERT

The subject has been brought under the notice of the Committee, and will be considered at their meeting to-morrow.

MR. SEXTON (Kerry, N.)

Is the hon. Member aware that the explanation is that seats reserved for the hon. Member for Mayo and his friends had been taken by the right hon. Member for West Birmingham and his friends?

MR. S. HERBERT

I cannot enter into the subject now. I can only say that the Committee will consider all the circumstances. So far as I can see, in any case two wrongs will not make a right.

MR. BARTLEY

May I ask whether the hon. Member for Mayo has a prescriptive right to sit where he did, and why other Members cannot have the same privilege?

MR. W. O'BRIEN (Cork)

said, it was not the hon. Member for Mayo who was culpable, if, indeed, anyone was. As a fact, I and my friends occupied the seats in question; and we should not have done so had it not been that the seats that had been reserved for us had been appropriated by the right hon. Member for West Birmingham and his friends. He made a complaint on the subject to the Kitchen Committee.