§ MR. THEOBALDI desire to ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether it is in accordance with recognised Parliamentary usage that any Member of the House should continue to vote in the House after the authoritative announcement, made in the Press, that Her Majesty has conferred upon him the dignity of a Peerage?
§ * MR. SPEAKERAn answer to this question has already been given by the First Lord of the Treasury, and I can only add that the mere announcement in the Press, to which the hon. Member has referred, has nothing whatever to do with the qualification of an hon. Member to sit and vote in this House. I say nothing as to what is the custom or etiquette; but the law which governs the whole proceeding is this. At what time the letters-patent have passed the Great Seal, that is the final termination of a Member's existence as a Member of this House. On the day itself, or as soon after as it issues, The Gazette states the fact that the letters-patent have passed the Great Seal, and that is evidence of the fact that the hon. Member has ceased to be a Member of this House.