POINT OF PRACTICE—RIGHT TO RAISE URGENT QUESTIONS ON MOTION FOR WEEK-END ADJOURNMENT (Hansard, 12 December 1902)

§ MR. KEIR HARDIE (Merthyr Tydvil)
I beg to ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether it will be in order for me, on this Motion, to submit a statement as to the condition of the unemployed with the object of inducing the Government to take action in order to prevent the people from dying of starvation.

§ .MR. SPEAKER
I think that such a, statement would not be in order. I understand that the hon. Member, in making the suggestion, is referring to the experience of last Friday, when the hon. Member for King's Lynn claimed on this Motion to discuss a subject which was irrelevant to it. At that time, I had no-notice of the Motion, and had no opportunity of looking into any of the precedents on the subject, and therefore I thought it better not to interfere with the observations which the hon. Member for King's Lynn proposed to make without further examination. I have since made examination of the question, and I find that since 1856 there has been no question of any debate on this Motion; and, as far as I know, debates must have been extremely rare before that. In 1861 a Standing Order was made dealing with this question of adjournment from Friday to Monday, and from that day onwards the Motion has been frequently put when the Address in answer to the Speech from the Throne was being, discussed, and during Autumn Sessions, † See page 131. 1031 and there is no record of a Motion like I that suggested. Last Friday, I stated my own opinion that the practice of raising an irrelevant discussion upon this Motion was obsolete, and I am I satisfied that it is an obsolete practice. Since 1861 we have considerably altered our Rules with the view of preventing what I may describe as casual debates interfering with the business set down for discussion, and I believe that when those alterations were made it was never supposed that general debate could be raised on this Motion. I am bound to say, therefore, that the discussion indicated by the hon. Member cannot be raised.

§ MR. KEIR HARDIE
May I ask whether the prohibition of discussion indicated applies to all Motions for the adjournment of the House, or only to those for adjourning from Friday to Monday.

§ *MR. SPEAKER
This Friday to Monday Motions is on quite a different footing from the Motion upon which observations can be, and frequently are, made at the close of the evening, observations which, from the time and the nature of the case, are short—such as Questions put to Ministers, or short observations made on some particular subject of immediate interest. But if this practice suggested by the hon. Member were permitted it would enable any hon. Member to raise a discussion which might—subject, of course, to the Closure—last nearly interfere with the other business which had been set down for discussion.

§ MR. JOHN BURNS () Battersea
In view of your ruling, Sir may I appeal to the President of the Local Government Board to give this subject of the unemployed prompt, immediate, and sympathetic consideration?

§ THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,) Manchester, E.
The hon. Member has given private notice of his intention to put a Question in the course of a few days. perhaps the hon. Gentleman will carry out the suggestion he has made, and then a full answer will be given by my right hon. friend or by myself.