§ At five minutes to Three, under the Rules of the House, Questions were stopped, although a considerable number remained unanswered.
§ DR. MACNAMARAasked the Speaker, as a point of order, whether any arrangement could be made whereby they could reach the Questions to the Colonial Secretary before five minutes to Three o'clock.
§ * MR. SPEAKERThat is not a question of order.
§ DR. MACNAMARAasked whether the Speaker could direct him to the Standing Order under which the arrangement was made.
§ * MR. SPEAKERThe hon. Member will find the only Standing Order under the head of Questions.
§ SIR HENRY FOWLER (Wolverhampton, E.)May I ask with whom rests the responsibility of appointing the time to the Questions. They are shifted about day by day. Sometimes the First Lord of the Treasury's Questions are very early, and sometimes very late.
§ * MR. SPEAKERThey are not arranged by me. That is all I can say. I believe it is an arrangement made by Ministers, subject to requests from the other side.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURThe only request that has been made on the subject, so far as I know, has been in respect of my own Questions. The old practice was to put the Questions to the Leader of the House, whoever he might be, at the end of the other Questions. Under the new Question Rule it was found that when the Questions reached a certain number the House was prevented from asking me any Questions except those that referred under the Standing Order to matters of urgency or to the business of the House, and a request was made to me to try so to arrange that the starred Questions addressed to me should be answered before the conclusion of the Question hour. I came to the conclusion that if my Questions came on at number fifty I would always be safe. But hon. Gentlemen have become more inquisitive since that arrangement was made ["No, no!"] or the Answers have been longer, or more supplementary Questions have been put, and to-day we have only been fortunate enough to get to half of the starred Questions put to me. I will therefore request the clerks at the Table to put my Questions a little earlier; at number forty-five, which I hope will I be safe. I shall be glad to make the arrangement of Questions as convenient to the House and to Ministers as can 1267 possibly be done, but up to the present I have only attempted to deal with my own Questions.
§ MR. BLAKE (Longford, S.)asked whether, in view of the circumstances which debarred the House from other action in regard to foreign and Colonial affairs, it was not important that Ministers should suggest an arrangement which would ensure the Questions addressed to the Colonial Secretary and the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs being reached at a time when Answers could be given.
§ * MR. SPEAKERI can hardly take upon myself to dictate the order in which Questions shall appear on the Paper. I may say that the arrangement made by the First Lord of the Treasury was one which was submitted to me before it was adopted. Possibly after what has been said some better arrangement may be made; but at the same time I think hon. Members will see that the importance of a Question addressed to a particular Minister necessarily varies at different times.