HOUSE OF COMMONS (SEATING ACCOMMODATION). (Hansard, 18 February 1914)

§ Viscount CASTLEREAGH
I should like to ask the question which was put to Mr. Speaker by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North Down, with reference to the inconvenience of the seating accommodation in this House; and I am prompted to do so owing to what occurred at question time. I know that it will be within the recollection of a great many hon. Gentlemen who are present that there was an unusual remark which came, from the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Devlin) with reference to a question put by my hon. and gallant Friend. Mr. Speaker was asked whether it would be possible to make the seating accommodation more convenient than it is at the present moment. The Nationalist party have occupied seats below the Gangway for some time past, but I do feel now, when their convictions and principles and Parliamentary tactics are so closely intertwined with the party opposite—

§ Mr. EDGAR JONES
On a point of Order. May I ask whether it is in order that the Noble Lord should raise this matter for discussion when it was decided by Mr. Speaker—

§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Whitley)
If the Noble Lord had been out of order, I should have called his attention to it. So far as he has gone he is not out of order.

§ Viscount CASTLEREAGH
As the Members of the Nationalist party are so closely associated with the party opposite, I think it would be to the convenience of this House, and also tend to the better conduct of the Debates in this House, that they should join their Friends on the other side, instead of sitting among the Unionist party, which I may say is the largest individual party in this House at the present moment. Mr. Speaker did express an opinion on the point at Question Time this afternoon, but I thought that it would be in the interests of Members in this House, and in the interests of the conduct of Debate, if you, Sir, could make some arrangement by which those hon. Gentlemen who sit on this side of the House at the present moment might cross to the other side.

§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER
The Noble Lord will recollect what was said at the beginning of the Session by Mr. Speaker. What occurred at Question Time I think very much strengthens what the Speaker then said in reply to an hon. Member who raised a similar question. He said he believed, if the usual courtesies of debate were observed by hon. Members in all parts of the House, no difficulty would arise in the seating accommodation of hon. Members. The Noble Lord has rightly pointed out that the present arrangement has lasted now for a good many years, and I do not think that what occurred at Question Time to-day is sufficient cause for altering that arrangement. The incident at Question Time to-day arose from what is the comparatively modern practice of using epithets in supplementary questions. If hon. Members will be good enough to remember that they ought not to ask supplementary questions on any question which does not come within the purview of the Chair, then no such question could arise again.

§ Lord HUGH CECIL
It is perfectly understood in all parts of the House that this matter finally depends upon Members themselves, as no power can compel Members to sit rather in one place than another. The incident at Question Time today shows how exceedingly inconvenient it is to have hon. Members who differ fundamentally from us in political convictions sitting immediately behind us and so close to my hon. Friends. The practice of dividing parties according to their opinions is a very convenient one. Hon. Members have sat there because they desired to indicate their general oppo- 1094 sition to the Government in this House which would not give them Home Rule. Now that they have got a Government to give them Home Rule, why do they not go over and support them? The reason hitherto alleged for their sitting here has become obsolete, and why do they not go over opposite and sit there? Whatever time intervenes—which they think will be a short and which I think will be a long time—before they obtain Home Rule. Hon. Members who sit here suffer a great degree of inconvenience and annoyance by the presence of the Nationalist party. They are an incessant fount of danger to the order of Debate, and it is very desirable that they should go among their own friends, who may enjoy their society better than we do.

§ Mr. PRINGLE
rose—

§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER
This is a matter for the Chair, and I think it is for the Chair to deal with it rather than by Debate in the House.

§ Mr. PRINGLE
Has not the Noble Lord made a speech in the nature of a debating speech on this subject?

§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER
I understood the Noble Lord to be reinforcing the point put by the Noble Lord the Member for Maidstone (Viscount Castlereagh), who quite correctly put his point to the Chair, not as a matter of Debate, In reply to the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil), I would remind him that the Chair always deprecates interruptions and interjections. It is quite true that there is a recent growth of interruptions and interjections between the two Front Benches between the Gangway. If the Noble Lord and his friends will give the House the benefit of their example I am quite sure it would go far.

§ Earl WINTERTON
On a point of Order. I am not in the least deterred or handicapped in the slightest degree by the silly interruptions of hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway, as my knowledge of Africa has made me familiar with Simian sounds. I desire to call attention to the fact that it is only a matter of custom where hon. Gentlemen sit, and that if the largest party in the House should desire to sit on those benches no ruling of yours can by the constitution of the House prevent their doing so. I desire respectfully to ask whether circumstances might not arise when, if the official Opposition becomes much larger than it is—as it is expected 1095 it will do after this week—the more physical necessity of finding seats might cause them to take up a position on those benches from which it might be very difficult to evict them without circumstances arising which would not add to the dignity or decorum of the House.

§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER
That is a hypothetical question which perhaps I am not expected to answer.

§ Viscount CASTLEREAGH
Is it not the fact that really Mr. Speaker has no control 1096 of where hon. Members choose to sit? I think it is the case that they can sit where they please.

§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER
It is true that the seating arrangements are largely the result of custom, but Mr. Speaker is the guardian of the dignity and order of the House, and if any dispute arose in a matter of that kind he would deal with it himself.