§ Mr. DEVLINI should like to raise a matter which, I think, will be regarded as important by Members of this House—namely, the question of reporting the proceedings of Committees upstairs. When the new Procedure Rules were under discussion in the House, I understood that the promise was given that when these Bills were sent to Committees, the proceedings of those Committees would be published and that a record would be kept of the business that took place at those Committees. We have been sitting on a Committee now for the last five or six days, and we have been told that there is not to be any report of those proceedings. As a matter of fact, I believe that a great many Members of this House would have hesitated considerably before they permitted the functions of the House of Commons Committees being transferred to a Committee upstairs if those proceedings were to be carried out without an Official record of the proceedings. In my judgment, it is a very great blow at the constitutional rights and privileges of the House of Commons to have important Bills of the character of the Bill we are discussing upstairs carried on without any official record being 1113 kept. It is only right to bring this matter before the House to have your opinion, Mr. Speaker, upon it, and also to have the opinion of the hon. Members who are interested in the publication of these proceedings.
§ Mr. SPEAKERI have not lately refreshed my memory by looking at the Debate which occurred, but my recollection is that opinion was very much divided as to whether it was desirable to have a record, not of the official proceedings, but of the speeches. Everybody was agreed that there should be a record of the official proceedings. That, I believe, is kept, and is daily circulated. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] Oh, yes, I see it every morning. That is the official record of the proceedings. As to whether there is to be a record of the speeches which are delivered in Committee I think the matter was left thus: The House not being unanimous about it, my recollection is that the Leader of the House said that there was no reason why a record of the speeches should not be kept, if application were made to me, and sufficient cause shown, and that I would give directions that the Official Reporter of the Debates should attend. That has been done in the case of three of the Committees. In the case of two others application has been made for the attendance of an Official Report of the Debates, and I gave instructions that an Official Reporter should be sent to the particular Committee to which the hon. Gentleman refers but, unfortunately, no Official Reporter can be found. Our own staff, as the hon. Member will readily see, is very severely taxed by their attendance here every day from a quarter to three until eleven or half-past eleven o'clock, and with the attendance upon the Standing Committees. We have no more reporters available for the purpose. The Editor of the Official Report set to work to try to find some other men or women who were capable of doing the reporting. He consulted various agencies, but none of the agencies could provide anybody who was capable of doing the work. He then, I believe, also applied to some of the leading newspapers, who regretfully had to inform him that they had nobody here whom they could lend him for the purpose. In these circumstances, it will be impossible, until the Committees which are now being reported have concluded their labours, to find any reporters who are available for the purpose.
§ Mr. DEVLINWith great respect, will you kindly tell us, Sir, what you mean by 1114 an official record being made. You said you have seen the official record. I have never heard of it, and have never seen it, apart altogether from the speeches delivered at the meetings of the Committee.
§ Mr. SPEAKERThe official record is kept by the Clerk of the Committee. He keeps a record of what Amendments are proposed, what becomes of the Amendments, what Clauses are passed, and what Clauses are rejected. That record is circulated. I cannot say whether it is circulated every morning, but it is circulated at frequent intervals. I will send for my papers, and show them to the hon. Member, if he likes. I think that he will be able to obtain them without any difficulty in the Vote Office.
§ Mr. DEVLINI am very much obliged to you, Sir, for your courtesy in offering me your Papers, but I should not like to rob you of them. None of us have ever seen any copies of the official record. [Hon. Members: "We all have."]
§ Mr. SPEAKERI am afraid the hon. Member does not study his Papers as closely as I do.
§ Mr. DEVLINNot only do I study the Papers, but the hon. Members who are on that Committee with me have not received these Papers, and therefore they have not studied them either. Is this due to our ignorance or to the inefficiency of those in charge of this matter?
§ Mr. SPEAKERI will send the hon. Member a copy.