OFFICIAL REPORT. (Hansard, 10 December 1925)

§ Mr. NEIL MACLEAN
I want to raise a question of which I gave notice last week, and I hope the House will bear with me if I am a little longer than is usually the case on what is regarded as a point of Order. As this is a matter which, I think, affects procedure in this House, I am certain the House will be quite willing to give me at least a few .minutes in which, to put before it a point upon which I desire your ruling, Mr. Speaker. On Wednesday last week, it will be remembered, we had during the night a certain incident, which gave rise to what is called by the Press a "Secret Session" of this House, and it was also described on the cover of the daily issue of the OFFICIAL REPORT as a "Secret Session." I want to state, first of all, that that is an incorrect description. The Motion which I moved in the House was a Motion that strangers withdraw. The Chairman asked if I was going to move for a. Secret Session, and I said "No." The terms upon which strangers have to withdraw are practically laid down in the Standing Order, and it is that strangers must 670 withdraw. The fact that messengers were going about this House showed it was not a Secret Session.

§ Mr. SPEAKER
Perhaps I may shorten the matter by saying that that question of a Secret Session may be dismissed entirely. That was a term invented during the War, when the Defence of the Realm Act was in operation for a particular purpose. It has no relevance to our present subject.

§ Mr. MACLEAN
I have already assumed that, because I had finished that point. I hope, therefore, that that particular description since your ruling, Mr. Speaker, will be expunged.
The other matter which I want the House to consider is the question who are the. strangers who are asked to withdraw? The House of Commons Records, like those of Erskine May. are particularly keen upon that point. It is there laid down that Clerks and Officers are not strangers; but Erskine May goes further, and says that Peers who may be sitting in the Peers' Gallery are not strangers. He also says that ladies sitting in the Ladies' Gallery are not strangers, and 671 that when strangers have withdrawn from other parts of the House, ladies may remain. That being so, I want to find out from yon, Sir, who are to be included in this category and description? During that sitting, when strangers had withdrawn, we discovered that the Official Reporters who belong to this House had also been ordered to retire. I found out later that, not only were the Official Reporters ordered to withdraw, but that the two messengers who look after the Reporters' Gallery were also ordered to retire, while the other messengers were free to move about the House. I should like to know why those messengers were ordered to withdraw? But that is by the way. The Official Reporters were described by the Chairman as being included in the category of strangers. Now, Sir, there is a specific Resolution in the OFFICIAL REPORT in regard to those who officially report our Debates. The Motion which was moved in this House to take over the reporters who were previously employed by private contractors to report the Debates was proposed in 1908 by the then Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Mr. Hobhouse. The Motion was moved on a Token Vote for £5. In the course of his speech, Mr. Hobhouse outlined what were the proposals of the Government in regard to these reporters— proposals which, I may say, were accepted by, and agreed to, by this House without a Division. What Mr. Hobhouse said was this: The proposals the Government make to the House are these; that there shall be a staff of reporters, 10 in number, who shall be servants of the House and engaged at an ample remuneration. Then to control that staff of reporters there shall be a chief of staff… . These are to be servants of the House, and they are to be under the authority of Mr. Speaker. The Token Vote for £5 was adopted without a Division, which carried also the proposal of the Government of that day, and meant that the House agreed that the reporters were to report the Debates officially, and were to become servants or officers of this House. I am going further, Sir. I hold in my hand a bound copy of a volume of the OFFICIAL REPORT OF DEBATES, which is sent to every Member. Every bound copy contains not only a list of the Members of the Government, but also, on the page immediately 672 preceding the first page of the report, a list of the principal officers of the House of Commons. In this list I find as a principal officer of the House is the Editor of the OFFICIAL DEBATES, W. Turner Perkins, Esq., and the Assistant Editor T. H. Parr, Esq. I submit, Sir, that this shows that these and the staff are recognised as officers of the House. They are paid by a Vote which is passed by this House, and they appear in a list of officers of the House; consequently they cannot be considered strangers.
The last point I want to make is this: When the Press had all withdrawn, efforts were made to get the reporters back—that is the Official Reporters. [HON. MEMBERS: "By whom?"] I am not concerned by whom. I am stating a point here upon it, and I want a ruling. We desired that the Official Reporters should, be brought back. We were told that, once having had strangers taken from the Gallery, the reporters being included in "strangers," there was no precedent whereby these strangers—including reporters, or reporters by themselves— could be brought back to the House. I have been fortunate enough in my researches into this case to discover a precedent which seemed to be overlooked by the Chairman. It is a precedent of 1875—far enough back; but many precedents that are used in this House by the Chairman and by you, Mr. Speaker, date further back. The privileges of Members of this House are governed by precedents that go very much further back than 50 years. The precedent I want to mention is when Mr. Biggar called the notice of the Speaker to the fact that there were strangers in the Gallery. The then Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cambridge, and several other notables were there, and they, along with others, were compelled to withdraw. Immediately they had withdrawn, a Debate arose on the Motion of Mr. Disraeli, seconded by the Marquess of Hartington. I am not going into the Debate, and only quote the Resolution, which became the finding of the House. The Resolution was this: Resolved. That the rule for the exclusion of strangers be suspended during the present sitting of the House. — (Mr. Disraeli.)

§ Mr. SPEAKER
I have already said that the fact that such a Motion was made is not relevant. It was made for the purpose of the Defence of the Realm Regulations, which prescribed certain pains and penalties.

§ Mr. MACLEAN
I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, you did not allow me to go on, for by this time I would have finished the point I was making. My point was not in regard to the Secret Sessions, but with regard to the Press. What I wanted to show was that strangers having withdrawn, and the House having gone into Secret Session, the only members of the Press Gallery whom I could get to know were given tickets which admitted them, if the House wanted a report of the proceedings of the Secret Session, were the Official Reporters. The other Press men did not receive such tickets for admission to the Secret Session. If this House thought it was necessary that a record or report should be made of the Secret Session, the reporters were there. These are the facts, and I submit, Mr. Speaker, that they quite clearly show: First, that the Official Reporters who report the Debates that are published in the OFFICIAL REPORT are officers of this House, and ought not to be asked to retire when strangers are observed. Secondly, that there is a precedent existing whereby strangers, once having been asked to withdraw, can be brought back again. Further, that the ruling given by the Chairman on Wednesday evening last was in contradiction to the existing Standing Order, to the previous findings of this House, as also to the precedents both in Erskine May. and in the records and precedents of this House.

§ Mr. SPEAKER
With regard to the precedent quoted by the hon. Member— 1875, I think, was the date that he gave—I have only to observe that that period was before the present Standing Order was in existence, so that the circumstances were quite different. There was no Motion then required to order the withdrawal of strangers. With regard to his other points, I do not traverse any of the citations that he has made, but I am quite unable to accept his conclusion. Until the Standing Order is altered, or until I have some order from the House, I am bound, and the Chairman is bound, to follow the previous practice. The fact that the staff of "Hansard" was taken over by this House certainly cannot be taken to override the Standing Order or the previous practice of the House. If the House had so desired, it would have said so at that time, but it did not.

§ Mr. MACLEAN
I submit that the practice of this House does not bear upon people who are brought in newly under the payment of this House. The fact that the Resolution of the House which was passed made the staff servants of this House on the wording of the Financial Secretary, and brought them under the category of officers; the fact that every volume of the OFFICIAL REPORT published describes the chief of the staff as among the principal officers of this House; and, furthermore, the very fact that during a period when we had a Defence of the Realm Act those were the only individuals who received tickets of admission—if it were necessary for them to be admitted— to the secret Session, such as were given to the Serjeant-at-Arms and to the other officers of the House shows that these men are looked upon as officers of the House; and the decisions given by this House affected only those things that were governed by circumstances which existed prior to the taking over by the House of the reporters.

§ Mr. SPEAKER
I do not deny the points that the hon. Member has cited, but I am quite unable to accept his conclusions.

§ Mr. MACLEAN
With regard to the precedent I quoted regarding the re-admission of strangers when it has been moved, do you rule that is not competent now, although it was competent in 1875?

§ Mr. SPEAKER
Yes, I do. In 1875. and on that particular occasion when Mr. Biggar spied strangers, there was no Motion put to the House. The Gallery was ipso facto cleared. The House at a later date regularised matters by means of the present Standing Order.

§ Mr. MACLEAN
Was not the procedure that was adopted at that time by Mr. Disraeli the moving of the suspension of the Standing Order, and is not that a Motion competent at any time?

§ Mr. SPEAKER
Not without notice.