HC Deb 14 April 1932 vol 264 cc986-7
64. Mr. SMEDLEY CROOKE

asked the President of the Board of Trade the value of exports and imports as between this country and the Irish Free State for the years 1929, 1930, and 1931?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA

My hon. Friend will find the particulars he desires on pages 123, 126 and 130 of the issue of the "Accounts relating to Trade and Navigation of the United Kingdom" for January last.

Mr. HERBERT WILLIAMS

Has any estimate been formed of the proportion of trade which is from Great Britain and the proportion from. Northern Ireland?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA

Yes, Sir.

Mr. MAXTON

Has the hon. Gentleman ever looked at the Trade and Navigation Returns; and does he realise how impossible it is for a busy Member of this House to do the investigation necessary to find out a few figures?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA

It is equally an imposition upon Ministers and their staffs, against whose increase the hon. Member from time to time protests.

Mr. MAXTON

Not at all. I am most anxious that every Minister should have a staff capable of doing the work, and I ask the hon. Gentleman if he could not see his way, when asked a specific question like this, to get the appropriate official to dig out the actual answer wanted, instead of giving a reply like that which he has just given?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA

That would duplicate the work. These accounts are published and are easily understandable by all persons of normal intelligence.

Mr. MAXTON

If I may be allowed to press the hon. Gentleman on this point, may I ask him, does he think that the answer to the question asked by the hon. Member for Deritend (Mr. Crooke) is of interest only to that hon. Member; and does he expect that 615 of us are to go digging into the Trade and Navigation Returns for an answer which might be got by one junior clerk?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA

I Am very sorry that the hon. Member feels like that about the matter, but I went to the trouble of giving the exact pages upon which these figures can be found.

Sir PERCY HARRIS

Would it not be just as easy to give the exact figures themselves?

Mr. H. WILLIAMS

Is it not the case that questions are frequently refused at the Table on the ground that the information has already been published?

Mr. MAXTON

No.