§ Mr. McGOVERNI desire to ask your guidance, Mr. Speaker, in connection with a Private Notice question which I sent to you, asking for a deputation of hunger marchers to appear at the Bar, and which has been refused and returned. I would like to know if you could tell me the grounds for the refusal of that request.
§ Mr. SPEAKERI do not know that it is usual, on my refusing to allow an hon. Member to put a Private Notice question, to make a statement of the grounds on which I refused, but on this occasion I am prepared to do so. The grounds were that the question, in the first place, was addressed to the Prime Minister, and it is not the business of the Prime Minister to do what the hon. Member asked. It is a question for the House itself to decide whether any deputation should be heard at the Bar of the House. That was the prime reason for my refusing the question. The second reason was that the proper procedure on such an occasion would not be to put a question to any Minister, or, indeed, to me, but to present a petition from those who profess to have a grievance, asking for themselves that they may be heard at the Bar of the House.
§ Mr. McGOVERNMight I ask you this further question? I understand from the Rules of Procedure that you have a right to summon people to this House to give evidence. I would like to know whether it would come within that Rule that you should summon people whose names I would convey to you to appear at the Bar of this House to present their case to the House and to the nation. Would the summoning of these people come within the Rule in that way?
§ Mr. SPEAKERNo; the summoning of anybody to the Bar of the House is a matter entirely for the House itself to decide, and not for me.
§ Mr. MAXTONWould it be in order now, as a matter of urgency, to move that the House take these steps with reference to receiving representatives of 1160 the unemployed hunger marchers at the Bar? Would it be in order for my hon. Friend the Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern) to move that the House do adopt that procedure in this very exceptional case?
§ Mr. SPEAKERNo. I have said that the first thing that the hon. Member must do is to present a petition on behalf of those who profess to have a grievance.
§ Mr. McGOVERNI desire to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House in order to discuss the following question:
In view of the fact that thousands of unemployed hunger marchers have arrived in London from all parts of Britain to bring to the notice of the Government and of the nation the evil effects of unemployment and recent legislation, namely, the means test, unemployment, health and social services cuts, the Anomalies Act, the taking away of maternity grants from the wives of unemployed men, and also the large number of evictions due to the complete inability to pay the existing high rents, we desire to know forthwith the intention of the Government with regard to this serious and tragic state of affairs in relation to millions of working-class homes.
§ Mr. SPEAKERI do not quite understand. Does the hon. Member propose to move the Adjournment of the House on a definite matter of urgent public importance?
§ Mr. McGOVERNYes, Sir. I am submitting that this matter is urgent, definite, and of sufficient public importance at the present moment to justify, in my estimation—I am asking your advice—my moving the Adjournment of the House in order to discuss it.
§ Mr. SPEAKERI am afraid I could not grant the hon. Member permission to move that Motion, because the Government have already promised at the very earliest date to bring in a Bill to deal with these very questions.
§ Mr. BUCHANANMay I respectfully submit to you these points? I do not need to urge the public importance of this matter; that will be admitted. The two issues are those of urgency and definiteness. The urgency has arisen from the fact that large numbers of men and women are now congregated in the City of London, and a serious state of emergency has arisen, and I want to submit that, if a Government pronouncement 1161 were made on the issues raised, it might allay the feeling that otherwise might be engendered. I therefore submit to you in extremely strong fashion that urgency has arisen. The Government have announced a Measure; extreme feeling has arisen on what that Measure will be; and that there is need for an urgent declaration to allay feelings that might arise is, I think, unanswerable. On the question of definiteness, I think that the question of the terrible suffering due to the means test regulation itself is a definite question, and the question of public importance is not, I think, in doubt. I therefore ask you, Mr. Speaker, to regard this as an urgent matter.
§ Mr. SPEAKERI am afraid that the only question I have to consider is the question of the Rules of this House. It is quite clear that the fact of the Government having given notice to bring in a Bill to deal with these very questions at the earliest possible moment precludes their being raised as a matter of definite urgent public importance under Standing Order No. 10.
§ Mr. McGOVERNIn view of the fact that the Government have only announced their intention to bring in a Bill next Session—[HON. MEMBERS: "This Session."]—Passing it next Session.
§ Mr. BUCHANANPassing it next Session.
§ Mr. McGOVERNIf I am making a mistake, I am prepared to be corrected. The Prime Minister will correct me. But that is not the point. [Interruption.] This is the gravest matter before the country at the present moment, and we are entitled to have a clear understanding upon it. While that intimation has been made, it might be a very small gesture towards the problem that is at stake. I want to submit, without appearing impertinent to you, Mr. Speaker, but with all due respect to you, that I have established, in my estimation, a claim that under this Rule you might put this matter to the House, and give the House the opportunity of deciding on the public importance and seriousness of the matter, and give us an opportunity, if the House so decides, to come to a definite issue on the matter. I am prepared to accept the decision of the House itself.
§ Mr. SPEAKERAs I said just now, my only consideration is to carry out the Rules of Procedure in a proper manner, and I must tell the hon. Member that under those Rules I am precluded from accepting his Motion.
§ Mr. MAXTON[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Surely, hon. Members are not going to be too impatient about granting half a minute. My hon. Friend has argued with you, Mr. Speaker, the point that this is a matter of urgent, definite public importance. Your powers are unlimited in the interpretation of them. We do not challenge that in any way. The fact that a Bill is in contemplation dealing with a small fraction of the whole problem about which these men are concerned does not seem to us—and we want you to consider it—to be a sufficient reason for postponing action of the House on this matter. This House with its traditions has grown up as the Assembly through which people who have grievances can bring them forward. You, Sir, are the custodian of that right, not only for us, but for the whole nation, and I ask you if you do not think that this is a sufficiently grave matter, a matter which affects 3,000,000 of the population of this land, to justify you in deciding that you will give this House the opportunity this evening of discussing the whole question of the arrival of these men in London, the conditions which have caused it, and the things that this House might do to alleviate their sufferings? I put it to you that this is as great an opportunity as you have ever had of doing something the nation would like to have done, and I urge you to reconsider your Ruling that the Motion does not come under Standing Order No. 10.
§ Mr. SPEAKERI have given this matter the most careful and earnest consideration, and I have definitely come to the conclusion that I cannot go beyond Standing Order No. 10, and I cannot alter my mind.
§ Mr. McGOVERNrose—
§ Mr. SPEAKERWe really cannot take any more questions.
§ Mr. McGOVERNAll I ask is to be allowed this final word. Can you give me any guidance here as to any other methods of raising this matter in the way 1163 I desire, because, to my mind, it is the only thing for which it is worth while being in this House at the present moment. I consider it the only matter of sufficient public importance, and I want to know if there is any method whereby the nation can voice its feeling other than by its representatives in this House?
§ Mr. SPEAKERI can only tell the hon. Member that the proper procedure for him to adopt is to present a petition from these people who wish to be heard in this House. Having done that, he can,
§ if he likes, put a Motion on the Order Paper for the discussion of the matter.