§ Mr. R. T. EVANSI desire to ask leave to raise a question of Privilege, and to ask your Ruling, Sir, as to whether I may submit a Motion thereon. I must confess to a certain amount of diffidence in bringing a question of Privilege before you this morning, but I feel that vigilance in the matter of the rights and Privileges of the House requires no apology. Indeed, it is an obligation which cannot honourably be shirked. The point I want to raise relates to what may have happened, namely, a transgression of a Rule which has been operative for upwards of a century. You will know it, Sir, and I am sure it will be within the knowledge of most Members of the House. According to the undoubted Privileges of this House and to the due protection of the public interest, the evidence taken by any Select Committee of this House and documents presented to such committee and which have not been reported to the House, ought not to be published by any member of such committee or by any other person. Clearly, the House, and particularly members of the Select Committee on Indian Constitutional Reform, are cognisant of this Rule, because the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Sir A. Chamberlain), when submitting a Motion to the House relating to simultaneous publication of the findings of the committee, stressed the point that it would be a breach of Privilege were the chairman to send this report to India for printing.
The point is this. On Thursday morning by the first post many Members, perhaps all Members of the House, received with the compliments of Lord Salisbury a booklet setting out the Minority recommendations of five Conservative Members of the Committee. Clearly from the footnote to the preface this is not a paraphrase; it is not merely an adumbration 390 of those recommendations. There are only a few verbal alterations made for purposes of clarity and changes also in the cross-headings. We may take it that it was substantially the recommendations of that minority. I have made inquiries, and I discover that the booklet must have been posted before midnight. The Report of the Select Committee was technically submitted to the House at 2.45 p.m. on Wednesday, at which hour it was available in the Vote Office. The whole question resolves itself into one of probability. Was the copy embodying the recommendations submitted to Messrs. W. H. Smith and Sons before or after 2.45? Clearly if it had been submitted before 2.45 there was a breach of Privilege. If not, my case falls.
I raise the matter in order to receive an assurance, as I imagine the Government will have sought it, that there has been no breach of Privilege. If I receive from the Prime Minister an assurance that investigations have been made and that the copy embodying these recommendations was submitted to private printers, namely, Messrs. W. H. Smith and Sons, before 2.45, I must press the matter. I have no desire, and it will give me no special pleasure, to see three Noble Lords, incarcerated in the Tower and two hon. Members of the House placed in the Clock Tower, but there is a question of probability. I have made no investigations at Messrs. W. H. Smith and Sons, but I feel that an assurance by those who are privy to the publication of this report is called for and it would satisfy me and the House. I wish to raise the matter merely as yet another opportunity for vindicating the rights and Privileges of the House of Commons.
§ Mr. SPEAKERAs on previous occasions when questions of a breach of Privilege have been submitted in this House, I have to remind the House that, as far as I am concerned, it is not for me to decide whether a breach of Privilege has been committed or not. All I have to decide, from what the hon. Member who raised the matter has said, is whether he has made out a prima facie case. I have listened very carefully to what the hon. Member has said and have definitely come to the conclusion that he has not 391 made out a prima facie case of breach of Privilege.
§ Mr. EVANSI submit to your Ruling, but I think the situation is one which certainly calls for an assurance now from someone on the Government Bench that 392 inquires have been made and that satisfaction has been given that there was no breach of Privilege.
§ Mr. SPEAKERHaving decided that the hon. Member has not made out a prima facie case of breach of Privilege, I am afraid the matter must drop.