§ Mr. LANSBURYI wish to ask the Prime Minister whether he is yet in a position to say when it would be convenient to choose a day on which the House might discuss the appointment of Ministers without portfolio and also the salaries and expenses of their offices and their duties generally. I should like also to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has completed the appointment of his Ministry and when the full list of the Ministry will be published. I ask that question because I have not seen any public statement that the right hon. Gentleman has appointed the whole of the Ministry, even though certain Ministers who were Ministers in the last Government appear to be carrying on.
§ The PRIME MINISTERWith regard to the point about a discussion on the Ministers without portfolio, that will have to take place, I think, on a Supply day. It would be convenient to take it later when a Supply day has been provided. As I have said already to the right hon. Gentleman, I cannot yet state whether these particular Votes will be put down as sub-heads of an existing Vote or as 568 a Vote by themselves. That we have not yet decided. There certainly will be an occasion before the House rises when the right hon. Gentleman can debate that point.
With regard to the discussion on the position of Ministers, I suggest that that might be done, if at all, by a general Vote of Censure. I do not think that would be very easy to arrange by any other method. With regard to the Government itself, I am informed that the right hon. Gentleman will find a complete list in the OFFICIAL REPORT this morning, and the reconstruction is complete. All the vacancies arising have been filled, except the office of Comptroller of His Majesty's Household. The Ministers who have not changed their office have been confirmed in their appointments.
§ Mr. LANSBURYCan the right hon. Gentleman say when the Ministers in the late Ministry entered upon their duties as Ministers in this Ministry? I think it is important. I have had this matter looked into, and I understand that when a Prime Minister vacates his office, the whole Ministry goes out with him. I am anxious to know on what date all the subsidiary Ministers, if they will excuse me for using the word, were appointed by the right hon. Gentleman, when they were notified, and why it is that we have to wait till this morning to know that they were appointed. It seems to me that they have been carrying on without the House knowing whether they were appointed or not.
§ The PRIME MINISTERI am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman seems a little puzzled about the Constitutional procedure. I think it would be much better to discuss it in the course of debate. Everything has been done in accordance with constitutional precedents and, I may add, with perfect amity. The right hon. Gentleman is aware that in the reconstitution of a Government it is customary that the Minister who is sent for by His Majesty should form the Government. All Ministers place their offices at his disposal, but except where changes are going to be made, the custom equally is that they carry on with their duties, and there is no need formally to accept their resignations. But I think it would be much better to discuss all these things, if the right hon. Gentleman thinks 569 it worth while, in debate rather than by question and answer. I will only repeat that everything has been done in accordance with precedents, and is exactly what was done, on a rather minor scale, when Mr. Bonar Law left office in May, 1923.
§ Mr. LANSBURYI congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on being able to assure the House of the amity that exists. We should be very sorry if there were anything else. But that is not what I am concerned about. What I am concerned about is that the constitutional authority that we consulted says that when the Prime Minister vacates his office by resignation the Ministry in fact is dissolved and there is no Ministry. I am anxious to know when this new Ministry was appointed. It is no use telling me they did not resign. The fact that the right hon. Gentleman handed in his resignation put them all out of office, and I am anxious for the right hon. Gentleman to tell me the day or the time when the new appointments were made. It is not enough to say that, being in office, they continued. They were not in office; they went out of office when the right hon. Gentleman did.
§ The PRIME MINISTERIf the right hon. Gentleman will be good enough to put down all that he wants to know, I can get the information for him, but it is impossible for me, without any notice, to tell him the exact hour or moment or the particular day on which certain transactions occurred.
§ Mr. LANSBURYI want it to-day. It is a perfectly simple question. When was the Ministry reconstituted, and why did we have to wait till to-day to know that it had been reconstituted?
§ Sir HERBERT SAMUELThere is another question. With reference to the Prime Minister's statement that the Ministry is now complete with the exception of one Household office. Are we to take it from that that there is no intention to appoint an Under-Secretary for the office of the Minister for League of Nations Affairs?
§ The PRIME MINISTERI am glad the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned that point, because I should, I think, have mentioned it in my original answer. All the changes have been made, and all the places are filled which have existed up 570 to now. It is my desire for a period, while this stress of Foreign Office work lasts, to have an additional Under-Secretary for League of Nations work, but there is some difficulty about the position of that office, and I think it may be necessary for a one-Clause Bill to be introduced on that point. I was treating that as an ad hoc appointment to meet what is considered to be an emergency, which may only last for a year or two, and I was going to bring that as a, definite matter before the House at a subsequent date. I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for raising that point.
§ Mr. MAXTONIn reply to the Leader of the Opposition, the Prime Minister told us that the questions he put would be better put in Debate, but when asked by the right hon. Gentleman when an opportunity would be provided for a Debate, he referred merely to a Supplementary Estimate. Whether it is constitutionally necessary or not, does the right hon. Gentleman not think it would be fitting in regard to the magnitude of the changes that have taken place—because this is no mere re-shuffling of offices; a Government which was elected under one Prime Minister of a particular political complexion has now changed into a Government under a Prime Minister of an entirely different political complexion, and does he not regard it as fitting and proper that the House should have a very early opportunity, not merely of discussing the details of Ministers without Portfolios, or the constitutional way in which the thing was done, but the whole general situation that has been created for this House and the country by the assumption of office of what is virtually a new Government?
§ The PRIME MINISTERNo, I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman in that at all, and, if he is in any doubt about the feeling of the country, I am perfectly prepared to test it as early as he likes.
§ Mr. MAXTONIf the right hon. Gentleman is anxious to consider my feelings in the matter, let him have it to-morrow.
§ Mr. LANSBURYOn the other question, I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman to tell me this afternoon, now, why he did not notify the country of the appointments that he made of junior Ministers in the same manner that 571 he did when the Cabinet was reconstituted. I know it is all very inconvenient, but they are all such simple questions that he ought to be able to answer them without any trouble whatsoever, and I wish he could now.
§ Mr. DENMANIs not the simple answer—
§ Mr. SPEAKERWe cannot anticipate the debate on the matter.
§ Mr. LANSBURYI am not a constitutional authority, or rather an authority on the Constitution, but this House should know, and no one knows now when these junior Ministers who are acting as Ministers were appointed. They have been acting nearly a fortnight, and I am asking for the date on which they were appointed, but the right hon. Gentleman, after half-a-dozen questions, is unable to answer that simple question.
§ Mr. CHURCHILLI think the Prime Minister rose to answer.
§ The PRIME MINISTERAfter what the right hon. Gentleman has said, I must say that I always do my best to understand the implications of a question, and I have rarely had any difficulty in following him, but I cannot see honestly what his difficulty is. Except for the case of Ministers who were appointed to other Departments, the work continues straight on, as from, I think, Friday, the 7th June. Every appointment, as made, has been duly announced. I cannot quite see the point that the right hon. Gentleman is trying to get at, but if he would put it down in a written question, I should be very much obliged. I am doing my best to understand it.
§ Mr. LANSBURYIt is a perfectly simple question. Did the Ministry of which the right hon. Gentleman was the head go out of office when he went out of office? I contend that they did ipso facto. That being so, I have asked the right hon. Gentleman whether when he appointed the junior Ministers any public announcement was made? So far as I know, no announcement was made except that of the new Cabinet Ministers.
§ The PRIME MINISTERThe list was published as soon as the list of junior 572 Ministers was sanctioned, I think the night before last, but it appeared on the tape that evening, and it was in the Press the next morning.
§ Mr. MORGAN JONESIt is not in the "London Gazette" even this week.
§ Mr. LANSBURYI think the right hon. Gentleman has made a mistake, but I am asking a question with regard to those who, the right hon. Gentleman, I understand, says, continued their office from the one Government to the other, and my point is that they could not continue in office as they went out of it.
§ The PRIME MINISTEREveryone, I think, knows that the Government has to go on. Whenever a Government is being formed, everyone is requested to continue in office until the changes are made.
§ Mr. LANSBURYAs the right hon. Gentleman suggested, we will try to arrange through the usual channels for a day to discuss this matter.