§ Mr. Attlee(by Private Notice)asked the Prime Minister whether he has considered the proposal to extend Question Time by a quarter of an hour as long as the sittings are limited to three days a week.
§ The Prime MinisterI have already considered the right hon. Gentleman's proposal, but I came to the conclusion that it might result in increasing the difficulties which hon. Members are experiencing in regard to questions. I think it might well be the case, if we extended the question hour, that more oral questions would be tabled, even more supplementary questions asked, and a demand made for a further extension of time. I am supported in this view by the experience of the last war. Then the difficulties in regard to questions were, I think, greater than now. In 1916, the House sat as a rule on three days a week. For a brief period from 26th October to 22nd December the Government extended the question time by a quarter of an hour. On the very first day, Mr. Speaker Lowther had to remind the House that Question Time had been extended not to allow Members to put more supplementary questions, but to get through more questions on the Paper. I find that from the beginning of the Session to the Summer Adjournment in August, 1916, the daily number of questions on the Paper was of moderate dimensions increasing to figures between 142 and 173 only on six occasions, but when the question time was extended the figures rose and, during the much shorter period of 25 sitting days, on 11 occasions, the number of questions fluctuated between 162 and 267, rising to 320 on one day. 1226 The experiment was not repeated. At the beginning of the following Session, Mr. Bonar Law stated that it was his view and the view of the Government that the extended time placed too great a strain upon Departments and that it would not be desirable to adopt it again.
I circulated yesterday a table showing the result of the working of the new order of questions, the number of supplementary questions asked, and a note as to what the effect would be if hon. Members were limited to two instead of three questions daily. There has been some improvement, and I hope to see still better results. The average number of oral questions not reached is now about 35 to 37. I notice that in 1916 complaint was made that on three successive days 80 to 100 questions were not reached.
I would suggest to the House that we should give the new order of questions a further trial. We are working under unusual conditions and I have previously reminded the House of the heavy burden which Parliamentary questions place upon the Departments. I venture to hope that Members in all parts of the House will co-operate in working the present system in the general interest and that they will carefully consider putting questions down for written answer and also reducing so far as possible the number of supplementary questions. I propose that the working of the questions arrangements should be kept under constant review, and I will bear in mind the various proposals which have been made.
§ Mr. AttleeMay I ask the Prime Minister whether he has not observed one fallacy in his reply, that the mere fact that a question is not called, though it may relieve the Minister of the further answer, does not relieve the Department of the need for finding the answer for it, nor for the written question, except that there may be a matter of time? I ask the Prime Minister to keep this matter under constant review, because the fact is that this House has lost a day of questions, and I hope that we shall not take the precedent of the last war as necessarily final of what this House should do.
§ The Prime MinisterI have already said that I will keep this question under review. I do not think that the ex- 1227 perience during the last war is irrelevant to the present conditions. The fallacy seems to be on the part of the right hon. Gentleman, because if the extension of Question Time results in more questions being put down, as it did in the last war, then we are evidently imposing a greater strain upon the Departments.
§ Sir Archibald Sinclair; Since the Prime Minister adjures Members of Parliament to make as much use of written questions as possible, will he also adjure his own Ministerial colleagues to answer written questions as early as possible?
§ The Prime MinisterI have done that, and if the right hon. Gentleman looks at the figures he will see that there has been considerable improvement.
§ Mr. McEnteeIs it not a fact that during the last war there was no limit to questions, whereas now there is a limit to three oral questions to each hon. Member, and that the fact that there was no limit during the last war was the cause of the increase in the number of questions?
§ The Prime MinisterIf the hon. Member looks at the table that has been circulated he will see that the revision from two to three would make very little difference.
§ Mr. StephenWill the right hon. Gentleman advise his colleagues to give better answers to questions, and then there would not be so many supplemen-taries?
§ The Prime MinisterIf hon. Members would put better questions they might get better answers.