HC Deb 19 October 1939 vol 352 cc1044-7
Sir John Wardlaw-Milne

I wish to raise a point of Order which, I think, is of interest to Members on all sides of the House. Like other Members I am aware of your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, that the Government are entitled to transfer questions addressed to one Minister to another Minister, and I do not quarrel with that Ruling, but I wish to point out that the result of it is that in certain cases those questions are never answered at all. I give as an illustration Question No. 84 which is on the Paper to-day. That question was put to the Prime Minister. It is in the nature of a general question which, in my humble submission, would perhaps be best answered by the Prime Minister, but, leaving that point aside, it has been transferred to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I have no particular objection to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer answering a question of this sort, but, in view of the fact that the Chancellor does not answer questions early to-day, the result of the transfer is that it cannot even be postponed and, in fact, is never answered at all. I wish to ask, therefore, whether you would consider, when these transfers are made, if it would be possible to arrange that the Minister who is to answer shall at some period of the week answer his questions at the beginning of Question Time, so that if the Member chooses to postpone his question there is at least a chance of getting a verbal answer?

Mr. G. Macdonald

I desire to raise a similar point of Order regarding Question No. 72. It was put down to the Prime Minister but has been transferred to the Home Secretary. I am asked to accept the transference of this question, which I willingly do, but I think that when I have done so I am entitled to have the question put first, and not last. I am deprived of the chance of asking it to-day, because it is the last in the list of the questions addressed to the Home Secretary.

Mr. Silverman

Question No. 82 which appears in my name was addressed to the Prime Minister. It is a question about Government policy, and, therefore, I thought it was appropriate to address it to him, and it was on a subject on which the Prime Minister has on previous occasions answered questions. Like other hon. Members I do not object to my question being answered by another Minister, but I think I am entitled to claim that when the question is transferred to another Minister, it ought to have a place on the Order Paper not worse than it would have had if it had been answered by the Minister to whom it was originally addressed.

Mr. McEntee

I should like to make a similar point with regard to Question No. 81. It deals with what is, obviously, a matter of Government policy, and was addressed to the Prime Minister, but it has been transferred to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I think we are entitled to get answers at some time from the Prime Minister.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore

Should not the Minister to whom the question is to be put consult the Member concerned, or notify him that the question is being transferred to another Minister so that the Member might make his own arrangements?

Mr. Speaker

Hon. Members should bear in mind that questions are not transferred from one Minister to another at the whim of the Ministers, but entirely because the Department to which a question has been transferred is considered to be the proper one to deal with that question. Hon. Members in such cases are always notified — [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] —that such transfer is taking place. In reply to the point of Order raised by the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne) it is always open to an hon. Member to postpone his question to another day if he thinks it will not be reached on the day when it is on the Paper.

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne

May I suggest that in this case the difficulty is that postponement means that the question will never be reached, and that when a question is postponed it should be possible for the Minister to answer it earlier in the day so that it will be reached?

Mr. Speaker

The question to which the hon. Member refers will be reached on Tuesday.

Sir Robert Young

Could it not be made possible when a question is postponed that the day also should be transferred? Some of us get notification only from the Minister and it is then too late to do anything, because the question has already been transferred?

Mr. Speaker

Hon. Members are notified by the Minister to whom the question was addressed.

Sir R. Young

Sometimes the Minister himself notifies the Member that his question has been transferred, and it is then too late to give that notice. I am asking whether, when a Minister has transferred a question, the day could not also be transferred.

Mr. Silverman

In reply to the point of Order which I raised, you stated, Mr. Speaker, that it was the custom, when a question was transferred, for the Minister concerned to give notice to the Member of that transference, so that the Member might, if he chose, ask for it to be answered on another day. May I notify you that, in my own case, no notice of any kind was given? I only knew that the question had been transferred when I read my Order Paper this afternoon, and I therefore had no opportunity of choosing the day on which the answer might be given.

Mr. McEntee

Would it be in order, when no time is given for a Member to postpone his question, when that question is reached for him to say: "I wish to have the question transferred to another day on which an answer can be given"?

Mr. Speaker

It is customary for the Member to say that the question has been postponed to another day. In regard to the complaint by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman), there must have been an oversight, for which I offer an apology.