Mr. J. J. DavidsonI desire to submit a point of Order to you, Mr. Speaker, in order to ask for your guidance. I have waited to do so until the Minister of Labour has finished answering his Questions. A week to-day I put two Questions, Nos. 16 and 17, to the Minister of Labour, asking for certain figures. The first Question asked for the total number of registered unemployed in Glasgow up 381 to the latest available date. The second Question asked the number of applications for postponement of military service.
§ Mr. SpeakerThe hon. Member had better raise his point at the end of Questions. It will take up too much time now.
§ At the end of Questions—
Mr. DavidsonOn a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. I wish to ask for your guidance with regard to this particular question. As I have said already, on 1st February I addressed two Questions to the Minister of Labour, one asking for the total number of registered unemployed in Glasgow up to the last available date, and the second asking for the total number of Glasgow applications for postponement of military service and the number of such applications that were granted. I submit to you that the facts asked for in these Questions have always been easily ascertainable in the past in the Parliamentary time allowed for Questions, but the Minister replied, saying that he had only had two days' notice, and that he was having the available figures extracted and would forward them to me in due course. I received no figures and no reply to these Questions, which I put down in accordance with Parliamentary custom' and procedure, and I would therefore like to ask you what steps a Member can take to defend his rights as a private Member, to have his Questions answered within a reasonable time in order that the business of this House may be efficiently and competently conducted.
§ Mr. E. BrownFurther to that point of Order. May I say that I was not informed that this matter was to be raised, but I remember the two Questions very well. One referred to the latest available figures of unemployment. It is unfortunate for the hon. Member and me that his Question appeared on the Order Paper on the 31st January, one day before last week's Question was to be asked, and that the latest available figures did not become available for the whole country until this Tuesday morning. I have also to get the figures in respect of Glasgow from my statistical department, which is in another part of the country than London and they are now on the way to the hon. Member. With regard to the second Question, hon. Members will see if they look at the OFFICIAL REPORT that 382 the figures asked for are not normally available. They have to be specially extracted since I remember very well that in the Supplementary Questions the hon. Member asked for additional information about postponement on compassionate grounds. I am having the details specially extracted and I will see that the hon. Member gets them at the earliest possible moment.
§ Mr. SpeakerThe hon. Member will probably be satisfied with that explanation.