§ Sir Reginald ClarryI beg to ask a question of which I have given private notice—whether you, Mr. Speaker, can indicate the limits within which it is permissible for hon. Members to correct the reports of their speeches for the daily issue and also for the bound volumes of HANSARD?
§ Mr. SpeakerI think it would be sufficient for me merely to read out the Ruling given by Mr. Speaker Lowther on 6th April, 1914. This is what Mr. Speaker Lowther said:
I have consulted the Editor of the OFFICIAL REPORT on this matter, and he tells me that, although hon. Members make corrections, he revises those corrections, and it does not follow that because an hon. Member makes a correction in the proof that the correction is always accepted. I asked the Editor on what principles he went, and he said that the chief principle which guided him was to obtain an absolutely correct report of what was said… He is very careful not to allow any corrections which would in any way alter the general sense of the speech made, but that he does accept corrections, for instance, of faults of grammar, split infinitives, redundancies, or incorrect dates, and I have told the Editor that in my opinion he is in that way acting quite correctly." [OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th April, 1914; col. 1633, Vol. LX.]Perhaps I might add that I think we are getting a little further away from split infinitives; they are not so much commented on nowadays. Perhaps it would be for the assistance of the House if I also said this. In order to call it to the attention of hon. Members who wish to correct their 1719 speeches, an extract from the Ruling which I have quoted will be inserted in the Notes printed inside the cover of the daily issue of HANSARD.
§ Mr. McGovernMay I ask you a question on that, Sir? If, after speeches are made and a Division takes place, the Whips intervene, may Members be allowed to change their vote also?
§ Mr. BuchananI would like an assurance—and this is no reflection either on the Official Reporters or anyone else—but, for some time, I myself, and I only speak for myself, have had an uneasy feeling that members of the Government on the Front Bench have had their speeches revised in a fuller way than may have been accorded to Members in other parts of the House I think this uneasiness is shared by a number of other hon. Members, and so I would like an assurance that, on this matter, members of the Government are in no way treated differently from hon. Members in other parts of the House.
§ Mr. SpeakerI have just laid down the limits, and, as far as I am concerned, I am certain that it would be wrong. If Ministers exercised any undue pressure on HANSARD it would not have my support in any way whatever.
§ Captain PluggeMay I ask you a question, Sir? Do you not think that, in view of the wide circulation of HANSARD all over the world, it would be rather infra dig. to print this Ruling;; which is for Members only, on the inside page of every HANSARD? You have given it very freely to Members, and it does not seem to me necessary, in my humble submission, to have it printed in every copy of HANSARD to go all over the world.
§ Mr. SpeakerI thought it would be for the convenience of hon. Members and a gentle reminder to those who are rather in the habit, I almost might say, of rewriting their speeches.
§ Mr. Austin HopkinsonIs this difficulty not likely to disappear in the course of time, owing to the habit of Ministers and others reading their speeches verbatim?
§ Mr. Neil MacleanHas it not already been the custom for. some time for Members, after they have made a speech in this House and waited until any reply 1720 has been made by a succeeding speaker, to go to the reporters' room, go over their speeches and correct not merely the grammatical errors that you, Mr. Speaker, have read out from the late Speaker Lowther's statement, but sometimes to alter the sense of their speeches? Would it not be just as well to include here that that is a practice that ought not to be continued, and that corrections must not be made that would alter the sense of a speech which an hon. Member had made?
§ Mr. SpeakerI hope I have made it clear that it is entirely wrong. I should perhaps add that some hon. Members do not know what may or may not go into HANSARD. One correction that was submitted to me of a sentence which an hon. Member put in his speech was that afterwards he wanted inserted, "Loud cheers by hon. Members."
§ Mr. BowlesOn a point of Order. On the inner cover of each HANSARD there appears the following sentence:
Members may obtain excerpts of their speeches from the OFFICIAL REPORT (within one month from the date of publication), on application to the Controller of H.M. Stationery Office, c/o the Editor.I understand that there seems to be some difficulty in tracing how that privilege was granted to hon. Members, and that difficulty apparently has arisen owing to some action by Hitler's aircraft. But that no doubt is a privilege that hon. Members have enjoyed for some time. I do not propose to argue against the view that the expression "excerpts of their speeches" means only their own speeches, but I can say that I have on numerous occasions given orders for speeches of hon. Members other than my own. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why?"] Because I think they are useful; sometimes they are Ministerial speeches. The position is this, that during a particular Debate the week before last I thought I should like to have a certain number of copies—10,000—of a speech made by an hon. Friend of mine, and I gave an order for that number, and I signed it. The first difficulty that I had to face was, that I was told that I could not sign the order form; it would have to be signed by the hon. Member himself. Why, I do not know. It seems to be completely illogical that, when you give an order in 1721 which you are pledging yourself to pay the cost, you should have to get someone else to sign it, and no objection had been raised before on that particular position.The hon. Member in question did sign the order, and the next thing that happened was that I was told by the Editor of the OFFICIAL REPORT that, in view of the shortage of paper in the Stationery Office, it would be impossible to consider printing anything like that number at all. I made inquiries, and I found that the Paper Control Board did release an increase of 11½ per cent. of newsprint to the Press in this country only some two or three weeks ago. But I am not objecting to that. I am only putting to you the position here. Owing to the shortage of Parliamentary reporting by the Press because of the small amount of space, there were Debates last week which did not appear in any of the national Press at all, but they were of some importance to the people. The position is—and I think it is of importance that I should ask for your support, help and protection for hon. Members in this respect—that it is the action of the Executive in either keeping paper short in this particular Department or on account of their practice of directing labour that puts hon. Members at a disadvantage and makes them anxious to justify their position to their constituents; and hon. Members should not be prevented from putting a point of view that is not always splashed in the normal national Press. I understand—and I quite agree—that it might be suggested that a ceiling should be placed upon this. There are two rational elements, I agree. The first is the limit of the expense to which an hon. Member is prepared to go, and the second is the difficulty of distributing the number of copies in point.
I understand that I should put down a Question to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, but I put this to you, Sir. I ask you to say that hon. Members who are not necessarily members of the Government should have your protection from Government action in limiting their ability to communicate to their constituents what takes place in this House.
§ Mr. SpeakerA somewhat long question has been put to me. Perhaps the House will forgive me if I make a somewhat long reply. About three or four weeks ago the Editor of HANSARD came to me and said that he had received an 1722 order for 10,000 copies, reprints of a speech, which was rather unusual. I said, "I do not want to interfere with what Members are doing. It is unusual, but please let me know if further orders of this character come in later on, and then I will see what can be done."
Last week orders came for reprints amounting to 55,000. That at once showed that a new issue had arisen. The whole amount in the year before the war was 63,000 reprints. That is for one year. I understand that it was considerably less in the first three years of the war and that the average number of copies asked for was between 200 and 300 at a time. Since we met in January and up to 1st May, the number of reprints asked for were 117,000, therefore doubling the last prewar year. And added to this 55,00o one might say that in four months, or rather less than four months, we are now asking for over three times what was asked for in the year before the war. That makes a very serious situation from the labour point of view.
There is another consideration I had in my own mind when I made these inquiries. I asked about the cost. These reprints do not bear relation to cost at all. They are done below the cost of production, and lion. Members who are asking for copies on this scale, which cannot merely be for private circulation among a limited number of constituents, but for propaganda, are asking to be subsidised by the taxpayer. Therefore I had to cancel these large orders for the time being until I could inquire whether it was a right or privilege. I have been carefully into that, and I find that when the private firm that printed the Debates was taken over by the Government in 1909 hon. Members were allowed to have reprints of their speeches. Therefore there was no Privilege of any kind; it was merely a convenience given to hon. Members by a private firm which was continued when the work was taken over by a Government Department. If there are any complaints about that, it is not a matter for me, because there is no Privilege involved; it is a matter for the Financial Secretary to the Treasury.
§ Mr. BowlesThe result of my efforts last week was that I was allowed to order none, Sir. I think I ought to explain to the House about this 1il per cent. increase in newsprint given to Press. 1723 When it is given to the "News of the World," which has a 5,000,000 circulation every week, there can be no question of a shortage of newsprint. The more Parliamentary Debates get around the country, to my mind, the better. No one would ask the taxpayers to subsidise the circulation of their speeches to their constituents. The solution of that is to raise the rates. I do beg of you, Sir, to reconsider this. It is a question of Privilege. I do not think the Financial Secretary to the Treasury should have to answer for this. It has been in force for some years and is invaluable for some hon. Members, and I ask you, Sir, to consider whether it is not a question of Privilege, one for you to stand up for and safeguard the rights of hon. Members.
§ Captain PluggeMay I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to bear in mind that this reprinting is definitely an economy? Two thousand reprints of speeches which are very often printed on one small double sheet do not take up as much bulk of paper as 100 HANSARDS. This it would not be considered unusual for an hon. Member to order, yet 100 HANSARDS would involve a large amount of wasted sheets and much more work. Although 117,000 reprints sounds a lot, they are very flimsy, small pieces of paper, about one-quarter the size of one newspaper sheet, so the amount of paper involved is exceedingly small and the work negligible. I would like to support that point, that reprints should be available to Members as before.
§ Commander King-HallArising out of your reply, Mr. Speaker, could you give the House guidance? Does it now mean that a ceiling will be established by the Treasury in this matter? May I ask this further question? If it is a question of paper, are you not aware that the increase of 11½ per cent. allotted to some of the national dailies has not been taken up by at least two papers? As the papers find it very difficult to report Parliament fully, is it not desirable that Members should be able, at a raised price if necessary, to disseminate the proceedings of Parliament?
§ Mr. SpeakerIt is not so much a question of paper, as something which does not come within my jurisdiction.
§ Mr. McGovernMay I ask this further question, Sir? Is it not a fact that the increased demands are, to a large extent, forced on hon. Members who are critical of the Government, because the Press in this country is boycotting those who are criticising the Government? Is that democracy?
§ Mr. NaylorIs it not a fact, Mr. Speaker, that it is not absolutely necessary for hon. Members to order reprints of their speeches from the Stationery Office? Any hon. Member who requires his speech, or the speech of any other hon. Member, to be reprinted, can go to his local printer, in all probability even at the present time, and have his order executed without any trouble.
§ Mr. BuchananThat does not arise, because the ordinary printer now has enough difficulty over his commercial work without undertaking any more. I cannot complain about the newspapers not giving me a fair amount of notice, but, in the days before the war, the newspapers of this country did the work of HANSARD to a large extent by their very full daily reports of Parliamentary procedings. So there was not much necessity to purchase HANSARD. Since the beginning of the war, however, the national newspapers are not in the same position. Is it not a good thing, whether a man be a critic or supporter of the Government, whether his speech be good, bad or indifferent, that the population of this country should be encouraged to read the speeches made in the House of Commons? I thought the strongest part of your case, Sir, was when you said it was not a breach of Privilege. Could I put this point? We have in Scotland what we call the law of habit and custom, namely, that if a thing has been established from, say, 1909 to 1944, it has, by custom and practice, become a privilege. I put that seriously, Sir. It has been a thing accepted and welcomed by the House. I think it is a serious matter, and I trust that on calm reflection you will defend hon. Members against what may be the overriding power of the Executive against Private Members.
§ Mr. SpeakerEven though it has been the custom for 30 odd years, it is very dangerous to establish or claim new Privileges for ourselves merely because it has been the custom for some time. 1725 Really, a convenience to hon. Members which was in the neighbourhood of 200 to 300 reprints per demand, and is now 20,000 or 30,000, is a very different proposition. All that happens is that the Editor of HANSARD passes on the order to His Majesty's Stationery Office. I would suggest that representations be made to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to see what rules he may make, if he makes any, about the provision of these reprints.
§ Mr. BowlesWhat is the position now, Mr. Speaker? Am I allowed to have 1,000 copies of another hon. Member's speech, or not?
§ Mr. SpeakerI would refer that question to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury.
§ Captain PluggeBut an hon. Member is required to pay for these reprints, so I do not quite see how it becomes a subsidiary for propaganda. If we cannot have reprints made at the Stationery Office, shall we be entitled to have them made by an ordinary printer and pay for them? This would involve much work, because all the type would have to be set up independently.
§ Mr. SpeakerRepresentations can be made to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury.
§ Mr. StokesDo I understand your Ruling now to be, Mr. Speaker, that any hon. Member of this House who wants reprints of his own speech, or of the speech of another hon. Member, is in the hands of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury? That does not seem to me to be satisfactory, because the Financial Secretary may arbitrarily refuse the reprint. As the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) said, this has become a custom over 35 years, and it is one which the House should be very wary of giving up.
§ Mr. SpeakerI did not say that hon. Members were in the hands of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. The Financial Secretary, no doubt, will lay down some rules, but the House can ask questions about them or reject them. The matter really remains in the hands of the House in the end.
§ Mr. David GrenfellI well remember that in 1925 I was served with 25,000 copies of my own speech. Has anything happened in the meantime which requires a cessation of that practice?
§ Mr. SpeakerIt was not a usual practice then.
§ Sir William DavisonI thought the notice in HANSARD was to the effect that Members may obtain copies of their speeches on application, but I was not aware that they could obtain reprints of the Report as a whole, or in part.
§ Mr. BowlesThat shows that hon. Members are very ignorant about these things. A large number of hon. Members to whom I have spoken in the last week have never seen these reprints, and did not know they could be obtained. The fact that more and more are being ordered may be accounted for because I have pointed out this facility to some hon. Members.
§ Mr. Hore-BelishaIn order that we may know exactly where we stand, and in view of the importance of this issue, is the Financial Secretary to the Treasury in a position to say anything about this subject now? Or would he prefer to have notice in order to make a full statement?
§ The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Assheton)I would prefer to hate notice before making a full statement, but the position is, as Mr. Speaker has told us, that the Stationery Office has provided this convenience to hon. Members in past years. There is no intention of withdrawing that convenience, but obviously there must be some need to consider the number of copies which can be made available under present circumstances, for a number of reasons. I shall be happy to go into these when opportunity offers. There are all sorts of things which I cannot state in the compass of a few moments. There must be a limit set to this, and I shall be happy to answer a Question if my hon. Friend will put it down.
§ Mr. BowlesAs time is the essence of this matter, may I give notice, Sir, that I will ask the right hon. Gentleman a Private Notice Question to-morrow, on the ground of urgency? [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Certainly it is a matter of urgency.