HC Deb 06 July 1948 vol 453 cc208-9

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper in the name of Mr. GEOFFREY COOPER:

51. To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in view of the application for increases in pay in the Civil Service, if he will take steps to relate more closely the hours of work of the Civil Service to those of the workers in industry, so that the industrial workers are not placed at an unfair disadvantage compared with the Civil Service, whose basic hours of work, excluding lunch intervals, are only 40½ per week, coupled with a month's holiday a year.

Mr. Cooper

Would it be appropriate for me to ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether you would be willing to call Question 51, because I regret that due to the speed of Questions today, I was not able to be here at the time it was called?

Mr. Speaker

Certainly not. The hon. Member should have been here in his place to ask it, and if he was not in his place that is his fault.

Mr. Cooper

I understood it was the procedure of the House that Questions were repeated.

Mr. Speaker

It is most important that Members should attend on the House, and the House should not attend on them.