PRIVATE NOTICE QUESTIONS (Hansard, 14 May 1952)

§ Mr. Robert Boothby
(by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he can now make an announcement about the result of the negotiations for the sale of cured herrings to the U.S.S.R.?

§ Mr. Arthur Lewis
On a point of order. Can you explain to us, Mr. Speaker, what the procedure is with regard to Private Notice Questions, because I did raise with you yesterday a point for your advice, and I pointed out then that I myself did make a request for a special Private Notice Question to be asked, but that it was refused. I understood that it was only when it was a matter of grave importance, or a Question that could not be left to be answered either at a later date or in a written Parliamentary reply, that a Question was permitted. Could I ask you what is the urgency of this Question? Why cannot it take its normal course in the normal way and be answered in HANSARD in the normal way? Can you answer that?

§ Lieut.-Colonel Walter Elliot
May we not have this Question, Mr. Speaker, because it is of the greatest importance to Scotland [HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense."] —and without the delay caused by the hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Lewis)?

§ Mr. A. Woodburn
Are you aware, Mr. Speaker, that a full report of this, with a very distinguished mention of the hon. Member who put the Question, appeared in the "Daily Herald" two or three days ago?

§ Mr. Emrys Hughes
I should like your guidance on this, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday 1438 I put on the Order Paper a Question dealing with this specific matter. Why should a Private Notice Question have precedence over a Question on the Order Paper?

§ Mr. Speaker
In reply to these various points of order about Private Notice Questions, I would observe that it is sometimes a difficult matter to decide whether or not to allow them. In this case I understand that there is a Government announcement on this matter, which is of great interest to a great part of the population and to many hon. Members of this House. In my discretion I allowed the Question to be asked so that the Government's statement might be made. The House generally likes to hear a statement on a matter like this before it appears in the Press.

§ Mr. Herbert Morrison
As one who has had experience on the other side of these processes, may I point out that it is always open to a Minister to make a statement? I have had experience of Mr. Speaker being approached on the basis of a Private Notice Question and taking the view that it was not a matter of sufficient urgency to have precedence, so to speak, over Questions on the Order Paper. If a Minister wishes to make a statement of his own volition he can answer. I do submit that it would be wrong to use the Private Notice Question procedure in a way calculated to advance the personal political advantage of a particular individual.

§ Mr. Boothby
Further to that point of order. If the Secretary of State will make his statement, I am quite ready to withdraw my Question.

§ Mr. Speaker
I hope that we may now proceed with this matter. I have given my decision that this was a proper Question to ask. In reply to the right hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison), I would say that I have known many Ministerial statements made by this means in the past by Ministers drawn from either side of the House. If it is a new desire of the House that the practice should be discontinued, I am quite willing to take that into consideration.

§ Mr. Shinwell
Further to that point, Mr. Speaker. Will you be good enough, for the guidance of hon. Members, to 1439 reply to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes), who indicated that he had raised the Question on the Order Paper? Are we to understand that Private Notice Questions can take precedence of Questions on the Order Paper?

§ Mr. Speaker
That is not so. I am always as careful as I can be to see that that does not occur. The Question down in the name of the hon. Member for South Ayrshire was to ask the President of the Board of Trade what steps he has taken to increase the export of cured herrings to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and other East European countries, while the Question of which I have been given notice is, whether the Secretary of State for Scotland can now make an announcement about the result of the negotiations. The two things are not the same.

§ The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Henderson Stewart)
rose

§ Mr. Lewis
On a point of order. With great respect, Mr. Speaker, I did raise with you a point so that we might know in future what is the procedure that is adopted to differentiate between Questions when special permission is sought to ask a Private Notice Question. Does a Minister ask your permission to make a statement? That is the point I want to get clear, because I want to know whether or not we can be advised as to the procedure we should adopt if we want to ask a Private Notice Question.

§ Mr. Speaker
The distinction is quite clear. In the event of a Minister either desiring to make a statement on his own or to answer a Question which is not reached in the normal course of events, the Minister can approach me and ask my permission. In the case of a Private Member who desires to ask a Question by Private Notice, he should ask me for permission to do so.

§ Mr. Lewis
Now can I put a question to you, Mr. Speaker, that I wanted to put, with great respect? That is, to ask you whether or not you can inform us whether the Secretary of State did ask your permission to make a statement on this matter?

§ Mr. Speaker
No. The Question was submitted to me with the information 1440 that the Secretary of State was preparec to make a statement, and on that ground I allowed it.

§ Mr. Morrison
I am very glad that my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Lewis) raised this point. With great respect, Mr. Speaker, would it be a factor to influence your mind that the Secretary of State indicated to you that he would like to answer a Private Notice Question? Would it influence your mind in accepting or not the Private Notice Question? Because I should have thought that the only question for the Chair would have been the importance of the Question and whether it was sufficiently relevant and urgent that it should have this degree of precedence. What a Minister thinks about a Private Notice Question and its desirability really does not matter, because he can always make a statement. I am sure that the House would like to be assured that what the Minister thinks is not a factor to influence your mind in accepting or not accepting a Private Notice Question.

§ Mr. Speaker
The House can have that assurance quite definitely. The first thing I consider is whether the matter is of sufficient importance and urgency for it to be asked as a Private Notice Question; and then I examine the Question to see if any Minister is responsible for answering it. If I am satisfied on both those points I allow the Private Notice Question. I have in this matter, I may say, followed the practice of my predecessors ever since I can remember, and I have known this procedure followed with Governments from either party. If the House takes the view that this method of making statements—because that is what it amounts to—should not be followed, I am quite willing to consider any change in the procedure, but the House must be firmly assured that I believe that I have acted no differently from any of my predecessors in the past, no matter who the Government were.

§ Mr. Eric Fletcher
Would you be good enough, Mr. Speaker, in view of the importance of these matters, to bear in mind that there has been a high rate of Private Members who ask Private Notice Questions on matters of importance, even though the Minister may not want to reply; and in considering whether the Private Notice Question is one which 1441 should be put down, it has hitherto frequently been completely irrelevant whether the Minister was willing to reply or not, because the Minister always has the possibility of making a statement if he wishes to make a statement?

§ Mr. Speaker
The hon. Member is quite mistaken if he thinks that I am influenced by the fact of whether or not a Minister wants to reply. I said that I have to satisfy myself that the Minister is responsible for replying. That is the point. I do endeavour to discharge this duty, which is very various with regard to these matters, and I hope that the House will permit this matter to terminate.

§ Mr. T. Driberg
You were referring to the practice of your predecessors on this point, Mr. Speaker. Is it not the case, with great respect, that a distinction has always been drawn between Private Notice Questions submitted officially by a Member of the Opposition Front Bench—the Leader of the Opposition has always, in fact, been permitted to ask questions of a non-urgent character by Private Notice—and questions put by Private Notice by back benchers, which have to be of an urgent character? That has always been the distinction in the past.

§ Mr. Speaker
I am aware of that distinction. The only way that the Leader of the Opposition can ask a Question is by a Private Notice Question. That is all the distinction there is in it

§ Mr. David Logan
Having come under your jurisdiction by asking you a Private Notice Question last week, Mr. Speaker, I understood that a Private Notice Question had to be of public importance. I also understood and know from your Ruling that when you give a decision that ends the matter. Is that so or not?

§ Mr. Speaker
That is so. I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Scotland (Mr. Logan), for what he has said. These things are matters of discretion, and, as I have often said, on matters of discretion opinions often vary, but someone has to decide, and I try to do the job as fairly as I can. Mr. Henderson Stewart.