PRIVATE BUSINESS (ORDER PAPER) (Hansard, 12 March 1953)

§ Sir H. Williams
May I raise with you, Mr. Speaker, a matter which is not a point of order, but a point of practice? The present Order Paper gives no indication to hon. Members when public business is to be interrupted at 7 o'clock because the Chairman of Ways and Means has selected a particular day for the discussion of a Private Bill. I sought to raise the matter yesterday, but postponed it until today, so that you might have time to think it over.
Anyone looking at yesterday's Order Paper would have had no idea that, at 7 o'clock, we would discuss the British Transport Commission Bill, although I confess that hon. Members in general were aware of the fact. But hon. Members in general no longer receive automatically the Order Paper with regard to 1508 Private Business. They used to receive it before the war, but on grounds of paper economy, rather than financial economy, the practice was suspended during the war. I should like to know whether, in view of that, hon. Members might now automatically receive the Order Paper in respect of Private Business?

§ Mr. Speaker
The hon. Member was good enough to give me notice yesterday that he was going to raise this matter. I have thought about it, and I think that the economy of paper effected by sending the Private Business Order Paper only to those hon. Members asking for it is so trivial that it is time that we should revert to the pre-war practice of sending the Private Business Order Paper with the usual papers which are circulated daily, and I will give instructions accordingly.

§ Sir H. Williams
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.