OFFICIAL REPORT (Hansard, 5 November 1958)

§ Mr. Bowles
Last night, Mr. Speaker, when the Home Secretary was winding up the debate, he said, towards the end of his speech: I will, with permission, circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT the companies, 512 of them, which evidently are to be either taken over, messed about or in some way interferred with by the Socialist Party …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th November; Vol. 594, c. 904.] I asked you then, Mr. Speaker, whether it was in order for the right hon. Gentleman to use the OFFICIAL REPORT for Tory propaganda. You said that perhaps I could "arrange to table a Question". I wonder whether you have anything to say about that, Sir?

§ Mr. Speaker
It is the usual practice for Ministers, in answering Questions, to say that they will seek permission to circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT a matter which forms part of the Answer, Rich as a table of figures or a list of names of people who are to form a Departmental inquiry. That has been the practice of the House and it is for the convenience of the House, but it is not our custom to print in the OFFICIAL REPORT either undelivered speeches or parts of speeches.
I may say that when the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Bowles) asked me last night about this I said that perhaps the right hon. Gentleman—that is to say, the Leader of the House—might arrange to have a Question put down which would bring this practice within the Parliamentary practice on Questions. I put it in that tentative way because I could not at the moment see how such a question would come within the right hon. Gentleman's Departmental responsibility. I am, however, very slow to underrate the ingenuity of right hon. and hon. Members in framing Questions and I prefer to see the text of the Question before I give a definite answer.
The right hon. Gentleman has neither sought permission nor intends to seek permission to circulate the matter in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

§ Mr. Bowles
May I ask whether it would be in order to ask your permission, Mr. Speaker, to put down a list of directorships and shareholdings of hon. Members on the other side?

§ The Secretary of State for the Home Department and Lord Privy Seal (Mr. R. A. Butler)
May I say, Mr. Speaker, that I immediately accept your Ruling in every respect, which is exactly what I would have expected you to say; but I am sorry that so lighthearted a remark, made just before the end of the debate, should have been taken so seriously.

§ Mr. Shinwell
If it is thought inadvisable to publish this list in the OFFICIAL REPORT, Mr. Speaker, could you suggest to the Leader of the House that the Government might issue a White Paper on the subject?

§ Mr. Bowles
May I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for assisting the Opposition in preventing the Government from using official publications for Tory Party propaganda?

§ Mr. Mitchison
Is not the House left in some difficulty? If this remark was a joke, were the remarks about 100 per cent. advances to building societies and 100 per cent. advances to local authorities other jokes, or were they some part of the serious section of the speech made by the Leader of the House?

§ Mr. Speaker
First, to deal with the real question of the hon. Member for Nuneaton. In the way he framed his question last night, he asks whether the pages of the OFFICIAL REPORT should be used for party propaganda. I have known a lot of party propaganda to creep into our OFFICIAL REPORT from time to time, but I would say that the OFFICIAL REPORT is, in general, a record of what is said, with the one exception of the Parliamentary Question to which I have alluded.
In reply to the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison), I feel rather diffident about advising him. I think it was Sydney Smith who said something about Scotsmen and a sense of humour, and I feel, sometimes, a little difficulty in distinguishing what is meant jocosely and what is not. I think that the hon. and learned Member must form his own opinion on these matters.

§ Colonel Beamish
Further to that, was not my right hon. Friend, at any rate, showing his usual impartiality and generosity in seeking to circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT what is, in fact, Socialist propaganda?

§ Mr. Mellish
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Are you aware—I hope the House is—that most of us on this side regarded the speech of the Leader of the House as so poor that any duplication of it in the OFFICIAL REPORT would be appalling?

§ Mr. Speaker
That is nothing to do with me.