QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS (Hansard, 15 December 1959)

§ Mr. Osborne
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Would you allow the Prime Minister to answer Question No. 49 in view of the fact that a great trade union has today announced that it will not co-operate with the T.U.C. in dealing with this problem of wild-cat strikes?

§ Mr. Speaker
The hon. Member must not draw attention to Questions that are, prima facie, not to be answered. I have received no request from the Prime Minister to answer that Question.

§ Mr. Stonehouse
On a point of order.

§ Sir T. Moore
Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will observe that there are 125 Questions on the Order Paper and, as you know, we have not dealt with more than one-third of those. Would it be possible for you to curtail supplementary questions a little, and so enable the House to have the benefit of the Prime Minister's Answers to the Questions put to him?

§ Mr. Speaker
In answer to the hon. Baronet, it is apt to be time wasting if one pulls up hon. Members for long supplementary questions all the time. I would prefer to renew my request to the House to keep its own watch on supplementary questions—[An HON. MEMBER: "And answers."]— and answers—and, perhaps, to bear in mind that some hon. Members may find it easier than others to ask short supplementary questions. I think that the hon. Member for Wednesbury (Mr. Stonehouse) was rising to a point or order?

§ Mr. Stonehouse
Yes, Mr. Speaker. As you called my name earlier, and as this is the last opportunity that the Prime Minister will have to answer Questions before his coming journey, may I ask Question No. 48?

§ Mr. Speaker
I am afraid not. The fact is, as was obvious, that I called the hon. Member's name in error because I thought that the hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Allaun) was not rising, but he was, in fact, engaged in the physical act of rising and, when I saw that, I corrected myself.

§ Mr. Driberg
Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Although, as you have already told us, you have not received any submission from the Prime Minister that he wishes to answer orally Questions that might not be reached, as Question No. 48 is particularly important and one which the right hon. Gentleman himself would clearly wish to answer, may I ask whether you would now accept a submission from the Prime Minister, if he were to make it on the spot?

§ Mr. Speaker
No. I prefer to adhere to the practice of my predecessors, which is neither directly nor indirectly to intervene in the matter, aye or no, whether a Minister desires to answer any given Question.

§ Sir L. Ropner
Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. You have referred to the practice of your predecessors. I do not think that hon. and right hon. Members on either side of the House are more or less inquisitive than they were a number of years ago, or that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen are less or more inclined to ask supplementary questions, or that those questions are longer or shorter than they were 1249 some years ago. It will be within your recollection—it is certainly within mine—that, invariably, we passed over no fewer than a hundred Questions at Question Time. I submit, with full respect to you, Sir, that the problem of getting on with the larger number of Questions really rests in your hands, in calling fewer supplementary questions, rather than in the hands of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen.

§ Mr. Speaker
It may. Questions become extremely bald if they consist of one question and one answer. I have no doubt that I err in my discretion in the matter. I will endeavour constantly to do better.