§ 11.6 a.m.
§ Mr. SpeakerYesterday the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) raised with me the question of the admitted conduct of the Home Secretary as indicated at Question Time yesterday and suggested that it raised a matter of breach of Privilege. The admitted conduct was that he, the Home Secretary, had refused to allow a prisoner to consent to a proposal of the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) to communicate to a Sunday newspaper the contents of a letter from the prisoner to that hon. Member.
I have considered the matter. There was, as far as I can discover, no interference with the right of the hon. Member to bring the matter complained of to the attention of the House, and the proposed activity of the hon. Member which was prevented is not, in my view, a matter to which the privilege of this House extends. In the circumstances, I do not think that a prima facie case of breach of Privilege is made out.
Of course, what I now rule affects only the matter of having precedence over other business of the House. It does not in any way prevent the hon. and learned Member, if he wishes, from seeking by the appropriate means to get the House to take a contrary view.
§ Mr. Marcus Lipton (Brixton)May I respectfully make a submission to you, Mr. Speaker? I hope that your Ruling, which of course I accept, does not imply that one of the primary duties of all hon. 1792 Members is not to listen, to deal with and, if possible, remedy the grievances of any of their constituents, whether they happen to be at liberty or whether they are confined in one of Her Majesty's prisons.
The fact remains that I have been impeded in the course of dealing with this case, and the only reason I did not venture to raise it myself as a question of Privilege, although I fully agree with my hon. and learned Friend, is that I was afraid that if it were ruled to be prima facie a breach of Privilege it might prevent me from continuing to do whatever, in my judgment, I thought right to help this constituent of mine, while the matter was being considered at length by the Committee of Privileges, which might take several months. This matter is of extreme urgency to my constituent——
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. I do not think I would be in order in allowing the hon. Member to make a speech about it now. My Ruling means nothing more than it said. Its effect is that we ought not to give this matter precedence over the business of the House, in which there is quite a lot to do.
§ Mr. R. T. Paget (Northampton)I am grateful to you for your Ruling, Sir. As I understand your Ruling, the position is this: my hon. Friend would be entirely at liberty to bring this letter to the attention of the House and to read it in the House, which, of course, would have the result of making it available to every newspaper. It seems, therefore, that it is perhaps somewhat unfortunate that one should say to a Member that we refuse to give permission for this to be published, because it is both nugatory and an interference——
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. Having refused the hon. Member for Brixton permission to make a speech about it, I do not think that I can fairly allow the hon. and learned Member to make a speech about it. either.