§ Mr. WiggMr. Speaker, I beg to raise points of order, of which I have given you notice and which I have drawn to the attention of the Leader of the House, arising out of the Adjournment debate that took place on 27th November.
On that occasion, after a speech of about 15 minutes, the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Sir G. Nabarro) resumed his seat, and you then called the Minister. When a point of order was raised in this connection, you said:
I have been looking for the Ruling, which I do not find at this moment, but it exists …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th November, 1963; Vol. 685, c. 246.]779 With great respect, since that time I, too, have been looking for this Ruling, and have failed to find it. I wonder, therefore, whether you would be good enough to give the reference to the Ruling in Erskine May—or, perhaps, the HANSARD reference.In such a matter, it is, of course, my object not in any way to challenge the Ruling of the Chair, but perhaps I may draw your attention to the nearest approach to the Ruling on the matter. This occurred on 16th December, 1958, when the Minister was called, and the then Mr. Deputy-Speaker said:
The practice is to call the Minister who will reply to the debate."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th December, 1958; Vol. 597, c. 1088.]The Ruling on that occasion was in accordance with the right of the Chair to call whichever hon. Member the occupant wishes to select, but the then Mr. Deputy-Speaker was referring to the debate, whereas your Ruling last Tuesday night was a Ruling in relation to the Adjournment debate. I certainly thought, and I think that my hon. Friend certainly thought, that you were giving a Ruling that, in an Adjournment debate, once the Minister rose you were bound to call him.My second point of order is this. Having failed to get an opportunity to reply to the debate—the Minister refusing to give way—I then drew attention, as I am entitled to do under Standing Order 30, to the absence of a quorum. In this matter, I would respectfully submit that the custodian of the rules of order is not the Chair, but every Member of the House. Every Member has the bounden duty to see that the rules are obeyed. In view of the observation of the Chair
That practice, in an Adjournment debate, has, of course, been deprecated."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th November, 1963; Vol. 685, c. 248.]I shall be much obliged if you would give the reference in HANSARD where that practice has been deprecated.Moreover, if it has been deprecated I would suggest, with great respect, that it is not the function of the Chair either to approve or disapprove of the action of any hon. Member provided that he is acting within the rules of order. I humbly suggest, therefore, that on the second point, as on the first, the Chair 780 may have been proved to be fallible. For I can find no reference in HANSARD. What I can find are references by occupants of the Chair to hon. Gentlemen using the Adjournment debate not to have a debate, but to prevent one.
Mr. Speaker Clifton Brown, in 1945, rebuked an hon. Gentleman when he instituted a debate when there was no Minister present to reply. I would respectfully submit that this is a House of debate, and that the country and the House can only establish the truth if the truth is put by hon. Members on both sides of the House, as they see it. I therefore respectfully submit that it is of the utmost importance that these matters should be cleared up beyond any shadow of doubt.
§ Mr. SpeakerThis is an instance when I am glad to answer the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) when he is rising to a point of order because the circumstances were quite rightly stated. I could not find the Ruling I wanted at the moment, "off the cuff". I hope that the House will bear in mind that it could only be in an extraordinary circumstance that we could discuss, on a point of order, the procedural Rulings of nearly a week ago; otherwise, we should be spending on such matters days to which the House has assigned other business.
What happened on the occasion to which the hon. Gentleman refers I claim as a complete authority for what I felt obliged to do the other night. There had been an Adjournment debate in which the hon. Gentleman had taken part, and another hon. Gentleman on that side of the House, and the ex-Secretary of State on the right of the Chair, and an hon. Member from the right of the Chair. The Deputy-Speaker then called the Secretary of State for War in these words:
The practice is to call the Minister who will reply to the debate.From this there followed some argument. The argument ran on the lines that the hon. Gentleman speaking from the right of the Chair had been making observations about the Opposition, and that the Opposition ought to have an opportunity to reply. That is the burden of it.My predecessor had meanwhile resumed the Chair and the discussion 781 was going on with him. My predecessor—I do not want to read all of this, but seek not to misrepresent it, said:
The Government ought to answer the charges which have been made. That is always accepted. An hon. Member raises a matter on the Adjournment and he would be very disappointed if a Minister did not reply and give some sort of answer.As to the strict alternation of parties, one tries to do that as much as one can. The Chair always does that, but the trouble is the rule that a Minister should reply to charges made on an Adjournment Motion.He went on to say that the House should listen to the Secretary of State, and when complaint was made, or sought to be made, about the Deputy-Speaker's Ruling, he said:I am afraid that I am bound by what has been done. I do not see that the Deputy-Speaker had any choice but to call the Minister to reply to the debate.That was the precedent I had in mind. It accords with our general practice, and I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has given ms an opportunity to find it, and repeat it.With regard to the hon. Gentleman's other point, I should dislike it very much if he or any other hon. Member felt aggrieved when I said that the practice of counting out an Adjournment debate had been deprecated. The hon. Gentleman little knows how much he had my sympathy at that moment, but I conceive that I have that duty, and I will tell the House why.
It was deprecated by my predecessor in a letter, to the then Leader of the House in July, 1950. On that occasion my predecessor referred to it—that is to say, the not counting out of Adjournment debates—as an unwritten understanding—and he described it as a convention—and the reasons he then gave for us all observing that seemed to me as valid now as they were then. They were, to adapt his words, that it saves reprisals and unnecessary bad feeling, and it was solely with that in mind that I felt obliged to say that the practice had been deprecated, which, in fact, it has.
§ Mr. WiggFirst of all, Mr. Speaker, is it not a novel proceeding that private correspondence between the occupant of the Chair and a Member of the House, should now be introduced as a sanction for the proceedings? When, as I understand, a—
§ Sir K. PickthornOn a point of order.
§ Mr. SpeakerI am being addressed on a point of order. I will hear the hon. Baronet a little later.
§ Mr. WiggFurther to my point of order, which I was interrupted in making, is it not a novel proceeding to introduce as an authority private correspondence between the Chair and a Member?
Furthermore, in this matter, must not some regard be paid to the rights of ordinary back benchers? Is it not a fact that an hon. Member who wants to take an independent line in the House has difficulties enough already without being confronted with, or being expected to conform to, Rulings which depend upon private correspondence?
If I may return to the point I raised in the first instance, may I respectfully draw your attention to the fact that Mr. Deputy-Speaker on that occasion dealt with the matter as if he were calling a Minister in any debate of any kind and not a debate on the Adjournment. He said that the practice was to call the Minister who would reply to the debate. Later, the late Mr. Speaker Morrison made the point that he was bound by what had been done. I therefore respectfully submit to you that that Ruling by Mr. Speaker was merely an endorsement of the fact that Mr. Deputy-Speaker had chosen, as he had a right to do, and as you had a perfect right to do, to call what Member he liked. You yourself, Mr. Speaker, in your reply to me, pointed out that an hon. Gentleman who makes charges has a right to expect a reply. Equally, if it was an hon. Member opposite who made the charges—[Interruption.] Yes, and he has run away from repeating the charges outside the House—
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. I am glad to indulge the; hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) as far as I possibly can, but we really cannot rehash a previous debate.
§ Mr. WiggI am not on this occasion seeking the protection of the Chair, Mr. Speaker, I can look after myself, but if I am subjected to a running fire of interruption, from the benches opposite—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—I shall have only two courses open to me. One 783 is to—[An HON. MEMBER: "Sit down."]—exactly, which I have no intention of doing, or, secondly, to reply to hon. Members. They are making the points made by the hon. Member who has run away from the challenge to debate with me. [Interruption.] May I continue to put to the Chair the point of order? [An HON. MEMBER: "Tedious repetition."] May I put the point that on 16th December, 1958, Sir Gordon Touche, who was occupying the Chair [HON. MEMBERS: "Order."]—the right hon. Gentleman who occupied the Chair; I thought that he had left the House—was giving a Ruling as the Chair can give a Ruling. I do not challenge it and nobody else can challenge the Chair to select what speaker it likes.
You, Mr. Speaker, did not say this, but said that you were bound by a rule that if a Minister rises in an Adjournment debate you must call him. I certainly thought on that occasion, and so do the hon. Friends whom I have consulted, that your Ruling was in relation to an Adjournment debate, and that you were saying that once an hon. Member had spoken, and without any reply from the other side, you were bound by the rules of order to call the Minister. I respectfully submit that on both counts the Chair has been found to be fallible, which, after all, is only human.
§ Sir K, PickthornOn a point of order. I was only going to inquire, Sir, whether the whole of this were not a novel proceeding and whether, if it had to happen at all, it should not have happened on a substantive Motion.
§ Mr. Gordon WalkerMr. Speaker, whatever one may think in general about counting out a debate, must one not take into account an abuse of procedure? I ask you whether there is not an abuse of procedure in an Adjournment debate if an hon. Member takes up 15 minutes attacking the other side and relies on the Minister precluding anyone else from speaking?
§ Mr. SpeakerLet us proceed a little more gently, point by point. In the first place, I concede that in the circumstances obtaining at that moment I was bound by the practice of the House to call the Minister if he rose. The whole of our practice proceeds on the basis that the 784 Minister of the day is allowed to answer a debate. We end up everything like that. I cannot tell at the moment the precise hour at which the Minister rose, but it was fairly plain to anyone that he would not have the opportunity to answer the debate if he were not called when he rose. If a Minister in such circumstances should give way to allow someone else on the opposite side to speak, that is a matter for the Minister and not for the Chair. I leave it to the House to read this passage completely. I conceive that I have precisely followed it, and I used the words to follow it.
§ Mr. SpeakerI cannot argue this matter. I am really doing this as a matter of courtesy to the hon. Member for Dudley, because on that occasion I found that I had not the authority with me, but that was the authority I had in mind.
As to the other matter, it would be a sorry day if, there being a fairly well-known convention of the House on a certain matter, the Chair should not say that to depart from that convention had been deprecated.
To turn to another matter which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker) raised, I cannot dictate to hon. Gentlemen what they should say in an Adjournment debate if they keep within the rules of order. Certainly, I would not envy the position of the Chair if it were to comment on observations made by one side of the House or the other on the policies and propaganda of the opposite side. It is the sort of thing that does happen, but the matter in this instance, as far as I can remember, was not confined to that. The hon. Member who is not here asked a large number of questions of the Minister—I thought that there were twelve. If there were to be any answer to these they would have to be answered by the Minister in that debate.
I hope that the House will forgive me, but I cannot irregularly argue a matter of this kind. If it is sought to have serious argument about it, I hope that some other occasion or opportunity will be found.
§ Mr. SpeakerWe must go on.
§ The Minister of Aviation (Mr. Julian Amery)Mr. Speaker, I simply Wanted—
§ Mr. SpeakerWe must go on. This is all irregular.
§ Mr. WiggFurther to my point of order. I readily accept your right, and do not wish to make any further submissions to you, Mr. Speaker, about your right, to carry out the rules of order, as you feel bound to do by the rules. However, equally, I am bound by the rules of order. If, within the rules of order, I take action to stop what I regard as an abuse under one head, then I respectfully submit that the Chair has no right whatever to deprecate my action.
§ Mr. SpeakerThe hon. Member reminds me that we are all subject to the rules of order, and, manifestly, they do not permit me to discuss this matter further now.