§ Mr. M. FootI wish to raise with you, Mr. Speaker, at the first available opportunity, a matter which may involve an issue of the privileges of the House of Commons.
The passage to which I refer appeared in the Sunday Telegraph yesterday, 23rd June, and read as follows:
Lord Hailsham's personal statement in the Lords on Thursday was not, I am told, his first counter-charge to the attacks made on him in the Commons on Monday. Earlier in the week he had written a private letter to the Speaker. It was apparently on failing to receive a satisfactory answer that he determined to follow a precedent going back to 1922. For a Member of one House to make his displeasure felt to the Speaker of another is, I imagine, unique.To relate the passage in the newspaper to the general statement about privileges of the House which appears on page 45 of Erskine May, I will quote from Erskine May:Speaker's Petition.—At the commencement of every Parliament it has been the custom for the Speaker, 'in the name, and on behalf 950 of the Commons, to lay claim by humble petition to their ancient and undoubted rights and privileges: particularly that their persons (their estates and servants) may be free from arrests and all molestations; that they may enjoy liberty of speech in all their debates;'If the statement which appeared in the passage which I have read from the Sunday Telegraphis untrue, and if no such letter was ever despatched, then it seems to me that an early opportunity should be taken of making that fact generally known, and my raising the matter in this way may give a convenient opportunity for that to be done. But if, on the other hand, the statement which appeared in the Sunday Telegraph is true, and if a letter were sent to you in terms even approximating to those described here, then it seems to me that a very serious issue arises. For the only judge of how the liberties of speech in this House shall be exercised is you, Sir, and the only people who are entitled to express displeasure about it are Members of this House. As the House knows, that is done only on the very rarest of occasions, and when it is done it has to be done in the open by means of a substantive Motion. There is no other way in which a criticism could be made.But if someone outside this House were to express displeasure with a Ruling in this House, or the way in which liberty of speech has been exercised, if it were to be done by anybody it would be serious enough, but if it is done by a person of some eminence in another place, then it seems to me that the matter is all the more serious; and if the person is not only of some eminence, but is also a Minister of the Government, that adds further still to the offence which might have to be considered.
Personally, I am always in favour of being very sparing in invoking questions of Privilege, but if this House were to let pass a statement of this nature it might set a most dangerous precedent because it might be supposed that anybody could write to Mr. Speaker from another place or elsewhere criticising the conduct of business in this House. I therefore submit to you that a prima facie issue of Privilege arises.
§ Mr. SpeakerWill the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) be good enough to bring me the newspaper which I have to have?
§ Copy of newspaper handed in.
951§ Mr. SpeakerI will consider the hon. Member's complaint and rule upon it tomorrow.
§ Mr. WiggOn a point of order. When you give your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, if such letters have been written would you be kind enough to make them available to the House? Will you make available the letter which was written to you and your reply so that the House, which may have to form an opinion on this, may form an opinion in the full knowledge of the facts?
§ Mr. SpeakerI realise the difficulty here. I have no wish to do anything but share all my information with my fellow Members. The noble Lord did write to me, and I wrote to him, and he wrote to me. Those three letters were each of them private and personal. I hope that I may say this clearly. As far as I am concerned, let us not have any imagined mysteries about it. I am utterly content that all the world should know the contents of them save on one point—that if we cannot, in public life, write private and personal letters to one another, then very serious inconvenience must arise.
No one is to say that by labelling one's correspondence in some way one may perpetrate an abuse, but it is necessary to think how much private and personal letters should be made public property in the interests of us all.
§ Mr. WiggI am the last person to wish to interfere in any private correspondence you may have with Lord Hailsham, Mr. Speaker, but, if it were private and confidential, the question arises, who told the Press? Surely that must involve a different matter. If you, Sir, are involved in private correspondence with the Leader of another place, and some person reveals it—
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. The hon. Member asked me about the existence of letters, and I have dealt with that. For the rest, I should like to consider the matter and to give my Ruling.