INDUSTRIAL EXPANSION BILL (Hansard, 3 April 1968)

HC Deb 03 April 1968 vol 762 cc377-567 377

§ As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

§ Mr. Speaker
As is my custom. I have 'posted up my selection of Amendments, and we come first to No. 3 on page 5902—

§ 3.53 p.m.

§ Mr. Nicholas Ridley (Cirencester and Tewkesbury)
On a point of order Mr. Speaker. With regard to the business now before us, Clause 12 proposes that power should be taken to acquire the Beagle Aircraft Company. I was not a member of the Standing Committee, but I see from the report of the proceedings in Standing Committee on that Clause that the Minister undertook to make available to hon. Members a duplicated memorandum of the figures of profits, losses and turnovers of the Beagle Aircraft Company so that it could be studied before the Clause was further considered. I do not know whether hon. Members who wore on the Standing Committee have received such a memorandum but, so far as I am aware, it is not generally available to hon. Members who were not on the Standing Committee, and I have been unable to trace it. I would further suggest that this Clause is a very important Clause—

§ Mr. Speaker
This is most irregular. The Bill has been to Committee. When it was in Committee, its various Clauses, including Clause 12, were discussed. If on Report we were to discuss some Amendment to Clause 12, the hon. Gentleman would be in order in speaking about it when we reach it. I see from my Paper that we have no selection of Clause 12 or Amendments to it for discussion on Report. The hon. Gentleman may, when we come to Third Reading, animadvert to Clause 12 or any Clause in the Bill, but he cannot in the guise of a point of order seek now to take part in a debate which occurred in Committee some time ago.

§ Mr. Cranley Onslow (Woking)
Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. There is, as you will have observed, an Amendment on the Order Paper in the name 378 of an hon. Gentleman on this side of the House which you have not selected for debate. I have no intention of challenging your selection, but may I suggest that it would assist the House, when we come eventually to the stage at which we can debate this, if the Minister were to be seized at this point of his failure to make available this material to this House?

§ The Minister of Technology (Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn)
This is irregular, but during the Committee stage I was asked by members of the Committee for information. I undertook to prepare information. It has been prepared in my office and I understand that it has been sent at any rate to some members of the Committee. This is further information of a kind that a Minister might easily be asked to give in Committee which I undertook to provide, but it lies outside the ambit of the Bill as such. It is available in the Vote Office, and hon. Members who wish to have access to it will be able to do so. I hope I shall not get into trouble with the House for having gone further than most Ministers in trying to meet specific questions and providing duplicated information for the convenience of hon. Members.