HC Deb 10 February 1969 vol 777 cc883-4
Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop

On a point of order. I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing me to raise a point of order, of which I have given you notice.

At about 10 minutes to four on Friday I handed to the Table Office an Amendment to the Motion which is the first item on the Order Paper today. The Amendment read: At end insert: But notwithstanding the foregoing, the Select Committee shall not meet until after the House shall have appointed a Select Committee to enquire into the allegations made by the right hon. Member for Huyton on September 30th, 1964, concerning which the same right hon. Gentleman pledged himself to hold a 'full and searching inquiry'. I understand that the Table Office referred the Amendment to you and that it was rejected on the ground that it was critical of another Member.

I drafted the Amendment carefully to avoid making any comment on whether the allegations made by the right hon. Gentleman, who is presently the Prime Minister, were without foundation. I did not comment on that, and it seemed to me a perfectly proper Amendment, as it was wholly devoid of any implied criticism, to today's substantive Motion, as it is material to the question of the order in which any inquiries should be held, if the House is minded to hold inquiries.

Mr. Speaker

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) for letting me know, as soon as I took the Chair today, that he proposed to raise this point of order. I have looked into the matter.

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that hon. Members are among the categories of persons whose actions may not be criticised except by substantive Motions. Such a criticism, therefore, cannot be made by way of an Amendment to another Motion. While I agree that the actual words of the Amendment do not contain any explicit criticism of the Prime Minister, when I was shown the Amendment on Friday it seemed to me that the implication of such criticism was inescapable.

I therefore directed that the Amendment should be withheld from the Order Paper, and I understand that a communication to that effect was at once despatched to the hon. Gentleman. There is nothing to prevent him from putting down a Motion criticising any hon. or right hon. Gentleman.