§ 8.28 a.m.
§ Dame Irene Ward (Tynemouth)I am glad that the Consolidated Fund Bill has given me an opportunity to raise the problems of the Port of the Tyne, the future of which is causing great anxiety to everybody who has any knowledge of Tyneside. I hope that at the conclusion of my brief remarks we will be given certain assurances and be told what is to be done to promote a happier and more prosperous future than seems to be in view at present.
It is difficult, when raising a general matter, to know which Minister should be responsible for replying. While the Port of the Tyne comes under the Ministry of Transport, its problems are interwoven in such a way that they deeply affect trade and all Ministers dealing with the nationalised industries.
Since we last discussed the Northern Area and Tyneside in particular we have had the devastating news that the ironore trade, very important to Tyneside, is now to be developed at Teesside—the worst blow which has befallen Tyneside for a long time. In addition there is also to be moved to Redcar the oil fuel depot. These two new decisions have caused even greater anxiety on Tyneside.
I remember before the port became nationalised that the Tyne Improvement Commission, which was then responsible for the port, got together with local authorities and private industry to carry out a survey into the iron ore trade, so worried were they about the position. The survey was successful; there would have been no difficulties about extending facilities and increasing shipments, supplying 2047 the industry right down to Tees-side. We had long discussions on this and there was hope, because we knew that unless we could retain the iron ore trade the future of the Tyne would offer great problems.
A week or two ago I pointed out that the Tyne had lost a tremendous amount of trade through the decline in the coal exporting trade. It does not look as if we will ever be able to take part in that export trade again. There are fewer ships sailing into the port than ever. I recently had the sad duty of pointing out that the hostel operated by the British Sailors' Society, Angus House, in my constituency, at North Shields, has had to close after many years of service because there were so few sailors coming into the Tyne. It was impossible for Angus House to be kept in the service of the Society. All these melancholy facts put together give cause for great anxiety.
We had a document called "Regional Ports Survey" by the Northern Economic Planning Council. This report, which was very full and covered all the ports in the northern area, forecast an unhappy future for the port of the Tyne. The report stated that the Newcastle Quay, which has been a feature of Newcastle life for a long time, would probably no longer be retained because it was running at a loss. Indeed, I think that it had been running at a loss for many years.
I read the report with mixed feelings, because I had hoped that some useful suggestions might have been made about what should happen to Tyneside. But the report was purely a survey of conditions. It was full of words, it was very voluminous and detailed, but it did not make any suggestions for resolving our future problems.
I thought that when the Prime Minister came to the miners' picnic it would be a good opportunity to draw his attention to the problems of the Tyne. Though, as I have said before, the Prime Minister is not my favourite man, he wrote me a letter, part of which I will quote, because I am hoping that the Minister will be able to elaborate on the view expressed by the Prime Minister. I am glad that he did not enter into any political controversy. He discussed the matter with me, by letter, on the broad basis of the problem that we had to face. Though we have 2048 tremendous political battles about the northern area and the Tyne, I think that we have not got beyond the political controversy, because this is a matter of our future livelihood.
Like other hon. Members, I have been about Tyneside for a long time. I have seen its battles and its disasters, and I have seen some of the recoveries. The Tees Valley Trading Estate and the West Chirton Trading Estate were being developed before the Second World War. I think that all Governments have tried to re-establish new industries to meet the difficulties of the declining industries which have proved such a fatal problem for us.
We were sorry that the Prime Minister could not come and go round the port with us, but in his letter to me of 15th July he said:
For example, we are aware of the problems of the Port of Tyne Authority; and the various Departments and agencies concerned are already actively pursuing what can be done to meet immediate difficulties and to permit as efficient as possible operations in the future.I should like the Minister to tell me exactly what is involved in that statement by the Prime Minister, which I was very glad to have. I want to know what the agencies are, and who the agencies are. I know the various Departments involved and their responsibilities and interests, but I do not know anything about how they will tackle this problem. Nor do I know what the agencies are and what they are doing.I make this one rather cynical comment to the Minister. I hope he will not tell us that one of the agencies is the Northern Economic Planning Council, because I have just studied with great care a report from that Council called "Outline Strategy for the North". It would be very difficult for anybody to find anything in it from which we can take heart when it comes to the point of dealing with our problems on Tyneside. It is full of words and full of detailed, and I am sure accurate, descriptions of the problems, but they are only words and there is nothing about what action we as a body on Tyneside have to take through the Government, through the politicians, through industry, and through the trade unions, which gives us cause for hope. I therefore rule out that Council as an agency; but I shall be interested 2049 to hear from the Minister what the Prime Minister meant by that sentence.
I should like a full description of what is to be done, particularly as we are to lose our iron-ore trade and our oil terminal. I am not saying anything about the luck of Tees-side, because that area has a tremendous problem in building up its industrial position for the future, but as a Tynesider and as the Member for a constituency on Tyneside my objective is to look after the people whom I represent. I think that all of us, irrespective of our political views, have tried to co-operate to ensure that Tyneside is never again faced with the ghastly situation that it had to face in 1931.
When I wrote to the Prime Minister I asked him whether, if the shipbuilding industry wanted a new dry dock or new ship-repairing facilities, a loan would be provided to help the industry. In reply the Prime Minister said:
Moreover, the question of constructing on the Tyne either a dry dock for shipbuilding or a gravity dock for ship repairs is a matter for the industry itself in the first instance."—I have no quarrel with that—I have no doubt that if this were thought to be a commercial proposition, provided Government financial assistance could be obtained, those concerned would come forward with proposals.I do not want to start a controversy between the Clyde and the Tyne. In my constituency there is Smiths Docks, a major ship-repairing yard with a worldwide reputation. It has done extremely well. Some years ago—I think it was before the present Government came to power—it was decided that a ship-repairing dock should be established on the Firth of Clyde. I hoped at the time that would not mean that some of the ships which come in for repairs at Smiths Docks would go to the Firth of Clyde. As the Prime Minister rightly pointed out, ship-repairing is a very difficult and fluctuating industry. We have a great deal of unemployment in Smiths Docks at the moment. This has been emphasised to me by the trade unions. The Prime Minister was not entitled to write that off. Many of these men who have been paid off at Smiths Docks are good skilled workers and I want to put their case.When the new ship-repairing yard was opened on the Firth of Clyde, I wondered how it would affect employment on Tyneside. I made an investigation and found 2050 that the yard had gone bankrupt. Something like £4 million capital had been put into it from various sources. I believe it was bought privately for about £1 million. I do not think we should judge what might happen on the Tyne and be parsimonious about grants which could be helpful there when all that money has gone into a derelict and bankrupt concern on the Firth of Clyde.
We have a magnificent ship-repairing yard in Smiths Docks on Tyneside. If as the Prime Minister suggested, it is decided by the consortium of ship builders on the Tyne that they would like a new dock there, I hope that the Government will look favourably on the decision and help us. Recently we have been doing well in shipbuilding. That is partly due to action taken by the Conservative Government, mostly due to the magnificent private enterprise yards on the Tyne, and also, I gladly acknowledge, to help given by the present Government. We are doing well in shipbuilding, but not in ship repairing.
The other day we discussed the British Steel Corporation. I wish to read to the House what the Minister of Power said would happen to deal with areas which have lost their coal trade and in which mines have closed:
The British Steel Corporation and the National Coal Board are to use the influence of their organisation to support Government measures to attract industry to areas which might be hit by coalfield and steel plant closures.It is all talk. We have heard it all before. He said:The Corporation is to appoint a social policy adviser purposely to deal with these problems and to help particularly in areas where steel plants may be closing down after there have been problems with coal mines.What is a social policy adviser? What we want on Tyneside is help with industry. I am pleased to have people there helping us with the development of social policy, but in relation to the problems arising from the loss of the iron ore trade, I do not see what a social policy adviser will do.I then asked,
Will the right hon. Gentleman kindly tell us in this regional context what is to be done to help the Tyne now that it has been decided to take ore shipments from the Tyne and to transfer them to Teesside? There is far too much talk; we never hear about action.The Minister said, "I am sorry". In fact he did not mean that he was sorry because he bit my head off. He said, 2051I am sorry, but the hon. Lady has risen too late. The point she raises was answered two Questions ago. The answer to her question about regional policy is that last year we spent £260 million on aid to the development areas, a strong contrast to what the Tories managed when they were in power."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd July, 1969; Vol. 787, c. 1474.]That was not true. I have been through dozens of Questions and I find nothing about the Tyne. The whole of regional policy and of policy for helping the development areas was Tory policy. It started immediately after the Labour Government lost the 1931 Election. It was started by the late Stanley Baldwin and developed later by my right hon. Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg). The Minister was unwise to try to re-kindle the old political battles. The transfer of the iron-ore trade to the Tees is under his Government's policy. It is the taxpayers who are spending £250 million, not the Government, on the development areas, but even if it were £500 million it would relate to the past and I am referring to a new situation which has arisen on the Tyne. The British Steel Corporation, the Minister of Power or someone else has decided to develop Teesside to the detriment of the Tyne.Today, although I am glad for the employment and future stability of Teesside, I do not wish to see the Tyne made derelict to build up another area. It is no good to us, to our workers, or to our industry on the Tyne. It is no good to the attraction of new industries to the Tyne that they see all these new facilities developing on Teesside.
The Minister of Power was wrong. He had not said a word about the Tyne. I was able later, on a point of order, to point out that I was too late because I had not caught Mr. Speaker's eye earlier. The Minister must have been ashamed of himself because he did not know the reply. He did not help Tyneside.
Today I want a complete and satisfying answer. I do not want us to delve into the past or to discuss anything except the development which the Prime Minister has promised and what the social service worker and the social organisations and even Wellbar House are going to do to met our problems on the Tyne.
2052 I am certain that all my political opponents and political friends will be interested because we are interested from an industrial and from a human point of view about what is to happen to Tyneside. I hope the Minister is fully aware of what I am thinking and that he will be able to give us a scheme.
The business about iron ore has been considered for a long time. It is not new. They have had a lot of time, if they are concerned about building up Teesside, to consider our future on Tyneside, and I shall be glad to hear about it.
§ 8.58 a.m.
§ Mr. R. W. Elliott (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North)My hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) has said in the course of her interesting and useful speech that her desire is to serve the people she represents on Tyneside. It might be an appropriate moment for me an another Tyneside Member to say that Tyneside knows no more faithful or energetic servant than her. It is typical of her to sit throughout an all-night sitting to raise once again the problems of the Tyne area for which we know she has such affection.
The problem of the Tyne is enormous. We are faced with a crisis in the port of the Tyne. My hon. Friend has talked of other days when Tyneside was not so prosperous and of her fear of returning to such a period as the area knew in 1931. I well remember that one of the first things I did on becoming a Member was to sail down the Tyne with her when we were passengers and guests of the Tyne Improvement Commission on their launch. I remember her saying "The River is busy today" and she recalled sailing down it in the same launch in the early 'thirties when the yards were silent and grass was growing in the Jarrow streets and there was unemployment throughout the area. I agree that we do not want to return to that situation again.
My hon. Friend has mentioned the Northern Economic Planning Council. We used to hear a great deal about it at the beginning of the present Government's two periods in office. It was to cure our ills, derived as it was from the Department of Economic Affairs, which was to cure the nation's ills. We have had an enormous number of voluminous documents—not only the last one from 2053 which my hon. Friend quoted but the very first that the Council produced, which said:
The ports are of critical significance in themselves as generators of employment and as direct contributors to the economy of the areas immediately surrounding them.That is quite true, and today, as we face the problem of the port of Tyne, it is very salutary to realise that once again in the North-East we have twice the national average of unemployment. It is terribly distressing that 64,000 people in the northern region are unemployed. Well may we look to those activities, centres, industries and ports which will assuredly, if they are kept in a prosperous condition, generate employment.This is not the first time in recent years that we have had a debate on the future of the port of Tyne. It is some years since my hon. Friend and I took part in a very useful debate, which was very well answered on behalf of the Government by the late Mr. Stephen Swingler. He gave us a great deal of hope that all sorts of probes were taking place on the future rôle of the Tyne as a port. As my hon. Friend said, it has always been the Ministry of Transport—and one recognises certain difficulties associated with the Ministry in this regard—which has been responsible for the Tyne.
When we last had a debate the future of the iron-ore shipments was crucial, and my hon. Friend and I appealed strongly for the possibility of all the iron ore required for the North-East of England, for Consett and for the South Durham steel complex, being brought in through the Tyne. There is not the slightest doubt that if this had been possible it would have made the Tyne prosperous for many years to come. This is not to be, it seems, and the oil terminal is also going now.
We want to know the possibilities for the future. In the debate some time ago the possibility of the development of Tyne Dock was discussed. It was recognised that this would cost an enormous amount of money. Nevertheless, it might well still be money well invested, and the possibility should be investigated. The roll-on, roll-off train from the Scandinavian countries was then considered to be a very real possibility for Tyne trade. Scandinavian trade is indeed developing, and there should be considerable scope 2054 for further prodding and probing as to increasing this trade into the port of Tyne.
I wish this morning wholeheartedly to support all that my hon. Friend said and has done recently, including her letter to the Prime Minister. We all listened with great interest and some hope to the reply she received.
I agree with all that my hon. Friend has said. The Newcastle quay has been extremely important to the life, welfare and well-being of Newcastle, the capital city of our great region, and of the region as a whole. We want it to go on thriving. We want it to go on living, but above all we want to get out of the atmosphere of gloom and doom, the feeling of despondency, into which people have slipped in recent months. We want—and I hope that we shall have it from the Minister this morning—a message of hope.
§ 9.5 a.m.
§ Mr. Eric Moonman (Billericay)On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. A short while ago, you ruled that, as I had come in after a Minister had started to reply I was not able to speak. I have been sitting here throughout most of this debate. I am most interested in it and I am not able to speak because you are calling my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport. Presumably, the same ruling operates again.
Mr. Deputy SpeakerI have given no ruling to the hon. Gentleman from the Chair. This is the Second Reading debate on a Bill and any hon. Member who is successful in catching the eye of the Chair will have the right to speak, as the hon. Gentleman may well do.
§ Mr. MoonmanFurther to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am sorry to detain the House, but this is an important matter to me and I will have to take up further the question of whether it was a ruling from the Chair. I am learning the hard way. You did not answer the second part of my submission. If an hon. Member who has sat through a debate and wishes to take part on the whole question of the Consolidated Fund 2055 is not called, I think that you should give some guidance as to whether there is any point in one sitting here for the rest of the morning.
Mr. Deputy SpeakerI thought that I had given a clear indication that any hon. Member who is successful in catching the eye of the Chair will be called and have a right to be called to speak on Second Reading. On this occasion, the Joint Parliamentary Secretary caught the eye of the Chair.
§ Mr. Roy Roebuck (Harrow, East)Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I, too, seek some guidance, although I would not seek to question the Chair, on the question of the practice in this and other debates on the Consolidated Fund Bill. I think that I would not be challenged if I said that the modern practice of putting up a list of subjects is not yet a convention but is a convenient device—I use the word in its proper sense—by the Chair to divide up the period of hours. It would therefore follow, surely, that the Chair would not necessarily be guided in its choice of speakers by whatever happened to be the subjects which happened to be on the board. I would be grateful if you could tell us whether this is so and that any hon. Member who seeks to catch the eye of the Chair to speak about any matter for which the Government have responsibility without advocating legislation can be called.
Mr. Deputy SpeakerThe hon. Gentleman's analysis is correct. Any hon. Member who rises in his place on Second Reading may be successful in catching the eye of the Chair and, therefore, if called, would have the right to speak on Second Reading. Other than that, the Chair is not in a position to give advice.
§ Mr. CarmichaelThe hon. Lady for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) wondered which Ministry was involved. As she went on with her speech I began to sympathise with her sentiment, because she ranged widely, although I agree with her that with the very idea of the Port of the Tyne, which is the heart of the area, would go the problems of the hinterland as well, along with all the industries that have been or are likely to be situated in the vicinity of the river itself.
2056 However, I interpreted the subject listed as being more concerned with the river and the responsibilities that fall to the Ministry of Transport rather than in the wider sense, although obviously we in the Ministry are well aware of the problems of the hinterland because a port does not exist unless there are goods to move in and out. Undoubtedly, a difficult line of demarcation is involved here, particularly in relation to the points raised by the hon. Lady. Perhaps she will forgive me, therefore, if, on occasion, I do not appear to give as precise answers as she would wish in relation to the total development of Tyneside.
The hon. Lady is a Tynesider and I am a Clydesider. Our areas have very much the same type of history and background and they face similar problems today. Many of these problems stem from the fact that we were among the first ports and among the first shipbuilding areas and that the ships then built were very different from modern ships. In some ways, this is sad for the upper reaches of the Tyne as it is for the Clyde, but nationally it is a good thing that there should be areas capable of handling the much larger ships of the future.
I know what a blow it was to the Tyne when the British Steel Corporation announced that it was proposing to have an ore depôt on the Tees. This announcement greatly affected the Clyde, too, because it was felt that the Clyde would have been a better choice, simply because of its ability to take ships of almost any size. But we have to accept the commercial judgment of the Corporation that the Tees is the most suitable area for the type of ship which the Corporation foresees as meeting its requirements. The decision about the oil fuel depôt was affected by the reduction of the number of depôts and the greater utilisation of large tankers, which is becoming an important feature of the oil industry.
The hon. Lady spoke of the regional ports survey and she and the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North (Mr. R. W. Elliott) spoke of the Economic Planning Council. We are all impatient with the necessity to collect facts and figures. It is an impatience which is not confined to this country. But with the scale of modern industry and modern investment, great care must be taken before 2057 a final and frequently irrevocable decision is taken. I would be chary about being too precipitate.
The hon. Lady said that she was a "Tyneside nationalist" and that while she was willing to congratulate the Tees, she felt that her job was to consider her own area. Unfortunately, the Government have to consider problems in a wider context. They have to consider the Tees, the Thames, the Severn, the Clyde and the Mersey, as well as the Tyne. But hon. Members from those areas are "nationalists" for their areas.
The problem on the Tyne, as with many other ports, is that existing facilities are old fashioned and under utilised. The Port of Tyne Authority came into being only in August, 1968, and it is working hard to deal with the many difficult problems of the harbour. Many buildings are out of date and worn out. Renovation would be extremely difficult and, in any case, there is not the available space on the narrow river frontage for truly modern development.
Another problem is the North Shields Fish Quay, where some of the existing structures are decaying fast and would need a great deal of money to put them right, and where the existing lay-out is far from ideal.
§ Dame Irene WardI hope that we have settled the problem of the fish quay my means of the Albert Edward Dock. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will tell the House that we are very fortunate to have been developing a new freezer type of trawler, with which we have had enormous successes. Three new trawlers have been built by John Purdy, a company which has almost created the revolution in the fishing industry, and which is now going to build three more trawlers. The fishing industry on the Tyne, in North Shields, is doing a wonderful job through private enterprise. I would like to know what the Government will do instead of criticising the private enterprise.
§ Mr. CarmichaelI was not criticising private industry. I was merely pointing out some of the historic and geographical difficulties. I am aware of the point which the hon. Lady makes, which in other circumstances might have been called a "commercial" for the fishing industry and the excellent new deep- 2058 freeze trawlers. If a major new terminal for large bulk carriers of iron ore is being developed on the Tees—and it is too early to say whether it is definite or not—the future of Tyne's iron ore traffic must be doubtful.
This is part of the historic trend which many ports are going through. One of the reasons for our White Paper on the ports, and why we will be introducing legislation—not in a doctrinaire way—is to give some authority the power and the money to say what is the best way to develop Britain's ports for the good of Britain. The Tyne may be the heart blood of its area, as the hon. Lady said, but it may be used for something quite different. If the iron ore trade and the coal trade, which has also been declining, were to disappear, the future of the Tyne could be very different, but this would not necessarily be a bad thing.
I do not want to give the impression that everything is black. The most encouraging feature is the very high morale of the new united management group in the port, which is making a steady and sensible attack on its many historic and geographical difficulties. It is doing its best to get rid of redundant and uneconomic facilities and to rationalise both its physical assets and its management structure. It proposes to produce extra land—this is where things are moving—at the upper end of Tyne Dock by filling in an area presently occupied by disused coal staiths. It has plans to fill in Jarrow Slake, a shallow inlet on the south side of the Tyne, with which the hon. Lady will be more familiar than I am, and which has already been partly reclaimed to make Tyne Dock and the nearby iron ore quay. This proposal would produce a site of about 200 acres for industry which could be served by ships up to 40,000 tons dead weight. The management obviously realises that there have to be changes and that we are moving towards a different era.
The Tyne Port Authority is in close and continuous consultation with the Ministry of Transport and the National Ports Council. The Council recently sent two of its senior officers to the Tyne for a full on-the-spot examination and discussion of problems and prospects. Within the last week we in the Ministry and the National Ports Council have talked to the Ministry of Agriculture, 2059 Fisheries and Food about the Fish Quay. Discussions between all concerned with the Tyne problems are continuing and we will do all we can as a Ministry to help the port authority by advice and, in suitable circumstances, by loans and grants under the Harbours Act.
I have tried to convey to the hon. Lady and to the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North that I have a great deal of sympathy with them, because of my own experience in Glasgow and on the Clyde, in this period of transition from one type of cargo and one type of work to another, from heavy industry to the more diversified industries of today. One of the problems affecting both this area and the Clyde has been their great reliance on heavy industry. There was a lack of adaptability and a lack of opportunity, because everything was dependent upon whether the yards or the steel works were employed. They employed such large numbers of people that, when they were not working, the entire area decayed. Although we are going through a difficult period, from what I have seen and from reports I have received from the Port of Tyne Authority, which, after all, has been in existence for less than a year, things are much more encouraging than the hon. Lady conveyed to the House at the beginning of her speech.
§ Mr. MoonmanOn a point of order. I seek your guidance and a ruling, Mr. Speaker. Would you indicate what the procedure is when an hon. Member wishing to speak has not been called and, therefore, is left in the position of being able to speak only after the Minister? I raised a similar point—not the exact point—with Mr. Deputy Speaker a short while ago. There is need for a ruling on this rather than the advice given by the Chair to individual Members privately.
Mr. SpeakerIf the hon. Gentleman was not here for the debate for which his name was down, he must wait until the end of the debate.
§ Mr. RoebuckFurther to that point of order. I think that you, Mr. Speaker, would be the first to recognise that this is a most important issue for hon. Members who seek to intervene in a debate on the Consolidated Fund Bill. As I understand it, there is no convention that the Chair will call at a particular time only an hon. Member whose name is on the list. Although it would clearly be improper to ask the Chair to state its reasons for calling an hon. Member, it would appear that if the occupant of the Chair, in deciding whether to call an hon. Member, is now to take into account whether that hon. Member's name is on a list, which is in no way a special list, this would appear to be making a convention out of what is purely a convenient device.
I submit that the usefulness of the device which has grown up is diminished somewhat when some hon. Member; whose names are on the list do not take part in the debate. Therefore, if its purpose is as a convenience to hon. Members so that they may know when to come in to be called, if hon. Members do not take part in the debate the usefulness of the device is thereby lost.
Thus, it may well be that, particularly in view of what has happened this morning, when a number of debates have collapsed prematurely, the Chair might want to consider whether this is a procedure which should continue today.
Mr. SpeakerI must advise the hon. Member that most hon. Members who have their names down for a debate—and the order of the debate is fixed by ballot—take good care that they are here in plenty of time ahead of the debate to make sure. I cannot go back on the order of the ballot because an hon. Member was not in his place when the subject was debated.
§ Mr. RoebuckFurther to that point of order. With the utmost respect, Mr. Speaker, I suggest that that is something of a moral judgment by the Chair—
Mr. SpeakerOrder. The Chair has no morals. The Chair makes no moral judgments. The Chair follows the practice of the House. We balloted an order of debates. If we complete the list of debates, the hon. Member will then be able to take part in a debate on the 2061 Consolidated Fund once the order of subjects is completed. It is an hon. Member's duty to watch the state of the debate during the night. I am sorry that the hon. Member missed it.
§ Mr. RoebuckFurther to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. While in no way seeking to elevate the Chair into the position of passing moral judgments as to whether hon. Members should be here, I respectfully ask whether you are now saying that it is the policy of the Chair not to call an hon. Member unless his name is on a list for a certain debate until the list has been exhausted, and that the Chair takes that into consideration in calling hon. Members.
Mr. SpeakerOrder. When a debate is in progress, every hon. Member who seeks to take part in it, whether his name is on the list or not, is called. Then, the debate completes itself. Once a debate on a topic is completed, we go to the next one. That is not a new position, and I think it has no fault.
§ Mr. MoonmanFurther to the point of order. Your reply, Mr. Speaker, suggests that I may have been misunderstood. Clearly, a Member who is not present cannot be called, but in my case I was here.
§ Mr. MoonmanNeither do I.