COMPLAINT OF PRIVILEGE (Hansard, 10 March 1969)

§ Mr. Speaker
I have a Ruling to make on a privilege issue, as many hon. Members will remember.
Before I rule on the issue raised on Friday last by the hon. Lady the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Renée Short), I should inform the House that I have had an apology from the hon. Lady for her unfortunate absence today owing to illness. I am sure that the House would wish to sympathise with the hon. Lady in this predicament. I have, however, promised to rule upon her submission today, and I must now do so in the light of the precedents available to me.
The House will remember that the hon. Lady founded a complaint of breach of privilege on a newspaper report which concerned her work as Chairman of Sub-Committee B of the Estimates Committee. After taking advice and studying former decisions of the House on similar matters, I have to rule that a prima facie case of breach of privilege has been established.
Perhaps I should remind the House of two things. First, Mr. Speaker does not himself decide the matter. His rôle is limited to announcing whether a prima facie case has been made out which would give the matter priority over the Orders of the Day. Secondly, I should remind the House that it now becomes necessary for a Motion to be moved so that the matter can be dealt with.

§ The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Fred Peart)
Mr. Speaker, in view of your Ruling it falls to me, as Leader of the House, in accordance with past practice, to move, That the matter of the complaint be referred to the Committee of Privileges. It would, I think, be in the interests of the House as a whole if we were to decide that no further debate should take place at this stage.

§ Mr. Heath
I support the Leader of the House in the Motion that he has moved.

§ Mr. Michael Foot
I do not know whether I speak for anybody else when I say this, but I do not think it proper that we should proceed to deal 989 with matters of privilege in the manner that we have done before. A Committee has examined the whole question of privilege, and has, in particular, examined the kind of question which might arise, or might be affected by this case, namely, comments outside the House on the conduct of Members of Parliament.
That Committee sat a long time ago. It reported to the House, and one of its main findings was that there should be a substantial alteration in the way in which privilege is maintained and sustained. That proposal was made on the basis that there should be accepted by the House much wider terms of freedom of discussion throughout the country of affairs which previously had been governed by privilege.
I think that even if we pass this Motion on this occasion we should take the opportunity of making it clear to the Leader of the House that we believe that it is high time the Government introduced proposals and legislation on the basis of the recommendation made by the Committee of Privileges. It may be that the Government have some amendments or alterations to propose. They proposed certain Motions at the beginning of this Session to deal with some of the matters covered in the Committee's Report, but some of us who sat on that Committee did not believe that those Motions covered the main matters. We did not believe that they were satisfactory in any sense.
We want the Government to make proposals to Parliament. This is a matter for the House as a whole to decide. It 990 is not a matter for the Government to deal with merely through official proposals. We hope that the Government will speed up their examination of this matter, and that within a short time they will come before the House with proposals for dealing with the main matters dealt with in the Committee's Report.
I do not propose, unless there is a strong feeling in the House, to vote against the Motion, but the Government should understand that all proposals for references of questions to the Committee of Privileges will be opposed henceforth until the Government deal with the whole question so that we may have clarified the relationship between this House and the Press.

§ Mr. Peart
I accept what my hon Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) has said. I put down Motions on this matter, but withdrew them for further consultations. I should like, on a suitable occasion, to have the Report debated and the House to come to a decision on it. I am aware of my hon. Friend's views. I sympathise with them, and I shall do what I can.