§ 3.35 p.m.
§ Mr. Hugh FraserOn a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I beg leave to seek your guidance.
Yesterday, as you will recall, when the House was discussing daylight mercy flights to Biafra one of the issues was the provision of a third party guarantee to the Biafran people that such flights should not be used for military purposes. At col. 822 and, more specifically, at col. 824 of the OFFICIAL REPORT, the Foreign Secretary assured the House that such a guarantee had been given by the United States Government. This was completely new information.
On inquiry this morning at the United States Embassy, I was informed that no such guarantee had been given nor, obviously, according to Biafran sources, had any such guarantee been received. Accordingly, I thought it only proper to ask the Foreign Secretary, through his Private Office, to correct the impression that he gave yesterday. According to his office, he refused to do so.
In these circumstances, I ask you, Mr. Speaker, what the House can do and what redress it has if it is misled on a vital issue by a senior Minister and that 1115 Minister refuses the opportunity of correcting a statement which is palpably untrue.
§ The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Michael Stewart)I am not sure whether you have ruled that this is a point of order, Mr. Speaker, but if it is of any help to the House I shall be glad to make a statement to clear up the matter.
Mr. SpeakerOn the general issue, I ruled a week ago that it was a bad practice for hon. Members to raise, under the guise of points of order, matters raised in previous debates. There are parliamentary ways of settling differences of opinion and criticisms of each other's speeches.
§ Mr. StewartSince the matter has been raised I should like to say that I have never been unwilling to inform the House of what the United States Government both said and did. What happened was that Colonel Ojukwu asked for third party assurances as to the good faith of the Nigerian Government in respect of daylight flights. The Government of the United States accordingly sought and received the solemn assurance of the Federal Government of Nigeria that it would ensure that no hostile military action would be taken. The United States showed its conviction of the validity of these assurances by arranging that Ambassador Ferguson went to West Africa to give the Biafrans the specific pledge of the Federal Government of Nigeria on this matter. This put the prestige and the faith of the United States behind the assurances which had been given.
Further, in consequence of this other Governments, after consultation with the United States, agreed to offer impartial observers to accompany Red Cross aircraft on their relief flights. The Secretary of State of the United States further said:
We believe that the proposed arrangements for daylight flights meet in a reasonable manner the legitimate security concerns of the Biafran authorities.In the light of all this I used the word "guarantee", which I think is worrying the right hon. Gentleman. If that word misled anyone I am sorry. It was certainly not intended to mislead nor, indeed, could it have done so, because, 1116 contrary to what the right hon. Gentleman has said, this was not new information.The statements made by the United States Secretary of State to which I have referred were made public knowledge last week and, presumably, were known to those hon. Members who follow these matters. If any of them had felt that I misleadingly had described them they could have raised the matter at the time and I would have sought by any correction of words that might be necessary to make quite clear what they did say.
Therefore, I must, with respect, reject the implication of what the right hon. Gentleman has said.
§ Mr. Hugh Fraserrose—
§ Mr. FraserWill you be so kind, Mr. Speaker, as to read out the statement by the Foreign Secretary in col. 824 in reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home)?
Mr. SpeakerOrder. As I said last week, this shows the unwisdom of raising as a point of order matters on which there is a difference of opinion in a previous debate. The right hon. Gentleman has made his point and the Minister has answered it. We cannot proceed to an irregular debate.