HC Deb 26 February 1970 vol 796 cc1396-9
Mr. Bruce-Gardyne

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It will be within your recollection that during Questions to the Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity this afternoon, we got only as far as No. 29. No. 30 is a Question of some interest to people in Scotland and would have been reached but for the fact that the right hon. Lady produced two successive answers to supplementary questions each of which must have very nearly filled a column of HANSARD.

Is there any possibility of protection from the Chair for back-bench hon. Members against the increasing habit of Ministers, including the Prime Minister, to give us inordinately long supplementary answers?

Mr. Speaker

The Chair is concerned all the time that both questions and answers are long from time to time. Every day, an hon. Member who has taken the trouble to put down a Question three weeks ahead finds himself unable orally to ask the Question to which he has given some attention because not only answers but also questions are sometimes long.

Mr. Wellbeloved

Further to that point of order. In respect of Questions to the Prime Minister, cannot we be protected from the tactics of the Leader of the Opposition who today asked three supplementary questions of my right hon. Friend? Why is it that one hon. Member should have the privilege of three supplementaries when many hon. Members find that their Questions to the Prime Minister are not even reached, because of this hogging by the Leader of the Opposition?

In addition, Mr. Speaker, when a right hon. Member on the Front Bench opposite rises to put a supplementary question and his Leader intervenes because he has no confidence in his own Front Bench spokesman, why is it necessary to deny that spokesman an opportunity to put his supplementary question, as happened in the case of the defence spokesman on the benches opposite?

Mr. Speaker

I have no comment to make on the last part of the point of order.

On the first part of it, I have said from the beginning that I allow certain privileges to the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Government party, both as to latitude and longitude of questions and answers.

Mr. Howie

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. To be fair to the Leader of the Opposition, as it is several weeks since he last asked a question of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, should not he be allowed two or three supplementary questions at a time, to bring up his average?

Mr. Speaker

That is not a real point of order.

Mr. Biggs-Davison

Further to that point of order. Would not the Prime Minister's Questions go much better if we did not have election speeches without an election?

Mr. Speaker

That is a purely bogus point of order.

Mr. Fernyhough

On the original point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is there any hardship in an hon. Member not being able to put a supplementary question when the information for which he is asking is already in the Library?

Mr. Speaker

I cannot apply what the hon. Gentleman has said to the specific Question. I have understood his point, but I cannot apply it to a Question.

Mr. Fernyhough

On a point of order——

Mr. Speaker

Order. Perhaps I can help the hon. Gentleman. He will be aware that, when an hon. Member puts down a Question, sometimes it is purely for information, but sometimes it is also because he wants to put a supplementary question.

Mr. Fernyhough

On a point of order. There are occasions when the Table rules that the information is already available. If the information is there, I cannot see that there is any hardship. In circumstances such as this, if an hon. Member cannot put down a Question because one has already been answered along the same lines, it appears to me that it would be equally out of order for an hon. Member to put down a Question when the information for which it asks is already available.

Mr. Blaker

Further to that point of order. I am not clear whether the lion. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough) is referring to Question No. Q1, which was in my name, but the information given in answer to it was not previously available and none of the three supplementary questions asked by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition was answered, in any case.

Mr. Speaker

I doubt whether the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough) was referring to the hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Blaker). On the broad issue, hon. Members put down Questions to seek information. It is sometimes possible that the information is already available. It would be impossible for the Table to vet every Question from this point of view. Although it is easy for the Table to vet them from——

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne rose——

Mr. Speaker

Order. When the Chair is dealing with a point of order, it is discourteous to interrupt the Chair.

The Table vets Questions from the point of view that a Minister has answered a specific Question some time before.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne

On a point of order. In view of what has been said, perhaps it ought to be made clear that not only was the information for which I was asking not available, but, in previous years, similar information has been available by this time. It is a matter of some urgency to know why it is not yet available this year.

Mr. Speaker

I said that I could not apply the point of order to any specific Question.