§ The Chairman of Ways and MeansWith your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I should like to make a brief personal statement.
In the course of the speech of the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary during the debate on Supply yesterday, interventions of mine from the Chair—at c. 574 and later at c. 580 of HANSARD—could be construed as partisan. I wish to assure the House that no such intention was in my mind. I regret that in the stress of the moment my Rulings were expressed in words which caused offence. I wish to apologise on this account to the Leader of the Opposition and to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey).