§ Mr. FarrOn a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wonder whether you can help me with a difficulty relating to today's Questions to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. On Tuesday, 24th February, I tabled a Question to him about a rating matter. I was prompted to do so in the normal way as a Member's logical action following an exchange of correspondence with Treasury Ministers which had an unsatisfactory outcome. In view of that correspondence and believing that a Minister should, if required, be prepared to explain his position and his statements at Question Time in the House, I was more than surprised to have a note informing me that the Chancellor had had my Question transferred to the Minister of Housing and Local Government.
My point is to ask whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer is accountable in this House for what he has written in correspondence with an hon. Member, and, if he is, how he can be stopped from sheltering behind the Minister of Housing and Local Government.
§ Mr. SpeakerThe hon. Gentleman made representations to me that he would raise this point in the House. In a nutshell, his case is that he raised a certain matter with the Treasury, had an amount of correspondence with the Treasury, and then found to his surprise that the Question that he put down at the end of his 206 correspondence was transferred from the Treasury to another Minister so that he lost his favourable place on the Order Paper.
This is a matter which the hon. Gentleman should take up with the Minister concerned. I have no power to comment on the transferring of Questions from Minister to Minister. All that I have said previously is that if a Question is transferred the Member whose Question is transferred should be notified as soon as possible. In this case, he was notified as soon as possible. The hon. Gentleman must take up the matter with the Minister concerned.
§ Mr. MaudlingFurther to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is there not an important point of principle here in the sense that the Parliamentary Question is the sanction upon which correspondence with Ministers rests? If the two are not bound together, there is a break in what is the normal chain of responsibility to this House. Quite apart from this instance, I think that there is an important point of principle which should be considered.
§ Mr. SpeakerThe right hon. Gentleman will realise that I replied sympathetically to the question raised by the hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr). The matter of transfer, however, is not one for the Chair. The Chair cannot do anything about it. But the hon. Gentleman's point was serious, and I took it seriously.