§ Mr. SheldonOn a point of order. I understand that the fact that today only two Questions to the Prime Minister were taken is matched by precedent. However, what is quite new today is the fact that each supplementary question put from this side as an oral question was matched by a supplementary question from the other side which was not part of the Question which had been asked. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, if this is a new precedent which you are introducing.
§ Mr. SpeakerThe hon. Gentleman is not quite correct. I called the hon. Member for—[HON. MEMBERS: "Islington."] No, I did not call the hon. Member for Islington. I first called the hon. Gentleman who asked the first Question and then the hon. Gentleman who asked the second Question—the hon. Member for Heywood and Royton (Mr. Barnett). This is a matter on which I am very much in the hands of the House. If three hon. Members from one side of the House have tabled Questions, does Mr. Speaker then call three hon. Gentlemen to ask supplementaries from the other side afterwards? This is a matter for the judgment of the Chair. If it is considered preferable that I call first the three hon. Gentlemen who have tabled the Questions and then call three hon. Gentlemen from the other side of the House, it may well be. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for putting his point of order, but this really is a matter for me.
§ Mr. William HamiltonOn a point of order. Mr. Speaker, I think this is a new practice which you have probably unwittingly brought to the House. It was the custom, and has been for as long as I have been in the House, that everyone who had a Question which was being answered with the original had the opportunity first to put a supplementary and then Mr. Speaker decided on his own initiative whether he would give other hon. Members the opportunity to ask 1461 supplementaries. I hope the House will agree that that is a preferable practice. If hon. Members want to ask questions they should table them. I hope, Mr. Speaker, that you will look back at the practice of Mr. Speaker King and his predecessors and follow their practice, which was to call first all hon. Members who had tabled a Question.
§ Mr. SpeakerI am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his help. I was encouraged to embark upon perhaps new procedures. I absolutely agree that if an hon. Gentleman has tabled a Question I will certainly call him to ask a supplementary. The exact order in which I call hon. Members admits of a little experiment.
§ Mr. AshtonOn a point of order. Mr. Speaker, did you notice that today Questions to the Prime Minister did not start until 16½ minutes past three o'clock and that at 29 minutes past three you called my name for Question No. 4 and then stopped it and it got lost in the hubbub?
§ Mr. SpeakerIt did not get lost in the hubbub. It got lost because the Leader of the Opposition rose to ask a further supplementary question.
§ Mr. DalyellOn a point of order. In view of the interest shown in several parts of the House yesterday in the issue of General Baker's statement, and in view of the related question of the approach to the British Government on Laos, have you, Mr. Speaker, received any request from the Government's business managers for time for a statement on the constitutional issues that arise out of this question?
§ Mr. SpeakerI do not think that that is a point of order at all.
§ Sir Harmar NichollsMr. Speaker, as in giving your Ruling you seemed to be feeling the pulse of the House on what indeed had been the convention and what would be preferred, I would confirm that the procedure you adopted was in accordance with convention and that, as long as the hon. Members who have tabled the Questions on the Order Paper eventually are called to ask their supplementaries, the order of calling for supplementaries has not been important. In terms of giving a view, I would think that it 1462 was right to try to call hon. Members alternatively from both sides of the House so that both sides are properly represented.
§ Mr. SpeakerI am grateful to the hon. Baronet for his assistance. I am not sure that I would be very wise to take either the pulse of the House or its temperature at present.
§ Mr. Harold WilsonFurther to that point of order. As most of us in the House are less concerned about the calling of questions than with the fact that we do not seem to get any answers under this Administration, and as you, Mr. Speaker, have been perhaps forced into giving a number of impromptu Rulings, would it be right to suggest, in view of the important business still ahead of us today, that you further consider at your leisure what has been said with a view to your deciding whether you really are proposing a new precedent in this matter?
In particular, Mr. Speaker, would you consider one Ruling—or at any rate Obiter dictum—which seems to me to be different from what has happened in the past, in that you said that every hon. Gentleman who has a Question on the Order Paper is entitled to a supplementary? Is it not a fact, certainly from what little experience I have had in answering Questions, that the only supplementaries called are those to Questions which the Prime Minister or another Minister groups with the original Question? If everyone who has a Question on the Order Paper is entitled to an answer, as both the Prime Minister and I know, there can be a habit of hon. Members adding their names to those Questions long afterwards, and indeed right up to the day before Questions are answered, and this might lead to 11 or 12 supplementaries on the first Question.
§ Mr. SpeakerI am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his suggestion and I will certainly consider what has happened. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for reminding me of the practice of adding— "tacking" I believe it is called.
§ Mr. RankinFurther to that point of order.
§ Mr. RankinThis is a special case. Mr. Speaker, you may not have observed that today we had a very small group of people with questions in a peculiar place—the near misses—and that I was one of them. If one or two people could have contained themselves for a number of seconds I would have been called. Does not that at least permit me to establish a claim to a preferential position on Thursday? As I cannot get down to the Table, would the Table note that and put me in the proper place for Thursday?
§ Mr. SpeakerThe answer to the hon. Gentleman's question is, "No".