§ Mr. SpeakerYesterday, the hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis) raised as a suggested contempt of the House the alleged publication of details of the Compton Report before they had been made available to the House.
I have considered the matter and rule that it does not fall within the ambit of privilege, which includes contempt.
§ Mr. Arthur LewisI thank you, Mr. Speaker, for that not unexpected reply. Will you give consideration to the general principle that almost every day the Government issue statements to the Press before they are given to the House, and then come along to the House—
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. I have ruled on this matter. The hon. Member and I had an interchange of views on 25th October. I said then that it was not a matter for the Chair and that the Chair does not pronounce on the merits or otherwise of the issue raised. All I have to rule on is whether it is a matter of privilege or contempt. If the hon. Member objects to the practice and wishes to criticise the Minister, he must do this in some other way, not in a point of order to me.
§ Mr. Arthur LewisBut, Mr. Speaker, I am not on this particular case. I am asking whether you will see that something is done about this matter in future. After all, you have the duty of protecting back benchers' rights, and it must be remembered that back benchers have very limited time in debates. If the custom 429 is to be that the Government come along and take up time by making statements at the expense of back benchers' time when those statements have already been made to the Press, I am suggesting that if you give such a right to Ministers you are, perhaps unconsciously, depriving back-bench Members of their time.
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. If I allow the hon. Member to pursue his point of order, or alleged point of order, in that way I shall be doing exactly what he says I should not do.