§ Mr. KaufmanOn a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I should like to draw your attention to the failure by the Government to provide certain information to hon. Members which has hitherto been made available to them by the Department of Employment. It has been the practice of a number of regional employment officers to make available to hon. Members a little in advance of the national unemployment figures their own regional unemployment figures. Some of the regions have made these available to hon. Members on the basis of confidentiality, which has been preserved;
§ others have laid no condition of confidentiality upon them.
§ When today I telephoned the North-Western Regional Department of Employment Office to ask whether it could, as it has done for many months, give me as usual the unemployment figures for the Manchester travel-to-work area, I was told in the most courteous terms that it has been debarred by the Department from supplying such information—
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. The hon. Gentleman must forgive my interrupting him, but the matter he has raised cannot conceivably be considered in the terms of a point of order. He has however got quite a long way, and perhaps he has made his point.