§ The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:
§ 38. Mr. CarterTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he is satisfied with the current progress of house building; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. William HamiltonOn a point of order, Mr. Speaker. This is not the first 433 occasion on which this Minister has sought to exercise dictatorial methods in trampling on the normal democratic procedures of this House. It is quite clear that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Carter) was unavoidably absent and was unable to ask Question No. 38. I do not know which Standing Order allows the Minister, without the House's permission, to make a statement in answer to a Question which an hon. Member has been unable to ask orally through absence. If this procedure is to be allowed, it can be the forerunner of considerable abuses of the recognised procedures of the House.
§ Mr. SpeakerI must give my frank opinion on the point of order. This is a Question which was not withdrawn and which would have received a Written Answer. The Minister sought to answer it during the course of Questions, and he was not entitled to do so. If he seeks to answer it at the end of Questions, I have no means of stopping it, however undesirable it may be.
§ Mr. William HamiltonFurther to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it not the case that the Minister must seek permission of this House? If that is not the case, then a very important precedent is being created. Any Minister can choose to table a stooge Question for oral answer, the Member concerned can be absent and the Minister responsible for the Department, as in this case, can get up at the end of Questions and, disregarding the views of the House, proceed to give a stooge answer to a stooge Question.
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. I have some sympathy with the hon. Member's point of order, but this is one of the cases where the House by long custom uses the odd phrase "with permission" when no permission is needed. This is a matter which could go to the Select Committee on Questions.
§ Mr. William HamiltonMeanwhile the matter is sub judice and the Minister ought not to be allowed to proceed.
§ Mr. Harold WilsonFurther to the point of order. With respect, Mr. Speaker, both you and your predecessors have allowed the use of the phrase "with per- 434 mission" in relation to the grouping of Questions. I do not recall a previous ruling in the matter of answering Questions which have not been put during the Question hour. If the phrase "with permission" does not mean with your permission, Mr. Speaker, you have made it clear that you have no power to intervene. Therefore, this can only be done with the permission of the House—and, clearly, the right hon. Gentleman has not got that permission.
§ Mr. SpeakerWith respect, I do not know that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition is right. This is one of the matters, so I am advised, which are governed by regular practice. This is one of the customs of the House which need to be examined.
§ Mr. Arthur LewisI should like to raise a further point of order. You will know, Mr. Speaker, that it is the usual custom of the House, and has been for many years, that if a Minister wishes to answer a Question at the end of Question Time by permission of the Chair, he in variably asks Mr. Speaker's permission before the occasion arises. The hon. Member concerned is given notice to that effect so that he is able to be in his place to put a supplementary question, if he so wishes. If such a Question is answered now, hon. Members on both sides of the House will no doubt wish to put supplementary questions. If the Question had been answered in written form, the hon. Member concerned might well have wished to follow it by tabling a further Question. However, that hon. Member may be precluded by the Table Office, and rightly so, if the further Question that he sought to ask had been answered in reply to supplementary questions which had been put during Question Time by other hon. Members. In this way that hon. Member may well have been precluded from exercising his normal rights to leave his Question on the Order Paper for written reply and to take any subsequent action that he thinks necessary. The hon. Member concerned—namely, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Carter)—is now expecting to receive a written reply—
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. The House sometimes generates a great deal of unnecessary heat. I have indicated what I feel on this matter. I think that what the right hon. Gentleman is seeking to do is undesirable, and I very much hope he will not continue to do so. His answer will be distributed as a Written Answer but I cannot stop him now.
§ Mr. AmeryI should like first to repudiate any suggestion by the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton)—[Hon. Members: "What is the point of order?"]—that this was in any sense a stooge Question. He should not make such allegations about his hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Carter). I do not wish to detain the House because we have very important matters before us this afternoon. Therefore I am content that the very good February housing building figures which I have announced today should go forward in a Written Answer—[Interruption.] I am only surprised that the Opposition should take such a view—
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. That is quite enough. Mr. Harold Wilson, Business Question.