HC Deb 09 December 1975 vol 902 cc232-3
Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It is the custom of the House that, if a Minister wishes to make a long statement instead of an answer of normal length to a Question, he or she asks the permission of the House to reply to that Question after Question Time. Today, in answer to Question No. 5 asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, East (Mr. Aitken), the right hon. Lady the Secretary of State for Social Services read three pages of typescript—[An hon. Member: "Four."]—I stand corrected—and as a result, Mr. Speaker, you quite properly had drastically to restrict the number of supplementary questions you allowed afterwards. Even so, only 12 Questions were reached before 3.15 p.m., when the Prime Minister decided to answer his own Questions.

Is the House given any protection by you, Mr. Speaker, as opposed to the conscience of the right hon. Lady, who is not in the Chamber now, from this abuse of Question Time?

Mr. Mike Thomas

Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it in order that Opposition Members should explicitly ask in their Questions for statements and then complain when they get them?

Mr. Skinner

Whilst we are on the subject of long interventions and long statements, Mr. Speaker, could you prevail upon the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop), while you are beginning to think about answering his point of order, to try to explain what he means by Early-Day Motion No. 65?

Mr. Speaker

I shall deal with the hon. Gentleman's point of order first.

I admit that there are many times when I long for brevity from both the questioner and the Minister answering the Question. The days when a Minister just said in reply "No, Sir", "Yes, Sir" or "I shall consider the matter" seem to have gone. I agree with the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) that it would have been much better in this case if the Question had been answered at the end of Question Time. I very much dislike being driven on to the course which I had to adopt of allowing no supplementary questions except from the original questioner.