§ Mr. StanbrookOn a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It relates to Standing Order No. 66 which provides that 10 days' notice must be given of any motion to refer a Bill to a Second Reading Committee.
Such a motion appeared on Friday's Order Paper. It was sneaked in by the Government—one could describe it as a bit of sharp practice. Two weeks ago sufficient hon. Members were prepared to oppose the reference to the Second Reading Committee of the Bill in question to cause the Government to withdraw their motion on that day. Ten days' notice means notice to hon. Members. I submit that it is not sufficient that the notice should be given to the Public Bill Office and that it should thereafter not appear in any of the Order Papers before the House.
That particular notice was given on 15th March and there have been no properly printed Order Papers since then. The Order Papers we have had have constituted that part which does not include notices of motions to refer a Bill to a Second Reading Committee. In practice, therefore, proper notice has not been communicated to hon. Members in the form of the Order Paper on the morning in question. If we continue in this way the spirit of that Standing Order will be transgressed. That issue will surely have to be reconsidered if the wording but not the spirit of the Standing Order is applied. May I therefore ask that this matter be considered urgently?
§ Mr. SpeakerI am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman for having given me notice this morning that he would raise this point of order because it gave me the chance to consider the matter and give him a considered reply.
Under the terms of Standing Order No. 66, not less than 10 days' notice is required of a motion to refer a Bill to a Second Reading Committee, as the hon. Gentleman stated. In this case notice of such a motion was given on 15th March, as the hon. Gentleman said, and on 3rd April it was grouped among the effective Orders of the Day. Although it was not in fact moved on that day, it has continued on every subsequent day to be shown among the remaining Orders, so the continuity has not been broken.
With regard to the appearance of the motion among last Friday's effective Orders, Standing Order No. 15 gives the Government the right to arrange their business in such order as they think fit. It was therefore entirely within the Government's competence to give instructions, during the course of Thursday, that this motion should be included among the effective Orders on the following day. Indeed, had Friday's Orders been printed in the normal way instead of being duplicated, the content of the effective Orders would have not been made known to the hon. Member any earlier than it was in fact made known.