PRIME MINISTER (ENGAGEMENTS) (Hansard, 4 July 1978)

§ Q4. Mrs. Bain
asked the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 4th July.

§ The Prime Minister
I refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave earlier today to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley).

§ Mrs. Bain
I am sure that the significance of today's debate has not escaped the attention of the Prime Minister. Will he reflect on the number of former dependencies that have been granted independence by the House and take this opportunity of joining the Scottish National Party in condemning the antics of the official Opposition in their attempt to destroy the Scotland Bill and his own anti-devolutionist Back Benchers who are hiding behind the skirts of Members of the House of Lords?

§ The Prime Minister
I hope that when the Bill comes back we shall have the support of the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mrs. Bain) and her colleagues in getting it through. I understand that we shall. But if the hon. Member had had her way with the votes that she cast with the Opposition there would have been no chance of getting the Bill on to the statute book.

§ Mr. Dalyell
Which Lords amendments does the Prime Minister wish to be removed from the Scotland Bill?

§ The Prime Minister
That will be made clear in due course.

§ Mr. Raison
Does the Prime Minister think that it will be satisfactory to have on the statute book a Bill which provides that Scottish Members may vote about education, housing and health in England but that neither English nor Scottish Members may vote about such matters as they affect Scotland?

§ The Prime Minister
These issues have been debated many times in the House. The House has reached a conclusion.

§ Mr. James Lamond
Has my right hon. Friend had any news today or recently from the United Nations, in particular with reference to whether it is to accept any of the excellent suggestions that my right hon. Friend made in his fine speech to the Special Session on Disarmament on 2nd June?

§ The Prime Minister
I am much obliged to my hon. Friend for his comments. The British contribution throughout the whole of this session has been extremely valuable and a number of proposals have been taken up. In particular, for example, one has resulted in France returning to the general disarmament discussions in a way in which it has not for some time, and there are other issues on which believe we shall find considerable progress. Perhaps the most important is general acceptance of the proposition that no nuclear attack should take place in areas and countries which do not themselves possess nuclear weapons and which are not joined with others in an attack on countries which do.

§ Mr. Crouch
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Did you notice that today no fewer than 35 Members wanted to know what the Prime Minister was doing today? Do you not think that the time has come when this circus act should be changed and when the Prime Minister should not be asked to go through this ridiculous hoop? Should we not be able to ask the Prime Minister Questions directly without this preamble?

§ Mr. Skinner
rose—

§ Mr. Speaker
Is the hon. Gentleman rising on the same point of order?

§ Mr. Skinner
No, Mr. Speaker.

§ Mr. Speaker
Then may I deal with this point of order first?

§ Mr. Skinner
I was simply drawing your attention to the fact, Mr. Speaker, that yesterday you said that normally you took points of order after statements.

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. This point of order arises out of Questions.
May I tell the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) that it is up to the 234 House to decide on this matter. The present custom has developed to a very different scale in this Parliament. I have no control over the Questions on the Order Paper.

§ Mr. Ashley
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I want to know whether you can protect the rights of Back Benchers. In response to my supplementary question on Question No. Ql, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, in a display of arrogance, refused to answer the question. He brushed it aside. It is understandable that apart from the most enthusiastic party points, the Prime Minister may not wish to deal with critical points from the Government side, especially if they relate to the problems of low-paid workers. May I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that there is no point in Back Benchers putting down Questions if the Prime Minister is to act in this arrogant and ill-considered manner? May I therefore ask what you can do to intervene? If the Prime Minister is to be so patronising, we object.

§ Mr. Speaker
Will the hon. Member be kind enough to put a point of order with which I can deal? A protest is not a point of order, but if the hon. Member will make his point of order I shall try to deal with it.

§ Mr. Ashley
I was hoping to make a protest and a point of order, Mr. Speaker. My point of order concerns how you can protect the rights of hon. Members when they put questions. The second part of my point of order is that there is a growing tendency among Ministers who group Questions and thereby evade and avoid them. Although you are not responsible for ministerial answers, Mr. Speaker, are you aware that this practice is interfering with the rights of Back Benchers to receive information from Ministers? I therefore seek your guidance.

§ Mr. Heffer
Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker, I should like to take up precisely the same point. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said that he felt that it was wrong to reply to a question about top salaries or low pay in terms of income policy in the course of a supplementary answer during Question Time. I do not disagree with that, but since the Government are issuing a reply to a Written Question and are not 235 making a statement in the House on this matter, how, other than by questioning Ministers, are Back Benchers to get the opportunity to raise the matter? We try to question Ministers on the matter, but we are told that it is not possible for it to be dealt with in that way. This is a question for the House, not just for Ministers.

§ Mr. Speaker
I must tell the hon Member, first, that I do not know whether the Government are answering Questions tabled for Written Answer. That is not within my knowledge. Secondly, the content of a Minister's reply is not my concern. Since I have been here, and I am sure long before that, there have been Members who have been dissatisfied with both the tone and content of replies that they have received

§ Mr. Skinner
Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the remarks by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heifer) I want you to consider a little further the problem of Back Benchers on matters of this kind when controversial issues are at stake but when there is no apparent variance between the views of the two Front Benches The Tory Opposition, it seems, agree with the general line taken by the Government in their statement last night, and they therefore do not attempt to ask suppementary questions on the matter. That means that Back Benchers—at least those who want to participate in the argument—are disfranchised in the sense that they are not permitted to raise the matter. That situation arises because the two Front Benches have agreed not to raise the matter, as witness the fact that the Leader of the Opposition did not choose to raise the matter. That has meant that we on the Back Benches have been denied the opportunity to deal with the issue.

§ Mr. Speaker
I am deeply conscious that a major part of my responsibility is to guard the rights of Back Benchers, but the hon. Member is aware that hon. Members may table their Questions on the Order Paper. No one is stopping them from doing that.
I call Mr. Judd—statement.

§ Mr. Adley
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

§ Mr. Speaker
I shall take this point of order, but I hope that that will be an end to the business.

§ Mr. Adley
The Prime Minister told us that he was meeting Chancellor Kreisky, but none of us was able to catch your eye to pursue the matter through supplementary questions. Does that not indicate that a solution to the problem might be to have two sessions of 15 minutes? In the first the House could deal with anything that anyone wished to raise. In the second we could ask questions relating to the Prime Minister's business.

§ Mr. Speaker
I am sure that if there was an allocation of an hour that would not be long enough in which to call everyone who wanted to be called. One of my weaknesses is that I cannot read the thoughts of hon. Members who want to ask supplementary questions.