§ Mr. Christopher Price (Lewisham, West)On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I realise that some of my colleagues wish to raise points of order, but I shall begin with mine. Following your ruling—
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. The hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price) gave me notice that he wished to raise a point of order. If hon. Members realised how many of their colleagues were desperately anxious to speak in the main debate, they would understand why I am trying to help that process.
§ Mr. PriceI am surrounded by a host of witnesses.
Following your ruling on 24 November, Mr. Speaker, I wish to raise a point of order about the relationship between our sub judice rule, the contempt Bill announced in the Queen's Speech and the proceedings brought by the Home Office which resulted in Mr. Justice Park's recent judgment against which the National Council for Civil Liberties today appealed. I gave you notice of my intention to raise this point of order some days ago.
I realise that since no date for the appeal has yet been set down the matter is not yet once again sub judice. However, since a date will be set down shortly, and since there is a real danger that the contempt proceedings in court will outrun the legislative proceedings in Parliament, I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to rule on whether you will use the discretion vested in you by the House to suspend when necessary the sub judice rule in relation to this issue.
The matter is crucial. It involves openness in both legislation and justice. The Government bear the responsibility of bringing this case before the courts when they knew that simultaneously they would be legislating on the issue. In preparation for the legislation, questions must be asked of the Home Secretary and the Attorney-General which might, if you do not use your discretion, Mr. Speaker, be caught by the sub judice rule. Moreover, the Attorney-General has already told the House that he did not authorise the Home Office proceedings, although in an advice to the Committee of Privileges in 1978—in House of Commons Paper 667 — in the wake of the Colonel B affair, Mr. Harry Woolf, now Mr. Justice Woolf, when canvassing the uncertainty of what is and what is not contempt in such cases" said:
There will of course be the safeguard that the Attorney-General will not himself bring proceedings or allege contempt unless he is satisfied that the circumstances justify it.The difficulty is that we are often told that collective responsibility exists among Ministers and yet we have evidence here that patently it does not. The equivalent of a gagging writ seems likely to prevent us from finding: out why. It has always been a limitation on our sub judice rule that you, Mr. Speaker, have a discretion, laid down in 434 resolutions of the House in 1963 and 1972 and which goes beyond that, that it should not inhibit us from legislating at any time.
The process of legislation necessarily involves proper preparatory scrutiny of the Ministers involved. The House should be able to find out the policy of the Government when bringing contempt proceedings and their attitude to open justice and open government. We cannot do that if we are hampered by the sub judice rule on this single issue. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to make a ruling today, or on some future day, about your willingness to use your discretion on this issue.
§ Mr. SpeakerI am much obliged to the hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price) for his courtesy in giving me several days' notice that he proposed to raise this point of order. As he said, no date of which I am aware has been set for the hearing of the appeal.
The hon. Gentleman also rightly pointed out that the resolution of 23 July 1963 reserves the right of the House to legislate on any matter. However, my predecessors and I have always interpreted this as meaning that the sub judice rule does not apply during the course of an actual debate on legislation. The simple fact that legislation bearing on a case may be before the House does not mean that the rule ceases to operate altogether. In any context other than the debates on the legislation, its operation is subject to my discretion.
In effect, the hon. Gentleman is asking that I should use my discretion in this instance to give my unqualified permission for this particular case to be referred to in any context. I do not think that I would be justified in doing that. I stress, however, that the fact that this case may have a bearing on legislation which it is sought to bring before the House does not prevent hon. Members from making reference to the desirability of such legislation, provided that the merits of this particular case, when it is before the courts, are not commented upon in detail.
§ Mr. SpeakerI have given a considered ruling to the hon. Gentleman. Perhaps he would like time to consider it after reading it in Hansard.
§ Mr. PriceThank you for your ruling, Mr. Speaker. I shall respond to the invitation, if it be an invitation, to come back if there seems to be further issues.
§ Mr. SpeakerI hope that the hon. Gentleman does not feel that I am pressing him to come back.