§ Mr. Michael English (Nottingham, West) rose—
Mr. SpeakerThe hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) felt that we should take points of order earlier, and at his request I did so. I would, therefore, be surprised if he still had the urge to raise a point of order.
§ Mr. English indicated dissent.
§ Mr. EnglishI am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, I only wanted to ask whether you would supplement the splendid answer given by the Prime Minister earlier in reply to a question about Canada. I am sorry that in accordance with your ruling she has not seen fit to stay to hear my slightly unusual remark. As you will recollect, Mr. Speaker, she said that if, in accordance with precedent, the Canadian Parliament—this is where the matter is a point of order, as it relates to Parliament, and has nothing to do with Government—made a request to this Parliament, the matter would be dealt with as expeditiously as possible. I am sure that all hon. Members would agree with that. The problem is that the precedents are not available to us in the Library. They are far better set out in Canadian words than in British words. In fact, they were set out by M. Guy Favreau, the Minister of Justice of the Canadian Liberal Government of 1965, after consulting all 10 Attorneys-General of every province of Canada. They were set out in a White Paper that was produced on behalf of the Canadian Liberal Government at the time. Perhaps you will arrange for as many copies of that as possible to be available to us in the Library.
Mr. SpeakerI do not know about the latter, but I shall look into it. It would be unwise of me to add anything to the statement made by the Prime Minister. Obviously I am watching this matter as closely as anyone else, because it could well come before me at a later stage for a ruling.