§ Mr. John Home Robertson (East Lothian)Further to the point of order raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Washington (Mr. Boyes), Mr. Speaker. The railway crash at Morpeth involved my constituent, as I said yesterday. We have established that a departmental inquiry is not covered by the sub judice rule. However, in 1012 view of the evident indiscretion on the part of the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, who prejudged the issue by saying that he thought the accident was caused by excessive speed, and subsequently said that he was ordering a departmental inquiry, which, in the view of any fair-minded person, must be seen as contradictory, will you consider extending the sub judice rule—I appreciate that it might take time to consider that point—to cover departmental inquiries and other quasi-judicial inquiries of that nature?
§ Mr. Jack Straw (Blackburn)Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have given you notice of this point of order. It follows the ones raised by my hon. Friends.
Yesterday you read out the resolution of the House relating to the sub judice rule. Clearly, it relates only to courts and courts martial, not to departmental inquiries. As you know, that resolution of 1962 was based on the recommendations of the first report from the Select Committee on Procedure, House of Commons document No. 156. In that report the Committee considered whether the sub judice rule should apply to departmental or administrative inquiries, and in paragraph 17 it stated:
There remain the numerous statutory bodies, many of diem empowered to take evidence on oath, to which the rule might be applied.I think that this inquiry is empowered to take evidence on oath.The report continued:
Your Committee think that the application of the rule to all these bodies as a matter of course would be too restrictive of the rights of Parliament. In their view, in respect of all these bodies each case must be considered on its merits, and they see no alternative to leaving the decision to the discretion of the Chair.Yesterday, Mr. Speaker, when this matter was raised, you said that it was not a matter for you. I quite understand that you cannot be expected to have to hand the contents of every report of the Select Committee on Procedure, but it seems that although the House came to a clear decision in its resolution in 1962, it did so in the light of the report. The report allowed a discretion to reside in the Chair on whether the sub judice rule should apply in relation to administrative inquiries in particular cases.I would ask you to rule, first, that this is a matter within your discretion and, secondly, that on the merits of the remarks made by the Under-Secretary for Transport on Monday, in which he plainly breached the most commonsense of sub judice rules, it should be ruled by you that his remarks were out of order.
§ Mr. SpeakerI have read the report, but I am bound by the resolutions of the House. I have also read the report of the debate on the matter, during which the whole subject of the sub judice rule was discussed. But I am wholly bound by the resolution which the House came to after that debate. If the House wishes to change the rules, I shall be bound by any new decision which the House takes.