§ Mr. John Ryman (Blyth Valley)On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wish to raise an important point of order which, in my respectful submission, discloses a serious error in procedure. The undisputed facts upon which this submission is based will be found in the Official Reportfor 22 October, in Question No. 24, column 430. That related to a question that was answered on behalf of the Church Commissioners on Monday of this week, when the hon. Member for Wokingham (Sir W. van Straubenzee), who was giving the reply, made a gratuitously offensive and inaccurate comment about the Bishop of Durham, who has supported the coal miners during the present coal dispute.
The hon. Member for Wokingham had five minutes left of his question time. He was allocated 10 minutes from 3.10 pm to 3.20 pm. I rose to my feet to ask him a supplementary question and although you, Mr. Speaker, knew perfectly well that the hon. Gentleman had five minutes left in which to answer questions, you then prevented any further questions being asked of that hon. Gentleman, and switched straight away to other questions answered by another Minister.
In my respectful submission, when Question Time runs out of questions and the hon. Member for Wokingham had been allocated a total of 10 minutes but only used five minutes and so had five minutes still to go, it is extremely unfair that legitimate questions should be stifled by a procedure such as you adopted when this occurred.
With great respect, Mr. Speaker, I would respectfully ask you to give guidance to hon. Members who may find themselves in a similar position to that in which I found myself two days ago, when there was ample time left for supplementary questions to be asked and you, then, by 706 peremptory order prevented further questions and switched to another Minister whose time had not yet arrived. In my respectful submission, the comment of the hon. Member for Wokingham was gratuitously offensive and was the subject matter of a legitimate further question.
§ Mr. SpeakerFirst of all, I think that the hon. Gentleman should have raised this matter on Monday—
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. In fairness, the hon. Gentleman gave me notice that he wished to do so and when the time arose he was not present in the Chamber.
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. I am on my feet.
§ Mr. SpeakerI think that the hon. Member is slightly in error. We moved on to questions to the Church Commissioners at 3.10 pm. There were 10 minutes for that.
§ Mr. SpeakerFive minutes for that. They began at 3.10 pm, and if the hon. Gentleman looks at his Order Paper he will see that at 3.15 pm we moved on to questions to the Public Accounts Commission. I must say to the hon. Gentleman that I regret that I did not see him getting to his feet.
The hon. Gentleman asks for guidance for the future. May I suggest to him and, indeed, to all hon. Members, that it would be most helpful to the Chair if those who wish to ask subsequent supplementary questions could get to their feet at once rather than at the very last minute.