§ Mr. Dave Nellist (Coventry, South-East)I hope that the Secretary of State for Transport, the real architect of the miners' strike, will stay and listen to this application.
In the light of the announcement made by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition regarding next Monday's debate, I seek leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 10 for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
the Government's prolongation of the miners' strike.That the matter is specific and important can be in no doubt. The provocation and prolongation of the dispute by the Government make it the longest and bitterest national dispute this century. It has arisen as a direct consequence of the Government's generalised attack on working people and their organisations and was predicted in the House in maiden speeches in the summer of 1983.Throughout the dispute the Government have refused to justify their actions here in the House of Commons. Despite the fact that the matter has been debated daily in the media, in clubs, in pubs and on the estates, the one place held up as the epitome of democracy, the national debating chamber, in which no debate has taken place is here in the House of Commons.
The matter is urgent because today and every day that the Government refuse to withdraw their attack on over 100,000 jobs in and around the mining communities at least £20 million is wasted and 140,000 miners and their families suffer another day of the privation and starvation policies of the Government. By the end of this week, that daily total will have reached £100 million—sufficient to build in Coventry a large new general hospital and half a dozen new comprehensive schools, with enough small change left over for 1,000 new council houses. Eleven months of this dispute have destroyed those much needed facilities for 50 cities the size of Coventry.
The dispute should have urgent consideration so that the House can examine the role of certain individuals, such as Mr. David Hart, the adviser to the Prime Minister, who, in The Times on Saturday, said that the time for a negotiated settlement is past and that the Government should score a victory over Mr. Scargill. Some hon. Members may wish to raise also the role of Lord Chapple whose personal advice to the then Secretary of State for Energy, now the Chancellor of the Exchequer, clinched the appointment of Mr. Ian MacGregor to the National Coal Board.
If the Government do not concede and withdraw the hit-list of pit closures, then on Monday 11 February the Yorkshire and south-east regions of the Trades Union Congress will call for a one-day stoppage. If the House does not debate this issue, if the Government do not withdraw that pit closure list, the stoppage on Monday 11 February will receive wider support from the trade union movement, leading to more generalised strike action.
If the House is the national debating chamber, that you, Mr. Speaker, have so often said it is, in the light of the announcement by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition about the subject for debate next Monday, a Supply day, I ask that today's or tomorrow's business be suspended and that a debate on the miners' dispute be granted.
§ Mr. SpeakerThe hon. Gentleman asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he thinks should have urgent consideration, namely,
the Government's prolongation of the miners' strike".I have listened with care to what the hon. Gentleman has said, but I regret that I do not consider that the matter that he has raised is appropriate for discussion under Standing Order No. 10. I cannot, therefore, submit his application to the House, at least at a time when these talks are in progress.
§ Mr. Tony Benn (Chesterfield)On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Relating to your ruling that you will not accept an application under Standing Order No. 10 while the talks are proceeding, I put it to you, Mr. Speaker, that that is a political, not a constitutional, point. As a matter of fact, I understand that the discussions that have taken place this morning are now over.
The point that I put to you, Mr. Speaker, is that Parliament is here to consider whether something is urgent, not whether a discussion in Parliament would assist one side or the other. I put it to you that if the view put forward is that if it is too early, it is hypothetical, if it is immediate, it is delicate, and if it is over, it is not urgent because it is too late, the judgment that you have given is that Parliament can never play a part in discussions.
There is nothing whatever in Erskine May, nor is there any precedent of any of your forebears, to say that Mr. Speaker takes into account what is happening outside Parliament in respect of its outturn, but only whether it is specific, urgent and should be a matter covered by Standing Orders.
Because the Government will not have a debate—and my right hon. Friends have now tried, with an unprecedented refusal in my knowledge of an application under Standing Order No. 10 from the Front Bench—everything points to your interpreting the rules of the House free from any interests, which of course you do not have, Mr. Speaker, in the outturn of the talks.
In those circumstances, Mr. Speaker, I beg you to consider very carefully whether it is right that you should be driven, by the dilemma in which you find yourself, into giving a political judgment about whether a debate would be "helpful" or "unhelpful" to negotiations in which the whole country is interested.
Therefore, on that point alone, Mr. Speaker I ask you to consider the ruling that you have given and the precedents for it, and to tell the House more clearly the basis on which you reach a judgment and whether it is now to be something unconnected with the House but more directly related to discussions or negotiations going on outside Parliament.
§ Mr. Douglas Hogg (Grantham)Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Would you advise the House, and in particular myself? Am I right in thinking that if the Opposition Front Bench wants to discuss this matter it can use an Opposition Supply day—the earliest is Monday next—to do just that?
§ Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)You will recall, Mr. Speaker, that when we had a discussion on this subject several days ago and I suggested that we should strip away the cold language and get down to the basics, you gave the 174 clear impression that, if the matter were pressed by the Opposition Front Bench, there would be half a chance. Yesterday, an application was made by the Front Bench. It had, somewhat belatedly, joined the Campaign group and others who felt that it was necessary to have a debate. That application was turned down. Now you have turned down an application under Standing Order No. 10 because of talks. You have also held out the prospect that there are opportunities, as suggested by the hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg), for the Opposition to use one of their Supply days in order to have a debate, and you have to take that into consideration because it is a possibility.
You will also have heard today, Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition state in clear and unmistakable terms that, because of the Government's failure to deal with the economy properly and with the 14 per cent. interest rates and the fact that we have an iron lady with a plastic pound running the country, he would table a censure motion against the Government. It has crossed my mind, and it has probably crossed yours, Mr. Speaker, that that might well take place on Monday when the Opposition have a Supply day. Personally I should like the debate to take place sooner.
The important thing to remember, which I hope you will bear in mind, Mr. Speaker, is that there are conflicting issues for Supply days, and the issue of the economy is very important. Therefore, it is necessary for Mr. Speaker to use the opportunity that he has under Standing Order No. 10 to grant a debate which is absolutely necessary because of those other conflicting issues which have arisen.
§ Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North)Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have been reading and listening carefully to all the rulings that you have given on the applications made under Standing Order No. 10. So far 24 applications have been made in respect of the miners' dispute, and you have been minded to grant only one of them during that period.
In view of your remarks last week and yesterday, Mr. Speaker, that you considered this an urgent and important matter and that you would consider it further as time went on and more applications were made, I wonder what plans you may now have in respect of any further applications that may be made under Standing Order No. 10.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) has pointed out, the debate next Monday is likely to be not on the coal dispute but on a different aspect of the country's economic problems. I believe—and I trust you will agree, Mr. Speaker—that the expenditure of £5.2 billion of public money by the Government on the mining dispute, without a vote in the House, and the use of Department of Health and Social Security regulations and the police and, perhaps more importantly, seriously and recently, the categorical refusal by the Secretary of State for Energy yesterday to answer questions about voltage reductions and the security of future power supplies in the country, mean that the House, of all places, must discuss the miners' dispute. This is not because we wish to demonstrate to the House once again our support for the miners, but so that Ministers can answer the serious points about which everybody outside the House is asking questions and talking. I do not believe that the House can go on blindfolding itself to the seriousness of the situation outside Parliament.
§ Mr. SpeakerI intended to go no further than what I said last week and yesterday—namely, that I think that we should debate this important matter when it is helpful to the situation. That is what I have said previously.
The House and the right hon. and hon. Gentlemen who have made applications under Standing Order No. 10 in the past have drawn attention to the importance of seeking a settlement to this extended and damaging strike. I hope that that is still the situation in the House. If that is interpreted as a political judgment, I am sorry; it was not so intended. It is simply that I thought that the House took the view that there is an appropriate moment to discuss this matter when it would be helpful to the resolution of the dispute. That is the position.
§ Mr. SkinnerFurther to the point of order, Mr. Speaker.
§ Mr. SpeakerI do not think that a further point of order can arise from what I have just said.
§ Mr. SkinnerI wish to raise a separate matter, Mr. Speaker.
In taking the line that you have adopted over the past two or three days, you have mentioned, quite properly, that you would want a debate when it would be most helpful to the resolution of the dispute. I do not suggest for a moment, Mr. Speaker, that this line can create difficulties for you in future, but when the nation has been faced with conflicts in the past, industrial or otherwise, we have debated them, irrespective of whether our debates would resolve the issues. There is no better example than the fact that, during the Falklands war, we had several debates on that subject, and it cannot be denied that the debates took place before the conflict had ended.
§ Mr. SpeakerI have nothing to add to what I have said already.
§ Mr. Robert Maclennan (Caithness and Sutherland)On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It has become clear, in the course of exchanges about Standing Order No. 10 applications, that you have decided to depart from the formula which you have used on many occasions previously when you have decided to refuse a Standing Order No. 10 application, which is to refuse to give your reasons, as you have said you are instructed to do by the rules of the House.
I believe that the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) was correct when he said that by giving your ruling today you were taking a political decision by seeking to judge the helpfulness or otherwise of the debate. That matter has not normally fallen within your rulings or those of your predecessors. If such judgments have been made by you, Mr. Speaker, you have normally kept them to yourself. As there have been many other opportunities when the Labour Opposition could have raised the issue of the miners' dispute from the Opposition Front Bench, would it not be better, Mr. Speaker, to revert to your established rule not to give your reasons for refusal?
§ Mr. SpeakerThat is very wise.