Points of Order (Hansard, 18 March 1987)

§ Mr. Robin Corbett (Birmingham, Erdington)
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I ask you to make clear what responsibility you have for decisions taken by the Table Office in relation to written questions? What is the position when there is a dispute between an hon. Member and an Officer of the Table Office?

§ Mr. Speaker
The hon. Member concerned should, if he wishes, ask for the matter to be brought to my attention. If the hon. Gentleman has a specific case in mind, perhaps he will let me know about it.

§ Mr. George Foulkes (Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley)
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I seek your advice. As you may know, some hon. Members have been trying for nearly three weeks to get an oral statement from the Foreign Secretary on reports of the British connection in the supply of arms and mercenaries to the Contra terrorists in central America. I have now had a letter from the Prime Minister refusing such a statement. She also arranged for a question to be put down and answered it, thereby blocking any parliamentary questions about her private meetings with Major David Walker of KMF, one of the people who have been named—

§ Mr. Speaker
I cannot see how this can possibly be a matter for me. It seems to be a matter between the hon. Gentleman and the Prime Minister. It is not a matter of order.

§ Mr. Foulkes
I am seeking your advice, Mr. Speaker, on the method by which we can get the Foreign Secretary to go to the Dispatch Box to answer questions on a matter that has become an absolute scandal.

§ Mr. Richard Ottaway (Nottingham, North)
Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker.

§ Mr. Speaker
It is not really a point of order. I shall in fairness take it, but it has not been a point of order so far.

§ Mr. Ottaway
Is not the real reason why we have not had a debate on central America the fact that the hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Litherland) did not turn up to ask question No. 9 in Foreign Office questions?

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. That may be so, but it is not for me to advise the hon. Member on parliamentary tactics. Question Time is a method of getting at such matters.

§ Mr. Alan Williams (Swansea, West)
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I apologise for raising the matter before an important debate, but it would have been less appreciated if I had tried to raise it before yesterday's Budget Statement. It clearly is a matter of responsibility for you, as you implied in your reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Leeds, South (Mr. Rees). It is essential that, before Prime Minister's Question Time tomorrow, we clarify a matter that arose from Prime Minister's Question Time yesterday. I believe that, as the Prime Minister twice misled the House on the issue of sub judice, yesterday—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. The right hon. Gentleman must not allege that any hon. Member misled the House. Will he please withdraw that remark?

Hon. Members
Withdraw.

§ Mr. Williams
Yes, I shall do it in my own way. No doubt, as the Prime Minister inadvertently—

§ Mr. Speaker
No. I shall he grateful if the right hon. Gentleman would please withdraw that allegation.

§ Mr. Williams
I said "inadvertently" because it was inadvertent. Nevertheless, at the time, Mr. Speaker, you had to overrule the position that she took in relation to the House and for which she did not apologise. Yesterday, no doubt equally inadvertently, she again misled the House in a reply to my right hon. Friend—

§ Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)
Twice?

§ Mr. Williams
Yes, twice, in reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Leeds, South. You will recollect, Mr. Speaker, that he said that the then Prime Minister's statement on 8 December 1977 applied to allegations against the security services that were different from those that were under discussion at Question Time yesterday. At column 812 of Hansard, which I believe you have with you, Sir, my right hon. Friend said Fresh allegations should be looked at. He was referring to the new information that had been pinpointed by the judge in the Australian courts, to the effect that now we have a confession that there was a seditious attempt to undermine the—

§ Mr. Speaker
What is the point of order for me? The right hon. Gentleman must come to it straight away. What he is alleging is patently not a matter for me. I cannot be held responsible for anything that the Prime Minister may say or for what anybody else may say.

§ Mr. Williams
The last thing that I would try to do on an occasion as important as this would be to stand up on a non-existent point of order. I trust that you will see that it is a point of order, if you will allow me to develop it. My right hon. Friend said yesterday that we are in a new situation because there has now been a confession—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. I am very sorry, but this is surely a continuation of yesterday's Question Time. What the right hon. Gentleman is saying cannot possibly be related to my responsibility for dealing with points of order. The right hon. Gentleman must relate what he is saying to a point of order, and then I shall consider whether I have any responsibility; but I cannot believe that I have.

§ Mr. Williams
I am not trying to repeat points unnecessarily, but my right hon. Friend made the point that now we have a confession to an act of sedition—a confession that did not exist before. In reply to that, the Prime Minister—also at column 812—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. It is unfair of the right hon. Gentleman, who is on the Opposition Front Bench, to seek to involve me in an argument that took place yesterday on an issue that is not a matter for me. I cannot be held responsible for answers, or for the motives behind answers.

§ Mr. Williams
I should not be raising it, Mr. Speaker, if it were not a matter for you. In column 812 of yesterday's Hansard, in reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Leeds, South (Mr. Rees) the Prime Minister said: The right hon. Gentleman is certainly referring to matters for which I am not, and cannot be, responsible. She later said— you will appreciate the significance of this, in terms of blocking questions—that 935 I can take no responsibility whatsoever for matters that happened before my time."—[Official Report, 17 March 1987; Vol. 112, c. 812.] If that position is allowed to stand in relation to the point that was raised by my right hon. Friend, it means that the Table Office will be unable to accept further questions relating to this matter. That is one of your direct responsibilities, Sir, as you have just ruled. It also means that the Prime Minister is precluding herself from taking the very important action that she alone can take, which is to refer this matter to the Security Commission.

§ Mr. Speaker
I should certainly like to clear up that matter. I am not responsible for any questions that may be asked in the House or for anything that is said here, provided that it is in order. What the Prime Minister said was perfectly in order, otherwise she would have been stopped, like any other hon. Member. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett) alleged something without being specific about it, and I said that I would look into it if he drew it to my attention. However, if the Prime Minister gave a blocking answer that is not a matter for me.

§ Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours (Workington)
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

§ Mr. Speaker
Is it a genuine point of order?

§ Mr. Campbell-Savours
I am sure, Mr. Speaker, that if I try you will rule. My point of order relates to the tabling of questions and specifically to the reply that you gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams). You know that I have been endeavouring to table questions about the alleged Cunard incident in 1975 and the implication of those allegations for the democratic government of this country. The Table Office has resisted those questions—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. I understand that the hon. Gentleman is discussing this matter with the Table Office. He should not seek to bring it before me. I think that it would be wrong of the hon. Gentleman to raise openly in the Chamber any discussions that he is having with the Table Office. That is against all our conventions.

§ Mr. Campbell-Savours
I am not having discussions with the Table Office. Those discussions were completed last evening when my questions were refused. The Table Office resisted the questions on the basis that the Government are not responsible for matters that took place—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman must stick to the conventions. If he is dissatisfied with the advice that has been given to him by the Table Office, he should ask that the matter be referred to me. If he does that, I will gladly look into it.

§ Mr. Campbell-Savours
But, Mr. Speaker—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order.

§ Mr. Campbell-Savours
rose—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman must do as I have asked him to do.

§ Mr. Campbell-Savours
But, Mr. Speaker—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. I must ask the hon. Gentleman to resume his seat.

§ Mr. Campbell-Savours
rose—

§ Mr. Speaker
The hon. Gentleman must please do what I have asked him to do. I am not prepared to have private discussions with the Table Office raised in the Chamber in this way. It is against all our conventions, as the hon. Gentleman knows. He must do as I suggest. I shall not listen further to his point of order.

§ Mr. Skinner
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. If you look at the records and consider the development of blocking questions, I think it is fair to say that initially they began on the basis of Ministers not wanting to answer questions for which they had no departmental responsibilities or were trivial. For example, the Prime Minister would give blocking answers to questions about ministerial broadcasts because she did not want to answer. That is how the practice developed.
I come now to a more substantial matter that applies particularly to the office that you hold, Mr. Speaker. It makes sense to have blocking answers from Ministers to prevent the tabling of questions that some would think are of a trivial nature. If the same question is put down three months hence and the Table Office accepts it, under your guidance, that is okay. But in a number of instances, of which this is one, the practice has grown up, especially under this Prime Minister, of using the blocking mechanism to stop very unsavoury matters from being raised on the Floor of the House.
I want to ask you, Mr. Speaker, a very important question in the run-up to the next election— [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Oh, yes. Will you hold an investigation into the blocking mechanism system, with particular reference to what has been happening in recent months and years so that we can have a full report about the way in which that system is being used for purely party political reasons? The job of the Opposition in any Parliament is to test the Government. That can be read in any textbook. However, we are now being prevented from pursuing a very important political matter that relates to security, and it is important that the nation should know about it. The blocking mechanism system is being used by the Prime Minister, and in my view that is contempt.

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman has made his point. He should raise it with the Select Committee on Procedure and ask it to look into the matter.

§ Mr. Campbell-Savours
On another point of order, Mr. Speaker.

§ Mr. Speaker
No.

§ Mr. Campbell-Savours
It is a completely different point of order.

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. I am not prepared to hear it.

§ Mr. Campbell-Savours
It is unrelated to my previous point of order.

§ Mr. Speaker
I repeat that I am not prepared to hear it.

§ Mr. Campbell-Savours
It is unrelated.

§ Mr. Speaker
I am not prepared to hear it. Mr. Campbell-Savours: It is unrelated.

§ Mr. Speaker
I am sorry, but I am not prepared to hear it.