§ Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours (Workington)On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I want to raise the subject of the interaction of the courts and Parliament because yesterday a judge stated in court that proceedings in Parliament should not be reported in newspapers.
In the case of the Attorney-General v.The Guardian and The Observer, Mr. Charles Gray, acting for The Guardian and The Observer, asked whether journalists could report what had been said in Parliament on 21 July 1986 about the Wright case. Mr. Peter Alexander, acting for the Crown, expressed the view that it would be wrong if they were allowed to do that because it would defeat the purpose of the exercise being carried out before the court. The judge, regretfully, agreed with him and added that they should not report statements previously made. He did so in the knowledge that there was no question of statements being contemporaneously reported because those matters are dealt with by our rules of sub judice.
I submit that the judge has in effect ruled that proceedings in the House about a current case or about proceedings that took place one and a half years ago cannot be reported. Mr. Speaker, I ask you to make a ruling overturning the judge's judgment.
§ Mr. SpeakerI am not responsible for statements made by judges. If the hon. Gentleman will write to me on the matter, I will consider whether it touches on the privileges of Parliament.
§ Mr. Campbell-SavoursMr. Speaker, further to that point of order—
§ Mr. SpeakerNo. I have dealt with it. The hon. Member has made his case. There cannot be anything further, as I have said what I will do.
§ Mr. Campbell-SavoursMr. Speaker, could I ask you—
§ Mr. SpeakerNo, the hon. Member cannot. It is intolerable. The hon. Member raises one point of order, I give him the answer, and then he raises another one. I will not hear him.
§ Mr. Harry Barnes (Derbyshire, North-East)On Tuesday I tabled a question to the Secretary of State for Defence about the future of arms control and the intermediate nuclear agreement. I have now received a letter from the MOD telling me that my question is to be transferred to the Foreign Office. I drew third place in the shuffle, which meant that my question would be dealt with in the House. It has now been shuffled away to be placed upon the Foreign Office list in the hope that it will disappear. Should not the question be answered by the Minister of Defence as there is no way in which a question asked of the Secretary of State for Defence can be answered by the Foreign Secretary?
§ Mr. Harry Cohen (Leyton)Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I want to support my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes), who came third in the selection for defence questions on 8 December. Labour Members took the top 11 of the top 15 places for defence questions and Defence Ministers, who are afraid of the barrage that will be raised, are therefore trying to deflect hon. Members like my hon. Friend who 395 came third in the selection by shuffling his question off to the Foreign Office. Defence Ministers are cheating on the procedures of the House—[Interruption.]
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. Over many years Ministers have transferred to other Departments questions that are not their direct responsibility. There is nothing different or wrong in that.
§ Mr. Bruce Grocott (The Wrekin)Further to that point of order raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours), may we be assured that there will be a public ruling on the issue from you, Mr. Speaker, when the decision is made?
§ Mr. SpeakerIf the matter touches on the privileges of Parliament, I need time to consider it in the usual way.
§ Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)Further to the point of order about transferring parliamentary questions, would it not be better for everyone if the practice did not occur so often? Members of Parliament may go to the Table Office, which is under your jurisdiction, Mr. Speaker, and be given a guarantee that a question is all right. I am not casting aspersions against the people in the lower Table Office, but it looks to me, on the basis of this incident and many others that have occurred recently, that Ministers may not be content with a question and transfer it. That means that someone who has been fortunate in the ballot is shuffled to the bottom of the pack on another occasion.
I can suggest a solution to this problem. If Ministers are playing fast and loose at transferring questions from one Minister to another, why do we not consider a system which allows someone who has been transferred from number three on defence questions and shoved on to the Foreign Office to be number three at the Foreign Office?
§ Mr. SpeakerThat is an interesting suggestion. I must tell hon. Members that at Question Time every hon. Member in the House gets an equal chance. I look carefully at the questions to see whether those with questions lower down the Order Paper can have them linked with those higher up.
§ Mr. Frank Cook (Stockton, North)On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. I will take another point of order, but this is an Opposition Day. About 40 hon. Members wish to take part in the debate. There will be very few speeches if we carry on like this.
§ Mr. CookI have a point of order on a different aspect of the problem about the transferring of questions from one Department to another. You will recall, Mr. Speaker, that after the Chernobyl incident, my questions on the 396 issue were quite numerous. At that time questions were shunted around five different Departments. That was understandable at the time because the Government were in confusion as they had been caught on one leg. As custodian of the proceedings of the House, is it not for you, Mr. Speaker, to rule that it would be unfitting for a Minister to come to the Chamber, as happened yesterday evening, and claim that confidence was abounding at that time when clearly that could not have been the case?
§ Mr. SpeakerWe cannot return to the debate that we had last night.