Points of Order (Hansard, 9 May 1988)

§ Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North-West)
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Will you clear up some confusion that arose during business questions last Thursday? At columns 1021 and 1024 points of order were raised by the hon. Members for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells) and for North Down (Mr. Kilfedder), and you allowed them to be heard. At the end of business questions, and after an application under Standing Order No. 20, at column 1031 I suggested that you had adopted a practice different from the one previously followed in your rulings on when points of order can be made during Question Time. I was supported in that by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, North (Mr. Cook).
In reply, Mr. Speaker, you said: I dealt with those points of order because they appeared to require my immediate intervention. If the hon. Gentleman had risen at that time, he would certainly have been heard in the same way. There is no change at all. In our debates, the points of order raised are dealt with immediately."—[Official Report, 5 May 1988; Vol. 132, C. 1031–32.] I accept that that is true for debates, but that was not the case at Question Time, and had not been the case until that point.
I refer you, Mr. Speaker—I have supplied your office with the references in the Official Report—to an incident that took place in the House on 19 November 1986. At column 548, the Secretary of State for the Environment implied that I had stolen some articles of silver that had belonged to the Greater London council. I shall not go into the issue again, but I say simply that I had taken them into protective custody. When I tried to rise on a point of order, you said: Order. We shall deal with this later. My hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) also tried to raise a point of order, and at column 549 you said: Order. No, I cannot take points of order in the middle of questions. I shall take them at the end of Question Time."—[Official Report, 19 November 1986; Vol. 105, c. 549]. It is clear that what happened last Thursday was a variation on a rule that we have come to accept. Indeed, it has been accepted by the House because it makes for good order. It is pointless people making points of order during Question Time when they should make them at the end of Question Time.
Will you consider, Mr. Speaker, making a statement on the matter so that we are all absolutely clear? If you reaffirm the rule that points of order arising from statements made or incidents during Question Time should not be made until after Question Time, will you consider doing what you did for me on the previous occasion, which was to get the Official Report to insert the point of order that was made after Question Time at the point where it was originally raised? The matter is slightly confusing, but if you made a ruling, it would assist us all.

§ Mr. Speaker
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his courtesy in giving me some knowledge of what he was going to say—

§ Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North)
He is a gentleman.

§ Mr. Speaker
He is, indeed.
25 I adhere to what I said last Thursday. I shall hear points of order during questions only if they concern matters that require my immediate intervention, such as the use of a grossly disorderly expression. I do not propose—I think that the hon. Gentleman will understand this—to reopen today what occurred on 19 November 1986. I have looked again at the interventions and points of order during business questions last Thursday, and I agree that they should have been taken, not when they were, but immediately before the business of the day.