§ Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow)On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I should like to raise a matter of which I have given you notice, which I believe affects all of us. For the first time in memory, the question Order Book was not available until late morning. I make no complaint about the printers or about the system of shuffling. The problem arose because about 2,000 questions had been tabled, 700 of which were the open question to the Prime Minister. Some of us do not believe in the open question system, believing that, among other things, it destroys Cabinet government, because it means that Downing street has to get involved in every Department. Be that as it may, it is hardly sensible to go through the ritual of shuffling so many questions. Surely there are more efficient ways of proceeding, thus making it possible for the printers to do their job.
§ Mr. Robert Hayward (Kingswood)Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. I believe that I was the only hon. Member who went to watch the shuffle operation yesterday. The Clerks at the Table Office worked enormously hard for hours on end to deal with the sheer quantity of questions. Their difficulty was that yesterday they were dealing with five days' questions to a whole range of Government Departments. Surely, in future, that difficulty will not arise. To my observation, the system appeared to be most fair and quick.
§ Mr. SpeakerDo all the points of order relate to the same matter?
§ Mr. SpeakerIn that case, I shall take them.
§ Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)One of the ways in which we could resolve this matter is to apply the same principle that is adopted for private Bills. In some circumstances, it is possible to carry private Bills over from one Session to the next. That suggests a way of getting round the problem of questions, which, while it could not he used before general elections, could be used for all other parliamentary Sessions. We could allow hon. Members to continue to table questions up to the end of a parliamentary Session—usually only a few days before the Queen's Speech. If carry-over motions can be applied to private Bills, surely we can apply them to questions to the various Departments and then we should not have five or six days' worth of questions tabled at once.
§ Mr. Joseph Ashton (Bassetlaw)Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. Obviously the televising of the House will affect our procedures. Today, for example, we have no fewer than 15 pages of questions to the Chancellor of the Exchequer alone. The difficulty is caused largely by the habit that has grown up over the past two or three years, whereby Parliamentary Private Secretaries, Whips and other pressure groups hand in batches of as many as 10 or 15 questions on behalf of other hon. Members. Could we not adopt a simple system such as that used for ten-minute Bills, under which hon. Members have to hand in questions personally? That would drastically reduce the number of questions on the Order Paper.
§ Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North)Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. As you know, on average, only about six or eight questions to the Prime Minister are dealt with on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Yet, as my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) pointed out, hundreds of questions are tabled. When I checked with the Table Office not long ago, I found that on one day nearly 400 questions to the Prime Minister had been submitted, of which no more than six or eight would have been accepted. As in the past three or four years, the Whips on both sides of the House have made that the practice in organising the way in which oral questions are tabled, should we not ask the Select Committee on Procedure to consider the whole matter again and should we not instruct the Table Office that hon. Members must go to that office in person to table a question? Otherwise, it becomes a farce and it is extremely unfair on those of us who take the trouble of going the few yards to the Table Office to submit questions.
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. A great many right hon. and hon. Members want to participate in the debate on the Loyal Address today. I do not think that we should have a debate on this matter.
§ Mr. James Hill (Southampton, Test)On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
§ Mr. SpeakerIt is wholly relevant to this matter?
§ Mr. SpeakerThe hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. Hill) wants to speak.
§ Mr. SpeakerIs it a point of order on the same matter?
§ Mr. HillYes, Sir. I heard this morning that the Clerk of Private Bills in the House of Lords is about to submit to the House a validation motion on the Bills that were lost in the last three days of the—
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. This is not on the same matter.
§ Mr. Barry Field (Isle of Wight)On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
§ Mr. SpeakerIs it a point of order on the same matter?
§ Mr. SpeakerRight.
§ Mr. FieldThank you, Mr. Speaker.
When there is an open question to the Prime Minister, there is the nonsense of the long printed list, and then one receives a reply from Downing street even when one does not want one. That must mean that an enormous number of trees are cut down just to satisfy the ritual of Parliament. That cannot be environmentally friendly.
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder: no more. I will deal with one thing at a time. Apropos this point of order, I know that well over 2,000 were questions submitted and the Blue Paper was delayed for that reason. It would perhaps be a wise suggestion, as the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) said, for the Procedure Committee to examine the matter to see whether we can reach a better solution than we have at the moment.
§ Mr. HillThis morning I was in the Office of the Clerk of Private Bills in the House of Lords and I was given the information that a validation motion would be put forward in the House of Lords today—
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. This House has no knowledge of what is being put forward in the House of Lords. The point must be relevant to hon. Members in this House. The hon. Gentleman is a very experienced Member. I cannot deal with what happens in the other place. That is not a matter for me.
§ Mr. HillThat was the background of what was happening this morning. I understand that a validation motion is being presented to this House some time in the not too distant future. Would it be—
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. Let us leave it at that. That is hypothetical at the moment.
§ Mr. William RossOn a different point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am sure that, like the rest of us, you take a look at the newspapers every morning. I noticed this morning that one of the principal newspapers in this country had a photograph of the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) relaxing in his place reading a newspaper. That photograph was evidently taken from the Gallery of this House. Is that in order? I seek your guidance.
§ Mr. SpeakerI do not know whether that relates to yesterday. If it did, I believe that still photographs were taken from the Gallery. However, the House will be aware that we do not read newspapers here; we listen to debates.
§ Mr. SpeakerNo.
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. I am on my feet. The hon. Gentleman must resume his place.