§ Order for Second Reading read.
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerObjection taken. However, as the Bill has not been printed, again I cannot put the Question.
§ Second Reading deferred till Friday 2 February.
§ Mr. CryerOn a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You said that the Bill has not been printed, but may I assure you that the full copy of the Bill has been handed 1242 in for reprinting and that I am only awaiting it? Therefore, it is not a question of the Bill having been deliberately withheld.
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerI am advised that the Bill has not yet been printed, so I cannot put the Question under the Standing Orders.
§ Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I should like to draw your attention to what I consider to be a misdemeanour. I refer to an action by the Government Deputy Chief Whip when the hon. Member for Honiton (Sir P. Emery) was moving the Licensing (Low Alcohol Drinks) Bill. The Deputy Chief Whip told the hon. Gentleman to keep talking.
If the hon. Gentleman had sat down, as he wished to do, two or three more Bills could have been moved in the time before half-past two. Only the intervention of the Deputy Chief Whip prevented that. Let's face it, the Government Deputy Chief Whip is not supposed to play a part in private Members' Bills on this day, but he encouraged the hon. Gentleman to keep speaking. We could have had the subsidence Bill through, and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer), which seeks to control commercial lobbying in the House of Commons. The Government Deputy Chief Whip has caused this trouble and he should be brought to account. This is a Private Members' day.
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerPrivate conversations between hon. Members are not matters on which I rule.