§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. I shall take the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bell) first.
§ Mr. Stuart Bell (Middlesbrough)On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I seek your protection as a Back-Bench Member of this House. It is clear that, at Question Time, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. Watson) and the hon. Member for York (Mr. Gregory) were deprived of the opportunity of putting a question because the Minister of State sought to hijack the proceedings. He did so in response to a question that was put to him by quoting figures on Labour party policy that had been provided to him by Conservative central office.
I seek your protection because, if called, we should have been able to put our questions at Question Time and contribute to the debate. I hope that you will request Ministers to reply to the questions on the Order Paper.
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. It is really impossible to expect the Chair to monitor the answers given to questions. That is a matter for the Ministers concerned.
I must say that today I do not think that the length of answers to questions was the problem. I think the problem was that so many questions were linked. [HON. MEMBERS:"Hear, hear."] Those questions fell high on the Order Paper. Had they fallen a little lower down, it is just possible that we could have taken them at the end of Question Time.
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. I will hear the points of order, but I must remind the House that today we have a very important Report stage which is time-limited. The first guillotine falls at 7 o'clock. Points of order are bound to take time out of the speeches of those hon. Members who wish to participate in the debate.
§ Mr. Derek Conway (Shrewsbury and Atcham)On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
§ Mr. SpeakerWell, I will take it.
§ Mr. ConwayCan I ask Mr. Speaker, that, when you leave the Chamber today, you should study column 19 of the Official Report for 16 June 1983, and consider the words in that column said by you—that you,
in your name and on your behalf, made claim by humble petition to Her Majesty to all your ancient and undoubted rights and privileges"—[Official Report, 16 June 1983: Vol. 44, c.19.]Would you reflect upon that speech and consider whether the sovereignty of this House has been given away during this afternoon's proceedings and yesterday's ruling?
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. The hon. Gentleman should do further homework and reflect upon the Single European Act, which was passed by this House. [Interruption.] Order. The difficult decision that I have had to take today is whether the submission by the hon. Member for 926 Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) under Standing Order No. 20 met the criteria of the Standing Order. I rejected it on that basis, but I went on to say that it was indeed a very important matter for the whole House of Commons and that I hoped that there would be opportunities to address it.
§ Mr. Martin Redmond (Don Valley)On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I feel sure that you and the House will join me in expressing sympathy to the families affected by the tragic British Rail accident south of Doncaster. In view of the Secretary of State's statement to the papers, has he told you that he intends to make a statement to the House on safety at level crossings?
§ Mr. SpeakerI have not had such a request. I am sure that the whole House shares the concern of the hon. Gentleman about his constituents.
§ Mr. Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills)On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. This ruling of the European Court sets aside our constitution as we have understood it for several hundred years. Two principles are of fundamental importance: one is the supremacy of Parliament, which represents the supremacy of the British people. For the first time in our national history, a ruling has been imposed that overrides the sovereignty of the British people. Therefore, to abdicate that is surely the most important issue that the House can discuss under any circumstances. Our deliberations this afternoon may be invalidated by this new constitutional principle. It is at the very heart of the business of the House.
§ Mr. SpeakerI entirely share the concern of the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members who no doubt will be rising on this matter. I repeat that the Leader of the House is here and I hope that he will have heard what has been said. [Interruption.] I am bound by the criteria of the Standing Order.
§ Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow)On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I return to the serious issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bell)? Do you agree that Question Time today did the House of Commons no credit whatsoever? We reached only 13 questions. In the next 24 hours, will you reflect on what happened and possibly give your views tomorrow on the abuse of Question Time, not only from one side of the House? Rightly, you are quick enough to call some hon. Members to order, but others seem to get away with proverbial murder.
§ Mr. SpeakerThat is a reprehensible statement from the hon. Gentleman. I cannot be held responsible for answers that are given from the Front Bench, provided that they are in order. [AN HON. MEMBER: "They were not."] They may have been lengthy, but the whole House knows that some rough things are said in this Chamber. That is what it is all about.
§ Mr. William Cash (Stafford)On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. When the European Communities Act 1972 was passed, all the White Papers and documents that were produced made it clear that there would not be any fundamental change in the position of the British constitution as regards legislation passed by the House, save where Acts of Parliament took into account the 927 obligations we had entered into under the European Communities Act. That did not include a repeal or an implied repeal of the Bill of Rights. It is well established that, under article 9 of the Bill of Rights, the courts do not give instructions to Parliament. Would you be good enough to consider that question in the light of what is written in "Erskine May" and the Bill of Rights?
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. These are matters which the hon. Gentleman should properly raise in a debate that I hope we shall have on the matter.
§ Mr. John Maxton (Glasgow, Cathcart)On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I raised with you on question 2 the linking of those five questions on British Steel. Let me make it clear that I have received no letter on the board, which is the normal courtesy from the Department. The hon. Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing) has very kindly showed me the letter that the Department of Trade and Industry sent her, and there is no mention of my name in that letter. Secondly, those five questions are not the same, so I received no answer to the question that I had on the Order Paper, which was totally different from the other four questions. The only common thing is that they are all about British Steel, but it is possible to ask a variety of different questions about British Steel.
I believe that those five questions were a deliberate abuse by the Department of Trade and Industry to exclude other hon. Members who have steel interests in their constituencies, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell, North (Dr. Reid), from asking supplementary questions. I have to say—
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. This is a surprising point of order to put to me. The hon. Gentleman was actually called: he asked a question.
§ Mr. MaxtonThat is not the point.
§ Mr. SpeakerI cannot say to the Department that I will not hear the questions that it has linked. The mark, I believe, is that questions may be linked up to 20. With any luck, if we had a straight run down the Order Paper, we might have got to 19. However, that did not happen today. I believe that the hon. Gentleman was very fortunate.
§ Mr. MaxtonExactly, Mr. Speaker. I accept that my question might not have been reached, but that is not my point. The point is that the Department of Trade and Industry should not have linked together five questions on that subject. I intend to write to you, Mr. Speaker, to tell you that I believe that the procedures of the House should be changed, so that your approval must be gained before questions can be linked.
§ The Minister for Industry (Mr. Douglas Hogg)Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. First, I understand that the parliamentary clerk in the DTI notified the Secretary of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton).
§ Mr. MaxtonThat is irrelevant.
§ Mr. HoggSecondly, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, in grouping the questions, did so in part at least to ensure that the hon. Member for Cathcart 928 would have an opportunity to get in at Question Time. His question was No.19, and it probably would not have been reached had the questions not been grouped.
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. We have a very important debate today on which the first guillotine falls at 7 o'clock. There is a great deal of interest in that debate and I propose to take two more points of order, one from each side of the House, and then we shall move on.
§ Sir Dudley Smith (Warwick and Leamington)On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. While appreciating your difficulties and of course totally accepting your decisions, as we always do on these occasions, do you not think that there is an awful danger that the public will not understand why we are not going to debate a matter which is of enormous importance—perhaps one of the most major issues to face this Parliament for the past 40 years?
§ Mr. SpeakerThe hon. Gentleman should look carefully at Standing Order No. 20 and consider the criteria. I have a very difficult decision to take on that matter. I must weigh whether the business is of such importance that it should take precedence over the business set down for today or tomorrow. I hope that the public will understand that. I do not deny that it is a very important matter. However, I must judge whether it is of such urgency that it should take precedence over the business already set down. I hope very much that there will be a debate on this very important matter in parliamentary time.
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. I will take one more point of order. No waving of arms.
§ Mr. John D. Taylor (Strangford)Are these questions on the European Court's decision really out of order? Surely the pass was sold on the sovereignty of this Parliament when Conservative Members voted for the Single European Act?
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. I am not taking any more points of order.
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. I am not taking any more points of order. [Interruption.] Order. I am on my feet.