§ Mr. Brian Wilson (Cunninghame, North)On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Have you received a request for a statement to be made today about the funding of the west coast main line, a subject of enormous importance to many hon. Members?
Through the device of a written reply, a statement has been put out by the Government which fundamentally changes the nature of funding for major infrastructure projects in this country. It seems that the Government are no longer to have direct responsibility for such projects and that they are to become a sideline for Hambros bank. Such information should not be given in a written reply but should be the subject of a statement made to the House.
§ Madam SpeakerI have not been told that any Minister wishes to make a statement today.
§ Mr. Alex Salmond (Banff and Buchan)On a point of order, Madam Speaker. As you will be aware, the foundation treaty of this Parliament is the Act of Union 1707. That Act contains a number of provisions, including article 21, which protects the rights and privileges of Scottish local government.
While it is true that local government in Scotland has changed a number of times since 1707, such change has always come about by way of consensus or royal commission. Indeed, on the last occasion, in 1972–73, there was no division on either Second Reading or Third Reading of the relevant measure and the vast majority of Scottish hon. Members supported the generality of the proposals. It is unprecedented for Scottish local government to be gerrymandered, using the backing of English votes in the House of Commons.
My point of order for you, Madam Speaker—perhaps you will wish to take time to consider it—is whether the process on which, it seems, we are about to engage is consistent with the Act of Union. It is true that some of us have less confidence than have others in that Act, but only last year the Prime Minister considered the matter important enough to describe it as an issue which transcended the general election campaign.
Perhaps you will consider the matter, Madam Speaker, and give your opinion before tomorrow, when we embark on what I suspect will be the first of many debates and votes in the House on the issue of Scottish local government and the attempt of the Secretary of State for Scotland to gerrymander it for his own purposes.
§ Madam SpeakerI have listened carefully to the hon. Member's remarks on what seems to be a complex matter. I shall give a considered response in the most appropriate way in due course.
§ Mr. Ray Powell (Ogmore)On a point of order, Madam Speaker; I seek your help. Perhaps you will disclose whether the Home Secretary has asked for permission to make a statement about Sunday trading.
I appreciate from information that I have received that a paper will be published today and that it will be available to hon. Members at 3.30. As the subject is so emotive, and in view of the fact that we have debated it in the House continually since 1986—I took a long time preparing a private Member's Bill which was debated this year—I 832 should have thought that the Home Secretary, in view of all the promises that were made by his predecessors, would at least have afforded the House an opportunity to debate the subject by way of questions following a statement before issuing four options, the details of which he has never disclosed to the House in any way, shape or form in the past 12 months.
§ Madam SpeakerOrder. I remind the hon. Member and the House that it is not for me to allow Ministers to make statements. Ministers tell me when they wish to make statements, and no Minister has told me of his or her desire to make a statement today.
§ Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow)On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Before the time of Mr. Speaker Weatherill—certainly in the days of Sir Harry Hylton-Foster, and probably before that—your predecessors were doubtless irritated by requests under what was then Standing Order No. 9. However irritated they became, however, they did not refuse to hear applications relating to serious subjects.
I do not wish to be impertinent, Madam Speaker, but some of the most experienced of us were wondering on what authority in "Erskine May" a Speaker can refuse to hear an application under what is now Standing Order No. 20. I think that it is probably a habit introduced by Mr. Speaker Weatherill.
It can hardly be denied that what Mr. Rolf Ekens is doing in Baghdad is a matter of importance; it is certainly urgent; and it is now definite. It would be indelicate to challenge the ruling preventing my colleagues and me from being heard, but we wonder what the precedent is.
§ Madam SpeakerThe matter in question must be urgent, and it must relate to new developments, such as a change of policy. I do not wish to discuss applications made to me in the House; the hon. Gentleman is a long-standing Member of Parliament, and he knows that we do not do that.
The hon. Gentleman has submitted a Standing Order No. 20 application relating to the United Nations representative in Baghdad. The United Nations representative has not even reached Baghdad yet, and I therefore cannot consider an application under Standing Order No. 20.
§ Mr. Bob Cryer (Bradford. South)Further to the point of order put my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Mr. Powell), Madam Speaker. I wish to raise the embargo on White Papers that operates in the House until 3.30 pm. This morning, the Home Office briefed the press about the contents of a White Paper, setting out the options. It strikes me as extremely unfair that elected Members of Parliament should be denied information until 3.30 pm, while the press can obtain it in the morning. Surely, if there is to be an embargo, it should apply to everyone, but especially to the press. The information should be released to Members of Parliament at the same time as it is released to the press, at the very least. The Home Office should not give the press a privileged position to the disadvantage of Members of Parliament.
You represent the interests of the House, Madam Speaker. Will you make hon. Members' feelings clear to the Home Office and the Home Secretary, and support those feelings yourself?
§ Madam SpeakerAs the hon. Gentleman knows, it is not for the Speaker but for the appropriate Minister to determine when official papers should be made available. As the House is aware, I deprecate the making of statements to the press outside the House, and I shall continue to make my views known.
§ Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North)On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I know that you have the interests of Back Benchers at heart. I hope that you will not mind my raising the matter mentioned earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell). You have said that, for an application under Standing Order No. 20 to be granted, the issue involved must be urgent; but is there not a distinction to be drawn between an application that is made and one that is granted?
§ Madam SpeakerOrder. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I understand that he has written me a long letter about the matter, which I have not had an opportunity to read. I hope that he will do me the courtesy of allowing me to read it so that I can respond appropriately.
§ Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Evidence will show that, before 1989, applications under Standing Order No. 9—now Standing Order No. 20—were fairly frequent. Everyone knows what happened then : as a result of the televising of our proceedings, the powers-that-be got together and decided that applications under Standing Order No. 20 should take place in television prime time. Pressures were brought to bear, and as a result Mr. Speaker Weatherill changed the system.
Today and yesterday, my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) wanted to raise a matter of prime importance. Five years ago, his application would undoubtedly have been granted. Anyone who has been around here long enough to know is aware that television changed the system. Hon. Members should understand why their applications are now being denied.
§ Mr. Andrew Faulds (Warley, East)On a point of order, Madam Speaker.
§ Madam SpeakerIs it a similar point of order?
§ Mr. FauldsAbsolutely. Some of us who have been here even longer remember that in the old days there was absolutely no way in which a Standing Order No. 9—now a Standing Order No. 20—having been refused, could even have been raised within the House. I suggest, Madam Speaker, that you go back to the old practice.
§ Madam SpeakerI tend to be rather old-fashioned, and I would like to do that. I look at Standing Order No. 20 applications on their merits. I cannot allow the proceedings of the House to be changed because a Member makes to me a Standing Order No. 20 application which is not particularly important, on which there is no new development, and which is not urgent. I look at Standing Order No. 20 applications in those three lights, and I will continue to deal with them in that way.