§ Mr. Robin Cook (Livingston)On a point of order, Madam Speaker. It is genuine, specific and urgent, and is relevant to you, as the authorities of the House are accountable to you for the discharge of their duties.
May I refer you to page 292 of "Erskine May", which sets out the matters on which Ministers will refuse to answer questions? They are detailed on that page and include discussions between Ministers, discussions between Ministers and advisers, proceedings in Cabinet, or the security and secret services. It is the practice of the Clerks of the House to refuse to accept for tabling questions that fall within those categories or that Ministers have refused to answer. There is no authority for that in Standing Order No. 17, but it has become the practice of the House.
May I put to you, Madam Speaker, the difficulty that the House and, to be fair to them, the Clerks now find themselves in as a result of the consistent decision of Ministers to refuse to answer questions relating to matters that are before the Scott inquiry? This is a new and unwelcome development. The Scott inquiry is not sub judice, and it is not part of the parliamentary process, as is a Select Committee. It is a departmental inquiry that will report to the President of the Board of Trade.
On previous occasions, the Table Office has accepted questions relating to matters that are before departmental inquiries, and Ministers have answered them. I have here a printout of more than 25 questions relating to the BCCI inquiry, which is precisely analogous to the Scott inquiry, in that it was a departmental inquiry chaired by Lord Justice Bingham.
What makes the decision to block questions in the Scott departmental inquiry particularly objectionable is that Lord Justice Scott has taken the welcome step of holding his hearings in public. As a result of that decision, counsel can ask questions and journalists can report questions and answers on the very subjects on which hon. Members are being debarred from asking questions. I cannot think of a distinction more likely to encourage Parliament to fall into desuetude and disrespect.
Yesterday, I sought to table a specific question of detail on which there was clear ministerial responsibility. I am mindful of the convention that it is not customary to read out questions that have been debarred, and I shall not do so, but for the guidance of the House I must say that that question did not turn on any issue of interpretation or subjectivity: it was a clear, precise question with clear, precise ministerial accountability. The Table Office yesterday refused to print that question. I suggest that that decision does a disservice to the House.
I appreciate that the House authorities cannot compel Ministers to answer questions, but nor do I think it right that they should protect Ministers from being seen to refuse questions for which there is no valid reason for not answering.
The House has a duty to scrutinise and challenge the Executive. The authorities should assist us in that role, and it would be most regrettable if the role of the authorities came to be seen as protecting Ministers from questions that are specific, urgent and within their ministerial responsibility.
§ Madam SpeakerDoes the hon. Gentleman wish to speak to the point of order?
§ Mr. CousinsNo.
§ Madam SpeakerI shall reply to the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) before I take another point of order.
As the hon. Gentleman knows, he cannot seek by way of a point of order to refer to a question that has been refused. As the House knows, "Erskine May" makes it quite clear that an hon. Member who wishes to make representations to me should do so privately and not on the Floor of the House. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will do that.
§ Mr. Robin CookFurther to my point of order, Madam Speaker. I shall be most satisfied to take the matter up with you privately, but I reserve the right to make any point of order that arises when we return from the recess.
§ Madam SpeakerI am sure that I will not debar the hon. Gentleman from raising a point of order.
§ Mr. Chris Smith (Islington, South and Finsbury)On a separate point of order., Madam Speaker. Yesterday afternoon, I received a reply to a question that I had tabled to the Secretary of State for the Environment. My question related to what plans the Government have to introduce legislation to create an environmental protection agency, to change the administrative arrangements for national parks, or to implement the provisions of the European Community habitats directive. The answer that I received was that the Government were working
for the early creation of the Environment Agency and … legislation will be introduced as soon as the necessary parliamentary time can be found.The answer clearly indicated a sense of urgency and rapid action by the Government, yet we know that for the last two weeks the Government have been briefing journalists that no legislation of any kind will appear before this House in the forthcoming parliamentary Session. Surely the Government are guilty of saying one thing in an answer to the House and another to the world outside.
§ Madam SpeakerThe hon. Gentleman must understand that I am not responsible for ministerial answers to questions. He must find other methods to pursue what is not in fact a point of order for me.
§ Dr. John Gilbert (Dudley, East)May I raise with you, Madam Speaker, another point that relates to the Scott inquiry. As a former member of the Trade and Industry Select Committee in the last Parliament—I have refreshed my memory of these matters by looking at videos this week—I can state that evidence given to the inquiry by Sir Hal Miller, a former Member of this House and deputy chairman of the Conservative party, while seeking to protect a member of the public, a former senior executive of the Walter Somers company, in a constituency next door to mine, unambiguously convicts that gentleman of telling an untruth to the Select Committee on Trade and Industry.
I emphasise that the point I raise has nothing whatever to do with the conduct of Ministers. It relates to what a witness said to the Select Committee about whether or not 940 certain tubes for export to Iraq were or were not intended for military purposes. I realise that, when it comes to questions of privilege, I have to write to you, Madam Speaker, but I hope that you will give me an assurance that you will inform yourself of these matters. The character of an important member of the public from Dudley borough is impugned by the evidence given by Sir Hal Miller to the Scott inquiry.
§ Madam SpeakerLet me make it clear—I hope the House will understand this—that, as the guardian of the interests of the House and of its reputation, I take a close interest in anything that relates to those responsibilities. I do not underestimate in any way the significance of what is being said to the Scott inquiry, but the House must trust me. It must trust me, in the exercise of my discretion, to use my best judgment as to whether, or when, it would be appropriate for me to grant any applications that are made to me. These are not matters on which I should be pressed to change my mind across the Floor of the House.
§ Mr. Jim Cousins (Newcastle upon Tyne, Central)On a point of order, Madam Speaker. You have been kind enough to respond to my letter to you, and I understand the contents of your reply. You ask me to wait until the Scott inquiry is completed, when I understand that I may write to you again on the matter. My point is that your decision in that respect should not inhibit in any way any Select Committee from taking up matters of fact or record that may come out of the Scott inquiry.
§ Madam SpeakerSelect Committees are in charge of their own proceedings. It is not for the Speaker of this House to inhibit them. Select Committees have automony and are in charge of their own proceedings.
§ Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich)On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Have you received any application, from either the Secretary of State for Defence or the Foreign Secretary, to come to the House to make a statement about the coup in Guatemala? Before this House reassembles, British troops will be withdrawn, in some measure, plus units of the RAF, from Belize, which is on the border with Guatemala. Guatemala has now ceased to be a democracy, yet that was the basis upon which all these assumptions were being carried forward.
§ Madam SpeakerI have not had a request from a Minister to make such a statement, but the Ministers on the Treasury Bench have no doubt heard what the hon. Lady said.
§ Mr. George Foulkes (Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley)I agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) has just said, Madam Speaker, but mine is a different point of order.
As you know, since last night I have been trying to get one of the Fisheries Ministers to come to the Dispatch Box to make a statement about the tie-up rule, following the understandable protest by the Girvan fishermen in blockading Girvan harbour because of their frustration and anger about the tie-up rule. They were told that they could have only 80 days at sea. Some of them have already been at sea for 80 days. They are facing ruin and the collapse of their income as a result of this rule. Before the recess, surely there is some way of getting one of the Fisheries Ministers to the Dispatch Box to make an urgent statement?
Madam SpakerI refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer given yesterday evening by one of my deputies: I have not had any request for a Minister to make any such statement.
§ Mr. Bob Cryer (Bradford, South)rose—
§ Madam SpeakerMr.—
§ Madam SpeakerMr. Cryer.
§ Mr. CryerI take it from your response, Madam Speaker, that this is one of only a few occasions on which I have risen to make a point of order.
Reverting to the question of White Papers and their availability, it would certainly help Back Benchers—who at present have to leave the Chamber to obtain White Papers and other documents—if Ministers were to provide them for the House. Some Ministers helpfully provide them; others do not.
I know, Madam Speaker, that you prefer Ministers to provide statements for Back Benchers rather than just Front Benchers of all parties. It might help if White Papers were actually tabled—placed on the Table of the House—so that hon. Members could collect them without having to leave the Chamber. Then there would not be any confusion about whether Members were hearing statements in the Chamber or were elsewhere.
§ Madam SpeakerThe hon. Gentleman has made a useful point. It is up to the Minister whether he makes a White Paper available before his statement.
§ Mr. CryerBut you would have no objection, Madam Speaker, if they were placed on the Table and we could get them from there?
§ Madam SpeakerI may well have a great objection to that. We have an office for the distribution of such papers. I want this Chamber kept neat and tidy.
§ Mr. Donald Anderson (Swansea, East)On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I appeal for your support, because it is strongly suggested that, in the next day of so, the Government will announce the setting up of a committee to monitor the intelligence services—a committee 942 composed only of Privy Councillors. If that were to be the case, would you seek to protect the House by ensuring that, if it is done during the recess, there will be an early opportunity for the House to debate it?
§ Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North)Further to that point of order, Madam Speaker. We should be grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) for raising this matter. As you know, it has not been possible to put down questions regarding the security services; that has been the position for many years, under successive Speakers.
There have been repeated rumours about what the Government intend to do. Many of us would strongly object to a committee on which only Privy Councillors would be allowed to sit. It would be a form of apartheid which would be opposed by many hon. Members on both sides of the House.
In those circumstances, Madam Speaker, would you use whatever influence you have in these matters to ensure that no statement is made until Parliament returns from the recess? Surely it would be a contempt for such a committee to be set up where we would not be able to question Ministers. It would be a continuation of what has happened over the years—our inability to table questions about the security services in any form whatsoever.
§ Madam SpeakerI have noted what the hon. Gentleman has said. I can only act on fact, not on conjecture and rumour.