§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. MacKay.]
9.38 am§ Mr. Graham Allen (Nottingham, North)There is no magical bit of paper that can somehow defend our rights, and certainly a written Bill of Rights, although essential, is not a panacea. It can become meaningful only in a wider democracy, in which its values are accepted and practised by public authorities and private citizens. In order to build that sort of democratic practice in our country we need to take a long hard look at our democratic institutions and fundamentally reform them, and in some cases replace them, so that government at all levels can legitimately carry the stamp of democratic approval.
In essence, that means ending our long-unchallenged unitary system of government, in which all political power is decided in a winner-take-all general election, and establishing in our country for the first time a genuinely pluralist society in which many different centres of power are created, not dependent upon one another but each with its own electoral base and its own legitimacy, unafraid to challenge the monopoly of the over-powerful Executive in the United Kingdom.
That is the only long-term guarantee of our rights, ending the Executive's ability to control the Commons, to appoint the Lords, to select the judges, to instruct every local authority and to ignore Europe—centralised powers that would make a Stalin or even a Thatcher salivate.
Labour has crossed the great political watershed from unitarism—we no longer believe that we have the right to tell people what to do just because we are the good guys —to pluralism. There is a mature acceptance that people themselves should decide through democratic institutions what they want to do.
Since the election of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith) as the leader of my party less than a year ago, Labour has committed itself to an impressive review of our democracy. We propose a Bill of Rights, scrutiny of prerogative powers, free-standing local government, elected regional authorities, a Scottish Parliament elected by the additional member system, an elected second Chamber under a proportional regional list system, a European Parliament elected on the same basis, and a thorough reform of the way in which this place works, in addition to a referendum on how we should elect Members to this the first Chamber.
Never again will an all-powerful Executive be able to control every facet of our political life. It is a frightening prospect for centralists everywhere, but an exciting one for democrats of all parties and at all representative levels of all parties. It is in that new context that the idea of human rights will find its home.
We are very complacent about our rights in this country. We like to think that abuses of rights take place elsewhere, but not in the United Kingdom. The reality is painfully different. It is almost so painful that we do not like to talk about it or even to admit that abuses exist. In a country with no clear list of rights, it is quite difficult to assess what rights have been abused. In a society that places emphasis on class and hierarchy, it is often the place one occupies rather than one's rights vis-a-vis other individuals that preoccupies many and colours their view of any abuse.
1025 All that is now changing. Old certainties are breaking down, and old social structures and values have been dealt the death blow by Thatcherism, by the atomisation of society and by the exaltation of greed. A social and a spiritual vacuum has been created. We in this place need to put new values and new ideas into that vacuum. A central part of that will be to develop clearly understood and widely accepted rights and responsibilities for the modern British citizen.
Such ideas are not alien to this country, as many would have us believe. We were the first founding signatories of the European convention on human rights, a convention incorporated into the legal system of most of our fellow European nations. I am proud to say that it was a Labour Government who signed the convention in 1951 and it was the Labour Government of Harold Wilson who gave United Kingdom citizens the right of individual petition to the European Commission and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
To the present Government's great shame, Britain as a country has since been found guilty of breaching the provisions of the treaty more often than any other member of the Council of Europe. Today, seven cases are proceeding against the Government in the European Court. One has been awaiting judgment for five years.
One of the major flaws of the European convention's being interpreted in Strasbourg rather than the British courts is the time it takes for cases of human rights abuse in Britain to be heard. The time is currently five or six years, after a petitioner has exhausted all other means of redress under domestic law. Anthony Lester, a noted expert in administrative and constitutional law, has predicted that, in future, cases will take a minimum of 10 years to be heard, and perhaps as many as 15 if current trends continue.
The consequence of the long wait and the associated expense is that only those with the backing of large organisations or with substantial personal resources can make use of the only guarantee of rights available to the United Kingdom citizen. That amounts to the creation of a two-tier system of rights in this country. Yes, our rights are guaranteed, but only the select few can enforce them.
I make it plain to the House today that that is wholly unacceptable. An incoming Labour Government will incorporate the European convention on human rights into our law, so that cases can be dealt with speedily in the British courts.
In the interim—the Conservatives pretend to be serious about human rights and about the delays—there is a need fundamentally to restructure the current two-tier, part-time court in Strasbourg and to replace it with a smaller, single-tier, permanently sitting court capable of dealing with the ever-increasing work load. That is the solution advocated by the vast majority of members of the Council of Europe.
Unfortunately, a small minority of Governments, regrettably including the British Conservative Government, have already been guilty of blocking the reform process. The Conservatives' intransigence is now preventing a workable solution from being reached—a solution that would enable the court to resume its role as a Europewide guarantor of human rights and minimum standards.
1026 It is not surprising that the Government seek to frustrate the European Court. Between 1970 and 1978, 12 cases were commenced against the British Government. In the subsequent 12 years, 29 cases have been brought before the court. There are now more than 30 landmark decisions, as a result of which our Government have been forced to introduce new procedures to protect human rights. We were forced, kicking and screaming, by the European Court to change our laws.
None of the decisions has been trivial; some have been fundamental. They include ending unfair press curbs, ending unjust restrictions on prisoners' access to lawyers, ending unacceptable restrictions on husbands of immigrants, ending ineffective judicial protection of mental patients and requiring new controls on telephone tapping. I say with a heavy heart that, in Europe's league table of shame, Britain has the worst record by far of receiving adverse judgments in the European Court.
Ministers will, of course, point out that Britain's dismal record is in part due to the fact that we have not incorporated the European convention on human rights into United Kingdom law. We are unlike other countries, where people have a remedy for human rights abuses in their own country. If that is intended to excuse the violations of basic civil rights, it is a woefully poor excuse. It begs the question why we have not yet incorporated the European convention or similar rights into domestic law, as is the case for all our close European neighbours.
We can incorporate such rights for others. In Hong Kong in 1991, we introduced the international covenant on political and civil rights. We can do it in Hong Kong, but, with this Government, we still find it difficult to do it in our own country. We are now the only country in Europe or in the democratic Commonwealth without domestically enforceable political and civil rights. Perhaps all the other countries are wrong. Perhaps we have found the answer, and perhaps everyone else in the world is wrong on these matters.
Labour believes that, if people have rights and freedoms as individuals—we certainly believe that people have those rights—there is no problem about writing them down. If an individual's right as a consumer can be expressed in a citizens charter, why cannot his or her rights as a citizen be expressed clearly in a Bill of Rights? All schoolchildren should carry in their pocket or purse a list of their rights as individuals. They should grow with those rights, and knowing those rights, so that they can become full citizens of our society.
The justification that is often offered by those opposed to incorporation is that, in Britain, every citizen is protected by rights and freedoms under the common law. But those rights and freedoms are ill defined and incomplete, and are not accessible to or understood by the average citizen. One needs a law degree to have even an inkling of the challenges that can be made, let alone of the detail of the rights. The extent of such rights is controlled by the judges and not by Parliament. That is unacceptable. The job of judges is to interpret and apply the law and not to make it.
Some claim that incorporation would create a political judiciary: it would not. Many judicial decisions made today could be viewed as political, but are made outside the framework of a statute explicitly defining people's rights. Far from politicising judges, the incorporation of the European convention on human rights and a 1027 subsequent British Bill of Rights would enable the judiciary to make decisions free from political pressure, thus guaranteeing its independence.
It is not as though our judges are incapable of deciding rights cases—indeed, many are themselves in favour of a Bill of Rights. The judiciary already makes decisions based on rights-oriented legislation, such as sex and race anti-discrimination laws, and there is no reason to suppose that it would be incapable of handling decisions once the European convention was incorporated.
If the Government are wary of granting judges the right to make decisions on basic rights, why do they not revoke the right of individual petition by a British subject to the European Court of Human Rights, where European judges make decisions? Perhaps the Government lack confidence only in British judges.
To suggest that incorporation would destroy the political impartiality of the judiciary is to display a shameful lack of confidence in those to whom we entrust the administration of the law. That suggestion is certainly odd coming from a Government who once sought to style themselves the Government of law and order.
Labour has no such worries about incorporating the European convention on human rights, although we accept the need for changes in methods of judicial recruitment and appointment and for an improved continuing education programme for the judiciary I hope that the Lord Chancellor's Department will take those comments to heart.
It is not as if the European convention is some wild, radical, untested code. It is a mature statement of rights that has been interpreted and applied for many years. The United Kingdom has in reality been subject to its provisions for more than 45 years, and its incorporation into United Kingdom law as a first step to a home-grown British Bill of Rights would merely ensure that all could quickly have the benefit of its provisions. It would make rights in the United Kingdom a matter for United Kingdom citizens and the United Kingdom courts, and would prevent the perpetuation of the notice that rights are some strange foreign European concept.
Incorporation would not be particularly complicated. Parliament would merely need to pass an Act incorporating the convention into British law and giving citizens the right to have the rules enforced in court. In that context, I hope to be presenting to the House within the next couple of weeks a Bill that would make incorporation a reality.
All Acts, previous and subsequent, would be stated to be consistent with the provisions of the convention. The exclusion of any Act from those provisions would require an explicit statement of intent. That would allow a Government—for example, at a time of national crisis—to pass legislation curtailing individual rights, but would also ensure that no legislation could be interpreted as breaching the convention unless that was specifically stated.
Incorporation will take place speedily under the next Labour Government and will be just a beginning. We shall then need to examine—perhaps by means of an all-party commission—a home-grown British Bill of Rights. I suspect that that will have to be the subject of my next Adjournment debate, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
For the past 14 years, we have watched the Government ride roughshod over our rights. It is time that the balance was redressed. Our current constitutional system of checks and balances is in no way adequate for what is allegedly a 1028 modern democracy. We need to re-establish the fundamental pillar of democracy—the separation of powers. We need to consider once again the balance between the powers of the legislature, the Executive and the judiciary, and a Bill of Rights will be central to such a re-examination of political and democratic theory.
Far too much power is placed in the hands of the Executive, without adequate restraint being exercised either by what is now a client House of Commons or by a House of Lords with a built-in majority in favour of one party. I take this opportunity to remind my hon. Friends that, although there is a tendency to regard the House of Lords as a quaint institution that has occasionally overturned minor matters of Government policy in the past 14 years, it defeated the last Labour Government 350 times.
We need to examine that situation before we allow ourselves to let pass any commitments on an elected second Chamber. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition said a week ago; the second House should be elected under a regional list system on the basis of proportional representation. The sooner that happens, the less likely it is that the will of the people as expressed in the House of Commons will be subverted.
Ministers have suggested that Parliament is best placed to protect the rights of the individual. At best, that is wishful thinking; at worst, it is worrying political naivety. We should remember the local government legislation, what happened at GCHQ, Zircon, the "Spycatcher" debacle, the broadcasting ban, deportations without trial: all are instances of the way in which individual rights have been diminished, ignored or abused. That list is in no way definitive; time dictates that I curtail it.
The fact that all the abuses that I have mentioned have occurred under the Conservative Government should not be taken to mean that rights need protection only under an arrogant Conservative Administration, grown fat from being in power for too long. Our rights should not depend on who wins a general election.
The rights and principles enshrined in the convention are far too important to be subject to the whims of temporary majorities—even Labour majorities—in the Commons or to unnecessary interference by public officials. Without the incorporation of the European convention on human rights, our citizens' rights cannot be guaranteed. That is the essential first step.
In the country at large, there is a feeling that Britain's archaic and dusty formerly democratic structures are no longer capable of meeting the needs and aspirations of its citizens. Nowhere is that more obvious than in the lack of protection for our individual human rights. The time has come for fundamental change, and incorporation is just one part of Labour's radical agenda for the democratic renewal of Britain.
Incorporation will come—either from a reluctant Conservative Government or early in the lifetime of a new Labour Government. Thereafter, we hope to build upon incorporation and ensure that we have a genuine well thought out British Bill of Rights, which I hope will command a consensus in the Chamber. If we can achieve that consensus and build human rights into our domestic law, our country will be far stronger and our democracy will find deeper roots—roots that will stretch to every citizen in the United Kingdom, who will then have a stake in defending and extending our democracy.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Charles Wardle)May I first congratulate the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) on his success in obtaining the first of this morning's Adjournment debates? There was a stage earlier this week when I thought that he and I might be debating immigration and asylum matters, as we have done on so many recent occasions. However, I am absolutely delighted about his choice of subject.
I listened with some incredulity to his description of a pliant House of Commons. I do not know where the hon. Gentleman has been for the past month or two with regard to the Chamber. I am aware of all his hard work off the Committee Corridor, but anyone who listened to the Maastricht debates or to some of our other recent debates would not consider this House to be a pliant House.
The hon. Gentleman referred to complacency about rights, and I disagree with him fundamentally on that. I believe that we treasure our rights in this country. The basic difference between the hon. Gentleman's proposition and the view of this Government and of successive Governments relates to the supremacy of Parliament.
The hon. Gentleman asked why some cases were referred to the European Court and why we were content with that procedure. Any decision taken by the European judges which requires changes in legislation here must still be considered by the House and agreed by this Parliament. That thereby maintains the constitutional position of Parliament and its supremacy.
The hon. Gentleman has shown that he attaches great importance to the protection of the rights of the citizens of this country, and I cannot disagree with him on that. The possession of rights and freedoms by our people has been fundamental to our democratic traditions reaching back over the centuries. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we would ignore that at our peril. I suspect that the entire House would agree with him to that extent.
However, it will not surprise the hon. Gentleman to learn that I disagree strongly with his basic proposition. In summary, his argument is as follows: that the rights of individual citizens in this country are being systematically undermined, that there are no adequate arrangements for the protection of those rights, and that that can be resolved only by what would amount to far-reaching constitutional changes.
The hon. Gentleman made much of comparisons with other countries and specific examples of what he claims to be domestic human rights abuses, of which he listed a number. I will attempt to consider one or two of those later. However, it is worth placing the whole question of human rights in the United Kingdom in a proper constitutional context.
§ Mr. AllenI thank the Minister for his usual courtesy in giving way. He said that we treasure our rights in this country. Will he tell the House what those rights are?
§ Mr. WardleThey are the rights enshrined in our parliamentary democracy; I will seek to expand on that. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman may feign surprise, but as he has been a Member of this House for some years, I think that he understands precisely what I mean.
Contrary to the impression given by critics of the present arrangements, this country's approach to rights and freedoms is more permissive than that found 1030 elsewhere. The possession of rights and freedoms is assumed. It is not dependent on their enshrinement in statute or through some other constitutional device. That means that only through specific action by Parliament—this relates to the point raised by the hon. Gentleman in his intervention—can those rights be curtailed.
There is an important and underlying principle here —that rights and freedoms are, in general, the property of individuals. They are not something to be bestowed by the state. We have heard criticisms that that approach to human rights in the United Kingdom is both ineffective and inappropriate to modern circumstances.
I do not believe that those who argue in that way have begun to show their case. Nor have they convinced me of the argument, which inevitably follows, that the only certain way of protecting the rights of our citizens is through some form of Bill of Rights, perhaps incorporating the European convention on human rights, as the hon. Gentleman suggested, and possibly entrenched in a written constitution, as some have suggested.
I express it in that way because many of those proposing such a measure tend to be less than clear about the form that it will take. The Government do not believe that one can guarantee rights by the enactment of broad propositions. This is more a question of political culture, as can be seen by the prevalence of human rights abuses in certain parts of the world which nevertheless can boast a Bill of Rights on the statute book.
It is perhaps worth recalling that, in 1978, the House of Lords Select Committee on a Bill of Rights concluded that, in any country, whatever its constitution, the existence or absence of legislation in the nature of a Bill of Rights can in practice play only a minor part in the protection of human rights. That Committee also concluded that it had received no evidence that human rights were better protected in countries which had a code of basic rights embodied in their law than they were in the United Kingdom. In spite of the hon. Gentleman's assertion, I can see no reason to think that things have changed since 1978.
§ Mr. WardleThe hon. Gentleman knows that I am good-natured. Although I am watching the clock, I will give way.
§ Mr. AllenI thank the Minister once more for his typical generosity in giving way for a second time.
I agree that, to write down rights, as I said when I began my speech, is not a panacea, and it guarantees nothing. It simply provides a framework, which is helpful, and accesses rights to the ordinary citizen. I hope that the Minister will accept that.
The Minister will have heard me say that I will be introducing a Bill which will incorporate the European convention. The Minister was right to say that such things are very often vague. Will he therefore, with his normal generosity, allow me to send him a copy of my Bill for him to peruse and amend, without of course committing himself to accepting it, so that we can have a less vague document before the House and have another productive and constructive discussion like the one that we are having this morning?
§ Mr. WardleAll I can guarantee is that, as usual, I will consider very carefully any representations that the hon. 1031 Gentleman makes. I cannot guarantee what the response will be, and he is aware that I am not in the business of making such promises.
I want to make progress, because I want to answer the general thrust of the hon. Gentleman's arguments. The political culture of the United Kingdom, with its strong system of law and parliamentary democracy, is soundly based. An essential part of that is an assumption and expectation on behalf of our citizens that certain rights and freedoms are theirs. Governments must seek to achieve a balance whereby the individual enjoys the optimum level of freedom.
Clearly it is necessary for the Government to strike a balance between the rights of the individual and of society at large and on the conflict of rights between various groups in society. However, given the nature of our society, to restrict the rights of our citizens is not an easy matter. Any Government seeking to do that would need to satisfy both public opinion and, beyond that, Parliament itself. I find it strange that those who argue for a Bill of Rights are so ready to dismiss the role of Parliament in this important area.
It is surely more consistent with our democratic traditions that decisions on crucial issues like this, which will affect the lives of many people, should be taken by those whom the people of this country have elected to represent them rather than placed in the hands of the judiciary, who after all are not elected.
I also find it surprising that it is suggested that a Bill of Rights would somehow be more sensitive to the changing needs of our people than Parliament would be in fulfilling its traditional role of enacting legislation in specific areas. A Bill of Rights, after all, can only embody the values of the time when it was drafted. The whole purpose of a Bill of Rights and its entrenchment into law, by whatever means, is to offer some permanent benchmark by which the actions of Government and the freedoms enjoyed by citizens can be judged.
However, public attitudes, and therefore the attitudes of society, are capable of change. We only have to consider how public opinion on a number of social and moral issues has developed over the past 50 years, 25 years, or, as some would say, the past decade. A Bill of Rights for the United Kingdom drafted 25 years ago would be most unlikely to reflect fully the aspirations and views of people today. However, any Bill of Rights that was subject to frequent amendment, if that were constitutionally possible, would surely defeat the object of the whole exercise.
The hon. Gentleman referred particularly to the possible incorporation of the European convention on human rights into domestic law. I shall deal with some of the points that he raised about that.
As the House knows, the Government are firm believers in and supporters of the European convention on human rights. The United Kingdom was closely associated with the convention at the outset, playing a major part in its drafting in 1950. We accepted the right of individual petition to the Commission in 1966 and agreed to be bound by the judgments of the court. We have been diligent in observing the court's judgments, as even our most diehard critics would acknowledge.
It has been claimed that we compare unfavourably with other countries in the number of findings of violations being recorded against the United Kingdom, and that that demonstrates the need for more effective domestic 1032 protection of the rights of our citizens. But taken at face value, the available statistics in this field give a misleading impression.
Other factors need to be taken into account. For example, the United Kingdom has accepted the right of individual petition since 1966, whereas a number of other countries did so much more recently—France and Spain in 1981, and Turkey as recently as 1986. Since it can take up to five years for an application to be decided by the court of Committee of Ministers, it is not surprising that fewer violations have been found in the case of those countries which came to the table more recently, as it were.
The other important point that our critics choose to ignore is the difference in population size of the member states of the Council of Europe. If we had regard to violations per head of population, the United Kingdom would be ninth in the convention league table as at 30 April this year. Therefore, we regard as fallacious the argument that breaches against the United Kingdom demonstrate the need for incorporation, as some have argued.
§ Mr. David Trimble (Upper Bann)rose—
§ Mr. WardleI want to make progress. I have already given way and tried to be as generous as possible to the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen). I hope that the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) will allow me to continue.
It is true that the delays in resolving cases before the Commission and the court are unacceptable, and that the machinery needs reform. The United Kingdom is playing a full part in the current work that is being undertaken to find ways of reforming the machinery while maintaining the quality of jurisprudence.
However, it is wrong to suggest that those delays bear uniquely on United Kingdom applicants, because, in the absence of incorporation, they have no opportunity to test their cases domestically. The fact is that, even where countries have incorporated the convention, their citizens can and do apply to the Commission in large numbers once they have exhausted their domestic remedies before their constitutional courts.
Judges have a vital role in the enforcement, application and development of the abstraction that we call the rule of law. It is the Government's firm view that imposing on the judges a duty to interpret the convention, or broad principles in a Bill of Rights, would add an unwelcome new dimension to their current role. That new role would be to decide broad issues of policy.
It is worth contemplating for a moment what that would mean in practice. A Bill of Rights would enable Parliament to pass a law, which could, the next day or next year, be struck down by a judge who, acting in good faith, took a different view according to his own perceptions of the public interest.
Not only would that undermine the sovereignty of Parliament—it would bring the judiciary into the political arena. The more we draw judges into political matters, the more we shall create problems for them in terms of the general public's attitude and respect for them. The point is not that our judges could not do the job—our fears are that such a job would damage their reputation and standing.
That is not to dismiss the important role that our judges can play in the protection of our citizens against the 1033 actions of Government. The hon. Member for Nottingham, North has drawn a picture of an Executive out of control, with no effective check on its actions. I have heard him talk about that before. The readiness of the citizens of the United Kingdom to seek judicial review of Government actions, and of the courts to entertain such applications, gives the lie to that argument.
This is an important safeguard against the unreasonable exercise of discretion by the Government. But what it does not do, which their interpretation of a Bill of Rights would do, is seek to challenge the merits of the broader policy issues.
I do not accept the proposition that these cases demonstrate that there has been some general erosion of human rights in this country. On the contrary, an objective examination of the record in recent years would show many areas in which rights have been extended. That has been achieved usually through Parliament, whose role the hon. Gentleman has lightly dismissed today. It is disappointing that there was in his speech, no recognition of the role of Parliament as he is such an active member of the House.
We can honestly claim to have a more open Government than ever before. That is the result of measures that have been initiated in recent years. The Data Protection Act 1984 provides a good example of how Parliament can legislate to afford rights in specific areas —in this case, access by individuals to information held about them on computers. Legislation has also been enacted in respect of information held by local authorities.
The Official Secrets Act 1988 cut back the information that is protected against disclosure by the criminal law. It replaced the previous casual provisions of section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911 with a narrowly targeted scheme that penalised only an authorised disclosure of official information which would give rise to a serious degree of harm to the interests of the country. More generally, the Government have demonstrated their commitment to open government, and have done more than any of their predecessors to open the processes of government to the scrutiny of Parliament.
1034 There are other examples of Parliament acting to enhance the rights of individuals. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 was one such measure. Measures such as that—there are many more—are often ignored in any discussion on human rights in the United Kingdom. Yet, in terms of practical consequences, they have more direct relevance to the lives of our citizens than a list of broad principles set out in a Bill of Rights.
Parliament devotes much care and attention to measures of this kind. In doing so, it properly exercises its role, for which its Members were elected, of determining how to respond to the changing needs of society. There is no evidence to suggest that the absence of some overarching Bill of Rights—
§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse)Order. I call the Rev. Ian Paisley.
§ Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours (Workington)On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I hesitate to raise this matter, but you will have noted that the Minister was unable to finish his brief. I wonder whether you will deprecate the fact that the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) delayed the commencement of the Adjournment debate by raising a long point of order on an issue which we know he feels strongly about.
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerMadam Speaker allowed the point of order raised by the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) because it was in order. The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) is doing exactly what he is complaining the hon. Member for Antrim, North did earlier—taking time out of the next debate.
§ Mr. Campbell-SavoursThe Chair should rule that what happened earlier was wrong. My point of order did not last five minutes and effectively terminate unnecessarily early a debate that was taking place, which was of interest to a number of hon. Members.
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerThat matter has already been dealt with.