§ Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow)On a point of order, Madam Speaker. May I raise a matter that is germane to the debate about to be initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig)? Is it true that the Prime Minister's Press Office, run by Mr. Jonathan Haslam, has made a statement that Ministers have had their trial and been acquitted—presumably that is a reference to the decisive margin of 320 to 319—and civil servants have not?
May we have a statement at 11 am on the Government's warning about disciplinary action against civil servants by Ministers who accept no blame themselves? On 7 February 1983, at column 834, I initiated a debate on the Prime Minister's relations with the media and the role of the Prime Minister's press secretaries. It seems from the reports that Mr. Jonathan Haslam is going further down a political road than Bernard Ingham ever did.
§ Mr. Derek Foster (Bishop Auckland)Further to that point of order, Madam Speaker. The Minister who will reply to the debate today, the Minister for Competition and Consumer Affairs, is from one of the Departments in which some civil servants are under threat of disciplinary action—indeed, dismissal. He is in the best position to come to the Dispatch Box at 11 am and make a statement about that matter, because he will know that civil servants in that position have a right to make a statement in their own defence only if it has been cleared by the establishments officer and the legal officer, and only if it does not criticise Ministers or Government policy. The House deserves a statement about that matter.
§ Madam SpeakerI am not aware of the statement referred to by the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) in the first part of his remarks, and I have not heard that the Government are seeking to make a statement on this matter at 11 o'clock today. As the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Foster) has said from the Opposition Dispatch Box, there are Ministers on the Treasury Bench today who will have heard these exchanges, and who may seek to make some comment on them during the course of the debate.