§ Mr. Tony Benn (Chesterfield)On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I again rise on the question of your statement about the position of Members of Parliament who have not taken the oath. When you made the statement on Wednesday, it had the force of the common law of Parliament, and in due course it will be embodied in "Erskine May". Of course, when the election took place on 1 May the law of Parliament was quite clear and "Erskine May" states:
But although until he has taken the oath a Member may not sit and vote, he … is entitled to all the other privileges of a Member (but not to his salary), being regarded, both by the House and by the law, as qualified to serve, until some other disqualification has been shown to exist.John Bright sat and voted on a Committee of the House before he had taken the oath.I sent you a memorandum on a broader question, Madam Speaker, but the position that I want to put to you is that those electors who voted for the two hon. Members concerned voted on the basis that although they may have been abstentionist in their policy towards the Chamber, they would be entitled to all the rights of Members in safeguarding the interests of constituents. In the light of your statement, the hon. Members for Belfast, West (Mr. Adams) and for Mid-Ulster (Mr. McGuinness) are denied the right to represent their electors in the broad and full way of other hon. Members.
In the memorandum that I submitted to you, which raises a range of other questions, the matter of privilege arose. But my present point is supplementary to that. Is it right that the law of Parliament should be changed retrospectively in a way that denies electors the rights that they legitimately believed they had when they voted, but which they now find have been taken away? I am aware that the Privileges Committee has not been set up and that 378 privilege should not be raised on the Floor of the House, but I would ask you to defer the deadline for the operation of your ruling until these aspects have been properly considered.
§ Madam SpeakerI shall certainly look carefully at the matters that the right hon. Gentleman raises. He should look carefully at the list of services that were appended to my statement. The right hon. Gentleman says that he wrote to me on a wider issue. That is indeed the case: I received a memorandum from him on Friday, the first paragraph of which raises the matter and asks me to look at it as a matter of privilege. I am doing precisely that and I shall respond to the right hon. Gentleman as soon as I am able to do so. Therefore, the matter should not be raised on the Floor of the House.