§ Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold)On a point of order, Madam Speaker. You will be aware that many millions of people this morning marked the Armistice day two-minute silence, to commemorate those who have fallen in trying to defeat some of the worst tyrannies that the world has ever seen. They did it to defeat tyranny and uphold democracy. The House is the fount of democracy.
Although I am aware that many Committees and many staff of the House marked the two-minute silence, it seems wholly appropriate that there should be a more official way of marking it in future. Will it be possible for hon. Members, on a purely voluntary basis, to come to the Chamber at 11 o'clock on the 11th hour of the 11th day to mark the silence? If that is not considered appropriate, perhaps there should be a two-minute silence in our normal 2.30 prayers in the House.
If you consider that appropriate, Madam Speaker, I ask you to refer it to the appropriate Committee.
§ Madam SpeakerI should be glad to give consideration to the hon. Gentleman's suggestion. I do not know whether he was in the House last Thursday when we had an exchange on this matter. I am pleased to tell hon. Members who are interested that all Committees that sat this morning observed the two-minute silence. As the hon. Gentleman will probably know, I sent suggestions to all the Departments of the House asking them to observe the silence, and I know that very many of them did. I looked through my kitchen window when I was observing the two-minute silence and was pleased to see that traffic on Westminster bridge came to a standstill, as did the pedestrians. The House has done an honour to the dead of two world wars, but I will be glad to look at suggestions for next year.
§ Mr. Gerald Bermingham (St. Helens, South)On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I apologise for trying to raise a point of order during Question Time. I should have known better.
We have a new Opposition, who are clearly young in their task of learning. Perhaps it could be pointed out to them that questions supplementary to those on the Order Paper are supposed to be relevant to the subject of the main question. We had example after example today where that did not happen. I noticed with considerable interest—this may be something that my own party will take on board—that even Liberal Democrats tried to join in that badly behaved, orchestrated insult to a very honourable Member of the House.
§ Madam SpeakerThat is not a very complimentary comment to me, if I may say so, Mr. Bermingham. I watch the Order Paper very carefully, and I find that many hon. Members on both sides of the House do not follow substantive questions. I had to call to order Members on the Government side yesterday for not following the question. This is an opportunity for me to 708 remind all hon. Members that the substantive question has to be followed in the supplementary. Thank you for raising that.
§ Mr. Ian Bruce (South Dorset)On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Some months ago, I tried to find out from the Registrar of Members' Interests—I have written to the people concerned, as you would wish—whether the use of a blind trust for financing the Leader of the Opposition's office would be acceptable. It was made very clear to me that that would not be acceptable under the existing rules. Therefore, I wrote to the Prime Minister's office, pointing out to him that Sir Trevor Chinn, Sir Emanuel Kay, Sir Alex Bernstein and Bob Gaveron were all named, known and admitted contributors to the Prime Minister's blind trust. This morning, it was suggested that Mr. Max Mosley and Mr. Bernie Ecclestone were also contributors to the blind trust.
My point of order is that I have written to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, pointing out that all that information is available. I have had a letter from the Prime Minister's office saying' that it knows about the information and that it had passed to the political honours scrutiny committee the names of those who had given money to the blind trust. Yet all that information—
§ Madam SpeakerOrder. What is the point of order for me?
§ Mr. BruceThe point of order concerns how we can get the Select Committee on Standards and Privileges to investigate what is clearly a breach of our rules. It brings the House into disrepute, because it is alleged that money is changing hands to gain the Prime Minister's influence.
§ Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)Further to that point of order, Madam Speaker. Whatever you do in response to the request from the hon. Member for South Dorset (Mr. Bruce), do not send the matter to the committee that I wanted to set up when the Tory party took £440,000 from that crook Asil Nadir. You know, Madam Speaker, that I raised that issue in the House 20 times. I wanted committees; I wanted investigations; I wanted the Tory Government to send the money back to all the shareholders in Mr. Nadir's company—but what happened? The Tories kept the money and used it in the general election campaign. The British people said, "That money stinks and we are going to kick the Tories out." My party sent the money back.
§ Madam SpeakerOrder. These are not points of order. I recognise them only too well as political point scoring, and I will have no more of them. The hon. Member for South Dorset (Mr. Bruce) knows that we have procedures to deal with the matter he raised. He should raise it with the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and not on the Floor of the House.
§ Mr. Ian BruceBut Madam Speaker—
§ Madam SpeakerOrder. I have had enough.