§ Mr. Paul Tyler (North Cornwall)On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It may not have been drawn your attention that the detailed, important and complicated answer given by the Secretary of State for Health this afternoon—which we all welcome—was made available in its full text to the media but not to Front-Bench or Back-Bench Members. It is extremely difficult for hon. Members to deal with such a statement in those circumstances.
§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst)Madam Speaker has on a number of occasions pointed out that it is helpful if hon. Members have the fullest information as early as possible. I understand that there was a particularly difficult situation in the Department of Health this afternoon, which may have contributed to the problem.
§ The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Frank Dobson)Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My understanding of custom and practice is that when Ministers make a statement, that statement is made available, but when they are responding to a private notice question, the text is not usually made available to hon. Members. I have no reason to deny any of the information to anyone. I shall obviously have to consult the business managers on whether any changes should be made in the practice that we inherited from the previous Government, which they, no doubt, inherited from the Government before them. It has always been customary to make the information available to the press.
§ Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough)Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Will it now be a convention that answers to questions are given to the Press Gallery before they are given to hon. Members?
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerI am sure that the Secretary of State and, indeed, the Leader of the House will have heard those exchanges. I should tell hon. Members that I did not have a copy of the answer either.
§ Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow)On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have been a Member of this House for 36 years and it is painful to express unhappiness at the judgment of someone who has been a parliamentary colleague for a quarter of a century and a political friend for 30 years. We have had a statement on CJD, which I do not doubt is important, but a request was also made for an urgent response to yesterday's meeting of the emergency committee of the United Nations. That meeting could lead to the bombing of infrastructure, which is a matter of enormous urgency.
Will you convey to the Speaker our absolute dismay? Before bombs rain down on Iraqi infrastructure, the House of Commons should at least have the opportunity 503 to pursue the facts. I had better not try to camouflage the fact that this is a criticism of the Speaker. It comes from the third most senior Member—
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerOrder. As the hon. Gentleman said, he has been a Member of this House for a long time, but I am obliged to refer him to "Erskine May", which states:
Neither the submission of a private notice question nor its subsequent rejection by the Speaker should … be publicly referred to.That must be an end to the matter.