§ LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSEMy Lords, I wish to ask the noble Viscount who leads the House a question on procedure. Last Wednesday the noble Lord, Lord Southwood, no doubt at the request of the Minister of Food, addressed a question to Lord Woolton, and Lord Woolton made a long statement on brown flour, brown bread and various other things in connexion with his Ministry. Arising out of that, Lord Hankey and then Lord Horder and myself made some remarks. On leaving the House I was told that I had broken the unwritten rules of procedure of your Lordships' House, and that I ought not to have made remarks as the result of that reply by Lord Woolton. Therefore I thought it fit, in order that we may know what the real procedure is in relation to Private Notice questions, to ask the Leader of the House his advice as to what the procedure ought to be.
It should be remembered, of course, that a starred question is clearly not subject to debate, although I have heard noble Lords start debates on starred questions. But an ordinary question which is on the Paper may be the subject of remarks by other noble Lords. I do not see therefore why a Private Notice question should not be subject to the same rules as an ordinary question, because I can quite see a position arising where a Private Notice question may lead to a very important statement by a Minister, and if it is not open for other noble Lords to speak upon it at the time the subject may easily slip away without debate. I ask the Leader of the House for guidance in this matter, and I think several noble Lords are not quite sure what the correct procedure is in relation to Private Notice questions.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (VISCOUNT CRANBORNE) (Lord Cecil)My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Hutchison for 262 giving me notice that he intended to raise this point of procedure, and I am also grateful to him for raising it because, as he has already said, it is most important that we should clear up these matters. It is clearly laid down in the Standing Orders, 1936 edition, that where it is intended to make a statement or raise a discussion in asking a question, notice of the question should be given in the Notices and Orders of the day. The practice of raising Private Notice questions has shown a great tendency to increase since the commencement of the war. It is natural in these days that the Government may wish to make, and the House may wish to hear, statements of immediate public importance. This procedure, however, should be confined to question and statement only. It has never been the practice of this House that discussion should follow such statements, the proper procedure being that if further discussion is desired a Motion should be put on the Paper for a subsequent date in order that the matter in question may be fully debated.
It will be seen from this review of the practice that a limitation attaches to the nature of the subject on which such Private Notice question may be asked and in any subsequent speeches made on such a statement. The particular case which the noble Lord has mentioned arises from a happening last week, upon a Private Notice question which was put to the noble Lord, Lord Woolton, and gave rise to speeches by the noble Lord, Lord Hutchison, and other noble Lords. As to the actual content of the speeches I need hardly say that no noble Lord, certainly not Lord Woolton himself, would complain, because clearly it was valuable, both to him and to the country, that it should be made apparent that the proposals put forward by the Government, primarily in the interest of economy of shipping, should turn out also to be beneficial to the nutrition of the people of this country.
But this question does, I think, arise: Can speeches properly be made upon an answer to a Private Notice question? I speak on this question with all due deference, because there are clearly many other noble Lords with far more experience of this House than I yet have; but I would suggest to the House that it is a practice on the whole to be deprecated. After all, a Private Notice question is 263 exactly what it purports to be: it is a question; it asks for information and it invites a reply. No doubt any noble Lord who is not satisfied with the answer is at perfect liberty to ask a supplementary question in order to elucidate the matter further. But I think it should be assumed that he also is asking for information, and, should he instead make a speech giving information—not asking, but giving, information—then the original conception, that of a question, is completely lost. If a noble Lord wants, say, to raise the question of the nutritional value of wholemeal bread and to give to the House the benefit of his long experience on this subject, surely his correct course is to put a Motion on the Paper, and then it can be discussed fully and in a proper manner by the House. While therefore, in this particular case, of course we all welcome very warmly what was said by noble Lords, I suggest that the procedure which I have outlined is the correct one and I would commend it to the favourable consideration of the House. To allow a Private Notice question to develop into a debate is contrary to the established practice of the House and I believe would not in practice prove a desirable innovation.
§ VISCOUNT SAMUELMy Lords, I also have not been very long a member of your Lordships' House, and therefore it is with great diffidence that I venture to say a few words on this question, which is one of considerable interest and importance. Private Notice questions really are of two categories. The noble Viscount, the Leader of the House, has said that a Private Notice question is one put by a member who desires to elicit information, presumably for his own benefit; but there is another category of Private Notice questions as is well known, when, in the public interest, a Minister desires to make a statement which the House on its side is eager to receive. Indeed on such occasions when I have been honoured with the suggestion that I might put such a Private Notice question, as I did the other day, I am always a little nervous lest I should preface it with the words, "I beg to ask the Government a question of which they have given me private notice." Questions are really of three kinds. There are starred questions, the unstarred questions and Private Notice questions. The 264 starred question, according to the rules of your Lordships' House, does not permit any subsequent discussion or any observations, except a supplementary question which is strictly relevant to the original one.
§ VISCOUNT SAMUELIt may be more; but, at any rate, supplementary questions strictly relevant to the original question and nothing else. On the other hand, your Lordships, unlike the House of Commons, are accustomed to allow some speeches following upon unstarred questions, and the matter now before us is really this, whether a Private Notice question is analogous to a starred question or an unstarred question. Obviously you cannot put a verbal question on the Paper. That rather reminds me of a legal problem I once heard discussed—namely, whether it was legally necessary for a verbal agreement to be stamped! You obviously cannot put on the Paper a question of which no previous Notice has been given. The point now before us is whether a Minister should be able to make a statement on a matter of public importance and anyone else should be able to speak who has any observations to make upon it. We want to encourage Ministers to make statements, and make them in this House, and nothing should be done which would lead them to say, "If this is going to give rise to a discussion I shall not make a statement at all, but communicate with the Press." Therefore, there are arguments on both sides. I suggest that where there is a desire for a statement to be made, someone should be at liberty to move the Adjournment, and, if there is no objection on the part of the Government, possibly, as in the other House, the discussion might take place on such a Motion, which could subsequently be withdrawn. I submit that for the consideration of the House.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMOREMy Lords, I was glad to hear the Leader of the House lay down what unquestionably has been the practice of the House as regards procedure. It is inconvenient if a debate is to follow very often a Private Notice question, for the reason that other Peers who might be interested will not know that the subject is coming on. It is better, therefore, that we should stick to the strict procedure of old times. At 265 the same time I need not remind your Lordships that there is nothing to prevent a Minister putting down a Motion which entitles him to make a statement. Ministers are privileged people in some ways in this House, though they are, strictly, not privileged to sit on that Bench, although they always do it. But they have not lost their right of using the Order Paper, and when an important statement has to be made, as the result of which a Minister hopes for information or would welcome debate, surely it would be more convenient for him to give us Notice and let us all know what is coming on.
§ LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDEMy Lords, perhaps I may intervene for a moment, as I have taken an interest in the rules of procedure in this House in the dozen years I have been here. I have always followed the advice of the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, in not allowing anything, so to speak, to be standardized which would make our procedure more rigid than it is, because the elasticity of our procedure is really of great advantage. I entirely agree with what fell from the Leader of the House on this particular question. I also think that the suggestion made by the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, was a good one, that a Motion for the Adjournment might be moved in order that the particular urgent question under consideration might be more fully debated. But I do not think that in the speeches made the main difficulty about Private Notice questions and questions of urgency has sufficiently been stressed. These questions in another place come very strictly within the purview and the authority of the Speaker. The noble Viscount on the Woolsack has not got the authority or the power of intervention of the Speaker, and there is alway a danger that if you allow too much latitude with regard to Private Notice questions it will become a great embarrassment in the debates in your Lordships' House. I therefore hope there will be no slackening of the rules that at present exist because question and answer are a most valuable privilege of the House of Commons, and I do not think there ought to be any alteration in our procedure in order to allow us to indulge in either time or opportunity for further stretching our powers in that direction.
§ THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRYMy Lords I was not fortunate enough to hear 266 the whole of the speech of the Leader of the House, so I do not know exactly how the matter stands, but I agree with the noble Lord who has just spoken in saying that we do not wish to add to the rigidity of the rules of procedure of this House, because we want every available opportunity to be given for statements which your Lordships all want to hear. The reason for this discussion to-day is what arose last Wednesday, which rather took us all by surprise. A debate then ensued which occupied a great deal of time. I am wondering whether we cannot come to some arrangement on the lines Lord Samuel has suggested—namely, whether these matters of great importance should not come up on a Motion for the Adjournment of the House. I did not gather from other speakers whether they considered that this Motion for the Adjournment should come at the beginning or at the end of our programme. I should think it would be much better for us to go through the programme for which your Lordships have been prepared, and have come here to discuss, and unless there is something of urgent public importance, such as is adjudicated on by the Speaker in another place, all other matters could come up on the Motion for the Adjournment at the end of the ordinary proceedings.
VISCOUNT CRANBOKNEMy Lords, I think we have all listened with the greatest interest to the discussion that has just taken place. The noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, pointed out with great truth that there are two types of Private Notice question. There is first of all the question of the genuine questioner who wants information; there is also the question which is perhaps put into a noble Lord's mouth in order to elicit a statement from the Government. The noble Viscount said, as I understood him, that this latter case might demand an early debate, and he suggested that we might get over the difficulty by a noble Lord moving the Adjournment of the House to permit of such a debate taking place. But the noble Earl, Lord Donoughmore, who speaks with immense knowledge and experience of this House, pointed out, I think very truly, that the difficulty of that procedure would be that there might very likely be a debate in which many noble Lords might wish to take part but they would not be here, because the debate would take place without previous Notice 267 on the particular subject, and therefore we should not get the full benefit of the presence of members of this House.
He suggested as an alternative that Ministers who wish to make a statement on Government policy, instead of doing it by means of a Private Notice question, should first put a Notice on the Paper so as to intimate that they intended to make a statement. That would allow everybody to know what was going to be done and a debate could then properly take place. In my view, if I may be permitted to say so, that is really the proper method. If there is agreement on that, I can assure noble Lords that the Government would take note of what had been said, and in cases where statements are to be made which seem likely to lead to a debate, we will see that it is done, where this is possible, in the form of a Notice on the Paper rather than in the form of a Private Notice question. The difficulty of a Private Notice question, as everybody realizes, is that the debate which takes place arising from it is likely to take many hours and consequently may make it impossible to have a debate also on some Motion that is already on the Paper. That would be a great pity. If, on the other hand, we are to have a Government statement, and everybody knows that the statement is to be made, time is allowed for it and for a full discussion which may follow.
§ VISCOUNT SAMUELMy Lords, may I, by leave of the House, say that I think the suggestion that has been made is preferable to the one I suggested, except that in cases of great urgency, if a statement is perhaps going to be made in another place and it is desired to have simultaneously a statement here, then you would have to adopt an exceptional procedure.
§ LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSEMy Lords, I would like to thank the Leader of the House for the trouble he has taken in giving us his advice. I might add one thing, and that is that I hope in future when Ministers have got important statements to make, they will give notice to the House in the form of putting Notice on the Paper so that those of us who are interested in the particular subject may come here prepared to make our remarks.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNEMy Lords, I am very ready to give that assurance to the noble Lord. I would only point out that there may be occasions when the matter is so urgent that a statement has to be made at short notice. Then we shall have to have some procedure such as that suggested by the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel.
§ THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRYMy Lords, will your Lordships forgive me if I say one further word? It is a question of the length of period of the Notice. At present, as your Lordships are aware, we get our Notice Paper some time the week before, and we make our plans accordingly to attend the House for the Notices which are on the Paper. I do not know how long in advance the Government would be able to give Notice, nor how they would communicate their intentions to noble Lords.