HL Deb 27 April 1981 vol 419 cc1031-2

2.50 p.m.

Lord Alport

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

The Question was as follows:

To ask the Leader of the House whether he will invite the Procedure Committee to consider the advisability of limiting Peers asking Starred Questions to one supplementary question after the Answer by the Government has been given.

Lord Soames

My Lords, as Leader of the House I am naturally concerned about any factor which may prolong Question Time unduly and it is always necessary for the House to exercise restraint and to respond to collective discipline. But I am not certain that the situation at present is such as to warrant my intervention as Leader of the House in support of the suggestion made by my noble friend. However, if he wishes himself to raise the matter with the Procedure Committee, he is, of course, free to do so.

Lord Alport

My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether it is not against the practice of the House and Standing Orders that a Starred Question should become a dialogue between the Peer asking it and the Minister concerned, when so very often it appears that the questioner is more anxious to impart information than to receive it?

Lord Soames

My Lords, perhaps I may take advantage of my noble friend's supplementary question—which I am sure he is going to ask only one of—to remind the House of the guidance on Starred Questions, which is, first, that Questions should be asked for information only and not with a view to making a speech or raising debate; secondly, that their purpose is to elicit information from the Government and so should not incorporate statements of opinion and, thirdly, that Question Time should normally be concluded in 20 minutes. We do our best to hold to that.

Lord Byers

My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord would agree that, sometimes, it is necessary to have two supplementary questions in order to elicit the necessary information? Furthermore, many of us feel that the practice now prevailing in another place, of limiting supplementaries to one, is detrimental to parliamentary proceedings.

Lord Soames

My Lords, I should have thought that the key to this was common sense and judgment, from time to time. But it would be wrong to think that it would be in the best interests of the House that every noble Lord should automatically be enabled to ask more than one supplementary question. Equally, it would be wrong to suppose that any noble Lord could never ask more than one supplementary question.