Mr. Speaker, I understand that this would be a convenient moment for me to ask you to give a Ruling on the principles governing the rejection by the Table of two Questions which I sought to put to the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Transport relative to the exercise of his powers under the Transport Act.

I am obliged to the hon. Member. The hon. Member has asked me why I refused to allow three Questions which he desired to ask of the Minister of Transport. One of these Questions concerned the directions on notice boards on certain trains. That Question seemed to me to be clearly a matter of day-to-day administration, in which the Minister has said he will not interfere. Another Question was, in its original form, concerned with advertisements for cheap tickets, and seemed to me to be no more a general question than several relating to the issue of cheap tickets which the Minister refused to answer on 2nd February of this year. The hon. Member then—when, I think, he knew that this second Question was not in very good form—tried to make the Question more general. In its revised form the Question offended against another Rule, and became hypothetical, because the hon. Member was unable to cite the basis of his Question without making it apparent that the matter complained of had been ruled out as a matter of day-to-day administration. I regret, therefore, that I am unable to allow any of the three Questions submitted to me by the hon. Member.

I am grateful to you for your guidance, Mr. Speaker, but I should be grateful if you could qualify the matter perhaps a little further, relative particularly to the last words of your Ruling. There is a class of subject on which it is possible to draft a Question referring to a particular matter. As I understand your Ruling, that is now ruled out because it refers to a particular matter. Then I understand that a Question is ruled out if, while on the face of it raising a general question, it appears to be so general because the particular facts are not given. I should be grateful for your guidance on how it is possible to ask any Question on the issue of a general direction by the Minister, in view of the two apparently conflicting principles to which you have just given expression.

Of course, if I am satisfied that a Question relates to day-to-day administration, under the custom and Rules of the House it cannot go on the Order Paper. That is by the custom of the House, and by Rulings of previous Speakers.

Does the Ruling which you, Sir, were good enough to give in reply to a point which I put before, apply to what you have just said—namely, that what is out of Order in a Question, is not necessarily out of Order in a Debate; and, therefore, it would be open to any hon. Member to give notice that he would raise these matters on the Adjournment Motion?

The noble Lord is perfectly correct. All these matters are quite in Order on an Adjournment Motion or on Supply. Of course, the Rules governing Questions are very much tighter than the Rules of Debate, and these matters are not ruled from the competence of the House; they can be raised on the Adjournment or on other occasions.

On the point of day-to-day administration, under the Act the Minister has absolute power to obtain from the Board any information he desires. Therefore, is not this House entitled to require that the Minister shall obtain that information and convey it to the House?

I have allowed several Questions in order to try to put out feelers, to see how far one could or could not go. Once a Minister has refused to answer Questions on account of their being matters of day-to-day administration, I have no option. If the hon. Baronet is arguing that because the Act refers to "the national interests" everything can be asked, I should myself hesitate to agree. I do not think that is in accordance with the Rules of the House. Indeed, to agree might get me into trouble with the courts, because what is in the national interests as the interpretation of an Act of Parliament, is not a matter for me but for the courts.

With great respect, Mr. Speaker, the paragraph you have in mind makes no reference to the national interests. It gives the Minister an unqualified right to obtain information from the Board. Therefore, has not the House an equally unqualified right to obtain it from the Minister?

I think that question was dealt with in the last Debate by the hon. Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson). I am bound by a Ruling of my predecessor. If a Minister has once refused to answer a Question, I am not allowed to permit it to go to the Table.

Is not the weakness of all this that the Minister is the deciding factor? The Minister is really a dictator, because he can decide whether the Question concerns the day-to-day working. Why should that dictatorial power be left in the hands of the Minister?

I should like to reinforce that question. I quite understand that in a number of cases your view, Sir, could coincide with that of the Minister in saying that such and such a matter ought not to be asked. But suppose that in a particular case you, Mr. Speaker, took the view that such a Question was in Order; are you thereupon precluded in future similar cases from allowing such a Question if, in the meantime, the particular Minister has refused to answer such a Question? Surely, in the last resort you are the deciding authority on admissibility, and not the Minister.

I should have to have the authority of the House for that. I cannot exercise my choice in allowing Questions as I feel inclined. What seems to me to be a reasonable guide for the future is the way Questions would have been allowed in 1938. I am quite certain that the three Questions put down by the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) would never have got past the Table in 1938.

Could that very important Ruling be made more clear, because, surely, under nationalisation of the railways, there must be wide questions of policy about which we should be entitled to ask the Minister of Transport Questions which we should not have been able to ask in 1938, because the Minister was not then responsible for the railways?

I was referring only to Questions on day-to-day administration, and not to matters of general policy. Questions concerning such matters as tickets and notice boards on trains would never have been allowed in 1938.

As Questions are frequently permitted which refer to the day-to-day administration of private firms, in respect of which no Minister is responsible, why should the boards of nationalised industries be protected and private firms not protected? There were two such Questions yesterday, one of which concerned ball-bearings manufactured by a private firm.

Perhaps the firm comes under the control of the Minister of Supply. I do not think that the Table would make a mistake about that.

If I may refer to the first half of your original Ruling, Mr. Speaker: if I got it right, what you said was that the Minister said that the matter raised was a matter in which "he does not interfere." What I want to be quite sure about is that that is what excludes, that class of Questions—the mere fact that the Minister says that he does not interfere; or is it necessary to be the fact that he does not interfere; or thirdly, is it necessary to be the fact that he should not be able, under the Statute, to interfere?

The answer was that, in practice, he does not interfere. He has said quite frankly that he is not interfering in practice with day-to-day administration, and he is not answering Questions on day-to-day administration. I am bound by that, and unless the House choose to pass some Resolution, I cannot do otherwise.

Could not this hard-and-fast rule be suspended this week, because it is the week of the Women's Conservative Association Conference in London, and they have been getting dreadfully mixed up about notice boards and tickets, and have been contacting Members opposite?

In 1938, to which you made reference, Mr. Speaker, the only nationalised industry was the Post Office, about which we could ask Questions on the most minute details, down to why the telegraph boy had a dirty face.

That is not quite correct, because the Postmaster-General never answered Questions about the programmes of the B.B.C., and that was accepted by the House.