McAnulty KieranHon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. Sir no one is challenging your view that Parliament is Sovereign and the decisions made here can override decisions made in other parliamentary bodies. It is however sir important that the rules under which those decisions are made are followed. Now earlier on in your first response—shall I give you a moment sir? SPEAKER: I can give you some back-up to the Greek position I've taken so far. Carry on.Hon KIERAN McANULTY: No no I appreciate that. It's clear that you're taking this seriously but as are we. So what I was saying sir is that no one is disputing your view which is a long-held view and widely held that Parliament is Sovereign. However it is the rules that determine the manner in which those decisions are made that's at question here.Earlier on in your initial response to the Hon David Parker you indicated that recently there had been an example at Business Committee where agreement was sought to consider an out-of-scope inclusion. That is the proper process and it is the proper process in the sense that if Business Committee agrees then the normal requirement for leave of the House is no longer there because it is the leave of the House to consider out of scope. That is the proper process for which Parliament can make its decision by which you refer to then be Sovereign.So nobody is arguing that sir but what we are saying is that if out-of-scope inclusions are to be considered by this committee that should be done by the leave of the House not as part of a referral and an instruction to the committee. And I agree with my colleague the Hon David Parker in the sense that if this were to be sought by leave we would consider it through that proper process. But given sir that there are clear rules in place that determine how this House operates and there is already a process clearly outlined in Standing Orders as to how this House should consider out-of-scope considerations it would be going beyond those rules and creating a new process thus not previously followed if it was to be considered as part of an instruction motion rather than leave of the House.SPEAKER: Look I think the question when it comes to proper process always takes you back ultimately to the floor of the House and to the sovereignty of Parliament to effectively determine its own order of business. So I stand by the interpretation given to Standing Orders 298 particularly (1). In the case of 300 then of course the remedy is the vote that goes with it. But I also refer members to Hansard Volume 594 27 November to 18 December if you're looking for a precedent. It was to do with the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Genetically Modified Organisms) Amendment Bill. It was a Supplementary Order Paper in fact put in by the Minister that empowered the committee to take into account any other matters that it might like. Now if you think about parliamentary language it's evolved a lot since 2001 and so we now talk about scope and out of scope.The instruction has been voted on by the House. The instruction stands. We come back to the debate—Hon David Parker: Point—SPEAKER: No I'm sorry; that's all I'm taking on that.Hon David Parker: Well I want to refer to the precedent that you just referred to.SPEAKER: Well you you don't need to because I'm not taking any more discussion on it.Hon David Parker: Well sir I think the precedent doesn't apply so I would like to speak to the point.SPEAKER: No I'm sorry with all due respect it doesn't matter whether you think it's right or not; what matters is whether or not as the Speaker who's got to preside over this I think it's a reasonable precedent.The further thing—I'll go back to what I said before—even if that were not the case all actions that become precedents start with something and there has been an instruction voted on by the House. The instruction stands.Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): New point of order Mr Speaker. The case that you referred to of a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) being put to a select committee was the opposite. It was to avoid a scope issue that would otherwise have arisen for the select committee if that Supplementary Order Paper had not been put to the select committee. I hadn't seen the detail of that but I suspect that would also have then triggered a submission process at the select committee; would've then been within scope of the committee because the new business that was in that Supplementary Order Paper and known to the House was then referred to the select committee; and then the select committee could consider it because it was then within scope. That did not override scope in the way that you are proposing here sir. Sir I think it's good that the Leader of the House has arrived because I think this is an important issue. I've never seen this before.SPEAKER: Well look just responding to you I think there's an interesting—but I think missing the point—argument that you're making about it being an SOP that was referred to a select committee. It would've been because there was an inadequate instruction in the first place so it was an addition to an instruction.Hon David Parker: Because it was out of scope.SPEAKER: In this case—no with all due respect in this case it is not specific; it's general. It's a general authority given to that committee back in 2001. Can I just say that in this case—I'll go back to what I've said before and we are terminating this discussion now—there has been a motion put on the House it is an instruction to the committee and it stands. We come back to the debate on the date by which the bill is to be reported.Hon David Parker: It's not in scope. I don't see how—SPEAKER: Look I'm sorry the member has had his time and while he may not understand the discussion—Hon David Parker: This is terrible—this is terrible.SPEAKER: —and may wish to sit there talking to himself saying how terrible it is that is a condemnation of the entire House who've just cast their votes on this matter.