Madam SPEAKERI was asked yesterday to rule on the permissibility of interjections during personal explanations. That point does not appear to have arisen before.
As I pointed out when the point of order was raised, members do not have a right to interject at any time. Standing Order 132 allows a member to be interrupted in only two circumstances: by a point of order, or by a matter of privilege relating to the conduct of strangers who are present. Of course, the longstanding convention has been that reasonable interjections are permitted. That is acknowledged in Speaker’s ruling 57/2, given in 1932, where it is said that with the “tacit consent” of the House, members may interrupt other members to ask “reasonable questions”. That latter reference gives the clue to what interjections are supposed to be about: they are contributions to the debate that is under way, by way of contradiction, elucidation, or endorsement of what the member who is speaking has just said. Interjections, provided that they are reasonable, are thus clearly appropriate in a debate.
But when members are making statements, it has been recognised that interjections are not appropriate—see, for example, Speakers’ ruling 123/2 relating to interjections while the Prime Minister is delivering the Prime Minister’s statement. A personal explanation is a form of statement. Indeed, Standing Order 350 specifically states that a personal explanation may not be debated. In these circumstances, I consider that it is out of order for there to be interjections while a member is making a personal explanation.