(13 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker.
The shadow Foreign Secretary said earlier that he was grateful to the Foreign Secretary for advance sight of the statement. Unfortunately, however, the whole House, and indeed the whole country, had advance sight of it because it appeared in The Guardian this morning. In some respects, the newspaper provided greater detail than appeared in the Foreign Secretary’s statement. Furthermore, the Secretary of State for Transport’s announcements in a written statement were all broadcast on Radio 4’s “Today” programme this morning. I understand that everyone thinks that this happens all the time, and that it also happened under the Labour Government and all the rest of it, but I urge you, Mr Speaker, to take action. It is not enough to say every time this issue is raised that you deplore it and you want it to stop. Action needs to be taken to find out how frequently Ministers ignore the House and make announcements in other places before they make them here.
Mr Speaker
The Procedure Committee has been looking into the matter, and its thoughts will be shared more widely with the House. I accept the importance of the point that hon. Gentleman has made. At this stage, I would point out that the Foreign Secretary is here and is free to respond if he so wishes. Also, it can be difficult to identify a specific breach. Where such a breach is identified, culprits have been asked to apologise to the House, so it is not just a question of making general denunciations. Specific requirements have been imposed on Ministers. Before I hear the Foreign Secretary, let me say that I know of no parliamentarian or member of the Government who has greater respect for the House than him. I believe we will hear from him.
Mr Hague
Further to that point of order, I hope that you think, Mr Speaker, that the Foreign Office does a good job on the whole of making sure that announcements are made to this House. I have lost count of the number of times I have resisted the temptation to appear on the media before making a statement here. In this case it was necessary, because of the staffing implications, to make announcements about these changes yesterday at a private meeting of our ambassadors and high commissioners. That might have affected the media coverage.
Mr Speaker
I note what the Foreign Secretary has said. We will leave it there for today.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I apologise for not giving you notice of it, but the matter has arisen literally since I left the Chamber a few moments ago.
Yesterday, Mr Speaker, you gave a very clear indication of your view when my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) raised a matter concerning my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws) and an inquiry by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, after reports concerning the commissioner’s report had appeared in a national newspaper and on one of the television channels.
In the last hour, Sky News has reported on not just what appears to be the commissioner’s report, but a meeting of the relevant Committee of Members of the House of Commons. That is clearly in breach of rulings that you, Sir, have made in the past, and of all the principles guarding both the confidentiality of and respect for the proceedings of, in particular, our very important Committees. May I not just alert you to what has happened, Mr Speaker, but ask you to state—as you have on previous occasions, in the most strident terms—that it is clearly a breach of the rules of the House, and that everyone who has breached the rules must understand the implications of that when the matter is examined both by you and by the relevant Committees?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I hope that I made clear in the most uncompromising terms, on behalf of the House, my view of unauthorised disclosures in response to the point of order raised yesterday by the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell). On that occasion I made the point—which I must reiterate today—that at this juncture what has been raised is not specifically a matter for me, but a matter for the Committee itself to investigate.
The Committee may wish to establish how this came about, because I think that all Members who care about this place would unite in deprecating it in the strongest terms, because of the unfairness to the Member concerned and the rank discourtesy to the institution of the House of Commons.
Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wish to raise with you the extraordinary conduct of 10 Downing street in relation to correspondence from Members of Parliament.
On 26 April, I wrote to the Prime Minister at the request of a constituent. During the last half hour I have received a reply from 10 Downing street, signed “Mrs E Adams, Direct Communications Unit”, saying that my letter has been diverted to receive a response from a Minister in the Treasury.
When I telephoned Mrs Adams to ask why the diversion had taken place, I was first transferred to someone in the correspondence unit, who told me that Mrs Adams did not speak on the telephone. I said that as she had written to me, I assumed that she was capable of speaking to me on the telephone. I was then transferred to someone who described herself as “head of the correspondence unit”, who said that Mrs Adams did not exist and that hers was a computer-generated name. Presumably, hers is also a computer-generated bogus signature.
It so happens that I have been a Member of the House of Commons for nearly 41 years, and that in the past whenever I wrote to a Prime Minister, that Prime Minister replied to me personally, whichever party was in office and whether I was a Back Bencher or a Front Bencher. During the past year, this Prime Minister has not once replied directly to any letters that I have sent him, but has diverted them to other Departments.
I ask for your guidance, Mr Speaker. Can you tell me first why the present Prime Minister does not answer letters as his predecessors have, and secondly what extraordinary events are taking place in 10 Downing street as a result of which it sends letters from someone who does not exist and expects people to accept that?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. First, I must confess that during my 14 years in the House it has not always been my experience, having written to a Prime Minister, to receive a reply from that Prime Minister. Sometimes it happens, and sometimes it does not. Secondly, let me say that in general—as Members will understand—the way in which letters are dealt with by Departments is principally a matter for those Departments. Thirdly, let me say to the right hon. Gentleman and to the House as a whole that I consider it to be of the utmost importance for Members to be treated with courtesy by the Departments or agencies to which they write.
It seems peculiarly unfortunate that the right hon. Gentleman’s inquiry has been handled in this way. If it is possible to imagine a Member who would take such treatment lying down, that Member is certainly not the right hon. Gentleman.
If there are no further points of order, I think we will leave it there for today. Let us proceed to the ten-minute rule motion, for which the hon. Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) has been waiting very patiently.