Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I rise to seek your guidance as to the way in which Members of this House should approach correspondence with the Director of Public Prosecutions. Earlier today, we saw the release of further correspondence between the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson), to whom I have given notice of my intention to raise the point of order, and the DPP and previous DPP. What guidance can you give as to the propriety or otherwise of Members of the House seeking to influence the conduct of specific criminal cases by the DPP or the Crown Prosecution Service, bearing in the mind the DPP’s constitutional independence and the importance of the CPS adhering to the statutory-based code of conduct for Crown prosecutors? Is it therefore appropriate for a Member of this House to seek to ask the DPP to have a named senior Crown prosecutor removed from an investigation and from doing all other child sex abuse cases until an investigation has taken place, and to seek a review of all such work that had happened since they had been in the CPS—all on the basis of matters found by the CPS, upon investigation, not to be borne out by the evidence? Secondly, is it appropriate for Members to do that in cases where the complainant or those involved in the case are not the Member’s constituents?
Mr Speaker
If it is on this matter, I will take the hon. Gentleman’s point of order and then respond to the two as a group.
Andy McDonald
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. We have a special responsibility to our constituents, but as Members we also have a responsibility to act for everyone in this country. My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson) was approached by alleged victims and survivors of sexual crimes who were unhappy at how their cases had been handled. He acted to ensure that the proper procedures were followed. It is right and proper that complaints of this kind are dealt with properly by the criminal justice system, and where Members of this House can assist with that, they should.
Mr Speaker
Let me say the following in response to these points of order. First, I understand that there are strong feelings on this matter, and sometimes feelings that are contrary to each other, and they have been articulated on the Floor of the House this afternoon. About that, I make no complaint whatsoever. In response to the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), who, with his usual courtesy, kindly notified me in advance of his intention to raise the point of order, what I would say is this: it is not for the Chair to seek to advise Members on those with whom they should or should not communicate. That is a matter upon which they can and will make their own individual judgment. The DPP will decide what course of action, if any, to follow in response to representations, written or otherwise, from a Member of Parliament. I do not doubt the good intentions of the hon. Gentleman, a distinguished lawyer who of course chairs an important Select Committee in this House, but I feel that it is not for the Chair to be drawn into these matters. I hope that, upon reflection, people will feel that there is a certain logic to what I am saying. Colleagues, make your own judgments about these matters.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. As I said in business questions, the Government recently announced a call for evidence on their review of the secondary ticketing market, with a very tight deadline. I pressed the Government on how they are publicising this call and received a written answer from the Minister for Skills assuring me that all main stakeholders had been alerted. However, I know from the conversations I have had with major stakeholders that in all too many cases I was the one who had brought this to their attention. May I therefore ask your advice on what steps a Member can take to investigate the substance—dare I say truth—of an answer to a written parliamentary question? What steps can be taken to urge Ministers to check the content of their written answers, as all too often, especially recently, it appears that answers are either questionable or far too brief to be of practical use to anyone?
Mr Speaker
I thank the hon. Lady for that point of order. It is a well-established principle in this House that ministerial answers to questions should be both timely and substantive. In reference to the latter point, colleagues will appreciate that what I am stressing is that a reply that simply says, “I hope to respond shortly” is not regarded by most Members as in any way helpful and that to comply with the spirit of the obligation upon Ministers to reply to answers it is important that those answers should be substantive.
As the hon. Lady will fully appreciate, the Chair has no responsibility for the content of answers. Every Member is responsible for the veracity or otherwise of what she or he says in this House. Ministers are certainly responsible for the content of their answers. My advice to the hon. Lady is that if she is dissatisfied with the answers, because she thinks either that they are uninformative or incorrect, she should table further probing and specific questions, based on those answers she has received, seeking to track down the precise particulars that she wants to establish. If that is unsuccessful, there is always the recourse of oral questions to the relevant Secretary of State and the opportunity to apply for Adjournment debates. I have not noticed, over the past 10 years, the hon. Lady displaying a noticeable reluctance to explore those avenues.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. There was great interest earlier in the urgent question debate on the subject of human rights in Egypt. We know that the Prime Minister is meeting President Sisi today. Would it be a breach of the rules of this House if perhaps on Monday—certainly at the earliest opportunity—the Prime Minister did not just come to the House, but set out, either by way of an oral statement or a written statement, precisely the content of those discussions, specifically in relation to human rights in Egypt?
Mr Speaker
If I understood the terminology and construction of the right hon. Gentleman’s inquiry correctly, there would be nothing disorderly in the Prime Minister providing such information to the House. The matter of whether to make any such statement is a judgment for the Prime Minister, as is the judgment over what form that statement should take. Knowing the right hon. Gentleman’s experience in the House and the senior office of a parliamentary kind that he has held as a former Deputy Leader of the House, I think that he will expect that his words will at least have been noted. If he is dissatisfied with the response, he will pursue it with the Prime Minister. We will leave it there for now, and I thank all those who have taken part in the exchanges thus far.