Business without Debate

Wednesday 27th June 2018 Commons Chamber

Select Committee Practice and Procedure (Effective Working)

Motion made,

That this House approves the recommendations of the Liaison Committee in its First Report of 2017-19 (HC 922); and accordingly orders that:

(1) Standing Order No. 137A be amended by adding the following sub-paragraph to paragraph (1): “(e) to invite members of any other committee to which this order applies to attend any meeting and, at the discretion of the chair, ask questions of witnesses or otherwise participate in its proceedings; but no member of another committee so invited may move any motion or amendment, vote or count towards the quorum.”; and

(2) until the end of this Session, notwithstanding Standing Order No. 125 (Select committees (admission of the public)), the chair of a select committee may, with leave of that committee, be accompanied at meetings other than oral evidence sessions by a single, nominated member of his or her personal staff, subject to any further conditions set from time to time by any resolution of the Liaison Committee; and those conditions must include provision for the exclusion of any such person if any member of that committee indicates objection at any time.—(Kelly Tolhurst.)

[Hon. Members]

Object.

[Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I hope you can provide some guidance on how the record might be corrected in relation to remarks made by the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) a short while ago in a Westminster Hall debate on coastal erosion. The hon. Lady said that my local authority, Angus Council, had not committed to use the full funding provided for the purpose of protecting against coastal erosion, and she went on to make a series of disparaging connected remarks. Angus Council has now written to the hon. Lady to inform her that those remarks were wrong and that it has in fact committed all the moneys it has received from the Scottish Government’s capital funding to flood-risk management actions. The council has requested an explanation as to her remarks, but could you, Mr Speaker, advise me as to how the record can be corrected in this place?

[Mr Speaker]

Well, as I think the puckish grin on the hon. Lady’s face testifies, she realises that she has found her own salvation: she has in her own terms corrected the record in respect of those important matters. I detect a glow of contentment on her part, as she has achieved her objective by the tried and tested ruse of an entirely bogus point of order. I hope that satisfies her for now.