Points of Order

Baroness Hayman of Ullock Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sue Hayman (Workington) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your advice and guidance regarding parliamentary protocol in the case of a Member writing to another Member’s constituents as part of an election campaign. The hon. Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison) has written, as a Member of Parliament, to postal voters in my constituency on Conservative-branded paper ahead of the Cumbria County Council elections asking them to vote for the Conservative candidates. I know of postal voters in her own constituency who have not received any such letter from her.

This is the second time since her election to this place only two months ago that the hon. Lady has campaigned for the Conservative party in my constituency using her status as an MP without informing me. I did not make a fuss the first time as she was new to the House. However, she is now fully aware that in the British parliamentary system one Member represents a single constituency and conventions have developed so that one Member’s relations with her constituents are very much a preserve that other Members should not interfere with.

I have had complaints from constituents, some of whom are now confused about who their Member of Parliament is. My constituency office is receiving phone calls from constituents who think that this must mean that the boundary changes have gone through and that I might no longer be their representative. As far as I am concerned, this is unacceptable. Mr Speaker, I would be grateful for your comments and advice on this serious matter.

[The Minister for Courts and Justice (Sir Oliver Heald)]

rose—

[Sir Oliver Heald]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Has it not always been the case that if a Member writes, on Conservative party notepaper, a political message to anyone, that is in order, and that it is only a problem if someone represents themselves as an MP for a particular constituency using our stationery?

[Sue Hayman]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

I will allow the hon. Lady to respond briefly.

[Sue Hayman]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. To clarify, the letters were signed “Trudy Harrison, MP”, and across the top it said “MP”. She described herself as an MP. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We cannot and will not have a debate on the matter. The hon. Lady was courteous enough to give me advance notice of her intention to raise this point of order, for which I thank her, and I have attended both to the substance of what she has said and to the remarks of the Minister.

I must say to the hon. Lady that, disquieting though the experience might have been, and relatively irregularly though it might occur, it is not clear to me that the hon. Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison) has broken any convention. It is certainly a convention to notify another Member of an intention to visit his or her constituency in a political public capacity. It is also a very well established convention that a Member of Parliament should not purport to represent or offer to represent people who are not her or his constituents. [Interruption.] Order. Writing, however, in a campaigning context on party notepaper, though it might not happen very frequently, is not—and I have some experience of these matters—a demonstrable breach of a long-standing convention.

I say to the hon. Lady, whose concern I treat very seriously, that I appreciate that concern, but it seems to me that courtesies between Members of the House, which are important, are best arrived at and adhered to by informal discussions between colleagues. It is not desirable that they should ritually be attempted to be resolved by being raised on the Floor of the House with the Chair. That is to say, to be clear, that they are not matters of order but matters of informal agreement and understanding. It is much better if such understandings can be reached between neighbouring colleagues.