Points of Order
Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Gordon Marsden
Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair. My point of order, which I gave notice of to the Speaker’s Office, relates to the written statement on shale gas that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy put out yesterday. It said a lot about the past but very little about the immediate future. The Government were forced to introduce a so-called moratorium on fracking at the weekend because of the tremors that affected my constituents in Blackpool in August, with the Oil and Gas Authority subsequently saying that they were unacceptable.
However, in a Radio 4 interview and in that statement, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has rather hedged her bets, undermining that promise. The Government have not provided any response to the National Audit Office report that talked about the real problems of decommissioning, which should be taking place at Cuadrilla’s site on Preston New Road as we speak. Madam Deputy Speaker, have you received any information about whether the Government are going to answer those big questions? The Secretary of State is in the Chamber, so she may like to respond now.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. He will be well aware that the making of a written statement is perfectly in order, so I can make no criticism of it from the Chair. I cannot give him answers to his questions, but he has taken the opportunity to alert the House and the Treasury Bench to his concerns. Of course, there are other ways in which he would normally be able to take forward his inquiries, but I do appreciate that this is the last day on which he can do so. He has done his best.
Points of Order
Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Gordon Marsden
Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I gave notice of this point of order to the Speaker’s Office this afternoon. It is about the Government’s widespread briefing in today’s papers about their taking new powers and initiatives on grade inflation in universities and whether the Minister for Universities will use the teaching excellence framework to facilitate that without having brought this matter to the House.
Amendment 23C to the Higher Education and Research Bill required the Secretary of State to commission an independent review of the TEF within a year of the Act’s commencement, requiring that the review and subsequent review must cover all aspects of the TEF and whether it is fit for purpose. The Government gave me a commitment in writing that they would announce the review by autumn 2018. Despite that, they have failed to bring anything forward on the independent review, yet today they have been briefing the press on their plans to use the TEF for this new purpose, even though they have not even announced its review. In the light of that, is it right for the Department for Education to push out policy changes on the hoof to the media, without coming to the House to give a proper statement?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. As ever, he knows, and the House knows, that that is not a matter on which the Chair can rule or take immediate action, but I can well understand from his description of what has happened why he wants to bring the matter to the attention of the House, and by raising this point of order, he has very effectively done so. I hope that the relevant Minister will note what he has said, but if he does not get the response that he hopes to get in the proper way, I am sure that he will raise this matter again with the Chair through one of the orderly ways in which such matters can be raised.
Business of the House
Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Gordon Marsden(7 years, 4 months ago)
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Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
The Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation this morning delivered a major speech to a think-tank, Reform, setting out major developments in the Higher Education and Research Bill. He did that not having made an oral statement in this House, not having laid a written ministerial statement in this House and not having spent any time in his 32-minute speech yesterday on this area alluding to those developments.
Madam Deputy Speaker, you might think, I might think and many of us might think that that is a contempt and abuse of this House. It is the second year running that this Government have tried to make major statements about higher education on the last day of term, with the intention of evading scrutiny. Will the Leader of the House prevail upon the Universities Minister or another Minister to come to the House today and explain why, for example, the Government will make major changes to the teaching excellence framework, for which they are laying material today, and the Office for Students? [Interruption.] The chuntering Whip says from a sedentary position, “It is far too long”. We have had far too little from—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. We do not need “chuntering” Whips. I know that the question is too long; I am sure the hon. Gentleman will now conclude.