EU Withdrawal Agreement

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Julian Smith

Wednesday 9th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I see that I have some agreement from the right hon. Gentleman, who is quite far down the list. I must therefore insist on having questions—just short questions—and not great big statements. We all know what has already happened. Let us just have questions for the Minister, so that we can then just have answers from the Minister.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

I welcome the agreement and thank my right hon. Friend and his civil service team for getting us to this stage, but may I urge him to spend some time with the Protestant Unionist loyalist community, who have retained concerns about the detail? I suggest that Mikala’s Kitchen on the Shankill Road is the best place for that engagement. Could he also now spend some time with the nationalist community, unaligned voters and passionate supporters of the European Union in Northern Ireland to demonstrate to them that the practical approach that he and the EU have taken on the protocol can now be replicated on issues such as climate change, health, jobs and the future of all people across the island of Ireland?

Points of Order

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Julian Smith

Thursday 13th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. We were told that the figures for our constituencies would be in the document, but I went to the Vote Office and they are not. We have only a list of 62 authorities that have benefited from the £350 million that has been announced today. Furthermore—this is important—the document states that there are implications for converging funding under one formula in the future. That clearly has serious consequences for the constituents of those of us who miss out, but we are not being told. We have a right to know.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is it in order that in a serious debate on school funding, the shadow Minister behaves like a school bully in the playground—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. I thought the hon. Gentleman was going to make a point of order further to that raised by the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford). That is not a point of order but rather a matter for me to deal with. I have dealt with it, and the shadow Minister has acknowledged that and apologised.

I fully appreciate that the hon. Member for Eltham is making a point about which he feels passionately, but it is not a matter on which the Chair can rule at this moment. The information given to the House by the Minister is a matter for him. He is here and hears the point. If he would care to respond to the point of order, I give him the opportunity to do so.