Points of Order

Lord Watson of Wyre Forest Excerpts

Wednesday 7th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman may ask that. I do not know the answer, but there is no breach of order if a Member comes to raise a point of order about someone else without notifying that person first. The hon. Gentleman is a very courteous man—I will have known him for 27 years in October of this year—and he might well expect that as a matter of courtesy there would be advance notification, but there is no obligation to notify. He has put his views on the record and contributed enthusiastically to our exchanges.

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. As you know, a number of schools in my constituency have been affected by this misleading information. I tried to phone the Secretary of State yesterday, but he was not courteous enough to return my call. I heard Mr Andrew Neil announce that the Secretary of State was going to apologise for this matter and I assumed that he would do so to the House. Do we have any remedy to try to ascertain what the Secretary of State is doing? I have already cancelled a meeting to come here and it would be unfair and discourteous if he made Members cancel any other meetings.

[Mr Speaker]

There are a couple of points to make in response to the hon. Gentleman. The first is that the Secretary of State is an extremely busy person and it is not for me to comment on the nature or frequency of telephone conversations that he has. I can say only for myself that if the hon. Gentleman were to telephone me, I would always be delighted to hear from him and would regard it as a matter of some priority to have a telephone conversation with him. Secondly, I think that I have made the overall position very clear and people on the Treasury Bench will have heard it. What I am saying, in short, is that if the Secretary of State has something to say to Members, he should say it here. If he has something to say to me, he could usefully say it here and it would be a jolly good thing if he came to the House to make a statement at a suitable time—that is, at or shortly after 7 o’clock.