Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stella Creasy and John Bercow

Monday 30th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am sure that the Minister’s views on Labour party policy would be of great interest and possibly a source of edification, but they are not relevant now, because this is about Ministers’ responsibility for Ministers’ policies and those of the Government. The wry smile of the hon. Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher) suggests that he is well aware of that fact.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stella Creasy and John Bercow

Wednesday 4th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There are a lot of very noisy conversations taking place, including on the Opposition Benches, but I am sure that Members will wish to be quiet to hear Stella Creasy.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

11. What steps he is taking to increase information-sharing between Government and businesses on cyber-attacks.

Finance Bill

Debate between Stella Creasy and John Bercow

Monday 1st July 2013 Commons Chamber

[An hon. Member]

What are you talking about?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I say to the hon. Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger): be quiet, and if you cannot be quiet, get out. You are adding nothing, and you are subtracting a lot. It is rude, it is stupid, it is pompous and it needs to stop—whoever it was.

[Stella Creasy]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I was merely reflecting that if we could tackle the way in which tax avoidance is affecting the developing nations, we might not need to have an aid budget in the future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stella Creasy and John Bercow

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We all heard the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) say, “Lock ’em up for longer”. If he was worried that his tone was untypically muted, his worry was groundless.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

20. What the Government’s strategy is for victims of crime.

Points of Order

Debate between Stella Creasy and John Bercow

Monday 6th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the Deputy Leader of the House for that. We cannot have an extended exchange on this particular matter, but because he referred—perfectly properly—to the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), who was jumping up and down, if she wants to raise a point of order, I am very happy to hear and respond to it.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I would be happy to go through the details of those questions with the Deputy Leader of the House, but it simply is not true that they were transferred within 24 hours. Indeed, we were given days on which we would get answers but we were getting none and when we spoke to the Departments, they had no idea about the questions. I think that further investigations are merited and I hope you will support that, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

There is now a dispute as to the facts but that cannot be the subject of extended points of order. I strongly suggest that the complaining Member and the responsible Minister or the Deputy Leader of the House should get together and try to sort this matter outside the Chamber.

Points of Order

Debate between Stella Creasy and John Bercow

Monday 29th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order and for giving me advance notice of it. I understand from the advance notification and from what he has just said that there was a technical problem with the recording of his Committee’s meeting last week. There is not really a procedural solution that I can offer him or the House, but I am advised that all necessary steps are being taken to avoid a recurrence. If no harm was done, I am sure that the Committee and its illustrious Chairman will be relieved. In essence, he asked me a hypothetical question—whether it would have been a contempt, and so on and so forth. I think that he is capable of working out such matters for himself. On this occasion, I hope that he will understand it if I adopt the approach of the late Lord Whitelaw, which was that on the whole, judging from experience, he preferred to cross a bridge only when he came to it.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wish to ask for your help as a new MP baffled by the actions of Government Departments that may wish to avoid scrutiny in this place.

My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop) and I tabled questions for today’s Culture, Media and Sport Question Time on the impact on participation in sport of the proposed abolition of school sport partnerships, which were accepted by the Table Office and drawn in the ballot for answer. Subsequently, the DCMS summarily moved them to other Departments for answer, and having seen today’s Question Time, we may understand why it chose to avoid them. Could you help me understand how that occurred, and would it be possible to look at the current procedures to help prevent Ministers from using them to park matters that they are too embarrassed to deal with, and indeed from further diluting scrutiny of their actions by making such questions eligible only for a written answer?

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the hon. Lady for her point of order. That is a very unfortunate sequence of events, and I am afraid that there are really only two points that I can make to her today. First, the decision as to whether to transfer an oral question from one Department to another is exclusively a matter for the Government. It is not a matter for, for example, the Chair.

Secondly, as I have had reason to state on several previous occasions, I strongly deprecate the practice of late transfer of oral questions by Government Departments. It could have been done earlier. It is very unseemly and very discourteous to Members, and whatever the motivation behind it, it will inevitably fuel the type of suspicion that the hon. Lady has eloquently articulated this afternoon. I am pleased that the Deputy Leader of the House is on the Treasury Bench and will have heard that point. I hope that it will not be necessary continually to repeat it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stella Creasy and John Bercow

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Unfortunately, that question suffers from the disadvantage that it bears absolutely no relation to the question on the Order Paper. We must have another go, so I call Stella Creasy.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

The tender document for the national citizen service pilot sets out the Government’s refusal to meet the total costs of the programme. Just how much of the bill does the Minister expect the voluntary sector and young people themselves to meet?