Points of Order

Debate between Alison Seabeck and John Bercow

Wednesday 11th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I need to declare an indirect interest. I seek your advice, because I would hate for a Minister to have unwittingly misled the House. Is it in order for the Chief Secretary to return to the Dispatch Box and supply the correct figures for social house building? Yesterday, in response to me, he said that the Government

“have the highest annual rate of social house building than under the previous Government”.—[Official Report, 10 March 2015; Vol. 594, c. 145.]

The UK Housing Review, published on Monday, had within it a Department for Communities and Local Government live table, which had the following figures for social rent starts and completions: in 2009-10, there were 39,492 starts and 30,939 completions. The figures in 2013-14—the last full year—were 3,961 and 7,559 respectively. As you can see, Mr Speaker, the Chief Secretary’s statement is wrong, and his Government have not out-built the Labour Government.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order and for notice of its likely content. She has put her point on the record. I hope she will understand if I say that the content of Ministers’ observations in the House is not a matter for the Chair. If the Chief Secretary, upon reflection, judges that he has made an inaccurate observation, it is of course open to him to correct the record in one or other of a number of different ways. I hope the hon. Lady will not take offence if I say—it is meant as a compliment—that she is a wily character. She has largely achieved her objective by putting her point on the record in prime time.

Points of Order

Debate between Alison Seabeck and John Bercow

Monday 1st July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I recall the previous instance. The hon. Lady will recall that the following day, I granted a Member an urgent question to put to the Foreign Secretary because I felt that such matters most definitely did warrant an airing in the House. I have a strong hunch that the hon. Lady’s thirst for interrogation on this matter will soon be satisfied, and I feel sure that she will be in her place when it is.

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In my haste and my desire to comply with your signals to keep my question short, I omitted to declare an indirect interest as I should have done.

[Mr Speaker]

That is extremely courteous of the hon. Lady. Her interest has now been asserted.

Finance Bill (Ways and Means)

Resolved,

That provision may be made about interim remedies in court proceedings relating to taxation matters.—(Mr Gauke.)

Finance Bill (Programme) (No. 2)

Ordered,

That the following provisions shall apply to the Finance Bill for the purposes of supplementing the Order of 15 April 2013 in the last Session of Parliament (Finance (No. 2) Bill (Programme)):

1. Proceedings on consideration shall be taken on the days shown in the following Table and in the order so shown.

2. Each part of the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the time specified in the second column of the Table.

Nuclear-powered Submarines

Debate between Alison Seabeck and John Bercow

Monday 18th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

May I offer the condolences of the Opposition to the families and friends of the two brave servicemen who lost their lives last week? For the record, the shadow Secretary of State is out of the country on official defence-related business.

In a security landscape of few guarantees, our independent nuclear deterrent provides us with the ultimate insurance policy, strengthens our national security and increases our ability to achieve long-term global security aims. As the Secretary of State made clear, the initial gate decision announced in May last year set in train £3 billion of expenditure on the design, development, assessment and ordering of long-lead items to make the 2016 main gate decision feasible.

If the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) had re-read the May statement, he would have known that half the money is for renewing the infrastructure of the Rolls-Royce facility in Derby, which is essential for the next generation of nuclear submarines. That is not new but necessary investment.

This is a vital programme that a separate Scotland would not be able to afford or benefit from—[Hon. Members: “We don’t want it!”]—in terms of security or jobs if it did not go ahead. Indeed, the development of the new reactor needs to go ahead whether or not there is a final decision on Trident, because it relates to the UK’s defence capability and to our submarine programme —with huge implications for places such as Barrow, a point completely missed by the hon. Member for Moray.

It is very easy to become blinkered by the concerns held in some quarters about the successor programme and to lose sight of the wider need for the research and development and investment required to keep our nation safe. If the Lib-Dem alternative review, which is ongoing, is to be evidence-based, it must stand up to scrutiny when published, and the Opposition will certainly look at any new evidence brought forward.

Some issues rise above party politics, and the nation’s security is one of them. The country would therefore be deeply disappointed if defence of the Government ever took precedence over defence of the national interest. The previous Government were strong advocates of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, and although multilateral disarmament is not the only route to achieving a world free of nuclear weapons, it is one that we must accelerate if we are to achieve that collective goal.

Will the Secretary of State say how the Government are strengthening each of the three pillars of the NPT? What dialogue is he having with some of the key Governments about their position in that regard?

When the Government do the right thing on defence, we will support them. We look forward to the evidence that they will provide and to a clear commitment to multilateral disarmament.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I very gently say to the Secretary of State that any remarks about the non-proliferation treaty should be pretty brief? I know that he will want other colleagues to be accommodated.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alison Seabeck and John Bercow

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

The use of food banks in Plymouth has gone up, from 790 food banks to nearly 4,000 in a year. Is the Prime Minister proud of the fact that it is his changes to benefit arrangements which are causing this to happen—there is no doubt about that—and is he therefore going to stand up and say, “Yes, that’s fine; food banks are lovely”? Yes, they are lovely, and the people of Plymouth are magnificent in the way they feed in to those, but will he pass the buck on this, and go for a gold medal in passing the buck, as he has over the Culture Secretary—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We get the drift.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alison Seabeck and John Bercow

Monday 20th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I do not think that the House has access to the box in question, but we are immensely grateful to the Minister.

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

In view of the important role that SMEs play in some of our bigger programmes, and their need to be confident in the process and to have security of outcome, will the Minister give the House some clarity on the intention for the F-35 programme? In particular, given rumoured reductions in orders from the USA, Australia and Canada, does he expect the price that the MOD pays for each F-35 to rise, and does he have a view on the exact point at which they become unaffordable for the UK?

Points of Order

Debate between Alison Seabeck and John Bercow

Tuesday 20th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am very concerned that the Minister for defence equipment, support and technology, the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire (Peter Luff), appears to have forgotten to follow up on the specific commitment he made on two occasions in this House—first, to my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Michael Dugher) on 4 July, column 1212, and, secondly, to my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) on 14 November, column 570—that he would bring forward a White Paper on defence procurement previously promised in the spring. Given the economic downturn, that paper is vital for the defence industrial base, which accounts for 10% of GDP. Will you, Mr Speaker, therefore assist the Minister with his memory lapse by asking him to come to the House before the year ends and he fails to fulfil his promise?

[Mr Speaker]

That is not directly a matter for the Chair, but what I can do to assist is look meaningfully, but in a typically friendly fashion, at the Leader of the House and the Deputy Leader of the House, both of whom will have heard the hon. Lady’s point of order.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alison Seabeck and John Bercow

Monday 5th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

I draw the House’s attention to my previous declarations of an indirect interest, which are a matter of record.

Although I welcome all attempts to bring empty homes back into use—I saw some excellent examples during the recess of self-help schemes that do just that, including in Leeds and Hull—homelessness and rent have increased, as the Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), admitted over the weekend. It was therefore surprising that his colleague, the Housing and Local Government Minister, wrote to me during the recess to seek my guidance and ideas from Labour’s policy thinking. That was from a man who pointed out that the shadow Minister was going to—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I ask the hon. Lady to come straight away to a question? That is what we are here for.

[Alison Seabeck]

I just thought that that would be an interesting point, Mr Speaker.

Even with the net addition of empty homes being brought back into use, can the Minister tell us when he expects house building under his Government to exceed the 207,000 net additions achieved under Labour in the year before the recession hit?

Points of Order

Debate between Alison Seabeck and John Bercow

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your ruling and advice on whether the Minister for Housing and Local Government has breached purdah rules. Part 6 of the most recent Cabinet Office rules state that Government announcements should not be made in an election period, yet two days before elections the media and the Department for Communities and Local Government website confirm that he has made an announcement on self-build housing today. Is it not more appropriate for such announcements to be made on the Floor of the House outside the purdah period? Should not the Minister be required to come to the House to apologise or to explain, or perhaps to do both?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady both for her point of order and for advance notice of it. I have not been told of any intention on the part of any Minister, including the Minister to whom she referred, to make a statement. She has put her views on the record and can find other ways of pursuing this. I note in particular what she said about the code of conduct, and my response is that the question of purdah, and of statements not being made during a period of purdah, does not apply to or flow from any rule of the House. That is to say that there may be a ministerial procedure on this matter—the hon. Lady is welcome to pursue her line of questioning in relation to that—but there has, in short, been no breach of order. Her point will, however, have been heard, including by the Leader of the House.

Points of Order

Debate between Alison Seabeck and John Bercow

Monday 28th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I draw the House’s attention to my earlier declaration of interest. During questions to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the Minister for Housing and Local Government said that I misrepresented his policy on the new homes bonus. He claimed that he had equalised the payment for new homes built, but that is simply not the case. The new homes bonus matches the council tax for each new home built over six years. The council tax for each band is averaged; the payment per home is not. The Library has produced research that supports the case that I made with regard to Hull and to Kensington and Chelsea. Will you, Mr Speaker, advise me and the House on how the Minister can correct the record?

[Mr Speaker]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for giving me notice of what she intended to raise and has, indeed, now raised. She has put her point on the record, and she will have other ways of pursuing her concern about the matter. I must advise her, however, that it is not a procedural matter on which I can rule this afternoon.

Points of Order

Debate between Alison Seabeck and John Bercow

Thursday 22nd July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The short answer to the hon. Gentleman is: none. That is for the simple reason that he is seeking, and has sought, to continue a debate.

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would welcome your clarification, not least in the light of the debate that was held here on Tuesday about the pre-release of statements prior to the Minister coming to the Dispatch Box. I do not have Superman’s X-ray vision, and I stand to be corrected on this, but I saw a Government Parliamentary Private Secretary come to the House and distribute among Government Back-Bench Members a document that looked very much like the statement that the Minister then went on to read. Can you offer your guidance, Mr Speaker, so that that sort of thing does not happen in the future, if indeed it happened today?

[Mr Speaker]

When a statement is made and has been delivered, copies are made available to all Members. That is the proper way in which to proceed. I hope that is clear.

[Alison Seabeck]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I am not sure it requires it, but we shall see. We shall give the hon. Lady another bite of the cherry.

[Alison Seabeck]

The document in question, which may or may not have been a statement, was distributed during business questions, although it might have been something else.

[Mr Speaker]

What I have already said in response to the hon. Lady’s point of order stands. I am happy to reflect further on the point, but I am not sure I want to get into the issue of precisely at what point these statements are distributed. If anything further is required on that matter, no doubt she will come back to me, and I will be happy to seek to respond. But that will do for now.