Points of Order

Andrew Smith Excerpts

Monday 14th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. On behalf of my constituent Mr Peter Hitchens, I wish to raise concern about the remark made about him in this House in the Syria debate on 29 August by the hon. Member for Braintree (Mr Newmark), who said, in reference to an article by Mr Hitchens:

“Peter Hitchens wrote recently, in support of the Assad regime, that the Syrian Government were not lying and that it made ‘more sense’ for the opposition to poison and kill more than 1,000 of their own people.”—[Official Report, 29 August 2013; Vol. 566, c. 1503.]

Mr Hitchens has raised this matter with your office and directly with the hon. Member for Braintree, as have I, but it remains unresolved. Mr Hitchens does not support the Assad regime, and it is clear from his articles that he does not. He is concerned that this allegation currently rests on the Hansard record without challenge or correction. I am sure that you would agree, Mr Speaker, that it is important, in debate, that we argue on the basis of what those who disagree with us actually say, rather than what we might choose to attribute to them. I hope through this point of order to have corrected the record on behalf of my constituent.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order and for his courtesy in giving me advance notice of his intention to raise it, as well as for sharing his intentions by letter and e-mail with the hon. Member for Braintree (Mr Newmark). For my own part, speaking from the Chair, I would not seek for one moment to interpose myself in a dispute or altercation between the hon. Member for Braintree and Mr Peter Hitchens. I think that the point stands as the right hon. Gentleman has made it, and I would just like to say that the hon. Member for Braintree said what he judged and judges to be right. He was perfectly entitled to do so, and I make no criticism of him. Mr Peter Hitchens is well known to me. I have been acquainted with him for a great many years and disagreed with him for almost all of those years on almost all matters under the sun, but it is a matter of almost uncontested fact that Mr Hitchens is a man of both provocative talent and unimpeachable integrity. We will leave the matter there.