Points of Order

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

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[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

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[Mr Speaker]

Order. I will call the shadow Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government first. I have the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) in mind; he need not worry.

[Mr Speaker]

The short answer to the hon. Gentleman, to whom I am grateful for giving me an indication of his intention to raise his point of order, is no. I have received no such indication from the Secretary of State.

The hon. Gentleman is a notable eager beaver in the House. He is most assiduous in the discharge of his duties, and he obviously wanted to be here today to air his serious concern about this matter, invoking third-party support as he developed his argument. Let me say to him that I think that his opportunity for direct exchange will come ere long. Local government finance is to be debated in the Chamber tomorrow. It is a reasonable expectation of the hon. Gentleman that the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government will be in his place on the Treasury Bench, ready to speak from the Dispatch Box, and I have a hunch that the hon. Gentleman will be in his place, and very likely leaping up from it to interject on the Secretary of State in pursuit of satisfaction. The House will be agog to witness those exchanges.

[Andy McDonald]

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[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

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[Mr Speaker]

I am saving up the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis); as I often say, it would be a pity to squander him at too early a stage of our proceedings.

[Andy McDonald]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Yesterday, in his statement to the House, the Secretary of State for Transport was asked by the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne):

“How good is Lord Adonis’s memory”

in connection to the collapse of East Coast. The Secretary of State replied:

“I am not a doctor, but I know that there is no record whatever of any ban on National Express continuing to bid for franchises after 2009”.—[Official Report, 5 February 2018; Vol. 635, c. 1247.]

That was when it defaulted on east coast rail.

That is entirely incorrect. On 1 July 2009, Lord Adonis told Parliament that National Express was banned, as recorded in Hansard. He said:

“It would clearly be reasonable not to invite a company to bid for future franchises in circumstances where it had recently failed to deliver on a previous franchise. A company which had defaulted in the way that National Express now intends would not have pre-qualified for any previous franchises let by the department.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 1 July 2009; Vol. 712, c. 226.]

Lord Adonis has made it clear that the ban was based on advice from the Department.

The ministerial code says:

“Ministers must give accurate and truthful information to Parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity.”

Can you advise me, Mr Speaker, of whether the Secretary of State’s statement amounts to a breach of the ministerial code, and how an appropriate apology and correction might be secured from him?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, whom I indulged fully as he developed his point of order. I say with respect to the latter part of his observations, in respect of an alleged breach of the ministerial code, that I am not its arbiter. It is not for the Chair to adjudicate upon whether a Minister has breached the ministerial code. Whether the hon. Gentleman likes it or not, that is in the hands of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister looks at such matters, or can ask others to look at them on her behalf, but it is not a matter for the Chair.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising the matter, and although it is not—simply as a matter of constitutional fact—a point of order for the Chair, he has none the less taken the opportunity to put his concerns on the record. It is up to the Government if they wish to respond to the matter he raises, because there is absolutely no doubt that Ministers will have heard what he had to say—it will have been heard on the Treasury Bench, and it either will have been heard, or will very soon be heard, by the particular Minister at whom his remarks were directed.