Andy Slaughter
Main Page: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith)Department Debates - View all Andy Slaughter's debates with the Cabinet Office
(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Michael Ellis
I have already said that the matter is being given the closest attention by the Prime Minister and by Downing Street. We do focus on standards in public life, as we do, as I have adumbrated before, in the list of matters that are available to those who seek to make complaints and wish to make complaints. In the interim period, people can make complaints to their permanent secretary, or the permanent secretary of the relevant Department, and that appears to be what happened in this case in 2019.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
The Minister has stated that the Prime Minister’s current defence in this matter is, “I was told but I forgot.” The Minister mentioned his time in practice. If a client had produced that defence, what advice would he have given him, and would he have put him in the witness box?
Michael Ellis
If anyone should go into the witness box, it is those on the Labour Front Bench. The hon. Gentleman seeks to challenge this party, but it is this party that delivers what the people of this country want. It is this party that secured the largest majority since the 1980s at the last general election, and it is this Prime Minister who will go on to fight the next general election. It is about policies, not personalities, and the hon. Gentleman wishes to make political points out of a serious allegation.