Angela Rayner
Main Page: Angela Rayner (Labour - Ashton-under-Lyne)
Mr Speaker
I saw the hon. Lady first. I am saving the hon. Gentleman up. It would be a pity a waste him at too early a stage of our proceedings.
Angela Rayner
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. As many Members know, I am new to this place, and I hope you can give me your wisdom and experience. This place is a little bit like Hogwarts to me: it has a lot of trapdoors, corridors and conventions. I believe that one of the conventions of the House is that, if a Minister or any other Member visits our constituency, they should at least inform us that they are coming. The Secretary of State for Health, who has been in this House a lot longer than I have, visited my constituency on Friday. I did not find out about it other than through the organisation that he visited. I just wonder whether you can give me some guidance on that, Mr Speaker.
Mr Speaker
I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order and the courteous terms with which she phrased it. Yes, the short answer is that there is a long-standing convention that Members notify each other in advance of what might be called public visits to each others’ constituencies. That is certainly, therefore, an obligation incumbent upon Ministers, a fact reflected in the content of the “Ministerial Code”. The hon. Lady has, at a very early stage in her career, discovered an important way to register her grievance with Government Front Benchers. She has done it through her point of order, the contents of which I feel sure will be winging its way to relevant Ministers almost before I have sat down.