Points of Order

Anna Soubry Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Yes. I quite understand Members’ desire to visit the constituency of the hon. Gentleman. I say that not merely in the abstract, but on the strength of my very agreeable personal experience. As the hon. Gentleman knows, I visited his constituency with him to speak to school students some time ago, and I positively salivated over the experience, so I can quite understand why others would want to visit Shipley.

Members should do each other the courtesy of prior notification. This matter is now regularly being raised by Members on both sides of the House, and I hope there will not be further recurrences of discourtesy.

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Ind)]

Further to the point of order from the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), Mr Speaker—and I see that the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) wants to raise what I suspect will be the same point. As you know, Mr Speaker, following an incident involving the hon. Member for Chelmsford last week, we have had further incidents outside that entrance to the tube station. There are not simply posters, although that is bad enough; members of our staff are being intimidated in what is now a very much confined area. Further to that, a member of the Lobby told me that when she left this place at 11 o’clock on Monday night, she went past people who were injecting class A drugs. There was then an incident outside the entrance itself, where the gates are into the tube station.

In short, Mr Speaker, a number of us have done exactly what you have asked us to do. We have raised all of this with the senior police commander and directly with the gentleman whose name I have forgotten. The hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth did so in an email, as I know because I was copied in to it. Fine words—no action, and it is not acceptable. What is happening outside that entrance to this place is a serious threat to the safety of everybody who uses that entrance.

[Mr Speaker]

I think the fairest thing I can say to the right hon. Lady, whose extremely alarming personal experience lends weight to her observation, is that I might usefully convene a meeting with our advisers to be attended by those Members who are airing their concerns today. I think that is the fairest thing I can say, and the Leader of the House herself may wish to attend that meeting. I obviously cannot resolve the issue here and now, but so that we are all in one room and preferably, at the end of the conversation, in the same place, what better way but to have a meeting sooner rather than later? I hope the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) will accept that I cannot pursue it further now, but I hope that is a constructive approach.