Points of Order

Anna Turley Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order and for advance notice of it; I thank him for raising the matter with me. Let me confirm the following. First of all, nothing disorderly occurred on Friday. Secondly, although I absolutely understand the disappointment of the hon. Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) at the failure of her Bill to progress, it would in my experience be extremely unusual for the eighth Bill to make progress. Thirdly, I think the record shows that, when moved, the Bill was objected to at the point at which business was interrupted, namely 2.30 pm. I have been informed by the hon. Gentleman, and I do not dispute it for a moment, that he was not present at that point and therefore could not have objected to it.

Let me conclude by saying this in response to the hon. Gentleman. He has, on a number of occasions, very explicitly blocked Bills, possibly by shouting “Object” and certainly by developing his arguments at a leisurely pace and in detail, which he thinks have required his forensic scrutiny. In other words, he has, by one means or another, blocked many Bills. He did not block this Bill. Simply as a point of fact, because I believe in the intelligibility of our proceedings and people not running away with the wrong idea, he did not block the hon. Lady’s Bill.

The last point I would make—I make it to the hon. Gentleman and to other hon. Members—is that I really think it would help if Members in all parts of the House treated each other with courtesy. I do not want to be in the position of having to arbitrate in matters of this kind, but where I have been asked factual questions I have given factual answers. Having heard the hon. Gentleman’s point of order and responded very fully to it, I think it only fair to hear from the hon. Lady, if she wishes to speak.

[Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to speak. I would also like to thank the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) for advance sight of his comments.

There is never, ever any excuse for people to abuse Members of Parliament and the hon. Gentleman’s staff certainly should not have had to wade through such messages. Feelings around animal cruelty run very high. People are very passionate about it, but there is never any excuse for abuse.

I would like to make a point of clarification. First, I was very clear, in what I put out to the media, that it was the Tory Whips who ultimately blocked the Bill. Secondly, this is my first private Member’s Bill, and I had had positive conversations with colleagues on the Government Benches who were very encouraging of it and were, even up until that day, discussing the possibility of it going through. It is a matter of record that the hon. Gentleman spoke for over 90 minutes on the first Bill. Everyone in this House needs to be aware of the consequences of their actions on Bills further down the Order Paper, whether they agree with them or not.

[Mr Speaker]

I note what the hon. Lady says. I do not think I should adjudicate on that, because the hon. Gentleman was perfectly in order in speaking as he did, but she has made her point and some people will agree with her.

With reference to what she said about the Whips having objected, I must admit that at that point I was not here. I was here to see the success of the Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (Ratification of Convention) Bill. Thereafter I had to go to my own constituency, so I was not present. The hon. Lady tells me that the Whips objected. Well, Whips do tend to do these things. It is quite commonplace. It is what they think of as one of their functions from time to time, among other miscellaneous functions—sometimes subterranean functions, but we had better not dwell on that. [Interruption.] I certainly would not make such a disobliging remark about Whips. I always had a relationship with my Whips characterised by trust and understanding: I did not trust them and they did not understand me.