(5 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent 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.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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Of course I speak for the DDCMS, but, as I have said, this is a process that is scrupulously transparent, it is a process that is rigorous, and it is applied equally to all. The hon. Lady mentioned something about the Garden Bridge; perhaps she was pre-empting the Secretary of State for Transport, who will be here shortly.
The Minister has said that this whole process has been rigorous, open and transparent, and he is rightly making the bid available and accessible to all MPs in the Library. However, if he is completely confident that there have been no issues with this process, and if he does indeed believe in its being open and transparent, why does he not put all correspondence relating to the bid in the Library so that we can see it, instead of hiding behind his own governmental review? Show us the evidence!
That is, of course, part of the point of having the review. As I said earlier in answer to another question, I will encourage those conducting the review to make as much of its material as is commercially possible in any circumstances as public as possible. The hon. Lady shakes her head, but I have agreed to the premise of her question, and we will do it.