Nuclear Safeguards Bill

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Tuesday 8th May 2018 Commons Chamber

Lords amendment 1, 2 and 4 to 7 agreed to.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In the urgent question on the Learning Disabilities Mortality Review earlier on, which had been published at 8 am on Friday 4 May with no press releases or advance copies in the middle of the local election results, the Minister of State for Care said:

“It is an independent document and the University of Bristol decided when it was going to be published. It was published on Friday without permission from or any kind of communication with the Department of Health and Social Care.”

However, the Secretary of State had told the House in December 2016:

“As the programme develops, all learnings will be transferred to the national avoidable mortality programme. I have today asked the LeDeR programme to provide annual reports to the Department of Health on its findings”—[Official Report, 13 December 2016; Vol. 618, c. 622.]

What the Minister of State said today cuts directly across what the Secretary of State told the House, which was that he intended annual reports to be made to the Department of Health. Since our urgent question, the programme itself has clarified this on social media. It said that following claims made by the Care Minister in Parliament,

“we would like to clarify that @NHSEngland chose when to publish the #Leder report and directed all communications.”

Given that clarification from the programme itself, has the Minister of State or the Secretary of State asked to correct the record?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

The hon. Lady wishes to put her point on the record and, by raising a point of order, she has done so. I am quite certain that the Treasury Bench will have taken note of what she has said. She, like all Members of this House, will know that it is not a matter for the Chair what an individual Minister says at the Dispatch Box. Therefore, I cannot give her any ruling on the matter, but she has sought to put her point on the record, and she has succeeded in doing so.

Business of the House (Today)

Ordered,

That, at this day’s sitting, proceedings on the Motion in the name of Jeremy Corbyn relating to Criminal Legal Aid Remuneration may continue, though opposed, for 90 minutes after the commencement of proceedings on the motion for this Order, and shall then lapse if not previously disposed of, and Standing Order No. 41A (Deferred divisions) will not apply.—(Rebecca Harris.)