Points of Order

Caroline Flint Excerpts

Monday 26th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that. As she is well aware, she has helpfully underlined and reinforced the point that the hon. Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins) has just made. It is always a pleasure to be in agreement with the hon. Lady.

[Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. On 8 July, I received a written answer from the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt), assuring me that this week a report would be published on research and statistics

“relating both to false allegations of rape and to other relevant issues.”—[Official Report, 8 July 2010; Vol. 513, c. 428W.]

I have two unanswered written questions, in which I was pursuing whether or not the Government would be making legislative proposals. However, I read in The Sunday Telegraph that an

“MoJ source said: ‘We will certainly not be legislating’”

on this issue, and that the Government do not plan to publish the evidence, about which they certainly responded in their answer of 8 July to my question. Although I welcome a U-turn by the Government on this issue, is it in order that they have failed to come to the House to tell us comprehensively what they intend to do on this proposal and how they intend to move forward and let Members on both sides of the House receive information at first hand, rather than through the press?

[Mr Speaker]

What I would say in response to the right hon. Lady is that the timing of Government statements to the House is a matter specifically for the Government. I hope that I have understood the right hon. Lady correctly with reference to the questions that she has tabled, and what I would say is that if she has not received answers—or, at any rate, substantive answers—to questions, I would very much hope that substantive answers will be forthcoming before the House rises for the summer recess. I very much hope that Ministers from the Ministry of Justice have heard—if they have not heard, I hope that they will hear shortly—precisely what I have just said. That approach seems to me to be conducive to the good conduct of business of the House.