Point of Order

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In written parliamentary question 99967, I asked the Department of Health and Social Care to publish training modules and guidance related to first cousin marriage and genetic risk. The Minister replied that these materials existed, but would not be published to this House or more widely. In written parliamentary question 102870, I asked the Minister if he would place those training modules in the Library of the House of Commons, and the Minister said there were no plans to do so. This is astonishing since that answer came after a freedom of information request to NHS England, which had already placed those very documents in the public domain. Can you advise me, Madam Deputy Speaker, on how a Minister might come to this House and explain why, yet again, Parliament has been denied information that was in fact releasable, as you have warned against on many occasions?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for advance notice of his point of order. He will know that, as Chair, I am not responsible for the answers that Ministers give to written parliamentary questions, although he might also know that the Procedure Committee is currently holding an inquiry into this very issue. I encourage him to provide evidence and to raise his concerns with that Committee.