Points of Order

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I do not mean to be discourteous to the hon. Gentleman in any way, but it was obvious where his question was headed. The short answer is that the choice of Minister to respond to an urgent question is exclusively a matter for the Government. Members can have an opinion about it, and they may have wanted Mr Secretary Huhne to be here this afternoon as opposed to Minister Barker, but that is a judgment entirely for the Government. It is not a matter for the Chair.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. As you will know, ever since Edward II was removed by Parliament as King, the royal succession has been a matter for the whole of Parliament—for both Houses—to determine. I wholly welcome the fact that the Prime Minister has gone off to Australia and announced that he is going to bring in some changes in respect of the royal succession, but he has not brought them to this House first. In particular, he has referred to one element of this—the matter of the male preference primogeniture—but has made absolutely no reference to the issue of how the succession should be dealt with in relation to Catholics and marriage to Catholics. Will you make sure, in so far as you are able, and as previous Speakers have done when such matters have arisen, that this issue is brought to the Floor of the House, either in the form of a statement or by some other means so that we can all inform the Prime Minister exactly how we approve of what he has done and how we would like him to go further?

[Mr Speaker]

I have no idea what my predecessors did or did not do in relation to comparable matters, and the history books would have to be studied by me with some intensity and speed in order for me to answer that point made by the hon. Gentleman. But his wider point I take, and he has registered it—I think that was probably his main purpose for today. Wherever the Prime Minister is, there is a real prospect that the verdict of the Voice of Rhondda will be made known to him. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman rather pessimistically chunters from a sedentary position that he thinks that that is unlikely, but he should live in hope; we all attach importance to his words.

If there are no further points of order, we will move on to Mr Secretary Clarke. We have been saving him up.