Universal Credit

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order, of which I had not myself received notice, but about the absence of which notice transmitted directly to me I make no complaint. I absolutely accept that he informed my office of this matter, but it may have been when I was elsewhere.

What do I have to say to the hon. Gentleman and for the wider benefit of the House? First, the transferability of questions from one Department to another is exclusively the preserve of the Government. That is not something in relation to which, however infuriating to an individual Member, an explanation is required to the Chair or even really the Member. It sounds as though some attempted explanation was given, but it has not satisfied the hon. Gentleman. It is, however, a power of a Department to shift an answer to another Department.

Secondly, by implication, the hon. Gentleman asks what recourse he has. The answer is that he can table further questions in an orderly manner, with the assistance of the Table Office, to press his case. That is the concept of what I call “persist, persist, persist,” which is not an entirely novel phenomenon in the House of Commons and with which the hon. Gentleman, from long experience and perspicacity, is well familiar.

Thirdly, although the hon. Gentleman cannot insist on the presence of a particular Minister—for example, to answer an urgent question, although I am not suggesting this would be such a case—if he thinks that it is relevant to the Attorney General, rather than to the Ministry of Justice, he can seek to raise this matter at questions to the Attorney General. The question whether he is then called to ask a question would of course fall to me, and he might find that he is successful. He must find out when there will next be questions to the Attorney General, and he should table a question. If he is fortunate in the ballot, he will be on to a very good thing. If he is not successful in the ballot, he should cast his beady eye over the successful questions and decide how he can relate his inquiry to one of the successful questions. He then leaps from his feet and hopes to catch my eye—

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

From his feet!

[Mr Speaker]

He leaps to his feet. I was not suggesting that he leaps from his feet, but that he leaps to his feet. I am always grateful for what might be called the prepositional advice of the hon. Member for Rhondda. [Interruption.] Well, the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden) asked for my advice, and I have given him a very detailed toolkit. The toolkit is available to him, and I hope he will use it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I was not here at the time, so I did not hear that exchange. The Minister was obviously in a very generous mood and wanted to offer satisfaction. As for how that is resourced, it is a matter for the Department. I can take some responsibility for the resourcing of the House of Commons—and I do take some responsibility for that, including by supporting and initiating projects, either capital or revenue-based, that have cost considerable sums of money—but although the hon. Gentleman is keen to invest me with additional powers, I am afraid that my powers do not extend to increasing or reducing the budget of the Department for Work and Pensions. That is well beyond the ambition and scope of Mr Speaker. The hon. Gentleman’s point has been heard. I think that to some extent he is drawing on his experience not only as a Member of Parliament, but as a trade union negotiator. I do not think that a trade union negotiation can be entirely conducted across the Floor of the House, and certainly not via the Speaker.

[Chris Bryant]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I do not know whether you have been to Portcullis House recently, but there is a new exhibition on various medals that have been held by a Member of Parliament, a former Member of Parliament and a couple of brave people who were Officers of the House during the second world war. The exhibition makes reference to Sir Arnold Wilson, the then Member for Hitchin, who died in the second world war. To be fair to him, he was brave: he fought in the RAF and he was killed in action against the Germans. However, throughout the 1930s, he was a very pronounced fascist. He regularly spoke in this Chamber in favour of Mussolini and he did intelligence work for the Nazi party of Germany. I personally think that if we are going to show his medals, we should show the full story of how he came to fight in the war, rather than try to obscure his fascist past. Would it not be more appropriate for us to do so? If we want to learn our history properly, we can only do so if we learn all of it, not just parts of it.

[Mr Speaker]

I do not object to anything the hon. Gentleman has just said. That is news to me, but then I have learnt a lot of things for the first time from him, so this is a continuation of a long-established pattern. I have read his books. I am not sure that they are bestsellers, but I did feel, after reading his two-volume book on the history of Parliament, that I was not only entertained but better educated and an improved person as a result. I would be quite happy for the fuller story to be told. If he wants to pen a suitably brief and succinct encapsulation along the lines of what he has just said to me, there is no reason why it should not be added to the exhibition. On a serious note, I am in favour of transparency. If we are to report the record of a particular person in a laudatory sense, but in a way that perhaps distorts part of the picture or omits important detail, let us include important detail. The hon. Gentleman has sitting near him an illustrious historian, so between them they ought to be able to come up with a succinct version that tells the full story.