Points of Order

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her point of order; there were a lot of questions in there and I will do my best to respond. Obviously, I cannot answer on what discussions the Speaker has or has not had with members of the Government. I should also say that the Chair is not responsible for Government responses to the reports produced by her Committee, although, obviously, I hope that those responses will be forthcoming—I am sure those on the Treasury Bench will have heard that. I can confirm that the current scheme for proxy voting expires in July 2020 and that, as I am sure she will appreciate, the whole House will be interested in hearing the Procedure Committee’s expert views on the scheme. I know that her Committee has made a great many contributions to the debate so far, which have been extremely helpful. I am sure she knows that the Speaker has taken a very close interest in ensuring that voting in this House is carried out effectively, but that key to his response has been that it has due regard to the safety of hon. Members and of staff—I can assure her that he will continue to do this. As for a meeting between herself, the Leader of the House and the Speaker, I am sure the Speaker will respond positively to the requests she makes, as I know he has fairly regular meetings with her in any case.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is sort of tangential but allied to the former point of order. You will know that yesterday the Leader of the House committed to the Chair of the Procedure Committee that he would be introducing a motion today to deal with allowing some Members to participate in questions, statements and urgent questions remotely. That was tabled late last night, since which time amendments have been tabled. As I understand it, Mr Speaker is minded to select three of those amendments—four are being tabled but three have been selected. That means, in practice, that if we were to suggest that we were going to push those to a vote, this would be opposed business and so if we reached 7 pm—you will tell me if I have got this wrong, Madam Deputy Speaker—without having started the debate, it could not then be taken as it is opposed business.

I also note, further to what the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley) just said, that since the Prime Minister has now made a further commitment today, it might be more sensible if we were to have a new motion tomorrow that covered all these matters in the round. We could then debate it properly, rather than having it shoved through at the end of the day by surreptitious means without the Government allowing any time for debate.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. He has painted a scene of something that might happen at the end of the day, which I obviously cannot predict at this point because we do not know whether the business will run until 7 pm. However, not for the first time, he is correct—in saying that the motion cannot proceed after 7 pm if it is objected to. In the current circumstances, an amendment standing on the Order Paper that has been provisionally selected and not withdrawn, and is likely to be contested, would constitute an objection, and he is right that it cannot be taken after 7 pm.

[Chris Bryant]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will have another go, very briefly—just to say that I will be contesting this at 7 o’clock, in case there was any doubt.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for clarifying that point. I thought that that might be the case, but it is best to have it on the record.