Points of Order

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I seek your assistance, because Mr Speaker has generously granted me the end of day Adjournment debate tomorrow on the effectiveness of the Vaccine Damage Payments Act 1979. In anticipation of that debate, I tabled a series of named day questions. As of today, seven of those have been outstanding for more than one week and one of them, which names the 1979 Act, has been outstanding for more than six weeks. That seriously inhibits my ability to properly hold the Government to account, because I need answers to those questions before the debate begins. What can you do to ensure that the Department of Health and Social Care delivers?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. What I can do is repeat yet again what Mr Speaker has said so often from this Chair, which is that when Members submit questions, they ought to be answered on time. There is simply no excuse for them not to be answered. I repeat most emphatically what Mr Speaker has said many times before, as indeed have all his predecessors and mine, which is that it is simply not acceptable that Departments, which have hundreds and hundreds of civil servants to do that job, do not answer the questions of Members of Parliament.