Points of Order

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I thank the hon. Lady for her point of order and for notice of it. As the House has agreed a Humble Address—an effective motion—that should be complied with. In other words, the Government should provide the documents that were demanded. Resolutions of this House have equal force whichever Member moves the original motion. If the only effective motions were ones moved by members of Her Majesty’s Government, Parliament would simply be, in effect, a rubber-stamping exercise and we might as well all go home. I reiterate that such motions should be complied with. I would not want to speculate at this point about whether or not the Government intend to comply—that would be hypothetical—but I am sure that those on the Treasury Bench will have heard what has been said.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Can you help us? What is the purpose of having named day questions if one Department—the Department of Health and Social Care—consistently does not comply with the requirement to reply to those questions in a timely fashion, to which the Leader of the House referred earlier? The most recent records show that only one third of the named day questions to that Department are answered on time. I have 12 outstanding named day questions to that Department that have not yet been answered, some of which date back more than five weeks, and we are now on the last day before the recess. What can be done to enforce the rules, particularly against the Department of Health and Social Care? Many of the questions are highly pertinent to people who want information about whether or not it is safe to take the covid-19 vaccine.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point of order. He raises an important issue that the Procedure Committee has looked at, and he might like to draw it to that Committee’s attention. He is quite right to say that the Leader of the House has indicated that Departments should answer questions in a timely fashion. We have just had business questions; it may be that the hon. Gentleman would like to raise the issue at a future session of business questions when the Leader of the House is present.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. We have raised the issue before—in fact, Mr Speaker granted an urgent question on it and the Minister for Health had to come and answer it—but despite all the pleas from you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and Mr Speaker in the Chair, the Department does not seem to be responding. I am a member of the Procedure Committee and the statistics to which I referred are the latest statistics reported to that Committee. The question I ask is: what can be done to enforce the rules?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

All I can say is that we have to persist, which the hon. Gentleman is clearly doing. He is not alone in his concern about this matter, as he has rightly said. I will ensure that Mr Speaker is aware of this comments. As I said, he might, as a member of the Procedure Committee, like to take the issue back to that Committee as well.