Lobby and Media Briefings: Journalists' Access Debate
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David Simmonds
Main Page: David Simmonds (Conservative - Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner)Department Debates - View all David Simmonds's debates with the Cabinet Office
Lobby and Media Briefings: Journalists' Access
David Simmonds Excerpts(4 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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Chloe Smith
This is simply barking up the wrong tree again. The Government are ensuring that they are open for scrutiny. The Foreign Secretary stood here yesterday and took scores of questions on the very same subject matter. He was again on television shows on Sunday. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury was on a number of programmes yesterday. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was out this morning; the Home Secretary was out this morning. The Prime Minister himself took many questions on the subject matter in hand yesterday. Nobody is hiding from scrutiny.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that this very much has the flavour of a storm in a Westminster bubble? Will she outline what further steps she might be taking to improve the ability of our regional and local newspapers to hold all of us as politicians to account, outside of that bubble?
Chloe Smith
This is an important point. As we have already discussed, there are ways to do that, and this Government are committed to them. We have mentioned some points of policy, and we have looked at the business rates point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison). To that, I add the way that this Government are making sure that they are available on social media, which, by its very nature, does not require to be inside any Westminster bubble. That is a way for people rightly to be able to hold this Government to account. It is that kind of principle that we hold very highly, and what I have been able to outline today are all the ways in which we are doing that.