Points of Order

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order and for his courtesy in giving me notice of it. I do not want to be drawn, and fear that I cannot be drawn, into conversations between hon. Members to which I was not myself privy, including those between hon. Members and Ministers. What I will say is this: I am sure that the hon. Member for Ipswich is well aware of his responsibilities and that the right hon. Member for Exeter will continue to be a doughty champion for his constituents. He has a right to be, he has a responsibility to be, and I am sure he will be.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Three weeks ago today, the Prime Minister promised to publish data on the number of people in receipt of employment and support allowance and incapacity benefit who had died since November 2011, including those who had been found fit for work. Indeed, I raised it as a point of order on the same day. To date, nothing has been published. These people who died and their families deserve better than this. As we are approaching the summer recess, I will be very grateful if you can advise me on how I might expedite the publication of these data—on actual deaths and not just mortality rates as the Government have proposed.

[Mr Speaker]

The short answer to the hon. Lady, whose long-standing interest in this subject is well known, is that she must use the device of questioning, and there are further opportunities for questioning of various sorts between now and when we rise for the summer recess. If that method does not suit her, for whatever reason—and sometimes it has to be done more than once, even several times—there will be the opportunity, of course, to offer thoughts in the summer Adjournment debate, though I accept that she might not elicit a substantive reply from the responsible Minister. Use of the Order Paper and of the various opportunities for oral questioning—she will know that there are a number of different options on that front—would be her best course, and I advise her to try to take it. [Interruption.] The hon. Lady very courteously says from a sedentary position that she has done that several times. As I have sometimes had cause to observe, repetition is not a novel phenomenon in the House of Commons, and sometimes a Member who has done something several times simply has to resolve to do it again and again—and there will be such opportunities for the hon. Lady on that matter and for other Members on matters that concern them.



Bill Presented

Trade Union Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Secretary Sajid Javid, supported by Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, Secretary Patrick McLoughlin, Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Nick Boles and Matthew Hancock, presented a Bill to make provision about industrial action, trade unions, employers’ associations and the functions of the Certification Officer.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed (Bill 58) with explanatory notes (Bill 58-EN).