Points of Order

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Commons Chamber

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

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your guidance. This morning eminent academics published research in a peer-reviewed journal that estimated the mental health effects of the Government’s new work capability assessment process between 2010 and 2013. The research is the first population-level study that looked at more than 1 million work capability reassessments in 149 local authorities in England, and at trends in suicide, self-reported mental health problems, and rates of antidepressant prescription. The report found that there is independent association of an additional 590 suicides, 280,000 cases of self-reported mental health conditions, and 725,000 antidepressant prescriptions. Concerns about the work capability assessment process and other aspects of the Government’s welfare policy have repeatedly been made in this House. In view of the gravity, and the scale and range of impacts of Government policy on the health of its citizens, I seek your advice, Mr Speaker, on how best to get the Secretary of State to make an early statement on how he intends to address those appalling effects.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her attempted point of order. I know that she follows this issue extremely closely and carefully, but I am afraid that it is not a point of order for the Chair. I do not want to dilate on matters that take place outside the Chamber, but—forgive me for saying this, but it must be said—we cannot have a situation in which an attempt to raise a matter through an urgent question, for example, which is not granted, is then substituted by an attempt to deal with the matter via a point of order. If every Member did that, we could spend long periods each day with people who tried to get an urgent question but did not succeed thinking, “I’ll deal with this through a point of order instead.”

The hon. Lady asked me honestly for my advice, but I am afraid my advice is for her to table written questions through the Order Paper. If she remains unhappy with the answers—or, as she sees it, the lack of answers—she can try again to deploy the mechanism of an urgent question. It is for her to demonstrate why the matter is urgent for that day, rather than simply a matter of great importance and relative topicality. If she wants to apply for an Adjournment debate she can of course do so.

I think I have shown considerable readiness to grant UQs and hear points of order, and I do not intend any discourtesy to the hon. Lady. She is extremely assiduous in the execution of her duties, but I do not think that I can say more than that today if I am to be fair about it—well, I am being fair about it—[Interruption.] Well I think I’m being fair anyway—[Hon. Members: “Hear hear”] It is quite useful to hear the odd “Hear hear”. If there are other points of order we had better hear them.