Points of Order

Ed Balls Excerpts

Monday 5th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Ed Balls (Morley and Outwood) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. A Member of the House doing an interview with the BBC at 5.25 this afternoon was given the full list of schools in her constituency on the departmental list. It transpires that that was sent out to the media by the Department at 5.20, but at 5.45 there was still no list in the House of Commons Library. Is that not a shameful way to treat the House? How can Members respond when they are not given the information being given to the press?

Further, at 4 o’clock this afternoon, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury made a written ministerial statement in which he announced a £1 billion cut to the budget of the Department for Education—a cut that was not mentioned subsequently in the Secretary of State’s statement, which was labelled a statement on school funding. How can that happen?

Further, allegations have been made in the House about financial improprieties that happened before the election. I said clearly that there had been no direction, and that everything was agreed with the Treasury. The allegations were then repeated. Can we have chapter and verse and a reply from the accounting officer at the Department before the House rises tonight, so that we can clear up the matter and find out who is telling the truth?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. Matters of procedure, or indeed of process, are matters for me in the Chair. Matters of content of statements are not. What I can say to him, and to the House, is the following. Obviously, I have done, or have had done for me, a little bit of research in anticipation of the possibility of points of order on this matter. “Erskine May”, on page 441, makes it clear that

“a document which has been cited by a Minister ought to be laid upon the Table of the House, if it can be done without injury to the public interest.”

That principle does seem to apply to the list—the document, or documents, in this case. It, or they, should be available to the whole House, rather than just to individual Members when they ask or through correspondence afterwards. I think that the thrust of what I have said is clear.

We had extensive exchanges and considerable dextrousness was required from the Secretary of State for Education. He was asked a great many questions and sought to answer them. It seemed to me a pretty unwieldy process, to put it mildly, for us not to have the documents available at the appropriate time. I have noted what the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) has said about the timing of the passing of documents to members of the media and so on, but before I pass any comment on that matter, I think it is only right to ask the Secretary of State for his comments in response to the point of order and to what I have said.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

In response—I do not want to have an extended exchange with the right hon. Gentleman, and I am grateful for his efforts to co-operate —[Interruption.] Order. If the Secretary of State says that he is not aware—he is a person of his word—I of course accept that he was not aware, but what I would say is that the Secretary of State should be aware of whether something has been passed to the media before the statement is concluded. If he is not aware, it is inevitably possible that something would be passed to the media, as it has been suggested has happened, before the statement is concluded. That would be a rank discourtesy to the House. I have known the right hon. Gentleman for 20 years, and I have always known him to be a person of the utmost courtesy, but it is fair to say that there has been something of a breach of courtesy today.

[Ed Balls]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. On your ruling, I told the House five minutes ago that the list was circulated to the press at 5.20. Either the Secretary of State for Education doubts my word, or he should apologise to the House for the list being sent to the media 25 to 30 minutes before it was placed in the Library of the House. Can we also have answers to the question on the allegations about my impropriety? Will he provide a reply with evidence about these allegations of financial impropriety from the accounting officer and the permanent secretary of the Department before the House rises tonight?

[Mr Speaker]

The shadow Secretary of State has now twice, very clearly, made his point about the timing of the release of the documents to non-Members of Parliament. The Secretary of State has offered a form of apology; whether he wishes to add to that is a matter for him.

As for the other important matter raised by the shadow Secretary of State, namely what he regards as a slur on his good name, I must tell him that, procedurally, it is not a matter for me. It is a matter of debate, and I have a feeling that it will be the subject of continued exchanges between the two titans for some time to come.