Business of the House

Felicity Buchan Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that point. It is important that written answers are as helpful as possible. It is always possible to seek the advice of the Table Office—it is exceptionally good at this—to work out how to rephrase a question in order to get around an initially unhelpful answer so as to get the information requested. If the hon. Gentleman is not able to do that, or is not successful in doing so, my office will be more than happy to seek fuller answers than he has got so far.

[Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)]

On this Holocaust Memorial Day, I would like to pay tribute to my constituent Marika Henriques. Marika was born in Hungary. At the age of nine, she got separated from her family and she became a hidden child during the war. Mercifully, she survived and now she is resident in my constituency. I would like to thank my Front Bench colleagues, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and you, Mrusb Speaker, for making so much time available for today’s debate. May I ask that this also happens in subsequent years?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The individual stories of those now in very old age are of the greatest importance and are incredibly moving, whenever Members come across them, and it is so important that they are recorded and restored for posterity. I am glad to say that both last year and this year we were able to avoid any urgent questions or statements on Holocaust Memorial Day. It would be wrong of me to promise that that can be guaranteed in future, but I can assure the Chairman of the Backbench Business Committee that as long as I am the Leader of the House, that will certainly be my aim.