Points of Order

Glenda Jackson Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. During Home Office questions this afternoon, my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) and the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) asked questions about domestic violence and the concerns felt by refuges across the country about a possible serious cut in their funding. In response, the Minister seemed to confuse domestic violence with previous questions to do with rape, and kept praying in aid responses with which she hoped to furnish the House from the Ministry of Justice. If the Home Office no longer has responsibility for the issue of domestic violence or the sanctuaries from it—namely the refuges—surely this House should have had a statement to that effect.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order, but I have a sense that, dissatisfied with the responses that she heard earlier, she is, in a sense, seeking to continue the debate. To the best of my knowledge, responsibility for the issue of domestic violence remains where it has always been. If Ministers feel otherwise, they might wish to respond to the serious point of order that she has just raised. However, I see that the Home Secretary is in her place, so it might help the House if she would care to respond to that point of order.