Points of Order
Debate between Glenda Jackson and John Bercow(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. This is a genuine request for information, because I am ignorant about this matter. On 13 January, I forwarded correspondence from one of my constituents to the Prime Minister. My constituent was very concerned about what he perceived to be the Prime Minister’s wish with regard to encrypted communications
“to enable the government to snoop”
on the private individual.
As the months passed and I received no response, I followed the matter up, and on 23 February I received a copy of a letter sent directly to my constituent. It is on Conservative party paper and comes from the political correspondence manager at No. 10 Downing street. The correspondent was sorry to read of my constituent’s concerns and stated:
“The Conservative manifesto will therefore make very clear that a Conservative government will introduce the legislation”.
The final sentence of the letter states:
“I do hope you find this reassuring and that you will feel able to support us in the months and years ahead.”
It was my understanding that no humble Back-Bench MP was ever allowed to use their parliamentary offices or salaries for party political campaigning. It is also my understanding that No. 10 Downing street does not become the property of its incumbent’s political party. I would be grateful for your advice, Mr Speaker, about precisely to whom I can address my concerns about what strikes me as totally unacceptable behaviour on the part of the Prime Minister.
Mr Speaker
Although I understand the considerable unhappiness that the hon. Lady might feel and that her constituent has experienced, it is not clear to me that this is a matter for the Chair. I say that in all sincerity—I have had modest advance notice of the matter, and it is not clear to me. The question of the letterhead is not a matter for the Chair; it may well have been judged proper in the circumstances to volunteer a view as to what a party to the coalition would intend for the future, rather than to purport to speak on the behalf of the coalition Government as a whole. In other words, it might be thought by some people to be a prudent judgment to answer on behalf of a party on party note paper, rather than on the part of a Government. That may be a matter of opinion.
I take what the hon. Lady says seriously, not least because she does not regularly raise points of order—certainly not frivolous ones that, believe it or not, some people are inclined to make. I therefore treat her with great seriousness. She will be with us, fortunately, in the House for a little while longer, and I feel sure that there will be an opportunity for her to air her concerns. She will look at the Order Paper and see what opportunities for questioning there are, and she will draw from her study the appropriate conclusion. Perhaps we can leave it there for now.
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services
Debate between Glenda Jackson and John Bercow(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
The Minister seems to be arguing that the solution to the problem is further evidence. For all the years that I have been in this House—almost 23 now—the issue of underfunding for mental health has been constant. The underfunding of services for children and adults who are suffering from mental health problems is an issue I raised in this House less than six weeks ago. It is unacceptable to claim that if there had been more information, measures would have been put in place to prevent children being sent hundreds of miles from their homes or being placed in adult wards. The Minister’s contribution has clarified the total lack of co-ordinated services for these young people. What kind of care would be afforded to someone in their home when, as in my constituency, their home may well be bed and breakfast, a hostel or some form of temporary accommodation? This is an urgent question; it requires urgent action. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Somebody said that was very wrong. It was a Shakespearian performance. In fact, somebody once said to me, “That person could have been on the stage”!
Point of Order
Debate between Glenda Jackson and John Bercow(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I will take the hon. Lady’s point of order, but her voice deserves to be fully heard, so I shall pause for a moment.
Glenda Jackson
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. This is a genuine request for information. On Monday, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions appeared in front of our Select Committee. Our questioning was, in the main, about the slowness of the roll-out of universal credit and what seems to be gross misspending of public money. In response to my highly respected colleague, the Chair of our Select Committee, the Secretary of State replied, in the first instance:
“With respect, I do not have to tell the Committee everything that is happening in the Department”.
Later, he said:
“With respect, Chairman, I do not think this Committee can run the Department.”
Both replies—no surprises there, Mr Speaker—were, in my opinion, as ill-mannered as they were ill-informed, because it is my understanding that the duty laid on a Select Committee by the House of Commons is to scrutinise the working of the relevant Department. I would therefore be grateful for your advice on to whom I should go or whether there is a relevant committee to whose attention I should draw my concerns, to clarify the situation and, I hope, impose on the Secretary of State the reality of his responsibilities.
Points of Order
Debate between Glenda Jackson and John Bercow(10 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, both for his point of order and for his courtesy in notifying me of it in advance. He is alleging that a criminal offence may have been committed. That is a matter for the police, not for me.
Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. May I also thank the hon. Gentleman for informing my office that he was going to raise this issue today? I entirely endorse what you have said, Mr Speaker. As it is my understanding that the allegations are being examined by the police under the Representation of the People Act 2000, I have nothing further to say on this issue.
Mr Speaker
What a splendid outbreak of consensus from two periodic practitioners of the art of it. We will leave it there for today.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Glenda Jackson and John Bercow(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. It is always a pleasure to hear the hon. Lady, but I must observe in passing that Hampstead and Kilburn are some considerable distance from St Austell and Newquay.
Points of Order
Debate between Glenda Jackson and John Bercow
Mr Speaker
The hon. Gentleman is a new Member, although I have known him a long time, so I am sure that he will not be offended if I say that, on the whole, matters of this kind—that appertain to the Table Office and the staff of the House—should not really be raised in the form of a point of order. The hon. Gentleman is certainly entitled to appeal to me, but it is the sort of matter best dealt with not on the Floor of the House.
However, the hon. Gentleman has raised the point and, having had no previous knowledge of what he intended to say, I would respond thus. He pleads the case for being allowed to use the word “democratic” in the title of an early-day motion, but it all depends on the detail—therein lies the devil. I do not know what title he had in mind, but ordinarily the title of an early-day motion, in order to be acceptable to the Table Office, is supposed to be strictly factual. It is not supposed to be argumentative or disputatious. If an hon. Member is unhappy with the advice from the Table Office, he or she can write to me and I will consider the matter.
I hope that that is a helpful answer—it is certainly a comprehensive one—but if the hon. Gentleman has a proposal for a general change to the House’s procedures on these matters, his request should be directed to the Procedure Committee.
Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. During business questions, the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) raised the issue that IPSA’s byzantine procedures may have constituted a breach of parliamentary privilege. My concern is similar. It is that IPSA is markedly failing to pay in any reasonable time the duly accredited invoices presented to my office by those small and medium enterprises that provide services to me and to those small community organisations and charities that furnish me with a room. It may well be that their only recourse is to attempt to bring bailiffs into this House to remove objects from our offices to meet their outstanding payments. Would that constitute a breach of parliamentary privilege? Those small and medium enterprises must have some avenue by which they may receive what is duly theirs.
Mr Speaker
I have just been advised that page 167 of “Erskine May” applies in this context, and I feel sure that the full details of that are well familiar to the hon. Lady. She conjures up a lurid spectacle that will concern many hon. Members, and she does so on the basis of experience, and that is respected. She will be aware that all sorts of discussions take place between Members of Parliament and representatives of IPSA, and that is perfectly proper. However, I am sorry to have to tell her that as things stand it is clear that matters of privilege cannot be addressed by being raised on the Floor of the House in this way. If she wishes to write to me with an argument about a potential breach of privilege, it is open to her to do so. I shall look in my mailbag.
Schools Funding
Debate between Glenda Jackson and John Bercow(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. I am sorry; I respect the hon. Lady’s enthusiasm, but the short answer is that the Secretary of State cannot go into that, because it is way beyond the terms of the statement today. If I know the hon. Lady, she will save it up for another day, and we look forward to hearing it on a subsequent occasion.
Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley) has gone to the heart of the situation, and the Secretary of State has markedly failed to answer her searching question. When the Secretary of State delivered his statement to the House, he presented the image of a man who had spent 24/7 examining the Building Schools for the Future programme and had at his fingertips absolutely every issue relating to it, yet we learn today that he did not have that knowledge. He should apologise to the House for his failure as a Secretary of State, and for failing markedly to be on top of his brief.
Finance Bill
Debate between Glenda Jackson and John Bercow(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and I admire his mea culpa—is it St Sebastian, the man who stands there with all the arrows? Certainly the hon. Gentleman has portrayed that for us this evening. However, with respect, the issue is not simply VAT. In his opening remarks he said he supported the Budget and the Finance Bill because we are all in this together, but we are not.
No one sitting in this Chamber or within the environs of this Chamber is in danger of losing their home because of the changes that his Government are bringing in with regard to housing benefit, but 303 of my constituents are in danger of losing precisely that. They are not alone in London or the country at large. The hon. Gentleman gave a very good mea culpa on VAT, but the complicity of his party with what the Conservatives are going to do to our country is not absolved, however long his sentence.
Mr Speaker
Order. May I just say to the hon. Lady that I could listen to her, almost without interruption, for some hours, but that shorter interventions would be helpful? It is always a pleasure to listen to her fantastic enunciation.
Points of Order
Debate between Glenda Jackson and John Bercow(13 years, 10 months ago)
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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.