Gordon Marsden
Main Page: Gordon Marsden (Labour - Blackpool South)
Mr Speaker
The straightforward answer to that point of order is that—if memory serves me correctly—there will be an opportunity to question the Deputy Prime Minister on Tuesday next week. If hon. Members wish to put questions to the Deputy Prime Minister on the matter to which the right hon. Gentleman has just referred, they will have an opportunity—not least in topical questions—to do so.
So far as the wider comments the right hon. Gentleman made are concerned, I can only reiterate what I have already said about the correction of errors and underline the importance of Members using their own devices to pursue those matters. I cannot be drawn into the debate. The right hon. Gentleman has stated his position and I have indicated what opportunities there are for the pursuit of the matter.
Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Earlier this week I raised a point of order with you about the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government saying in the House that he would not make any announcement about the abolition of Government offices and he was currently discussing that with interested parties—despite the fact that he had written to the contrary to the Deputy Prime Minister nine days previously. On that occasion you said that you had had no indication that the Secretary of State would come to the House to make a statement.
This morning, a written ministerial statement by the Secretary of State has announced that 1,700 posts in 10 Government offices are to be abolished. That follows a meeting that he had last night with trade union representatives when he said that he would reflect on the issues and discuss them. That is the second time in a week that the Secretary of State has indicated one thing and done another. Is it not reasonable that he should now come to the House to make a formal statement on an important issue that will affect governance and on which he has ducked and dived by making that written ministerial statement this morning?
Mr Speaker
The Secretary of State has chosen to disclose his policy through a written ministerial statement and it is open to any Minister from any Department to do that. The hon. Gentleman and others may be dissatisfied with that, and it is open to them to interrogate the Secretary of State about whatever contradictions they believe that his course of action has embodied or caused. But it is not for me to rule on whether there should be a written ministerial statement or an oral statement. The hon. Gentleman has aired his concern and I have a feeling that he will continue to air it.