Points of Order

Gordon Marsden Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would like to raise a point of order for which I have given prior notice. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) made clear in Prime Minister’s questions earlier, Ministers are poised to announce detailed plans to scrap direct financial support for more than 350,000 adult learners and replace it with a loan system. Their regulatory assessment suggests 150,000 adults falling by the wayside as a result, yet we are being told that regulations will be laid imminently, via the negative procedure, just before the House’s summer recess, offering no opportunity from the Government for debate. Is it in order for those changes to come into force, as they will, on 1 September, before we return, and is it acceptable that the further education sector should see the largest change in adult learning funding in a generation, with no opportunity offered to Members in this House to question Ministers or have a debate on the Floor of the House?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for notice of his point of order. The matters that concern him do not appear to me to raise any questions about the rules of the House. Therefore, they are not a matter for the Chair. No doubt Ministers will have heard what he has just said. It is open to any Member of the House to table a prayer against a statutory instrument. Moreover, I would emphasise that it is Wednesday today. The House will not rise for the summer recess until next Tuesday, so there are opportunities for the hon. Gentleman to seek to debate the matter, whether in Government time, Opposition time or, indeed, Back-Bench time. I hope that that is helpful to him.