Points of Order

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 7th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Yesterday I raised the future of Remploy with the Chancellor at Treasury Question Time. There was no inkling of any sudden announcement of a mass closure of 36 factories, with the Swansea factory closing down and 1,200 disabled people losing their jobs. Is it in order to make such a statement through the Library, without even a debate about the future of individual factories and their financial viability, given that we have lots of orders coming in, and without even an oral statement? At a time when we have spent so long, quite rightly, celebrating the diamond jubilee of our Queen, Remploy, along with the future job prospects of hundreds of disabled people, is subject to a clandestine, cloak and dagger assassination. It is an absolute disgrace.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I am very concerned to hear that the Remploy factory in Spennymoor is to be closed. Surely it is possible for the Minister to come to the House at 7 o’clock.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to Members for their points of order, and I note what the hon. Lady has just said, and what the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said, about the possibility of something being offered to the House by way of a statement later in the day. I can offer no encouragement on that front. I simply make the following points. First, the House knows the importance I attach—the premium that I attach—to statements being made to the House, and to a proper judgment being made as to the merit of the case for scrutiny, there and then, of that statement; secondly, the Treasury Bench is heavily populated, and representatives of it will have heard the strength of feeling that has been expressed in the House this afternoon; and, finally, there are well established procedures for Members to raise the matter in the House tomorrow—procedures of which they will themselves be very well aware.