Points of Order

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 17th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order, to which I make two points in response. First, Ministers should always reply in a timely fashion to letters from hon. and right hon. Members, as they should to questions from them. Secondly, I would say to the hon. Lady that if she has been assured that she will be kept informed in advance of announced decisions, that commitment should obviously be upheld, whether it was made on the Floor of the House or elsewhere. The Leader of the House is not present, but I would imagine that he is within the precincts of the Palace, and would very much hope—[Hon. Members: “The Deputy Leader of the House is present.”] The Deputy Leader of the House is here and we are extremely grateful to him. He has heard the message and will have digested it already by now, I feel sure.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I hesitate to raise this matter as a point of order, but I would appreciate your advice. I have been extremely concerned about the near-monopoly situation whereby prepaid envelopes are supplied to Members of Parliament without any competition. I have been in dispute—or my office has been in dispute—with Banner, suppliers of prepaid envelopes, for an extremely long period, with no resolution. It has got in the way of helping to deal with constituency correspondence, and I would appreciate your advice.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman has raised an important point, but it is not one immediately for the Chair. I advise him to contact either the Administration Committee or the Finance and Services Committee, and if he is unsure and genuinely hesitating about which of the two should be his preference, he could always be bold and write to both.