Points of Order

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I thank the right hon. Lady. She has elided two points of order. Let me take her second point first. What a Minister says at the Dispatch Box is, of course, not a matter for the Chair, and I have no authority to correct the Minister. However, if a Minister has inadvertently given information that is not absolutely correct, the right hon. Lady will be aware of the many ways in which she can ask for that Minister to be required to come back and correct the record. Indeed, it is open to her simply to ask that Minister to correct the record. It appears to me that if there is a factual inaccuracy in the matter to which the right hon. Lady has just referred, it is rather important. It is a matter about which I would judge that anything that is said in this Chamber should be 100% correct, because it is not a matter on which we should allow people who would be affected by it to be misled. The facts ought to be straight and I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for bringing that matter to the House’s attention. I hope that Members on the Treasury Bench have noted what she has said and that the message will be passed on to the Leader of the House.

The right hon. Lady’s first point is much simpler. Mr Speaker has made it clear on many occasions—and I have echoed it many times—that announcements about significant matters of Government policy must be made first to this Chamber, so that the duly elected representatives of the people of this country, not the press, are the people who question the Minister. If the right hon. Lady would like to pursue that matter, I am quite sure that Mr Speaker will look favourably upon her request.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. When at-home abortion medication was issued by the Government, it was because of a crisis due to covid. Now that the crisis is coming to an end, have the Government given any indication to the Chair that they intend to bring forward measures to remove those medications as crisis medications?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

No, the Government have not at this point given notice of an intention to bring that matter before the House. As I said to the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), if the hon. Gentleman wishes to pursue the matter, I am sure that Mr Speaker will take his request seriously.