Business of the House

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

My right hon. Friend is raising a very serious issue—the rise in organised crime—which I know will be of concern to many hon. Members. He will be aware that the Government have invested significantly in new cyber techniques in order to be able to catch, trap and round up these organised crime gangs. He is right to raise this point and I encourage him to raise it directly with Home Office Ministers on Monday week, 29 October.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

In response to the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), the Leader of the House gave us the menu for the pizza meeting last Monday night, but she did not say whether she had any champagne. Now to get serious, Orbit, a housing association, has houses in my constituency, but when I correspond with it, it uses the Data Protection Act to deny me answers on behalf of my constituents. What are we going to do about that? May we have a debate, some sort of statement or an amendment to the legislation, because this really is not good enough, as it is distancing Members from their constituents?

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Gentleman is raising an important point about the responses that MPs, who are there to represent and support their constituents, receive from social housing and other public sector organisations, which might, on occasion, be seen to hide behind data protection rules. He is right to raise the matter. There should not be any limits for Members of Parliament who are legitimately representing the interests of their constituents, and I suggest he raises the issue at Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport questions, which will take place on Thursday 1 November.