Business of the House

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I think I am not allowed to refer hon. Members to what I wrote on this subject before I joined Government—which are, of course, not necessarily the views I hold any more. I will undoubtedly make representations on behalf of my hon. Friend to the Chancellor, because it is worth bearing in mind that cutting stamp duty has boosted an industry that employs nearly 750,000 people. However, it is also worth bearing in mind that the Government need some revenue to pay for all that the Government have to do.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Thank you for allowing me to raise a point of order in relation to what I believe was a misleading statement made by the Prime Minister yesterday. He said—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman cannot use the word “misleading”.

[Mr Speaker]

Yes, “inadvertently” would be a nicer way of dealing with it.

[Jim McMahon]

I am more than happy to take that advice, Mr Speaker. Thank you.

The Prime Minister said:

“It was only recently that the shadow Transport Secretary was saying that quarantine measures should be relaxed.”—[Official Report, 27 January 2021; Vol. 688, c. 366.]

He went on to repeat a similar comment. This relates to a statement that was made over 200 days ago in July last year and had nothing at all to do with current regulations or our current covid rates. It was in response to the Government themselves lifting quarantine restrictions for a list of countries. We have been critical of the Government for failing to have a proper track and trace system and failing to do pre-screening and testing on arrival, so, far from calling for relaxation, we were criticising the Government for their own failures. I think the record should be put straight.

[Mr Speaker]

That is not a point of order for the Chair, but hopefully those on the Treasury Bench will have picked up on it. If nothing else, it is now on the record. I will now suspend the House for three minutes to enable the necessary arrangements for the next business to be made.