Points of Order

Joan Walley Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I will offer a response, but if the hon. Lady who chairs the Committee wishes to come in on the back of the point of order, she is at liberty to do so.

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. It is important for the House to understand that the Select Committee was simply operating in such a way as to ensure that our report was helpful in terms of the legislation coming forward—the Infrastructure Bill that we shall be dealing with later today. What perhaps needs to happen, following on from your ruling on this, Mr Speaker, is consideration of what rules and guidance there can be in order that those of us on the Liaison Committee can make absolutely sure that we do not, as it were, miss the bus. There is no point in having important recommendations coming forward when legislation is being rushed through in this place, and it is then too late to have the informed debate that this House of Commons absolutely has to have.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. Precisely because the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) courteously gave me notice both of his intention to raise the point or order and its thrust, I have, unsurprisingly, a prepared response. The House can make its own assessment of this situation, but I confess that my own reading of it was analogous to that of the hon. Lady. I am genuinely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising this matter, but let me just say this for the record. It is certainly unusual for a Select Committee to release information about the conclusions of its report prior to publication, and to do so would normally be considered a discourtesy to the House, though not a contempt given that the report had been formally reported to the House. However, in this case I understand that the Committee considered that it was helpful for the House to have notice of the relevance of its report, which was published this morning, to the amendment, which was required to be tabled last week. Therefore no harm has been done by it. I think the House will be grateful to both the Environmental Audit Committee and the Transport Committee for the work they have done on matters relevant to the Infrastructure Bill, although of course I note in passing, non-evaluatively, that it does not follow that all Members will necessarily agree entirely with their conclusions. We will leave it there for now.