Points of Order

John Hayes Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am happy to assure the hon. Gentleman that, as has been my unfailing practice since 22 June 2009, I am always equally open to hearing from, and then, as best I can, responding to any Member of the House of Commons who approaches me.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

indicated assent.

[Mr Speaker]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), who is nodding vigorously in assent to that proposition from a sedentary position. The right hon. Gentleman and I have known each other for well over 20 years, and he knows that I am utterly and scrupulously fair-minded in these matters. I have been, I am, and I always will be. I am not responsible for what other people might be talking about. I do not plant stories in the newspapers. That is a black art perhaps practised by other people from time to time. It is not something that greatly concerns me. I do not get very excited about it. The hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston) is entirely entitled to seek the assurance of equality of treatment.

Let me just say one further thing in the light of some press reports. People really ought to understand, because it is incredibly simple, straightforward and uncontroversial, that any hon. or right hon. Member of this House who wishes to come to see the Speaker about something that concerns him or her can ask to do so, and diary permitting and subject to agreement on suitable dates, that would always happen. The notion that some particular advantage is given to a specified individual, or a little coterie, as part of a secret plot in private apartments is so staggeringly absurd that I would not expect for one moment that someone of the intelligence and perspicacity of the hon. Gentleman would give it credence for so much as a single second. I hope that is helpful to him.