Points of Order

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that point of order. I do not know whether it is technically correct to say that the panel is, as he puts it, defunct, but I offer him the assurance I think he seeks that of course matters must proceed by reference to the House of Commons Commission, which meets on Monday 8 September and on the agenda of which there is, of course, an update on this matter.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I join other colleagues in welcoming what you said at the start of the sitting today. Do you envisage this pause lasting any particular period of time, and will it include any examination of the candidates by the relevant Select Committee?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I think that it is sensible to proceed in a timely way and that is why I referred to a modest pause although, of course, I am in the hands of and ready to be guided by the House. With reference to the possibility of pre-appointment scrutiny, to which, I think, the right hon. Gentleman refers, if that is what the House wants that is what the House should have, a point that I think I conveyed with a modicum of clarity in my statement earlier this afternoon.