Points of Order

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I rarely raise points of order, but this one is about a reply I received to a question I put to the Home Secretary, which was answered by the Minister for Immigration. I tabled a question asking how many times the Home Secretary has visited Romania and Bulgaria, and how many meetings she has had with Romanian and Bulgarian Ministers on the subject of immigration—a fairly standard question. Over the past 26 years, I have tabled questions to Ministers asking about their visits to other countries and have always received a factual reply. On this occasion, however, I received a reply stating that Home Office Ministers have meetings with a number of partners, but ending with these words:

“As was the case with previous Administrations, it is not the Government’s practice to provide details of all such meetings.”—[Official Report, 5 February 2013; Vol. 558, c. 123W.]

I have served in government and since receiving that answer I have talked with others who have served, and none has said that they refused to disclose a meeting between a Minister in this country and a Minister in a foreign country. I have friends in the Romanian and Bulgarian Parliaments and I can ask them to table questions asking how many times the Home Secretary has visited, but this is the bread and butter of the work of Members of Parliament.

There is a question about whether Parliament has been misled, even inadvertently, by the answer given. I like the Minister for Immigration and I am sure that he would not have done that deliberately, but we should be able to ask Ministers how many times they have been to foreign countries and about the overall nature of discussions. We do not want to know what the Home Secretary did in Bucharest, whom she met or what she discussed; we just want to know how many times she has visited Romania and Bulgaria. That is a simple question to answer and it is one that every other Government Department is able to deal with. Mr Speaker, I seek your guidance on whether the answer is in order, or whether this is a new practice.

[Mr Speaker]

The response the right hon. Gentleman received has clearly provoked his curiosity and, in a notably mild-mannered Member of the House, a degree of consternation. I will happily offer a statement on the matter, but as the Home Secretary has courteously remained in the Chamber during the point of order relating to her Department, she is very welcome to offer a remark, if she so wishes.