Business of the House

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend’s raising of this very specific matter is entirely indicative of the very assiduous approach she takes to her constituency matters. She is quite right to raise this issue, and I can confirm that I will do whatever I can to assist her in the approaches she is seeking to be made to the Department for Transport.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

May I caution the Leader of the House against trading song lyrics with my fellow colleague from MP4, the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), and indeed the shadow Leader of the House, the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), not least because the preceding line to the lyric the right hon. Gentleman quoted—

“Why don’t you come on over Valerie?”—

from “Valerie” is:

“Stop making a fool out of me”,

which is exactly what she will be doing here every week? And

“So I say

Thank you for the music”,

but let us stick to the business of the House.

Will the Leader of the House at the very least endorse the words of the leadership contender he is supporting this afternoon, who has said:

“Proroguing parliament in order to try to get no-deal through, I think, would be wrong for many reasons.”

Will he at least endorse that?

[Mel Stride]

As for the lyric

“Stop making a fool out of me”,

nobody was attempting to make a fool out of the hon. Gentleman, I can assure him.

On proroguing, I have made it very clear that the view of Government Members and of the Government is that this should not be used as a device to ensure that Parliament is absent from the decisions that may have to be made towards the end of October and, furthermore, that it would not be appropriate for Her Majesty the Queen to be drawn into those kinds of political decisions.