Procedure Committee Reports

Debate between Kevin Brennan and Julian Huppert

Thursday 13th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

I support the proposal ably put forward by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight)—and he is my friend. He has recently printed an excellent book, “Dishonourable Insults”, in which I appear on page 163, and I thank him for that, too—[Interruption.] It is available in all good book shops and I wish him every success. When I intervened on him earlier, I suggested that in addition to his proposals we should ensure that we have wireless reception in the House of Commons Chamber. Not so long ago, when I was trying to live tweet during Prime Minister’s questions—I had advertised the fact that I would try to do so in advance—I failed completely because of the poor reception we sometimes get here for electronic devices. I apologise, Mr Deputy Speaker, if, in doing so and in making that admission, I was breaking some rules of the House at the time.

May I clarify one thing? I had a little contretemps in the Chamber earlier this year with the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), who told us with his characteristic modesty that he was the first MP ever to sign up for Twitter—

[Dr Huppert]

rose—

[Kevin Brennan]

I see I have provoked him into intervening, and I cannot say no after I mentioned him, can I?

[Dr Huppert]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for praising my modesty—that is very kind of him. We did have that discussion, but I think things have moved on. I wanted to be clear in case I misspoke earlier: of the current MPs, I believe I was the first. I was certainly not the first MP on Twitter. I do not know who has that honour, although I am sure they will claim it later.

[Kevin Brennan]

I am very grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention because he has highlighted the fact that what I said about his modesty was meant to be ironic, and Hansard does not pick that up very well, so this gives me the opportunity to make that clear. Let me repeat a proposal that I have made in the past—that irony should be put in italics in Hansard so that everybody outside reading it can understand what exactly was meant.

The contretemps that the hon. Gentleman and I had was in relation to a point of order that I raised while you were in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker. At that time, your ruling was interpreted as a ban on the use of Twitter in the Chamber, but I know, having had subsequent talks with you, that that was not exactly what you meant.