Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kirsten Oswald and John Bercow

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Kirsten Oswald]

The Supreme Court ruling yesterday concluded that the Sewel convention was a convention and therefore not a matter on which it could rule. Our friends in Plaid Cymru are moving to table a legislative consent motion in the Welsh Parliament, and the Scottish Parliament will also vote on a legislative consent motion. Does the Secretary of State agree, in the spirit of democracy, that the devolved Governments are best placed to determine the future of the people living and working in our nations? [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We would like to hear the reply.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kirsten Oswald and John Bercow

Monday 27th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kirsten Oswald]

Economic and military security assurances, as laid out in the strategic defence and security review, have been significantly weakened by the events of the last week, and this could not have come at a worse time for armed forces personnel. To give just two examples—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am awfully sorry, but we have not got time for two examples. I need a single, short supplementary question, with a question mark at the end.

[Kirsten Oswald]

The armed forces satisfaction survey has caused considerable concern in this regard. Does the Minister agree that the continuing welfare of our personnel should be the priority at this tumultuous time?

Points of Order

Debate between Kirsten Oswald and John Bercow

Monday 11th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The short answer to the hon. Gentleman is no. I of course remember the good doctor, but he certainly was not a Government Minister. I am not aware of what he may or may not have said beyond what the hon. Gentleman has just reported to the House, but whether someone has or has not been a Minister of the Crown is a matter of public record. It is indeed a matter of fact—incontrovertible fact, one way or the other. If someone has wrongly claimed to be a Government Minister, that is curious. I have, however, to say that it is not a matter for the Chair to seek to resolve, notwithstanding the eagerness of the hon. Gentleman that it should be.

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. On 29 February, I raised a point of order about clarity in answers that I received from Ministers about meetings between the Treasury and the Financial Conduct Authority. Subsequently, the Procedure Committee wrote to the Chancellor directing him to ensure that clear, proper answers were provided to me by his Department. I am still trying to get to the bottom of the matter and seek your guidance on this topic again in the light of further correspondence.

Unlike the obfuscation of the Treasury, the FCA at least confirms on its website that it does meet Treasury Ministers on a regular basis. A freedom of information request was sent to the FCA seeking information on the matters discussed at those meetings. It was essentially a request to the FCA as an independent body for information that the Treasury has refused to provide. Not once, but twice has the FCA come back asking for additional time to consider the request. It has now confirmed that it is consulting the Treasury before responding.

This week, the FCA is examining issues raised by the Panama leaks. Mr Speaker, can you guide me on how we can have confidence in its ability to do so independently of Government when it seemingly cannot answer my simple questions without authorisation from 11 Downing Street?

[Mr Speaker]

Well, it is certainly a very rum business altogether. I thank the hon. Lady for giving me notice of this point of order. I mean it when I say that I understand her frustration that she is not securing clear answers to her questions. The handling of freedom of information requests by the FCA, or indeed any other public body, is not a matter for the Chair of this House to determine. However, she has made her concern explicitly clear on the record, and it will no doubt have been heard on the Treasury Bench. Indeed, I was going to say that there is an illustrious representative of Her Majesty’s Treasury on the Front Bench, but there is a veritable troika of the characters. There they sit, the three of them. I can therefore say with certainty that they have heard her grievance.

My overall advice to the hon. Lady—I hope that she will not take this in the wrong spirit as it is meant to be helpful—is to be persistent. If the hon. Lady does not secure the answers that she wants, she should keep asking questions and, in the very best and most proper sense of the term, make an absolutely parliamentary nuisance of herself. In the end, it may well be felt that it is not worth the candle so far as those resisting her inquiries thus far are concerned. She should stick at it.

Points of Order

Debate between Kirsten Oswald and John Bercow

Monday 29th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order. The answer is that I have had no advance notice of this matter. It would be only fair for me, from the Chair, to say at this stage that whether it amounts to what she has described as a major change of policy or is merely a temporary pause or tactical judgment, I do not know. Suffice it to say that if there is a change of policy or a significant change in Government intentions for a notable period, the House would expect properly to be informed of that, and there are means by which Ministers can inform the House: either through the device of an answer to a written question or by a written ministerial statement. To my knowledge, neither has thus far been forthcoming. The hon. Lady’s point of order and my response to it will shortly be heard by the Wales Office, and I hope that proper account will be taken of it. If the hon. Lady needs to return to the point, doubtless she will do so.

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your assistance in relation to a matter that is of some concern to me. In December I asked, by means of a written question, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer had last met the Financial Conduct Authority to discuss certain matters. The response advised me that Treasury Ministers meet a wide variety of organisations and referred me to the Treasury’s transparency reports online, stating that that is where details of such meetings are published. The reports detailed no bilateral meetings between the Treasury and the FCA over a two-year period.

I therefore challenged the Economic Secretary to the Treasury—she is aware that I am raising this matter today—on that point during a Back-Bench business debate on 12 January. She did not address the matter in her response, so I raised it with her again in a Back-Bench business debate on 1 February. To my great surprise, the hon. Lady stated:

“Contrary to what the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire seems to think,”—[Official Report, 1 February 2016; Vol. 605, c. 748.]

she had met the acting chief executive of the FCA, and that she regretted that I had formed a different opinion.

Of course, my opinion was formed on the basis of a written answer, the Treasury’s own transparency reports and exchanges with the Minister in this Chamber, all of which I should have been entitled to rely upon. It is worth noting that a similar issue has arisen in relation to another question, with the Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People referring me to a non-existent or impossible to locate piece of information on the Department for Work and Pensions website.

The record therefore suggests that I have misunderstood or am mistaken, but neither is true. I would be very much obliged for your advice, Mr Speaker, on how to put the record straight on this matter. Finally, I would be most grateful if you could advise me on how best to stop Ministers referring Members to websites that do not contain relevant information.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order, the thrust of which she was kind enough to give me advance notice. I think that I am right in saying that she also gave notice to the Minister concerned.

[Kirsten Oswald]

indicated assent.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that confirmation. The short answer to the hon. Lady—this is for the benefit of the House—is that answers to Members’ questions should be direct, substantive and candid. I have sympathy with the view, which she has expressed, that it is not helpful if Government Departments simply refer right hon. and hon. Members in written answers to websites on which the information requested may be located but cannot easily be found. The much more straightforward process, which I think the public would expect, would be to provide an answer to the question. It is not really all that complicated.

That said, I have to emphasise, of course, that the content of written answers, and indeed of ministerial statements in the House, has to be a matter for the judgment of individual Ministers; it is not for the Chair to determine. However, I am offering an overall sentiment, which I think would be shared across the House. As to how the hon. Lady can put the matter straight, I suggest that, by dint of this point of order, she has begun to do so.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kirsten Oswald and John Bercow

Tuesday 8th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I had intended to suggest that the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) seek an Adjournment debate until I realised that he had in fact just conducted it.

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

T2. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.