Point of Order

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is a shame that the Deputy Prime Minister has left, because this point of order refers to his appearance in the Chamber on 7 June, when he claimed that my party’s plan to invest £28 billion a year in green energy would add £1,000 a year “to everyone’s mortgage”. He made that claim a day after the Daily Mail reported that figure and said that it came from Treasury analysis.

However, the Treasury has admitted that the statistic does not come from official analysis. It was forced to make that admission to the UK Statistics Authority after that organisation demanded to know where the figure had come from. The UKSA told LBC that despite investigation, it had been unable to find any official source for the figure. Its spokesperson stated:

“We spoke to HMT and they have informed us the figure quoted is not based on any analysis produced by Treasury officials.”

The ministerial code, by which all Government Ministers must abide, states:

“It is of paramount importance that Ministers give accurate and truthful information to Parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity.”

Mr Speaker, I would be grateful if you advised me how we can get the Deputy Prime Minister—who will be back next week—to correct the record.

[Mr Speaker]

May I say that you have absolutely put that point on the record, and I think you have made sure that it has been corrected for the record? I have no responsibility for this; the responsibility lies with a Minister to correct an error and to ensure that they do so, as you quite rightly say, at the earliest opportunity. I am sure that Ministers on the Treasury Bench have heard that, and I am sure that the Minister responsible will want to correct it ASAP.