Record Copies of Acts

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Wednesday 20th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr James Gray]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The hon. Lady indicates from the Dispatch Box that the time for the previous debate, which was a grave and important debate about Daesh, was curtailed to accommodate this debate. That is not correct. I went to great lengths to say that the previous debate could continue for as long as was desired, because this debate was much less important.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

That was not a point of order, but the hon. Gentleman has put it on the record. The problem is that I am struggling to hear because of the shouting.

[Melanie Onn]

If the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) had listened, he would have heard that I said that there were reductions in the time that people had to speak, which is a perfectly valid point—

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[Robert Jenrick]

When I heard that the hon. Lady was opposed to the proposal, I took the liberty—I hope she does not mind—of looking up whether there are any important documents from the town of Grimsby that are printed on vellum and would not have existed had they been printed on paper. It turns out that in Grimsby town hall there are 14 boxes of them including, from 1227, the charter creating the town of Grimsby; from 1256, the charter granting the town of Grimsby its right—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. Sit down, Mr Jenrick. [Interruption.] I suggest you sit down—[Interruption.] Order. Mr Flynn, I certainly do not need any help from you. I say to you, Mr Jenrick, that the Minister is desperate to come in. By all means make the point, but you cannot read a list as though it is the phone directory to tell me what is there or not. We have got the message; let us get on.

[Melanie Onn]

I am delighted that the hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) takes such a close interest in Great Grimsby’s fantastic history. However, we are talking about today, not the 1200s.

The Minister has said that the process is surprisingly cost-effective, and the hon. Member for North Wiltshire has said that keeping vellum costs little or nothing. However, the cost to Parliament of producing vellum in 2014-15 was £107,000. As the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) mentioned, using the most expensive parchment paper would cost just £8,000. You know what they say, Mr Deputy Speaker: “£100,000 here, £100,000 there—it soon starts to add up to real money.”

The Lords Committee cited a more conservative estimate of a saving of £80,000 a year from scrapping vellum. However, that does not take into account the renewal of the printing contract, under which the cost is likely to be greater than under the current arrangements, and nor does that take account of the cost of producing and printing the mammoth HS2 hybrid Bill, should that ever pass into law. At 49,000 pages long, I hate to think how many goats it will take to produce two copies.

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[Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I just want to clarify one point. The Minister for the Cabinet Office stated that the first page of his speech was printed on vellum. [Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Never mind the hon. Gentleman having his hand in his pocket, I want to hear the point of order.

[Ronnie Cowan]

The first page of the Minister’s speech was of course not printed on vellum. It may have been printed on a product called vellum paper, which is a completely different synthetic product. It is not vellum.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

All I can tell the hon. Gentleman is that that is not a point for the Chair, and I am certainly not going to reopen the debate after what we have just been through.