Points of Order

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Hon. Members]

On a point of order—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The loudest voice I heard was Tom Brake’s, so we will start with him.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

That was a wise choice.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I will be the judge of that.

[Tom Brake]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. You may be aware that while the Government commissioned a report on the funding of extremism, they have subsequently have said they are not willing to publish it. However, they are on record as saying that Privy Counsellors who want to access the report can do so and consider it in what I guess would be a confidential environment. I have made multiple attempts to get such access to the report, but the Home Office has so far seemed incredibly reluctant to make it available. I hope you are able to assist me in ensuring that the Home Office delivers on its promise.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

That really is not a point of order for the Chair, but it is quite rightly now on the record. I know that the Government are listening. I hope that that will be taken on board and that the right hon. Gentleman will be given the access that he was promised.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Following on from the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) during the statement on school funding, would it be appropriate or possible to put on record the names of the four Labour Back Benchers who were kindly present at the end of the statement? We have to assume that all the rest were happy.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

If I started to do that for both sides, the book would be very full, so perhaps those in glass houses ought not to throw stones quite as quickly.

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am sure you will be aware of the numerous answers to parliamentary written questions concerning the publication of the clean growth plan that is required to be brought to the House under the Climate Change Act 2008. On several occasions, in response to questions both written and oral, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has stated that he intends

“to publish the plan when Parliament sits again after the summer recess.”—[Official Report, 27 June 2017; Vol. 626, c. 453.]

I am sure that you will observe, Mr Deputy Speaker, that we have already sat after the summer recess and are about not to sit anymore. Have you received any communication from the Secretary of State informing you that he intends to come to the House this afternoon to make a statement about the publication of the plan?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

There has been no communication to me, as the hon. Gentleman could well have guessed, but he has made people aware that the plan is being awaited by Members of this House. He has put that on the record, and hopefully people will respond accordingly, but there has been absolutely no communication to me.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I had hoped to present a petition this week about a huge, intensive poultry factory farm that is proposed in Rushden. More than 6,000 people had objected, the format of the petition had been agreed by the Table Office, and it had been signed by Mr David Jenney, Mr Roger Barnes, the chairman of the Stop Higham and Rushden intensive poultry farm group, and Mr Peter Tomas, mayor of Higham Ferrers. Unfortunately, the petition has got lost somewhere in the House’s postal system, or has not yet been delivered, so we have not been able to register it so that I can present it. How can I put that fact on the record? Is there a procedure whereby I can present a petition when the House is in recess?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

It is certainly now on the record and we know about the petition. There is nothing I can do to assist between now and October, but it is not often that a Member gets two bites of the cherry: you have the petition and the names on the record, and I am sure that the moment we get back after recess the House will accommodate your making that presentation.