Yemen

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Thursday 30th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Although I accept that this debate on Yemen is worthy and important, the two debates that come afterwards—one of which, on RBS and the Global Restructuring Group, I am sponsoring—are also critical. A lot of people on both sides of the House want to speak in the debate that I am sponsoring, and the guillotine as it is today will leave insufficient time to give the subject the due and proper attention. With that in mind, Mr Deputy Speaker, I am prepared to pull my debate if you can speak to the Leader of the House to secure more substantial time for it.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

May I say that I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman? The debate in his name that we were going to come on to is very well subscribed, and I would not want to have to curtail it because I think there is a lot to be said. I think the suggestion being offered to the House is the right one, and I will of course speak to the Leader of the House about it. More to the point, however, I have already spoken to the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, who has assured me that he will make bringing this debate back to the House a priority. I think everybody recognises that we would not want to curtail such an important debate, given the limited amount of time left, so we will absolutely speak to whoever we need to in order to make sure that time for the debate is provided. I thank the hon. Gentleman.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ross Thomson]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Tomorrow the House is due to debate the Second Reading of a private Member’s Bill, the Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill. Unfortunately I was unable to find a copy this morning, because the Bill was being reprinted as it contained an error. The error was that Scotland had been omitted from it.

I am told that the Bill is being reprinted to include Scotland, and that it will be available at some point today. May I ask whether the House will be able to debate it tomorrow, given that printed copies have not been made available in good time? May I also ask whether you understand, Mr Deputy Speaker, that Her Majesty’s official Opposition no longer consider Scotland to be important enough to be named alongside England, Wales and Northern Ireland in important pieces of potential legislation?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

The hon. Gentleman was doing all right until the end of his remarks, when he ruined a very good point of order. The Opposition are not in charge of printing, so I think the hon. Gentleman will regret the comments he added on to the end, as there was no need to make them. However, it is important that we get things right, and there has been a printing error. We will be able to hold the debate tomorrow, however; I can reassure the hon. Gentleman of that—do not book a flight, as we will be here tomorrow. The debate will take place, and Scotland is included. This was just a printing error, so we need not worry and should not try to make political points out of what was a very good point of order up until then.

One of the Backbench Business Committee debates has been withdrawn, so we will now debate the motion on mental health and suicide within the autism community.