Points of Order

Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and John Bercow

1st reading: House of Commons
Monday 16th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

In the short time—approximately 20 months, I think—for which I have known the hon. Gentleman, I have come to realise what a persistent fellow he is. In response to the last part of his observations—about what can be done, and what facilities or recourses are open to him—let me say that the hon. Gentleman is familiar with the concept of the written question and, I think, with the location of the Table Office, in which he can submit such questions. Knowing the hon. Gentleman, I rather suspect that he will keep raising the matter.

I am, of course, grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me notice of his intention to raise this matter. He has registered it with force, and what he has said will have been heard on the Treasury Bench. If the Foreign Secretary feels that inadvertently the House has been misled—it is not immediately clear to me that the words were inaccurate; it may be that there has been a change of mind, which is not without precedent in our proceedings—no doubt he will take steps to correct the record. Meanwhile, the hon. Gentleman can go about his business with an additional glint in his eye and spring in his step in the knowledge that he has put his point forcefully on the record.

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am sure that the whole House, but you in particular, will want to join me in paying tribute to the great Professor Anthony King, who was one of our country’s foremost political academics, psephologists and commentators, and who made a huge contribution to public life. He helped to educate thousands of young people in Britain, including yourself, Mr Speaker, the Secretary of State for International Development, my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) and, of course, me—although, as I recall, Mr Speaker, you were the only one who got a first. I am sure that you and the whole House will want to pay tribute to the late Professor King.

[Mr Speaker]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order, and, more particularly, I rather imagine that Professor Anthony King’s widow, Jan, will be especially appreciative when she hears of the noble step that the hon. Gentleman has taken today. Colleagues will doubtless have noted that Professor King died last week, aged 82, after a stellar career and vocation as one of the most distinguished political scientists of this generation. He was a brilliant teacher, he was an outstanding communicator, not least on television when giving his analysis of by-elections, and he was a prodigious and illuminating writer. Personally, I feel every day a sense of gratitude to Tony for what he did for me; and God, I must have been an awkward student to teach 30 years ago—[Interruption.] And, indeed, I still am. He stuck with me, and I am hugely grateful.

The hon. Gentleman and I got to know each other at the University of Essex 30 years ago, and I say in affectionate tribute to him that he is as noisy today as he was when he used to heckle me in student union meetings between 1982 and 1985.

Tony King was a great man who did wonders for the study and teaching of political science in the United Kingdom, and we should honour his memory.

BILL PRESENTED

Organ Donation (Deemed Consent)

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Paul Flynn, supported by Kelvin Hopkins, Ronnie Cowan, Mark Durkan, Kerry McCarthy, Kate Green, Michael Fabricant, Mike Wood, Yvonne Fovargue, Dr Philippa Whitford and Siobhain McDonagh, presented a Bill to enable persons in England to withhold consent for organ donation and transplantation; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 24 March, and to be printed (Bill 123).

Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and John Bercow

Wednesday 13th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

I wish briefly to ask in this debate why the Government still have not banned, and have not included in today’s order, Hizb ut-Tahrir. Around the time of the 7/7 attacks, the current Prime Minister—if he is still in office as we speak—said:

“We think it should be banned—why has it not happened?”—[Official Report, 4 July 2007; Vol. 462, c. 951.]

In 2009, he attacked his predecessor in very strong terms for not banning that organisation. In 2010, the Conservative party manifesto said:

“A Conservative government will ban any organisations which advocate hate or the violent overthrow of our society, such as Hizb-ut-Tahrir”.

My point to the Minister is simple: why have the Government, after all these years—after six years in government and all the work they have been able to do on all these issues—still not banned Hizb ut-Tahrir, as they promised to do on so many occasions?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. If the Minister of State wishes briefly to respond, he is at liberty to do so, but he is under no obligation to do so.

National Health Service

Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and John Bercow

Wednesday 13th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. During a debate on 13 June, I raised the issue of British taxpayers’ money being used to fund convicted Palestinian terrorists. I twice requested that the Minister of State, Department for International Development, publish the memorandum of understanding between DFID and the Palestinian Authority. The Minister has now written an extraordinary letter to me, saying that his officials are seeking a meeting with the Palestinian Authority to discuss the release of the document. The Palestinian Authority is being given the right to veto a Member of Parliament’s request for information. How are we supposed to hold the Government to account when they refuse to release crucial documentation unless they are given permission to do so by the Palestinian Authority?

[Mr Speaker]

It sounds a rum business, I am bound to say, but it is not a matter for the Chair. It is a matter that will have to be pursued with a terrier-like tenacity, and knowing the hon. Gentleman—as I have done for 30 years, since our robust skirmishes in the students’ union of the University of Essex—I can testify to his possession of that quality in a high degree. I therefore rather imagine that he will pursue the matter until he gets what he wants.

Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Order, 30 June, and Standing Order 118(6)),

That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that Her Majesty will appoint Jenny Willott to the office of ordinary member of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority with effect from 7 August 2016 for the period ending 31 December 2020.—(Margot James.)

Points of Order

Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and John Bercow

Tuesday 12th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The short answer to the hon. Gentleman is twofold. First, it would be better if there were a supplementary business statement. I would have thought that the terms in which I have answered him make that so clear that the point needs simply to waft from the scholarly cranium of the junior Whip on duty to the powers that be in the relevant Government Department. Secondly, in the absence of any such supplementary business statement, which I really would regard as a considerable discourtesy to the House, the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members can be assured that it will be possible to table amendments on Thursday. I have not thought about the precise chronology of events, but if it is necessary for me to allow manuscript amendments, because of circumstances not of the hon. Gentleman’s devising, they certainly will be allowed, subject only to those amendments, in terms of content, being orderly. I think the Whip has got the message.

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

I hope it is a point of order and not the sort of thing that the hon. Gentleman used to chunter when he was heckling me 30 years ago at the University of Essex student union.

[Ian Austin]

Whether or not it is a point of order is for you to judge, Mr Speaker. On a happier note, I would like to thank you and the Officers of the House for enabling us to display in the Jubilee Room today a range of products manufactured in the black country, which as you know, Mr Speaker, is the greatest place in the world. If you have five minutes in your busy schedule to visit the Jubilee Room, you will see parts manufactured for Bugatti, Lamborghini and Ferrari, and the Olympic torch, which was also made in the black country. If that is not enough of an attraction, there is also some beer that was brewed in Dudley North. All Members are very welcome.

[Mr Winnick]

It is nice to agree with my hon. Friend for once.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman must speak for himself.

I very much appreciate what the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) has just said. If it is possible for me to pop in, I will try to do so, although I am not sure what the hours of this event are.

[Ian Austin]

From now until 4 o’clock.

[Mr Speaker]

I will do what I can, and I encourage other Members to do likewise.

We come now to the ten-minute rule motion, for which the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) has been so patiently waiting.

“Educational Excellence Everywhere”: Academies

Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and John Bercow

Monday 9th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Ah—I call my University of Essex contemporary, Mr Ian Austin.

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The PISA figures actually show that we are going down the international league tables as standards among our competitors rise much more quickly than here in the UK, so it is an absolute tragedy that the Secretary of State spends so much of her time on partisan bickering and a dogmatic obsession with structures. The best way—the quickest way—to improve standards in our schools is to focus on leadership, and that is what she should be giving all her attention to. Will she take the £1 billion that she was going to spend on forcing every school to become an academy and use it to recruit and train a new generation of brilliant headteachers?

Point of Order

Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and John Bercow

Monday 7th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Last week, NHS England announced its Healthy New Towns programme. I was interested in that because seven of the 10 towns involved are in the south, none is in the midlands and, despite the links between poverty and ill health, eight are in Conservative constituencies. I wanted to find out whether organisations in the west midlands had submitted bids, and if not, why not. I asked NHS England for that information, but it refused to give me a list of those who had submitted bids to the programme. It also refused to tell me the basis on which the bids had been allocated, saying that this contained commercially sensitive information, even though all I wanted to know was the geographical areas from which bids had been received, rather than the names of the bidders themselves. I tabled four named-day parliamentary questions to the Department of Health and got the same ridiculous, contemptuous reply to each of them:

“The Department does not hold information on the applications to the Healthy New Towns programme.”

Frankly, that is unbelievable; I do not think that any sensible person could believe that answer for a minute.

First, Mr Speaker, is it in order for the Department to provide such incredible answers? Secondly, why are the Department of Health and its Ministers now routinely refusing to answer questions about lots of different NHS issues, claiming that they are the responsibility of NHS England and nothing to do with the Department itself? Is it in order for Ministers to provide such utterly contemptuous responses to Members’ questions, and for Government Departments and public bodies to refuse to provide this basic information?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. As he knows, the Chair is not responsible for the content of ministerial answers, although there is a general understanding in this place that Ministers’ answers should be both timely and substantive. If he is dissatisfied with the paucity or the emptiness of the replies that he receives, or if he judges, simply as a matter of fact, that he has received no answer at all, the best recourse available to him is to approach the Procedure Committee, of which, as Chairman, the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) is a distinguished ornament, and who, happily, whether by serendipity or contrivance, is present in the Chamber to hear that point of order. I trust that any exchange between them, whether in conversation or correspondence, will be fruitful.

The only other observation that I would make to the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) is that he and I were at university together more than 30 years ago and he was a very persistent woodpecker then. Nothing that has happened in the intervening three decades has caused me to revise my opinion on that, so if people feel that they can just go on ignoring him, they are probably in for something of a rude shock, because he does not give up—he tends to go on and on and, if necessary, on. I hope that the hon. Gentleman’s palate has been satisfied, at least for today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and John Bercow

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

In addition to this question, question after question on the Order Paper from the Nats queries the powers of the Scottish Parliament, yet the truth is this: they have missed the A&E waiting time in Scotland for six years; more than 6,000 children leave primary school unable to read properly; children from poor families get a particularly bad deal under devolution; and Scotland faces a housing crisis. When I visited Edinburgh a week or so ago, I was stunned at the level of rough sleeping in that city—it is much higher than in comparable cities. Should the Nats not be sorting out the things for which they are responsible instead of demanding all those other powers? They are not just the most centralising but the most useless—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I have been generous. We must now hear from the Secretary of State.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and John Bercow

Tuesday 7th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

Will the Minister conduct a review of car parking charges? Patients in Dudley are absolutely furious after the people running Russells Hall hospital put up prices by as much as 50% for a short stay. Will he get together with NHS civil servants and the people running the hospitals to sort this out?

[Mr Speaker]

Because of the impact of parking charges on those seeking to access acute services.

European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and John Bercow

Tuesday 9th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ian Austin]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We cannot have two people on their feet at the same time. I hope that it is a point of order rather than of frustration.

[Ian Austin]

Is it in order for the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) to say that that I was campaigning against a referendum just a few weeks ago, given that one of my local pledges was to support a referendum and I have been in favour of a referendum for well over a decade? If he knew anything about what I have ever said on the issue, he would know that.

[Mr Speaker]

I do not think the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) said anything disorderly. I think the safest thing that I can conclude is that he was not attending closely to election literature in Dudley, his mind being focused, perhaps, elsewhere.