Points of Order

Madeleine Moon Excerpts

Thursday 19th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

rose—

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

The hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) is perfectly in order to raise a point of order and I will come to her in just a moment, but I first call Madeleine Moon.

[Mrs Moon]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. This morning, a written statement has been released by the Ministry of Defence on the modernising defence programme. It says very little apart from warm words and platitudes, but the issue of great interest across the defence estate is when we are going to have a contractual agreement on the airborne early warning and control capability—the new airborne warning and control system plane—which is vital to our defence and security. There is great concern that there may be an attempt to release the details of a military-to-military sale, rather than of an open tender, during the recess. May I seek your advice and guidance on the protocol, because if the Ministry of Defence is planning to award such a contract, it should do so while the House is sitting so that it can receive suitable scrutiny from Members of Parliament?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order. She is right to use this opportunity in the Chamber to raise the point that concerns her, but I am sure she will appreciate that the time at which any Department releases information or the way in which it comes to a conclusion such as the one she has described is not of course a point of order for the Chair. However, she has taken this opportunity to put her point on the record, and I am sure that those on the Treasury Bench will have noted it. I also have every confidence that if something of significance occurs during the parliamentary recess, the appropriate Minister will come to the Dispatch Box in the Chamber as soon as we come back after the recess. I certainly hope so, but if that does not happen, the hon. Lady will I am sure have a point of order to raise with Mr Speaker.