Points of Order
Debate between Baroness Hodge of Barking and John Bercow
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order. Every Member of the House is responsible for the veracity of what he or she says in it. As she will be aware, and other Members will know, there is a procedure available to Ministers if they need to correct the record. It is open to them to do so by coming to the House and setting the record straight if they judge that appropriate. In so far as issues appertaining to the ministerial code are concerned, the House will be aware that I am not responsible for compliance with the code. That responsibility rests elsewhere. I think it is best to leave it there for now, and I am happy to see whether there is any development that causes the matter to be brought before the House again.
Mr Speaker
That is subject to the appropriateness of hearing a point of order from the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, Mrs Margaret Hodge.
Margaret Hodge
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Will you advise us on the rights of Back-Bench Members of Parliament in this regard? Evidence was given to my Committee yesterday by Sir Jeremy Heywood, Sir Nicholas Macpherson and Sir Bob Kerslake. When I asked whether the policy was on track, Sir Jeremy replied:
“In its current form, I believe it is.”
When I asked Sir Nicholas whether he had signed off the business case, he replied:
“I believe that at each key milestone of the reset programme there is a Treasury decision to take.”
Finally, after about six or seven questions, it was Sir Bob Kerslake who said:
“I think we should not beat about the bush. It has not been signed off.”
The important thing for Back-Bench Members is that we need to know who is telling the truth—the head of the civil service or the Minister. We need to have a mechanism that enables us to assess that. Smoke and mirrors have been used. Hundreds of millions of pounds are at stake, and millions of benefit claimants will have their future at risk. We, as Back Benchers, need to know the truth.
Mr Speaker
There are two responses to the right hon. Lady. First, by long-standing convention—and I think that it is a wise convention—the Speaker does not comment on proceedings in Committee until the report of a Committee has been published, so I will refrain from commenting on any of the exchanges to which the right hon. Lady helpfully drew my attention. Secondly, if there is a lingering uncertainty or confusion about a factual state of affairs, there are means by which these matters that are judged to be highly topical can be brought to the attention of the House. I do not think that I need to elaborate on what I have said. It will be well known to Members that there are mechanisms available to them, and it is up to them to decide whether to seek to use those mechanisms and for me to decide whether it is appropriate that they should. For today, we should leave it there. I hope that that is helpful to the House.
Ministerial Code (Culture Secretary)
Debate between Baroness Hodge of Barking and John Bercow(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)
On Wednesday, the Secretary of State told this House that the permanent secretary had “agreed”, “authorised” and “approved” the role of Adam Smith. On Thursday, the permanent secretary refused 10 times to confirm to my Committee that that was the case. On Friday, he then wrote to me stating merely that he was “aware and content” with Adam Smith’s role. Either the Secretary of State failed to provide full and accurate information to Parliament or he failed to require his civil servant to provide full and accurate information to a Select Committee of Parliament. Both are breaches of the ministerial code—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. If Members, rather than braying noisily, would allow the question to be finished, we will get on with it. The last sentence, please.
Margaret Hodge
Both are breaches of the ministerial code, both ride roughshod over the rights of Parliament and surely both need to be properly investigated by the independent adviser.