Points of Order

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Wednesday 18th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Well, maybe I erred on the side of generosity. I will treat of the point in more detail, because it is of importance to the House, but let me say two things to the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake).

The right hon. Gentleman, the former Foreign Secretary, was absolutely in order to request that he be allowed to make a personal statement, and utterly in order also in its delivery. Secondly—forgive me, colleagues, but it is important for the authority of the House that this point be made—I, too, was absolutely right to allow him to make that personal statement, and it would have been quite wrong for me to seek to stand in his way.

Good order has applied but, in so far as the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington is interested not in point scoring, as I am sure he is not, but in asking a genuine question of the Chair, let me say to him on the point of procedure that it is the long-standing practice of the House that Members may make a personal statement with the leave of the Speaker. It is not especially common in recent times for such requests to be made, but when they are made, it is right that they should be acceded to by the Chair.

Moreover, I note that the former Foreign Secretary, former Leader of the House and former Deputy Prime Minister, the late Sir Geoffrey Howe, resigned on 1 November 1990—I remember it well—and delivered a personal statement on 13 November 1990, so nothing disorderly, nothing irregular and, in procedural terms, nothing objectionable has occurred. I thank the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington, and it was perfectly legitimate for him to raise the point of order, but I think it right that I leave it there.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

I will be generous to the hon. Gentleman, because to stray would be to misbehave, and I do not think he would misbehave. I cannot believe he would.

[Mark Pritchard]

Mr Speaker, you are always generous. You will know there are very clear rules in this House on the issue of sub judice. I seek your guidance on whether that applies to British citizens abroad who are currently going through what I think is a bogus judicial system in Iran. I mention that because the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) suggested the former Foreign Secretary had endangered the life of a British citizen, and you will know that the family of that person are rightly very worried about her fate. It is not the right hon. Gentleman’s place to make party political capital when somebody is facing a bogus judicial system in Iran.

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order, and I respect the sincerity with which he speaks and the extensive interest he takes in international affairs. What I would say to him, in all seriousness, is that the responsibility of the Chair for oversight of the sub judice rule applies in the context of cases in the British courts. I am satisfied that nothing disorderly or threatening to a British judicial process has transpired.

In so far as the hon. Gentleman wanted to make a wider point, I think he knows that he has succeeded in doing so.