Matt Western
Main Page: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Thank you for granting me this point of order. If you could help me on this matter, I would really appreciate it. On 15 June, in response to my written question regarding laptop provision for schools, the Minister for School Standards said:
“ The Department has ordered over 200,000 laptops and tablets. This order was placed on 19 April.”
On 2 July, here in the Chamber, I asked the Secretary of State for Education why documents released by his own Department therefore suggested that the first order was in fact placed on 15 May. The Secretary of State responded:
“I will write to the hon. Gentleman with clarification on that matter.”—[Official Report, 2 July 2020; Vol. 678, c. 543.]
He failed to write to me. I asked the same question to the Secretary of State in the House of Commons on 1 September. He said:
“I will write to him with reference to that if he will be so gracious as to accept a letter.”—[Official Report, 1 September 2020; Vol. 679, c. 56.]
He failed to do so again. I followed this up with his Department on 2 November. It failed to reply. I followed this up again with his Department on 19 November. I received a holding email, but I have yet to receive a substantive response. Madam Deputy Speaker, will you please advise me on what steps I need to take to secure a response from the Secretary of State for Education, given that he first promised to write to me almost five months ago?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
The hon. Gentleman’s point is not a point of order for the Chair, because the Chair does not have responsibility for what Ministers say or write—or do not say or write —but I nevertheless understand his purpose in raising his point of order in the Chamber at this moment. I can say to him, as Mr Speaker has said on many occasions, that Ministers ought to reply to questions and letters from Members of Parliament in a timely fashion, and the saga that he has just described is not acceptable. Although I cannot deal with this from the Chair as a point before the Chamber now, I can say that I hope the matter has been noted by those on the Treasury Bench and hopefully also by the Leader of the House’s office, and that the hon. Gentleman will receive his answer soon.