Business of the House

Nadine Dorries Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

Alas, I think that Brexit will leave behind it a trail of many difficulties for our nation, as we seek to heal the divisions and so on. But I suspect that one of the good things about it is that it will have provoked between my hon. Friend and myself many years of interesting discussion about the evolution of our constitution. My own view is that our constitution is not very well constructed, and does not contain proper checks and balances in a written form in the way in which some better constitutions do. Interestingly, that includes the Basic Law, which we ourselves wrote for the Germans and which is a much better organised constitution; there is not the veto to which my hon. Friend refers, but there are checks and balances through which it would certainly be impossible for the Government to engage in the sort of things that have become usual since 1902—I mistakenly referred to 1906 on a previous occasion—and that have given the Executive too much control over the proceedings of the House of Commons.

Interestingly, some of my hon. and right hon. Friends, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), have for a very long time argued that the Executive have too much control over the House of Commons. It is just that, on this particular occasion, he would like the Executive to have more control—or would have liked the Executive to have more control before yesterday, in any case. I rather think that people’s views on this constitutional matter are currently being overly influenced by their view of what the desirable result is, and I admit entirely that mine are too.

I do not think that this is a minor constitutional wrangle. We could go on happily having this discussion for some years, and ought to in a proper way. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), the Chair of the Procedure Committee, will want to inaugurate proper discussions of these things at much greater length. At the moment, this nation faces a very serious issue by anybody’s reckoning—those who are in favour of stepping out on Thursday week and those who are against it. We all agree that it is a very important step. The business of the House motion provides for a Bill that has the effect of making it not possible for a Prime Minister to take that step without coming to the House, proposing an extension and trying to obtain an extension approved by the House from the EU. That is the importance of it, and I think that it is actually very important.

[Ms Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I am desperately fond of my right hon. Friend and I apologise to him for what I am about to say. He is a previous member of this Executive and a fixer for the Government over a long period, and has on many occasions taken advantage of the fact that there were not necessarily all the checks and balances that he needed to be in place in order to move legislation that he wanted to move in the House. Is there therefore not a slight whiff of hypocrisy that he is now lamenting the lack of those checks and balances? And is not this tiny emergency Bill, without time for proper scrutiny, just here to thwart the process of Brexit?

[Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Ind)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Is the phrase “slight whiff of hypocrisy”, when it is implied that it is coming from the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), in order? I am sure that you will be able to advise me.

[Mr Speaker]

I was diverted by a former Deputy Leader of the House, who was perfectly legitimately whispering into my ear, as colleagues often do when there is a matter of great moment in their minds, and therefore I did not hear it. I am not disputing what the hon. Gentleman has said—

[Ms Dorries]

I am happy to repeat it.

[Mr Speaker]

No, there is no requirement for repetition by the hon. Lady. I think that she was making what I would call a political charge. I find it unimaginable that she would make an accusation of personal dishonour against the right hon. Member for West Dorset. If she were to make such a charge, I feel sure that she would be in a minority of one.

[Ms Dorries]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Lady shakes her head, and that satisfies me. I think that we will leave it there.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I am sorry. I will take one more intervention, from the former leader of my party, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), whom I could not possibly deny, and then I shall resume my seat, in deference to the Chair of the Procedure Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne.

It is perfectly true that Governments of all hues have used their power when they have a significant majority to move things through the House in ways that would not be possible without a majority. I do not complain about Governments doing that when they have that capacity, but neither should Governments complain about the House taking control of its own Order Paper when they lack a majority. The reason the Government lack a majority in this case is that various hon. Friends were unwilling to back their deal, which I have repeatedly voted for, which would have avoided the need for all this.

[Ms Dorries]

As did I.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

I am well aware that my hon. Friend did, and I welcomed her arrival in the Lobby. I am just pointing out that it was not me who designed an arrangement that meant it was necessary to take these actions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart]

I love this—this is really good stuff and entertaining. So taking back control is qualified: it is taking back control as long as it is the hon. Gentleman’s control. This is how these things become particular issues for him.

[Ms Dorries]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s words about taking back control and his passion for Parliament, but does he not accept that people watching what is going on with this Bill today will just see it as another means to obfuscate, delay and kick the can down the road, not what people expect us to be getting on with here, which is voting for a deal and leaving?

[Pete Wishart]

I say to the hon. Lady that this is about the only means we have actually to make progress in this House. We are going to get a Bill through the House of Commons, I hope later today, which will allow some sort of way forward so that we will be able to make sure that there is a plan to take forward, because if we do not we are crashing out next Friday, and we have to make sure that does not happen.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I will keep my remarks brief. I think I understand the reasons that this Bill has been brought to the House today and I agree with everything that my colleagues have said. I do not think that there is the need for it, and I think everybody in the House would live to regret the day that this Bill was passed. I know that emergency powers have been used in the past, long ago—1938 was the last time. At that point, there was a consensus on both sides of the House that a Bill needed to be passed and there was urgency to do so. A resolution was needed and a decision needed to be made, which is why emergency powers were used. However, I believe that we will rue this day.

I understand why my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) has done this. We have talked today about the fact that the Prime Minister has applied for her extension. Who knows what the news will be by the end of today, given how fast things are changing? However, I do not believe that my right hon. Friend cares much about what happens or what the Prime Minister is doing. I think that his mistrust lies with the EU itself. I think he believes that perhaps the EU will simply not grant that extension and will push the UK, by accident, into no deal, and we will be unable to prevent that from happening. My right hon. Friend is sitting behind me, and I have no idea whether or not he is nodding, but I understand his reasons, even though I do not agree with them.

Members have said here today that there is a division in the country—in families, in communities, in businesses—but I do not believe that that is the case any more. I believe that that strongly was the case post-referendum, but as time has passed, people have no longer said to me, “Just get this over the line with no deal,” or, “Just get this over the line with a customs union and a single market attached,” or, “Just get this over the line with ‘a’ customs union, not ‘the’ customs union.” What people say to me now is that they have utter disdain for Parliament and for us. It is a plague on all our houses that, following the referendum, we are here today passing bits of tacky legislation to prevent ourselves from delivering on what the British public—according to their sovereign right—asked us to do, which was to enact their democratic vote to leave the European Union.

I voted for the Prime Minister’s deal, once I had received legal assurances from the Attorney General on its second outing. The right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) said in his speech that he did not vote for that deal—for the withdrawal agreement—because he did not like the political declaration and the ambiguity contained therein. Well, the Prime Minister separated the political declaration from the deal and brought it back, and he still voted against it. At no time have Opposition Members, apart from five of them, voted to deliver on the result of the referendum.

However, I do not exclude Conservative Members from my excoriation. There are Members on these Benches who want only, and nothing but, to pursue the holy grail of a no deal. There are Members who are trying to prevent Brexit from happening at all. We in this place owe it to the British people to reach a consensus and to deliver on the result of that referendum, because at the moment they are not divided in their utter disdain for this place and for Members on both sides of the House. None of us is free from that, and none of us is excused from it.

I will not support the Bill tonight. I think that what we should all have done was support the Prime Minister’s deal. If at the time of its second presentation everyone in the House had supported it, the country would have a different opinion of us today. We would have delivered what the country wanted, and, using the political declaration for the purpose of a future working partnership, and using those attached documents with the ambiguity contained therein, we could have negotiated what would have been the best deal for Britain. But we blew it—we did not do it—and I am afraid that that is shame on both sides of the House.

I am sorry that this Bill has come forward. There will come a day, whether it is five, 10 or 20 years from now—most likely 20 years, I think—when Members on the Opposition Benches will be over here and we will be over there, and we will use this against them. We will use it to our advantage. If they vote for the Bill tonight and it is passed, they should bear that in mind—they will rue this day.

Sittings of the House (29 March)

Nadine Dorries Excerpts

Thursday 28th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am sorry, because other colleagues will want to speak, but I want to make this very simple point: it is not for the Chair—and I absolutely respect what the shadow Leader of the House said—to pronounce on whether a motion, in terms of its effect, is lawful or not. The House makes a judgment on the merits or demerits of a motion and the law is ultimately interpreted by a court if there is a challenge. I am making no assertion of lawfulness or unlawfulness. The Attorney General is entirely comfortable in his own mind and will doubtless articulate that tomorrow. My concern is with the narrow confines of order and procedural propriety. I make no assertion beyond that.

[Ms Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In one breath, the shadow Leader of the House complained that she had not seen the motion until she walked into the Chamber, and in the next, she said that the Opposition would not be supporting the motion. Until they have heard the arguments that can be made to support the motion, how can they so quickly come to a point of view unless they are playing political games with the future of this country and this deal, which delivers on the vote of 17.4 million people? It is game playing, Mr Speaker, and it has to stop.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Lady has made her own points with conviction, but it is not a matter for the Chair.

Privilege (Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Advice)

Nadine Dorries Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I apologise at the start, because I will have to absent the Chamber quickly to chair the Finance (No. 3) Bill Committee.

I begin my short remarks by referring to the comments made on the radio this morning by the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake). He conflated the Iraq war debate and the legal advice that was then issued with what is happening now, but the advice that was then issued, wrongly, by the previous Administration and that resulted in Members of this House going into the Lobbies misinformed and without the required information was about the legalities of the Iraq war, whereas this, as the Attorney General made clear yesterday, is a political decision, not a legal decision.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

The comparison was about the risk of cherry-picking, and I do not think anyone would argue. On the Iraq war, the position set out by Lord Goldsmith cherry-picked the advice to maximise the Government’s position and to press their case.

[Ms Dorries]

I do believe that the two issues were conflated and that that was used to argue for revealing the legal information on the wrong predication.

I have been in a quandary about the vote today. I would like to see the full legal evidence, as I am sure everybody in the House would, but there are conventions and other people to consider, and civil servants fall into that category. They serve us all with true and absolute independence. I do not know how any Government would ever be in this place if we could not depend absolutely on the impartial legal advice we receive from civil servants. If this motion was passed today, what civil servant or legal adviser would ever want to advise any future Government without first putting in place a filter of self-preservation, by considering the advice they give? Who would want to do that as a civil servant? Although I would love to see this legal advice, we have a duty to consider others: the people who serve both the public and us. I have 100% respect for civil servants. They work amazingly hard; they are truly independent; and they serve us without any political bias, and that should absolutely be considered.

On the public interest and the points the Attorney General made yesterday, none of us, apart from him and a select few, knows whether there are any issues in that legal advice that pertain to intelligence, national security or any other of those issues. I have to assume only that when he spoke yesterday about public interest, he was talking in the much broader context. This is an important issue. As he said yesterday,

“There is no procedure by which this House can have redactions or entertain circumstances in which it could weigh the competing public interest against the interest in disclosure, as a judge would do.”—[Official Report, 3 December 2018; Vol. 650, c. 557.]

Given what happened with the publication of the summary of the legal advice during the Iraq war, this inevitability that is happening today should have been foreseen then. We live in a changing world, one where people demand transparency and have a right to know all the full information. I believe that a resolution should have been passed in this House to give powers to this House—after all, Parliament is a court—and a process in this House whereby this House, probably through the authority of your office, Mr Speaker, via the Clerks and independent judicial advice, should be able to take a decision and redact matters of national intelligence and security from legal advice, so that people in this House can see legal advice. I hope that as a result of what has happened today, and given that demands to see legal advice will be made again in the future, the House will take cognisance of that and decide to pass a resolution that will ensure that we do not find ourselves in this position again.

As far as I am concerned, we have been told the worst; the Attorney General pulled no punches. He said:

“There is nothing to see here.”—[Official Report, 3 December 2018; Vol. 650, c. 557.]

But he told us what needed to be seen, so let me again quote his words. He said:

“There is therefore no unilateral right for either party to terminate this arrangement. This means that if no superseding agreement can be reached within the implementation period, the protocol would be activated and in international law would subsist even if negotiations had broken down.”—[Official Report, 3 December 2018; Vol. 650, c. 547.]

He told us the worst: we will be in the backstop in perpetuity. That was as bad as it gets. If we cannot withdraw from the backstop following the decision of this House, we are trapped, as somebody said from a sedentary position yesterday. I believe that no MP with any conscience, given what the Attorney General told us yesterday, could vote for the withdrawal agreement, because he pulled no punches—he told us the worst it can be. I commend him for that.

I want to finish, because I have to, with a comment about us. I listened to the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) when he said what he said at the Dispatch Box. One day, and I hope he is white in hair and long in tooth before he gets there, he may be the Attorney General, and his words may come back to haunt him at some time in the future. I have watched him many times and I could see that thought going through his mind. As a former legal adviser to one of most eminent law firms in the country, he knows full well, when he stands at that Dispatch Box, what he is saying and what he is doing. I hope you never find yourself in the position that you have put our Attorney General in. I would like to finish—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I cannot quite understand why the hon. Lady thinks that someone of my limited capabilities aspires to the high office of Attorney General.

[Ms Dorries]

I should know better, Mr Speaker, and I apologise. I would like to finish by saying that before we are Attorney Generals, Mr Speakers and Front-Bench spokesmen, we are all MPs—we are all elected Members. I believe that the Attorney General came to this Dispatch Box yesterday with honour and in good faith, and he was honest. If this motion is passed, the integrity, reputation and honour of a good man will be traduced. It would be a disgrace for this House to do that, because any one of us may one day be in that position. I hope that this motion does not pass today for that reason.

Tributes (Speaker Martin)

Nadine Dorries Excerpts

Tuesday 1st May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I endorse everything that has been said. The shadow Leader of the House was right: when I got here as somebody from a working-class background, Michael was kindness and support itself. I will never forget receiving a letter at home during my first summer recess in 2005, and being shocked to discover it was from the Speaker. It was a letter of praise and encouragement, informing me that when I came back in September I might feel daunted again, but not to be. He was a testament to social mobility, how someone could come from his background to this place. The first time I saw him I remember thinking that he looked like Father Christmas sitting in the Chair and he embodied all those virtues of kindness and welcome. He was the first Speaker I ever encountered and I will never forget him. He professed his love for his family every time he spoke to me. He always mentioned his daughters and his family. That is all I have to say. I think that everybody who knew him will have the same sentiments.

Business of the House

Nadine Dorries Excerpts

Thursday 7th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I cannot promise a debate immediately, although I suspect the House will recall just how strongly Members have felt in the past about the availability of intermediate care services, often in the context of locally accessible community hospitals. The devolution of responsibilities to clinical commissioning groups with active GP involvement gives an opportunity for that to be reconsidered, in particular by GPs who recognise the needs of their patients for treatment locally, accessible admissions and step-down care after admission to acute services. We might see a reduction in the number of beds in the most acute context, but care of the kind my hon. Friend refers to must also be available. I know that clinical commissioning groups will focus on that point.

[Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the House use his good offices to apply pressure on an issue that has come to my attention over the past 24 hours? A book for sale on Amazon, “To Train up a Child” by Michael and Debi Pearl advocates the beating of children under the age of 12 months, using a switch. The book recommends that a switch be cut from a willow tree, and be no longer than 12 inches in length and 8 cm in diameter. It advocates the use of paddles, rulers and other means to beat children from four months onwards. I have written to the Secretaries of State for Culture, Media and Sport and for Education, and to the Prime Minister’s Office and Amazon. Given that this issue has come to light only in the past 24 hours, will the Leader of the House advise how we can bring this issue to Parliament and apply pressure on Amazon to remove this book from sale?

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Lady is seeking a statement. That is what she wants.

Sittings of the House (Wednesday 17 April)

Nadine Dorries Excerpts

Tuesday 16th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Skinner]

Way back.

[Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I just want to make the point that Baroness Thatcher is lying just yards from us in her final night in this Palace. Does the hon. Gentleman not think that just on this night, when she is only yards away, in the name of nothing other than good taste, it might be as well that we called this to an end?

[Mr Skinner]

I am just making a statement about the fact that during the course of Margaret Thatcher’s parliamentary time, especially when she was Prime Minister, she was divisive, first, in the sense that she got rid of all the wets so that she could set about her agenda. There is no question at all about that—I know that has nothing to do with Question Time being abandoned, Mr Speaker.

Charging for Access to Parliament

Nadine Dorries Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on bringing this debate to the House. He seems to have developed a trend and penchant for securing debates that get everybody very excited and hit right on the nerve the issues we want to talk about.

Everybody has said what needs to be said, so I will make only a couple of short, substantive points. I visited years 3 and 4 in a school in my constituency recently. A teacher asked the pupils to prepare questions for when I spoke to the class and to draw pictures of what they thought was my job as an MP. Almost every single picture contained Big Ben, and almost all the pupils thought I worked in Big Ben—that was my job. This charge will affect schoolchildren. Any barrier that we put in the way of schoolchildren coming to the House of Commons to learn about what we do and about democracy and to visit Big Ben is a mistake. We should not be doing anything to prohibit school parties and schoolchildren from coming here.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harlow said that he always wanted to be an MP. Anyone who has known him for many years, as I have, will know that that is true. Since he got here, he has never stopped talking about how he always wanted to be an MP. This place inspires schoolchildren.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

Is the hon. Lady aware that last year 950,000 people visited the Houses of Parliament without taking part in a Clock Tower tour? Clearly none of them was deterred from visiting Parliament by not taking part in a tour.

[Nadine Dorries]

I take the hon. Gentleman’s point, but I want to keep to the substantive points, as we are down to a five-minute limit.

As everybody has said, Big Ben is owned by the people—the taxpayers. It is their Big Ben, not ours. It is not ours to make such a decision. Richard Branson owns Virgin. No one says to him, “You have to pay to get on your planes”—I should mention, for all the twitterers, that I have received that comment from Twitter. The people own Big Ben, and they should not be charged to visit it. Just as they own the House of Commons, they should not be prohibited from seeing their MPs working in their Committees. People should be not be barred from going up into the Public Gallery, or charged for doing so, to watch what takes place in the Chamber; nor should they be charged to visit Big Ben, because it is all the same. There is the option—I am sure that there must be a way round—of saying that UK taxpayers should not be charged to visit Big Ben. There must be a way of pre-booking tours from overseas where a charge would apply. That would be perfectly reasonable. There must be a way of administering that.

Let me turn to waste in general, which many Members have mentioned. In my previous life, before I became a Member of Parliament, I worked for organisations such as SmithKline Beecham, Pfizer, Shell and Coca Cola-Schweppes. All those organisations, along with many other big corporations, had subsidised canteens and restaurants. The reason they were subsidised was that the overhead costs of the building had been met, so there were no losses from food sales. We have a captive audience in this place for meals in the restaurant from 8 o’clock in the morning, sometimes to midnight, with no overhead or infrastructural charges. Why do the restaurants in this place not make a profit, when they have a captive audience, very long hours and no overhead charges? It must be due to labour costs being too expensive, management being overburdened by costs and inefficiency. If there is inefficiency and money being wasted in this place, it is down to the managers, the Commission and others who are paid to do this work to find out where that waste is. We should not be saying, “Let’s plug the gap by charging people to go up Big Ben,” but then throwing good money after bad; rather, it is about finding out where there is waste at the moment, and there is indeed gross inefficiency and waste.

Those are the only points that I wanted to make. There is huge waste, and we should not be charging British taxpayers to go up what is their own property.

Business of the House

Nadine Dorries Excerpts

Thursday 17th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s response, although I hope that he managed to clear all his questions in advance with the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Chancellor, as the latest leaked memo from Labour HQ has revealed is required of him and every other member of the Opposition Front-Bench team.

On the legislative consent motion, as the right hon. Gentleman said, I wrote to him and the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) following our exchanges last week, and I placed a copy of the letter in the Library. It is our understanding that the Scotland Bill committee in the Scottish Parliament will publish its LCM in the week commencing 28 February. Today’s business statement has provisionally allocated 7 March for day one of the Scotland Bill.

On police numbers, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) is entitled to a reply to her named-day question. I remind the right hon. Gentleman that the former Home Secretary had said that he could give no guarantee that there would be no reduction in police numbers were Labour to be re-elected.

On youth unemployment, I remind the right hon. Gentleman that the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) said in 1995:

“Our plan is nothing less than to abolish youth unemployment.”

They left government with youth unemployment 240,000 more than when they came in. So we will have no more of that.

On internships, I welcome the announcement by you, Mr Speaker, that—with support from the Commission—an internship scheme will be initiated in the House. I encourage all hon. Members to take part in it. It is right to encourage internships and to give access to internships to those from all income groups.

On bonuses, I remind the right hon. Gentleman that there was no bonus regime under his Government. Indeed, they signed a contract with one of the banks that obliged it to go on paying bonuses at market rates. It was this Government, not his, who introduced a regime and a deal with the banks. So we will have no more on that.

As the right hon. Gentleman anticipates, we will shortly have a statement on forests.

On the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, I understand that a press statement was put out by his Department on the matter.

It has been a challenging week for the Government, but it is the week in which we have established the big society bank, with several hundreds of millions of pounds to underpin charities. It is a week in which we have put a major constitutional reform Bill on the statute book. It is also a week in which we have published the Welfare Reform Bill, the biggest reform of the welfare state for 60 years. So the coalition Government are determined to make progress with our social, economic and constitutional reforms and we will not be deflected from that task.

[Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

May we have a debate to discuss the relationship between the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Department of Health? I ask specifically for this because two members of staff from the Department are sitting on a working group looking into the emotive issue of the care of women during abortion, and if the findings of that group are to be credible, its manner of operations should be above reproach. It is not adhering to Government guidelines on consultation, and that is causing huge concern.

[Sir George Young]

I understand my hon. Friend’s deep concern on the subject, which she has made one of her special interests. My understanding is that the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists is a professional body independent of Government, and it has set its own consultation periods. There is a consultation period of four weeks—as is standard for the college—and it ends tomorrow, although any responses received by 25 February will be accepted. However, I will, of course, pass on her comments to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health.

Business of the House

Nadine Dorries Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Members might not be aware that, last Thursday, a piece of legislation was passed in the House which grants the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards the power to investigate any MP he wishes, if he thinks fit, without having received a prior complaint. This would of course result in the headline the following day, “Parliamentary sleaze watchdog investigates MP”. Will the Leader of the House please tell us why he saw fit to grant such powers to someone who is unelected and probably has the leakiest office in Westminster, and who also has close relations with the media?

[Sir George Young]

It was not I who granted those powers. The House decided, without Division, to approve the unanimous report of the Standards and Privileges Committee, which carried the resolution to which my hon. Friend refers.

Business of the House

Nadine Dorries Excerpts

Thursday 11th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. As usual, a very large number of hon. and right hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye. We have two further important statements to follow, and a Backbench Business Committee debate that is heavily subscribed, so if I am to accommodate as many people as possible, brevity from those on the Back Benches and the Front Bench alike is required.

[Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

This House needs an emergency debate. What we saw happen yesterday was deplorable. We saw National Union of Students officials egging the crowd on, although today Aaron Porter, the president of the NUS, is attempting to remove himself from the situation. We need to know whether the police were incompetent or badly briefed. Yesterday somebody could very easily have died. The behaviour of the NUS officials and stewards on the ground was deplorable, and we need a debate in the Chamber to discuss that matter.

[Sir George Young]

I entirely share the views that my hon. Friend has just expressed. She will know that after the business statement there will be an oral statement by the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, who will be in a better position than I am to respond to the points that she has just made.