Points of Order

Naomi Long Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman must resume his seat. I listened very carefully to what he said yesterday. He is very dexterous in his use of parliamentary language and he has a great sense of humour, but what he must not do—I say this in all seriousness—is abuse the point of order procedure to make apologies that transpire to be nothing of the kind and are really carefully crafted partisan points which suit his book. I cannot believe that he would ordinarily want to do that, but I think he was planning to do it today and I cannot allow him to continue with it.

[Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. On two occasions during Prime Minister’s Question Time—both this week and in previous weeks—the Prime Minister has asserted that money that is going to be released by reform of the coastguard service will be redirected into front-line rescue missions. However, this is actually done by charitable organisations such as the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, and it is unclear as to how the transfer will take place. Would it be in order to request that the Minister responsible provide either a written or an oral statement to the House to clarify the link between the two?

[Mr Speaker]

The decision on whether to make a statement is a matter for the Government, as is the form that the statement takes. Otherwise, my earlier remarks about the procedure for correcting ministerial inaccuracies apply to the hon. Lady’s point of order.

If there are no further points of order, we will move on to the ten-minute rule motion, for which the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) has been patiently waiting.