Points of Order

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Monday 13th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your guidance about the convention that Members should notify each other when they visit their constituencies. On the way to my surgery on Saturday morning, I came out of Hillhead subway station and met a bunch of very drookit-looking Labour supporters, and when I asked them whether they were waiting for someone special, they said no. However, at the end of my surgery, I read on social media that the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), the leader of Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition, had in fact visited that street and undertaken a walkabout. I had received absolutely no notification of that. I understand that an email was sent to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), but he was not in Glasgow Central.

[Mr Speaker]

I am enormously grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. The details of the particular tribulations that afflicted him in the course of an obviously very busy and hectic weekend are of grave concern to the hon. Gentleman, but possibly not to every Member of the House in equal measure. There is a convention that Members should notify each other of their intention to visit their constituencies, and he is perfectly justified in drawing attention to it, although I am not entirely sure that his timing in doing so at this point was perfect.