Points of Order

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I share the real misery that he and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of other people will feel about what is a terrible tragedy, and a terrible tragedy that is the worse for the fact that it was the second in four years to engulf and threaten the future of an iconic building, as well as damaging a great many other buildings in the vicinity.

The hon. Gentleman very properly—if I heard him correctly—did not refer to an urgent question application, because Members are not supposed to refer to unsuccessful urgent question applications; but I will simply say that, as colleagues will understand, I must take account of the range of business before the House. Two urgent questions were granted because I felt that they warranted being aired on the Floor of the House, but a number of other urgent questions that might have been selected on a different day were not chosen for today.

What I will say to the hon. Gentleman, and to all other Members who are similarly interested in this matter—Members with Scottish constituencies but also, potentially, those from other parts of the country—[Interruption.] Indeed, that includes the constituency of the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan). I beg the hon. Lady’s pardon. What I would say to Members is that it is open to a Minister to offer an oral statement to the House on the matter, but if they want a failsafe that will guarantee that the matter will be aired, they know what options are open to them.

I do apologise to the hon. Member for Glasgow North West. I did not intend her any discourtesy at all. I did not have it in my mind, because I was responding to the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney), but in so far as she is making the point that she has a very, very direct interest in the matter, I completely respect that.

What I am trying to signal to colleagues is that they should have an opportunity to air this matter by one means or another in the course of the next day or two. I hope that that is helpful.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would appreciate your advice on what I think is a serious issue in relation to the provision of information to Members by the Home Office. In January I tabled a written parliamentary question seeking information on how many scientists and engineers had been refused a Tier 2 (General) certificate of sponsorship since November 2017 due to the annual cap having been reached. Despite the Home Office acknowledging that it held this information and not indicating that it would require disproportionate cost to compile it, it declined to provide it to me. However, the information was later released in response to a freedom of information request by the Campaign for Science and Engineering, with which I had been working on the issue. When I tabled a subsequent question asking for updated figures, given that this information was now in the public arena I assumed that the Home Office would provide it to me, but it refused again.

I am sure you will agree, Mr Speaker, that it is unacceptable that the Home Office will not provide Members of this House with information that it holds but which it is prepared to release in response to an FOI request. It makes FOIs a more effective way of obtaining information than a parliamentary question.

I have raised my concerns with the Chair of the Procedure Committee, who shares them, and I would appreciate your advice, Mr Speaker, on what else I should do to ensure that the work of Members is not undermined in this way.

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me notice that he wished to raise this matter. It certainly does seem that the Home Office has been quite unhelpful in responding to his questions on this matter and it is certainly unsatisfactory if a Department provides less information in a response to a parliamentary question from an elected Member of this House than it provides in response to a freedom of information request from an external body. There is a basic issue here of parliamentary self-respect, so we have all got a dog in this race, if I can put it that way.

I understand that the hon. Gentleman has written on this matter to the Procedure Committee, which is exactly the course I would recommend in these circumstances. That Committee plays an important role in monitoring both the quality and timeliness of parliamentary answers. [Interruption.] I am glad to see that that proposition is assented to by the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), who has himself been a distinguished ornament of that Committee and may be willing to make representations to the Home Secretary on behalf of the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield). Meanwhile the hon. Gentleman has put his concern on the record and I hope it has been noted on the Treasury Bench and will be conveyed to Home Office Ministers. I hope that is helpful to the hon. Gentleman.