Points of Order

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

As the hon. Lady knows—and as far as I am concerned, this is very fortunate—the content of ministerial statements or answers is not a matter for the Chair. If a Minister has made an incorrect statement, there is a procedure for setting the record straight, and that will be well known to all Members on the Treasury Bench. Meanwhile, the hon. Lady has put her concerns and her interpretation of the facts very clearly on the record, and that statement and interpretation will have been heard by Ministers.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. There is a matter that is causing great concern within the country, but on which the Government are silent in this House: the alleged conduct of certain official representatives of this country who are cultivating friendships with some of the emergent tyrannies in the world, including Azerbaijan. Should we not also be debating in this House whether we choose our trade representatives on the principle of inheritance?

[Mr Speaker]

There is every opportunity for the hon. Gentleman to raise this matter at business questions tomorrow, and he may well choose to do so. I have got a feeling that he will be hot-footing it to the salon, as the Leader of the House describes it, of the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire, who chairs the Backbench Business Committee, because I think the hon. Gentleman will probably be pursuing a debate on this matter in that Committee’s time.