Points of Order

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order, and for notice of it. The content of answers is not a matter of order for the Chair, and neither is inconsistency in the way Ministers reply to similar questions. If the hon. Lady is dissatisfied with the answers she has received, she should draw the matter to the attention of the Procedure Committee. Moreover, I add in passing that without regard to the particulars of the case, with which I cannot be expected to be familiar, I have considerable sympathy for the hon. Lady in so far as she is aggrieved by the tendency of some Departments simply to refer right hon. or hon. Members to a website. That is often unavailing, and the intention of Ministers should be to help Members in pursuit of their parliamentary duties. In the best cases, that is what happens, but it ought to be the norm.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. It was a great shock this morning to hear for the first time that the cost of maintaining nuclear waste in this country is an astonishing £67.5 billion. Last Thursday, I asked a question about another possible subsidy of £30 billion, but the Minister mysteriously concentrated on my attitude to the monarchy in his reply and did not mention the cost. Have you had any approach, Mr Speaker, from that Minister or any other Minister in the Department of Energy and Climate Change, to explain how in a time of austerity we can spend tens of billions of pounds on one energy source?

[Mr Speaker]

The short answer is that I have received no such indication that a Minister is planning to come to the House to speak on those matters. The hon. Gentleman may wish to pursue his interests further in subsequent questions, in so far as he thinks he has not already done so to his satisfaction, and that of others, through the ruse of an attempted point of order.