Points of Order

Paula Sherriff Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I think that is fulsome. We are extremely grateful to the Leader of the House.

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would like to receive your guidance. I have been seeking meetings with Transport Ministers regarding a possible Flockton bypass and the services delivered by TransPennine trains. I secured a meeting with the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) before the reshuffle, but the Department has been unable thus far to honour that commitment.

I learned that the Secretary of State was in Kirklees last Friday. I asked on a number of occasions via his office to meet him, but I was refused and told that he would meet only Conservative members and activists. Those members have since indicated on social media that they discussed the very two issues I wished to discuss with the Secretary of State. I now understand that members of the public were also present at those meetings—something for which there is photographic evidence.

I have sought to raise the issues I mentioned with the Secretary of State for months, as the MP elected by the constituency. Can you please advise whether Ministers in this House should be prepared to meet Members on issues relating to their constituencies?

[Mr Speaker]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order and for her courtesy in giving me advance notice that she wished to raise this issue.

What I would say—and it is very commonplace for me to get points of order of this type—is that I understand her concern to achieve a meeting with Ministers on a matter which is of importance to her constituents. Clearly, she had that prior commitment. It is customary, but not to be guaranteed, that a commitment by a Minister will tend to be honoured by his or her successor. While I would hope that Ministers would be even-handed in their response to Back-Bench Members on both sides of the House, I have nevertheless to say to the hon. Lady that it is not for me to tell Ministers whom they should meet; it is for an incoming Minister to decide whether to continue with a meeting arranged by his or her predecessor.

If a Minister goes to an area and is principally concerned to have what would be called a political meeting with members of his or her party, that may be exceptionally irritating to a Member who is not a member of that party, but it is not, of itself, illegitimate. There is no bar on Ministers undertaking party political activity alongside their ministerial duties.

All that said, I think that this place works best when there is a basic courtesy and respect from one Member to another. The hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), who was previously the serving Minister, has always struck me as a most courteous fellow, but, looking at the Treasury Bench, I have known the Secretary of State for at least two decades, and we have always enjoyed very cordial relations—he is a most courteous chap. As for the hon. Member for Orpington (Joseph Johnson), well, I think my cup runneth over—the hon. Gentleman is personable to a fault. I cannot understand why neither of them is willing to meet the hon. Lady—I would have thought that they would think it a most worthwhile enterprise.