Points of Order

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I will come to the right hon. Gentleman in a moment, but I have been saving up the precious commodity of Mr Pete Wishart. Let us hear from the hon. Gentleman.

[Pete Wishart]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think that we are all grateful that we will have an extra three hours to debate the refugee crisis, but the Labour party knew that the Scottish National party was giving our Opposition day to discuss the crisis, and it knew that because it requested us to make the whole day about the crisis. It is such an important issue that we must not play party politics with it. [Interruption.] It must not be a feature of the Labour leadership contest. The House deserves much better than that. [Interruption.] Will you make a ruling, Mr Speaker, that our debate will still stand—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is a lot of commotion and I cannot hear the hon. Gentleman. I need to hear what he is saying.

[Pete Wishart]

Mr Speaker, will you confirm that on Wednesday it will still be in order for the Scottish National party to table a cross-party motion to agree to debate the refugee crisis on a substantive issue, and that we should stop playing games with something so important, because it is more important than any feature of the Labour leadership contest?

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order and appreciate his patience in waiting to be called. It will be entirely orderly for the hon. Gentleman or his party so to table. As Speaker, my responsibility is simply to hear an application and judge whether it has merit, rather than to become embroiled in what might be considered to be competitions between parties. He has asked me a straight question—will it be orderly?—and the answer is yes. That seems to satisfy not only the hon. Gentleman, but, very importantly—and I mean this—the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) to boot.