Ministerial Code (Culture Secretary)

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Denham]

The Secretary of State would have known on 22 December that the Cabinet Secretary had written to me saying that he was in the clear. Any honest Secretary of State would have turned around at that moment—

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. When an hon. or right hon. Member starts a sentence with “Any honest” something or other, we are getting close to the time when we need to be careful.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

That is not a point of order for the Chair. We must use temperate language throughout this debate. That would be incredibly useful for its tone. We also need to be aware that the winding-up speeches will commence at around 3.45 pm, so it would helpful if we focused on the subject matter of the debate.