Business of the House

Rachel Maclean Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Thank you, Mr Speaker—it is such a pleasure to be heckled from the Chair. I thought that that had stopped with the last Parliament, but never mind.

I completely understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying. I happen to think that the situation is much, much better in this new Parliament than it was in the last. I have noticed that coming and going is much less shouty, which is a very good thing. I have an historic affection for Sessional Orders, but noises off are right that their legal enforceability is, regrettably, questionable. We have to think about whether that could be given a legislative basis, but possibly Government time does not allow for that.

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

Redditch stands ready to benefit from the 5G revolution, and Amazon is poised to bring highly skilled digital and tech jobs to our fantastic town. Unfortunately, the 5G roll-out seems to have hit an “administrative inefficiency”, as the Leader of the House said, so can we please have a debate about 5G roll-out so that it can benefit towns such as Redditch?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

We have one piece of very good news: our current Prime Minister is a great cutter of Gordian knots, and where there is administrative inefficiency, the Alexander the Great of our time will be cutting these Gordian knots to ensure that 5G roll-out, which is a high priority of Government policy, will in fact happen. I hope that it will happen in Redditch within 50 years, unlike the railway station.