Points of Order

John Bercow Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. During Home Office questions this afternoon, my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) and the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) asked questions about domestic violence and the concerns felt by refuges across the country about a possible serious cut in their funding. In response, the Minister seemed to confuse domestic violence with previous questions to do with rape, and kept praying in aid responses with which she hoped to furnish the House from the Ministry of Justice. If the Home Office no longer has responsibility for the issue of domestic violence or the sanctuaries from it—namely the refuges—surely this House should have had a statement to that effect.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order, but I have a sense that, dissatisfied with the responses that she heard earlier, she is, in a sense, seeking to continue the debate. To the best of my knowledge, responsibility for the issue of domestic violence remains where it has always been. If Ministers feel otherwise, they might wish to respond to the serious point of order that she has just raised. However, I see that the Home Secretary is in her place, so it might help the House if she would care to respond to that point of order.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

I am happy to confirm that the Home Office does indeed continue to have responsibility in matters relating to domestic violence, although there will be aspects of dealing with domestic violence that require the intervention and consideration of the Ministry of Justice.

[Mr Speaker]

Whether that response satisfies the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson) I cannot be sure, but it will have to do for now.

[Mr Ian Davidson (Glasgow South West) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Would it be in order for me to apologise to the Home Secretary and the Minister for Immigration for confusing the two of them this morning? Could I also point out that, in my defence, they were on the radio and all these posh Tories sound the same, and that the Home Secretary did not, however, deal with the point that the announcement was made by the Minister for Immigration this morning before it was brought to this House?

[Mr Speaker]

In almost all circumstances it is in order to apologise, but if that is the hon. Gentleman’s idea of an apology, I am not sure that I ever want one from him.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You said last week, and five weeks ago, that you wholly deprecated the practice of Ministers announcing things to the press before they had announced them to the House. You will know that many hon. Members on both sides of the House complained about this when Labour was in government. We tried to ensure that it did not happen and, in many cases, succeeded—[Interruption.] I would say to those on the Government Benches that there is no point in sneering about this. The truth is that there is no point in fighting to get elected to this House if we might as well stay at home and listen to the announcements on the television or the radio, or read them in the newspapers.

Mr Speaker, can you confirm that we had a statement this afternoon from the Home Secretary only because an urgent question had been tabled? Can you also confirm that that happened after a written ministerial statement on the subject had been laid, and that that happened a long time after the Home Secretary had given a press conference today? We now have a Government who are systematically leaking matters to the press before they are announced in the House. That should not have happened in the past, and it should not happen in the future. Only if the House takes responsibility and takes action will we be able to stop this. Otherwise, Ministers will just laugh at the House. Will you, sir, refer this matter to the Committee on Standards and Privileges? It would be good if that Committee had already been set up, of course, but the Government have not yet done that. Will you refer the matter to that Committee, so that the House can take action?

[Mr Speaker]

The first point that I would make to the hon. Gentleman is an important one about which we need to be clear. A reference to the Standards and Privileges Committee cannot be made on the basis of a point of order raised on the Floor of the House. A written request must be made to me, explaining the rationale for the request, and a decision on that will then be reached. That is a procedural point. Secondly, I reiterate in the strongest possible terms that I utterly deprecate the practice of releasing to the media the content of ministerial statements before those statements have been made to the House. I deprecated it in the past, both from this Chair and as a Back-Bench Member, and I continue to do so. The question of whether this has taken place on a similar, greater or lesser scale in the past is neither here nor there, because two wrongs do not make a right.

Thirdly, I simply say to the hon. Gentleman that I cannot confirm what he has just asked—namely, that an oral statement followed the submission of an urgent question. I am in no position to confirm that. I listened to the Home Secretary’s explanation of the reason for changing from a written statement to an oral statement. I can confirm, however, that I am willing to look further into the particular details of this case, and to decide what, if any, action needs to be taken. We need to establish a new pattern in this Parliament, whereby this sort of thing does not happen and, if it does, action is taken. I shall look into this as a matter of urgency and revert to the hon. Gentleman and to the House. I hope that that is clear; I get the impression that it is.