John Bercow
Main Page: John Bercow (Speaker - Buckingham)Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Speaker
Order. This policy announcement should of course first have been made in this Chamber through an oral statement offered by the Government. Right hon. and hon. Members will appreciate that it was precisely because that offer was not made, which it should have been, that I granted the urgent question from the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris). We look forward of course to the Minister’s reply.
Mr Prisk
Thank you, Mr Speaker. The two written ministerial statements are important, but the Government will always note what you have to say on these matters. That is important in this regard.
I welcome my hon. Friend’s wholehearted support for these important changes. I know that he has been an ardent campaigner on these matters, and I very much respect that. It is important that constituency Members of Parliament should feel able to do that. He asked which proposals would be affected by the changes. I must be careful not to mention any specific named applications, but when something has been determined at local level, we clearly cannot reopen it. The changes will not be retrospective. When something is in the planning application system but no decision has been made, local planners and the planning inspectors will now have to give clear consideration—as they would in any other circumstances—to this guidance. That will give comfort not only to Members of the House but to many of the constituents they represent.