Points of Order

John Bercow Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You are the foremost guardian of the convention that the House of Commons must come first. My hon. Friend the Minister is a most charming and able Minister, but I have asked him why the Foreign Secretary is not here. I quite understand—he is a very busy man—if he is abroad or ill, but surely we must establish the convention that when there is an urgent question or a statement, unless it deals with a particular, small part of a Department, the Secretary of State should be here. I would hope that you make that clear to Departments.

[Mr Speaker]

I must say to the hon. Gentleman that the position is that it is for the Government to decide whom to field. My responsibility is to adjudicate upon applications for permission to put urgent questions. I do that every week, and sometimes several times a week. I cannot require any particular Minister to attend, and it must remain for the Government to make the judgment.

That said, the hon. Gentleman is a very senior and respected figure in this House, and he has just made a point that increasingly I have heard made recently by others. I have not made a statistical study, but there are suggestions that the frequency with which senior Ministers appear to answer urgent questions is declining. It is in no sense to cast an aspersion on the Minister, who knows his brief and has assiduously attended to the matters raised today, simply to note that point in passing. I would hope that senior Ministers wanted, and felt a duty, to answer questions from Members of Parliament. We do not have a separation of powers, as in the United States; Ministers sit in, and are answerable to, this House. None, frankly, should ever forget it.

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Happy St David’s day. Yesterday, in a majestic performance at the Dispatch Box, the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General confirmed to the House that Cabinet Ministers who oppose the European Union and support a no vote in the referendum can get access to Government documents on the EU referendum if they use the Freedom of Information Act. Today, we read on the front page of the Daily Mail that the Paymaster General is going to scrap the commission looking at the Freedom of Information Act. Mr Speaker, have you had notice from the Paymaster General that he is seeking to make a statement to the House to explain the very unusual behaviour of the Government in shelving their own commission?

[Mr Speaker]

I am bound to say to the hon. Gentleman that I have received no such indication that any Minister has any such intention. The matter to which the hon. Gentleman refers is a matter of ongoing interest. He and others, who are notably terrier-like and indefatigable in pursuit of their ends, will require no encouragement from me to deploy such parliamentary devices as are available to secure the matter further attention, if that is what they want.

If there are no further points of order—the House’s palate has been satisfied on that front, at any rate for today—we can move to the presentation of a Bill.

[The Minister for Security (Mr John Hayes)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

For the benefit of those who attend to our proceedings, the convention is that a Minister nods and I note that, with some ceremony, we have received the due nod from the Minister for Security.

Bill Presented

Investigatory Powers Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Secretary Theresa May, the Prime Minister, Secretary Philip Hammond, Secretary Michael Fallon, Secretary David Mundell, Secretary Theresa Villiers, the Attorney General, Robert Buckland and Mr John Hayes presented a Bill to make provision about the interception of communications, equipment interference and the acquisition and retention of communications data, bulk personal datasets and other information; to make provision about the treatment of material held as a result of such interception, equipment interference or acquisition or retention; to establish the Investigatory Powers Commissioner and other Judicial Commissioners and make provision about them and other oversight arrangements; to make further provision about investigatory powers and national security; to amend sections 3 and 5 of the Intelligence Services Act 1994; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed (Bill 143) with explanatory notes (Bill 143-EN).