Points of Order

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving me notice of her point of order, and I am sure that all hon. and right hon. Members, whether they are here or not, would agree that answers to parliamentary questions should be given promptly. Again, I know that those on the Treasury Bench will have heard her point of order. She may wish to take up any undue delay in ministerial answers with the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley), who chairs the Procedure Committee, which keeps under review departmental performance on answering questions. The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) is lucky that the Chair of that Committee happens to be in the Chamber, and I can see that she has heard what the hon. Lady has had to say.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I seek your assistance on a matter that many MPs will understand through that bread and butter work that we do on behalf of our constituents. I have informed the Minister’s office of my intention to raise this matter. Last December the Minister for Armed Forces, the right hon. Member for Wells (James Heappey), said that he

“would love to sit down with the hon. Lady to talk through the details of the cases.”—[Official Report, 11 December 2023; Vol. 742, c. 636.]

Those were the cases of two constituents who are British citizens but whose families are stuck in Pakistan, even though they served in support of our armed forces in Afghanistan. Their families are at high risk of harm.

I am yet to have that meeting with the Minister. Indeed, the meeting has been cancelled several times, and now my office has been told that we probably need to wait until another Minister is appointed. I wonder whether the Secretary of State or Ministers could help. We all know that Ministers are busy and we understand that these things are complicated, but this is a life-or-death situation for my constituents and I am at a loss as to how to assist them, four months on from the original query. Can Ministers advise on how best to make progress?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Can the hon. Lady just clarify in which Department the Minister sits?

[Stella Creasy]

The Ministry of Defence.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I thank the hon. Lady for her point of order. She has successfully shone a light on what has happened in this instance. I see that there is a Defence Minister on the Treasury Bench, so I am sure that her comments will be fed back and hope that the meeting to which she refers can take place accordingly. I think she has achieved her objective of highlighting the problem.