Northern Ireland Assembly Election

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I underline for the hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister’s commitment to these issues. She has been kept very closely informed and updated, and has had discussions with the former First Minister and Deputy First Minister, and indeed the Taoiseach. We are committed as a Government to a return to devolved government and a positive outcome after these elections have taken place. That is what the people of Northern Ireland want, and what we all want. We have a shared and collective drive to achieve that, and we all need to focus on achieving it.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order relating to the next statement, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

I gather that this point of order relates to the next immediate piece of business, and therefore, exceptionally, I will take it now.

[Stephen Doughty]

Thank you for your generosity, Mr Speaker. As I am sure you will agree,

“In our constitution, Parliament is supposed to be sovereign…We…need a system that gives Parliament real powers over ministers…and the transparency to restore public trust”—

not my words, but those of the now Prime Minister in 2007. I will be scrutinising a Minister shortly on the implications of Brexit for Wales, but do you share my concern that on one of the most fundamental issues facing this country in a generation, the Prime Minister chose to be accountable not to the House this morning, but to the media and foreign ambassadors? Churchill would not have done it; Thatcher would not have done it; but it seems that when it comes to this House, this lady is not for turning up.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I do not have all the precedents in front of me, but I think that there has been a developing phenomenon in recent decades whereby, under successive Governments, important statements have sometimes been made outside the House that we would have welcomed being made first inside the House. I am pragmatic in these matters and say to the hon. Gentleman and others who might share his concern that when I heard of the Prime Minister’s important speech, scheduled for today, my first concern was that a senior member of the Government should come to the House on the same day to address us on the same matter. I had contact with the powers that be to make precisely that point. I am pleased to say that we have in our midst, and in my line of vision, the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, whom, I rather imagine, the hon. Gentleman will wish in due course to interrogate. Meanwhile, let us hear from the Secretary of State.