Points of Order

Steve Baker Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order and for her characteristic courtesy in giving me advance notice of her intention to raise it. I am sorry to disappoint her, but I am not sure that I can help her today. The reason is that responses to freedom of information requests by Government Departments are a matter for those Departments; the Chair has no locus in relation to the subject. It is perfectly open to the hon. Lady to continue to pursue the matter, but she does so under a regime that is informed by statute and in relation to which she will, I imagine, have rights, and quite possibly rights of appeal. As I am sure the hon. Lady will know, the issues fall within the purview of the Information Commissioner. However, whereas in relation to answers to parliamentary questions there is a direct parliamentary ownership and the Chair does have locus, in this case I do not. That said, the hon. Lady has made her point with force and alacrity, and it will have been heard on the Treasury Bench.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am absolutely certain that if in the urgent question anything disorderly had happened you would have immediately corrected it, but I wonder whether there is any way that the House could be asked to reflect on how much longer privilege can survive in a democratic society if it seems to appear that privilege is used for party political purposes to smear those who, perhaps, do not deserve to be smeared.

[Mr Speaker]

I note what the hon. Gentleman says and I thank him for his courtesy in accepting that I would rule out of order something that, under our procedures, warranted such a decision.

The hon. Gentleman, who is both a noted intellectual—sometimes an iconoclastic intellectual—and someone who always likes to explore new subjects, has raised a most interesting matter appertaining to privilege. He could usefully busy himself by reading the literature on the subject of privilege. There is, for example, an ongoing debate about whether the House should work, as it does, using traditional methods in relation to privilege, or whether there is a case for a modern statute on the subject. I do have views on that matter, but I will not burden either him or the House with them at this time, but I just have this image of him beetling off to the Library and reading scholarly tomes on the subject, and ere long we will probably hear his thoughts on the future of privilege.