Points of Order

Debate between Steve Rotheram and John Bercow

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order, of which I did not have notice, but which is highly topical. What I can say to him, which I hope will be of interest to him and to the House, is that I am today writing—the letter has been drafted, and awaits signature—to the Chairman of the Procedure Committee, the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), requesting that the Committee look into the ancient practice whereby, in such situations, a Member’s arrest is reported to the House, to establish whether, in modern circumstances, such a practice is no longer required, or at any rate, at the very least, requires amendment. I hope that that is helpful to the hon. Gentleman and to others.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I know that you are aware of the concerns that I have raised with Ministers in the House about the current situation at G4S-run Altcourse prison in my constituency, which I have pursued in written parliamentary questions. Last night I was advised, in a written response from the prisons Minister, that G4S had been instructed to complete a “strategic plan” for Altcourse in the light of a recent murder in the prison. The plan has now been completed, and has been submitted to the National Offender Management Service. However, the Ministry of Justice is refusing to share the document with me.

Can you advise me, Mr Speaker, how I can possibly monitor what is going on in the jail in regard to the improvements that need to be made—and respond to my constituents’ very real concerns—while I am being denied access to information that should be shared with me, as the local Member of Parliament, before I meet officials at the jail?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. My simple advice to him is to use the opportunities open to him to air the matter. For example, although I can make no offer today and give no guarantee of immediate success, it is open to him, if he wants to joust on the matter with a Minister, to seek an Adjournment debate. It would be a highly pertinent topic for such a debate. He might want to reflect on that.

Points of Order

Debate between Steve Rotheram and John Bercow

Wednesday 5th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We cannot have a continuing debate on the matter. I simply say, in a spirit of trying to bring the matter to an amicable close and to serve the interests of the House, that it would be helpful, if the Minister was quoting from publicly available material, if he wrote to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) quoting chapter and verse, and referring him to the particular statements or paragraphs that he has in mind.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I informed the relevant Minister that I intended to raise this point of order, as is the protocol. I would welcome your guidance on the mechanisms that are open to me to have the record corrected, following my exchange on Monday with the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis). In responding to my question about the unfair cuts to the budget of Liverpool city council, he made serious allegations and may have inadvertently misled the House. I am seeking guidance from you, Mr Speaker, on what I can do to have the record corrected by the Minister, so that the smears against Liverpool will not be repeated outside as facts that have been raised in this House.

[Mr Speaker]

The Minister, in common with every right hon. and hon. Member, is responsible for the veracity or otherwise of the statements that he makes in the House. If he has made an error—I say if, because I have no way of knowing off the top of my head whether it is so—he is responsible for correcting the record. The Chair cannot engage in a regular series of debates between Members about whether the House has been misled. If it is a matter of political contention, it might be best for the hon. Gentleman to seek to resolve it first through correspondence with the Minister. That is my advice to him and let us see where it gets us. If he needs to come back to me, doubtless he will require no encouragement.

Local Government Finance

Debate between Steve Rotheram and John Bercow

Wednesday 18th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve Rotheram]

I will pay for it.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The financial generosity of the hon. Gentleman is duly noted, but it is somewhat unparliamentary for him to chunter from a sedentary position—[Interruption.] Order. His point has been heard—[Interruption.] Order. I was being good-humoured towards the hon. Gentleman, but I am sorry that he is not showing good humour in the festive season. [Interruption.] Order. I am not debating the point with the hon. Gentleman; I am simply telling him what the situation is. He has asked his question, and he must now have the courtesy to listen to the response. He can make his own evaluation of that response, of course.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Steve Rotheram and John Bercow

Thursday 7th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am sure an invitation to come upstairs beats an invitation to come outside.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

T7. I am basically supportive of HS2 proposals, although I am becoming increasingly concerned about the project the more I read the specific detail of regional benefits. Will the Secretary of State assure me that Liverpool will get a spur to increase capacity and ensure greater connectivity with our ports so that the whole city region can benefit?

Points of Order

Debate between Steve Rotheram and John Bercow

Monday 14th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order and for his courtesy in giving me advance notice of his intention to raise it, as well as for sharing his intentions by letter and e-mail with the hon. Member for Braintree (Mr Newmark). For my own part, speaking from the Chair, I would not seek for one moment to interpose myself in a dispute or altercation between the hon. Member for Braintree and Mr Peter Hitchens. I think that the point stands as the right hon. Gentleman has made it, and I would just like to say that the hon. Member for Braintree said what he judged and judges to be right. He was perfectly entitled to do so, and I make no criticism of him. Mr Peter Hitchens is well known to me. I have been acquainted with him for a great many years and disagreed with him for almost all of those years on almost all matters under the sun, but it is a matter of almost uncontested fact that Mr Hitchens is a man of both provocative talent and unimpeachable integrity. We will leave the matter there.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wonder whether you will indulge me with the benefit of your extensive expertise in all things procedural in this Chamber. I was pulled out of the shuffle for questions to the Deputy Prime Minister tomorrow but have subsequently been notified by the Cabinet Office that the DPM is refusing to answer my question on constitutional reform. Can you offer me guidance as to how I may challenge that decision, so that the Deputy Prime Minister is held accountable by Members of this House?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order and for giving notice of his intention to raise it with me. I simply say to him that it has always been for the Government to decide which Minister is responsible for answering questions. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s frustration, but as far as I can see from the material available to me nothing disorderly has occurred. It is often the case that a question put to one Minister can be judged, perfectly reasonably, to be more within the purview of another. If such a judgment has been made, it is not for the Chair to quibble with it. I do not seek to engage the hon. Gentleman further at this time, so he should not spring to his feet and recite to me the question he had posed. I think it is fair to record that in his otherwise unexceptionable letter to me on the matter dated today he does not say what the question was. I have at this stage to conclude that the transfer, though from his vantage point frustrating, was, as I say, not disorderly. But he is nothing if not a perspicacious terrier, and I feel sure that he will use all his intellectual and political resources to test the Deputy Prime Minister in another way on a different occasion. We will leave it there, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman is satisfied.

Point of Order

Debate between Steve Rotheram and John Bercow

Wednesday 13th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Will you inform the House about whether you have been notified of any problems with the Government’s online petition system? There have been a number of what No. 10 has described as “glitches” in the registration of signatures relating to the Shrewsbury 24 e-petition. Will you advise us about how people using their democratic right to secure a debate in this House can register their support for the campaign spearheaded by Ricky Tomlinson who, along with five of his colleagues, was jailed and who has long campaigned for the clearance of all the names of the 24?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his attempted point of order. The short answer is that I have been informed of problems only by the hon. Gentleman through his point of order. The matter is a responsibility not for the Chair, but for Ministers. If there are glitches, it is for Ministers to answer the hon. Gentleman. I trust that he will pursue the matter through them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Steve Rotheram and John Bercow

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Last but not least, I call Steve Rotheram.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

After a lengthy campaign, tomorrow the High Court will hear the application from the Attorney-General to quash the original verdicts into the deaths of 96 Liverpool fans at Hillsborough in 1989—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman must resume his seat. My strong sense—I do not have advance briefing on the detail of the matter—is that the issue that he is raising could well be sub judice.

[Steve Rotheram]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. It is not a matter to be raised now, so we will leave it there. I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Gentleman.

[Steve Rotheram]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. That is the end of it. We must now move on.

Points of Order

Debate between Steve Rotheram and John Bercow

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that. Secondly, with specific reference to the hon. Gentleman’s question, right hon. and hon. Members must take responsibility for the accuracy of what they say in the House—the Chair cannot take over that responsibility. His point will have been heard by the hon. Member and by others, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for putting it on the record.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

We are not going to have a debate about the matter that the hon. Gentleman could not raise. However, if he wants briefly to raise a point of order, he can.

[Steve Rotheram]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I understand your concerns about raising matters in this House that are sub judice, and I would never put you, as the Speaker of the House, in that position. My question was going to be that whatever the outcome, every eventuality should be afforded to the families and that the Secretary of State should be considering a possible outcome in which the families would need support from the public purse for any inquest that might follow on from any decision in the High Court tomorrow. That is all I was asking.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Steve Rotheram and John Bercow

Wednesday 31st October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

Q4. Following the press reporting of the Hillsborough disaster and the phone hacking scandal, self-regulation of the press, by the press, is simply no longer acceptable to the public. More than three quarters of respondents to two recent polls backed an end to media self-regulation. Prime Minister, your Ministers have been briefing against Leveson. Whose side are you on—the public or the press?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am not on anybody’s side in this. Members really must adhere to the proper procedures of this House, which they ought to know by now.

Points of Order

Debate between Steve Rotheram and John Bercow

Monday 19th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You will be aware that, last Thursday, a document—Cabinet papers from 1989 on the Hillsborough disaster—was leaked to the BBC. Many believe that the leak could only have come from a senior politician or a senior civil servant, or that the BBC itself must have had access to this sensitive documentation. There have also been suggestions that there may well be further leaks on a “drip, drip” basis, which will undermine the work of the Hillsborough independent panel. Given the urgency—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I intend no discourtesy to the hon. Gentleman. What I am seeking to establish is: what is the point of order for the Chair? That is the question.

[Steve Rotheram]

Given the urgency of the situation, Mr Speaker, perhaps you can offer me guidance on the most appropriate parliamentary mechanism to ensure that as many Members as possible have the opportunity, and sufficient time, to debate the intricacies of such a complex issue.

[Mr Speaker]

There are a number of answers to the hon. Gentleman’s point of order. First, I do not give procedural advice to Members from the Chair. Secondly—as one wag has just observed from a sedentary position—it is open to the hon. Gentleman to consult the Standing Orders, and he could probably do so to his advantage. Thirdly, my genuine and constructive advice to the hon. Gentleman is that he should consult the Table Office about the variety of parliamentary devices that could be available to him, and could enable him further and better to pursue the matter.

National Health Service

Debate between Steve Rotheram and John Bercow

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We come to the next matter to be debated on this Opposition day, namely the Government’s record on environmental protection and green growth.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

Who could neglect the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram)? We will deal with his point of order first.

[Steve Rotheram]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I should like some clarification from you because I do not know the answer to this question. When two of my constituents went through the Cromwell Green security check area, they were searched and photographed, obviously, but then a piece of paper they had with them—a pensions petition signed by the staff of Four Oaks primary school—was taken from them. When they asked why, they were told it was a security risk. Can you clarify what might have been meant by a piece of paper being a security risk? Were staff frightened that somebody might get a paper cut?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order and for having given advance notice of his intention to raise it. I have a fertile imagination but it is stretched to the limits by an attempt to discover what on earth could be the problem here. The hon. Gentleman and others will know that some items are considered out of order for bringing into the House, but I cannot imagine why this would fall into that category. I think it only right to say that I will have a conversation and look into the matter. I know that the staff of the House always do their best, but my instant reaction is that I cannot imagine why it should have caused offence. Moreover, I cannot, off the top of my head, credit the idea that constituents of the hon. Gentleman’s coming to the House would cause offence.

Delegated legislation

Debate between Steve Rotheram and John Bercow

Tuesday 11th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Will you specify the identity of the objector to the motion on the business of the House on 17 October so that it can be recorded in Hansard, and also explain the ramifications of the objection? Is it right that that objection will deny the House an opportunity to debate the Hillsborough disaster? It had taken 22 years to reach the point at which it was scheduled for debate in the Chamber.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order—

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Steve Rotheram and John Bercow

Tuesday 5th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

Does the Deputy Prime Minister not understand that even those of us who support Lords reform cannot help wondering whether he has masochistic tendencies in trying to win this fight with one hand tied behind his back, and with the Prime Minister simply holding his coat and egging him on from the sidelines? Does he believe that he has the overwhelming support of his coalition partners to steer the Bill through both Houses? If not, is he not just wasting—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We are extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman.

Special Urban Development Zones

Debate between Steve Rotheram and John Bercow

Wednesday 16th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the Secretary of State to create Special Urban Development Zones; to set out the criteria on which such Zones must be designated, including criteria relating to Housing Market Renewal Initiative status and areas of multiple deprivation; and for connected purposes.

My aim in introducing the Bill is simple—to see areas blighted by entrenched multiple deprivation given the targeted attention they so desperately and urgently need, and to try to give Members on the Government Benches—the few who are here—some comfort or reassurance. I am not talking about yet another bureaucratic layer for its own sake, or about a new network of talking shops. The public do not set much store by what we in Liverpool would call Mickey Mouse gimmicks. I am talking about intensive intervention capable of delivering meaningful, measurable and tangible results that link in with and complement the soon to be introduced enterprise zones, local enterprise partnerships and other such Government initiatives. For some of our more blighted areas, this is long overdue. For those who live their daily lives in such conditions, the proposals are a matter of the utmost urgency. I propose the introduction of specified development zones and their roll-out out across the whole country. I will use the example of north Liverpool, for purely illustrative purposes, to explain my motivation and serve as justification for the Bill.

I should first explain that my interest in the north of the city is not purely political, although my constituency covers a large portion of it—or at least, it will until it is realigned by the Deputy Prime Minister’s spurious measure of an arbitrary, arithmetical norm. For me, the Bill’s proposals are personal, as they will be to other representatives of disadvantaged constituencies. I have lived in Walton all my married life and witnessed with anguish and frustration the social and economic stagnation in certain wards. I am determined to see something done about it.

Let me start by reminding right hon. and hon. Members of the bigger picture. In recent months, I have had cause on several occasions to recite some of the grim statistics that place Liverpool in the top five or so places nationally of every possible index of deprivation, and the city is at the very top of that unenviable league table when the indices are combined. On those occasions, I have been disappointed by the indifferent, even mocking, responses from some Members on the Government Benches. Some of that I attribute simply to ignorant or baseless prejudice, but some of it has to do with people becoming immune and insensitive when repeatedly exposed to hard-grained, albeit abstract, facts. To borrow from an infamous aphorism, the poverty of one is a tragedy; the poverty of many a mere statistic.

Whatever the case, Liverpool’s socio-economic problems are common knowledge, but what many outsiders will not know is that in north Liverpool they are disproportionately concentrated and the consequences correspondingly magnified. A complex and historical mix of issues, such as low educational attainment, a low skills base, high welfare dependency, poor housing, low or unskilled employment, which is often casual, and poverty of aspiration have made for a potent, self-perpetuating, cyclical cocktail of disadvantage and marginalisation.

In recent times, against the odds, Liverpool has come on in leaps and bounds, which is to be commended and celebrated. Many Members, even on the Labour Benches, will be astonished at our city’s transformation and urban renaissance when the party has its conference there later in the year, just as the Lib Dems were when they visited.

It remains, however, a tale of two cities in one, a sub sub-regional north-south divide. The wealth, opportunity and aspiration so evident in the centre and elsewhere have not filtered through to north Liverpool. That has long been the case. In the 19th century, well-healed visitors to the city wrote with pity and horror about its poor, most of whom were clustered, even then, in the inner north. The Victorian street urchins and the notorious back-to-back dwellings are long gone, but the causes and effects of poverty that characterised large swathes of the city’s underclass in those northern suburbs persist today. That is unconscionable.

I blame no particular Administration or party. Over the years various well-intentioned local, regional and national initiatives have aimed at reviving the area, but they foundered, overwhelmed by the scale of the difficulties they face or bogged down by conflicting or competing priorities. The soon-to-be defunct housing market renewal initiative essentially recognised what we need to do and made some progress, but ultimately it was neither sufficiently focused nor sufficiently geographically specific to meet north Liverpool’s needs. In any case, it tackled only one of a plethora of problems.

It is time to get to grips with the situation once and for all. The difficulties in the north of the city might have become entrenched, but I refuse to accept that they are insurmountable. As my predecessor, Peter Kilfoyle, argued consistently in this place and in Liverpool, the plight of north Liverpool powerfully demonstrates why we need a fresh, full-spectrum approach to deprivation hot spots, both to tackle the root causes and to address the effects.

Through this Bill, I envisage the creation of designated special urban development zones, intelligently configured according to multiple deprivation indices and housing market renewal intervention status. Each SUDZ would comprise an operational framework consisting of three elements: first, a clear and holistic strategy with realistic and measurable objectives: a focused strategy, unashamedly biased in favour of the interests of the zone; and a strategy devised, developed and monitored with a single purpose in mind—the whole-scale and sustainable regeneration of the area in question.

Secondly, there would be funding—yes, funding—or at least additional resources and/or tax incentives. It is all very well banging on about austerity measures, but, as I have pointed out repeatedly in this place, any economy that grows while concentrations of deprivation throughout the country are simply left to fester and rot is an utterly false, foolish and precarious economy. It is also morally reprehensible.

Thirdly, there would be a dedicated delivery vehicle: an independent, stand-alone authority that was suitably equipped and sufficiently robust to work with partners on an equal footing, and with the ways and means—in other words, the clout—to get things done.

I have used north Liverpool as a case in point. It is what I know best; it is my priority; and in my view its regeneration ought to be high on the to-do list of any competent, right-minded Government. But there are many north Liverpools, dotted throughout the country, facing equal hardship and equally deserving of the action I suggest. I propose this Bill on their behalf, too.

Were the Bill to be enacted, it would signal a clear commitment by this allegedly progressive Government to tackling poverty and inequality. Inaction borne of apathy, indifference or something more cynical is no longer an option, and I therefore beg leave to bring in the Bill.

[Mr Speaker]

The question is that the hon. Member have leave to bring in his Bill.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Steve Rotheram and John Bercow

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There are still far too many private conversations taking place in the Chamber. I want to hear, and I hope the House wants to hear, Steve Rotheram.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

As a former employee of a quango, I am following the Minister’s much-vaunted “bonfire of the quangos”, as he called it. Now that the comprehensive spending review is upon us, can he tell the House what the total savings will be?

Points of Order

Debate between Steve Rotheram and John Bercow

Tuesday 29th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I do not think that it would be right for the hon. Gentleman to seek to draw me into these interesting exchanges. He has tabled a question, and an answer might be forthcoming. I note his reference to the importance of evidence, and I simply note in passing that we would be establishing a new precedent in the House if we were to regard it as mandatory for a Minister to provide evidence for the arguments that he or she was making.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Have you or your office been notified as to whether the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport will be coming to the House to apologise for the distress that his unacceptable comments about the Hillsborough disaster have caused to the families of the 96 who died, and to people right across the political and football divide?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order, and I understand the very strong feelings—including those of constituents—that will have motivated him to raise it. In response, I would say that the remarks complained of—which I am neither justifying nor condemning—were not made in the House, and that my clear understanding is that the Secretary of State has apologised for them. He has made a public apology, and the question of whether he seeks to make an apology or any other comment on the matter in the House is a matter for him. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) for raising the matter, and I hope that he feels that I have given him at least an informative response.