Points of Order

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) was the loudest, and she also has the biggest smile.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. So many things have been said about you that I hope you will accept that I will make my tributes to you in private. I hope that we can continue to be friends, even though I am a Whip and you have said some rather interesting things about Whips.

I actually wish to make a point of order, which is that I asked the Leader of the House last week to apologise for comparing a whistleblower who felt that it was in the national interest for him to reveal details about the possible impact of a no-deal Brexit on very ill people—I am so sorry for not giving you advance notice of this—with a disgraced former doctor who made up evidence about the MMR immunisation, but he refused to do so. As a result of a decrease in MMR immunisations, herd immunity to measles—a deadly disease—has gone down in this country. The Leader of the House has since apologised in public, but that is of course not on the record. In making my point of order, I hope to put it on record that the Leader of the House has apologised, but I seek your guidance on whether he can be asked to come to this House to put on the record, with equal measure, his apology for what he said about a distinguished man to whom we should be grateful.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Lady has made her point with vigour and alacrity, and it is on the record. If she wants to obtain, almost in real time, an electronic copy of what she said and to deliver it to the office of the Leader of the House, she may well elicit a response. The Leader of the House of Commons, the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), is somebody I have known for a very long time. I have sometimes agreed with him and sometimes not, but I have found that the right hon. Gentleman, though he has delivered some extremely waspish and widely objected to comments on this occasion, has invariably been widely regarded as courteous. He is a polite man and a gracious person, and his characteristic generosity of spirit could serve him well here. He has apologised outside the House—that is my understanding from the media—and it is perfectly open to him to do so in the Chamber. It is not for the Speaker to instruct him to do so. It is incumbent upon a Member who has erred in this House to correct the record.

This is a matter of opinion, rather than of fact, but if he has apologised outside the House and can be cajoled, exhorted, charmed or persuaded by the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) and me to beetle along to the Chamber to give us a sample of his contrition and humility, who knows? He may well be widely praised.