Tom Brake
Main Page: Tom Brake (Liberal Democrat - Carshalton and Wallington)
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You were not in the Chair on Monday and may not have heard the Minister of State, Department for Transport, the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes) say that he was not going to take interventions from anybody who was not wearing a tie. Given your pronouncements on this matter, Mr Speaker, do you think there is a risk of a slippery slope that might lead a Member to refuse to take interventions from Members who are sartorially challenged in other ways, such as wearing a gaudy tie or a garish waistcoat? I would welcome your advice.
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. First, I can reassure the House that rulings on the dress code, which should be observed by Members if they wish to be called in debate, pose questions or, indeed, raise points of order, are a matter exclusively for me. That simply is the fact of the matter. They are not a matter for the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), although I always value his views, as I do those of all colleagues. Many Members will be aware that I have known the right hon. Gentleman for three decades, that I enjoy his company and that I can often be observed chortling at some of his literary and philosophical references in the course of his orations in the Chamber. Those orations are always enormously enjoyed, not least by the right hon. Gentleman himself. I rather thought that what he had to say on this matter was proffered in his characteristically jocular fashion. However, in so far as I could be said to have received an application from the right hon. Gentleman, by virtue of his pronouncement, for the role of style policeman, I can tell the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) and all Members of the House that I have filed it in the appropriate place.
Secondly, it is of course for a Member, be they a Minister or not, to decide to whom to give way during a speech. That said, I am confident that no Member, in making that decision, would in any way discriminate on the basis of the attire of the colleague seeking to intervene, any more than he or she would do so on the basis of a Member’s age or gender. It would indeed be quite wrong of anyone to do so. I hope that that puts the right hon. Gentleman’s mind at rest and we can leave the matter there.