Points of Order

William Bain Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Yes, and a good one as well, as the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) helpfully points out, albeit from a sedentary position.

[Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Last Thursday morning, I discovered that my substantive oral question to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills on the impact of levels of bank lending on small and medium-sized businesses, which had been accepted by the Table Office and drawn first in the shuffle, had been removed from the Order Paper at the instigation of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which claimed that it was a Treasury responsibility. I was informed by the Table Office that I had been written to by the Department on Monday evening. I regret to inform you that neither my constituency office, nor my Westminster office received any such letter. Neither was I e-mailed or contacted by telephone by the Department, with the result that the first I was made aware of the question being transferred was through its absence from the Order Paper on Thursday morning and my subsequent inquiry at the Table Office.

I was most grateful to be able to catch your eye during topical questions, Mr Speaker, but the behaviour of the Department raises real concerns about the high-handed way in which the Government are treating legitimate questions raised by right hon. and hon. Members. Can you offer any advice on how Departments should behave in such circumstances in future to ensure that the fundamental democratic right of this House to hold the Executive properly to account is protected and that Members are treated with the courtesy they should expect when raising matters on behalf of their constituents? Have you received any indication from the Business Secretary regarding his intention to come to the House to make a statement on why he is no longer prepared to answer for the Government’s record on bank lending, although he was prepared to respond to such questions as late as June?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. The short answer to his question is that of course transfers are a matter for the Department concerned, but the Department that makes a transfer of a right hon. or hon. Member’s question should do so at the earliest possible stage and should accept responsibility for directly notifying the Member well in advance of the fact of that change. Failure to meet that test is a discourtesy, both to the hon. Member and to the House. I think it is helpful, and probably not entirely coincidental, that as the hon. Gentleman has raised this important point of order, he has done so in the presence of the Leader of the House, who I know will have such communications with his colleagues as are necessary to secure an improvement in conduct.