Points of Order

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I hope that colleagues will agree that that was a very welcome point of order from the hon. Lady, and I think that I speak on the House’s behalf when I thank her for saying what she has said.

I think there was another point of order from the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), on a wholly unrelated subject.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Thank you; it is unrelated.

Following his statement to the House last week, the Prime Minister, in response to a question that I asked about an instruction that had apparently been given by his adviser, Dominic Cummings, that parts of Government data that are of significance and concern to many people should be brought together, told me that I had

“mentioned something about which I am afraid I was hitherto unaware”.—[Official Report, 25 September 2019; Vol. 664, c. 817-8.]

That was a very polite response, but it seems to many of us somewhat surprising in view of the publicity given to the issue and the fact that other Members have raised complaints with the Information Commissioner. I wonder whether you could give me guidance, Mr Speaker, on how the Prime Minister could perhaps be persuaded to return to the House to clarify the matter.

[Mr Speaker]

I do not treat what the hon. Gentleman has said with any levity when I say that conflicting accounts of a Government’s position on a given subject are not a novel phenomenon. There have been many precedents, under successive Governments and in relation to a plethora of different Departments, sometimes including No. 10 Downing Street itself. I do not sniff or cavil at what the hon. Gentleman has said about the apparent inconsistency that perturbs him, and I am grateful to him for giving me notice that he would raise the matter. However, I do not think that this is a point of order. The hon. Gentleman is seeking procedural advice.

By the way, when I say that this is not a point of order, I say it for the purpose of the intelligibility of our proceedings to people observing them. The great majority of points of order are not points of order. They are ruses by which to raise matters that are of particular concern to Members at the time—in the most recent instance, the point of order from the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), quite the most compelling and pressing case to raise.

As far as the hon. Gentleman is concerned, I think that he should work on this basis. If he wishes to pursue what he sees as a potentially or actually inaccurate parliamentary answer, he should take the short journey from here to the Table Office and seek advice on how to pursue it. I hope that he will forgive me if I say that, in doing so, he should adopt my—I think—now established motto in these matters by way of advice: persist, persist, persist. I say this to the hon. Gentleman. Table further questions. Do not take no for an answer. Write letters. In a legitimate, as opposed to an illegitimate, way, make a nuisance of yourself, man.

If there are no further points of order, we come now to the ten-minute rule motion, for which the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr has been so patiently and good-naturedly waiting.