Points of Order

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 7th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It is, of course, perfectly possible for there to be either an urgent question or a statement tomorrow, but I feel sure that those are facts of which the Leader of the House was already well aware. I am merely courteously repeating them in order properly to respond to the hon. Gentleman’s point of order.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Home Secretary said on Monday, about the latest TPIM terror suspect to abscond:

“I do not have his passport, but the police do.”—[Official Report, 4 November 2013; Vol. 570, c. 27.]

However, the Home Secretary has since asked that Hansard be corrected to say:

“I do not have his passport, Mohamed was not in possession of his British passport when he returned to the UK so there was no passport for the police to seize.”—[Official Report, 6 November 2013; Vol. 570, c. 1MC.]

Can you tell me whether it is in order for a Secretary of State to try to amend Hansard because of her own error, or should she come back to Parliament and correct the record herself? Can Hansard even be changed in this way, especially as it has been printed and the facts have now changed?

[Mr Speaker]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order, of which I did not have advance notice. Therefore my immediate reply is that I will look into the matter that she has very properly raised.

The issue of the Intelligence and Security Committee was raised earlier and for the purpose of clarification I wish to remind the House that the Committee may sound like a Select Committee and, at its hearing today, it may look like a Select Committee, but in fact it is not a Select Committee. We will leave it there for now.