Oral Answers to Questions

Drew Hendry Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I absolutely will and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the work he has done to ensure that our antisocial behaviour action plan hits criminals where it hurts. I should add that apparently the Leader of the Opposition was in Stoke-on-Trent North the other week. He gave a speech on crime, taking over 30 minutes, without any new policies. He should be arrested for wasting police time!

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

T4. Does the Secretary of State believe that the concept of levelling up across struggling communities with hard-pressed families is undermined by footage of MPs in his own party grubbing around for £10,000-a-day contracts on top of their MP salary and other earnings? If so, will he condemn his Tory MP colleagues’ behaviour?

[Michael Gove]

Obviously, the capacity of people who are Members of this House to do work to supplement the role they perform here is one that is properly—if there is anything improper about it—a matter for the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and the Privileges Committee. I should say, however, that the hon. Gentleman was happy to serve under the leadership of Alex Salmond when he was, at one point, a racing columnist for the Glasgow Herald and, at another, a paid—