Members’ Paid Directorships and Consultancies
Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and John Bercow(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Fiona O’Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your guidance. I am sure that no Member would wish to contribute to the debate, given its subject matter, without declaring any relevant interests. What guidance can you give to Members, given the terms of the motion, on what they should declare before intervening or making a speech?
Mr Speaker
It is the responsibility of each individual Member to declare as appropriate. The obligation is no different in this debate from it would be in any other debate, and I assume that all hon. and right hon. Members are fully conscious of their responsibilities in this matter.
Point of Order
Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and John Bercow(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Fiona O’Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. During today’s Prime Minister’s questions, in response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Gordon Banks) about Government support for food banks, the Prime Minister said that the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions had enabled Jobcentre Plus staff to make referrals to food banks. The Trussell Trust has informed me that the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has actually stopped that happening now and has advised staff that they can no longer make referrals, and that this is causing chaos for hundreds of people in need. I have tabled a parliamentary question on this issue, which should have been answered yesterday—I am still waiting for an answer. Can you assist me by advising how we can ensure that those in this House, volunteers in food banks, Jobcentre Plus staff and, most importantly, those in need have the correct information?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Lady, both for her point of order and for her courtesy in giving me advance notice of her intention to raise it. She believes that she has identified an inconsistency between what the Prime Minister has told the House and what the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has said. Those on the Treasury Bench have now heard what the hon. Lady has to say. If Ministers agree with her, no doubt the position will be clarified. Each and every right hon. and hon. Member in this House is responsible for his or her own words. Beyond that, the hon. Lady has identified the fact of the question she wishes speedily to be answered. She is a persistent and assiduous Member, and I am confident that she will soon get an answer, perhaps aided and abetted in pursuit of it by her point of order. If she does not get one, she can table further questions, and I have a sense that this is a bone that she will cling on to for as long as she judges to be necessary.
Bill Presented
Executive Pay and Remuneration
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Thomas Docherty presented a Bill to require that companies’ remuneration committees have employee representation; to require that companies hold an annual binding shareholder vote on executive remuneration; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 13 September, and to be printed (Bill 105).
Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill
Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and John Bercow
Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
Would my right hon. Friend add to that list the repeal of section 28? Despite all the concerns, it has done no harm, just as this Bill will do no harm.
Mr Speaker
Order. It is perhaps understandable, but the remarks on both sides are in danger of causing this debate to become a kind of Third Reading debate, which it must not become. There are Lords amendments before us, and it is on those that Members’ remarks must be focused.
Mr Speaker
Order. We have 31 minutes remaining. Members can do the arithmetic for themselves.
Fiona O'Donnell
It is a pleasure to be able to contribute to this debate on Lords amendments, because this is the first time I have had the opportunity to speak on this Bill. Having listened to the often powerful and personal testimony of many Members from all parties and given that many of them have suffered abuse, violence and discrimination, I did not feel that I had earned the right to comment. Tonight, however, I think we can celebrate.
It saddens me that the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) thought that Members were seeking to shout him down when he spoke to the amendments on freedom of expression. No one was attempting to do that, but some of his comments provoked, let us say, an emotive response from Opposition Members. Whenever I have seen people outside this place celebrating the passage of the Bill, I have seen others holding placards with statements that I found deeply distasteful—some referred to a man lying with another man as a sin—but I never saw anyone being lifted by the police.
Points of Order
Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and John Bercow(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Fiona O’Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I hope that the Foreign Secretary will stay in the Chamber for this point of order. I think that you will agree that we had the most heated and emotional Prime Minister’s questions of the Session this afternoon. The emotion might carry us all along, but there are lines that you insist we must not cross. It has been reported by those who were present, by people watching at home and by the press that the Foreign Secretary, in response to a question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson), twice shouted the words “stupid woman”. I know the Foreign Secretary to be a man who has done great good in his job, and I would hope that, if this report is true, he is already regretting those comments. Would it be appropriate, Mr Speaker, for you to give him an opportunity now to apologise, to ensure that his reputation and that of this place is not damaged by such behaviour?
Mr Speaker
I note the hon. Lady’s point of order. The Foreign Secretary is present, and he is entitled to respond if he wishes to do so, but he is not obliged to do so.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and John Bercow(12 years ago)
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Mr Speaker
I am delighted that the Prime Minister has written to her. That makes two of us.
Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
Q8. The Prime Minister has spent plenty of time cosying up to News Corporation in return for political support, so—[Interruption.] I can wait. He is therefore well qualified to answer this: when Alex Salmond agreed to act as a lobbyist for News Corp, was he acting in self-interest or in the interests of Scotland?
Points of Order
Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and John Bercow
Mr Speaker
The answer to both the hon. Gentleman’s inquiries is no, but he has placed his concerns on the record.
Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. This House, business and environmental organisations have been waiting for a statement from the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs since last autumn on mandatory carbon reporting. We read in the Financial Times this morning that the Government have abandoned their commitment to MCR. We also learn that Michael Hintze, a well known climate change sceptic and funder of Lord Lawson’s climate think-tank, was one of the Tory donors who had dinner at No. 10 with the Prime Minister. Surely Members of this House should have had the opportunity to question the Secretary of State about the further delay in the Government making a statement. There has been no written ministerial statement or oral statement, and a report has only just been laid in the Table Office. I would appreciate your guidance, Mr Speaker; otherwise Members of this House will be left wondering what this Secretary of State has to hide.
Mr Speaker
Those on the Front Bench will have heard what the hon. Lady has to say. She will know—and the House can testify—that I attach great importance to Ministers making statements of new policy to the House, but statements arise when—[Interruption.] Order. I do not require any assistance. [Interruption.] Order. Such statements arise when, and only when, there is a new policy to announce. There is not a matter that engages the Chair today, but the hon. Lady has placed her concerns on the record, and I thank her for doing so.
Points of Order
Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and John Bercow
Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. This is my first point of order, so I understand why something so uncharacteristic might have slipped your eye. Will you urge the Cabinet Secretary to hurry back to the House, because in answer to one question he described the Prime Minister’s flat in No. 10 Downing street as private property? Have the Government sold off part of No. 10, or did he misinform the House?
Mr Speaker
I will not continue the exchanges that took place earlier and will not urge the Minister for the Cabinet Office to hurry back to the Chamber. I sense that the hon. Lady’s point of order is really a rhetorical question and hope that I can be forgiven for making the point in passing, which is simply a statement of fact, that the right hon. Member for Horsham (Mr Maude), although he occupies a high office in the Government, is not the Cabinet Secretary.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and John Bercow(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. There are far too many private conversations taking place in the Chamber. Let us have a bit of order for Fiona O’Donnell.
Fiona O'Donnell
Like you, Mr Speaker, I am feeling in a generous mood, so I will give the Under-Secretary of State a third chance to redeem himself. The Prime Minister’s excuse for removing the mobility component was that it addressed an anomaly between those in hospital and those in residential care. Will the Under-Secretary of State at least acknowledge that residential care homes are based on a social model, and not a medical model?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and John Bercow(13 years, 4 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Mr Stephen O'Brien)
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State regularly discusses international climate issues with the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change and his ministerial colleagues. We welcome the agreement at Cancun to establish a green climate fund, but no decisions have yet been taken on a financial contribution. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. There are far too many noisy private conversations taking place in the Chamber. I want to hear Fiona O’Donnell.
Fiona O'Donnell
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I welcome the reaffirmation of the need to support developing countries in responding to climate change, as agreed at Cancun last year, but we still do not have the detail of where the money will come from. Will the Minister reassure the House that money will not be diverted from the aid budget, but that his Government will make additional funds available by doing as we did in government, and setting a cap on the amount of money that can be transferred from the aid budget to respond to climate change?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and John Bercow(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. This sort of noise is very discourteous. I want to hear Fiona O’Donnell.
Fiona O’Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
The voluntary sector in Scotland plays a vital role in supporting some of our most vulnerable families. The increase in VAT will cost Scotland’s voluntary sector dearly. What is the Minister actually doing to support that sector, so that it can deliver his vision of a big society?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and John Bercow(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
My question was for the Deputy Prime Minister. Am I permitted to ask it?
Fiona O'Donnell
Okay then. There was a failure to answer the question put by the deputy Leader of the Opposition. No doubt the—
Mr Speaker
Order. This question must be about the electoral register: accuracy thereof.