Points of Order

Gerald Kaufman Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

I hope that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) will accept my prioritising age before—well, age before something. Let us hear a point of order from the Father of the House, the right hon. Sir Gerald Kaufman.

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

Mr Speaker, I wish to raise a point of order on the contempt shown towards this House by the Home Office, as evidenced by its treatment of a case that I wrote to the Home Secretary about last month. It relates to a constituent who came to see me and told me that she had moved into my constituency. She gave me her old address and her new address. I immediately wrote to the Home Secretary, on 17 August. I did not expect a reply from her, because in five years she has sent me only one letter, but I thought that my letter might be passed to a junior Minister. Instead, I received an undated letter from UK Visas and Immigration. The email date on the letter was 25 August. It stated:

“According to our records, Ms Smith is currently residing at 25 Thruxton Close…Therefore Ms Smith is not residing in your constituency.”

She is residing in my constituency. I wrote to the person who sent the email, J. Hughes, stating that if he did not reply to me by last week I would raise the matter in the House. He has still not replied to me. I will not be treated like dirt by the Home Office. More importantly, I will not allow my constituents to be treated like dirt. What can be done about it?

[Mr Speaker]

May I say to the Father of the House that I think he is almost always, including today, the means of his own salvation? There were occasions in the previous Parliament when the right hon. Gentleman had occasion to bring to my attention his dissatisfaction with not having received a reply from a Minister, and I think that on more than one occasion he received a reply from someone who did not exist—the name on the letter was that of someone who did not exist.

Look, these are not matters in which the Chair ordinarily becomes involved, but I have the highest regard for the courtesy that the Home Secretary has always shown to me, and which ordinarily she has always shown to the House. I think that it is much easier to respect the traditions and courtesies of the House and to err on the side of speed of response and, if I may say so, also on the side of acknowledging a very senior and long-serving Member who has made an approach.

I do not think that there will be a division of the House, or even any great objection from the right hon. Gentleman, if I say that he is not always the easiest colleague to please, but he has a right to represent his constituents and to be treated with the utmost courtesy. I am sorry if he feels that he has not been. I know that the Home Secretary will do her best with her ministerial team to accommodate his various requests and, periodically, his demands. [Interruption.] She says from a sedentary position that she does. Let us leave it there for today. The right hon. Gentleman has not been in the House for 45 years for no reason.