Business of the House

Justin Madders Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

First, may I associate myself with the hon. Lady’s tribute to Jo Cox’s staff? I know that the hon. Lady had to undertake a number of the constituency duties between the time of Jo’s murder and the recent by-election, so she, more than anybody else in the House, will have personal knowledge of how hard those staff have worked.

On the particular point that the hon. Lady raises, I am not aware of the details of the case. If the situation is as she describes and there has been a serious misuse of public money, she might want to have a word with her hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, as that would probably be the appropriate parliamentary means to investigate the matter further.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

May I associate myself with the tributes paid to our friend and colleague, Jo Cox? Yesterday we heard an awful lot from the Chancellor about increasing productivity in this country. May we have a statement, please, on increasing ministerial productivity? I refer in particular to the Government’s review of employment tribunal fees, which has been sitting on the Minister’s desk for over a year and appears not even to have been read, let alone acted upon. Thousands of people are being denied access to justice, yet the report still has not been acted upon. When will something actually happen?

[Mr Lidington]

I will have a word with the relevant Minister. I cannot promise that the reply will necessarily be the one that the hon. Gentleman is wishing for, but let us get the relevant Minister to write to him so that he can see what the current thinking is.