Points of Order

Keir Mather Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I thank the hon. Member for her point of order. She should raise the matter with the Table Office in the first instance. I can, however, advise her that the Minister for the Armed Forces, in response to a written parliamentary question on 14 October, indicated that the Government would not

“comment on any foreign nations’ military aircraft movement…within UK airspace or on UK overseas bases.”

It is not the Table Office but the Government that have blocked questions on this specific subject. Other questions about activities at RAF Akrotiri may none the less be in order. I advise her to talk to the Table Office, who are always happy to help.

[Keir Mather (Selby) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I gave prior notice, both to the Speaker’s Office and to the Member concerned, that I intended to raise this point of order. Yesterday, the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice) appeared on Channel 4 in his role as deputy leader of Reform UK. Filming in my constituency, he called into question the future of our local power station and therefore the hundreds of jobs that it supports locally, which I know will cause real anxiety for constituents in Selby. He did not inform me that he was coming to Selby or that he intended to use our industry, our jobs and our local communities as a political football for Reform UK’s national agenda. On behalf of workers in my constituency, how might I prevent this from happening again, and how might I relay the message that if he wishes to push his anti-worker, anti-jobs and, quite frankly, anti-Yorkshire agenda, he can do so from his constituency across the border in Lincolnshire?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I thank the hon. Member for giving notice of his point of order—I understand that he has informed the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness that he intended to raise it. As he and other Members are aware, paragraph 44 of the guide to conventions and courtesies states that

“Members must inform colleagues in advance whenever…a Member intends to visit another colleague’s constituency (except for purely private purposes). All reasonable efforts should be taken to notify the other Member and failure to do so is rightly regarded by colleagues as very discourteous.”