Liz Kendall
Main Page: Liz Kendall (Labour - Leicester West)Department Debates - View all Liz Kendall's debates with the Leader of the House
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Andrea Leadsom
My hon. Friend is exactly right: we do need to debate this. I have already given some examples of where as yet un-agreed factors are involved. I think that consulting the House in the September sitting will give us the answers we want and we will be able to progress very quickly after that.
Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)
I am afraid that it stretches credibility to think that the right hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) could remember that he was on a pair for all the votes in the afternoon and then happened to forget at 6 o’clock, when everybody knew from the start of the day that they were the most important votes. That aside, I support what my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) said. We have to get a wriggle on with this. We have massively important votes in October about the future of the country. If the debate is in September, will the Leader of the House guarantee that changes will be made before those big Brexit votes?
Andrea Leadsom
I will absolutely get a wriggle on. I point out to the hon. Lady that the issue of pairing is a matter for the usual channels, but as she will know, pairing can be per vote, and not necessarily for a whole day. I think that is where the error was caused. I understand the scepticism, but this apology is very genuine, and the mistake was very genuine. I ask hon. Members to accept that the pairing system does not quite work as the hon. Lady suggests it does.