Points of Order

Debate between Meg Hillier and Eleanor Laing

Wednesday 24th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for having given notice that he intended to raise this point of order. He has raised very significant issues concerning the relationship between the legislature, the Executive and the courts; that is the doctrine known as the separation of powers, which is the very bedrock of our constitutional settlement. It is not, of course, for the occupant of the Chair to make any judgment about what the right hon. Gentleman has specifically said, or the quotation that he used, but of course this House is always concerned with safeguarding democratic standards. I am sure that he will use his ingenuity to find a way of bringing this matter before the House once again, when it can be fully examined.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In a previous urgent question, a Minister came to the House and cited the National Audit Office in support of arguments that he was making about the procurement of personal protective equipment in the middle of the pandemic. This is a growing trend. Ministers come to the House, or appear in the media, and cite the National Audit Office, as though comments in those report are a conclusion and a determination by the National Audit Office.

Will you help the House and Ministers, Madam Deputy Speaker, by telling me and others how Mr Speaker can enforce the understanding that the National Audit Office is an independent body, headed by the Comptroller and Auditor General, who is an officer of this House, and whose integrity should never be questioned, and that reference to the NAO should never be used in an improper way in this House or in the media to back up arguments that it does not back up? I have the privilege of reading all the National Audit Office reports, and I see them in the round. We are all careful with this, but it would be very helpful if you could rule as Chair on what you think could be done to improve how these reports are used by Ministers in particular.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I thank the hon. Lady for her point of order. She seeks to draw the House’s attention to a point that she wishes to make; she has succeeded in so doing by raising the point of order. Of course, as Mr Speaker has said many times, it is not for the occupant of the Chair, or for the Speaker in any other capacity, to interfere in any way with what Ministers say at the Dispatch Box—that is up to Ministers—but the hon. Lady has drawn her concerns to the attention of those on the Treasury Bench, and I am quite sure that the points she has made will have been noted.