Valedictory Debate

Debate between Michael Connarty and John Bercow

Thursday 26th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I echo the sentiments expressed by the retiring Member, the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young).

Yesterday, while I was asking a question, you intervened, Mr Speaker, because a Conservative Member shouted, “SNP gain”. I could have said, “Well, that’s exactly what the Conservative Members want—more SNP Members down here”, but I did not respond because traditionally if a Member does not respond to a sedentary intervention, it does not get recorded. In fact, however, I find it was entered in Hansard in column 1429. I denied myself that political point, because I wanted to concentrate, as you know, on the serious question facing my constituents. Will you look at this matter again, Mr Speaker? It has been said that someone else referred to the incident three questions later and therefore it was entered into the record.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I understand that Hansard followed its usual policy to include an intervention from a sedentary position if it is commented upon in subsequent proceedings, as in this case. I note what the hon. Gentleman has said, but I am sure he will understand that we cannot take the matter further at this stage.

The sitting is suspended until 5 pm. Shortly before the sitting resumes, I shall cause the Division bells to be sounded.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Connarty and John Bercow

Wednesday 25th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

Q11. A young couple in my constituency—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order—on both sides of the Chamber. It is a gross discourtesy to the hon. Gentleman and to his constituents. The hon. Gentleman’s question will be heard.

[Michael Connarty]

A young couple in my constituency were persuaded by Mr Steven Macsporran of the Advice Centre for Mortgages to put a legacy they had into a flat to rent in Turkey. He was an agent for ROPUK. They got no flat and lost £47,000. The Financial Ombudsman Service said that it could not give any advice because it was unregulated advice. Does the Prime Minister agree that that company, and companies like it, should not be allowed to advertise themselves as being regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority if they give such advice, and is it not time we dealt with this rip-off Britain problem?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Connarty and John Bercow

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

12. Reading through the UK Statistics Authority booklet, I am struck by the number of times that the Government have been rebuked for giving false information in their statements. The Prime Minister is twice rebuked for giving the wrong facts about the debt, saying that it is falling when it has in fact been rising. Could the Cabinet Office get together with the UK Statistics Authority and agree to deal with facts, rather than fiction, in Government statements for the next three months?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The question is about Government procurement, small businesses and the voluntary sector.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Connarty and John Bercow

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

Q11. The most recent OECD report, No. 163, on income inequality, shows that the UK economy would be 20% bigger if tax policies had redistributed income to the bottom 40% of citizens. Can the Prime Minister resist the temptation to waffle and consider seriously his policies and those of Chancellor Scrooge over his five years, of rewarding the rich with tax cuts and hammering middle and low-income people with rises in the cost of living, not only—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I call the Prime Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Connarty]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

Points of order come after statements, and we have a statement. The hon. Gentleman ought to know that by know, with the greatest of respect. We will come to the statement in a moment.

Points of Order

Debate between Michael Connarty and John Bercow

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You will have noticed that I was somewhat disgruntled at being cut off and told that my question was too long at Prime Minister’s questions. I take everyone who visits me at the House of Commons to see the picture of Speaker Lenthall. I know that it is difficult to apply a principle to all cases proportionately, but will you find the time to meet me to discuss the fact that I do not believe that the principle of defending the ability of Back Benchers to ask questions of the Executive was upheld proportionately in all cases today?

[Mr Speaker]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I say in response that the Speaker does not refuse to see hon. or right hon. Members. If a Member wishes to see the Speaker, the Speaker will be happy to see that Member at a mutually convenient time. I say in the very gentlest way to the hon. Gentleman, first, that the Chair has to be the judge of whether a question is too long. With the greatest of respect, no Member can be judge in his own cause. Secondly, I intend no discourtesy to him, but he was in my view—and I have to make the judgment, not he—taking too long to get to the gravamen of his question. I say very kindly to him that he ought not immediately to think, “Where did the Chair go wrong?” but perhaps to think, “Where did I go wrong and how might I do better?” But of course I will happily see him—[Interruption.] I am not debating the matter with him now. I am telling him, in a very gentle and understated way, what the position is. With that statement, the hon. Gentleman will have to rest content. We will leave it there.

Point of Order

Debate between Michael Connarty and John Bercow

Tuesday 10th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order, of which I did not have advance notice. The short answer is that I am not aware of any intention for arrangements to be different on this occasion from those which have applied in the past. However, the point has been aired. It will have been heard at any rate by the Government Chief Whip, who sits impassively and in languid fashion on the Treasury Bench, but I feel sure that it can be the subject of a private conversation between the hon. Gentleman and the Government Chief Whip if both are so minded. The latter part of that sentence is at least as important as the former.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

I do not think there is a “further”, but because I am a generous soul and the hon. Gentleman’s brow is more than usually furrowed, we will give it a go.

[Michael Connarty]

As I understand it from the last meeting of the European Scrutiny Committee, it is the Committee’s intention to write to the Government on that very point and to suggest that the Committee might be given the facility to do that interview before the appointment is made.

[Mr Speaker]

That is a helpful observation. Whether it is a point of order I do not know, but it is a helpful observation from somebody who is familiar with the workings of the Committee. I had better leave it there. There has been a kind of conversation through attempted points of order. Where it will end I know not.

bill presented

Modern Slavery Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Secretary Theresa May, supported by the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, Secretary Chris Grayling and Karen Bradley, presented a Bill to make provision about slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour; to make provision about human trafficking; to make provision for an Anti-slavery Commissioner; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow; and to be printed (Bill 8) with explanatory notes (Bill 8-EN).

Tributes to Tony Benn

Debate between Michael Connarty and John Bercow

Thursday 20th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

I am very glad to be called to pay personal tribute to Tony Benn and to pass on the thanks of many of my constituents who were inspired by meeting him during the miners’ strike and before that.

I have to say that I did have a cat and he was called Tony Benn, and he was just as feisty as the person he was named after, whom I did admire greatly. If we went on holiday and put him in a cattery for two weeks, he would then disappear for about two weeks just to get his own back, causing my wife a great deal of distress. Tony could also trouble people. Some people never recovered from being challenged by him, because they did not have the logic to stand against him.

I will tell one story. It has been said that Tony was great with technology. I am an honorary member of the Free Colliers, an organisation in my constituency set up after the 1799 Act that freed colliers from bondage in Scotland. The Act provided that if they were found meeting other colliers to discuss terms and conditions of employment they would be returned to the colliery from which they were freed. The Free Colliers march every year to commemorate setting up this secret society, which was a precursor of the National Federation of Coal, Iron and Lime Miners, which became the National Union of Mineworkers. Tony always said that he wanted to come and I gave him some material on it for him to read. One day we met at the ATM in this building and he started to discuss it with me. Having got some money out of the machine, he did not take it and for some reason it swallowed his money. He was totally perplexed—he could not understand where his money had gone. Although he knew about technology, even he was befuddled by that. I hope he got his money back. He was always willing to enter into a debate on important topics, sometimes in the strangest places.

The Free Colliers were very sad that Tony Benn never went to speak to them. They said that they had always wanted him to go and address them, because they held him in high regard. He was held in high regard outside the House: that is the point about Tony Benn. He was held in high regard here, by us who view things through the prism of Parliament, but people outside took a much wider view, and his heritage will last a great deal longer outside, affecting and influencing politics in the outside world. I thank him for his clarity of analysis and his support for democratic solutions. He always looked for the benefit of all in everything, even if that meant that he had to challenge the compromises of the establishment.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher) mentioned Upper Clyde Shipbuilders. In 1971, I was the president of Stirling university students association. There is a BBC video—I have a copy; I hope that it is the master copy—showing me in my office with long hair and a Karl Marx poster behind me, calling for the students to organise buses so that people could go and stand by those who were “working in” to save their jobs. That was the first occasion on which I met Tony Benn. I did not get to know him, but I met him, and found him a great inspiration.

When I was the leader of Stirling council, we changed the standing orders—which had to be approved by the national executive committee—to bind councillors to the manifestos on which they stood. There is a unique idea! Imagine making people carry out the manifestos on which they stand! Tony persuaded the national executive committee to approve our standing orders, and they became the standing orders of our council, which meant that we had to deliver on the manifestos on which we had been elected. Unfortunately, being Tony Benn, he decided that this was the solution for all councils, and tried to introduce the same standing orders for every council in Britain. Of course, that frightened the horses and it never happened, but at least those in my council, during the 10 years for which I was leader, were bound by the manifestos on which we were elected, and that was approved by the national executive committee of the Labour party. Would it not be wonderful for every aspect of politics if everyone stood for election on that basis?

I became the Scottish secretary of the Labour co-ordinating committee, which had been set up by my right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton at a meeting in Glasgow—on his son’s birthday, if I remember rightly. He had to rush back home after launching it. It was a bulwark against Militant, the ultra-left of the party. It was not an attack on the establishment, although some people saw it as such; it was an antidote to the anti-democratic, out-of-touch elite that ran the Labour party. For instance, I was nominated by my constituency’s branch of the GMB, which sent the form down to the national office. When it came back, my name had been not taken out but scored out, and someone else’s name had been inserted and signed by the national secretary of the union. That was a total denial of the democracy of the people in Scotland who had chosen me as a candidate. I won anyway, and I am here as a consequence, but Tony Benn was against what had happened in that instance as well.

Some people later tried to distance themselves from the distorted “bogey man” image of Tony Benn by saying that they were not Bennites, but belonged to some other kind of “left”. If I had been asked, I would have said that I was of the Bennite left, because that Bennite left was not militant, it was not Trotskyist, and it was not a compromising position in the Labour party. I hope I still stand by those principles today in the things I do, including wanting Trident to be banned. Tony wanted that, although his intelligence and logic had led him to support nuclear power. The anti-Trotskyite movement in Scotland saved the Labour party in Scotland in the 1980s, and was the driver for the devolved Parliament that we have today. All that was a part of the philosophies that Tony Benn understood. He understood Scotland in a way many politicians down here did not.

I was speaking to Tony Benn’s son Stephen last night in Portcullis House, and I now want to say a few words about the other part of the Bennite heritage. My wife Margaret Doran and I—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I must ask the hon. Gentleman to be very brief. We should be grateful for a very few words on that point, because others wish to make contributions, and we need to move on.

[Michael Connarty]

I am conscious of that, Mr Speaker, but I am talking about a long life and a long friendship.

My wife Margaret Doran and I also knew and dearly admired Tony Benn’s wife Caroline. She was a great inspiration and support, and was a vibrant, lucid and deeply compassionate educationist. She was president of the Socialist Educational Association, and my wife and I have both been, at different times, presidents of the Scottish SEA. We often talked to her at length when we came to London for SEA meetings. I was with Tony and Caroline on the Terrace shortly before her passing. I agree with what was said earlier: a light went out of his life when Caroline died. But what was amazing was that he went on. Many of us would have been destroyed by losing such a life partner but he was inexorable, and that was a tribute to what they both stood for together and what their family stand for and what will be carried on.

When he left Parliament he spoke from outside this House. People have said he left politics. He did not leave politics. His thoughts reflect where the people are. Most of the people in this country are not with us in this House: they do not regard us highly; they think we are often irrelevant to their lives. They go day to day trying to make ends meet and they look to the words of Tony Benn and people like him to give them hope. If we could learn something from him and reconnect with those people we might actually carry forward something that would be beneficial to this House. That is what Tony Benn has given people: hope, and we are not giving people hope at this moment. Maybe in the future it is his words that will give them hope, and not ours.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Connarty and John Bercow

Wednesday 18th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is to be an urgent question. I feel sure the hon. Gentleman can keep his point of order in the oven until after that.

Point of Order

Debate between Michael Connarty and John Bercow

Wednesday 18th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Possibly in anticipation of the fact that I had a question today on the post office network, I received a message—it was not in my e-mail and I could not find it on my computer; it came through my mobile device—from the Minister with responsibility for postal services, the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson). It said that it was going to all MPs and explained that she was having to put £640 million extra into the network reorganisation fund, on top of the £1.34 billion that was already there. My point of order relates to the fact that this did not come through my computer and it was not in today’s written statement from BIS. If she is going to give a statement like that telling all MPs about a massive spending increase because of a shortfall and the failure of her policies, which are destroying the post office network, is she not obliged to do so in a formal written statement or here at the Dispatch Box?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. Certainly it would be incumbent on the Minister to find a way of disseminating that information to Members of the House other than by purely electronic means. If that did not happen, I understand that there may be some disappointment on that front. It is not something I can pursue further today, but in response to his inquiry I think I have put the point clearly on the record as to what ordinarily is expected. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman is gesticulating from a sedentary position—some people are never satisfied. The inquiry has been made, the answer has been given and that is the end of the situation.

Royal Assent

Business of the House

Debate between Michael Connarty and John Bercow

Thursday 17th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

The Deputy Leader of the House said that he was in the Chamber for Energy questions. He will have heard me tell the House that Grangemouth oil refinery and chemicals is shut down until further notice. It is not only the first time that there has been a full, cold shutdown of that plant, which represents 10% of the Scottish economy, in the 21 years that I have represented the town, but it is the first time since I first worked there as a student in 1967. The replies from the Energy Minister were all about securing supply and everyone getting supplies. May we have a statement from the Business Secretary and a debate in the Chamber about the fact that planning clearly went into this so that the company, which is owned by one man and two others but mainly by one man, who may be the equivalent of a Russian oligarch and may have been involved in collusion with this Government to store up supplies so that he could take on the work force and break them because he wants to take £50 million out of the terms and conditions of employment of the people on that site, so we need a debate on collusion—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman probably should seek an Adjournment debate on the matter in order fully to give vent to his multiple concerns on the issue. Business questions is an occasion when a brief request for a debate is made.

Business of the House

Debate between Michael Connarty and John Bercow

Thursday 11th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Points of order come after statements. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman knows that, and that it had just momentarily slipped his mind. I feel sure that we will see him later today, and perhaps hear from him as well.

Points of Order

Debate between Michael Connarty and John Bercow

Thursday 11th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The short answer to the hon. Gentleman is yes, I think that that would be helpful. Obviously, where Ministers are making statements of national application it is not reasonable to expect anything of the sort, and I do not think that the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that. Where a statement affects a particular area of the country, and perhaps even a relatively small number of constituencies, or something a little greater than that but which has, if you like, a local or regional character to it, I should have thought that it would be regarded widely in the House as courteous to try to offer, if it is at all practicable, some indication in advance of the likelihood of the statement, because presumably the Minister would wish to be questioned on it.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You will have noticed the intransigence of the Leader of the House over withdrawing the motion on Monday relating to the opt-out. As there is such anger across the House and in Select Committees, which have not been consulted, how late will he accept amendments to Monday’s motion? Many people want to resolve this situation by joint action to ensure that we are consulted properly on all 136 items to which we have to opt in or opt out.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I am conscious of the displeasure that has been voiced in different parts of the House on both sides of the House, and by Select Committee Chairs from opposite sides of the House on this matter. The answer to the hon. Gentleman on the question of how late amendments can be tabled is that they should be tabled by tomorrow. It is, however, open to me to select—I offer no guarantee that I shall do so—a manuscript amendment as late as Monday. The hon. Gentleman is a very experienced Member of the House and he knows that the scheduling has now been made. That is absolutely not a matter for the Chair. The Government are absolutely within their rights so to have scheduled, but it will be possible for amendments to be considered, if necessary, even as late as Monday. I hope that is helpful both to the hon. Gentleman and to others in the House.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Connarty and John Bercow

Thursday 21st March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Connarty]

I thank the Minister for that reply. We found out yesterday in a press release that businesses are being urged to sign a human trafficking charter. That came not from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills but from the Home Office. It appears that the Minister for Immigration is taking over the responsibilities of Business, Innovation and Skills Ministers. He is proposing that businesses should sign up to a charter that seems very similar to the contents of my private Member’s Bill, the Transparency in UK Company Supply Chains (Eradication of Slavery) Bill. Surely it is up to BIS to include human trafficking in the narrative reporting of companies in its proposed statutory instrument. If the Minister for Immigration wants that requirement on human trafficking, surely BIS Ministers do too.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We are grateful. We have got the point.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Connarty and John Bercow

Wednesday 6th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Connarty]

I am disappointed that the Minister of State is replying, as I would have thought that the Secretary of State would take the chance to repeat her apology to me to the people affected by the McGurk’s bar bombing, which was the biggest bombing before Omagh. Do the Government accept that they cannot devolve the past and that their response should ensure that the suppression of witnesses that happened and the expert evidence that was given but then supplanted by lies and fabrication from the Northern Ireland police are not allowed to continue, so that we get to the truth about the collusion that took place before and after the bomb?

[Mr Speaker]

We are grateful to the hon. Gentleman.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Connarty and John Bercow

Wednesday 13th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There are a lot of very noisy private conversations taking place in the Chamber. Let us have a bit of order so that we can hear Mr Michael Connarty.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

8. What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and Ministers in the Scottish Government on the level of gambling machine usage in Scotland.

[Michael Connarty]

I am not sure whether to thank the Minister for that very unhelpful answer. Fixed-odds gambling terminals—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We will just have to extend the session. There is a point to having some courtesy towards the Member who is asking the question. I am sure that is something that Members learned at school.

[Michael Connarty]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I will take cheers from anywhere.

Fixed-odds gambling terminals have sucked up £122 million in profits in the betting shops in Scotland. They are called the crack cocaine of the gambling industry. Is it not time for the Secretary of State to join me in lobbying to have the gambling prevalence survey reinstated, considering how much addictive gambling there is in Scotland and other parts of the UK?

Business of the House

Debate between Michael Connarty and John Bercow

Thursday 7th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Connarty]

I was not called.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I know that the hon. Gentleman is not complaining, but I simply mention in passing that he was a relatively late entrant to the Chamber. No offence was committed, but there were other Members who had been here longer whom I thought were more deserving at the time.

[Michael Connarty]

I was not complaining; I was making a joke.

[Mr Speaker]

Indeed. He is a good-humoured fellow.

Standards and Privileges

Debate between Michael Connarty and John Bercow

Tuesday 6th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

It is with some regret that I raise, on behalf of my constituents who have raised it with me—this is not to mitigate anything in respect of the report and the actions of Denis MacShane—the question of why there seem to be double standards. The Minister for Schools, the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws), was clearly guilty of falsely claiming £60,000 of House expenses and has been returned to the Cabinet, yet other Members have been recommended for expulsion from the House.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I think the hon. Gentleman has concluded his remarks, but they were outside the terms of the motion. Of course, if he wanted to pursue the matter, it would require a substantive motion.

Question put and agreed to.

Treaty on Stability, Co-ordination and Governance

Debate between Michael Connarty and John Bercow

Wednesday 29th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Connarty]

I am not immune to the value of the Whips, but I honestly believe that they have got themselves into such a situation that they have allowed even this debate because they are desperate to fill the Order Paper.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. First, the hon. Gentleman’s intervention is too long. It is very enjoyable, but too long. Secondly, although I do not usually comment on the content of debates at all, I feel that I must do so for the benefit of the House. I know that it will please the senior Government Whip—I must get my seniority right—when I make the point that this debate was granted by me. It was nothing whatever to do with any Whip, senior or junior, and that is the end of it.

Points of Order

Debate between Michael Connarty and John Bercow

Thursday 27th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. The short answer is that I received no notification of any intention by a Minister to make a statement on this subject. Off the top of my head, and without undertaking inquiries, I know the hon. Gentleman and the House will appreciate that it is difficult for me authoritatively to adjudicate on this matter. The reason why I say that is that I do not know at this stage whether what has happened is merely the launch of a statement, or the fulfilment of a policy commitment made on a previous occasion, or whether this is a new initiative of which the House should first have been informed, but as the hon. Gentleman would expect me to do, I shall assume the role of a detective and look into the matter, better to inform myself, and perhaps the hon. Member when I have done so.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would not wish to have visited this on your head, but unfortunately the Scottish National party Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) repeated a calumny in the House recently, accusing a Member of threatening another Member, I believe without telling the Members that they were going to be named. I believe the Committee has met since then, and unfortunately the Leader of the House was not informed of the outcome of the formal meeting of the Select Committee, which clarified and, quite frankly, exonerated the Chair of that Committee of any threatening behaviour. Since it has been repeated in the House, can I ask you to look into this matter and call the SNP Member back to apologise on the Floor of the House? It is not politics; it is abuse of the House we are talking about here.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Connarty and John Bercow

Wednesday 15th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

Q12. I want to help the Prime Minister to reconsider the fact that we are not signing up to the directive on human trafficking, which, as he may understand, I know a little about. As a consequence, we rely on sections 57 and 59 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. That means that we cannot, for example, pursue or have any jurisdiction over someone who is normally a resident of the UK but is not a UK national, who is involved in human trafficking. More importantly, we cannot have jurisdiction when a UK resident in another EU country is trafficked by a non—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I think we have got the drift of it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Connarty and John Bercow

Wednesday 30th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

Q12. The Prime Minister might have noticed that the people of Scotland did not choose his party, except in one seat out of 59, and they did not choose the Conservatives’ poodles, the Liberal Democrats, either. Can he assure the House, as an absolute chill runs through Scotland at the 1.3 million hidden job losses that he did not publish, that any proposals for cuts in public services and expenditure in Scotland, and any Barnett formula cuts, will be brought before the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We are grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but the question is too long.

Speaker’s Statement

Debate between Michael Connarty and John Bercow

Wednesday 30th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I take all matters seriously, but I genuinely do not think that this is a point of order for the Chair. I have the very highest respect for the hon. Gentleman, who has long service in the House, but it is difficult for me to see how he can have a point of order further to a point of order that I have just ruled is not a point of order. However, he has raised his point, even if it is not a point of order, and he has registered his views firmly upon the record.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You have often said that you are here to protect the House and to allow it to do its business in holding the Government to account. Will you take up with the Government the fact that although we have had a European summit and a number of European Council meetings, and although five stalwart Labour Members have already volunteered for the European Scrutiny Committee, we have no such Committee to scrutinise the Government’s behaviour in Europe? This is the latest that that Committee has ever been set up.

[Mr Speaker]

I am afraid that that is not a task for the Chair—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman will not be too disappointed if he waits. He was looking uncertain, but I am trying to allay his uncertainty. He should be grateful to me.

[Michael Connarty]

I did not say anything.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I do not want sedentary gestures from the hon. Gentleman. I am trying to help him. The matter is not one for the Chair. The information is now firmly in the public domain. Of course we are all in favour of the speedy composition of Committees with important scrutiny work to do, and the Committee to which he refers, which he has himself chaired with distinction, is an important case in point.