Business of the House

Pat Glass Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I join my hon. Friend in expressing condolences to Mr Noskwith’s family and friends and to salute the vital and secret work that he and so many other men and women did at Bletchley Park during the second world war. They really are the unsung heroes of that period. My hon. Friend may wish to write formally to the House of Commons Commission about a memorial. She will be reassured to know that the Bletchley Park Trust has reconfigured the museum at Bletchley Park so that it is much more of a memorial than it has sometimes been in the past to the heroic work of those men and women.

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

I understand that my private Member’s Bill is mentioned regularly in the House in business questions and that the Leader of the House’s response is that he is waiting for me to come forward with some costs. We are talking about a private Member’s Bill, which means that there is only me. The Leader of the House has an array of civil servants who are willing and able to provide those figures for him. However, if he wants to let me know in detail what exactly he wants, he can write to me, and I will be happy to provide it—I will try on my own—for him and his civil servants. He must accept that this is the will of this House and that Members, from every part of this country and from right across this House, gave up their Friday surgeries to be in the Chamber when the Bill was debated. Will he stop trying to prevent the passage of this Bill and let me know when he will put it into Committee and come forward with a money resolution?

[Mr Lidington]

The hon. Lady is sincere, as always, in speaking up for her private Member’s Bill, but it is also the case that the Bill was published, I think, only two or three days before it was introduced, and there was no memorandum of costs associated with it. Frankly, it is also the case—[Interruption.] She is sincere in her championship. The Bill is not exactly a disinterested initiative, but a deliberate effort to try to ensure that we have very unequal-sized constituencies. As I have said before, the Government are continuing to consider the financial implications of her Bill.