Points of Order

Pat McFadden Excerpts

Monday 10th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am grateful to the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) for his point of order. I have received no intelligence about arrangements for Wednesday, but I have no reason to suppose the Prime Minister will not be here. I dare say the hon. Gentleman will receive knowledge of the situation in due course. I think we should leave it there.

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Given the events of today, I wonder whether you could guide the House on if and when, in the absence of the vote that was scheduled for tomorrow night, the Government have to come back to put a meaningful vote before the House; or are there mechanisms by which they may try to avoid doing so, given the mood that has been expressed in this House over the past week or so?

[Mr Speaker]

It is up to the Government when to arrange for the debate and the vote or votes that would flow from it, but the fact that it is incumbent upon the Government to come forward with a new date is very clear. That cannot be gainsaid. It has been made very clear from the Treasury Bench on several occasions—I will not say innumerable, but they are innumerable for me now because I do not know exactly how many there were. The Leader of the House has made clear repeatedly in response to questions that the debate, and the vote or votes flowing therefrom, would be rescheduled as soon as the Government felt that they were in a position, as they see it, beneficially to update the House. There is therefore no reason to suppose that that debate and votes flowing from it will not take place and every reason to believe that that debate and votes flowing from it will take place. It would be literally unconscionable if there were any thought to the contrary.