Points of Order

Peter Bone Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for giving me forward notice of her point of order. Clearly, this is an incredibly distressful time for so many people, but the Chair does not audit the accuracy of what hon. Members, including Ministers, say in the Chamber. Having said that, those on the Government Front Bench will have heard the right hon. Member’s point of order and, if the record needs to be corrected, I am sure it will be. Should a Home Office Minister or the Home Secretary want to come to the House and make a statement later today or at some stage in the future, the House will be notified in the usual way.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I apologise for not having given you prior notice; the reason is that, while the Secretary of State has announced emergency legislation for tomorrow, as far as I am aware we have had no business statement changing tomorrow’s business, and I do not know how amendments will be made. Will a statement be made today so that the House will know how it can deal with tomorrow’s urgent business?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I will just check with the people who know what is going on. It may well be that there will be a business statement either later today or very soon, in order to facilitate the business that the Secretary of State has announced.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

So it will appear on the Order Paper in the usual way.

[Mr Bone]

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am sorry, but I thought we were told that the House was expecting emergency legislation tomorrow. It seems that this is not going to happen tomorrow and I have perhaps misunderstood.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. As my hon. Friend knows, there are three different stages to a Bill—introduction, publication and then Second Reading and further stages—so Second Reading will not be happening tomorrow.