Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 31st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Mr Speaker, may I quickly say what a joy you have been for all genuine Back Benchers during your time in the Chair? We started a relationship early in your career here, and I saw you improve as a parliamentarian step by step. People sometimes forget the great inquiry you made into special educational needs under Tony Blair. I also remember other good things that you did with me, and others, on anti-bullying, as well as a cross-party campaign on autism.

Someone should also mention what you had to put up with due to the concerted malicious press campaign that was run against you, and your family, at a certain time in your career. It was a disgrace to British journalism and the profession of journalism. It did not come from the redtops—it was The Times and the Prime Minister’s Daily Telegraph. It came from journalists from whom we had expected better. Some of us stood by you at that time, and we will continue to stand by you. You are a young man with a career in front of you. I hope that you will do startling things, and that this miserable Prime Minister, who yesterday could not even pay tribute to the Father of the House, will put you in the House of Lords as your office deserves.

[Mr Speaker]

That is extraordinarily kind of the hon. Gentleman. I think he was also going to ask about the Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art.

[Mr Sheerman]

I like the range of art that we have, Mr Speaker, but it should be more accessible. Why do we have to pay a surcharge in our shops to pay for your art?

[Mr Speaker]

Very good. The hon. Gentleman is a dextrous parliamentarian who can always think on his feet.

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 31st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman. He knows that it is not strictly a point of order for adjudication by the Chair, although his articulate efforts to raise the matter are, in my mind, perfectly legitimate. What he has said will have been heard by those on the Treasury Bench, and I understand that he seeks a response today. It is presumably of the essence and the utmost importance to him and his Committee that any such confirmatory response is at the very least received before Dissolution. I would hope that, as the Leader of the House is sitting on the Front Bench, we might make progress on this matter. It can potentially be expedited, and the Leader of the House might be willing to act as a messenger—or maybe more than a messenger—and we will have to see what the result is. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has made his point today, and it is potentially open to him to raise it on Monday—even on Monday—or on Tuesday, but I hope that it will not be necessary for him to raise the matter again.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Time is of the essence. We have just heard about the matter, and there is some considerable concern among Opposition Members. Surely, a stronger message must go through the Leader of the House that the Prime Minister or a senior Cabinet Minister should put the matter right in the last few days of this Parliament.

[Mr Speaker]

I am sympathetic to the hon. Gentleman’s concerns, and I think it is fairly obvious to the Leader of the House that I am sympathetic to the concerns of the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve). I am not myself privy to the rationale behind the absence of a confirmation. I do not know whether it is just an administrative matter because, to be fair, Prime Ministers have a very large volume of matters with which to deal, whether it is a transaction of business issue, or whether there is some substantive reason why the Prime Minister does not wish to provide the confirmatory response that the right hon. and learned Gentleman seeks. I cannot know which it is. It is not unreasonable for the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee to seek that confirmatory response in this Parliament or an explicit parliamentary explanation in the House as to the reason for its absence. That, I think, is fair.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Grieve]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I am grateful for your response. The position is that for the report to be published, it must be laid before the House on a sitting day. As long as that happens, it can be published and will be made available to the public. If it were to be laid on a day when the House is not sitting—even before Dissolution—the Committee would not be able to publish it. Therefore, we were hoping that it could be laid and published on Monday. The anxiety relates to the apparent delay, for which we have not been provided an explanation, and that has led me to make my point of order.

[Mr Sheerman]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. This is a concern for all of us. There is the expertise here. This is a special Committee. What we do not understand is why this cannot be published on the authority of the House. Why can the Executive block this publication? Are they trying to hide something?

[Mr Speaker]

No, it is simply because the composition of the Committee and its modus operandi are determined in a manner different from those that apply to a Select Committee, which it is not. That is the factual answer. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s frustration but I think the matter has now been fully ventilated. The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House has displayed exemplary patience, but I do not think we should test it further.

Tributes to the Speaker

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 31st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a personal note, Mr Speaker, you know that I met you before you were a Member of Parliament, and I can remember what an irritating young man you were at that time. [Laughter.] You were clever, and you knew it, and a bit arrogant with it, and you wanted to tell me just how right you were on every political issue—this is before you were in Parliament. Over the years, I have got to know and like you a great deal, and I hope that I can count you as a friend. You actually like my ties, which is something that recommends you to me.

When I chaired the Education Committee, I remember that you asked me to come to your constituency, and then much later you asked whether you could come to Huddersfield to see what sort of constituency I represented. I have told the House this before. I met you at Wakefield station. You got off the train and said, “It’s a hell of a long way, isn’t it?” Of course it is—it is nearly 200 miles to Huddersfield. We had a fantastic day together. I think you have learned a great deal from going to people’s constituencies and finding out what the journeys are like and how vulnerable we are when we are travelling. I think you woke up to that on that day and have been such a good influence ever since—remember this was just after Jo Cox was murdered. It was also the day after the referendum, so it was an auspicious occasion.

On a more personal note, you know I have a large family: three daughters, a son and 12 grandchildren. A few years ago, we were wondering what to do on Boxing Day. We were all down in London for a big reunion and thought we would go to London Zoo. Of course, the favourite place to go was the penguin pool, and who did we find there? You, your wife and your children. It gave a flavour of you as the great family person we all know you are. We love that you and Sally have been living here with your family. The kids seem to have grown up really wonderfully even in this strange environment. I congratulate you on all that.

You are very easy to get on with, and you are a very good friend, so may I have the privilege of giving you some careers advice? I give a lot of careers advice. I am told it is one of the things I am quite good at: helping people to identify their talents and moving them on a bit. Now, I did not realise that you are a very good manager. I recall the dark days in this place before you became Speaker. It just needed management. From those early days, you built up a great team of people around you. It was not easy, but you made changes in a place that was desperately badly managed. We had inherited a crazy system, but you came in and transformed the management of this place. I think we will look back on the Bercow years as great years for Parliament. It is more efficient and sensitive in so many areas—families, children, women and diversity—and you will be remembered for all that, but you will also be remembered for bringing this place back to life. We were in deep trouble and you helped us to save it and led that saving process.

I want to repeat something I said earlier about what you went through at a certain stage in your career and how the press treated you—not just the red tops, but The Times, The Daily Telegraph, people who used to be MPs. Political sketch writers used to be funny—not some of those who hounded you. We know who they are. They stimulated on social media some ghastly stuff that you and your family had to put up with, and I am proud that you stood up to it. It didn’t get you down and you are still here, a robust champion of everything you did.

The careers advice comes now. You are still very young. I hope to be re-elected as the Member for Huddersfield, and if I am successful, I will miss you, but you are only in your mid-50s, I think, which is just the time to start a brilliant new career. I won’t talk about Frank Sinatra. His voice, though I loved it, had gone by then. You are in the prime of your life and I see you making a contribution greater even than the one you have made up to now. I say to the Leader of the House: it would be an absolute insult to the House if the tradition that the Speaker is offered a seat in the House of Lords was not respected. I was worried this week when the Prime Minister failed to pay a warm tribute to the Father of the House. I hope that that kind of pettiness will not go to a repudiation of a long tradition that our Speaker, when he retires from this place, is offered a place in the House of Lords.

Even if that happened, Mr Speaker, you have your talent—that of mimicry, your voices and all that stuff. Yesterday, I was phoned by ABC, which said, “Would your Speaker be interested in doing a programme? We love him in America.” I said, “No, we want him to have a brand new television programme about politics called ‘Order, Order!’” So, Mr Speaker, I want you to stay in politics, do a really good job on the media and bring that to life in the way that you have brought this place to life. But whatever you decide, Godspeed.

[Mr Speaker]

I am extraordinarily grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I am conscious that these exchanges have become very lengthy, and there is other business with which the House has to deal. That is not a criticism of anybody. People have spoken genuinely from the heart, and I appreciate that, but if we are to accommodate colleagues and then get on to the very important business of tributes to the Reverend Rose, which must happen, and in the most fulsome terms, perhaps a little self-discipline would assist us.

Early Parliamentary General Election Bill

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 29th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Many excellent speeches species were curtailed at three minutes this evening. Why is this awful, repetitious performance being allowed to go on for so long?

[Mr Speaker]

The Minister has two and a half minutes in which to develop his peroration, but the hon. Gentleman has registered his disapproval.

Business of the House

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 24th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I must say for the record that I did not think I would ever hear it from the lips of the right hon. Gentleman, but I am delighted to hear that he is signed up to the merits of diversity and inclusion. This is a very encouraging development indeed.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Leader of the House talks of sunny uplands. He may not know this, but I came into politics hoping to bring sunny uplands to the people of this country and the people of my constituency. Actually, that did not include a Government and a country run by old Etonians, but that is just my personal prejudice.

In terms of next week’s business, could the Leader of the House leverage in something that really does concern my constituents and constituents up and down the country—the safety of town centres? There is something wrong when people are now afraid to go into town centres at night. Could we look at how, through the police, more co-ordination or the revival of youth services, something could be done to make sure that ordinary people in this country going about their business enjoying themselves on a Friday or Saturday night do not go in fear?

Business of the House

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 3rd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Very well done. I am very glad to hear that.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I wonder whether the Leader of the House would agree that one of the most innovative and successful innovations in recent times was the creation of a Children’s Commissioner, particularly with Anne Longfield as a very brave champion for children. Does he agree that we should have an early debate on what she revealed only last week—that 20% of the children coming out of our schools have no qualifications at all? That was not mentioned very much at the Conservative party conference. Is it not about time that we looked at it in a debate in this House, and did something about it?

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 9th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It is as matter of seniority as well as a magnificent tie. I call Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I remember that when I first met you I went home to my wife and said, “I’ve met this really bumptious, self-opinionated, right-wing, objectionable character.” I could say that you haven’t changed, but the fact of the matter is that you have been an exemplary Speaker. You have been Parliament’s Speaker. I have been here quite a long time, so I have seen people organising the Speaker’s election—usually the Whips. You broke that tradition—we broke that tradition, cross-party. We wanted you, and we denied the Whips their choice, and we got you. Those of us who have been around this place for some time do not regret for a moment that we got Parliament’s Speaker. You have proved that we were right in our choice.

You have been magnificent in the way you have gone around the country. I remember the occasion—we planned it well in advance—when you chose to come to Huddersfield for the whole day. Unfortunately, it was the day after the referendum. It was quite an interesting atmosphere. I remember you getting to Huddersfield and saying, “This is an awfully long way, isn’t it, Barry?” However, you did get about, and you saw how constituents worked. You came to the University of Huddersfield, and you did the job well.

You also, as Speaker, have been the champion of the Back Bencher. The people on the Front Benches—the Whips—love to have their own way. You were determined to let people like me—a Back Bencher—and other Back Benchers have their say. There has been a renaissance of Parliament under your speakership. I hope only that we get someone half as good as you when we single-mindedly, happily, diversely, and democratically choose your successor. Thank you for everything you have done for parliamentary democracy.

[Mr Speaker]

Bless you, Barry, for what you have said. [Interruption.] Will hon. Members forgive me? I call Mr Dominic Grieve.

Business of the House

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 5th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Leader of the House has a big family, as I have. There is a woman in Tehran who cannot see her husband and cannot see her little daughter. While the House is not sitting, will the Leader of the House lead an all-party delegation to Iran—I would be with him—to see whether we can get that woman released?

[Mr Speaker]

I would happily join the Leader of the House on that delegation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 18th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Sorry, Mr Speaker, I was eager to speak to Question 2.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman was ahead of himself, not for the first time and probably not for the last.

Business of the House

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 18th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

As a parliamentary statesman, the hon. Member for Huddersfield will wish to exemplify the single-sentence question.

[Mr Sheerman]

When all the kipper waving is over, may we have the Chancellor of the Exchequer here to tell us how we can use the French method of taking on Google, Facebook and others to regenerate our towns and cities so that they are safe, secure and prosperous?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 1st July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Ah yes, the man in the summer suit—splendid. Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

And my tie has whales on it, Mr Speaker—Japan comes to mind. The fact of the matter is that the Secretary of State knows that she has some really good people working in her Department—certainly the people working in my patch are very good—but the trouble is that they are not well managed or well led. Splitting is not the answer; the answer is to get in some managers who can tackle things such as the awful situation for people on universal credit who do not have a bank account, because she has still not tackled that.

Business of the House

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 20th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

My letter is not in verse. I know my limitations. I cannot compete with the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings on that front.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) recently joined me as a trustee of the John Clare Trust.

I welcome the Leader of the House’s comments on Jo Cox. She was a Labour family friend, and her constituency was close to mine. I know we do not talk about these things, but I still worry about the safety and security of Members, particularly female Members, of this House, and I do not think we have yet come to terms with some of the vulnerabilities involved. That is not for major debate.

In most of our towns and cities, we are poisoning many women—pregnant women and older women—and men, too, with the dirty air they breathe every day. Can we have an urgent debate on a fast programme of activity, not the Government’s 2040 deadline, to cut down the poisonous air our people are breathing in every day?

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Wednesday 12th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It may well be the summit of the hon. Lady’s parliamentary ambition to satisfy the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter), but it may be that some years—or possibly decades, from my experience—are required before she can hope to attain that dizzy height. The hon. Gentleman does not look particularly satisfied. Nevertheless, the hon. Lady has discharged her obligations to the House, and we are grateful to her for doing so. If, as I surmise from the hon. Gentleman’s countenance, he remains dissatisfied, he knows that there are means by which he can secure fuller ministerial attention to this matter, and the House’s attention to it, in days to come.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

They are killing people.

[Mr Speaker]

This is indeed a matter of the highest importance, involving life and death, as the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) helpfully observes.

Leaving the EU: Business of the House

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Wednesday 12th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Sheerman]

They always say that, don’t they? The fact is that I have no idea what the Secretary of State is talking about when he mentions a “blind motion”. Could you tell us what he is talking about, Mr Speaker?

[Mr Speaker]

I do not think that what I would call motion exegesis is a matter for the Chair. I think it is for the Secretary of State to explain the terms of his comments on the motion. I am saddened if the hon. Gentleman is befuddled. I would not want him to remain in a state of nescience for any length of time, so I hope the Secretary of State will elaborate, and then clarity will descend on the hon. Gentleman and all the people of Huddersfield.

Post-18 Education and Funding

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 4th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

As I learned from the 10 years I chaired the Select Committee, we make most progress in higher education when we find a cross-party consensus, as anyone who looks at the Robbins report or subsequent reports, such as the Dearing report, will know. There is some good stuff in this report. Some of the people on it were special advisers to my Committee when I was Chair. We have to build a consensus. There are good things in the report and some things I really would not like. Our universities and colleges are the most important institutions for most towns and cities in the country, and we endanger their existence at our peril, so let us build a cross-party consensus. I love the part about a new fund for lifelong learning. Tony Blair introduced one in 1997. It failed, but everybody knew we should bring it back to secure the future of further and higher education. So I say well done in part, but if the Secretary of State could keep a higher education Minister for more than a few months we would do a lot better.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman’s long-term aspiration should be to ensure universal public awareness of the length and distinction of his tenure as Chair of the Select Committee.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 21st May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I have been saving the hon. Gentleman up for the delectation of the House: Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

That was a very, very complacent answer to a very important question. Is it not a fact that the house is on fire? We want a radical tax like the one Mrs Thatcher introduced with Geoffrey Howe in 1981. Why do we not have a tax on banks, Amazon and all the other people making profits, and put the money into fighting climate change now, when the house is on fire?

Investigation of Veterans

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 16th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

I think that is stretching the point. Points of order come later. Does the point of order relate to these—

[Mr Sheerman]

Am I right thinking, Mr Speaker, that you take points of order after statements?

[Mr Speaker]

Yes, but we have not had the statements yet. If the point of order appertained to these exchanges, then possibly—but no. Reference was made to the hon. Gentleman’s service earlier and I say for the benefit of those who are attending our proceedings in the House but are not Members that the confetti showered upon the hon. Gentleman on account of his long service was recognition of the fact that he was elected first to the House on 3 May 1979 and, 40 years and 13 days later, the hon. Gentleman is still here. He has been in the House without interruption for that 40-year period, upon which we all congratulate him.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 13th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman can luxuriate in the lather of the praise conferred on him by the Secretary of State. Make sure it is bottled and keep it for a long time, man.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The question of women’s employment is very important to me. Is the Secretary of State’s Department doing long-term planning? Has she seen the recent research from Sheffield University and King’s College London that says that the very areas that voted leave will be the hardest hit post-Brexit, with a 17% to 20% decrease in GDP? Is her Department getting ready for this terrible situation?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 9th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Minister pass on my congratulations to the Secretary of State on his decision to meet young people to talk about climate change? Unfortunately, the meeting this week had to be postponed for fully understandable reasons. Lola Chirico and 14 others were disappointed not to be able to meet the Secretary of State, because they want to talk about climate change with him. Lola Chirico is my granddaughter.

[Mr Speaker]

Ah! What a heartwarming tale!

Places of Worship: Security Funding

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 7th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Four Members whose surnames begin with an S. I call Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I listened carefully to what the Home Secretary said. I am a former parliamentary church warden at St Margaret’s and a lay canon at Wakefield cathedral, and of course I know from recent reports that Christians are the most persecuted religious group in the world at the moment. I spoke to fellow worshippers at my church on Sunday. They were very concerned about security of religion and security of churches and meetings. Does the Secretary of State agree that we have a tradition of open churches and open mosques, with people wandering in and perhaps saying quiet prayers during the day, and open access? Can we make sure we get the balance right? When there was terrorism that pinpointed aircraft, there was an immediate reaction, and a great deal of money flowed into security and protection. I do not see the urgency in the Home Secretary’s message to the House today that there is a real, imminent threat to religious worship in this country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 25th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

In congratulating the hon. Member for Huddersfield upon the magnificence of his tie, I call Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Can all those on the Government Front Bench tell me what I should say to my service and manufacturing industries that export overseas? For years, they have been frustrated that the Chinese are stealing their patents and intellectual property, but now this Government are going to open not only the back door but the front door to the Chinese to take their secrets and undercut them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

When she is not busy vice-chairing the all-party group.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I chair Labour’s Back-Bench environment, food and rural affairs committee.

The Chancellor always impresses me. He is thoughtful, and I like him a lot. He is thoughtful on Europe and on the environment, but can I take him back to what my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) said? Is it not about time we had a modern taxation system that encourages sustainable transport? We are killing kids and poisoning pregnant women. We know that air pollution is of the utmost importance. I appeal to the Chancellor’s radical instinct: let us have a new form of sustainable taxation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Another new young Member requiring cultivation: Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Sheerman]

Thank you, Mr Speaker—very ageist, but welcome anyway. One of the worst things for people who have a house is the house next door being empty, derelict and lost. What progress are we making to identify empty, unused houses given there is such great scarcity? Is it compulsory purchases? How can we unlock these houses as a resource?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 4th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Ah! A sense of anticipation is now building up.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

16. What recent assessment he has made of the effect on the UK manufacturing sector of the UK leaving the EU without a deal.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Order.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

We will take points of order after the urgent question.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 1st April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

It would be a very odd and almost irregular parliamentary day if the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) did not leap to his feet to pose an inquiry to the Executive branch, and I am delighted that he has done so. In particular, I am pleased that he has not been unduly dispirited by Huddersfield’s relegation.

[Mr Sheerman]

Thank you for your condolences, Mr Speaker. We live to fight another day.

There are some thoughtful people on the Government Front Bench, but listening to today’s questions I get the feeling that they live in a silo, where they are comfortable but do not join up with other Departments. I hear from senior police officers up and down the country, but particularly in West Yorkshire and Huddersfield, that there is inadequate supply of the special skills needed to combat terrorism on the internet.

EU: Withdrawal and Future Relationship (Motions)

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 1st April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Sheerman]

Yes, Attlee. He is almost canonised, but anyone who wants to know about the confusion on Europe in the Labour party should read about Clement Attlee. He wanted to reject Europe and continue expanding trade with the colonies. The divisions on Europe in the Labour party were deep, mirroring in part what has happened more recently in the Conservative party. It was Harold Wilson, who came from Huddersfield but was never Member of Parliament for the town, who called the first referendum because of the deep division between left and right in the party, especially with Tony Benn. The result was the innovation, which I much regret, of referendums under our constitution.

I will support all four of the motions this evening, because this is the beginning of a process. We are in a bitter and toxic period. In my nearly 40 years in Parliament, I have never seen such nastiness in the streets, on social media and in the way we treat each other in the House, referring to each other as traitors. I hope tonight we can start the process, by voting for some of these positive motions. Of course, in the end I want to stay in the European Union, but I am willing to meet people halfway and to build bridges.

All the time I have the national interest at the back of my mind. Someone asked me at the weekend, “What is the national interest? The Prime Minister keeps talking about it. The Conservative Prime Minister who first got us into this mess has disappeared and now another one is going to disappear.” The national interest is for this House to come together and replace the vacuum we have had from the present leadership in the major political parties. I say that reluctantly, but it is true. It is time we had that leadership, but until we get it again, the House must pick up the baton and run with it. I hope that tonight will start that process.

[Mr Speaker]

I will next take the Front-Bench speeches. I have asked the Secretary of State, the shadow Secretary of State and the spokesman for the SNP to try not to exceed five minutes, and then the Back-Bench limit will have to be cut to four minutes to try to maximise participation.

Point of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 21st March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I tried to explain to the right hon. Gentleman before that I will deal with these matters in the particular when there is a substantive matter for me to consider. Let me absolutely clear: what I am not going to do is to pronounce before it is necessary to do so on the hoof, on the back of a colleague, however distinguished and much loved, for whom the matter is at that moment especially material. That is not the way to do business here. I will rule as and when it is necessary to do so, and that moment—I say it with all courtesy to the right hon. Gentleman—is not now.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Getting away with blue murder.

[Mr Speaker]

I am not going to comment on that, but I am always grateful to the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). He referred to newspapers. I really do not take any notice of them—for goodness’ sake, I am trying to concentrate on doing my duty. I am not preoccupying myself with newspaper reports or people who scribble columns. That really is of no significance or concern to me whatsoever. It never has been, and it certainly is not now.

No-deal EU Exit Preparations

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) seems gravely perturbed that the fact that he is seated behind the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) might disadvantage him. What I say to the hon. Member for Huddersfield is that I can almost always see him, and even if I can’t see him I can absolutely certainly hear him, so he has nothing to worry about at all. Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I tell the Minister that I am usually an optimist but I do not know if he shares with me a feeling a dread and doom today? Here we are in the greatest national crisis for 100 years with the Titanic steaming towards the iceberg. He is a nice man but he is a Parliamentary Under-Secretary being sent to reassure the House that the preparations are all in good order. Even at this late stage we can go to Europe and ask for a longer rather than a shorter extension. We can also listen to the voice of reason behind him, the Father of the House the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), who made a very serious contribution earlier today. Surely at this stage the Minister could actually speak up for the nation and say, “Enough is enough, let us put this on hold and get a sensible relationship with Europe agreed across these Benches.”

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The right hon. Lady’s point of order contains a twin, or at any rate double, hypothesis, and we shall have to wait to see. As I always say, invoking the late Willie Whitelaw, it is best across bridges only when we come to them. Her use, and some would say abuse, of the point of order procedure displays a notable, though not altogether uncharacteristic, cheekiness—a fact of which she is well aware—but she is nothing if not dexterous in her use of available procedures.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. The right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) is, of course, right about a resolution of the House being required to sit on a Saturday, but staffing arrangements and much else are needed to run the House. Can I be assured the planning is in place in case of such a resolution?

[Mr Speaker]

That is a very sensible point. Planning will be under way lest that scenario should arise, and not least out of consideration for the staff who serve us so loyally and so well, it is essential that that is so. They have already in recent times been very gravely inconvenienced as a result of our deliberations. That is the way it is, and they very graciously accept it, but we should not take their loyalty for granted. They must be treated with respect.

Article 50 Extension

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Almost surreptitiously, the Secretary of State announced a couple of sentences ago that we were going to have the next meaningful vote on Monday. That has not been announced in this House. I had no knowledge of it. The Father of the House has been making sensible suggestions for how we can, together, progress what we want to get out of the deliberations. Those will be confounded by the fact that the meaningful vote is being brought forward to Monday.

[Mr Speaker]

My understanding—

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 18th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

By his deployment of the words, “Across the country”, the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) has helpfully enabled the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) to come in on this question, as it now refers to a wider area, and not simply to Kettering.

[Mr Sheerman]

The Secretary of State is a fair-minded person. This morning, I have been looking at her constituency stats, the Kettering stats, and my stats in Huddersfield. However, I appeal to her to raise her vision beyond just the stats and the data, and to look at the evidence from children’s charities such as Action for Children, which will tell her that in her patch, in Kettering and in my patch, child poverty has not diminished.

Speaker’s Statement

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 18th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

With the very greatest respect to the hon. Gentleman, I think that I have demonstrated, over a period of nine and a half years and more, that I am not a stickler for tradition. I do not believe in doing everything the same way for ever more just because people say to me, as so many have, “Oh, Mr Speaker, it’s always been done that way, or, “Oh, we’ve never previously had X.” I have been ready to countenance change. I remember once being told many years ago by a retired and senior Clerk of this House that she was very pleased that I had secured support for the establishment of a nursery in the House that Members and staff could pay for. She said to me that she did not know whether I was aware that throughout her four decades’ service in the House, the idea of establishing such a facility had periodically been discussed but unfortunately nothing had ever happened, which was not helpful to her in terms of work/life balance—her professional commitments and her childcare responsibilities. So I think I can say, with the very greatest respect, that I have attempted to be a progressive change-maker. As for the particulars concerned, it has to depend on the circumstances. I would have to look at the specifics. It would be reckless and foolhardy to pronounce in the abstract.

I would say further to the hon. Gentleman, just to remind him of the context of my statement, that, as regards the use of time, we have been addressing this matter for a period spanning four months. In so far as time has been lost during that period—for example, at one point, a loss of five weeks without the matter coming to the House—that was not a result of fiat by the Chair or folly by the House; it was the express decision of the Government. I cannot, off the top of my head, remember for certain whether the hon. Gentleman supported the Government’s position on that matter. I have a very high regard for his ability, because he is an extremely able man. I hope he will not take offence if I say, in the nicest possible way, that he has always seemed to me to be a keen supporter of close regulatory alignment with the Government Whips Office.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Thank you for your guidance today. Here we are in the gravest constitutional situation that I have seen in my nearly 40 years in this House, and were it not for your good guidance today and over the past few weeks, I think this House would have been very badly served indeed. The fact of the matter is that what you have said today has great repercussions for the business of the House. What is your advice from the Chair, or could we have an early statement from the Prime Minister or the Leader of the House, on what is the next step? We are leaving the European Union and we have only a few days. What is the best way that we can represent our constituents at this grave time of crisis?

[Mr Speaker]

The short answer is: let us debate these matters sooner rather than later. Of course the Government, for the most part, control the Order Paper—we know that, and the Leader of the House is the Government’s representative in the House—but there are situations in which Members can give voice to their views, whether the Government particularly want that to happen or not. For example, on more than 570 occasions over the last nine and a half years, I have seen fit to grant urgent questions, believing that that is in the interests of the House, is beneficial to Back Benchers and secures ministerial presence in the Chamber, so that the Government can be legitimately questioned, probed, scrutinised, challenged and held to account. There will be further such opportunities today, and knowing the ingenuity of the hon. Gentleman, who will have served 40 years in the House in less than two months’ time, I feel certain that he will be well up to the task of posing suitable inquiries and expressing his views on this matter in the days ahead.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 28th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Ah yes, star quality personified—Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I feel really sorry for the Secretary of State and his poor little team. It is going to be Shrove Tuesday next Tuesday and my resolution will be to be a little nicer to them every day for the whole of Lent, because they are the carrying the can that has been kicked down the road by the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. The truth that has not been articulated this morning is that the mess we are in is the Government’s mess—it is the Tory party’s mess. They called the referendum, they got it wrong and now the British people and the British businesses that I represent are paying the penalty. Why does the Minister not get up, speak up for Britain and sort out our businesses, which are terrified of investing in this country?

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman is really enjoying himself today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 21st February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Did the Secretary of State see the wonderful young people campaigning for the environment and against climate change last Friday? Some of them are in the Gallery today. Can we not harness the enthusiasm of those young people in tackling waste, waste crime and litter? They are out there plogging—clearing the planet up—so will he put his energy, action and leadership behind those young people?

[Mr Speaker]

I should say to the Secretary of State that I think I am right in saying that a couple of little Sheermanites are observing our proceedings today.

Northern Ireland Backstop

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 19th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) is quite wrong. He is far too hard on himself. I have known the right hon. Gentleman for 25 years and have never been bored by him on any occasion. Never.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I wonder whether the Solicitor General minds my putting on the record, and I hope he will also put on the record, the distaste that we felt at that personal attack from the Back Benches—I think from a member of the European Research Group—on a civil servant who is trying to do his job. The job that civil servants are trying to do is a very difficult one and the people responsible for that difficulty are the Government, not the civil servants trying to do a good job.

Does the Solicitor General agree that we need a running commentary in this House? I am glad that he has made this statement today, because the fact of the matter is that at a certain juncture in this dialogue we are supposed to be having to find the answer to this difficult problem, the Government side stopped talking to people. Will he resume the talks so that we can get this sorted?

Point of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 19th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Many Members regard parliamentary privilege—that we can say things in the House that people cannot take action against—as the greatest privilege, but a small minority of Members seem to use privilege more regularly to attack either colleagues in the House or people outside. Today, during the urgent question on the Northern Ireland backstop, two Members went for a senior civil servant, Olly Robbins, saying things about him, his reputation and his character that were quite indefensible. I know that Members on both sides of the House have thoughts about such remarks about senior civil servants, who cannot answer back and have no recourse. Is there any way that you could look into how a small minority of people are using parliamentary privilege in a way for which it was not designed?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order, and I will make several points in response. First, Members should exercise their parliamentary privilege with due care and a sense of responsibility. Secondly, immoderate language, not merely in relation to subject matter but more particularly in relation to people, is frankly to be deprecated. Thirdly, we should observe the precepts of “Erskine May” in the conduct of parliamentary debate.

I do not recall off the top of my head whether the hon. Gentleman was present in his seat when I treated earlier of this matter in response to a timely point of order from the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), who of course is also the Father of the House and who similarly took exception to some of what was said. I did not intercede at the time for there was no direct breach of parliamentary protocol. There was nothing specifically disorderly about what was said, but I did think that there was an issue, at the very least, of taste, and I think I did refer to the coarsening and vulgarisation of debate, which we should take care to avoid.

More particularly in relation to what the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) says about civil servants, although each Member must of course take responsibility for what he or she says in this place, we must remember that such individuals are not in a position to respond. They cannot speak for themselves with a public voice, other than very specifically on behalf of their ministerial bosses. Many people will feel that it is inappropriate to launch personal ad hominem attacks on public servants. What we say to each other is a bit different, but great care and responsibility should be exercised in relation to such career officials. I am sorry that there have been departures from that principle in recent times, and I hope they will not be repeated.

UK’s Withdrawal from the EU

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 14th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Let me say in the most affectionate possible terms to the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), who is an extremely cerebral Member of the House, that at this moment he is behaving like an incorrigible delinquent. I urge him to desist from this disorderly behaviour. He is fundamentally a very good man—some would even say a great man—but something has seized him today, and he is behaving in a mildly eccentric manner.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

He is very irritating.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman says that the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) is “very irritating”. Well, this is a subjective matter. Some people might find the hon. Gentleman irritating, or even find the Chair irritating—but who cares?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 7th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Before we move on, as Humphrey Bogart said,

“I don’t mind if you don’t like my manners, I don’t like them myself”,

but just because the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) is sporting a rather splendid and garish Bogart tie, that does not mean that he should descend to that level himself. [Interruption.] He is chuntering from a sedentary position with predictable regularity—

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

For my constituents against that man.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. In calling the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), I congratulate him on his tie, inserting only the modest caveat that it is perhaps a tad understated.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

This is my celebration tie for Autism Day, Mr Speaker—a little bit of flamboyance for autism.

Nobody wants our prisons to have a culture of drugs and violence, but can the Minister imagine what it is like to be in prison and not to be guilty? I co-chair the all-party group on miscarriages of justice—we are meeting tonight. Some people do 18 years in prison are then found not guilty, but have no compensation and no reintroduction into society. When are we going to do something about that?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 4th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I was hoping that the hon. Gentleman would shoehorn his inquiry into question 15, because he cannot leapfrog question 16, which would displace it. I thought that if he applied his little grey cells he would realise that the subject matter of his own inquiry was pertinent to that of question 15. I should have thought that a scholar of his repute was capable of making that mental calculation, but if he wants to wait, he will have to take his chances. [Interruption.] Oh, very well.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

And it’s his birthday.

[Mr Speaker]

I do not know whether it is his birthday, but he has made a bit of a mess of the matter. Never mind, we will seek to accommodate him at a later stage in our proceedings.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

You’re the Chancellor of the Exchequer. You should have made it yourself.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is a cerebral denizen of the House. I know he is arguing the toss about what he thinks is the inapplicability of the personal views or the professional opinion of the Chancellor, but he should not offer a lecture from a sedentary position. We are accustomed to hearing this eloquence when he is on his feet. We do not need to hear him when he is in his seat.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I may have erroneously misled the House when I said that the Minister said that the Government were creating 75 businesses a minute. It has been pointed out to me that he actually said 75 businesses a second.

[Mr Speaker]

No, I think that the Minister said a business every 75 seconds.

[Mr Speaker]

It is not for the Speaker to be the arbiter of truth. Knowing the ambitions of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), it is important that he knows what he is letting himself in for. He would have important responsibilities, but the adjudication upon the matter of truth would not be one of them.

[Mr Sheerman]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

In deference to the seniority of the hon. Gentleman, I will hear his point of order if he insists.

[Mr Sheerman]

I just wanted to thank you for correcting the record, Mr Speaker. I would be glad if the record could be put straight. As you said, the figure was 75 businesses a second. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

I am getting advice that is the product of the scholarly cranium of the Clerk of the House, but I think I will leave the hon. Gentleman to find his own salvation. We will leave it there.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I want to hear about the pothole situation in Huddersfield. I call Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Potholes are not a joke for cyclists; many are killed on our roads every year. The roads in Britain are becoming more dangerous, and our very good record in road safety is being lost to other countries. Is it not about time the Minister talked to the Home Secretary and others not only about potholes but about the number of police on our roads catching people who break the law?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 17th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Oh, very well. I call Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Sheerman]

“Oh, very well”, Mr Speaker? I am actually going to ask a topical question, unlike some of our colleagues.

May I remind the ministerial team that until we came under European regulation, we were the dirty person of Europe? We filled our seas with sewage, and we buried our waste in holes in the ground. Did the Minister see the wonderful BBC programme only last Sunday showing the real curse of agricultural plastic waste, which we are doing very little about? Will she and the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food get together with others, on an all-party basis, to try to clean up the environment and get a good deal from Europe?

[Dr Thérèse Coffey]

That was nearly as long as a speech in an Adjournment debate, but the last one of those that the hon. Gentleman secured for me to respond to was about the circular economy of left-over paint, and he did not even show up for that.

In answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question, I would say that he should read the resources and waste strategy. I have already answered the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham): I said that we are working on this. We need to work with farmers to make sure there is a secondary market for that sort of plastic bale.

[Mr Speaker]

I do not know whether the Minister managed to see the programme, but I dare say it is available on catch-up TV.

[Mr Sheerman]

“Countryfile”.

[Mr Speaker]

We are most grateful to the hon. Gentleman.

Leaving the EU

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 14th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am looking for a new, young Member. I call Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Will the Prime Minister go back to that very good question asked by her colleague the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), who made a very intelligent plea for more time? This decision will be one of the most important we take in 100 years, let alone this century. Why should we rush it? It is complex, and the Prime Minister’s statement today shows how complex it is. We need more time. Why can we not have it?

Speaker’s Statement

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

But not until we have heard from, I think, two other Members. The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) is a national institution and I want to save him until the end. I call Catherine West.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Sheerman]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I was going to start my remarks by saying that I have been in the House longer than you, and that is true. I am also well known to be a bit of a chunterer; I often turn to the person next to me and say quite rude things—not dreadful, but rude—about something I disagree with. This is a serious point of order: I cannot believe that this House is going to get to the stage where these events happen when someone says something under their breath—“What a silly sod”, for instance, which I say very often, quite loudly, under my breath. We cannot have a system here where we start lipreading something someone has said to their next-door neighbour when passions are high in this House. It is supposed to be a place of high passions, but it is also a place where we treat people like adults, and today we have been like badly behaved children. We are in a crucial time in the history of our country—the most delicate and worrying time in my time in the House—and we have spent all these hours on this matter. I believe the Leader of the Opposition said what he said; let us draw a line under it and get on and act like grown-ups.

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he has said. Before we proceed, all I would like to do is to plant in the minds of hon. and right hon. Members one simple fact, which is that a number of very senior Members with long experience of this House, and coming from both sides of it, have in recent months made a very similar point. Today, the hon. Gentleman has made that point, and I do not think that the right hon. Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett) will take exception or cavil if I say that she made a similar point at an earlier stage in our proceedings. It is a point that has also been previously made by the Father of the House, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke). They do have long experience, they do know what they are talking about, and it might be a good idea to have a degree of calm and a readiness to heed their wise advice.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 18th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I hear the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) burbling from a sedentary position about the spirit of Christmas. I call Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Mr Speaker, are we really going back to the old days when people used to say that the courts of England were open to everyone, just like the Ritz hotel? The truth is that access to justice in this country is being diminished. The Department’s budget has been cut badly. Indeed, in the area I am very interested in, miscarriages of justice, there is not the money to keep the commission going properly.

[Mr Speaker]

In my experience the hon. Gentleman is interested in every area of every policy in our public life.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 27th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Is the hon. Gentleman feeling jumpy or does he wish to contribute?

[Mr Sheerman]

I was just nit-picking.

[Mr Speaker]

Ah, the House is in a very jocular mood. Long may it last.

Business of the House

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 22nd November 2018 Commons Chamber

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

She’s doing it again!

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a discourtesy to the House.

[Mr Speaker]

Well, I can live with that. The Procedure Committee has produced a report in which it sets out three options for the handling of this matter. If memory serves me correctly, the Committee has indicated its view that the motion should be amendable and that amendments, in accordance with the normal procedure, shall be voted upon first. The Government will have an opportunity, if they wish, to respond to that report, and a business of the House motion from the Government is to be expected. I rather imagine that will happen before the debate, and certainly before the meaningful vote. But that there is to be an amendable motion is not something coming from me; it is a commitment that has already been made both by the Prime Minister and by the Leader of the House on the Floor of this House. That much is simple and incontrovertible. I hope that is helpful to the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire. I am sure he will keep an eye on the matter.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I do not have eyes in the back of my head, I did not note any disorderly behaviour and certainly I allege no disorderly behaviour on the part of anyone in the Box. Suffice it to say that, very briefly, I sat in that Box as a special adviser 23 years ago, and I remember being told very clearly that officials are there to sit and provide papers or advice if required, and discreetly and respectfully to observe proceedings. The right hon. Member for Warley is a very senior and respected Member of this House. What anyone outside this House or performing an ancillary function thinks about what he is saying is of no interest to me, of no interest to the right hon. Gentleman, and, I rather imagine, of no interest to the House.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I have been in this House a very long time—people usually say too long—but in all my time here I have never seen a Leader of the House act with such disrespect and then flounce out of the Chamber, with her officials following out in the same way and showing their dislike of something a right hon. Member has just said. That is far more serious than the bit of fun with a football the other night; it is a serious affront to this House, not to you, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

I am very sorry that the hon. Gentleman has felt it necessary, on the basis of what he has witnessed, to make that point. My desire would be to lower the temperature and to give opportunities for colleagues to reflect. I am very sorry that, in his long experience, he has not witnessed anything of the kind he has just seen.

My concern is that a proper procedure should be followed in respect of the upcoming matter, perhaps the most serious matter to be brought to this House in half a century. This matter must be dealt with in a manner that suits the House, rather than one particular opinion represented in the House. In my time in the Chair, for all the mistakes that I have made and the inadequacies that I have demonstrated—[Hon. Members: “No!”] Oh yes, because to err is human. I have always stood up for the rights of Back-Bench Members and the rights of Parliament, and the rights of Parliament can sometimes be different from those of a particular Executive at a given time. The Speaker has to be on the side of Parliament, and I always am and always will be.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 25th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am sorry, but we must now move on.

Before we hear the urgent question, I wish to make a short statement about the recording of names in the Division list printed in Hansard relating to new clause 7, in the name of the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), to the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Bill.

I am sorry to report that there are a large number of errors in that list. Those appear to have been caused by a technological failure. The numbers recorded as voting on either side of the Division are recorded by the Tellers. Those numbers—I hope the House is following me—are correct. Moreover, the names recorded on the Commons voting app—with which all present, I feel sure, will be closely familiar—are also correct. Urgent steps are now being taken to correct the record, and the Clerk Assistant is investigating what went wrong, with a view to taking necessary corrective action. He has asked me to pass on his apology to Members concerned. I cannot identify them individually—that would be a most burdensome and lengthy task—but I hope that they will take this as an apology to all. A revised, corrected list will be printed. I hope that that satisfies the House for now.

[Mr Sheerman]

It could be the Russians.

[Mr Speaker]

I am always grateful for the assistance proffered from a sedentary position by the hon. Gentleman.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 13th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I do not know whether the Secretary of State listens to my favourite programme in the morning, “Farming Today”, but is he aware that, following the publication yesterday of the Agriculture Bill, there is a great deal of concern in the farming community about the Bill and about the possibility of having a decent trading relationship, with high-technology components, after Brexit?

[Mr Speaker]

Particularly in relation to Israel.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 11th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

For the edification of those observing our proceedings, I can advise that the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) has just been chuntering at me that his grandmother had a link with the Mayflower, about which I think we are to be enlightened.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Some Members may think that I was on the Mayflower, although as a young man I did emigrate to the United States. Some of my ancestors, the Sheermans, could have been on the Mayflower—[Interruption.] Just hold it for a moment. This is the 400-year anniversary. Is it not time that we celebrated migration and the talent, the genius, the innovation and the ideas that we in this country and America get from migration? Should we not use this quadricentenary to celebrate migration across the world?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 6th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Question 2, Mr Speaker.

[The Attorney General (Mr Geoffrey Cox)]

rose—

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the Secretary of State to his new post, which is one of the toughest jobs in Parliament. Having worked with him on other things in the past, I am sure that his energy will come through in the Department.

I have a vested interest in the welfare of young children as we are expecting our 11th grandchild in October. Will the Secretary of State look closely at the relationship between obesity in later childhood and the diet of mothers during pregnancy? Early research shows that there is a link, so will he look at it carefully?

[Mr Speaker]

A veritable football team of Sheermans.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 17th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Such forbearance. We will hear from the hon. Gentleman subsequently. He has had his chance, but he does not want to have a go on this occasion—it is a self-denying ordinance. [Interruption.] We know about Mr Sheerman, who is always ready to have a go.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I urge the Secretary of State to visit West Yorkshire to talk to our highly successful textile entrepreneurs? They are not quite gold-plated, but they are not daft and they want to know about frictionless trade. They need to be persuaded, because they do not believe that it is possible after Brexit.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 10th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Well, it runs in the family, because the hon. Lady’s dad, as many will remember, was a very modest man, with nothing to be modest about.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

New Hall, one of the largest women’s prisons, is close to my constituency. The message that I am getting from it recently is, first, about the evaluation of whether new prisoners are literate or numerate, and whether they have problems with autism. Secondly, it demands that all women prisoners should be safe and secure from sexual depredation when they are serving their sentence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Finally—in a sentence, I am sure— Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Secretary of State do something about the way in which we treat miscarriages of justice in this country, and will he meet the all-party parliamentary group on miscarriages of justice to discuss it?

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 10th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

I am saving up the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden). I call Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Sheerman]

This is a very busy time for Parliament, Mr Speaker. I do not know whether you have been able to see the queues that are gathering around the Palace, especially now, when so many schoolchildren are taking their last opportunity to visit. Is it right that the queues are so long, that security is so slow, and that most of the entrances to this great royal Palace are filthy, with the smell of urine, with vomit and dirt, and—well, I do not want to go into the details of what you can see at those entrances. Is it not about time that someone did something about this royal Palace and the access to it?

[Mr Speaker]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I am concerned when from time to time there are lengthy queues that inhibit people from getting into the building. It is true that last night someone who was due to be present at—and eventually came to—the function taking place in Speaker’s House was delayed as a result of a queue. I think it important to be clear that sometimes it is perhaps our fault, and sometimes people perhaps do not allow sufficient time for the fact of the security process that they have necessarily to undergo.

As for the hon. Gentleman’s concern about what might be called malodorous matters, I am not unconscious of that phenomenon, although whether it is quite as pervasive as the hon. Gentleman suggests is, I think, a matter of some uncertainty. As the hon. Gentleman knows, however, I have always taken him immensely seriously, the more so now that he is in his 40th successive year as a Member of this House, and although I will probably regret saying this, I would exhort him, if he wishes to pursue the matter further, to write to me— although, as I say, I may very well regret tendering him that advice, for he normally requires no encouragement.

[Mr Sheerman]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I know that you are a very busy man, but may I invite you to join me on a walk around the Palace so that we can see it in person?

[Mr Speaker]

I can imagine few things in this life more pleasurable than undertaking a leisurely excursion anywhere, including the Palace of Westminster, with the hon. Gentleman. After all, I have visited the hon. Gentleman’s Huddersfield constituency, and I have visited and spoken at his local university, praising him to the skies in the process, so it seems only fitting that the other end of the equation should be met. I dare say we will have a little toddle round the Place of Westminster together when the hon. Gentleman has got in touch with my office to arrange it, which I fancy he will require no further encouragement to do.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 5th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Oh very well, it is always good to encourage a new young Member at the start of his parliamentary career. I call Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State knows very well that millions of our people are being poisoned by the filthy emissions from buses, trucks and cars. When is he going to do something about it?

[Chris Grayling]

Before I respond to that question, I just say to the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) that I had been under the impression that the meeting was already organised. If that is not the case, I will make sure that it is.

On clean transport, this is a central part of the Government’s strategy. It is why we are spending money on supporting low-emission bus vehicles and on encouraging people to buy low-emission vehicles. When we publish our Road to Zero strategy shortly, we will be setting out more of our plans to create a greener vehicle fleet on our roads.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 2nd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Well, we are all now considerably better informed.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

T2. If the Secretary of State wants people to have confidence in her Department, what is she doing about Motability? Is it true that its chief executive is on £1.7 million and that it has reserves of £2.4 billion? Many people who are struggling support Motability, but they want to know what is going on.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 28th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Our proceedings would be incomplete and underperforming without a question from Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

May I ask the Secretary of State if he is not being a little complacent about the role of China in our manufacturing and other sectors? Does he realise that, when we encourage companies to export, some of the companies, like Syngenta in my constituency, are wholly owned by ChemChina and wholly owned subsidiaries of the communist Government in China? There is a greater number of British companies owned by the Chinese. Does that alter the sort of conversation he has with them?

Business of the House

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 28th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the Leader of the House for what she said and the right hon. Gentleman for his characteristically eloquent, almost poetical, inquiry. In response to what the Leader of the House said on the Government’s behalf, I am keen that the House shows its support for the England team in the World cup, as I would be if any of the other home nations were competing, as I hope that they will be in 2022. I have therefore decided that the House of Commons will indeed fly the St George’s flag for the next England game, which will be on Monday 2 July or Tuesday 3 July, dependent on the outcome of today’s match against Belgium. I know that I speak for the whole House in wishing the three lions the best of luck tonight.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

I have been mugging up on the hon. Gentleman’s illustrious local government career over the past half an hour. Llwchwr and Lliw unitary district council benefited from the hon. Gentleman’s membership of it between 1972 and 1979, when he was an august lecturer at Swansea University. I am sure the hon. Gentleman is pleased to be reminded of that important part of his distinguished career, and the House is now also aware of it.

[Mr Sheerman]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I also thank all the people who put together that great exhibition, from which we will all benefit. Quite soon, we ought also to celebrate the emancipation of working-class men—men without property—who waited a long, long time to get the vote. It was only in 1892 that Kier Hardy was the first Labour MP elected—ironically for West Ham.

I have a very serious question about health. Yes, we have had some interesting and positive news about there being more money for the health service, but may we have a focused debate on the way in which so many health trusts and communities are blighted by bad private finance initiatives? They are not going to go away and many areas, including Huddersfield, will never overcome the barriers that we have to good health provision until someone sorts out the PFI burden.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 21st June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We are now fully informed about the Wakefield situation and we are immensely grateful to the hon. Lady.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Wednesday 20th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I do not think it is open to me to issue any direction of the kind that the hon. Lady suggests, but the hon. Member for Southport (Damien Moore) made his point in all sincerity and it is on the record. Now the hon. Lady, who is at least equally dextrous, has made her own point in her own way and it is on the record—I rather imagine that each of them will rely on those words, as doubtless they co-operate in future on this important matter.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Very dextrous.

[Mr Speaker]

Well, the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) now basks in the glory of approval from a Member who is in his 40th year of consecutive service in the House, the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman).

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 18th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

As I always like to welcome new young Members, I call, for the second time today, Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Will the Secretary of State urgently give local authorities new powers and new resources to tackle the tide of plastic and other waste that is engulfing our towns, cities and countryside?

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 18th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me notice that he wished to raise his point of order.

I agree that Members on both sides of the House should practise self-restraint in the Chamber, and should recognise the impact of their actions. We should all recognise the impact of our actions on those outside this place. I appreciate that passions were high on Wednesday, and indeed they may still be high, but it is precisely when passions run high that we, across the House, should remember the importance of treating each other with courtesy and respect.

I would also say to the hon. Gentleman that—as I said the other day—each day is a new opportunity for the House. That is true today, as it is true on every other occasion.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I raise it reluctantly, but I feel that I must do so, because it concerns an attack on my personal honour by another Member of Parliament, outside the House.

Last Wednesday, Mr Speaker, I was invited, on the “PM” programme, to defend your speakership. The hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) was asked to speak on the same programme, because he dissents from the view that I was expressing. It was a good, robust exchange, as you would expect from the hon. Gentleman and me. At the very end of the programme, however, the hon. Gentleman said:

“Barry’s defence of the speaker is relentless. Barry has been in politics a long time. So he has probably been on the Speaker’s Panel, which is quite a lot of extra money and that’s at the Speaker’s discretion. So he is not impartial.”

I found that extremely disturbing and damaging. It was the last item on the programme. The BBC cut me off so I could not respond, and I have found the programme’s editor, Victoria Wakely, to be totally unhelpful in terms of securing any redress.

Two million people listened to the programme and heard that false assertion, Mr Speaker. I have never been on the Speaker’s Panel, and I support you as Mr Speaker because in my 39 years in the House, I have not seen anyone in the Chair who was as good as you at bringing this Parliament to life. I am in a very difficult position. This canard is out there, and I have no other way of raising it than with my colleagues. I appeal to you to give me some guidance in respect of that behaviour.

[Mr Speaker]

I think it important for us to try as far as possible—all of us—to disagree agreeably. It is not necessary to disagree while impugning the motives of opponents in the process. I did not witness that exchange, but I have since been told of it. What I can do from the Chair is confirm that the hon. Gentleman is not a member of the Speaker’s Panel of Chairs, and that, in my nearly nine years as Speaker, he has, to my knowledge, never asked to be. Moreover, he has just made the point that he has never been a member of the Speaker’s Panel of Chairs.

The hon. Gentleman expresses the views that he expresses whether people agree with him or not—or sometimes agree with him and sometimes do not—because those are the views that he holds. It is quite wrong for Members, without any evidence, to accuse other Members of what is, in effect, dishonourable behaviour. The hon. Gentleman and I have been in the House together for the last 21 years, and I simply want to say that in my experience he is a person of absolute integrity. He is an extremely long-serving and very respected Member of the House. I appeal to colleagues who want to conduct arguments, whether on policy matters, personalities or office holders, to do so on the basis that it is possible for Members to hold different opinions without having some ulterior motive for holding or expressing those opinions.

I hope that that is helpful to the hon. Gentleman, and I hope it will not be necessary for him to raise this matter with me again. I hope it will be accepted that what he has said is factually true and incontrovertible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 12th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

No mention of Galileo—not one word.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman does not need to keep banging on about Galileo from a sedentary position. We want to hear the views of the hon. Lady, but we have heard the hon. Gentleman chuntering and we may hear him on his feet in due course.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Sheerman]

It was the only way I could get in.

[Mr Speaker]

It is a phenomenon known in the House, or certainly known in this Speaker’s Office, as “shoehorning”: a colleague shoehorning in his own concern wherever he thinks he can get away with it.

[Mr Sheerman]

Shoehorning Sheerman.

[Mr Speaker]

Yes, Sheerman-horning!

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Age first: I call Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Sheerman]

Is the ministerial team aware of the growing concern in some women’s prisons about the placement of transgender people in those prisons? What is the Minister going to do about it?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 17th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

In a moment we will hear from the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman). He has been chuntering from a sedentary position about the suit worn by the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne), apparently expressing the hope that it was made in west Yorkshire. That is not a matter for the Chair—I have no idea. It seems to me a most admirable suit, but I have no idea where it was made.

[Mr Sheerman]

Unlike you, Mr Speaker, the Minister has never been to Huddersfield or visited the Textile Centre of Excellence. I keep inviting Ministers, but I think they are worried because Huddersfield, which is a great centre in the premier league for fashion, has many employers who are fearful about the future and the 90% drop in inward investment in our country. There is real worry about the penetration of European markets after Brexit.

[Mr Sheerman]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. My constituents voted to remain. The Minister is misleading the House.

[Mr Speaker]

I am sure it was inadvertent. There was not going to be further discussion on this question, but the effect of raising a point of order in mid-question is to preclude any further supplementary questions on the matter. In this case, however, the crime is victimless.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

As he is the father of lots of daughters, I call Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is the Foreign Secretary aware that, in many parts of the developing world, educational institutions and orphanages are not quite what they seem? Children are taken into them and trafficked, instead of getting an education. Will he look into that?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 14th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

What about Shakespeare?

[Mr Speaker]

Well, we cannot mention Shakespeare in every question, but I am sure that the Minister will take his opportunity ere long.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 10th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

On the subject of persistent standers, I call Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The House will not be surprised that I stand today after the magnificent result of Huddersfield’s draw with Chelsea, meaning that we will not be relegated. Is the Minister aware that many of us have fought for years for family-friendly football and some of us have deep reservations about standing areas, where there might be a lot of young men, who like to shout, and sometimes shout racist abuse—I am not saying all of them do. Dean Hoyle, the wonderful owner of Huddersfield Town, has his reservations and so do I.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 26th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) can bang on about out-of-school educational settings instead.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 19th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Given that this is such an important matter, surely we should have a point of order on it.

[Mr Speaker]

As the hon. Gentleman will know on the strength of his nearly 39 years of experience in the House, the effect of a point of order during exchanges on a question is to cause all further exchanges on it immediately to cease. Fortunately for the hon. Gentleman, he does not risk becoming hugely unpopular as a result of his attempted point of order, for the simple reason that no one else was standing and seeking to catch my eye—other than the hon. Gentleman with his rather bogus, albeit enjoyable, point of order.

Business of the House

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 19th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I should just say to the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), and for the benefit of other Members, without in any way dissenting from anything that the Leader has just said, that it is perfectly open to the House to amend Standing Order No. 24, of which there is some uncertainty and often incomprehension. It could be amended to allow for the tabling of substantive motions in circumstances of emergency, which could also be amendable and on which the House could vote. If there are Members who are interested in that line of inquiry, they could usefully raise it with the Chair of the Procedure Committee, the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), but it is a matter for Members.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a lighter note, the sun is shining and it is obvious it is now spring. I always feel it is spring when the London marathon takes place. So many people run the marathon—not me, thank goodness—to raise money for charities, particularly heart and cancer charities. May we, from across the House, congratulate them all?

Many hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger), are calling for a debate on local democracy. Local democracy is fundamental to this country. We are all part of local democracy and products of it. May we have an urgent debate on local democracy? There is a big decline in social and community networks in our towns and cities, because, due to cuts to their budgets, local authorities are no longer able to support them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I accept that Huddersfield is a most admirable place. My grandma lived there all her life, as I have told the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) before. Splendid place, splendid woman.

[Mr Sheerman]

And a good football team!

[Mr Speaker]

Indeed, that too.

Syria

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 16th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

On the subject of new, young Members who are early in the parliamentary careers, let us hear from Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is not my birthday, but I was born in London on the worst weekend of the blitz. My next-door neighbour’s family were killed that night, including the two children, so I want action when I hear of a tyrant killing children. I have no criticism of the Prime Minister, but I do have one problem and demur. I have been a passionate pro-American for all the time that I have been in this House, and I have seen America as a beacon of our democratic world. But I was at the United Nations on different business last week when all this happened, and the conversations there were quite chilling. Many of us passionate pro-Americans could not remember a time when we were seriously worried about American leadership and the American President at the same time that we did not trust Putin and his horrible gang. We need a Prime Minister and European leaders to show the way in these troubled times. Does the Prime Minister agree?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 22nd March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

They are light years behind Arsenal.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

While thinking of the victims of the terrorist outrage last year, all of us on these Benches hope that the families of those who were tragically killed have been looked after.

Can the sports Minister assure us that there will be coverage of the World cup, and will she give an honest answer to this question: does she believe that what the Foreign Secretary said to a Select Committee the other day is good advice?

[Mr Speaker]

Needless to say, all the Minister’s answers are honest; whether they satisfy the palate of the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) is uncertain, but they are all honest.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I want to get down the Order Paper, so I will take each of the two hon. Members on condition that they give a short sentence each, not two, three, or four sentences.

[Mr Sheerman]

What is the Attorney General going to do about the horrendous breach of cyber-security by Cambridge Analytica, and who are the right people to prosecute?

Business of the House

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 8th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Earlier, the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) asked a question about migratory species, and in the course of the delivery of the question from the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), a number of Opposition Members noted that he has migrated from his usual seat to his new seat. I do not think any particular significance need be read into that, and I should assure the House that even if it is thought to be unusual—

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

He’s pro-Europe!

[Mr Speaker]

I do not think it suddenly means that the hon. Gentleman is pro the European Union. If the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) said that outside the Chamber, I rather imagine that the hon. Member for Wellingborough would be consulting m’learned friends. His behaviour is perfectly orderly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I heard what the Leader of the House said about facial products and differential costs and so on, but I am not experienced in such matters because I concluded long ago that I am well beyond redemption. I bear my fate with as much stoicism and fortitude as I can muster.

[Mr Sheerman]

On International Women’s Day, may I remind the Leader of the House that worldwide there will be about 1.5 million knocks on doors, and families will be told that their mother is dead, or their daughter or their son, and the family will be totally destroyed? There is a Commonwealth parliamentary meeting in the next few days in London, but may we have a debate in the Chamber to focus on this scourge? It is the greatest epidemic of our time, and there is not enough concentration on how to reduce these avoidable deaths.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 6th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State will know that I regularly write to him about unduly lenient and unduly severe sentences, but I never ever seem to get a reply. The fact is that too many women are locked up for non-violent offences for long periods of time, and that is the sort of case that I write to him about. Why do we never get any comeback?

[Mr Speaker]

It is reassuring to know that I am not the only person to whom the hon. Gentleman regularly writes. I am grateful to him for confirming that important fact on the Floor of the House.

Business of the House

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 1st March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Shw’mae, Mr Speaker—I am not Welsh, but I have two children born in Wales, so happy St David’s Day, and may I congratulate the Leader of the House in passing on mentioning cancer charities today? I will be walking in the Marsden March on Sunday, snow permitting, raising money for the Royal Marsden cancer hospital.

Could we have a statement on how we treat visitors to this House? We are in danger of getting to the stage where wealthy, well-connected people can come here without a Member and book rooms and tables in our restaurants. Yesterday, I had a large party who struggled down on a coach, campaigning to keep Huddersfield Royal Infirmary open. You will appreciate this, Mr Speaker —they had blue-and-white sweatshirts, the colours of the Huddersfield strip. The sweatshirts said, “Hands Off HRI,” and they were told by the police here to take them off or cover them, because they were party political, before they were allowed up into the Committee room area. If there is going to be one rule for ordinary people to come here and another for wealthy people, we should look at this very seriously.

[Mr Speaker]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but it is not for the Leader to decide what people do or do not wear in the House, and I know that she would not think it so—

[Mr Sheerman]

But it is a debate on who comes here—

[Mr Speaker]

Yes, and I was just being advised procedurally on the matter by the Clerk. The hon. Gentleman made his point with considerable force, but at a length that should not be imitated by other hon. and right hon. Members today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 27th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) is a really eager young pup, and at this early point in his parliamentary career, I think we ought to hear the fella.

[Mr Sheerman]

Mr Speaker, you will know that I am not the most radical Member on the Labour Benches, but I want to tell the Minister that if the Government had been successfully reducing their budget, my constituents in Yorkshire could forgive her. The fact of the matter is that we have had the money for the electrification of the trans-Pennine railway stolen from us, and the Chancellor refuses to give it back. When will he make amends?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I send a brief message of congratulation to the Secretary of State for his rapid response to President Trump’s remarks about the values of the NHS?

As chair of the Westminster Commission on Autism, let me now ask the Secretary of State a serious question. We are about to produce a report on the fake medicine that is sold to families with an autistic child. When the report is published, in the next few days, will the Secretary of State act very quickly to stop this dreadful trade?

[Mr Speaker]

I am not quite sure that that is altogether related to the main question.

[Mr Sheerman]

It is related to the Food Standards Agency.

[Mr Speaker]

Possibly. Anyway, it was a worthy effort, and I will give the hon. Gentleman the benefit of the doubt. Let us now hear from the Minister.

Rail Update

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 5th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Sheerman]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

Not in the middle of the statement.

[Mr Sheerman]

Is it not right that Members should be told of another Member visiting their constituency?

[Mr Speaker]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point. The Secretary of State says that the hon. Gentleman was notified and his office was informed. I must say, I think the spirit of the requirement is not always honoured. It is quite important that a genuinely conscientious effort is made to contact the Member concerned, but, to be fair, the Secretary of State did start by saying, “I informed his office.” That may or may not be entirely satisfactory, but we will have to leave it there for now, because notwithstanding the hon. Gentleman’s considerable perturbation about what he regards as late notification, other hon. Members are now waiting to ask their questions and will become very perturbed if they do not have the chance to do so.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 1st February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Poor old George Osborne, not mentioned at all.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I was about to say that the hon. Gentleman chunters from a sedentary position, but he almost yells from a sedentary position his expression of sympathy for the former Chancellor of the Exchequer. I am sure the former Chancellor of the Exchequer will bear with stoicism and fortitude not being directly referenced by the representatives of the Treasury Bench.

Business of the House

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 1st February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you so much, Mr Speaker. You took me by surprise. In the old and less enlightened days when I was at primary school, we could have a good old pinch and a punch for the first day of the month—

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 4th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The simple nod—in fact, two nods of the head in unison by the Secretary of State and the Housing Minister—suggest that that is the gravamen of the matter. I am bound to say that it would be preferable, if such announcements are intended, for them to be worked into Question Time in some way, not by elongated replies, but by responding at topicals. What has happened is arguably irritating to colleagues, but it is not demonstrably disorderly. We will leave it there for now, but the shadow Secretary of State has made his point with his customary force and alacrity.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the nods appear in Hansard?

[Mr Speaker]

I do not know whether the nods will appear in Hansard. There will be no graphic images, but reference to the nods will appear. I hope that that satisfies the insatiable curiosity of the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman).

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 30th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister might know that I have probably done more miles on the east coast line than any other Member of this House. May I tell him, with that experience, that it is chaos again on the east coast? Stagecoach is being let off the obligation to pay the full money it should be paying to the British Exchequer. Yet again, the east coast line is in a mess, and he is doing nothing about it.

[Mr Speaker]

I am very glad that the hon. Gentleman has already recovered from his obvious misery at Arsenal’s demolition of his team by five goals to nil last night.

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 28th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

That is perfectly reasonable. I have known the right hon. Gentleman long enough to know that he has a fertile mind and likes to explore all possible avenues. I hope that he will forgive me for resorting to my usual response to what I regard as a hypothetical question, which is to pray in aid the wisdom of the late Lord Whitelaw, who was known to observe, on I think more than one occasion, “Personally, I prefer to cross bridges only when I come to them.” That is probably the safest course in virtually every sense.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Finally, I hope, I call Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Sheerman]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. This discussion goes to the very heart of how Select Committees operate. May I say, as someone who chaired a Select Committee for 10 years, that there is long-established precedent for the Chair of a Select Committee being able to receive a highly sensitive document on their own, in private, and deal with it sensibly and in a public-spirited way? There is a long tradition of that, particularly in very sensitive inquiries concerning children and education. Why that cannot apply at some stage in this case, I do not know.

[Mr Speaker]

That is a very helpful piece of information from an extremely experienced former Select Committee Chair. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman; the House will have heard what he had to say.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

When I was a little boy, my grandmother used to say, “Shame the devil and tell the truth.” When will this Secretary of State tell the truth? He has been, with his colleagues, going around the world begging for a trade deal and everyone is telling him, “We want to trade with the European Union, a much bigger trading group.”

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Just to be absolutely clear, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not suggest that the Secretary of State would ever tell an untruth in this House.

[Mr Sheerman]

Absolutely not, and I did not mean to imply that he would. I thought the House would like to know what my grandmother used to say to me about the importance of veracity.

[Mr Speaker]

No further explanation is required. We are immensely interested in the hon. Gentleman’s grandmother, and his ruminations on that matter will doubtless be found in his memoirs, which will be deposited in the Library and we can consult in the long winter evenings that lie ahead.

Student Loans Company

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 20th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The Minister is not known as a considerable boffin for nothing.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister mentioned denigration, but no Opposition Member would denigrate the Student Loans Company. In fact, the SLC has offered a good service to many students and parents. If we compare it with our commercial banking sector, in which so many people should have gone to prison, the SLC has done very well indeed. Is there some secret agenda here? This Government are about to sell off £4 billion of student loans, and who is leading that consortium? It is British banks led by Barclays.

Business of the House

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 16th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Can I urge the Leader of the House to take more seriously what the Prime Minister said this week about Russian interference in our democratic processes—not just here but right across Europe—not just in terms of social media but in money flowing here, both in the referendum campaign and in our general election? We have not had any motion in this House on that subject—no Select Committee, and our Intelligence and Security Committee is only announced today. Can we not get on with it—scrutinise, bring the spooks in, GCHQ, get some answers?

[Mr Speaker]

I could not keep up with the hon. Gentleman, but I reckon there were at least six sentences there. I would remind colleagues that I was appealing for single-sentence questions, preferably without lots of semi-colons.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 14th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

T8. If the Health Secretary does visit Huddersfield and Dewsbury, can I join the party? [Interruption.] I will not spoil his visit. I would like him to meet our local vice-chancellor, who would be very interested in having a teaching hospital in Huddersfield if the money were available to start one up. Will the Secretary of State meet my vice-chancellor when he comes to Dewsbury and Huddersfield?

[Mr Speaker]

I met the fellow on 24 June last year. He is a splendid chap.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I urge the Secretary of State to say something to leading engineering businesses and the University of Huddersfield where we are doing a lot of research on autonomous vehicles, because they might have listened to “Today” on Radio 4 this morning and heard another Secretary of State using a mysterious kind of language. He was talking about “a new post-Brexit trade policy” and “a new trade remedies body”—what is a new trade remedies body?

[Mr Speaker]

I do not care what a new trade remedies body is. All I am concerned about is autonomous vehicles—electric or otherwise. Let us hear about the matter.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 6th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

There is a lot of nodding and shaking of the Huddersfield head, but let us hear the words out of the mouth of the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I tried for many years when the Minister was on my Select Committee to get him to be more pragmatic and less ideological about these things. On this day of all days—the 25th anniversary of Ofsted—will he talk to Ofsted about what is going on? We are silo-ing so many young people in further-education colleges up and down the country. They cannot get on with their lives and cannot get on to apprenticeships because they cannot get a GCSE in English and maths.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 23rd October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman has a look of statesmanlike gravity on his face. I am keen to know the source.

[Mr Sheerman]

I am very worried about the complacency in the Minister’s answers. Why is it that Crisis and so many other charities that work with homeless people and people who are sleeping rough find that a huge percentage of them are ex-military personnel? What are we doing about it?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 19th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman has gone way off the road, he really has.

[Mr Sheerman]

I did mention Shipley.

[Mr Speaker]

He mentioned Shipley but it is not sufficient simply to animadvert on Shipley. The question ought to relate to the matter.[Interruption.] Which is a bypass, as somebody has observed, very originally and wittily from a sedentary position.

Higher Education (England) Regulations

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Wednesday 13th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I think what most of us taking part in this debate want is the right balance. I was the Chair of the Education and Skills Select Committee when we introduced the £3,000 fees, and the balance then was between what the employers paid, what the individual who benefited paid, what the taxpayer paid and the good to the community. The problem is that the cost has been ratcheted up to £9,000 with an unacceptable level of interest. Is it not time we had some moderation and a balance that is fair to students?

[Mr Speaker]

We are grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his speech.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 11th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Surely the Minister realises that, while it is true that the summer-born question is difficult and complex, it must be linked with a terrible stain on our education policy: the fact that little children who have been identified as bright up to the age of 11 are lost to the education system post-11. What is going on with the failed policies of a Government who cannot help kids who are bright at 11 and who disappear afterwards?

[Mr Speaker]

I thought that the hon. Gentleman had been born in August. He has done all right.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It all sounds very exciting, I must say.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Minister ever worry that the country looks like investing £100 billion in High Speed 2, which will open at the earliest in 2033, but that, by that time, we will be able to use our phone to call to our home a driverless Uber-type vehicle powered by electricity that can take us anywhere in the country? Is that £100 billion not wasted money?

Terror Attacks

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 22nd June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is a balance of obligations today. On the one hand, I am keen to accommodate the extensive interest in this matter. On the other hand, I should advise the House that the business statement follows, in which there is usually interest, and that no fewer than 29 colleagues wish to speak in this afternoon’s debate on the Gracious Speech, of whom five are would-be maiden speakers. I would like to accommodate them, so brevity is imperative.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

First, I have one bit of advice for the Home Secretary: please be very careful about language. Many people feel alienated by talk of “stamping out” and “enough is enough”.

Secondly, will there be just one commission? As a west Yorkshire MP, a neighbour of Jo Cox’s constituency and as part of a brilliant group of hard-working MPs who work with their communities, I know that Muslim communities are absolutely disgusted by these terrorist outrages. Could we have local commissions up and down the country that work together? There will be one national commission, but having local ones would be a great advantage.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 27th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Minister stop reading his brief and speak from the heart? I have two sets of workers in Huddersfield. Many people work in financial services for Lloyds, and their jobs are in peril. I also have a large number of people who work in the national health service, and the Government are doing nothing to stop the cruel closure of the Huddersfield infirmary. Will the Minister do something about my financial sector workers and my health workers, with the EU catastrophe arriving soon?

[Mr Speaker]

My counsel would be to stick to the financial services industry.

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 27th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

rose—

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

A specialist delicacy must be kept until a bit later.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order. If when she says, “What can he do,” she means me, I must be honest with her and say that I can do absolutely nothing to assist her in the course of the election campaign, for the simple reason—this is an inescapable fact and always has been—that when the House has been dissolved, the House does not meet. When the House does not meet, there is no Speaker in the Chair and there are no exchanges on these green Benches. However, the documents to which she refers are, or when they are published will be, public documents, so she will be able to study them carefully, marshal her arguments and write to Ministers. If she wishes to expatiate on these important matters in her constituency, it is perfectly open to her to do so—and I have a feeling she probably will.

[Mr Sheerman]

rose—

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

I think that I must take the hon. Gentleman now, as he is looking pained.

[Mr Sheerman]

I am actually very happy. On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In all my years in this House, I have never heard of a case of bullying in this House of one Member by another, but I have just heard of such a case. The House will not be sitting for some time now, but you will be here, and I am sure that you would not approve of one Member acting in a bullying way toward another in the environs of this House. This case is shameful. I am not going to name names, but it involves a male Government Member and an Opposition female Member. I do not want an inquiry on it, but I do want a set of rules that state that verbal or any other sort of bullying of one Member by another is not allowed in this House or anywhere in its environs.

[Mr Speaker]

There is a code of conduct, which binds all Members. I manifestly cannot comment on a particular case, not least because the hon. Gentleman has not given and would not give me—and I would not ask him to give me—the details. But the principle that the code of conduct must be observed is sacrosanct, and if he does know—I am sure he does, by definition—of the personalities involved, it may be that, as he is extremely experienced, he can remind Members of that code of conduct.

[Mr Sheerman]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. This was so serious that Whips on both sides of the House were involved, so I am sure you could make the inquiries to find out the facts of the matter.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 20th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I rather thought that the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) was posing a supplementary to Question 1, which was the basis upon which I called her. Never mind; it is not a great sin.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

I have a feeling that the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) has an insatiable appetite, and there is no change there.

[Mr Sheerman]

Thank you for that compliment, Mr Speaker.

Is the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) aware of the real challenge, which has been brought to my attention by the excellent team at Huddersfield royal infirmary, that it is rare cancers that are the problem because they are very expensive to develop drugs for? There is a special case to be made for the treatment of and supply of drugs for these rare cancers. Is the hon. Gentleman aware of that minority group?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 13th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I push the Secretary of State to tell the House what the Americans are saying about what size NATO should be? That is about not just the percentage of GDP, but how big NATO should be, how that compares with the strength of the Russians, and what we would do if the Russians invaded across some of the countries of Europe.

[Mr Speaker]

There were three questions, to be responded to with the legendary pithiness of the Secretary of State.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 2nd March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I hope the Hansard text of the right hon. Lady’s reply to the hon. Gentleman will be posted on the church door. That would seem only fitting.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the right hon. Lady also bear in mind not only exhibitions, but new music? Will she look at a work performed at Peterborough cathedral only a few days ago, “Even You Song”, with a wonderful new libretto by someone called Dr Lucy Sheerman?

[Dame Caroline Spelman]

I am very impressed to hear about that. When one looks through the list of the exhibitions that are being held in cathedrals up and down the country, one cannot fail to be impressed by the range and depth. May I commend to hon. Members an exhibition about refugees at Southwark cathedral, a mere short step from the House, should they require some respite from the labours of the House and its debates? This is a very current topic, and I commend it to the House.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 21st February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I think the Foreign Secretary’s brother probably told him that.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Could we have a note of honesty in terms of an assessment of the nasty little hard Brexit campaign? Will the Foreign Secretary, instead of insulting the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, as he did last week, take seriously the danger to this country of a hard Brexit? The people of this country did not sign a blank cheque, and they want a real vote on how good the deal is with Europe as we leave it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 7th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Has the Secretary of State actually been recently to a clinical commissioning group like ours in Huddersfield, where one more duty would really break the camel’s back? We have just heard that the CCG is changing its constitution, excluding GPs and totally changing the nature of the CCG. Like most of them, our CCG is under-resourced and under stress, and asking it to do something else like this, which will be complex, difficult and perhaps impossible, will kill the poor bloody animal.

[Mr Speaker]

With reference to foreign nationals, and including a question mark at the end of the hon. Gentleman’s observations.

Housing White Paper

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 7th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. On my reckoning, at least 60 colleagues are still seeking to catch my eye. It will be almost impossible to accommodate them all, but I will be helped if people can confine themselves to asking one-sentence questions without preamble, and if the Secretary of State can continue to make his pithy replies. On the matter of simple, one-sentence questions, I call Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The big lie at the heart of our housing policy is that we can create new houses on brownfield land. All the research shows that the brownfield land that is good for building has already been used. The fact is that we have to build on greenfield land to give people the chance of having a decent home. Why does the Secretary of State not have the courage to build on greenfield land?

[Sajid Javid]

A colourful one-sentence question, Mr Speaker. I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. Take Madrid, for example, where the housing density is more than four times that of London. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has been to Madrid, but he would find that it is a perfectly beautiful, well-designed city that shows what can be done with density.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 31st January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister surely knows that all kinds of alternative energy, including tidal power, need good recruits; they need trainees and, indeed, apprentices. Is he not hanging his head in shame this morning because of the report of the highly respected Institute for Fiscal Studies which says that this Government’s apprenticeship programme is a disaster and should be ripped up and started again? When is he going to get real?

[Mr Speaker]

But purely in relation to tidal lagoons; we are not talking about apprenticeships more widely or seeking to shoehorn a personal interest into a question to which it does not ordinarily apply. But the Minister is a philosopher and dextrous to a fault, so I am sure he will cope.

Business of the House

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 19th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I gently make the point that the Emirates is a very, very, very special place in London.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

It seems appropriate, Mr Speaker, that today we have not only an amazing exhibition of photographs in the Attlee Room on Syria and Aleppo by William Wintercross, a brilliant photographer—I hope people will be able to see it—but a debate on Holocaust Memorial Day. May we also, on this special day, think about having a debate on a report that came out, I believe, in July 2008—it was called the Bercow report—on children and young people? Owing to cuts to local government up and down this country, young people are in dreadful danger, because child protection is becoming very difficult to maintain. May we have a debate on the Bercow report so that we can see what progress has been made since those good recommendations?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 17th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Oh, we had better get the fellow in; otherwise he will be very unhappy. I do not like to see the hon. Gentleman unhappy. I call Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

As someone who chairs a national charity based in Peterborough, and also as the Member of Parliament for Huddersfield, may I back the people who have been saying not only that we need a more diverse housing market and better provision, but that the future must be lower-cost housing and off-site construction, and to a highly sustainable standard?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 20th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

We are all in favour of evidence-based medicine. We are also in favour of decent resources for the national health service but, in the case of Huddersfield and Calderdale hospitals, what we want is good, high-quality management, rather than GPs being promoted to a managerial position that they cannot handle.

[Mr Speaker]

In relation to evidence-based medicine.

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 8th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. The short answer to him is that if a Minister wished to make an oral statement to the House, I would have received notification of that intention by now. Therefore, there is no reason to suppose that a Minister is looking to make a statement to the House today. I am familiar with the issue to which the hon. Gentleman alludes. It would not be proper for me to enter into a debate about it. I note the particular facts that he places on the record, but I am aware of counter arguments to which Ministers subscribe. It is only fair to point out that this matter has been the subject of discussion over a considerable period; in other words, it has not suddenly arisen now. It does not seem likely that it will be treated of today by anyone other than the hon. Gentleman, but he has used the parliamentary mechanism open to him to register his concern. Doubtless, given that he is a tenacious terrier, he will return to the subject after he has rested himself.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

He could get another signature.

[Mr Speaker]

He may, indeed, attract further signatures in the process, as the hon. Gentleman helpfully observes from a sedentary position.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 3rd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

What a fortunate and apparently prosperous fellow the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) is! We are always pleased to get a bit of additional information.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The “Lonely Planet” guide must be in a galaxy far, far away if it does not mention Yorkshire. We in Yorkshire demand a greater share of all the people who come here. Too many tourists come to London but do not go beyond it. When are we going to get the balance right?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 31st October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I must say to the Minister, who is a very forgiving soul, that gratitude to the hon. Member for Bassetlaw is not always a commodity in plentiful supply.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

14. What steps she is taking to ensure that vulnerable people are given adequate protection when facing extradition orders.

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 17th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving me notice of her point of order. Moreover, I understand her concern if the veracity of what she volunteered in good faith to the House has subsequently been called into question. Specifically, she asks me what recourse she has in these circumstances. In response, I make a number of points. First, if anybody was seeking to intimidate the hon. Lady as she goes about her parliamentary business, any such attempt has manifestly failed. Moreover, on the basis of my knowing her for the past 17 months, it seems entirely obvious that any such attempt would be doomed to fail. The sooner that point becomes clear to everyone outside the Chamber as well as within it, the better.

Secondly, I think that the hon. Lady has found her own salvation in that she has taken this opportunity to raise a point of order with me on the Floor of the Chamber in which she has registered her discontent as well as putting the record straight in terms that appear to brook no contradiction. If she thinks that any further clarification or airing of the issue is required, various parliamentary avenues are open to her, and I do not doubt that she will pursue them with that combination of forensic precision and terrier-like tenacity for which she has become renowned in all parts of the House.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Let’s get Richard Branson in here.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) for his sedentary contribution to our proceedings, helpful as it was.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 13th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Minister help the leading manufacturer of laser pens, which is situated in my constituency? The company is—or was—a great supporter of the northern powerhouse and will be attending Thursday’s big conference in Yorkshire on innovation and creativity, supported by the all-party parliamentary group on Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire. It wants to know why Lord O’Neill was suddenly pulled as a speaker with no substitute offered. We hear that the Government will have nothing to do with elected mayors or the northern powerhouse. What is the situation now?

[Mr Speaker]

In relation to laser pens, rather than the speaking engagements or otherwise of Lord O’Neill.

[Mr Sheerman]

I mentioned laser pens.

[Mr Hurd]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his ingenuity in asking a question that he was frustrated about not getting answered previously. I reject absolutely any suggestion that the Government have lost any commitment to the northern powerhouse. As for the specifics of speaking engagements, if he would like to speak to me afterwards, I can try to throw some light on the matter.

Point of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 13th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have been contacted by leading business people up and down the country regarding the efficiency and effectiveness of Members of this House. There are informal ratings of how hard parliamentarians work, but there is no official kitemark. I wonder whether you could investigate whether we could look at which Members are fat or lazy and which ones are hard-working and innovative. Is it not about time we looked at Members—some of them in the leafy suburbs and leafy parts of Britain—who do not have much casework? They do not do very much—of course, we know that. Those in the towns and cities work much harder. Could we have an evaluation of who works hard in this House and a kitemark showing that to our constituents?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his suggestion through the device of a point of order. I ought, first of all, to say that there is nothing wrong with being fat—at any rate, it is certainly not for the Chair to pass judgment on these matters, and I would get into hot water, and very properly so, if I were to start casting aspersions on body shape. I will simply say, although I am sure the hon. Gentleman was not seeking my approbation, and he has no need of it, that he himself is slim, assiduous and endlessly energetic, as his continued re-election by the people of Huddersfield for the last 37 years, I think, readily testifies. At any rate, he appears to enjoy their enthusiastic approval. We will leave it there for now.

Bill Presented

Laser Pens (Regulation of Sale, Ownership and Usage) Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Rehman Chishti, supported by Maggie Throup, Mr Nigel Dodds and Martin Vickers, presented a Bill to make the sale, ownership and use of portable laser emitting devices with output power of more than 1 milliwatt unlawful in certain circumstances; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 2 December, and to be printed (Bill 64).

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 28th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I was led to believe that the Labour Front-Bench team was requesting a statement on this morning’s further chaos around HS2—both its preparedness and the resources it is sucking up from our economy. Did you receive any application for a statement on HS2? We have the Business Secretary here today. Does he not realise that British industry, which is in chaos and reeling from Brexit, wants to see HS2 stopped now before it sucks up all those resources?

[Mr Speaker]

I certainly would not discuss on the Floor of the House applications for urgent questions—as colleagues will understand, it is a long-standing convention that those matters are not the subject of exchanges on the Floor—but I can say to the hon. Gentleman that I have received no indication from any Minister of an intention to make a statement on HS2. He will know that I am very conscious of requests from Ministers to make statements, and never would I be more likely to be aware of such an intention than in relation to HS2, but there has been no such notification of intent to my office to date.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 7th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is the Minister aware that Huddersfield and Yorkshire are already a northern powerhouse in terms of manufacturing and the quality of partnership with universities? Is she aware that my universities in Yorkshire and the manufacturing sector are terrified that we will leave the European Union? It will bankrupt the universities and the manufacturing sector.

[Mr Speaker]

Did we get a reference to exports? I am sure that the hon. Gentleman meant to mention it.

[Mr Sheerman]

We have great exporters as well.

[Mr Speaker]

Well done.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 6th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

That is slightly misleading, because only 7% of local authorities think the new starter homes initiative is any good and 60% think it will be useless in their area. Is that not a fact? Look at this all-male, middle-aged group on the Government Front Bench who are saying to young people in our country, “There’s no hope of a home—not in their lifetime.”

[Mr Speaker]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman intended to insert the word “inadvertently” before the word “misleading”.

[Mr Sheerman]

indicated assent.

Removal of Foreign National Offenders and EU Prisoners

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 6th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

That was a bit cheeky of the hon. Gentleman. He will have an opportunity to dilate in due course, but in the first instance, he should stick to the terms of the question—and the puckish grin on his face shows that he knows he has gone a bit beyond the boundary.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Lock him up. [Laughter.]

[Mr Speaker]

He certainly should not be locked up!

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 19th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. No! The hon. Gentleman is very, very wide of the question. I have great respect for him. He has put his thoughts on the record, but they have absolutely nothing to do with the question on the Order Paper, to which the Chief Secretary will not therefore reply.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I press the Minister? He cannot just hide behind what he claims to be happening in all advanced economies. We are performing worse than most, particularly France. Is the reason for that not to do with the lack of skills of our workers and the lack of good education in our country? Will the Chancellor’s silly policy on forced academisation help or hinder?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 4th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The Secretary of State has made the hon. Gentleman’s day, possibly his month and conceivably his year.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

To hit a more serious note, after that interesting and humorous exchange, may I say to the Secretary of State that to produce great British food, we need great British technology? The news yesterday that Syngenta, our leading European food innovator, which produces wonderful technology and innovation and has a large plant in my constituency, is to be taken over by ChemChina means that overnight the European capacity for innovation in food technology and much else will be wiped out. Should the House not debate that very seriously before it goes through?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The east midlands have also been accommodated, as colleagues will have noticed.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

12. What steps he is taking to support start-up manufacturing businesses.

NHS Trusts: Finances

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 1st February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I say to the Minister in all friendliness that I hope the region is aware of his upcoming tour. It sounds a most exciting prospect.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Minister think carefully about what has happened up and down the country? Health trusts such as mine in Calderdale and Huddersfield have run successfully for many years, but recently—I think this is something to do with the destabilisation of clinical commissioning groups—many problems have entered into the general life of those trusts. In Huddersfield we do not want the closure of A&E in our hospital, or the closure of the main hospital and its replacement by a much smaller one. Will the Minister look carefully and forensically at what has happened in the Huddersfield and Calderdale area? It is not just the whipping boy of the unfortunate independent financial arrangement that was negotiated under John Major but signed under Tony Blair.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 28th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Mr Speaker, may I quickly associate myself with the generous tribute you paid to those great servants of the House, but point out that you seemed to omit the time and date of the lavish retirement party you are putting on for them?

May I say to the rail Ministers that they have challenged us to speak to the facts? According to the BBC, the facts are that the trans-Pennine electrification is in severe doubt because of what is happening in the south, where electrification is four years late. New trains are arriving before the rails are ready and they are parking them up in sidings.

[Mr Speaker]

I am not sure the hon. Gentleman will be on the party invitation list with a question that length.

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 26th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order and for giving me notice of it. It appears that he has received a most unsatisfactory response from the Government to his written question and to his correspondence on a matter which is clearly of urgent interest to his constituents. Although it is for the Government to decide which Department has lead responsibility for a matter, it is clearly important to parliamentary scrutiny and to public accountability that the Government are clear and consistent on where responsibility lies. What the hon. Gentleman said will have been heard on the Treasury Bench and will, I trust, be conveyed to the relevant Ministers. If he wishes to pursue the specific matter of the unsatisfactory response to his parliamentary question, he may wish to write to the Chair of the Procedure Committee, the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), because his Committee monitors these important matters. I hope that that will serve the hon. Gentleman for now and be a useful guide to Members across the House.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. This is a point of order about the rights of Back Benchers to be heard in this Chamber. You will know that some of us are very good attenders at business questions on Thursdays. Last Thursday, contributions from the Front Benches took 25 minutes. I know you are very generous and we carry on with our questions, but the predominance of all three Front Benches went on for a very long time, which squeezes the genuine Back Bencher. On the Labour Benches, we genuine Back Benchers are fighting for space all the time against the Front Benchers who are also Back Benchers part-time. Perhaps you could have a word. Also, I have never known such nasty, acrimonious jousting as there was between the two Front Benches last Thursday. It was not funny and it was not nice.

[Mr Speaker]

I note what the hon. Gentleman says about never having witnessed such unpleasantness in exchanges. I have never witnessed, in nearly 19 years in the House, the hon. Gentleman being squeezed by anybody; he almost invariably gets in. However, I take on board the very serious point he makes. Although I do not think that in the end Members are squeezed if they have the time to stay, because the record shows that I almost invariably let business questions run until everybody has had a chance to contribute, which was not always the practice in the past, I do accept that Members have time constraints and might have to go elsewhere to attend to other duties, including, of course, constituency and parliamentary duties. It is therefore important that they should not have to wait an excessive period of time.

My own view is similar to that of the hon. Gentleman. I think that the exchanges between the Front Benches do take too long, and they have recently started to take longer, not only on account of the involvement of the Scottish National party, which is a very legitimate and proper involvement, but because the exchanges between the Government and the official Opposition Front Benches are taking too long. Front Benchers have now been duly chided, and not just from the Chair, but, very importantly, by an hon. Member who will in May have had 37 years’ uninterrupted service in the House—namely, the hon. Gentleman. I hope that message will be duly heeded, starting this Thursday. I will have the point in mind as I hear the shadow Leader of the House and the Leader of the House. I hope that is helpful.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 19th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Of course, as colleagues know, the fact that a question has been asked does not stop others asking the same question. Repetition is not a novel phenomenon in the House of Commons.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Chancellor ponder the fact that we still have not tackled productivity? May I guide him and ask him and his Department to look at the way in which we further invest in manufacturing skills? Surely he will agree that what we want in this country are high skilled, high paid jobs, which are to be found in manufacturing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 10th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Huddersfield is a long way from the south-east, but the hon. Gentleman will ask a question that I know will be exclusively focused, like a laser, on the south-east.

[Mr Sheerman]

A bit like many Members of Parliament, when I am here in London and the south-east, I use Southern rail, and I will be very pleased if it is to be improved. None of us begrudges that investment, but we do put it into perspective, which is that we are not getting enough infrastructure investment in the north, linking the big towns and cities. It must be north first and south second.

[Claire Perry]

The hon. Gentleman is a good friend, and I would hate to suggest that he was snoozing yesterday rather than watching the news, because we announced a transformational package for railways in the north. Let me tell him what is happening in Huddersfield: new TransPennine trains; new services between major cities; three new stations; 500 new carriages across the network; an end to those hated Pacers forever; and on-board improvements for passengers. He might shake his head, but it will happen. He can say bye-bye to the Pacers from 2019. This Government are absolutely determined that the northern powerhouse comes to life based on transport investment, and I am so proud that we are the Government who are delivering.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 7th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

On the whole, because the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) is dextrous, he was just about within order, but I counsel colleagues that they should take great care, as a general principle, not to shoehorn their personal preoccupations into questions to which they do not obviously relate.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

That’s the only thing he does!

[Mr Speaker]

No, no; he is a very versatile fellow in all manner of means.

School Expansion

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 19th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I do not want to get into the tribal politics we always get into as soon as grammar schools are mentioned. [Interruption.] No, I am not going to get into it. I have a new declaration of interest to make, because I am now chair of the advisory committee of the Sutton Trust, and I will take that responsibility very seriously. I must say, however, that our education policy is a rag, tag and bobtail mess, because different Governments under different parties have made it a fragmented mess. Is it not time we got back to the spirit of the Education Act 1944 and asked, cross-party, “What are the great challenges in our country?” The great challenge is not the brightest kids but the poorest kids, who, especially in Kent, do not have a fair crack at using their talents to the full and getting good qualifications and a good job.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman should apply for an Adjournment debate, but then, on reflection, I think he has already had it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 15th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I have missed the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman). It is good to have him back.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

A constituent of mine who is a very competent manager recently did jury service. He said the court system was medieval and it was about time someone came in and organised it better, managed it better and gave a real return to the taxpayer, with better justice delivered quickly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 7th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Last but not least, Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

When will the Minister do more for parents whose children are on the autism scale?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 2nd July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Splendid fellow!

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Solicitor General may know of my long-term interest in this matter. We all want a Serious Fraud Office that is fit for purpose; this Serious Fraud Office is not. We go back to the catastrophe that was the daft prosecution and dawn arrest of the Tchenguiz brothers. As he knows, if we have a weak SFO, it relies on accountants, such as Grant Thornton. That is not a healthy relationship for the SFO.

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. It concerns yesterday’s business. Some of us were very concerned about the mixed nature of the Prime Minister’s statement. Many of us thought that two separate statements would have been more appropriate. Did you take that into consideration, Mr Speaker, when the Prime Minister made his request to make a statement? Some of us found it very awkward that a tragedy—a deeply felt tragedy—was mixed up with a report from a European meeting that the Prime Minister had attended. They did not seem to us to sit well together.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who is a very experienced Member of the House. The short answer is that it was entirely a matter for the Prime Minister. Let me add—just to put the matter in context, and so that the hon. Gentleman is not misled—that it would always be a matter for the Minister in question, whether that Minister be the Prime Minister or any other Minister. I note what the hon. Gentleman has said, and it should be heard on the Treasury Bench, but it is still a matter for Ministers to decide.

In the circumstances—and I think that the Prime Minister had very good intentions in seeking to address the House on both subjects, even if the hon. Gentleman did not think it was the right way to go about things—I thought that my role was to try to maximise the number of contributors, bearing in mind that some Members would want to raise the atrocious events in Tunisia, while others would be more focused on the matters appertaining to the European Union.

The hon. Gentleman is very experienced, and I think he will testify that exchanges on statements nowadays tend to last somewhat longer. My own view is that the interests of the House, rather than the convenience of a Minister, should come first. I know that that does not altogether meet the hon. Gentleman’s concerns, but he has put them on the record, so let us see how matters progress. He may find that, as he is somewhat of a sage, his counsel will be heeded in future.

I think that the point of order appetite has been satisfied. The Clerk will now proceed to read the Orders of the Day.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 29th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Mr Graham Jones—not here. I call Richard Burden—not here.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

But Mr Sheerman, you are here.

[Mr Sheerman]

And I have been here since prayers, Mr Speaker, so I have been very patient.

The Secretary of State knows from the migration figures that more and more people want to come and live in this wonderful country, and he knows that more and more people want affordable homes. Will he do something dramatic about building houses and will he stop his plan to sell off housing association stock, or does he want to turn our cities into ghettos, as the French have done with theirs?

Point of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 18th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I fear that the hon. Gentleman invests me with powers that I do not possess. I am not in the frogmarching business. There are procedures for bringing Ministers to the House with which the hon. Gentleman, as an experienced hand, is well familiar, and he can seek to deploy them if he thinks it appropriate. Whether a Minister makes a statement in the House today on the matter in question is a matter for the Minister. I heard the exchanges, and if the hon. Gentleman, who is a dextrous and versatile operator in this House, remains dissatisfied, he well knows that there are means by which he can continue to raise the matter on the Floor of the House.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Were you astonished, as I certainly was, when last week the Minister for Skills made an important statement about changing policy on apprenticeships in The Sun—not to this House, not in this Chamber? It was a real innovation in policy, but it was announced in The Sun. Is that right?

[Mr Speaker]

Very few things astonish me. I am not sighted on the matter and I want to let the hon. Gentleman down gently, but I am not invariably in the business of reading The Sun, so I have not seen the material so covered. If a Minister has erred, I hope that the Minister will make amends. If the hon. Gentleman, on the strength of his 36 years’ service in this House, continues next week to be dissatisfied, I have a feeling that both the Minister and the House will not be unaware of the fact. We will leave it there for now.

The Economy

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 4th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Sheerman]

Can I ask the Chancellor about—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman has been here for 36 years, and he ought to know that you do not pose the question before permission to make the intervention has been granted. I think the Chancellor has acceded to the intervention; let us now hear what it is.

[Mr Sheerman]

The right hon. Gentleman knows that I try to play fair in these things, but on his question about my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), I think a sense of humility is needed in this Chamber today. The Tory party has just got 30% of the popular vote; the Labour party got 31%. A hell of a lot of people in this country did not vote Conservative and did not vote Labour, and if we are not looking at why we do not enthuse the people, we are not doing our job.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 24th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It is no surprise that the previous career of the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) was as a Foreign Office diplomat. He is able to react to any situation, even when he is busily consulting his iPhone. We are deeply obliged to him.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

T9. I notice that the Deputy Prime Minister is responsible for building strategic relations with Europe. Given how weak our country is in Europe and NATO and how so many people compare this Prime Minister with Neville Chamberlain, is he proud of the job he has done promoting Britain in Europe?

Point of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 16th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. This is a sensitive point of order, but it affects all Members of Parliament. Traditionally, in my experience of the House, when a member of the royal family visits a constituency, the Member of Parliament is apprised of that fact. That became a convention, but it seems that with the proliferation of deputy lieutenants of counties—there are many of them these days—that protocol no longer holds. Will you hold conversations with whoever is in charge of these things to remind them that Members of Parliament expect to be told when a member of the royal family is visiting their patch?

[Mr Speaker]

I have heard what the hon. Gentleman has said. There is nothing new about that, but I put it on the record. I have heard the hon. Member for, and the voice of, Huddersfield. We will leave it there for today.

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 9th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am known to be a long-term champion of equality for women in our society and at work. During Question Time, only a few moments ago, I referred to the Minister for Employment, the right hon. Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey), as “hard-hearted Hannah”, which I think she thinks was a sexist remark. It was not meant as a sexist remark; it is actually the name of a famous song sung by Ella Fitzgerald. The Minister has a reputation for being a very hard champion of the welfare reforms that this Government have introduced, so I believe that it was a fair comment to make and that it was unfair to call me a sexist. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. All I need say is twofold. First, the hon. Gentleman has put his point on the record. Secondly, the way I would prefer to characterise it—I am not arguing with the hon. Gentleman—is that the Minister of State is an extremely robust character who can make her own case with force and skill, as she has done on several occasions today, and indeed at all times. If the Minister, who felt aggressed against and to an extent aggrieved, wishes to speak briefly on the matter, I would of course give her that opportunity.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 5th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Many stations in Yorkshire and the north will be affected by HS2. Has the Minister seen the startling information blogged this morning by Tom Edwards, the BBC transport correspondent, that evidence to the HS2 Committee suggests that hidden costs will raise the overall cost of the HS2 project from £50 billion to £138 billion? Are the Government misleading this country about just how much this folly of HS2 is going to cost?

[Mr Speaker]

I am not sure that what the hon. Gentleman said is as closely related to the terms of the question as he would have wanted, but the Minister is a dexterous character.

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 24th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Although I understand the considerable unhappiness that the hon. Lady might feel and that her constituent has experienced, it is not clear to me that this is a matter for the Chair. I say that in all sincerity—I have had modest advance notice of the matter, and it is not clear to me. The question of the letterhead is not a matter for the Chair; it may well have been judged proper in the circumstances to volunteer a view as to what a party to the coalition would intend for the future, rather than to purport to speak on the behalf of the coalition Government as a whole. In other words, it might be thought by some people to be a prudent judgment to answer on behalf of a party on party note paper, rather than on the part of a Government. That may be a matter of opinion.

I take what the hon. Lady says seriously, not least because she does not regularly raise points of order—certainly not frivolous ones that, believe it or not, some people are inclined to make. I therefore treat her with great seriousness. She will be with us, fortunately, in the House for a little while longer, and I feel sure that there will be an opportunity for her to air her concerns. She will look at the Order Paper and see what opportunities for questioning there are, and she will draw from her study the appropriate conclusion. Perhaps we can leave it there for now.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I hope you do not consider this frivolous. You gave me a very considered reply when I asked for guidance on the unique situation of having a fixed-term Parliament, and ministerial visits around the country. We have just had Health questions, where Ministers referred to visits to Members’ constituencies—to look at things, presumably. What guidance can you give me, Mr Speaker? We are seeing targeted ministerial visits in this long campaign, which are obviously purely political visits to prop up candidates in marginal seat. I do not mind, as I said in my previous point of order, if these are political visits and they are paid for by Conservative central office or whatever. What I object to are political visits by Ministers to marginal seats, such as those in west Yorkshire, being paid for by the taxpayer. Can you guide me as to whom I complain to, Mr Speaker?

[Mr Speaker]

The short answer to the hon. Gentleman, whom I thank for his point of order, is that if he thinks there has been an abuse of public funds, it is open to him to raise that matter with the National Audit Office. However, the question of Ministers’ visits is not, and very properly not, a matter for the Chair. The only point I would make is that Ministers must visit the Chamber in order to answer questions—that is a matter of course—and Ministers must visit the Chamber, at the instruction of the Speaker, to answer urgent questions, something that happens rather more now than in the past. Beyond that, the day-to-day activities of Ministers—where, when, for how long, or in whose interests they perambulate around the country—is, thankfully, not a matter for me.

[Mr Sheerman]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

I do want to come on to the ten-minute rule motion, but—[Interruption.] Unlike some people, who are tolerant of the sound of their own voices but spectacularly uninterested in those of others, I will hear the hon. Gentleman. If there are a few Members who do not like it, they will have to lump it.

[Mr Sheerman]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I do not want to make myself unpopular with anyone, but I would like guidance on a matter similar to that which I raised in a point of order two weeks ago: Ministers coming to constituencies and not telling the constituency MP. They are telling Government MPs, but not Opposition MPs. That is breaking a convention that this House has honoured for a very long time.

[Mr Speaker]

On that point the position is clear: it is a convention and not a rule. The convention should be honoured. What I have said many times in response to protests from Members on both sides of the House, as the hon. Gentleman knows, is that the spirit of the convention should be observed. What that means is that a Member should give decent notice to the person whose constituency he or she is intending to visit, of the fact of that prospective visit. That is pretty clear, but it ought not really to be necessary for it to be constantly aired on the Floor of the House. I think people outside this place attending to our proceedings, who are often very critical of the way in which we conduct ourselves, would expect that grown-ups could treat each other with courtesy and respect in this matter, and indeed, perhaps, in a good many others.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 12th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Sheerman]

You do not want to mention, Mr Speaker, that my second name is John, and when I was a young councillor with my first seat in Wales I went around with my full name of Barry John.

May I say to the Minister, “Not bad, but not good enough”? Why can we not have up front, “Manufacturing, manufacturing, manufacturing”? We need a commitment to that across the parties in this House. We have just launched a cross-party manufacturing commission. Will the Minister support it, will he do something about it, and will he come tonight to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ manufacturing conference and hear me speak?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

The moment has arrived.

[Mr Sheerman]

Is the Solicitor-General aware that those of us who for many years have been involved in such cases, and involved in the problem of runaway children particularly, are still concerned about the number and level of prosecutions of those people, and now of gangs organising human trafficking? When will we see results—more people apprehended, charged, convicted and in prison?

[Mr Speaker]

Even if the hon. Gentleman’s palate is not yet fully satisfied, I hope he feels he has now had his hors d’oeuvre for the day.

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 3rd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I think that the point of order raised by the hon. Lady stands on its own. She has made her point with force and alacrity and the reason for her scoff is well understood.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your guidance in uncharted territory. We have not had a fixed-term Parliament before and visits to constituencies by Ministers become much more sensitive in this clear run-up to an election. I heard at 5.38 pm last Thursday that the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions would visit Kirklees college in the heart of my constituency at 11 am the next day. If that was an official visit, it would have been a courtesy to tell me that he was coming so that I could perhaps have been there to welcome him. I understand that Colne Valley and Dewsbury are highly sensitive marginal seats nearby, but this was an official visit, presumably paid for by the taxpayer, in the run-up to an election that we know will be on 7 May. What is the status of such visits and should there not be the usual courtesy of telling a Member when a Minister is visiting their patch?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. He asks what is the status of such an arrangement. The short answer is that it is a convention; it is not a requirement of parliamentary procedure or of our Standing Orders. That said, I think it is very much to be preferred that the convention should be observed, as it is for the most part by Members on both sides of the House. Notification, by definition, must take place before the visit, but in order to comply with the spirit of the convention, it seems to me reasonable that Members should have adequate notice of, in particular, official visits, so that if they wish to be present, they have the chance to be so. I do not in any way diminish the significance of the hon. Gentleman’s point or of what I just said when I note that the honouring of that arrangement has frequently been as much in the breach as in the observance, and that, I think, is regrettable. It is not a point applied to one side rather than the other.

I know that in the past, long before I was elected to the Chair, visits were made to institutions within my own constituency of which I did not have what I regarded as anything like adequate notice in order to be able to decide whether I wished to be present. I appeal to colleagues to be considerate and solicitous in these matters, because a colleague who does not observe the convention is not only doing the wrong thing, but wholly disabling himself or herself from subsequently complaining if the convention is not honoured when his or her own constituency is affected. I think that deals with the matter.

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 26th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I was not aware of that, though far be it from me to dispute the assiduity of the hon. Gentleman. It was of course open to him and his Committee to have put that on the Order Paper. For whatever reason, it did not, but the hon. Gentleman, in prime time and with some alacrity, has now sought to remedy that deficiency.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Early in this very important anniversary year of Magna Carta, in which we celebrate the work of this parliamentary democracy, we still have time to pay attention to the many children who will come here to learn about this place and its history. When I was chair of the then Education and Skills Committee, we found that our wonderful free museums in London were largely attended by people from London and people who were rather better off. Can we make sure that this year that less privileged children get the chance to come here, and that we have people from the north of England as well as London and the south?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that point of order, but the short answer is that we already have a scheme, which is effectively a grant scheme or subsidy mechanism, that makes it less burdensome for school groups from areas of the country either a considerable distance from London or characterised by disadvantage to come here. That is already in place, and should we continue with such a scheme and perhaps even redouble our efforts in 2015—I think we should—I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, who is always young at heart, will be enthusiastic about the scope of the education centre when it is opened in the late spring or early summer. That centre, which will be a state-of-the-art facility charting the journey to rights and representation, will allow us to double the number of young people coming through this place. There are people on both sides of the House who strongly supported this, and it is something we can all unite in welcoming.

[Mr Sheerman]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

I am not sure there is anything further to say, but the hon. Gentleman has been here for 35 years and I have a feeling that if I do not let him come in, he will be badgering me for another 35 years.

[Mr Sheerman]

I certainly will, Mr Speaker; I have every intention in that direction. Could the subsidy, help and support that Members of Parliament get be circulated again to them, because many I talk to are not aware of the scheme?

Point of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 19th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Will you correct me if I have got this wrong? During last Thursday’s business statement, I did not hear the Leader of the House refer to a “Lords Spiritual (Women) Bill: Allocation of Time (Motion)”. Has there been a change over the weekend to how we describe a Bill?

[Mr Speaker]

No. There has been no change, but if the hon. Gentleman wishes to consult distinguished, bewigged advisers, he can do so. Reference was made to an allocation of time motion on Thursday; whether the precise formulation of words was as today is open to interpretation or memory.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

May we have a very brief question from Mr Barry Sheerman, and a very brief answer?

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I have encountered a case in which someone was bailed for even longer without being charged. That has ruined the lives of two people, and it has gone on and on. What is the longest period of bail without charge of which the Attorney-General is aware?

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. My simple advice to him is to use the opportunities open to him to air the matter. For example, although I can make no offer today and give no guarantee of immediate success, it is open to him, if he wants to joust on the matter with a Minister, to seek an Adjournment debate. It would be a highly pertinent topic for such a debate. He might want to reflect on that.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I hope this is a point of order. We discussed the Magna Carta this morning. Surely the House should take the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta seriously. How much opportunity will we have to discuss the Magna Carta and the need for a new Magna Carta, and to celebrate something that has been the basis of so many democracies throughout the world?

[Mr Speaker]

I can advise the hon. Gentleman that much is planned, but if I were to respond in detail to his point of order I would unfairly and unduly delay the right hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Sir Alan Duncan), who has been waiting patiently to move his ten-minute rule motion. What I can say is that a great deal will happen, there will be opportunities on the Floor of the House and, knowing the legendary indefatigability of the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), I feel sure that he will take his chance to be part of the process.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 16th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am a bit confused. We have had one Minister answering questions on behalf of the Conservatives and now another Minister answering on behalf of the Liberal Democrats. May I ask the right hon. Gentleman to answer this on behalf of the Government: have the Government looked at what the Public Accounts Committee said about the heavy reliance on a very small number of private sector contractors in justice, in health and anywhere they have been privatising our public services? Can we have more scrutiny? Can we have more information about who gets these contracts and how?

[Mr Speaker]

That question is to be put on this occasion only to the Ministry of Justice. Health issues are very important, but are for another day.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 11th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

What about the Baldry conservation trust?

[Mr Speaker]

We are not talking about the Baldry conservation trust, Mr Sheerman.

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 11th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Will you give the House some guidance? Quite rightly, there are certain barriers and hurdles that you put up before granting an urgent question, but in recent weeks I have noticed the increasing number of statements that the Government are making. What hurdles do the Government have to clear? Time after time, we find we do not have time for Bills and that the Government do not announce Bills or meetings at important conferences; instead, they make these pie-in-the-sky, “this is what we’re going to do about roads, rail, health” statements. It is not a genuine use of the House’s time. They are manipulating the timetable to promote policies for the next general election. What advice can you give the House?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order, because it is important to be clear about the constitutional position on these matters. Urgent questions are decided by the Speaker, and there are criteria that inform the decision, but the making of a statement by a Minister is a matter for the Minister; it is not within the purview of the Speaker. There is a courtesy that the Minister will tend to begin by saying, “With permission, Mr Speaker, I should like to make a statement on—”, but that, I emphasise, is a parliamentary courtesy. The decision to volunteer a statement is a decision for the Government. I think the gravamen of the hon. Gentleman’s complaint is that this is not a good use, in every case, of the House’s time. That, of course, is a matter of opinion, but it is one reason why many people have favoured the creation of a House business committee, to which I know the Government have long been committed, but which is yet to materialise—but I am sure it is only a matter of time.

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 9th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You are very concerned about good behaviour in this Chamber, but I think you share my view of the importance of good behaviour in Select Committees, too. Is it not time that we had some sort of rules on the use of electronic gizmos in Select Committees? Otherwise, the House of Commons will fall into disrepute if, during an important Work and Pensions Committee hearing, a Member of Parliament is seen to be playing electronic games. Could we make it clear that the use of electronic devices at certain times, both here and in Select Committees, is not appropriate?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order, the answer to which is as follows. There are rules on these matters. I think it is fair to say that it is quite within the competence, in the literal sense of that term, of the Chair of the Committee to take charge of the matter and to rule accordingly. Therefore the expression of legitimate interest by a Member of 35 years’ standing in the House is greatly appreciated, but I imagine that although the Chair of the Committee will be encouraged to enjoy the hon. Gentleman’s support, he or she is probably able to handle the matter without further assistance—but the point is on the record, and I thank him.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 4th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Sheerman]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The right hon. Gentleman is misleading the House about my tweets!

[Mr Speaker]

I think the hon. Gentleman can raise his point of order, to which we look forward with eager anticipation, later on. We are saving him up—that is what we are doing.

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 2nd December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am extremely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. My response is as follows. First, my distinct recollection is that the House has already decided on this matter. There is a reassuring nod of the head from the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) sitting on the Opposition Front Bench, which suggests that my recollection is correct. I am not sure, therefore, that that can easily be revisited, and certainly not impromptu by me from the Chair.

However, my second point to the right hon. Gentleman is that if he wishes to obtain a hard copy of the questions and answers, in accordance with his usual practice, he can obtain that from the Vote Office. That facility, although of course it could be extended to the right hon. Gentleman alone on grounds of his seniority and distinction, is in fact also an opportunity afforded to other right hon. and hon. Members.

I accept that these are matters of interpretation and opinion, but my last point would be that as far as the public are concerned I think the material is readily accessible and, arguably, as a result of this approach more accessible. Now, to judge by the rather sceptical expression on the right hon. Gentleman’s face, I fear I may have some way to go before persuading him of the merit of our approach. But what I am seeking to do—[Interruption.] Somebody chunters, slightly irreverently, from a sedentary position, “analogue”. In many respects, the right hon. Gentleman is modernity itself, not least in his original approach to sartorial elegance, but on these matters he does tend to be rather trad. I am trying, in a utilitarian spirit, on a Benthamite basis, to give the greatest satisfaction to the greatest number and I hope that we can do that. However, if the right hon. Gentleman is dissatisfied, I have a feeling that he will be beating a path to my door.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wonder whether you can give me some guidance. A young girl from my constituency has been tragically murdered in Cologne. There is no police investigation, although there is every evidence that her drink was spiked—she was poisoned. There has been no police investigation and no help for the family. There is not another Foreign Office Question Time for another month. Can you advise me on how I can raise this issue in the House?

[Mr Speaker]

The answer is twofold. First, the hon. Gentleman can write to a Foreign Office Minister, and he can be as confident of as speedy a reply these days, not least on the grounds of his seniority and persistence, as can his right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman). Secondly, as the hon. Gentleman knows, he has effectively raised his point, through the ruse of the use and—some would say—the rather gentle abuse of the point of order procedure. Foreign Office Ministers will have heard his utterance, and let it never be said that he and the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton are not heard in this House; I think we will all agree they are heard with appropriate regularity.

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 24th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I hope he will understand if I do not wish to intrude into what is becoming a protracted debate between him and the shadow Health Secretary, who responded by e-mail to the hon. Gentleman at 1.46 pm and 23 seconds today. I just have a sense that there is an ongoing debate and dispute between the two of them and it would be unseemly for me to intrude in that continuing argument. We will leave it there.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I hope that you will not consider this a “Stupid boy” point of order, but something on which you can give me some advice. Fairly recently, I have noticed more and more references made to right hon. and gallant or hon. and gallant Members, and I have tried to find out who is and who is not gallant. I served in the cadet force at school, but I am told that even if a Member without a commission—an ordinary soldier—had won the Victoria Cross, he would still not be called “gallant” because it applies only to officers. Will you clear up who is and who is not gallant in that sense?

[Mr Speaker]

There is no difference between commissioned and non-commissioned for this purpose. Beyond that, I would tell the hon. Gentleman, to whom I would never intend any discourtesy, that the decision whether to use the term—the newly appointed Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier), chooses to do so—is purely a matter of taste. If memory serves, the former Minister, the right hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Mr Robathan), was himself partial to using the term, and I think it has been used in relation to him as well. It is a matter of parliamentary taste. I am sure that we all intend to show good taste to the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), as he is now in his 35th year of parliamentary service.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 27th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

There is probably a picture of the right hon. Gentleman on the wall of the school—as there is, in my experience, in most restaurants around the United Kingdom.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 23rd October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your view on the role of the Leader of the House. Last week, I thought the Leader of the House assured me that there would be an opportunity to discuss the Ebola crisis in Africa. What can we do if the Leader of the House gives an assurance and then does not follow it through. Do you have a role in this, Mr Speaker?

[Mr Speaker]

I am not aware of any breach of undertaking. I respond cautiously because the hon. Gentleman presumably has a specific instance in mind. He recalls a commitment that he thinks was made, but I am not aware that there has been a breach. I would say two things. First, in my experience the Leader of the House—I have known the right hon. Gentleman for 20 years—has always been a person of his word who treats this House with the utmost respect. Secondly, the hon. Gentleman has been here for 35 years, and if there is a feeling of unhappiness on his part, I am sure he can talk to the Leader of the House. As to whether I regularly talk to the Leader of the House, of course I do, and I am quite happy to have a chat with him about this. Because the hon. Gentleman has been here 35 years, as I say, I will allow him a follow-up, but we must then move on.

[Mr Sheerman]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

May I just compliment the hon. Gentleman on his bright and enlivening tie?

[Mr Sheerman]

It is the only one I could find in my office this morning. Someone from the Green campaign gave it to me, as you can see.

What ability do you have, Mr Speaker, if the Leader of the House makes a commitment at any time and does not follow it through? I asked last week about the Ebola crisis and feel passionately that we seem to be ignoring it in the House. I thought we had a commitment. Do you have a role in chasing the Leader of the House on this?

[The First Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr William Hague)]

rose—

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Wednesday 10th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I see that you are wearing a slightly pinkish tie today, Mr Speaker, but pinkness seems to be absent from the Government Front Bench. Today is “wear it pink” day, which is the national campaign day for breast cancer.

Social enterprise is a very important sector and it is getting more important by the day. Has the Minister seen the wonderful picture of Mrs Thatcher’s face with Che Guevara’s beret, which launches the new manifesto for the social enterprise sector? That is important, because it marks the conjunction of social enterprise, social enterprise investment and crowdfunding. We would be very grateful if he put his weight behind it.

[Mr Speaker]

The image is visible in Westminster station and doubtless elsewhere, as I am sure the Minister is aware.

Business of the House

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 17th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

May I point out for the benefit of the House that the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) tends to be at business questions every week and, in my experience, he has never been averse to repetition?

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Perhaps I will strike a slightly discordant note, although I get on very well with the Leader of the House as a fellow Yorkshire MP whom I have known for a long time. The world is almost in meltdown in so many places—the slaughter of the innocents in Gaza and the Israeli conflict with Gaza—and he has left the deck at a crucial time. Many people in our country will ask, “Why? We are looking to him as a seasoned and experienced Foreign Secretary to play a leading part in that”, so my welcome is tempered. May we have an early debate on the situation in Gaza? There is time next Monday or Tuesday. The world is distressed indeed at the recent deaths, so may we have a debate soon?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 10th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I hope this is the start of a trend. Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I get quite a good service out of PICT. I had the fortunate experience of walking through PICT’s offices the other day. Why is it that so many men are employed in PICT? There are hardly any women at all. What is going on in recruitment here? Surely we believe that women can do this kind of task in a way that is equal to, if not better than, men.

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 23rd June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Well, we will leave it there for today, but knowing the hon. Lady—

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Patience, Mr Sheerman. A man of your seniority should have acquired gravitas and stoicism. We are coming to you, man. Be calm, be happy—it is Wimbledon. Relax.

[Mr Sheerman]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I cannot wait any longer. We have got to hear you, Mr Sheerman; the nation must hear you.

[Mr Sheerman]

On a day like today when such serious issues are being debated in Question Time, when so few Conservative Back Benchers are here, and when time for the business runs out and there are a number of pent-up questions from Labour Members about serious issues such as the fact that the students’ disability allowance is being taken away, what can we do to add to the length of the session so that Members in all parts of the House get a fair crack of the whip?

[Mr Speaker]

My appetite for hearing hon. and right hon. Members ask questions is insatiable. I would happily run the session on for longer, but I am afraid that it is not within my power. Not only is the hon. Gentleman here every day during working hours, but I sometimes fondly imagine that he probably sleeps here as well; I do not know. He knows that his request is unfortunately beyond my powers, but he has made his point with his usual alacrity, and it is on the record.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 12th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am very glad that the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) has recovered his composure. I was genuinely concerned that his sides might literally split.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

T2. If the Secretary of State is so assiduous and so passionate, how come he got nothing in the Queen’s Speech on the environment—the only thing mentioned is shale gas and fracking? Has he heard the “Farming Today” programme recently, which described the common agricultural policy deal as a “greenwash” which will do nothing for wildlife in this country?

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Wednesday 14th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am always grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his thoughts on all matters and he has encapsulated them very pithily in that point of order. The issue of the grievance procedure is ongoing and is the subject of much wider discussions, so I think the fairest thing for me to say today is that I have noted what he has said. The Leader of the House will have done so, too, and I feel sure that there will be further opportunities for those concerns and alternative ideas to be aired. I hope that that is helpful.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I raise this point of order with some reluctance. There are rumours running across the House that a decision has been made or is about to be made that the security of the House of Commons will be turned over from the Metropolitan police to a private provider, such as G4S. As this rumour has been in the newspapers and is running around the Palace of Westminster, can you put our minds at rest that it has not and will not be decided?

[Mr Speaker]

Let me say to the hon. Gentleman, who has been in the House for 35 years this month, that we simply do not discuss security matters on the Floor of the House. I say to him in all candour and amiability that if he wants to discuss such matters we can do so, but we do not do so on the Floor of the Chamber. Suffice it to say that I know about these matters and am very comfortable about the interests of the House, and I know that the Leader of the House and the shadow Leader of the House also know about these matters. We are all very sanguine. It would be irresponsible to get into a discussion of these matters on the Floor of the House and whatever sedulous temptations are lobbed my way I do not intend to do so. I am sorry, but we must leave it there.

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 3rd March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am extremely grateful to the Minister for what she said. It does seem to constitute a most full apology to and an explanation for the benefit of the House. We will leave the matter there. [Interruption.] We will not have a “further to” I am afraid. This matter has been fully addressed. If Members have totally unrelated points of order on completely different subjects, we will hear from them—in other words, for the avoidance of doubt, on matters not appertaining to that which has just been said. The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) intends to embark on entirely new terrain.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. As you know, I have been in this House a reasonable length of time, but something happened to me last Thursday that I do not recall having experienced before. I tabled a question, which in the preliminary agenda was signified as being question No. 7 for the next day. It was a question about my calling for the setting up of a royal commission on the link between climate change and flooding. By the time I got here on Thursday, the full agenda for the day—the Order Paper—had eliminated that question, and transferred it elsewhere. It was clearly a question to a climate change Minister. Why did it disappear and who allowed it to disappear?

[Mr Speaker]

What I would say to the hon. Gentleman, who has indeed been in the House for a goodly number of years—it will be 35, to be precise, on 4 May this year—is as follows, and I hope that he will take it in the appropriate spirit. It is entirely a matter for Ministers as to whether they make transfers. The transfer that took place, though immensely disagreeable to the hon. Gentleman, was entirely orderly, and I conclude by saying in the friendliest possible way to him that there are Members who do have something about which to complain but are disinclined to do so and there are Members who sometimes have very little about which to complain but make a very considerable meal out of doing so. It is my firm conviction that the hon. Gentleman has precious little about which to complain, and he is doing his best to make a very large mountain out of an extremely small molehill. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman is chuntering from a sedentary position about what I did when I was a Back Bencher, but that was then and this is now.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 27th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The exchange was about Northumbria.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

2. What her policy is on the payment of fees for a fast-track border control service at airports.

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 27th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I do not think there is anything further to say. In fact, to judge by the nodding of heads that is taking place, I think there is a prospect of a refreshing outbreak of amity.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

The afternoon would not be complete without a point of order from the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), who I am sure is determined not to disappoint us in that regard.

[Mr Sheerman]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. May I seek your guidance? Over many years, it has been established that Her Majesty’s chief inspector of schools reports to this House, rather than to a Minister. Over the weekend, the chief inspector has spoken of “spitting blood” with rage over suggestions from two think-tanks that Ofsted should be reformed and that he was not doing his job sufficiently well. Given that situation, and the fact that the chief inspector reports to the House, what can we do to protect him and his reputation if the Department for Education is treating him in the way that he seems to be suggesting?

[Mr Speaker]

The fact that that story has moved on significantly over recent days seems self-evidently to make it unnecessary for me to comment on the matter at this stage. We will leave it there.

High-speed Rail

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 19th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Sheerman]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The fact that the hon. Gentleman sought to intervene on the Chair of the Transport Committee when I had indicated at the outset that the procedure was analogous to that of a ministerial statement, in which hon. Members should not intervene but rather wait their turn, suggests to me that he was not present at the outset to hear my wise words. Moreover, I have since been advised that he did indeed beetle into the Chamber a couple of minutes into the hon. Lady’s statement. The concepts of the hon. Gentleman, on the one hand, and brass neck, on the other, are by no means unrelated. In a spirit of Christmas generosity, on this one occasion I shall allow him to put his question, which I think he wants to hear and which he imagines that perhaps the House might also wish to hear.

[Mr Sheerman]

My office is a long way from here, Mr Speaker, and I ran as fast as I could. I apologise to you and to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman). She knows that I am a great admirer of hers and of the work of her Select Committee, and of Select Committees in general.

My hon. Friend also knows that I started off as a passionate supporter of HS2 until I started reading the international research that suggests that rather than empowering regional cities and making them more affluent and wealthy, such projects have the opposite effect and would drain even more power and influence away from the regions towards London and the south. The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills came out with a very similar view this morning. Did my hon. Friend take evidence about that research, and did she take evidence from the former Chancellor of the Exchequer? Why did she put so much emphasis on KPMG? Those of us who live in Yorkshire and saw what it did—or failed to do—in the banking sector do not trust KPMG further than we can throw it.

European Union (Referendum) Bill

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Friday 8th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Sheerman]

I have been in this House long enough to be grateful for small mercies, and we did, after all, get a change. As I said, it is very unusual to do something in a Bill Committee that one can remember as being quite creative.

It was an unusual Committee, Mr Speaker. I was in full flow at one stage, and when I turned to look at the Public Gallery, the Prime Minister was sitting in on the proceedings. This is a very special Bill—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I do not know why the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that there is anything unusual either about his being in full flow or about his expectation that the Prime Minister will be listening to him.

[Mr Sheerman]

I am grateful for that, Mr Speaker.

I will conclude my remarks and hope to be called later in the debate. I am in favour of the new clause, which fits in with the whole tone of the discussion that we had in Committee. The Opposition acted very positively in relation to this Bill in trying to refine it and to be supportive. All of us, as a team, tried to work together. We disagreed, but we disagreed in a rather pleasant way.

Business of the House

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 7th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Sheerman]

No, they are not.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. People who work in the House of Commons are indeed paid the living wage. The right hon. Gentleman, the Leader of the House, is factually—[Interruption.] Order. The Leader of the House is correct in what he said. That is the beginning and the end of it.

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 24th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would like to raise the issue of access to the House at busy times. Even on a day like today, when we are about to debate interest rate swap derivatives, there is a lot of interest among angry constituents. Have you noticed that recently the queues to get into the House for meetings with Members of Parliament have sometimes been an hour and a half to two hours long? That is new. Will you get someone to look into why these queues are so long? I am told it is not a matter of security, but something else. The House should be more accessible.

[Mr Speaker]

I certainly shall, and I shall revert to the hon. Gentleman and, as necessary, to the House. I am not sure with what frequency queues are lasting that long, but if it is a regular phenomenon as opposed to an exceptional one that is very unsatisfactory. The hon. Gentleman is nodding to suggest that it is a regular phenomenon. If that is so, it is disturbing. I will look into it and I will come to back to him and, if necessary, to the House.

Point of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 5th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. During the very important urgent question earlier, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions said at one stage “he did not tell me the truth”. Opposition Members could not quite work out which person the Secretary of State was alluding to and that could lead to a great injustice to a particular person. Is there any way that you, Mr Speaker, could clear it up?

[Mr Speaker]

I am a little concerned that the hon. Gentleman has a sense of my psychic quality that is not matched by the reality. I cannot possibly know who the Secretary of State had in mind. The hon. Gentleman refers to a “particular person” who might have been subject to a grave injustice, but it must be said that the particular person, if there is such a person, is unlikely to be aware of that fact if he or she was not identified by the Secretary of State.

[Mr Sheerman]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

I do not think that there is a need at this stage for a further point of order. I wish to offer the hon. Gentleman practical advice. He should write to the Secretary of State and ask him who, if anyone, he had in mind. If that approach is unavailing and the hon. Gentleman wishes to pursue the matter further, I rather suspect that he will require no encouragement to do just that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 9th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I have been saving up: I call Mr Barry Sheerman.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am sure that the Deputy Prime Minister will share my concern about young people not voting. If so, why, as a member of the coalition Government, is he standing by as citizenship training disappears from our schools up and down the country?

Lobbying

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 25th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The Leader of the House has made it clear that he will not give way. The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) has a beatific smile on his face, but he has been in the House for 34 years, and he knows that a Member cannot make a point by means of an intervention if the Member who is on his or her feet will not give way.

[Mr Sheerman]

I was being helpful.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman chunters from a sedentary position that he was being helpful, but I think that his concept of helpfulness is not necessarily shared.

Badger Cull

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Wednesday 5th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. More than 20 right hon. and hon. Members want to contribute to the debate, so some self-discipline about the length of interventions from all Members, including knights of the realm, would be greatly appreciated. I call Mary Creagh.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

Point of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams), who should have been behind the Chair, has been rescued by a rather timely point of order, although I do not think that it was designed for that purpose. The hon. Gentleman should be behind the Chair. That is where he should be, not playing with his iPad.

[Mr Sheerman]

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. During the statement, I criticised the Minister for the aggressive way in which she had introduced and handled her statement. I did so on the basis of a long knowledge of education statements in the House, but following my remarks, two Members suggested that I was being sexist. I was not, Mr. Speaker: not one word of what I said was sexist in any way, and I deeply resent the fact that two Members used their questions to suggest that that was the case.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his attempted point of order. Let me simply say that it is not a matter for the Chair. Neither Member said anything disorderly. However, the hon. Gentleman has placed his attempted and, in his view, clear rebuttal on the record. I hope that he will take it in a good spirit when I say that in May this year, all being well, he will celebrate 34 years of uninterrupted service in the House. I am sure that he can bear the burden of those criticisms with stoicism and fortitude. We will leave it there for today.

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 19th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I am happy to confirm that I have been advised that the Foreign Secretary will indeed make a statement on these matters tomorrow. Ordinarily, hon. and right hon. Members might have hoped for a statement today, but it would be fair to say that, as some will know and others might not, the Foreign Secretary is in Brussels today, discussing these very matters. At the first opportunity tomorrow, the House will expect to hear from the right hon. Gentleman, and I feel sure that the hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) will be in his customary place.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I was trying to curb my enthusiasm to make sure that Ministers of the Crown come to this House to make statements that they should make to us rather than either leaking them to the press or launching them without the House’s participation. Only last week, when the House was not sitting, the Secretary of State for Education launched his Department’s review—a major review of the Department for Education, including proposals for a savage cut of up to 1,000 jobs and the closure of regional offices. This is a major restructuring of the Department for Education, so this report should have been launched by the Secretary of State to this House. It is disrespectful to us and to the education community to do it in any other way.

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. My understanding was that the Government had announced a review rather than a specific policy. However, my expectation that Ministers make key policy announcements first to the House is both well known and unchanged. If the hon. Gentleman, who on the strength of his 33 years’ uninterrupted service knows these conventions, is dissatisfied with the Secretary of State, I have a keen sense that he will display his keenness to pursue this matter for days and days and days.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 29th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) has been chuntering from a sedentary position, to no obvious benefit or purpose—[Interruption.] Order. He was making his point sitting down. Would he like to make it standing up?

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

20. Indeed. Would the Minister accept that the withdrawal of funding for the Women into Science and Engineering campaign is not a good idea if we are to be serious about getting more women into engineering and science?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 2nd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am a tolerant and obliging fellow and I wanted to hear the evidence, but there is nothing to which the Minister should respond on the Floor of the House, because the question relates to the north of England and he did not expand it. However, the right hon. Lady’s observations are on the record.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

She is a dame!

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 18th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Oh, go on, Mr Sheerman.

[Mr Sheerman]

If the Secretary of State believes in trusting professionals and autonomy in schools, why is a centrally directed Department for Education forcing teachers to teach reading through synthetic phonics alone? What is wrong with all the other methods, which we know and the evidence suggests are just as good?

[Michael Gove]

I take a simple view on these matters. Children need to learn to read before they can read to learn.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 6th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I remind the House that Members ask the questions and Ministers answer them.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

2. What fiscal steps he is taking to assist women facing high child care costs.

Business of the House

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 30th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

What a master of understatement the Leader of the House is.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Leader of the House will know that there is increasing evidence of economic and financial warfare being waged against companies in this country—indeed, against Governments—involving the manipulation of interest rates and currencies. The Government are aware of this, but there is no joined-up reaction to it. Are we coping with it and doing our best to combat it? May we have an early debate, so that we can enlighten some Members on just how worrying this economic warfare is?

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Wednesday 29th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Minister is not making a speech or addressing the House; he is reading something into the record.

[Mr Speaker]

That is a point not of order but of frustration.

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 23rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

This is of course a matter for the House itself. I welcome the hon. Lady’s point of order. As she will know—because she was present for the statement—the Attorney-General has announced that a Joint Committee of both Houses is to be set up. There will naturally be a chance to debate the terms of reference of that Joint Committee in due course. I think I made it clear that I strongly deprecate the abuse of parliamentary privilege to flout an order or score a particular point.

On the substance of the right and opportunity of Members of Parliament to express their views on this extremely important matter, I am pleased to reassure the hon. Lady and the House that there will be opportunities in the ordinary course of events for Members to express their views on these matters, both in relation to the terms of reference and more widely. There are opportunities to debate matters in Government time, Opposition time and Backbench Business Committee time, and through the mechanism of Adjournment debates. I say to the hon. Lady and the House that there is no injunction, super or otherwise, preventing any right hon. or hon. Member from pursuing those avenues. It is important, however, that we recognise the need to temper our privilege with responsibility.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am sorry to delay the House with this point of order, but it arises from the answer to Question 1 in Education questions today which was given to me by the Secretary of State for Education. We have been waiting for some time for a response to the inquiry report of the previous Select Committee—the Select Committee on Children, Schools and Families—on the training of teachers. There has never been a response, even though other inquiry reports that took place under the previous Government have been responded to since the general election. We are used to a system in this House whereby the Department concerned responds line by line to the Select Committee’s recommendations. The Secretary of State told me that this document—“The Importance of Teaching”, the White Paper that came out in November—was an answer, but there is no reference to that fact in this document, and it is not—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for what he has said. I think he has said enough to make it clear to me that this is not a matter on which I can rule; rather, it is—however disagreeable as far as he is concerned—a matter for the Select Committee on Education, should it wish to address the matter further. I think we shall have to leave it there for today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 4th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

David Morris is not here. The grouping therefore falls and Mr Ruffley’s question will follow later.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

12. What steps his Department is taking to protect green spaces from development.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 7th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I gently ask the Secretary of State to face the Chamber, so that I can be the full beneficiary of his eloquence?

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Secretary of State bear in mind the fact that successful special educational needs provision depends very much on integration with other schools? That was the finding of the former Select Committee on Children, Schools and Families. We very much support good SEN provision, but it must be integrated with the local schools that take other kinds of children.

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 7th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order and for notice that he intended to raise it. At the outset, I say to the House that there was an enormous amount of noise in the Chamber when the Secretary of State was responding to a question and I did not hear clearly every word that he said. However, as the House would expect, I have had the record checked, and the words about which the hon. Gentleman complains appear in the draft Official Report at the end of the answer. It is indeed unparliamentary for any Member of the House to suggest that another Member is a hypocrite or has said something hypocritical. The term “rank hypocrisy”, when directed at what another Member has said, is unparliamentary and should be withdrawn. I hope that is clear.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I cannot remember, having been in this House for quite a few years, a statement by the Prime Minister on such a diverse selection of topics. I find it difficult to understand how Members can hold the Prime Minister accountable if he comes to the House with a potpourri of different aspects for which we are supposed to hold him accountable. Will it become a general process that we will not be able to tell what we will be asking the Prime Minister about?

[Mr Speaker]

The decision on whether to make a statement is a matter for the Government, the title of the statement is a matter for the Government and the content of the statement is a matter for the Government. I never have treated and never will treat anything said by the hon. Gentleman, or any other Member, with levity. He is raising a serious point, but I do not feel that it is a matter for the Chair today. I hope I can safely say to the hon. Gentleman, who has been in the House for 31 years—coming up to 32 years—without interruption, that the idea that anything causes him difficulty is hard to credit.

Points of Order

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 18th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It is possible that as a result of the point of order that the hon. Gentleman has just raised, the reply for which he is waiting may soon arrive. I can say beyond that only that the hon. Gentleman will have doggedly to pursue the matter if necessary, but of course it is right both that Members should get speedy answers to their questions and that promised letters to Members should be sent timeously.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I believe earnestly that this is a real point of order; it is a procedural matter. You may remember that in order to involve the House further in public appointments, there were introduced only a short time ago pre-appointment hearings for particular jobs. I understand today that the Secretary of State for Education has appointed a new children’s commissioner with no pre-appointment hearing at all.

[Mr Speaker]

Off the top of my head, it is not a matter of order for the Chair. What I would say to the hon. Gentleman is that the Select Committee that scrutinises the relevant Department might well be interested in the matter, and it is a Select Committee of which I think, as a previous Chair, the hon. Gentleman has very substantial experience. It may serve him well in the matter.

If there are no further points of order, we come now to the ten-minute rule motion for which the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) has been waiting patiently and without complaint.

Schools White Paper

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Understandably, there is huge interest in this subject, so brevity from Back-Bench and Front-Bench Members alike is vital if we are to make progress.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that it profits no one to pretend that there is a great divide between political parties when he makes a statement such as this? I congratulate him on taking on board many of the former Select Committee’s recommendations on teaching, standards and much else, but does he not share with previous Labour Front Benchers some guilt that we never addressed the problems that Tomlinson highlighted? Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that he has not addressed them, and that we funked them?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 14th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that if a green investment bank is to be successful, it must embrace all the science and technology available in our country? Much of that is seated in our great universities—we have over 120—but has he not already sold the pass? There will be substantial cuts in university budgets, which will affect towns, cities and innovation in this country.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Can we focus on the green investment bank?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Order. All good things come to an end, and there is heavy pressure on time today.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is an extremely experienced Member. He has now ratcheted up something in the region of 31 years in the House, so he knows that points of order come after statements.

[Mr Sheerman]

This is about the statement. There is no list with it. We were promised a list. We—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is a very dextrous parliamentarian. He will try to catch my eye during business questions and he will be able to wrap his various points into a beautifully textured question if he gets the opportunity.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 12th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

14. What steps he is taking to ensure availability of continuing professional development for teachers.

[Mr Speaker]

Minister—any Minister.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Barry Sheerman

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am sorry but the answer is simply too long.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that the CPD—continuing professional development—of teachers is absolutely essential, particularly in science and maths? Is he aware that the fine centre at the university of York, where teachers can go for CPD, and the nine other centres are being starved of visiting teachers because of the interpretation of the “Rarely Cover” work force agreement? The unions interpret it so strictly that we will not be able to maintain those centres.