Points of Order

Steve Rotheram Excerpts

Monday 14th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order and for his courtesy in giving me advance notice of his intention to raise it, as well as for sharing his intentions by letter and e-mail with the hon. Member for Braintree (Mr Newmark). For my own part, speaking from the Chair, I would not seek for one moment to interpose myself in a dispute or altercation between the hon. Member for Braintree and Mr Peter Hitchens. I think that the point stands as the right hon. Gentleman has made it, and I would just like to say that the hon. Member for Braintree said what he judged and judges to be right. He was perfectly entitled to do so, and I make no criticism of him. Mr Peter Hitchens is well known to me. I have been acquainted with him for a great many years and disagreed with him for almost all of those years on almost all matters under the sun, but it is a matter of almost uncontested fact that Mr Hitchens is a man of both provocative talent and unimpeachable integrity. We will leave the matter there.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wonder whether you will indulge me with the benefit of your extensive expertise in all things procedural in this Chamber. I was pulled out of the shuffle for questions to the Deputy Prime Minister tomorrow but have subsequently been notified by the Cabinet Office that the DPM is refusing to answer my question on constitutional reform. Can you offer me guidance as to how I may challenge that decision, so that the Deputy Prime Minister is held accountable by Members of this House?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order and for giving notice of his intention to raise it with me. I simply say to him that it has always been for the Government to decide which Minister is responsible for answering questions. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s frustration, but as far as I can see from the material available to me nothing disorderly has occurred. It is often the case that a question put to one Minister can be judged, perfectly reasonably, to be more within the purview of another. If such a judgment has been made, it is not for the Chair to quibble with it. I do not seek to engage the hon. Gentleman further at this time, so he should not spring to his feet and recite to me the question he had posed. I think it is fair to record that in his otherwise unexceptionable letter to me on the matter dated today he does not say what the question was. I have at this stage to conclude that the transfer, though from his vantage point frustrating, was, as I say, not disorderly. But he is nothing if not a perspicacious terrier, and I feel sure that he will use all his intellectual and political resources to test the Deputy Prime Minister in another way on a different occasion. We will leave it there, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman is satisfied.