Points of Order (Hansard, 9 December 1992)

§ Mr. Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton)
On a point of order, Madam Speaker. My point of order relates to the protection of the integrity of proceedings in the House, and of Hansard as a record of those proceedings, not only for those who consult it now but for future historians.
I refer to a statement made in the House on 19 October by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, whom I have notified of my intention to raise a point of order. His absence is, I fear, a further illustration of his attitude to the integrity of proceedings in the House. The right hon. Gentleman said: I had to go to Corby in 1979 when the Labour party closed the steelworks"—[Official Report, 19 October 1992; Vol. 212, c. 209.] I wrote to the right hon. Gentleman and told him that what he had said was not true, because it was the Conservative Government who closed the steelworks. In my letter I said: What you have said is an untruth and I am writing to ask you to apologise for purveying this untruth and to withdraw your statement. The right hon. Gentleman replied to me, dodging what I had said. I wrote again, and last week I received a letter from him which still failed to apologise for the untruth of what he had said. Nevertheless, the letter acknowledged that what the right hon. Gentleman has said was untrue, by saying that the announcement of the closure of the steelworks was made on 1 November 1979, six months after the Conservative Government came to office. The closure took place the following year.
The Secretary of State has now acknowledged that what he said to the House was not true. Nevertheless, he has knowingly left an untrue statement on the record of the proceedings of the House. Before now Ministers have been compelled to resign for knowingly not telling the truth to the House of Commons. In this case, a right hon. Gentleman has knowingly not told the truth and has admitted by implication that he has not told the truth, yet he is allowing his untruth to remain on the record, in Hansard. I ask you, Madam Speaker, to require him to make an apology and a correction so that the record may be accurate.

§ Madam Speaker
The right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) will be aware that the Speaker is not responsible for the accuracy of the speeches by Ministers or, for that matter, by Back Benchers. Had the right hon. Gentleman attempted to raise this matter with me on 19 or 20 October, I might have been able to take some action—[Interruption.] There is no point in hon. Members raising their hands; I have not finished yet. What happened is not a point of order for the occupant of the Chair. If there has been an inaccuracy, however, the right hon. Gentleman has corrected it by his statement today.

Several hon. Members
rose—

§ Madam Speaker
There is no further point of order. I have dealt with the question.

§ Mr. Paul Flynn (Newport, West)
On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I remind you that the matter was raised on—

§ Madam Speaker
Order. I have dealt with the matter as far as I can at this stage, and any inaccuracy has been fully corrected by the right hon. Member for Gorton.

§ Mr. Alex Salmond (Banff and Buchan)
On another point of order, Madam Speaker. In last week's business statement, the debate that we are about to have was styled as a debate on the common fisheries policy. I understand that certain documents pertaining to that policy have not been seen by the House. I refer to documents relating to a so-called presidential compromise on new proposals for the common fisheries policy. I have checked, and have discovered that the documents are not available. May I therefore ask you whether it is in order that we should have a debate that was meant to be on the common fisheries policy without the documents being available to us? If it is not, is there any guarantee that we shall have the opportunity to debate the common fisheries policy before decisions are signed, sealed and delivered in Brussels next week?

§ Madam Speaker
It is not for the occupant of the Chair but for the hon. Gentleman himself to determine whether he has sufficient information to enable him to make up his mind about the Government's intentions. It will be a wide-ranging debate, and I can tell him that the motion on the Order Paper is perfectly in order. It is up to the hon. Gentleman to determine how he should proceed in the debate.

§ Mr. Flynn
On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I should like again to try to raise with you the point of order—

§ Madam Speaker
Order. There can be no further points of order. I have made that absolutely clear. The right hon. Member for Gorton who raised the original point of order did so quite properly and he has been answered quite properly and to the best of my ability. We shall now make progress.