§ Mrs. Alice Mahon (Halifax)On a point of order, Madam Speaker. When I raised a point of order with you yesterday about the barbaric practice of shackling pregnant women, I inadvertently referred to the Home Secretary as "odious". Of course, I meant the practice, so I unreservedly withdraw the remark.
§ Madam SpeakerThe House is grateful to the hon. Lady.
§ Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow)On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I raise this point of order with you on behalf of a number of my hon. Friends who have been in the House for a long time. May we have your guidance on the changing use of personal statements in this House? The Chair must find itself in a very difficult position when a senior Minister asks to make a personal statement—by tradition and definition, a statement not subject to questions, to scrutiny or to challenge at the time of delivery.
As an hon. Member who has, alas, been required himself to make a personal statement, I know that the rules required a Back Bencher to grovel, and a Minister almost always to end up resigning from office. That was the quid pro quo for not being subject to challenge or to questions.
What the House witnessed yesterday was an exercise in self-justification, unchallenged and unchallengeable. If that happens again, the personal statement will become little more than a device for ministerial escape and an unlovely pouring of blame on to civil servants who cannot answer for themselves.
My complaint is the stronger because it would not occur to me to ask questions about women prisoners in England; but some of my colleagues, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche), tell me that they would have liked to ask questions.
Should not statements—especially truculently delivered statements—be open to question and not provide a ministerial escape route? This is a House of Commons point, not a party point.
§ Madam SpeakerI have allowed the hon. Gentleman to make his point in some detail. The House has, however, entrusted me with complete discretion as to whether to allow any Member to make a personal statement. I am quite satisfied that, in allowing the Minister of State, Home Office to give a personal explanation on one strictly circumscribed aspect of the matter in question about which she had previously misinformed the House, and to apologise to the House for so doing, I was not breaking any new ground.
What happened was, incidentally, fully in line with the new version of the document "Questions of Procedure for Ministers", which the Chancellor of the Duchy of 542 Lancaster explained to the House on 2 November last, at column 456. That requires Ministers to correct any inadvertent errors at the earliest opportunity. Nothing which occurred yesterday will prevent Members from pursuing the main issue, or indeed, if they wish, the subsidiary issue, by all parliamentary means available.
§ Mr. Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield)On a point of order, Madam Speaker. On 25 May 1994, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) made an unreserved apology to the House for misleading it over tabling amendments to the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill. In an extensive article in Sunday's edition of The Observer, she not only said that she did not understand why she had had to make an apology, but added that she had had nothing to apologise for. In the same article, she called into question your own involvement at that time.
Is that not discourteous to the Speaker, and is it not within the rights of the House to expect the hon. Lady, to whom I gave ample notice that I was raising this issue and who has just left the Chamber, to make a public apology in which she can explain to the House her change of attitude over the past 18 months on this very serious matter?
§ Madam SpeakerI have not treated myself to reading the article in full. At the time in question, however, the hon. Lady was of course required by me to apologise to the House, and she did so. I said at the time that her behaviour
fell below the standards that the House is entitled to expect".— [Official Report, 25 May 1994; Vol. 244, c. 342.]I think that my comments at that time were most pertinent.
§ Mr. Andrew Faulds (Warley, East)On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Could the House divide on the use of the word "odious" by my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) as regards the Home Secretary?
§ Madam SpeakerAlthough I agree that that is a point of order for me, I would need a notice of motion on the Order Paper before allowing that suggestion to proceed.
§ Ms Jean Corston (Bristol, East)On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Among today's questions to the Secretary of State for Health, I asked about the provision of NHS dentistry as a supplementary to a question about the increase of private provision in the health service. In a long answer, the Minister of State made absolutely no reference to dentistry at all. Is it in order for a Minister to abuse the procedures of the House and not to make any reference at all to the question asked? What action would you propose I take?
§ Madam SpeakerAs the hon. Lady knows, it is not for the Speaker to comment on Ministers' responses. They are responsible for the answers they give. I shall look carefully at the answer to which the hon. Lady has drawn my attention. She will notice that senior Ministers are sitting on the Government Front Bench, and I hope that they will also take note of her comments.