§ Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham)On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I seek your guidance. Have you received a request from the Secretary of State for Education and Employment to make a statement about the future of grammar schools? There has apparently been a change of heart on the part of the Government. On 8 December, during an Adjournment debate in Westminster Hall, the Minister for School Standards clearly told me and other right hon. and hon. Members, at column 265WH, that she had no intention of being dragged into the trap of stating her personal views on the future of grammar schools. However, over the weekend, we have received news that the Secretary of State has provided moral succour and personal encouragement to the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Ms Hughes), in campaigning for a grammar school ballot in Trafford. My question is simple: if the Government's policy has changed and Ministers now want to work hand in glove with educational vandals in that respect, should we not be informed of that in the House and given the opportunity to subject the Secretary of State to proper scrutiny?
§ Madam SpeakerI have not been informed of such a request, nor do I believe that the Secretary of State is seeking to make a statement on that issue. May I give the hon. Member some guidance? If he raises points of order in future, it will be better if he is brisk about them and comes immediately to the point. They will then be more appreciated by the occupant of the Chair and by the entire House.
§ Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow)On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Over the weekend, there have been a number of reports, some of them somewhat garbled, that guidelines for the use of NATO and UN forces in Kosovo have come into the hands of those whom they ought not to have reached. To clarify the matter and for the sake of the whole situation in Kosovo, not least that of UN forces, has there been a request to make a statement from Ministers at either the Ministry of Defence or the Foreign and Commonwealth Office?
§ Madam SpeakerI have to tell the hon. Gentleman that I have received no indication that anyone from the Ministry of Defence seeks to make a statement on that issue. I direct him to the use of parliamentary questions, with which he is very familiar.