HC Deb 09 November 2000 vol 356 c472 2.24 pm
Mr. Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As our new Speaker, you have made it clear that you propose to make your own decisions and that you will not necessarily be bound by the decisions of Madam Speaker Boothroyd, your predecessor. However, she felt especially strongly about the requirement that hon. Members, and especially Ministers, notify other hon. Members when they are about to visit their constituencies. I hope that you will be equally firm on the matter.

I raise this point of order on behalf of myself, and of my hon. Friends the Members for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) and for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth). Yesterday, a junior civil servant working for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food informed us by means of a mobile telephone call that the Minister proposed to visit our constituencies. That telephone call was made at a very late stage—only about half an hour before the visit was due to take place.

This morning, the excuse was given—again by telephone—that the Minister had planned only to visit the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead. However, he had changed his mind at the last minute and decided to visit instead an Environment Agency building that straddles the boundary between my constituency and my hon. Friend's.

That would have been all very well, but no one had bothered to notify even my hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead, whose constituency the Minister originally intended to visit—

Mr. Speaker

Order. The hon. Gentleman should worry about himself, not the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May). I am sure that she is capable of raising a point of order on the matter if she so wishes. I have got the hon. Gentleman's drift. When I was a Back Bencher and a Minister came to my constituency without telling me, I always gave that Minister a telling off. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman does the same, and not ask the Speaker to do it for him.

Secondly, I made a ruling on this matter on 6 November, and I refer the hon. Gentleman to column 32 in Hansard for that date. However, if the hon. Gentleman feels it necessary to tell a Minister off, he should do so and not let the Minister get away with discourtesy.