§ Mr. Robert Key (Salisbury)On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. At about 8.10 this morning, Portcullis house was evacuated because of another fire alarm. Within minutes, I was told that it was a false alarm. There was also a false alarm yesterday, and since the building has been occupied there have been fire alarms about twice a week, most of them false.
The helpful man at the company that put in the fire system, Surefire Systems, said that the system was fine and that it would be perfectly all right if only people would not go into the building. He said that the problem lay with the design, and that he was just the subcontractor following the design provided by Ove Arup. I was told by the Department of the Serjeant at Arms that the system had been forced on the designers by the Home Secretary.
Not only are hundreds of people disadvantaged by this problem every time it happens, including Members and the staff who run the place for us, but the entire system is put under strain. What can you do, Mr. Speaker, to try to ensure that those false alarms stop? It is embarrassing enough having press reports every week about the cost of the building that one works in, but when that building does not work, it is worse.
§ Mr. SpeakerI have every sympathy with Members and staff in that situation. There is nothing more annoying than being evacuated from one's workplace because of a false alarm. I understand that the alarm was due to a faulty detector head, and that a full investigation of the fire alarm system in Portcullis house is being undertaken. Meanwhile, the system is now being operated manually, and I trust that there will no further such incidents.
§ Mr. Jonathan Sayeed (Mid-Bedfordshire)On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday, after a flagrant abuse of Question Time by the Secretary of State for Health, you said, at column 783 of the Official Report,
may I say this to Ministers? First, attacks on the Opposition are not really what I am looking for … Ministers are there to account for their Departments."—[Official Report, 6 February 2001; Vol. 362, c. 783.]You repeated that point today to the Secretary of State for International Development.Today, the Prime Minister, in attempting to evade answering proper questions to him about his responsibilities, attacked the Opposition on 10 separate occasions—I counted. Is the Prime Minister bound by the same rules as other Ministers?
§ Mr. SpeakerThe Prime Minister is bound by the same rules as everyone else, but he gets a bit more leeway, and so does the Leader of the Opposition.