§ 2.5 pm
§ Mr. SpeakerLet me take the point of order of the right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory), who has given notice of it.
§ Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory (Wells)On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. On Tuesday, the Government leaked details of their proposals on competitiveness to the press well before the documents were available to hon. Members. In answering a point of order from me, you said that you took the matter seriously, and you asked the Secretary of State to investigate the leak and report the results to the House.
Today, the Department of Trade and Industry has replied to a parliamentary written question. The answer is inadequate. It refers to the receipt of details only by the Financial Times. However, it was clear from my original point of order on the matter that other newspapers were given information. For example, The Daily Telegraph carried a full and detailed quote, which exactly matches page 5 of one of the documents.
Furthermore, the so-called investigation simply refers to the documents being "obtained by" the Financial Times. We know how they were obtained; the front page of the Financial Times refers to a DTI insider, who provided the information. The DTI investigation ignored that, and the reply therefore implies that the documents were stolen by the press rather than handed out by members of the Government or those who work for them.
The investigation is incomplete and partial. It is a further abuse, and shows contempt of the House. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, not to accept a brush-off, indeed, a defiance of your initial ruling, but to ask the Department to try a little harder to ascertain the way in which the leak happened, and who was responsible for leaking documents in advance and thus denying the House its scrutiny role.
§ Mr. SpeakerI am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving me notice of his point of order. As he said, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has answered a parliamentary question about the circumstances surrounding the publication of the White Paper. If the right hon. Gentleman is not satisfied with the response, he is entitled to pursue the matter through other 484 parliamentary means, including tabling further questions to the Secretary of State. If he does that, I shall be very interested to read the answers.
§ Mr. Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove)On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I want to draw your attention to the Procedure Committee report on the election of a Speaker. It is an excellent report which I contributed. However, page xxxvi reports on the only Division that took place during our formal proceedings. The Division list shows that the majority of the Committee supported the proposal for an alternative vote. However, the report concludes that the exhaustive ballot proposal was the Committee's preferred option. Could you advise me, Mr. Speaker, on the way in which the conflict between the text of the report and the outcome of the Division, as reported in the proceedings, can be resolved? How can we proceed?
§ Mr. SpeakerThe House knows that the report was published with great speed. Unfortunately an error was made in printing a Division list in the minutes of the proceedings. A correction is being issued.
§ Mr. Harry Cohen (Leyton and Wanstead)On a point of order, Mr. Speaker Could you arrange to set the record straight? The Secretary of State for Health said that Whipps Cross hospital was in the constituency of the hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith). Although the hospital serves the hon. Gentleman's constituents—who will benefit enormously—it is in my constituency of Leyton and Wanstead. I thank the Secretary of State on behalf of the constituents of Leyton and Wanstead and of all the surrounding areas for giving the go-ahead for that £184 million project.
§ Mr. SpeakerThen that hospital has a very good Member of Parliament.