HC Deb 14 May 2002 vol 385 cc643-4 3.30 pm
Mr. Peter Luff (Mid-Worcestershire)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In making this point of order, I wish to make it clear that no blame or discredit should attach to Lord Rooker, who has made strenuous and characteristically courteous efforts to ensure that the House is properly informed on this matter. However, a written question due for answer today asks the Home Secretary when he will announce the sites about which he will seek planning permission for accommodation centres. It transpires that the answer to that question appeared in the Independent on Sunday at the weekend. The newspaper correctly identified the three sites in question, which include Throckmorton in my constituency. The Home Office gave an assurance yesterday that the report was sheer speculation.

Do you agree, Mr. Speaker, that that is a gross discourtesy to the House? The matter is of huge importance to my constituents and to the asylum seekers who will be so inappropriately housed in accommodation centres. Should not the matter have been handled more properly? Given that there has been a leak from the Home Office, do you have any power to ask the Home Secretary to conduct a leak inquiry?

Mr. Speaker

I understand that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Wallasey (Angela Eagle), made an announcement in Standing Committee E this morning, and that the hon. Gentleman was also contacted by a Home Office Minister beforehand. No doubt Ministers are as concerned as the hon. Gentleman over the leak. I am sure that they will take note of the comments that he has made on the matter.

Sir Michael Spicer (West Worcestershire)

Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. You have kindly given the House a judgment on the matter of the leak, but will you say something about the manner in which the matter has been brought before Parliament? When an announcement is slipped out as a parliamentary answer in the afternoon, hon. Members have no chance to ask questions about it. In this case, the Government have even supplied their own question and answer, but the question is different from the one that I wanted to ask. I was interested in the independence of the planning procedure. Can you, Mr. Speaker, give a judgment on that matter?

Mr. Speaker

It is up to the individual Minister to judge how to let the House know about such matters.

Mr. Menzies Campbell (North-East Fife)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that the Order Paper is not your exclusive responsibility, but it is clear that some of today's questions in Foreign Affairs questions were somewhat lacking in topicality. That is because they have to be put down a fortnight in advance, and circumstances in foreign affairs can change very quickly. I wonder, when you are next consulted about the contents of the Order Paper, whether you might give some regard to the circumstances in which it might be possible to question Foreign Office Ministers about issues that have become topical since the Order Paper was drawn up. Is it possible that questions of a more open nature than has become the custom might once again be in order?

Mr. Speaker

I understand that the Procedure Committee is looking at parliamentary questions at the moment. I advise the right hon. and learned Gentleman to take his complaint to that Committee. I do not have powers to change the order of questions that come before the House on any given day, including today.