Speeches by Burghart.

“My hon. Friend always speaks incredibly powerfully on this point. The Government have also argued that our Bill was found to be incompatible with human rights legislation, but that is only partly true. The truth is that the Government failed to challenge the findings in the courts, and those findings themselves were hi…”

“Paragraph 1.6.c of the ministerial code states: “It is of paramount importance that ministers give accurate and truthful information to Parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity.” Yesterday, the Prime Minister said to the House that Sir Olly Robbins “went on to say: ‘I…have complete confi…”

“The Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister is perfectly intelligent enough to know that there is an enormous difference between those two words. I will remind him that the Prime Minister is bound by the ministerial code. Yesterday, the Prime Minister also told the House: “Sir Olly was absolutely clear that nobody put pr…”

“Last week, someone in the heart of Government leaked some extremely sensitive documents to The Guardian. This appears potentially to be a crime under the National Security Act 2023. Has the Cabinet Office reported it to the Metropolitan police?”

“Cat Little, the permanent secretary, has just told the Foreign Affairs Committee that a very, very small number of people have actually seen the document in question. Will the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister commit to the House that when he has identified who leaked it, he will report them to the Metropolitan pol…”

“Yes, absolutely, but that tends to be the Department’s fault, rather than the fault of Members asking questions.”

“I would say two things. We discussed the reason for the volume last time. Partially, the uptick after a more fallow period after the election was because there were lots of new MPs learning how the House worked. It is also the case that when questionable things are going on in Government, that will attract attention. O…”

“You are way ahead of me.”

“I totally concur. There are two reasons why Government Departments do not answer questions in a timely way. Sometimes, it is because they do not have capacity; I am afraid I would argue that this is one of their essential duties and they need to find capacity. The other reason is that it is not in their interest to ans…”

“I caveat my remarks by saying at the outset that we have a good working relationship with the Table Office. Even though we do not always agree, everybody who works there is always very courteous and often tries to help us to find a way through. The problem is perhaps not so much the rules as the interpretation of them.…”

“Yes.”

“You would need to ask the Government Departments.”

“Oh, it would never have been the Minister’s fault in those circumstances! Of course mistakes happen, and sometimes political games are played, but what we ought to move towards, in line with the rules of the House and the rules for Ministers, is the Government either being open about why they are not handing things ove…”

“My colleagues would often find it easier to resolve queries via email, rather than by having to go into the Table Office in person, when they are about simple things. I understand the Table Office’s argument—“We’ll end up with email chains from 650 Members, and this will become a full-time job on its own”—but I think i…”

“I think we touched on this last time: at the most basic level, the Government and Ministers have a responsibility, in “Erskine May” and under the ministerial code, to be open and transparent. That is to say that they should share information with us, with caveats. Those caveats are quite clearly laid out: things that a…”

“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wonder if I could get your guidance on seeking a correction of the record from today’s Prime Minister’s questions. In response to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, the Prime Minister said that Sir Olly Robbins “was absolutely clear that nobody put pressure o…”

“We would like to see some clarity given to the Table Office, so that it knows what it can let through. We do not want to get rid of the factual basis rule altogether, but we think that there should be more scope for Members to ask questions. Often the Government blocks what we would consider to be perfectly legitimate …”

“I agree with what Wendy says. To recap a point that we have been over several times, because it is very important, there is a slight danger that over time we will end up in a system where MPs stop relying on parliamentary questions because the process is too slow and the outcome is unreliable when you know that if you …”

“Yes, we might get to that. We might draw attention to it on the Floor of the House, or we might use FOI. As I say, some Government Departments do not understand that when they try to hide things from us, it makes us believe that there is something worth finding. Often, they would do better just to tell us what it is an…”

“As you touched on, when you get poor answers, it encourages you to try again because you believe that the Government are hiding something. When we get answers of the sort that Christopher has just raised, we seek more information, so it generates more work. Also, at the start of a Parliament, when you have new Minister…”