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Point of Order

Volume 462: debated on Tuesday 10 July 2007

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. On 6 June there was a debate in Opposition time on the Government’s failures on the NHS IT programme. In answer to our charges of incompetence, the then Minister of State— now the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint)—and the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis), both prayed in aid the National Audit Office report on the NHS IT system. They used various quotations and Hansard accurately recorded what the Ministers said. It has now been reported that the Ministers have recognised that the words that they used were not contained in the NAO report. Phrases such as “a positive report”, “much needed” and “well managed” were not in the report. The Ministers are now apparently seeking to correct the record without coming back to the House, which has a correct record of what was said, to apologise for the inaccuracies and the mistaken utterances that they made to seek to defend their now threadbare position. I seek your guidance as editor of the Official Report as well as the person responsible for the conduct of business in this House.

The best thing that I can do is investigate the matter and come back to the hon. Gentleman. I will look into the matter and I thank him for raising it.