On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I seek your guidance on a matter of procedure? I note that motion 5 on today’s Order Paper proposes that the House rise for the Easter recess on Thursday 2 April. On the same day the G20 summit, which is clearly a meeting of enormous importance, will be hosted here in London. Would it be in order for any Member to table a manuscript amendment proposing that the House rise the following day, in order to give the Prime Minister a chance to make a statement about the summit that he will have hosted?
The motion is unamendable, so it must be put forthwith, but hon. Members are, of course, entitled to oppose it.
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday’s Order Paper included a meeting of the new Select Committee on North East Regional Affairs, but there is no mention of it in today’s Votes and Proceedings. I subsequently discovered that it could not meet because it was inquorate, and that the quorum was only three. Surely if a Committee of that kind could not proceed, the fact that it was inquorate should be recorded in Votes and Proceedings. This initiative was trumpeted by the Government as an important regional development, yet they could not get three of their MPs together to launch it.
I can only say that if no proceedings took place because the meeting was inquorate, there is nothing to report to the House.
Further to those points of order, Mr. Speaker. The West Midlands Regional Affairs Committee was also due to meet yesterday, and failed to do so because it was similarly inquorate. As a custodian of the resources of the House, Mr. Speaker, do you not agree that if there is a consistent pattern of regional Select Committees not meeting because they are inquorate, there is a case for reviewing their very existence?
That is a matter for members of the Committees. As hon. Members know, I have often chaired meetings of the House, and some days I have wished that those were inquorate, so that I could go for a coffee—but so often the opposite was the case. Members have a responsibility to turn up at meetings, and they should attend those meetings and do their duties. I will go no further than that.
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
I call Mr. Pritchard first, but I shall come to the hon. Lady, if she is patient. She must not worry.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Sadly, the Wrekin Construction group, which is in my constituency, announced today that it was going into administration. The company has been around for nearly 50 years, and 1,100 people will be affected: 600 jobs will be affected directly, and 500 indirectly. Indeed, jobs will be affected in the great city of Glasgow as well as in Shropshire and the west midlands.
I alerted the Business Secretary to the fact that the company was experiencing short-term financial difficulty, and needed strong support and help from the Royal Bank of Scotland, back in December 2008. The Business Secretary has done absolutely nothing to help the company. Those massive job losses were avoidable. As I have said, the company has been around for nearly 50 years. It has an order book worth £50 million. It is profitable. It is an absolute scandal that although Ministers knew that this was avoidable, the Government have done nothing to save jobs. If the Business Secretary comes to Shropshire, rather than having green custard on his face, he will definitely have egg on his face.
Order. The hon. Gentleman made his case and made his protest, but he went too far when he mentioned the attack on a Minister. An attack on any Minister in this Government should never be allowed, and no Member should give any indication that he or she in any way approves of such behaviour.
All of us, from time to time, face redundancies in our constituencies, and we have a duty to fight as best we can. The hon. Gentleman has been a Member of the House for long enough to know that there are Adjournment debates and there are parliamentary questions, and that he can also seek a meeting with the Minister whom he mentioned. Those are the steps that he should take to try to help the job situation in his constituency.
Further to the point of order made by the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson), Mr. Speaker. I am a member of the newly formed North East Committee, and I received an e-mail from the Clerk yesterday afternoon telling me, prior to that meeting, that it had been cancelled, so that is probably why nobody attended the meeting. I have all due respect for the hon. Gentleman, but I am not sure where he got his information from. If a meeting is cancelled, is there any way of recording that in Hansard?
The hon. Lady has managed to record that the meeting was cancelled, so there we are.
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I know that you are in a difficult position on this, but the matter raised by my hon. Friends the Members for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) and for Bromsgrove (Miss Kirkbride) highlights an important issue. Two regional Select Committee meetings were scheduled to take place, but in fact they did not—although perhaps one of them did take place but because it was inquorate, nothing occurred. Surely that should be registered on the Order Paper the day following such a scheduled meeting, Mr. Speaker, so will you look at whether these matters could be reported in the Order Paper of the House, because I can only say to the Leader of the House, “We told you so”?
The hon. Gentleman has a massive knowledge of these matters, and what I say to him is that the record shows the proceedings of the House, and if a meeting is inquorate and did not operate, it is not a proceeding of the House and therefore there is nothing to report. If this is a concern for hon. Members, they can take the matter up with the Procedure Committee.
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I seek your advice and guidance. During the Committee stage of the Coroners and Justice Bill, we had a lengthy discussion on clause 152, which brings in wide-ranging data-sharing powers. During the debate, as is recorded in columns 389-90 of the Committee Hansard for 26 February, the Minister replying said she would sit down with Opposition Members and bring in “a more streamlined version” of the clause. However, the Secretary of State announced in the Sunday press that he would drop clause 152 completely. Why is it that when Ministers give a commitment to deal with matters in Committee or on the Floor of the House, they then go to the press instead? Surely this must be condemned, Mr. Speaker? Because you uphold the rights of Parliament, what can you do to prevent Ministers from behaving in such a way?
What the hon. Gentleman can do is raise the matter when the Bill comes back from the Lords. He is entitled to do that.
Further to the point of order made by my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard), and your comments on that, Mr. Speaker. I have followed your suggestion that we ought to seek meetings with Ministers; in respect of both JCB and Waterford Wedgwood in my constituency, I have raised questions with Ministers, but we have not so far had any meetings. I understand that there are pressures on them, but I must say that although you have remarked that we should have meetings, Mr. Speaker, that does not necessarily mean that we get them. I appreciate that is not your fault, but I wish Ministers would do what they are asked to do.
The hon. Gentleman is a very experienced lawyer, and maybe I should have said that Members could “request” meetings, because the request is in the hands of the Minister concerned. When I was a Back-Bench MP with a difficulty, Ministers—who were not in the same political party as myself—were always very good at meeting a constituency Member. [Interruption.] Well, all I would say is that I would hope that when there is unemployment, or there are dangers regarding unemployment, in a constituency, Ministers take that seriously, and meet hon. Members. I think that is very important indeed.
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I report that the West Midlands Committee, of which I am a member, did not meet yesterday?
Well, there we are; it has all gone on the record.