Part of Export Licensing: High Court Judgment – in the House of Commons at 5:19 pm on 10 July 2017.
John Bercow
Chair, Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, Speaker of the House of Commons, Chair, Speaker's Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, Chair, Commons Reference Group on Representation and Inclusion Committee, Chair, Speaker's Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, Chair, Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, Chair, Commons Reference Group on Representation and Inclusion Committee
5:19,
10 July 2017
I am very grateful to the hon. Lady, both for her point of order and for her characteristic courtesy in giving me advance notice of it. It was also exceptionally helpful of her to attach to her proposed point of order the text of those two answers. I must say to the hon. Lady and to the House that textual exegesis is of the essence in these matters.
I have pored over the two answers, and have sought to reflect on whether they might in some way be not incompatible with each other, but such a conclusion is beyond my limited intellectual capacities. It certainly appears that the two answers are irreconcilable: one must be correct, and therefore, by definition, the other must not be. Apart from anything else, it is quite difficult to see how one can increase powers open to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs if in fact they have no such powers at all. So the matter does, I think, require some clarification.
The hon. Lady has certainly made her concern clear. The content of answers is not a matter for the Chair, but her concern has been conveyed to the Minister, in the sense that representatives of the Treasury Bench will have heard it, and her point will be recorded in the Official Report. If the Minister considers that she has unintentionally misled the House, I am sure that she will take steps to put the record straight. I advise the hon. Lady to watch this space, and see whether such an attempt at corrective action is made. If it is, she will be happy. If it is not, my advice to her would be to return to the matter through further questioning, or possibly, if necessary, in extremis, by recourse to the Chair.
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