Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:50 pm on 23 May 2024.
Conor Burns
Conservative, Bournemouth West
12:50,
23 May 2024
May I associate myself with earlier remarks about your pending retirement, Madam Deputy Speaker?
Ever since I first rose to speak from this very spot 14 years ago, I have tried to champion my Constituency in this place. The impending Dissolution brings to mind unfinished business. In that light, may I raise with my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House again the tragic and brutal murder of young Thomas Roberts on the Old Christchurch Road in my constituency, just over two and a half years ago? The perpetrator of that murder should never have been in the United Kingdom. He is now rightly serving life behind bars. He lied about his age: he said he was 14 when he was in fact 18, and he was placed in a secondary school in my constituency. He was reported to social services and the police, but little action was taken. There was a litany of failures by public institutions, leading to that senseless and needless murder two and a half years ago.
Replying to an Adjournment Debate, the then Minister for the Home Office, my right hon. Friend Robert Jenrick, told me he could not go into the detail while a Home Office investigation was proceeding. Twice now the Home Office has refused to publish even the headline findings of the inquiry that it commissioned. I spoke recently to Thomas’s father Philip, who does not understand why internal processes are preventing the Home Office from bringing into the public domain the findings of that report, what lessons have been learned and which individuals will be held to account. Even at 10 minutes to midnight in this Parliament, can my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House think of any mechanism to draw the matter to the attention of the Home Office? I hope that I and other Members will not let it go in the next Parliament.
The House of Commons.
An adjournment debate is a short half hour debate that is introduced by a backbencher at the end of each day's business in the House of Commons.
Adjournment debates are also held in the side chamber of Westminster Hall.
This technical procedure of debating a motion that the House should adjourn gives backbench members the opportunity to discuss issues of concern to them, and to have a minister respond to the points they raise.
The speaker holds a weekly ballot in order to decide which backbench members will get to choose the subject for each daily debate.
Backbenchers normally use this as an opportunity to debate issues related to their constituency.
An all-day adjournment debate is normally held on the final day before each parliamentary recess begins. On these occasions MPs do not have to give advance notice of the subjects which they intend to raise.
The leader of the House replies at the end of the debate to all of the issues raised.
The Deputy speaker is in charge of proceedings of the House of Commons in the absence of the Speaker.
The deputy speaker's formal title is Chairman of Ways and Means, one of whose functions is to preside over the House of Commons when it is in a Committee of the Whole House.
The deputy speaker also presides over the Budget.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
In a general election, each Constituency chooses an MP to represent them. MPs have a responsibility to represnt the views of the Constituency in the House of Commons. There are 650 Constituencies, and thus 650 MPs. A citizen of a Constituency is known as a Constituent
