A New Blog Feature: Mr Speaker’s Hot Air, No. 1

This was the response of Speaker Bercow (who often chides MPs for talking too long) to a point of order raised by Keith Vaz MP yesterday. It regarded an incident in which technicians mistakenly broadcasted a private session of Vaz’s Home Affairs Select Committee.

What he said…

Mr Speaker: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order and for giving me advance notice of it. I understand from the advance notification and from what he has just said that there was a technical problem with the recording of his Committee's meeting last week. There is not really a procedural solution that I can offer him or the House, but I am advised that all necessary steps are being taken to avoid a recurrence. If no harm was done, I am sure that the Committee and its illustrious Chairman will be relieved. In essence, he asked me a hypothetical question-whether it would have been a contempt, and so on and so forth. I think that he is capable of working out such matters for himself. On this occasion, I hope that he will understand it if I adopt the approach of the late Lord Whitelaw, which was that on the whole, judging from experience, he preferred to cross a bridge only when he came to it.

What he could have said….

Mr Speaker: Right now there is no procedural solution to the problem that exists. We’re finding out what went wrong and making sure it doesn’t happen again. If the media were ever to try and broadcast a private committee session to the public, we will deal with the problem at that point.