Chris Bryant

I completely respect my hon. Friend. He has made that point several times, not only in the Chamber but also to me privately, and I agree with him: that is the direction of travel we are going in, which is why we agree with the Humble Address presented today. We are not standing in the way, and we will do everything we can to comply with that as fast as we possibly can. I will come on to a couple of caveats a bit later, but I just want to pursue the point about what we knew in the past. The right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) rightly said that Paul Flynn had a debate on 4 May 2011, to which he responded, standing in for the Minister responsible. However, Paul Flynn initiated another debate, on 17 March in Westminster Hall. It was granted to him by the Backbench Business Committee, which had been set up relatively recently. Because he was finding it very difficult to make any of the allegations that he wanted to make because of the rules of the House, he concluded that “there really is no point in continuing”.—[Official Report, 17 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 156WH.] The then Deputy Leader of the House, David Heath—who was another Liberal Democrat member of the Government at the time—made the point, which I think has been made by both Mr Bercow and you, Mr Speaker, that if there were a “substantive motion”, such comments could be made. It would be necessary to find a means of tabling such a motion, like the one that we are discussing today. Following that, Paul Flynn tried to secure a substantive motion, but managed to secure only a motion for an Adjournment debate, on 4 May. He struggled again, and this is what he said: “The Speaker would quite rightly abide by the rules of the House and tell me that I was not allowed to make any derogatory statements that might affect the envoy, his personality or his name. It is an illustration of how demeaned we are as politicians and Members of Parliament that I am allowed to make any points about the damage that is done only in an oblique way, by discussing the effects of the holder of the office, his role and the comments that are being made.”—[Official Report, 3 May 2011; Vol. 527, c. 647.] Of course he was angry: he was furious. He wrote a great book about being an MP, which I commend to all hon. Members. As the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton knows, he responded to that debate. He said: “I, for one, believe that the Duke of York does an excellent job as the UK’s special representative for international trade and investment. He promotes UK business interests around the world, and helps to attract inward investment.” He continued at some length, and concluded: “He has made a valuable contribution in developing significant opportunities for British business through the role, and continues to do so.”—[Official Report, 3 May 2011; Vol. 527, c. 649-650.] Let me say gently to the right hon. Gentleman that if he had followed the debates in the public domain at the time he would, I think, have known better than to make those comments.