PROCEEDINGS in the House of Commons have been suspended after the Home Office gave the opposition insufficient time to prepare a response to a statement on immigration.
The Speaker suspended business for 10 minutes on Monday to allow the shadow home secretary time to finish reading a statement from the department.
Labour’s Yvette Cooper complained she had become “used to” the Home Office failing to give her enough time to prepare responses to official statements in the chamber.
Speaker Lindsay Hoyle said he had not had enough time to read the statement either.
He said: “Before I come to the statement, can I just say to the Home Secretary, I was going to say to the shadow home secretary are you happy to continue or do you want me to suspend to give you time to read it?”
Shadow home secretary Cooper replied: “Mr Speaker I have only received the statement at half-past. If it was possible to have a further 10 minutes that would be appreciated, but I don’t want to inconvenience the house.
“Unfortunately we have become used to these late statements from the Home Office.”
Hoyle replied: “It was very late coming to me, I’ve not had time to look at it, you’ve not been given sufficient time and the Home Secretary said unfortunately it was ready, it just didn’t arrive to our office.”
