DOUGLAS Ross has been admonished by the Deputy Speaker in the House of Commons after he raised a point of order aimed at discrediting an SNP contribution.
Kirsty Blackman, the SNP MP for Aberdeen North, had raised her own point of order on the topic of “ministerial correspondence”.
Blackman said that she had received an email from Lord Tariq Ahmad of Wimbledon, the Foreign Office Minister with Afghanistan under his remit, which read: “To date, we do not have any record of correspondence relating to Afghanistan from you or your office.”
However, she said she had been in contact with the office multiple times to raise the case of one of her constituents.
The SNP MP said that she had contacted the Foreign Office four times in the month since August 20, the Home Office five times, the Ministry of Defence twice, and seen the case raised directly “with both the Home Secretary and the Foreign Secretary”.
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She went on: “My constituent’s family were visited by the Taliban on August 17. They were warned, and they were threatened.
“My constituent is a Chevening scholar and his father is a public prosecutor. How can I ensure that I receive a response to my queries so that I can give my constituent and his family appropriate advice?
“As you can imagine, I am deeply concerned for their wellbeing. They are literally living with the threat of death hanging over them every day, as they have been for the entire month since I was first in touch with the Foreign Office about this.”
The Deputy Speaker, Nigel Evans, said he was “concerned” to hear of the Foreign Office’s claims, adding that rapid and accurate responses to matters in Afghanistan were “urgent and critical”.
However, raising his own point of order, Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross sought to defend the Foreign Office’s conduct.
He said: “The letter from the Foreign Office also said that it had received more than 200,000 emails in a very short period of time. The letter from the Member of the House of Lords also gave MPs a direct email address to which to send any further information that might have been missed.
“For people watching these proceedings, I think it is important to explain the entire letter, not just the selected points from the honourable lady.”
Ross’s contribution earned a sharp rebuke from the Deputy Speaker, who said it was “definitely not a matter” for him to be asked to consider.
Evans went on: “The hon Gentleman has put his point on the record, but in the case of Afghanistan, clearly these are life and death matters.
“The correspondence, irrespective of how it has come, has got to be addressed properly.”
Commenting later, Blackman told The National that Ross didn’t seem to understand the situation being faced by those in Afghanistan.
She said: “I don’t think Douglas Ross quite grasps the fact that it is life or death for many in Afghanistan right now and MPs across the House are just trying to do what they can to help.”
The news follows accusations levelled at both the Prime Minister and the now former foreign secretary of having “misled parliament” over a similar matter.
Both Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab promised that all such correspondence from MPs raising matters linked to Afghanistan would be answered by September 7.
Blackman’s constituent’s case is one of hundreds raised by the SNP alone which had not been dealt with in the promised timeframe.
The Scottish Tories have been approached for comment.
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