Phillips gets rowdy over unanswered questions, apologises for ‘unparliamentary behaviour’

Tanesha Mundle/ Staff Reporter

Member of Parliament for North West Manchester Mikael Phillips this afternoon narrowly missed being removed from the sitting of the House of Representatives over his conduct.

Phillips was offered a reprieve after he relented and apologised for his “unparliamentary behaviour” for disobeying an order from House Speaker Marisa Dalrymple Philibert when he did not receive answers to questions put to Education Minister Fayval Williams. 

He wanted to ascertain from Williams what was being done to assist students in his constituency who are being affected by the collapsed Troy Bridge in Manchester, which went down last year.

He also wanted to know if the Ministry would be compensating teachers who now have to travel 17 miles get to work. 

Noting that the design for a new bridge was already done and that costing and the scope of work are being worked on, Dalrymple Philibert asked Phillips to observe the Standing Orders and moved on.

But Phillips said he was not comforted by that information as teachers and students are still displaced. 

The house speaker, however, assured him that the matter was important but stressed that there is a process to get the matter resolved.

She again referred him to the Standing Order and her ruling that he should move on.

“Madam, with all due respect, I asked a simple question and you are trying to answer that question for the minister. 

“I have to report, I am the one who has been feeling it from the parents. Your children have to come from Trelawny, mine have to cross. When that child who fell in that river and nearly drown, you were nowhere to be called or to be seen, I had to deal with that,” Phillips stated. 

Members then objected to his utterance but Phillips declared that he would not sit when Leader of Government Business Edmund Bartlett stood on a point of order and asked that he be put in line. 

Bartlett then asked the house speaker to name the member and advised the House Marshal accordingly. 

“To do what! Marshal vote for me to come in here, you must be mad,” said a defiant Phillips. 

“I don't want anybody to gag me inside here either,” he added.

Dalrymple Philibert, after telling Phillips that she was disappointed in his behaviour, again asked him to back down and insisted that she was moving on. 

Bartlett, however, insisted that Phillips needed to acknowledge that he flouted the house speaker's order and should show some level of contrition. 

“It cannot be that he is allowed to be belligerent and to obviously flout the rules of this honourable house, and without resiling from his position, he is allowed to go on,” he said. 

Member Everald Warmington then advised the house speaker that she should carry out Bartlett's request so that the appropriate action can be taken, pointing to the Standing Orders rule which state that a member who disregard the authority of the Chair, or abuses the rules of the House shall be named by the Speaker, who is also to direct a minister to move that the person in question to be removed from the sitting.

He, however, pointed out that the action can be aborted if Phillips apologised. 

The house speaker then told Bartlett that he needed to move the motion, while indicating that she did not intend to go that route even though Phillips had behaved out of line and made utterances about her which she said were not true. 

Shortly after, Phillips rose and apologised while noting that he had allowed his emotions to get the best of him. 

“It takes a big person to apologise and I accept your apology,” Dalrymple Philibert said, while noting that she understood his frustration. 

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