Posts Tagged ‘Speaker’

As the Queen arrives at Westminster it is worth remembering that the Monarch is not permitted to enter the House of Commons and is only allowed into the Palace of Westminster by invitation. It remains the only royal palace to which the Monarch has no automatic right of entry.

Charles I was the last Monarch to enter the Commons in 1642 when he attempted to arrest John Pym and four other Members of Parliament for treason. The Speaker William Lenthall, when asked to point out the conspirators famously replied:

“May it please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here.”

However, the Monarch has been invited today to open Parliament and she has now arrived at the Monarch’s entrance.

Black Rod will approach the House of Commons and the door will be ceremonially slammed in his face. He will ten use his rod to knock the door three times. This is to allow the Commons to confirm that he is not the Monarch and signifies that although the Monarch is on the premises he is merely a messenger delivering her command.

 Like the Conservative Party Leadership contests of 2001 and 2005; the contest for Speaker this week (Monday 22^nd of June) suddenly gave the media, and to a certain extent the public, a hook for their interest - for an intense period.

John Bercow won through amidst a group of the old, Richard Shepherd and Sir Patrick Cormack, the experienced, Sir Michael Lord and Sir Alan Haselhurst and the high-profile Ann Widdecombe and Margaret Beckett. Apart from Parmjit Dhanda, Mr Bercow was the only character who could convincingly propound reformist principles without being attributed to the old traditions of the past.

In this way his victory does mark a break - Bercow is young(ish), energetic and full of life - a welcome change from Speaker Martin. He undoubtedly has support from the Left, in fact his campaign manager was Labour MP for Reading West, Martin Salter. Also he has never been someone to toe the line. In the 1980s he was thought to be too right-wing for the Conservative party and then in the 2000s he switched to a new left-wing style (prompted by marriage to his left-wing wife) breaking rank to vote with his new found social conscience on issues such as gay rights.

So it is difficult to say there is any particular group he must appease - he is a lone figure, independent, as the Speaker must be.

But can he actually do anything?

Betty Boothroyd, in my personal opinion a great Speaker, was interviewed mid-way through the contest by the BBC and whilst explaining how important the job was and the sort of character it needed she was asked what tenable powers the Speaker had to change the House of Commons:

Of course the Speaker has authority, but not power (she said) just the power to persuade, it was not the Speaker’s job to interfere - he must speak on behalf of the House and abide by its decisions.

So when it comes down to the facts of this contest we find an empty husk. The election of Speaker Bercow sends a message to the public that the House of Commons is willing to appoint someone with reformist intentions, but it does nothing more. He has no remit except to make suggestions to party leaders and the Prime Minister; it is still the House of Commons, who finally decide.

All those who have been treating Speaker Bercow’s election as the rise of a new independent leader of the House, on a par with party leaders, have been deceived by an over eager press excited with a good contest.

Speaker Bercow can by all means encourage, nudge, assuage and egg on his colleagues towards reform - but he can do nothing more. He is just a Speaker of the House of Commons encharged with carrying out the business of the House, but not making the business or affecting its outcome. On the outside this seems like a big break - but in reality MPs must change the House of Commons themselves not just the Speaker.

The House of Commons will elect a new Speaker on Monday 22^nd June.

There are, at the last count 10 candidates who have all attracted enough nominations to be able to stand. It is always with looking at the procedure for a rare event like the election of the Speaker to help us to understand how this will work.

Nominations

Monday 9.30 - 1.30am - written nominations must be submitted to the to the House of Commons Table Office.

Candidates for Speaker must submit the signatures of between 12 and 15 MP who support their nomination and a signed declaration stating that they are willing to stand for election.

11.00am - the final list will be published on the Parliament website.

Any MP is entitled to stand and at present, there are 10 candidates thought likely to be nominated, including Margaret Beckett, John Bercow, Sir George Young and Ann Widdecombe.

Election

Monday 2.30pm - the House of Commons will meet to elect the Speaker - the Father of the House (the longest serving MP), Alan Williams, will preside over the election.

Each candidate will give a speech to the House; the order will be decided by ballot.

If there is only one nomination, that candidate will automatically be proposed to the House as the Speaker. Once all the candidates have spoken, MPs will vote for their preferred candidate.

Voting

The vote will be by secret ballot and will take place in the Division lobbies and each MP will be given a ballot paper to fill in and they will have 30 minutes to vote.

Results and further ballots

If any candidate receives more than 50 per cent of the votes, they will be proposed to the House as Speaker. If no candidate receives more than 50 per cent of the votes, MPs will be asked to vote again.

This time the following will be eliminated:

• any candidate with less than 5 per cent of the votes
• the candidate who came last
• any candidate who withdraws within ten minutes of the result

Successive ballots will be held until only one candidate remains or a candidate obtains more than 50 per cent of the votes. The remaining candidate will then be proposed to the House as Speaker.

If the motion for the Speaker is contested, there will be a vote. If the motion is agreed to, the successful MP will be dragged to the chair. The Speaker elect will then need to be approved by the Crown.

With each vote possibly taking up to two hours, MPs could be in for a long night.

With the resignation of the Speaker,  the blood-letting has formally begun.

Current and former ministers, Committee Chairs, backbenchers have been drawn into the quagmire. Even the few who have been deemed to have been Saints such as Ed Miliband, Adam Afriyie, Alan Johnson, Vince Cable due to their low running costs have all been tarnished and Parliament itself is being referred to as the Moat Parliament or the Manure Parliament. But the Speaker has been the first to officially fall on his sword.

It is fascinating to look at how the expenses story has evolved in the press. According to Assistant Editor, Benedict Brogan on last week’s Question Time, The Telegraph has had the disks for at least a month and have had a team of 25 journalists plugging through the millions of receipts and documents.

At first the public was simply disgusted by shocking story was but as the media continued to bay for blood, the public have been whipped up into a frenzy with the sleaze story to end all sleaze stories.

The blood-letting will continue and we will witness further infighting as a number of MPs scramble to get the position of Poison Chalice, sorry I mean Speaker.

Who will it be? Will it be old guard, Sir George Young, Sir Alan Haselhurst? Will it be the Lib-Dems turn, Vince Cable, Sir Menzies Campbell? Will it be a fresh face like John Bercow? Or could they go with a temporary Speaker who could hold the House in order until the next general election, someone like Ann Widdecombe?  Or will it be someone from complete left field?

I’m not going to discuss the merits of each - that will be played out in the media in the coming days and weeks. Loyalties will be questioned, reputations tarnished, dirty little secrets aired.

But without question, in living memory, never has a choice of Speaker been so important in the eyes of the public and this is a decision that Parliament has to get right.

Parliament is facing a crucial time, the new Speaker is facing a crucial time. Recent events surrounding MPs expenses have left us all thinking how did it come to this and how did this go on for so long without anyone noticing.

All MPs need to consider how this looks to the public - claiming allowances for moat cleaning, for mortgages already paid off, for other border-line goods and services, regardless of whether the rules allowed them or not, does not look good and does not help with forging closer links between politics and the people of Britain.

The question also has to be asked not only what can be done about it but what can be done to prevent it happening again?

Michael Martin came in for pretty robust criticisms from MPs and from outside the House. It is rare for such outright defiance of a Speaker to be seen in the House of Commons. Regardless of the necessity of the Speaker to stand down, there are many people who will regret the manner in which it was done.

How much is this down to MPs really thinking that the Speaker is the best option to save their own hides as a convenient scapegoat  after so many of them have been caught with their hands in the till?

There have been suggestions that Michael Martin was not up to the job, that he was lacking in either the intellectual capacity or the authority to command respect in the House. These allegations may have some substance and perhaps time had run out for him.

The question remains though, to what extent was the Speaker perceived to be the problem or representing the blockages to reform?

There is a big task ahead for the next Speaker to help to begin the process of restoring faith in politics, Parliament and the role of MPs - it would have helped if MPs hadn’t put themselves in this mess in the first place.