– in the House of Commons at on 27 March 1929.
Professor Sir Charles Oman
, Oxford University
In regard to the question of procedure in this House, I can only speak with an experience of 10 years. My first point is the absolute necessity of time saving in this House, and we ought to restrict the volubility of certain individual Members of this House. If one looks through the OFFICIAL REPORT, one finds that an enormous proportion of the time of the House, judging from the number of columns, is occupied by a comparatively small body of Members of this House. Sometimes those hon. Members pose as the watchdog of the State, and they express doubts upon every conceivable subject. Sometimes they appear as voices crying in the wilderness, and on other occasions they are urging that the time will soon come when red
ruin and the breaking up of law and order will come about. All those hon. Members achieve one end, and that is they take up a large amount of the time of the House. When they get up to speak there is a general exodus of Members from the House. I have often wondered how it is possible for men of considerable intelligence to speak so often with the idea that they are following the career of the great Mr. Burke and becoming the dinner bell of the House. As the Duke of Wellington once said:
We must get on with His Majesty's business.
There are two or three things which I want to put before the House, and I do so now because it is perhaps the last opportunity I shall have as there will not be a further opportunity in the few remaining moments again after Easter. My first suggestion is that, a calculation having been made of the amount of time likely to be occupied by the Session, tickets covering a period of a quarter of an hour for speaking should be issued to Members of the House, and they should be strictly non-transferable. The speakers who have those tickets should be called to order by Mr. Speaker the moment when the time stated on their ticket comes to an end. In the case of some hon. Members, I think those tickets would be exhausted within a very short time after the beginning of the Session, and I am sure that would be for the general profit of the House, the realm, and the Empire. Probably it might not have that effect, but might only have the effect of leading those hon. Members to speak on subjects in which they were really interested, and to speak at moderate length and generally to give other people their chance. That is my first suggestion—that there should be a time allowance to all Members of the House, which should not be exceeded.
My second suggestion is this: On a minor scale, but very vexatiously, time is wasted in this House by one section of the House, generally the "Noes," called for a Division. Mr. Speaker asks them two or three times whether they wish for a Division, they keep on shouting "No," and Mr. Speaker allows the Division. Shouts ring round the building, the bells ring everywhere, and unwilling Members troop in from the Library or the Smoking-Room, only to find, when they reach the door, that no Tellers have been appointed and the Division is off. A quarter of an hour is sometimes wasted in that way, and I have a suggestion to make as to how it could be stopped. I have the greatest belief in the wisdom and deciding power of Mr. Speaker, and I would suggest that, when he has decided that the number of Members who have called for a Division makes it necessary to order a Division, the party Whips of that side should be held responsible for having allowed their friends to keep on calling for so long that a Division has been ordered. I should like to have some form of censure invented for the use of Mr. Speaker, and as it could not be applied to any vague and anonymous section, I would suggest it should be applied to the party Whips of that section. I do not know whether it would be possible for it to take the form of applying a fine, but I cannot help thinking that, if the party Whips knew that there was a fine of, say, two guineas for calling a Division and then putting it off, there would be a great deal less interruption of our dinner time, because these interruptions seem to have a particular knack of coming precisely between the hours of half-past seven and half-past eight.
Again, on the question of sparing time, why should it not be possible during Divisions to open the doors for the Division a little earlier? In the summer the heat is torrid, Members are crowded together to pass through, and frequent shouts of "Gate" may be heard while the Tellers are lingering. It seems to me that a slight change by which the Tellers should be appointed, and should take their posts at the doors at once would be an enormous improvement. The last point I wish to bring forward is that some check should be put on supplementary questions. They are often very right and proper, and necessary to elicit the actual meaning of a Minister's reply, but they are occasionally purely futile, and they are still more occasionally, what is worse than futile, intended to be funny. I should like to find some arrangement by which, by the authority of Mr. Speaker, a black mark should be placed against the would-be funny asker of questions who is preventing deserving questions in the sixties and seventies from being asked. I have made these few suggestions, the result of 10 years pondering. I am sorry they will be perfectly futile when made at this particular hour, and at this particular time of the Parliament, but I thought I ought to express my opinion and, in any case, liberavi animam meam.
The Speaker is an MP who has been elected to act as Chairman during debates in the House of Commons. He or she is responsible for ensuring that the rules laid down by the House for the carrying out of its business are observed. It is the Speaker who calls MPs to speak, and maintains order in the House. He or she acts as the House's representative in its relations with outside bodies and the other elements of Parliament such as the Lords and the Monarch. The Speaker is also responsible for protecting the interests of minorities in the House. He or she must ensure that the holders of an opinion, however unpopular, are allowed to put across their view without undue obstruction. It is also the Speaker who reprimands, on behalf of the House, an MP brought to the Bar of the House. In the case of disobedience the Speaker can 'name' an MP which results in their suspension from the House for a period. The Speaker must be impartial in all matters. He or she is elected by MPs in the House of Commons but then ceases to be involved in party politics. All sides in the House rely on the Speaker's disinterest. Even after retirement a former Speaker will not take part in political issues. Taking on the office means losing close contact with old colleagues and keeping apart from all groups and interests, even avoiding using the House of Commons dining rooms or bars. The Speaker continues as a Member of Parliament dealing with constituent's letters and problems. By tradition other candidates from the major parties do not contest the Speaker's seat at a General Election. The Speakership dates back to 1377 when Sir Thomas Hungerford was appointed to the role. The title Speaker comes from the fact that the Speaker was the official spokesman of the House of Commons to the Monarch. In the early years of the office, several Speakers suffered violent deaths when they presented unwelcome news to the King. Further information can be obtained from factsheet M2 on the UK Parliament website.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
The House of Commons votes by dividing. Those voting Aye (yes) to any proposition walk through the division lobby to the right of the Speaker and those voting no through the lobby to the left. In each of the lobbies there are desks occupied by Clerks who tick Members' names off division lists as they pass through. Then at the exit doors the Members are counted by two Members acting as tellers. The Speaker calls for a vote by announcing "Clear the Lobbies". In the House of Lords "Clear the Bar" is called. Division Bells ring throughout the building and the police direct all Strangers to leave the vicinity of the Members’ Lobby. They also walk through the public rooms of the House shouting "division". MPs have eight minutes to get to the Division Lobby before the doors are closed. Members make their way to the Chamber, where Whips are on hand to remind the uncertain which way, if any, their party is voting. Meanwhile the Clerks who will take the names of those voting have taken their place at the high tables with the alphabetical lists of MPs' names on which ticks are made to record the vote. When the tellers are ready the counting process begins - the recording of names by the Clerk and the counting of heads by the tellers. When both lobbies have been counted and the figures entered on a card this is given to the Speaker who reads the figures and announces "So the Ayes [or Noes] have it". In the House of Lords the process is the same except that the Lobbies are called the Contents Lobby and the Not Contents Lobby. Unlike many other legislatures, the House of Commons and the House of Lords have not adopted a mechanical or electronic means of voting. This was considered in 1998 but rejected. Divisions rarely take less than ten minutes and those where most Members are voting usually take about fifteen. Further information can be obtained from factsheet P9 at the UK Parliament site.
