Orders of the Day — Election of a Speaker

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 2:07 pm on 22 March 2001.

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Photo of Mr Paul Tyler Mr Paul Tyler Liberal Democrat, North Cornwall 2:07, 22 March 2001

It is great privilege to follow the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) in the debate. This is not the first occasion on which I have found myself, rather unexpectedly, agreeing with him. Indeed, the first time that I did so was when I canvassed for him, as a young Liberal, as did many of my colleagues, in that famous by-election in Bristol, when he demonstrated a commitment to democracy which we all admire.

I want to take up just one word from his very eloquent speech—"infusion". I am not referring to his favourite beverage, although I am sure that we will all welcome him back in the Tea Room after the general election. He has been an infusion of real-life democracy in the Chamber, which has not been as evident with many hon. Members in our own work here.

I, too, pay tribute to the Committee and, indeed, to its Chairman for the balanced way in which he has presented its report this afternoon. I particularly want to underline the fact that, throughout the report and the debate, it has been recognised that times have changed and that, whatever else we do, we must prevent A such matters from slipping back into the hands of the usual channels. The election of a Speaker is a matter for the whole House.

The right hon. Member for Chesterfield may recall that, on a previous occasion, I moved a motion stating that the power of the parties has increased, is increasing and ought to be diminished. That is, of course, a reflection of the famous Dunning motion, moved in the House in the 1780s, which referred to the Crown. It is extremely important that the House owns the system by which the Speaker is elected and, thereby, shows that the speakership is in its ownership and under the control and influence of nobody else. That is why I take a slightly different view from the right hon. Gentleman about the ballot.

The election of the Speaker is an unusual ballot; it is not like a normal Division, when, as the right hon. Gentleman said, we are here in a representative capacity. However, on a matter of this sort, we do not act in that capacity; we are here as members of an institution saying how we as individual Members—and not the parties or external bodies—want it to be run. We all take part on a completely equal basis—none higher and none lower—and according to exactly the same terms. That is why, as I shall explain in a moment, I strongly support the proposal for a secret ballot.

The Parliamentary Secretary is a past master at getting things right, but his amendment appears to be somewhat defective. It refers only to line 28, when the word "secret" also appears in lines 24 and 25. No doubt, that can be corrected by the usual channels.

We are all here as individual Members and I am speaking in a personal capacity. However, I have undertaken extensive consultation with my Liberal Democrat colleagues in the parliamentary party, so I may refer to the fact that, on some matters I have the unanimous support of my colleagues.

First, I want to make a point of principle. The fact that an outcome is satisfactory and something that we all applaud and recognise as right does not necessarily mean that the route by which we reached that outcome was satisfactory. The fact that the successful candidate on 23 October was broadly welcomed in the House and is very acceptable—I am sure that, with the passage of time, more people have come to that view even if they did not take it at the time—does not mean that the process by which we came to that conclusion was satisfactory. I am grateful to those who gave evidence to the Committee and to the Committee itself for making that point so clearly in the report.

Nevertheless, it is also true that if we had had more time, it might have been possible to have made the inquiry more effective. It is curious to decide who one wants for a job before one writes the job specification. We would never interview someone without deciding what the job was for which we were interviewing him. I therefore regret the fact that it is not been possible, within the time constraints, for the Procedure Committee or any other Select Committee to examine the role of Speaker. I was grateful for the support that was given to that view by the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning).

In a memorandum to the Committee and to the Modernisation Committee, we made suggestions for the modernisation of the role of Speaker as well of the process by which we choose from the candidates.