Lord Strathclyde
To resolve that this House has received with sincere regret the announcement of the retirement of Mr Michael Graham Pownall from the office of Clerk of the Parliaments and thinks it right to record the just sense which it entertains of the zeal, ability, diligence and integrity with which the said Michael Graham Pownall has executed the important duties of his office.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)
My Lords, on 8 November last year, I informed the House that Mr Michael Pownall had announced his intention of retiring from the office of Clerk of the Parliaments with effect from 15 April this year. I indicated at the time that in due course there would be an opportunity to pay tribute to Mr Pownall.
Some Members will know that, by convention, the retiring Clerk of the Parliaments makes sure to absent himself from the Chamber for this part of our proceedings. Those who were well acquainted with Mr Pownall will not be surprised to hear that it was his ardent wish to go one step further and to ensure that he had left the estate for good by the time the House dwelt on his achievements. In that respect and in many others, he led those who serve us in this House by example. In the self-effacing manner in which he performed his duties, he helped to sustain the fiction, carefully crafted by successor generations of servants of this House, that we, the Members of this House, are solely responsible for its actions and achievements. Such a wonderful and convincing tale they have woven that I, for one, have never had occasion to doubt it.
Michael also led by example in the unfailing courtesy that he displayed towards Members of the House. Imposing as we are in our collective guise, one might concede that there are some formidable individuals among our number, yet if ever the Clerk of the Parliaments shared this perception, he did not let it show. His advice was invariably delivered patiently and with good grace. There is no Member for whom he would not make time and no predicament he would have dismissed as unworthy of his assistance.
Mr Pownall’s tenure as Clerk of the Parliaments marked the culmination of 40 years of service to this House. In that time, he held every important post, including that of private secretary to the Leader of the House and the Government Chief Whip when those positions were occupied by Lord Soames, Baroness Young and the noble Lord, Lord Denham. As well as serving the first woman Leader of this House, Mr Pownall is known to have distinguished himself during that period by bravely drawing our minimum intervals to the attention of the then Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher.
In recent years, Michael served as Reading Clerk and Clerk Assistant before being appointed Clerk of the Parliaments in 2007. When assuming that august office, he could not have anticipated the twists and turns that events would take. His term coincided with the removal of the similarly venerable appellate jurisdiction of this House, with allegations of paid advocacy that prompted the House to revive its powers of suspension, and with a press campaign that exposed serious abuses of the financial support available to Members of both Houses, some of which have since led to prosecutions and criminal convictions. These have been testing times for the House—times which placed unprecedented demand on the Clerk of the Parliaments’ judgment, integrity and resilience. I am confident that I speak for the whole House when I say that in more dispiriting moments it was a great solace to know with absolute and distinctive certainty that Mr Pownall would not be found wanting on any of these counts.
Michael leaves behind a more resilient institution—one equipped with a new Code of Conduct for Members, an independent Commissioner for Standards and a simpler and more transparent system of financial support for Members. He leaves behind a legacy that I am sure will stand the test of time. That legacy alone would have been sufficient to earn Mr Pownall a place among the most accomplished of his predecessors. But there is no rest for the wig-wearing, and more upheaval was in store for the Clerk of the Parliaments. The general election only a year ago, in 2010, saw the first change of Government for 13 years and the first coalition Government since the Second World War. The speed and dexterity with which the needs of coalition Government were anticipated and catered for is of immense credit to Mr Pownall and his staff. Their planning, pragmatism and good grace allowed the strange and unaccustomed to be overcome and innovation of one day to become the tradition of the next.
There are, of course, more achievements that I could list and I trust that some of them will be mentioned by others, but the pinnacle of them all, perhaps, is that Mr Pownall succeeded in notching up his manifold achievements while holding together the unruly flock that is the House. He is not only respected and admired but held in sincere and lasting affection around the House and at all levels of the administration. That is why I very much hope that, although he may be intending to while away his retirement in Italy, the lure of the deep red carpet, the Pugin interiors and our collective good sense will prove too strong and we will see him in the House again from time to time.
It remains for me only to wish Michael and his wife Deborah many enjoyable years ahead. We are greatly indebted to him for the exemplary service which he has rendered to this House and to Parliament. I beg to move.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, it gives me enormous pleasure on behalf of the Opposition to second the Motion moved by the Leader of the House. I associate myself and my Benches with all that the noble Lord has said about the recently retired Clerk of the Parliaments, Michael Pownall.
Michael’s long service to your Lordships’ House, his diligence and commitment to his work and, at the same time, his reticence and modesty are all qualities from which the House has enormously benefited. It is characteristic of Michael’s modesty that he somehow managed to contrive to retire during the recess while the House was not sitting, but we will not let him get away without paying tribute in the Chamber to all that he has done for the House and for the Members of this House. It is characteristic too, though, that even after leaving the job Michael Pownall will still be doing it because he has to return to give further evidence in court proceedings being brought against Members of this House, and it is on these issues that I wish to focus. In paying an overall tribute to the former Clerk, the Leader mentioned that he could only touch on Michael’s role in dealing with the difficult issues with which this House has had to deal in the past few years. For most of that time I was in the noble Lord’s place as Leader of the House, which gave me a particular perspective on Michael, and it is from that perspective that I shall address the substance of my remarks today.
Parliament has had a bad time of it over this period: we have seen a scandal erupt; we have seen a media frenzy; we have seen the standing of Parliament lowered; we have seen trust eroded; we have seen Parliament fail the British people. In all this, your Lordships' House has not been impacted on to the same degree and extent as the House of Commons, but it has none the less been seriously affected. As the noble Lord the Leader said, we have as a result reformed our procedures radically. In all this, at every point, was Michael Pownall. I tell your Lordships this quite plainly: whatever difficulties this House has been in, they would have been worse, so very much worse, if Michael Pownall had not been in his job. At every moment, in every aspect of the issues involved, Michael was centrally involved not only in dealing with them but with stretching himself and his team to find ways of resolving them.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
My Lords, this is the first time since the formation of the coalition Government that I have spoken from the Liberal Democrats Benches. The reason I do so is that I want to make it clear that the tribute I wish to pay is on behalf of the Liberal Democrats in this House, although I heartily concur with the remarks of the Leader of the House and, in particular, with the Leader of the Opposition in the way she dealt with the torrid time that Michael Pownall had to endure as he piloted us through some of the most difficult times that this House has ever had to endure.
The phrase that comes to mind is courage under fire, because that is what he showed. Because he showed courage under fire, he was able to give steady advice to the various party leaders. Like the Leader of the House, I believe that when this period in the House is looked back on, although it will be seen as a period of turmoil and of some distress, it will also be seen as a period of genuine reform when we put our House in order, and we did so under the wise guidance of Michael Pownall. I will not try to repeat what the Leader of the House and the Leader of the Opposition said, but I appreciated the passion that the noble Baroness showed in her tribute, which was richly deserved.
It is always difficult to find new things to say in this slot, and I usually rely on my noble friend Lady Thomas of Winchester, who is keeper of the blessed memory as far as this House is concerned. She brought two facts to mind. She remembers that, when Michael Pownall was secretary to the noble Lord, Lord Denham—who I am glad to see is in a place if not quite in his place—under stress, he would turn to cigarettes. This surprised me. I could not think that there could be any stressful moments being private secretary to the noble Lord, Lord Denham, but there you are—you never cease to be surprised. I was also told something even more disturbing: Michael Pownall is a mimic of Rory Bremner-type skill and some of his finest mimicry is, in fact, of Members of this House. I am looking forward to getting him in a private place when he returns and asking him to go through his repertoire. There was another thing I found surprising. It did not surprise me that Michael loves Italy and is a good squash player, but I read that he is a supporter of Luton Town. A Clerk of the Parliaments supporting Luton Town! Luton Town is at the Pukka Pies end of football rather than the prawn cocktail end, but that again shows the depths of the man. Luton Town won 4-0 yesterday, so he should be quite pleased about that.
I hope that what has come through is the amazing Clerks we have in this House. They hold this House’s oldest office, yet we attract men and women who are willing to serve this House. Forty years’ service is almost unknown in today’s career paths. Michael Pownall gave 40 years of service to this House including four years of tremendous service as Clerk of the Parliaments during a historic period. I think that again the Leader of the Opposition got it right. Michael Pownall was a great public servant at a time when the term is going out of fashion. He is much appreciated as a public servant and a great servant of this House. Our thanks to Michael Pownall.
Baroness D'Souza
My Lords, on behalf of the Cross-Benchers, I support the tributes already paid by the Leader of the House, the Deputy Leader of the House and the Leader of the Opposition. One of the first things that one has to acknowledge about Michael Pownall, or MGP, as we like to call him, is that there is almost nothing that he does not know about the House of Lords both legislatively and procedurally. He, like so many of the Clerks, is a walking Companion to the Standing Orders, in fact, so much so that he is almost a standing order himself. His rise from being a serious young man of 23 in 1971, when one of his first appointments was as private secretary to the Leader of the House, to the culmination of any Clerk’s ambition in this House as Clerk of the Parliaments has been inexorable.
We have all become accustomed to seeing a rather worried-looking MGP speeding along the corridors, but he had much to be worried about, as we have already heard. Two major changes occurred under his watch: the removal of the Law Lords to the Supreme Court and the acquisition and refurbishment of the Millbank site. These seemingly smooth operations have entailed many hundreds of ducks paddling furiously underwater, and Michael was, at all times, their overall leader. We can perhaps repay his and others’ work by persuading some of those still entrenched in fusty corners of this Palace to move into the light, airy offices of Millbank. On behalf of the Cross-Benchers, I thank the Clerk of the Parliaments as was, Michael, for all that he has done, and for all that he is. I trust he will keep in touch with us so that we might all get to enjoy seeing him freed from his clerkly burdens.