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Oral Answers to Questions
(5 years ago)
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Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Zac Goldsmith)
This is the last time I will be able to address you from the Chamber, Mr Speaker, so I would like to put on record my thanks to you for what you have done for this House, particularly during my time as a Back Bencher, when we worked closely on a number of issues. I thank you very much what you have done.
The UK is a world leader in efforts to protect endangered plants and animals from poaching and illegal wildlife trade. We have invested over £36 million between 2014 and 2021 on work to directly counter the illegal wildlife trade, including reducing demand, strengthening enforcement, ensuring effective legal frameworks and developing sustainable livelihoods. We will significantly scale up our funding from 2021 by doubling the illegal wildlife trade challenge fund as part of the £220 million international biodiversity fund announced in September.
Andrew Jones
I am concerned, along with many constituents who have contacted me on this issue, that the persecution of raptors is not treated as a priority by local police forces. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that raptor persecution, particularly that of hen harriers, is a national wildlife crime priority and that strong penalties are in place for offences committed against birds of prey?
Zac Goldsmith
The illegal wildlife trade is not just an international issue; it is a domestic issue as well. All our birds in the UK are protected. Wild birds are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and there are strong penalties for committing offences. The Government take wildlife crime very seriously and have identified raptor persecution as a national wildlife crime priority, and that includes species such as hen harriers and peregrines of course. We are very concerned, however, about hen harrier populations, which is why we took the lead on the hen harrier action plan to increase hen harrier populations in England. I add that DEFRA has committed to at least maintaining existing levels of funding for the national wildlife fund until the next spending review.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
A constituent of mine has been terrorised by off-road bikers, who are also devastating local wildlife. Because this is happening on private land, our local police have found it difficult to take action, so will the Department and the police work together to overcome this dreadful problem?
Zac Goldsmith
I have had letters from the constituents of a number of hon. Members raising the same issue: off-road bikers causing wildlife mayhem in sensitive and fragile parts of the countryside. I of course commit to the hon. Gentleman to talk to the police and landowners and animal welfare charities to see what the best solution is. There is no silver bullet to solve the problem. It needs to be addressed, but it is not immediately obvious what that solution would be.
Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
Canned lion breeding in South Africa is causing terrible angst for many people because these lions, barely two years old, are shot at point-blank range. That adds to the trophy hunting imports to this country. When is the consultation my right hon. Friend has mentioned going to begin?
Zac Goldsmith
My hon. Friend is right: canned lion hunting is one of the grimmest of all human activities. It is hard to see any defence for it. There are concerns that, although it may not be a direct conservation issue, creating a legal trade in lion parts, particularly lion bones, provides a cover for the illegal trade, and we know that lion numbers have plummeted in the last 15 or 20 years. As she mentioned, we have committed to launching a call for evidence and, based on the results we get, we will take whatever steps are necessary to end or to regulate the import of hunting trophies.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the Minister for all he has done to stop imports from trophy hunting, but with special reference to that can he outline recent steps taken to absolutely ban any such imports? I think it is the mood of the House and the country for that to happen. Can he tell us what has been done?
Zac Goldsmith
The hon. Gentleman knows my views on the issue; we have discussed it many times. From the Back Benches and as a Minister, I have debated the issue with him, although we have been on the same side of the debate. I am appalled by the very concept of wanting to shoot these extraordinarily beautiful, endangered wild animals. I cannot see any obvious link between that activity and protection of those animals. However, we are obliged as a Government, before embarking on any kind of legislation to prevent the import of trophies, to consult so that we know exactly what the impacts of that potential legislative change would be. So we have to do that consultation. We have to do it in an honest fashion. On the back of that consultation, we will take whatever steps are necessary, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that this is not an issue that we intend to kick into the long grass.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
May I just say that I am not ignoring the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith)? I am conscious that she has Question 6, on which another party wishes to come in, so it would perhaps be better for her to wait until then. We look forward to hearing from her in a few minutes.
Sue Hayman (Workington) (Lab)
I wish you all the best for the future, Mr Speaker, and thank you for chairing DEFRA questions with such patience and consideration over the last few years.
We know that there are loopholes in the Hunting Act 2004 which are being exploited. A Labour Government would strengthen the hunting ban, so may I ask what the Conservative Government have been doing to stop foxhunters from breaking the law?
Zac Goldsmith
There is no doubt that illegal activities continue. They are well documented and often secure widespread coverage on social media in particular, and they cause outrage among the population. Those activities are already illegal: they are against the law. Digging up setts, bashing fox cubs on the head and breeding foxes to feed to hounds are illegal as well as abhorrent. The challenge relates to enforcement and prosecution. As I mentioned, we are committed to maintaining levels of funding for the National Wildlife Crime Unit, and we are encouraging other Government Departments to play their part as well.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Theresa Villiers)
May I join others, Mr Speaker, in thanking you and your chaplain for your service to the House? You have been particularly kind in enabling me to raise from the Back Benches many issues that really matter to my constituents, and I am profoundly grateful.
The Government have introduced a range of measures to improve animal welfare, including a rigorous ban on the ivory trade and mandatory CCTV in all slaughterhouses. We are considering proposals to tighten the welfare rules for animals in transit, including a ban on unnecessary and excessively long journeys to slaughter.
Theresa Villiers
We will be pressing ahead with the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill so that horrific crimes like that can meet with the appropriate punishment. We are consulting on compulsory microchipping for cats to ensure that lost pets can be reunited with their owners, and we have also banned third party sales of kittens and puppies.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
One way of preventing animal cruelty would be to tighten the law on illegal foxhunting. Will Ministers undertake to introduce a system of monitoring before the foxhunting season starts in order to find out just how many illegal killings are taking place, so that we know how to address the problem?
Theresa Villiers
As my right hon. Friend the Minister of State has said, we believe that it is crucial for all our laws to be properly enforced, including the Hunting Act, and we will continue to engage with the appropriate authorities to ensure that that is the case.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
It is a great pleasure to call Dame Caroline Spelman. I am very sorry that the right hon. Lady is leaving the House. I know that she will be performing in her own right later, but she will be greatly missed by Members in all parts of the House.
Dame Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)
That is very kind of you, Mr Speaker. I will save my tribute for the right time, in due course.
Unfortunately, as colleagues with rural constituencies may know, at this time of the year there is a steep rise in the number of abandoned horses as winter approaches. A couple of weeks ago I personally dealt with four abandoned ponies, including two foals barely weaned at 12 weeks. They were in a terrible condition: their feet had never been trimmed, their ribs were showing, and they had lice and mites. I had to get them rehomed.
I welcome the Government’s proposals to take a tougher line with those who abuse animals in this way, but can my right hon. Friend reassure me—gently, given the problem with her voice today—that the Government will support the police and local authorities in taking action and enforcing the law on these criminals?
Theresa Villiers
I can of course give my right hon. Friend that assurance. This is a worrying problem, and we are keen to engage with the charities that are involved in trying to address the issue. I wish her well in her retirement and thank her for that question.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
There is cross-party support for increasing prison sentences for those who hurt and cruelly kill animals, but Ministers have dithered and delayed over the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill. Even in this divided Parliament, and even at this late stage, there is still a chance to get that Bill on the statute book before the election. Labour backs the Bill, the Secretary of State’s own Back Benchers back the Bill and the public back the Bill, so will she give a commitment that she will use every effort to get it on the statute book before the general election is called?
Theresa Villiers
I can give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that, when a Conservative Government are returned to serve in this House, the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill will be back on the agenda and we will get it on the statute book.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)
May I add my fond goodbyes, Mr Speaker? I will forever remember, as a Back Bencher, waiting and bobbing and finally being woken up and called by you saying, “Rebec-Kerpow!” I will always remember that, although you probably did not realise you had said it.
The Environment Bill includes measures to improve air quality, which will ensure that local authorities have a clear framework and simple-to-use powers to tackle air pollution. DEFRA and the Department for Transport’s joint air quality unit works closely with local authorities, underpinned by £572 million in funding, to tackle nitrogen dioxide exceedances. More than £3 million in air quality grant funding was awarded to local authorities in March for projects in local communities.
Ruth Cadbury
Mr Speaker, may I first thank you on behalf of many of us for the role you have played in ensuring that this elected House calls the Executive to account with such fervour? Also, could you turn your attention to the bag that is in the cupboard in your office, which requires your signature so I can use it as a raffle prize?
Ruth Cadbury
Thank you, Mr Speaker. We know that the ultra low emission zone in central London has been a huge success, bringing about a 36% reduction in nitrogen dioxide pollution in London. Does the Minister not agree that it is vital that the Government support the Mayor of London in his efforts to tackle air pollution, and will she please support the expansion of the ULEZ in 2021?
Rebecca Pow
The hon. Lady makes a very good point. London faces specific challenges, not least because the size and complexity of the capital’s transport network is quite different from others, and the commitment of the Mayor and the Greater London Assembly to tackle air quality in the capital is absolutely welcomed. The Mayor has received a comprehensive funding settlement for dealing with air quality, to the tune of £5 billion, which includes measures to tackle the nitrogen dioxide limits.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
May I wish you well in your retirement, Mr Speaker?
Air quality has been worked on across Government, across Departments and across local government, so can we be assured that all parts of the Government will do everything they can to get everybody working together to monitor air quality, get more electric cars and actually do something about the quality of air across the whole of our country, especially in the hotspots?
Rebecca Pow
The Chairman of the Select Committee makes a very good point. Air quality is an absolute priority because it affects human health. We already have the clean air strategy, but in the Environment Bill we are putting through much clearer and simpler powers for local authorities to actually use their duties to tackle air quality, and we will see many more of these charging zones coming in over the next year. As the Minister in charge of air quality, I will ensure that these are tackled as fast as possible.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Rebecca Pow
Tackling air quality is closely linked to what happens in the planning system, particularly when it comes to housing. Officials in the two Departments have recently collaborated on developing planning guidance. I recently wrote to Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government Ministers to urge much closer collaboration on, for example, housing and housing design, because all the emissions from housing affect climate change. This is all about cross-working.
Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)
Parts of Chatham suffer from high levels of air pollution. Medway Council is doing what it can to tackle it, but I am working with a school that sits right on a very busy road to develop a green wall to reduce some of the air pollution specifically for children. What work is the Minister doing with the Department for Education to support schools to provide their own green solutions to tackle air pollution?
Rebecca Pow
That question is of great interest to me as a former horticultural journalist. Green walls are a great thing. Not only do they look great, but they help by taking in carbon emissions and so on. DEFRA has an air quality grant programme that can help local authorities to fund projects to tackle air pollution in specific areas like schools, so that school could ask for support under the programme. Good question.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
On my last day in the Chair, it gives me particular pleasure again to call—Bambos Charalambous!
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
One of the things that I will certainly miss when you are not in the Chair is how you pronounce my name, Mr Speaker. Thank you so much.
Why does the Environment Bill not include World Health Organisation targets for air pollutants or set clear targets to meet them?
Rebecca Pow
Air quality targets are included in the Bill, but we already have an ambition in the clear air strategy. Reaching the target for particulate matter 2.5 is an absolute priority, but the actual target will be set in secondary legislation after expert advice has been taken on exactly how to do that. I met one of the heads of the WHO just last week, and she agreed that that is the right way of doing things, because this is tricky, and we must get it right.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Theresa Villiers)
To tackle plastic pollution, we have introduced a world-leading microbeads ban, reduced single-use plastic bag usage by 90% in the main supermarkets, and launched the Commonwealth Clean Ocean Alliance to tackle the issue globally. We also have a widespread package of measures on plastic pollution in our Environment Bill.
Jeremy Lefroy
I thank you, Mr Speaker, for your tremendous support for Back Benchers throughout this House during your time in the Chair. I also thank Becki Woolrich, who founded Stafford Litter Heroes, for all that she and her colleagues have done. By this weekend, they will have collected more than 2 tonnes of litter from the area in a very short time. We should pay great tribute to volunteers like them.
There are 5,000 items of marine plastic pollution per mile of beach in the UK. The amount of plastic produced globally has increased from 1.5 million tonnes in 1950 to 320 million tonnes a couple of years ago. It is clear that we need to produce less plastic, not more, so will my right hon. Friend explain what we are doing to ensure that as much plastic is recycled as possible and that that happens here in the UK? Plastic should not be shipped overseas for other people to deal with.
Theresa Villiers
My hon. Friend is correct: current levels of plastic pollution are intolerable, and the Government are determined to tackle them. We will be introducing a system to incentivise plastic packaging producers to use more recyclable material, but also less material in general. We will be banning plastic stirrers and cotton buds. We are introducing a deposit return scheme on drinks containers. We will also be introducing more consistent recycling to help everyone to recycle more to tackle the terrible problem of plastics pollution.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
Plastic was rare when I was brought up in the 1950s, so is it possible for the Government to set targets to get us back to those low levels? Recycling just delays the amount of plastic going into the environment.
Theresa Villiers
Our Environment Bill provides the opportunity for future Governments to set targets on the use of resources and recycling. Reducing the need for single-use plastics is an important part of this, but recycling will also be a crucial part in reaching our goal of eliminating avoidable plastic waste in the coming years. That is why we are seeking to increase the amount of plastic that is recyclable and is recycled.
Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)
May I, too, wish you all the best, Mr Speaker? May I also thank you for teaching me the value of patience and for helping me have considerable exercise for my knees during my time in this Chamber?
Is my right hon. Friend aware that my constituent Nik Spencer has invented an incredible, groundbreaking piece of technology that would eliminate the need for plastic waste entirely if it is commercially adopted, because it converts plastic waste in the home into energy? If, as I very much hope, we are returned to government, will she agree to meet me to see how we can stimulate and incentivise technologies such as this machine, so that we can tackle plastic pollution at its source?
Theresa Villiers
Yes, I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. I fully agree that technology is going to be crucial if we are to address the concerns that have been expressed in the House today about plastics.
Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for making me feel welcome in the short time I have been here so far.
After “The Blue Planet” and other television programmes, after the in-depth investigations by Friends of the Earth and others, after the mass campaigning by schoolchildren all over the world to prevent plastics in our oceans and after the verdict against a major British company for exporting unsorted waste, can the Secretary of State explain to me why there was nothing in the Environment Bill to tackle waste once it has left this country or to ensure that material collected in good faith for recycling is actually recycled?
Theresa Villiers
The Government are absolutely determined to crack down on any unlawful waste exports and to ensure that waste that is exported is dealt with appropriately. I wish to emphasise that this Government are doing more or less more than any other Government in the world on this, including by making real progress in ensuring that we protect 4 million sq km of the world’s oceans by the end of next year.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)
Our clean air strategy sets out an ambitious programme of action to reduce air pollutant emissions from a wide range of sources. The World Health Organisation has recognised the strategy as an example for the rest of the world to follow. We have also put in place a £3.5 billion plan to tackle roadside nitrogen dioxide concentrations, and our Environment Bill makes a clear commitment to set a legally binding target to reduce fine particulate matter.
Tim Loughton
May I echo the tributes being made to your chairmanship, Mr Speaker, although I did not get the memo about sending a bottle to your office as part of it?
I very much welcome the inclusion of air quality provisions in the Environment Bill. May I urge the Minister to look at some of the technological solutions, including one from a company in my constituency which is producing paints and coverings that neutralise nitrogen oxide emissions, not just absorb them? May I also ask her to look at the issue of air quality monitoring, because it turns out that several bits of air quality monitoring equipment in my constituency have not been working for some time? Although we have obligations on local authorities to reduce air pollution, we do not appear to have similar requirements on them to make sure they are monitoring it properly and accurately, and that needs to be looked at.
Rebecca Pow
I thank my hon. Friend for raising these important points. Officials would be pleased to hear about any technologies, because the use of innovation and tech is absolutely the way we are going to solve lots of these problems. So I would be grateful if he would like to feed them in so that I can pass them on. Monitoring is also key, and it is all about science and data, which are very important. Our landmark Environment Bill requires us to set legally binding targets on this fine particulate matter, which is what authorities are mostly monitoring, as well as nitrogen dioxide, and to have separate long-term air quality targets to improve air quality nationwide. So we are moving in the right direction.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
We are hearing commitments and good words from the Government but we are seeing very little action. They have been lackadaisical when it comes to the breaking of legal limits on air pollution, including at 50 sites across London. The Mayor of London has taken effective action, through the ultra low emission zone, and has taken practical steps to reduce air pollution. Is it not time we saw the same sort of determination from the Government?
Rebecca Pow
A great deal of action is taking place: local authorities have a duty to tackle air pollution and this year clean-air zones are coming into major cities right across the nation. The Department is working closely with others on the introduction of those zones, about which the House will hear more shortly.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (LD)
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Theresa Villiers)
Clause 20(2) of the Environment Bill places a duty on the Office for Environmental Protection to
“have regard to the need to act…transparently.”
It must publish key documents, such as its strategy, annual report and accounts, and lay them before Parliament.
Angela Smith
The concept of the OEP has been touted by the Government as an independent watchdog, yet it will be funded by the Government and its chair will be appointed by the Government. Surely the Secretary of State will agree that at the very least the relevant Select Committee should play a key role in the appointment of the chair and the non-executive members of the board.
Theresa Villiers
I assure the hon. Lady that the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and the Environmental Audit Committee will play a key role in the pre-appointment scrutiny of the OEP chairman. I also assure her that the OEP will have a multi-year funding settlement and that Ministers will be required to safeguard its independence. In many ways, the departmental structure will be broadly similar to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which has clearly demonstrated its total independence from the Government. I am sure we will see that same determination from this powerful new environmental watchdog.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
I was very sorry to have to miss your visit to the SNP group the other day, Mr Speaker. I shall take this opportunity to thank you for everything you have done—for your doughty defence of democracy and particularly your support for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights and for Back Benchers’ interests. I wish you and your beautiful family all the very best for the years ahead. May I also commend the two gentlemen to your left—stage left, as we used to say—Mr Peter Barratt and Mr Ian Davis, who I know have offered you such valuable support over years?
Let me begin my question by saying happy non-Brexit day to the Government Front-Bench team. Will the Secretary of State tell us whether the Scottish Government support the proposals on the OEP? Were they consulted on them?
Theresa Villiers
There was extensive work between the UK Government and the Scottish Government on the Environment Bill, including the clauses on the OEP. We are grateful that, as a result of that work, large elements of the Bill will apply in Scotland. I understand that the Scottish Government intend, I hope, to create a body that is broadly similar to the OEP, to manage the scrutiny of environmental matters where they are devolved in Scotland.
Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
May I join the tributes to you, Mr Speaker? I thank you for your comradeship in opposition, when you were a spokesman with me in various Departments, and for your encouragement in respect of the Animal Welfare (Service Animals) Act 2019—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Thank you.
Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Theresa Villiers)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on steering Finn’s law through Parliament. The Government remain absolutely committed to tougher sentences for animal cruelty offences, and we intend to bring the Bill back to the House as soon as possible.
Sir Oliver Heald
Thank you for my second go, Mr Speaker.
My right hon. Friend will know that the supporters of the Animal Welfare (Service Animals) Act 2019 were also keen to improve the maximum sentences and to see them go up. Can she confirm that that will be a top priority for any incoming Conservative Government?
Mr Speaker
It brings me further great pleasure, on my last day in the Chair, to call again Thangam Debbonaire.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
Oh Mr Speaker, I do not know what to say. I am going to miss this. Thank you for everything you have done for Back Benchers.
The Secretary of State says that the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill is going to come back to the House as soon as possible; that could be Monday. There is cross-party agreement on this short Bill, and as the Labour DEFRA Whip I have the permission of our shadow Secretary of State to say that we support the Bill, we could crack on, and it could be done and on the statute book before Dissolution. Even at this late stage, why will she not put it on the Order Paper for Monday or Tuesday?
Theresa Villiers
I can reassure the hon. Lady that a Conservative Government will put this Bill on the Order Paper very soon after we are re-elected to serve this country.
Craig Tracey (North Warwickshire) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Theresa Villiers)
Waste crime blights local communities and the environment, and we are committed to tackling it. We have given the Environment Agency £60 million extra to tackle waste crime since 2014. The Environment Bill takes forward a number of commitments on preventing, detecting and deterring waste crime.
Craig Tracey
Fly-tipping is a scourge in many communities across North Warwickshire and Bedworth, and it costs councils and local landowners hundreds of thousands of pounds to clear up, but it is often unwittingly facilitated by householders failing to ask whether a valid waste licence is in place. What steps can householders take to check that there is a valid licence, so that they do not unwittingly become the recipient of a fine themselves?
Theresa Villiers
Householders can check using the carrier’s business name or registration number, which the carrier should be able to give them on request, and they have the opportunity to check those against the details on the Environment Agency website, or by ringing the Environment Agency helpline.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
I would like to say, Mr Speaker, what a pleasure it has been to serve under your speakership during my time in Parliament.
Recently, I went out with members of the National Farmers’ Union in my constituency and was horrified to discover a spate of fly-tipping of very dubious materials that then need to be checked by the landowner. The landowner has a responsibility to check out the hazardous nature of the materials and then to dispose of them safely. This is putting much additional pressure on farmers and rural communities. What can the Government do to support those rural communities and the police forces who continue to be under significant pressure to address this spate of fly-tipping?
Theresa Villiers
I share the hon. Gentleman’s concerns. Fly-tipping is completely unacceptable, and it is blighting life in rural areas, in suburban areas, such as my constituency, and in urban areas. One thing the Environment Bill will do is facilitate the introduction of electronic waste-tracking, which should assist the law enforcement authorities to crack down on this unacceptable crime.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
One of your predecessors, Mr Speaker, congratulated me on always addressing the Chair. If I may say so, it has been my particular privilege to address the Chair when you are in it, and, if I may also say so, those who stand beside it have always gone to extraordinary lengths to be helpful.
The New Forest is being desecrated by people fly-tipping. Will my right hon. Friend have a word with her colleagues in the Ministry of Justice to ensure that we are more robust with respect to punishments—perhaps garrotting perpetrators with their own intestines?
Theresa Villiers
I am not sure that I could go quite that far. Certainly, in providing extra resources for the Environment Agency, we are absolutely determined to crack down on this deeply antisocial crime. I hope the courts will view it seriously and inflict appropriate punishment.
Mr Speaker
I thank the right hon. Gentleman. The word “inimitable” could have been invented to describe him, and that is supposed to be the warmest compliment. I genuinely appreciate what he said.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
May I join others in expressing the hope that no circumlocutory measures will be put in place to try to restrict your perorations post your retirement, during the next stage in your career?
May I ask the Minister to liaise with the Northern Ireland authorities to ensure that action is taken on the huge waste dump at Mobuoy, outside Londonderry, to ensure that restrictions are put in place and that we pursue those responsible?
Theresa Villiers
I am happy to engage with the Northern Ireland authorities on that important question.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
We are running late, but, of course, the Chair has the benefit of Kantian perfect information. That is to say that I know how many people have or have not applied to speak in subsequent business, and subsequent business is not especially heavily subscribed. My priority is to try to accommodate, within reason, Back Benchers.
Dame Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)
This Government are committed to taking action to protect and enhance the water environment, including our valuable chalk streams. Chalk streams are under particular pressure at the moment due to low groundwater levels following two dry winters. We are working closely with partners to reform and reduce the volume of abstraction, deliver catchment sensitive farming, reduce pollution and plan future environmental resilience.
Dame Cheryl Gillan
Today is a sad day for Buckinghamshire, Mr Speaker, because we are going to lose you as the Member for Buckingham. Before I ask my question of the Minister, may I just say that you have been a superb colleague to sit alongside? I am going to miss you particularly because you will not be there to join me in championing the Chilterns, but you have consistently stood by my side when opposing HS2, and you are to be congratulated on what you have done on autism. As I press for the Chilterns area of outstanding natural beauty to become a national park, I do hope that, even though you will have left this place, you will still stand by my side and support that proposal.
Dame Cheryl Gillan
Thank you.
The Chess and the Misbourne are ecologically vulnerable chalk streams in my constituency, and there are several in the Chilterns that are under threat. HS2 Ltd has now said that it requires 8 million litres of water a day for two years in order to build phase 1 of HS2. That means that we could face over-abstraction again, and could see these streams irreparably damaged or destroyed altogether. Will Ministers really take this on board and work with the Department for Transport to get HS2 cancelled—and, if not, to protect these absolutely precious pieces of our environment for our future generations?
Rebecca Pow
Chalk streams are some of our most precious environments, so this is a serious issue. The Environment Agency is advising HS2 Ltd and its contractors on mitigating the potential impact of its work on water levels and the quality of chalk streams, including when it comes to water usage for tunnelling in the Chilterns. The Environment Agency will be reviewing any application for increased abstraction in line with the relevant abstraction management strategy to ensure that there is no detrimental effect on chalk streams. I take this matter very seriously and would be happy to meet my right hon. Friend to discuss this further because chalk streams are so important and it is important that we get this right.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
Mr Speaker, thank you for turning the pronunciation of challenging surnames into an art form in itself—although I have to say that my campaign to be called in reverse alphabetical order continues.
The River Cam is fed by chalk streams. In July this year, it fell to a third of its normal level, which has caused huge concern not just in Cambridge, but in the surrounding county. This has happened largely due to over-abstraction. What can the Minister to do to assure us that that is going to be tackled with urgency?
Rebecca Pow
The issue with chalk streams, of course, is that they are fed by groundwater from aquifers; they are very special areas of water extraction. There is going to be a section in the Environment Bill on abstraction licences. I hope that when that gets going and we have proper discussions about that Bill, it will include some ameliorations for chalk streams.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Theresa Villiers)
Since the last EFRA oral questions, the Government have: introduced a major Environment Bill; committed to plant 1 million trees in Northumberland; pledged £11.6 billion for climate measures abroad; published proposals to restrict the import of hunting trophies from endangered animals; banned the sale of primates as pets; and introduced cat microchipping. We have made clear our determination to improve the welfare of live animals in transport, with a view to choking off live exports for slaughter or fattening. I have also had the chance to make visits around England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to talk to farmers, fishermen and those involved in the food sector.
Liz Twist
May I join colleagues in thanking you for your help, Mr Speaker? I am going to once again try to avoid your eye while I ask what should be a very short question.
Blaydon Quarry landfill site in my constituency causes a huge nuisance for the communities surrounding it, particularly from the regular bad smells, as residents tell me there are at the moment. I think it is time for the site to be closed—safely. Will the Secretary of State join me in that call and put an end to the absolute misery caused to local residents by this landfill site?
Theresa Villiers
It is worrying to hear the reports of the odour from the site. I understand that an odour suppression system has now been installed in the waste tipping bay and that further engineering works are under way to try to tackle the problem. I can assure the hon. Lady that the Environment Agency continues to take this issue very seriously and is working with the community and the local authority. Earlier this year, it took regulatory action preventing the site from accepting waste until remedial work has been undertaken.
Gillian Keegan (Chichester) (Con)
Gillian Keegan
Thank you very much, too, to Oliver and Freddie. I look forward to seeing very much more of you.
Pagham Harbour in my constituency is one of the best places to see wildlife in the UK, covering 600 hectares of salt marshes, mudflats, reed beds and lagoons. It is an important natural store of carbon and it absorbs up to 310 tonnes per hectare. What steps is my right hon. Friend taking to ensure that carbon-rich natural habitats are protected to improve biodiversity and help us to reach net zero by 2050?
Theresa Villiers
Protecting nature is a key part of the Environment Bill. It supports the nature recovery network envisaged by our 25-year environment plan. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work that she has done in relation to this wonderful site. She is right to say that nature-based solutions, with natural storage of carbon in such locations, will form a key part of becoming a net-zero economy.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)
I thought for a moment that for the first time in six years we might not get on to fisheries and agriculture at DEFRA orals. May I take this opportunity, Mr Speaker, along with others, to thank you for your chairmanship and stewardship of these occasions and wish you well for the future? May I also record a tribute to Reverend Rose, who is also leaving us? She not only presided over my marriage in St Mary Undercroft but baptised my daughter. Many Members have benefited from her pastoral support and advice.
I had a meeting with officials yesterday to discuss the issue of cod and the EU-Norway negotiations. Those negotiations will take place during November. I remain Fisheries Minister during the election period and will continue to monitor events. The right hon. Gentleman is right that the December Fisheries Council that formally adopts these proposals will be about three days after the general election. I hope still to be in place and to go there, but if I am not, I am sure that whoever my successor is will have a steep and enjoyable learning curve in coming to terms with the complexities of the December negotiations.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
Theresa Villiers
We will do exactly that, because the Environment Bill has a really strong package of measures to respond to the grave public concern about plastics pollution. The public are determined to tackle this issue, and so are the Conservative Government.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
George Eustice
I completely disagree with the hon. Gentleman. The Scottish fishing industry wants to leave the CFP and take advantage of the sea of opportunity that we will have when we become an independent coastal state. It is his party that is standing against the interests of the Scottish fishing industry by wanting to remain in the European Union.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Zac Goldsmith)
I thank my hon. Friend for his question, and I commend Harrogate Borough Council. The National Trust has said that a child today is three times more likely to go to hospital for falling out of bed than falling out of a tree. Obviously I do not recommend either activity, but there is no doubt that children who are insulated from nature are losing out; I very much agree with him. Working with the Woodland Trust and community forests, we are on track to meet our target of planting 1 million trees at English primary schools by 2020, and we committed in the 25-year environment plan to encourage children to be closer to nature in and out of school. The last week of November is National Tree Week, and I strongly encourage Members to plant trees with their local schools, so that we can all celebrate together.
Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
Mr Speaker, our careers have been somewhat in parallel. I had a slight interregnum in the middle of your speakership, but I am pleased to be here today, to top and tail it. We have remained good friends throughout.
The Government committed to keeping the current level of farm spending until the end of this Parliament, which will be in the next couple of days. The Labour party will commit to keep that level of spending and, indeed, even spending more under the new system, which will be expensive to introduce. Will the Government make that commitment?
George Eustice
The hon. Gentleman is right; the Government are committed to keep spending exactly the same until the end of this Parliament. He will have to wait to see our manifesto to find out what will happen in the next Parliament, but I will simply say this. It is implicit in the Agriculture Bill that there will be a transition over a period of seven years, during which we will roll out the new policy, and we have already committed to fund the objectives of the Agriculture Bill.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
The Woodland Trust, of which I am a keen member, believes that we can increase the amount of tree coverage by natural regeneration. That seems to be the best way of doing it, so how can we incentivise that within the new environmental land management scheme?
Zac Goldsmith
I thank my hon. Friend for his question, and he is absolutely right. Much of what we need to do to tackle climate change and restore nature involves rewilding or natural regeneration. A growing number of projects around the country are already delivering vast benefits. For example, at Knepp Castle in West Sussex, agri-environment funding has helped to create extensive grassland and scrub habitats, with huge benefits for declining bird species such as the turtle dove and the nightingale. As he says, the new environmental land management scheme will be transformative, because it will make subsidies conditional on the delivery of public goods such as biodiversity, woodland and flood management. It really could be the big thing that improves biodiversity in this country, which of course means increasing tree cover and encouraging natural regeneration.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)
The Environment Bill sets out a duty to set targets—actual targets will all be set in secondary legislation, as has been quite clearly stated—and it has had a lot of support from many organisations across the board. The whole system will be overseen by the Office for Environmental Protection, which will have to look at the five-yearly targets and review them annually. There is a very strict set of regimes in there. The Government have given very clear indications about not reducing our environmental standards—that is absolutely not the direction this Government would ever intend to go in—and that includes comments made just last week by the Prime Minister about non-regression.
Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for your kindness in calling me today, for your broader kindnesses to all of us and for all your service from the Chair.
I want to raise an issue again that I know is also of concern to you, Mr Speaker. Ministers know that HS2 and its construction will affect a good deal of farmland. They will also be aware, I hope, that HS2 Ltd has not been as effective as it should have been either in providing full and timely financial compensation for land lost or in making the practical arrangements necessary to allow farmers to farm properly the land they have left. Will my right hon. Friend and her colleagues please make sure they engage with colleagues at the Department for Transport to ensure that the financial and psychological consequences for the farmers affected by HS2 are properly mitigated, if this project is to continue?
Theresa Villiers
Of course I am happy to give a commitment to engage with colleagues in the DFT on these important matters. It is of course vital that HS2 Ltd does all it can to ensure that it meets its obligations in a timely way in relation to farming and environmental concerns.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. I have stretched the envelope as widely as I think is reasonable, but we must move on.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington)
The Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art publishes an annual report, which is considered by the House’s Finance Committee. The Commission does not receive routine updates. The annual report for 2018-19 was published on the Committee’s website yesterday.
Patrick Grady
The right hon. Gentleman will be amazed that I am not asking him about electronic voting for a change. This question was originally on the Order Paper in July, when Winnie Ewing was celebrating her 90th birthday. In a couple of weeks—on 2 November—we will mark 52 years since her historic by-election win and of the continuous representation of the Scottish National party in the House of Commons. Has the Commission been advised of any discussion by the Committee regarding commemorating Winnie’s immense contribution in this place with a portrait somewhere on the estate?
Tom Brake
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, although I am disappointed he did not manage to work electronic voting into it. He will be pleased to know that the Committee is conscious that Winnie Ewing is currently a notable absence from the parliamentary art collection. It is investigating the possibility of a temporary loan of a portrait for display in Parliament, and it will continue to search for a portrait painting or drawing to acquire for the permanent collection.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Mr Speaker, may I quickly say what a joy you have been for all genuine Back Benchers during your time in the Chair? We started a relationship early in your career here, and I saw you improve as a parliamentarian step by step. People sometimes forget the great inquiry you made into special educational needs under Tony Blair. I also remember other good things that you did with me, and others, on anti-bullying, as well as a cross-party campaign on autism.
Someone should also mention what you had to put up with due to the concerted malicious press campaign that was run against you, and your family, at a certain time in your career. It was a disgrace to British journalism and the profession of journalism. It did not come from the redtops—it was The Times and the Prime Minister’s Daily Telegraph. It came from journalists from whom we had expected better. Some of us stood by you at that time, and we will continue to stand by you. You are a young man with a career in front of you. I hope that you will do startling things, and that this miserable Prime Minister, who yesterday could not even pay tribute to the Father of the House, will put you in the House of Lords as your office deserves.
Mr Speaker
That is extraordinarily kind of the hon. Gentleman. I think he was also going to ask about the Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art.
Mr Sheerman
I like the range of art that we have, Mr Speaker, but it should be more accessible. Why do we have to pay a surcharge in our shops to pay for your art?
Mr Speaker
Very good. The hon. Gentleman is a dextrous parliamentarian who can always think on his feet.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
Tom Brake
Good progress is being made on implementing the independent complaints and grievance scheme, and on the recommendations by Dame Laura Cox and Gemma White, QC, to improve the working culture of the House. Complainants with non-recent cases, and former members of the parliamentary community who were not previously covered by the scheme, were able to access it from Monday 21 October this year. A staff group is examining options for implementing the Cox recommendation on independent determination of complaints against Members.
Justin Madders
I do not believe that the Commission is making good progress. It has been a year since the Dame Laura Cox report came out, and historical cases were finally reopened only last week. Recommendation 3 makes it clear that there must be an entirely independent process for investigating complaints of bullying and harassment in which Members of Parliament do not take part. It has been a year; it has gone on too long. Does the right hon. Gentleman understand how important it is for staff to have confidence in the system and know that Members of Parliament are not involved in judging their peers?
Tom Brake
I agree that there should be a completely independent process, and I regret that 12 months on that has not been resolved. A group is making good progress on that, and it expects to report back to the Commission later this year. I hope that by the end of this year that issue will be resolved.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
May I thank you, Mr Speaker, for the support you have given me as a relatively new Member, and for the visit that you made to Manchester after the Manchester Arena attack, which killed two of my constituents? That meant a great deal to the families, and to me as a local parliamentarian. and I thank you for that.
A great deal of work has been done by the Commission, but what work is being undertaken to give Members of Parliament the adequate legal support they need to carry out their duties? Many of us have been the voice of people who have been mistreated, and we have called out corruption, mismanagement and fraud. When we seek help when we are the target of harassment, however, we are left wondering where that support is. Will the right hon. Gentleman look into that very real issue, so that MPs are not bullied, harassed and intimidated into eventually moving away from the responsibilities they have in representing their constituents?
Tom Brake
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question. If he is referring to particular cases, he can pass the details on to me. I am aware that support has been made available to Members of Parliament against whom legal cases have been pursued. I will follow that up if he is able to pass me the details.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
Tom Brake
As I hope that Members are aware, the House of Commons and the Parliamentary Digital Service have made significant progress in digitising various parliamentary processes, such as through the Members’ hub for tabling questions digitally. Members might not be aware that “Erskine May” was made publicly available online for the very first time in July this year and is available through the UK Parliament website.
Chi Onwurah
You were my first Speaker, Mr Speaker. I wish you and your family every happiness. I find it very hard to imagine this Chamber without you, although I do hope the electors in Newcastle give me the opportunity to find out. You have been a great reforming, inclusive, witty and stimulating Speaker, both in this Chamber and across the country. Your visits to Newcastle mean that you will be very fondly remembered by the people of my great city.
Part of the reforms you have instigated, Mr Speaker, have been on the digital and technology front. I congratulate the Parliamentary Digital Service and the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) on the progress that has been made in making us more effective technically—the Members’ hub, the digitisation of tabling questions and support for Android—but there is much, much more to be done if we are to be truly as effective as possible. I know that Members of Parliament are very hard use cases to tie down, but participation in the development and design of digital processes is essential. What will he do to ensure that new and returning Members are part of design processes so that technology empowers us, as it should for all our constituents?
Tom Brake
I can reassure the hon. Lady and other Members that if they have issues about the way the Members’ hub works, for instance, they can simply walk the short distance from here to the Table Office. I understand that the Table Office, on a monthly basis, reviews suggestions and possible improvements that Members have drawn to their attention. I know personally, from having raised an issue, that that has then been reflected in how the system works. I therefore encourage all Members—perhaps in the new Parliament we will need to remind new Members of this fact—to remember that the Table Office is there, and that it will respond to and review matters on a monthly basis.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
May I put on record my thanks to you, Mr Speaker, for the encouragement you have given me? I remember my first day here in 2010 and seeing my name on the entrance as I came in. I remember your firm handshake and the friendship you showed, which put me very much at ease. As a Back Bencher, I thank you for giving me and others the opportunity to express ourselves on many occasions, which we have done. I also thank you for your encouragement, guidance and friendship. To your wife Sally and your family, I say thank you so much. It will never be forgotten: not by me and not by many in the House. Thank you.
What consideration has been given to encouraging more paperless routes to parliamentary procedure in an attempt to be an example to businesses outside this place on how to cut down and make the most of physical resources?
Tom Brake
I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that that has happened and that there are further changes in the pipeline, for instance in relation to Committees, legislation and Members’ web pages. The changes he seeks to introduce to make this place a paperless environment are in the pipeline and, I hope, will be delivered over the next few years.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Dame Caroline Spelman)
Since this is my last set of oral questions, I would like to record my heartfelt thanks to my small team of staff, and especially my constituency secretary, who has faithfully served me for 20 out of 22 years. We often forget that our staff are on the frontline of much of the abuse that we receive, and I want to record my admiration for their fortitude. I also thank the amazing staff I have had to support me in this role, particularly Simon Stanley at Church House.
In tribute, Mr Speaker, I thank you for your kindness and courtesy—unfailingly so, and especially at times of personal duress. I single out your inspired choice of Speaker’s Chaplain, who has enriched the spiritual life of this place—but more of that later.
The Church of England Pensions Board has tabled a shareholder resolution ahead of the annual general meeting of BHP Billiton, the world’s largest mining company, on 7 November this month. It asks BHP to suspend its membership of trade associations that are not lobbying in line with the climate change agreement. This is just the latest example of the Church Commissioners using their shareholder position to change company policy in line with the climate change agreement.
Michael Tomlinson
Just as much as you will be missed, Mr Speaker—tributes are being paid to you—I know that my right hon. Friend will also be missed. This is her last set of questions and it is a pleasure to ask her about eco-churches. Last year, Salisbury became the first diocese to be awarded the status of eco-diocese. Ten churches in my constituency have signed up to the project. Will she tell the House what more the Church can do to help to tackle climate change?
Dame Caroline Spelman
My hon. Friend’s illustration shows that the Church is consistent from top to bottom in its determination to tackle climate change. Today we really can celebrate the fact that Salisbury diocese, with all that it has had to cope with, is indeed the first to win an award for an entire diocese. These awards are provided by the Christian environmental charity, A Rocha. Perhaps upon hearing this, all Members in the Chamber might like to encourage their churches and diocese to become eco-churches and an eco-diocese, because that would demonstrate consistency from top to bottom across the Church.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I, too, pay warm tribute to the right hon. Lady; she is an absolutely magnificent woman—[Interruption.] And I should know. She has done so much on so many different subjects, and it has been great that she took on this role, which is not often wanted by many MPs. She has carried it off with great panache and we should be grateful to her. She has also done a lot on the restoration and renewal of this Palace, and that will stand testament to her when she has gone.
I do not know the right hon. Lady’s favourite hymn, but mine is
“Hills of the North, rejoice,
river and mountain spring”.
Right at the heart of the Christian gospel is surely a belief that we must preserve the planet on which we live—creation that was given to us for future generations. Must that not be at the heart of all the decisions that the Church of England makes?
Dame Caroline Spelman
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his very kind words. I nearly invited my family to come and sit in on this last set of questions, but I think that if they had heard that description, there might have been a little heckling from the Gallery, so it is a big relief that they will read about it without having the opportunity to heckle.
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and the Church needs to set an example in terms of its stewardship of the earth’s resources, which we are charged to look after. I certainly recognise that every one of us in this Chamber has an absolute duty to make sure that we leave this planet in a better place than we inherited it when we were born on to it. Of course, I wish him the very best with his candidature for the speakership, and I urge whomever is elected Speaker, with the forthcoming restoration and renewal, to think very, very hard about ensuring that the future Parliament is a green Parliament.
Dame Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough)
Before I answer that question, Mr Speaker, I would like to thank you for your friendship over the years. I do not always agree with you, but in this place, John, friendship is more important than agreement, so thank you very much.
The NAO expects to publish its progress review of High Speed 2 in early 2020. The NAO expects to examine progress since its last value-for-money study in 2016, the reasons for cost and schedule increases, and the risk to value for money that remain.
Dame Cheryl Gillan
In his bombshell report, Allan Cook, the chairman of HS2, admitted publicly that HS2 was billions of pounds over budget and years behind schedule. Quite frankly, given HS2’s poor corporate governance and the rapid turnover of not only senior staff but Ministers, who are supposed to have oversight of this project, may I encourage the NAO to provide an in-depth report on the financial operations and probity of HS2, and can this report be made available to Douglas Oakervee, who is carrying out the Oakervee review of HS2? That review should not report until it has had the advantage of the NAO analysis, and I hope that this project will then be cancelled or radically changed.
Sir Edward Leigh
Of course the NAO will not get involved in the political argument about whether the programme is wise, but it has already reported three times on HS2. It found that the cost and benefit estimates underpinning the business case were uncertain, and addressed the weaknesses in the business case and in the estimate of the cost of land. I assure my right hon. Friend that the NAO will leave no stone unturned to ensure we get value for money from this project, if it proceeds.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. Colleagues, I would like to accommodate all remaining Questions on the Order Paper, but we must also consider those waiting for subsequent business. I do not intend or wish to be guilty of any discourtesy to colleagues in that regard, so I appeal to colleagues who are being accommodated late to be pithy. In so far as we have taken up time because people have been extraordinarily nice about me, while that is enjoyable for me, from this point on it is unnecessary.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
Sir Edward Leigh
Brexit is, of course, a major task for Departments. Since 2016, the NAO has published 26 reports on aspects of Brexit. Most recently it has published reports on the UK’s border preparedness for Brexit and on Brexit’s implications for the supply of medicines to the health and social care sectors.
Martin Vickers
My right hon. Friend and I represent neighbouring and largely Brexit-supporting constituencies, and of course we want to get Brexit done as quickly as possible, but can I ask how the NAO will approach post-Brexit financial audit?
Sir Edward Leigh
The NAO wants to get the Brexit work done as quickly and efficiently as possible and has been working with all Departments to assess the potential impact on their financial performance of the decision to exit the EU. The exact impact in the current year may depend on the outcome of negotiations.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Dame Caroline Spelman)
The Archbishops of York and Canterbury have many duties in relation to the northern and southern provinces of the Church of England, and the Archbishop of Canterbury is also the spiritual leader of the Anglican communion, a global network numbering tens of millions of members. There is no doubt in my mind that both these men are able and effective.
Michael Fabricant
But both these men are overworked. My right hon. Friend—indeed the whole House—will be aware that 1,200 years ago, Archbishop Hygeberht was the Archbishop of Lichfield. It seems to me that you, Mr Speaker, could have a future role in your retirement as the Archbishop of Lichfield—
Michael Fabricant
No, Lichfield. We want him in Lichfield and then the hard work done by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York could be shared. We have that precedent; we want you now.
Dame Caroline Spelman
Fortunately, I had a little advance notice of the tenor of my hon. Friend’s question. He is absolutely right that, for around 16 years between 787 and 803, there was an Archbishop of Lichfield. This arose from the fact that King Offa, in the kingdom of Mercia, struck a deal with the Pope, requesting an archbishop to be named to serve in his kingdom, but that deal involved sending an annual shipment of gold to the Pope for alms and supplying the lights for St Peter’s church in Rome. My hon. Friend, as the Member for Lichfield, might like to make a similar offer to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Dame Caroline Spelman
The Church of England is involved in reconciliation work, both at home and abroad, and most recently on the international scene, the leadership of the Church of England has worked with the Roman Catholic Church on peace-building in Sudan, convening a meeting of Sudanese leaders in the Vatican. The Archbishop of Canterbury identified reconciliation as one of the key priorities for his tenure.
Rachael Maskell
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the veracity with which you have chaired this House and the firm but kind way in which you have held that office. We recognise your service, but also the sacrifice you have made for this Parliament and our democracy.
I thank the right hon. Lady for her reply and also wish her well in her retirement. Our communities are divided and so many people across our country are broken at this time, so what is the Church of England doing to drive forward a process of peace and reconciliation for the future of our country?
Dame Caroline Spelman
There is an active proposition to initiate a reconciliation process, run out of Coventry. The cathedral of Coventry has a mission for peace and reconciliation because of its heritage. The Archbishop of Canterbury has spearheaded this offer. I do not know much about retirement, but I have offered to help with this process, because there is no doubt that we need to heal the divisions in our society. The Church has the necessary infrastructure—a cathedral in every city; a church in every parish—to help us to do this.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
May I also pay huge tribute to the Second Church Estates Commissioner, who has done an amazing job?
With regard to paying tribute to the Archbishop of Canterbury and His Holiness the Pope, I was in the Vatican representing the Prime Minister. The work is amazing. Does the Second Church Estates Commissioner agree that one key thing that we need to do is to ensure that our diplomats have appropriate religious literacy training so that they can carry on such work on religious reconciliation around the world?
Dame Caroline Spelman
I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words. I certainly welcome him to this Question Time in his role as the special envoy for freedom of religion and belief. He can do important work within the Foreign Office to deliver on promises that officials will be required to undertake religious literacy training before postings to countries where it is really important to understand the role of religion in the culture and life of those nations.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
What is the Church of England doing to help women leaving prison to strengthen family and community ties?
With your permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to say on behalf of colleagues that we are hugely grateful to my right hon. Friend for her service to us here and to the Church in her role as the 41st Second Church Estates Commissioner. She has listened and acted as a wise counsel and an adviser behind the scenes to the Church, the General Synod, the Government and the many colleagues here who have raised concerns with her about the big questions of the day: the persecution of Christians overseas, Church schools and buildings, and strengthening our communities.
My right hon. Friend has helped the cause of getting mothers’ names on marriage certificates and has been a great all-round advocate for the role of faith in public life—not forgetting, too, that she was our first female Second Church Estates Commissioner. She will, I am sure, continue to be a positive voice and a presence for people of faith outside this place, and she will be greatly missed here.
Dame Caroline Spelman
Those are such kind words, and I will treasure them; I really appreciate the thought that went into expressing them. On the work of our prison chaplains and in particular the focus on ex-prisoners being reconciled into their communities, my hon. Friend is right. I did in fact host a meeting in Parliament with Bishops Christine and Rachel of Newcastle and Gloucester respectively, which focused on the great need there is to provide a suitable transition for women as they leave prison and return to the community and to address some of the long-standing issues from which they suffer. I commend the work of the Re-Unite project in Gloucester and the Anawim women’s centre in Birmingham; they are doing a remarkable job in helping these women make that transition.
Mr Speaker
The hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) has offered a beautiful tribute, but every word of it was richly deserved by the right hon. Lady.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
Dame Caroline Spelman
This is a subject that my right hon. Friend has been very diligent in drawing to my attention. I recently met the Minister for digital and broadband, my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman), and we had a really positive discussion about the work the Church is doing to increase access to digital and broadband networks in rural areas. Hon. Members may recall that the Church signed an accord with the Government to put at their disposal all church buildings and land to try to make sure we can eradicate those notspots in rural areas.
Sir Desmond Swayne
This is an issue on which the right hon. Lady has been both most helpful and assiduous, as she has been in the discharge of every duty she has undertaken in the 20 years that I have known her. I thank her for that service and wish her all the best for the future.
Dame Caroline Spelman
I am not sure what can be said in answer to that, but hon. Members present will know with what great affection my right hon. Friend is held, affectionately known by most of us as Dessie. There is no one I would rather entrust my life to in a tight spot than this remarkable, brave individual.
On the matter raised, I just want to record the Church’s welcome for the announcement made by the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport of match funding with £500 million for the initiative by mobile providers to share masts. It does not deal with the shortfall, where there are no masts, but that is where the Church intends to help.
Given the Secretary of State’s announcement that she is retiring, I would like to record my grateful thanks to her for her work in this Parliament.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Dame Caroline Spelman
As we have seen all too clearly in the recent very heavy rainfall, wet weather is often the moment we realise we have a hole in the roof, and, sadly, many churches have discovered that through the theft of lead from church roofs. It is only when the weather turns inclement that thousands of pounds worth of damage is done, which small congregations simply do not have the resources to meet. The Church is working closely with the police and other partners to raise awareness and encourage local parishes to take precautions, such as having roof alarms or SmartWater marking, so we can fend off what is organised crime.
Diana Johnson
May I, too, join in the tributes to the right hon. Lady in this role and the other roles that she has had in this place and say that I am sad she is leaving, and I am sad that she cited some of the abuse that she has received as one of the reasons that she is leaving this place?
On the specific question, what work is going on to consider the replacement of lead roofs with those of other materials such as steel or zinc?
Dame Caroline Spelman
I thank the hon. Lady for those very kind words, and indeed, with the full support of my staff, I did speak out about the abuse we face and that might perhaps be part of my legacy to this place; I hope sincerely that those who are returned will really do something about it, particularly by tackling the wild west of the internet where there is not sufficient regulation of what is expressed, although I commend the guidance given by the Church of England about how to navigate the internet wisely.
On the point raised, it is important to share the following information, because theft from churches, particularly of roofs, affects many colleagues. New guidance has been published by Historic England on non-lead metal roofs for churches, to deter the risk of metal theft. It is important to note that even a grade 1 listed building can be fitted with lead substitutes, which do not therefore attract the type of crime that I described at the beginning and is causing so much damage and cost.
Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
Dame Caroline Spelman
The legal position is that 16 and 17-year-olds are entitled to have their banns published and to marry in church. I am sure that all Members who have been to an Anglican wedding will be familiar with the moment during the service when the priest asks whether anyone has an objection to the marriage. That is part of the marriage process. When a young couple are preparing for marriage, they are prepared by the priest for the very profound decision that they are making. However, those of such a tender age constitute only a very small percentage of the number who marry in Anglican churches.
Mrs Latham
May I echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and reiterate that my right hon. Friend will be missed when she leaves this place?
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, given the international reach of the Anglican communion, the Church of England’s support for ending marriages between 16 and 17-year-olds in the UK would send a powerful message to other jurisdictions and faith communities around the world?
Dame Caroline Spelman
As I mentioned earlier, the Anglican communion covers a very large number of nations and a very large number of people whose cultural norms differ from our own, but aid agencies often handle the issue of child marriage very effectively through their health and education programmes. I particularly commend the work of the Mothers Union in this respect. Its members are active in, for instance, southern Sudan with finance and literacy programmes to ensure that families do not rely on dowry payments as a way to sustain themselves. Dioceses in Kenya work with the community to prevent child marriage, and there are similar arrangements in Ghana. The Mothers Union also has initiatives to tackle child marriage in the United States of America, because in 13 states there is no minimum age for marriage.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
May I, too, pay my tribute to my right hon. Friend? She and I entered the House on the same day in 1997, as did you, Mr Speaker. We have shared many worthwhile causes, and she will be greatly missed. One of those causes was, of course, marriage certificates, whether for marriages between 16 and 17-year-olds or for any other marriages. As a result of my Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration etc) Act 2019, mothers’ names will at last be added to those certificates.
Will my right hon. Friend update us on the progress that is being made ahead of the digital registration that is to be introduced? Is it the case that in certain churches, the Church of England has given its agreement to the manual writing of hard-copy certificates until the necessary technology is available? That, I am sure, would be a welcome common-sense measure.
Dame Caroline Spelman
I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words. We did indeed enter Parliament together, and in those early weeks when we did not really have an office, and we were adjusting to the long-hours culture, and we missed our children—I was pining for mine—he was kind enough to make me hot cocoa late at night. I have not forgotten those early times.
Let me update the House. My hon. Friend was the Member of Parliament who landed the prize of securing a change in the law of 1837 that did not allow mothers the same right as fathers in terms of marriage registration, but progress is slow on the accompanying regulation. My hon. Friend may wish to join me in putting some pressure on the future Government to complete that process, because there are practical steps that can be taken in the short term. The Church has offered to allow existing registration books to be used, and where it says “father”, the name of the mother can be added in brackets. If it is to take a while to take marriage registration into the digital age, many mums who are hoping to have that new right can achieve it in the short term by means of a simple practical solution.
Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)
Dame Caroline Spelman
During my time as Second Church Estates Commissioner, I have seen the Church of England transform its digital communications. Its annual mission statistics show, for example, that the Daily Prayer app has been downloaded more than 5 million times and is used on average for eight minutes per user per day; our social media now reaches 3.6 million people; the A Church Near You website allows people to google their nearest church and the times of the services there; and an Alexa skill set up by the Church has had more than 100,000 inquiries.
Andrew Rosindell
I thank my right hon. Friend for her answer and for the incredible job she has done as the Second Church Estates Commissioner. She has been truly amazing and a great friend to many of us. I have fond memories of her not only in her current role but on many occasions in Switzerland on the annual skiing visit. I would like to thank her for her friendship.
The Church is central to all our communities, and engaging with the wider public is ever more important. Will my right hon. Friend tell us more about what the Church intends to do to ensure that wider engagement through the use of social media and digital is rolled out more widely across the whole country?
Dame Caroline Spelman
I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words. For the record, I must say that being Second Church Estates Commissioner has been a great blessing. When I was invited to do the job, David Cameron said to me, “The thing about this role, Caroline, is that you are answerable only to the Queen and God.” What a privilege that is!
It so happens that I met the diocesan directors of communication yesterday at Canterbury cathedral, and they are all really aware of the transition that the Church needs to make into a fully digital version of what it does today. I have given the House an indication of that, but for those of us who still like a hard copy of things to inspire us, I draw hon. Members’ attention to the fact that the forthcoming busy time will at some point be coterminous with Advent, for which the Church has published a “Follow the Star” booklet, which hon. Members are welcome to avail themselves of.
Mr Speaker
That was magnificently done. I hope that I can be forgiven for saying to the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell), and more widely to the House, that as the hon. Gentleman referenced Switzerland, and I am on my last day, he has given me my cue to say that the best thing about Switzerland is not its skiing, its chocolate, its watches or its financial services; the best thing about Switzerland is Roger Federer.
Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)
Mr Speaker, I should like to pass on my thanks to you, on behalf of Scottish Conservative MPs. You have given us the opportunity to speak so that our constituents know that the Scottish National party is not the only voice for Scotland in this place. It is good for our Parliament, our country and our democracy that all the voices are heard, so I thank you for that.
What conversations have been had with the Department, and indeed the estates in Scotland, to ensure that the Government’s new initiatives on the shared rural network for mobile coverage and the exciting new developments on broadband will mean that the estates in Scotland can be used and leveraged so that my constituents can benefit as much as constituents elsewhere in the UK?
Dame Caroline Spelman
I am delighted to say that my responsibility covers only the Church of England, but obviously the Church in Scotland is part of the Anglican communion, and the opportunity to use church buildings, spires, towers and the ridges and hills on land that the Church owns is an obvious way to ensure that there are no more notspots in Scotland.
Petition
Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
Mr Speaker, may I briefly pay tribute to your diligent stewardship of the House in the nine years or so that I have been here and to all you have done to modernise the procedures of this place, while maintaining appropriate traditions? I am sure that I echo the comments made by many others earlier in the day.
The petition of residents in my constituency rejects any and all proposals by Suffolk County Council and its leader, Councillor Matthew Hicks, for an Ipswich northern bypass. The petition is ongoing, but since late July 2019, it has already received 5,372 signatures. I am particularly grateful to Nick Green, Nick Deacon, Gerard Pearce, Amy Waspe and everyone in the Stop! campaign for all their dedication and hard work in collecting signatures for this petition.
Residents in both north Ipswich and the rural villages that I represent recognise that there is little or no evidence to support the building of the bypass, and that the many thousands of extra homes that would need to be built to fund it will further increase traffic congestion and pollution in Ipswich. Importantly, an Ipswich northern bypass will do little to improve traffic flow in and around Ipswich for the few hours every year that the Orwell bridge is closed. The environmental damage that would be caused by the bypass is inconsistent with Suffolk County Council declaring a climate emergency and its desire to become the greenest county.
The petition states:
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government and the Department of Transport to press upon Suffolk County Council and its Leader Cllr Matthew Hicks for the need to reject proposals for an Ipswich Northern Bypass, and to bring forward properly evidence based and environmentally sustainable solutions to decongesting central Ipswich.
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of residents of North Ipswich, Kesgrave, Rushmere St Andrew, Claydon, Grundsburgh, Westerfield, Hasketon and villages in the Central Suffolk and North Ipswich Constituency,
Declares that Suffolk’s residents reject any and all proposals by Suffolk County Council and its Leader Cllr Matthew Hicks for an Ipswich Northern Bypass; further that residents recognise that there is little or no evidence to support the building of the Bypass and that the many thousands of extra houses that would need to be built to fund the bypass will increase traffic congestion and pollution in Ipswich, recognises that an Ipswich Northern year that the Orwell Bridge is closed, acknowledges that the environmental damage that would be caused by the Bypass is inconsistent with Suffolk County Council declaring a climate emergency and its desire to become the Greenest County Council; further recognises that Suffolk’s local authorities have already identified an evidence based housing land supply until around 2035 and therefore rejects proposals for any additional houses to be built in the East Suffolk and Mid Suffolk District Council areas in order to fund the Bypass; and further that this petition is on-going but since late July 2019 has already received 5372 signatories from both residents of North Ipswich and rural Suffolk.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government and the Department of Transport to press upon Suffolk County Council and its Leader Cllr Matthew Hicks for the need to reject proposals for an Ipswich Northern Bypass, and to bring forward properly evidence based and environmentally sustainable solutions to decongesting central Ipswich.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P002539]
Points of Order
Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Ind)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I want to raise a point of order in relation to the Early Parliamentary General Election Bill, which we expect to receive Royal Assent today. The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, of which I am the Chair, has been investigating the threat posed to this country by Russia. We have produced a report, which, in accordance with the Justice and Security Act 2013, we sent to the Prime Minister on 17 October for him to confirm that there were no classified matters remaining. There ought not to be, because the report has already been carefully looked at by the Cabinet Office. That confirmation should have been received by today to enable publication before the House is dissolved, but I regret to say that it has not been. We thus have a Committee of Parliament waiting to lay before the House a report that comments directly on what has been perceived as a threat to our democratic processes. Parliament and the public ought to and must have access to this report in the light of the forthcoming election, and it is unacceptable for the Prime Minister to sit on it and deny them that information. I raise this as a point of order in the hope that the theme of your speakership—the championing of the role of Parliament in holding to account the Executive—might be, through this point of order, as successful today as it has been over the previous decade.
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman. He knows that it is not strictly a point of order for adjudication by the Chair, although his articulate efforts to raise the matter are, in my mind, perfectly legitimate. What he has said will have been heard by those on the Treasury Bench, and I understand that he seeks a response today. It is presumably of the essence and the utmost importance to him and his Committee that any such confirmatory response is at the very least received before Dissolution. I would hope that, as the Leader of the House is sitting on the Front Bench, we might make progress on this matter. It can potentially be expedited, and the Leader of the House might be willing to act as a messenger—or maybe more than a messenger—and we will have to see what the result is. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has made his point today, and it is potentially open to him to raise it on Monday—even on Monday—or on Tuesday, but I hope that it will not be necessary for him to raise the matter again.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Time is of the essence. We have just heard about the matter, and there is some considerable concern among Opposition Members. Surely, a stronger message must go through the Leader of the House that the Prime Minister or a senior Cabinet Minister should put the matter right in the last few days of this Parliament.
Mr Speaker
I am sympathetic to the hon. Gentleman’s concerns, and I think it is fairly obvious to the Leader of the House that I am sympathetic to the concerns of the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve). I am not myself privy to the rationale behind the absence of a confirmation. I do not know whether it is just an administrative matter because, to be fair, Prime Ministers have a very large volume of matters with which to deal, whether it is a transaction of business issue, or whether there is some substantive reason why the Prime Minister does not wish to provide the confirmatory response that the right hon. and learned Gentleman seeks. I cannot know which it is. It is not unreasonable for the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee to seek that confirmatory response in this Parliament or an explicit parliamentary explanation in the House as to the reason for its absence. That, I think, is fair.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. This is a slightly unusual circumstance, so may I seek your clarification? Can you confirm that the report cannot be published without that confirmation from the Prime Minister, or is this just a matter of best practice?
Mr Speaker
I think that that is the case. Of course, the Intelligence and Security Committee is not a Select Committee; it is a Committee of Parliament, and therefore different arrangements apply to it. It is encouraging to see the right hon. Members for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) and for Rutland and Melton (Sir Alan Duncan), who have some experience of the Committee and its responsibilities, nodding in assent.
Mr Grieve
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I am grateful for your response. The position is that for the report to be published, it must be laid before the House on a sitting day. As long as that happens, it can be published and will be made available to the public. If it were to be laid on a day when the House is not sitting—even before Dissolution—the Committee would not be able to publish it. Therefore, we were hoping that it could be laid and published on Monday. The anxiety relates to the apparent delay, for which we have not been provided an explanation, and that has led me to make my point of order.
Mr Sheerman
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. This is a concern for all of us. There is the expertise here. This is a special Committee. What we do not understand is why this cannot be published on the authority of the House. Why can the Executive block this publication? Are they trying to hide something?
Mr Speaker
No, it is simply because the composition of the Committee and its modus operandi are determined in a manner different from those that apply to a Select Committee, which it is not. That is the factual answer. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s frustration but I think the matter has now been fully ventilated. The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House has displayed exemplary patience, but I do not think we should test it further.
Tributes to the Speaker
(5 years ago)
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The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I do not need patience because proceedings in this House are always interesting. But let us now praise famous men. It was a privilege to propose you as Speaker in the 2015 Parliament and now, in the reverse of Mark Antony in relation to Caesar, I come not to bury you but to praise you, for that is the right thing to do when a period of long service comes to an end. That is not to deny that there will be a debate about your term of office, as there are debates about the terms of office of other Speakers in our history. However, I am very conscious that the good that men do is often interred with their end of service. I think the good that you have done should be heralded and that others at a later date will look at some of the criticisms that they may have. But now is not the occasion for that.
In 2009, when you first addressed this House as a candidate for the speakership, you said that you did not want “to be someone”, but rather that you wanted “to do something”. Your agenda was “reform”, “renewal” and “revitalisation”, and although I think the word “modernisation” is an expletive, which I rarely allow to sound forth from my lips, there can be no denying that during your decade in office you have worked tirelessly to achieve those objectives.
As the 157th Speaker, you have been a distinctive servant of Parliament, both in this place and beyond, representing the House to audiences around the United Kingdom and overseas. I think you share my conviction that politics is at its best when it is engaging. Your work with the United Kingdom Youth Parliament and your work with Parliament’s excellent education team should be celebrated. So many schools from my constituency have taken advantage of this service, and I have always been impressed by the knowledge of the people involved. I know that you had quite a battle to get the education building put up, and some people opposed you, but it has been a resounding success.
During your speakership, our parliamentary democracy has been under intense scrutiny. We have been fortunate to have in the Chair so accomplished a glottologist as you are, in order that language, as well as the intricate and profound workings of Parliament, can be understood by everyone. I think the words “chunter”, “medicament”, “dilate”, “animadvert” and, perhaps my favourite, “susurrations” have been popularised under your speakership and, I imagine, are now in common parlance in pubs and clubs across England—or at least in Boodle’s, the Beefsteak, Pratt’s and the Garrick. But those sorts of clubs probably enjoy those words greatly.
As you have dispensed your immediate duties from the Chair, you have come to be known as the Back Bencher’s champion. Our main purpose as Members of Parliament is to seek redress of grievance for our constituents, and you have been unswervingly diligent in your desire to ensure that all parliamentarians are treated equally, whether novice or hardened veteran. I cannot thank you enough for the help you gave me to ensure that we could get the drug Brineura for a constituent of mine: within about a week, you called me at oral questions, granted me an Adjournment debate and then gave me an urgent question, all of which helped to build pressure on the Government to act, to the great advantage of a very ill and very young constituent of mine. This is my view of what Parliament is about, and I think you facilitated that for me in a way that other Speakers may well not have done. My personal gratitude and, more importantly, the gratitude of the family who have benefited from that, is, I think, a real tribute to how you have operated. You have allowed parliamentarians to seek redress of grievance, and that is basically where our law making in this place comes from historically.
The ultimate, most important, highest duty of the Speaker of the House of Commons is to be the champion of our House and its Members, and to defend our right to freedom of speech in defence of our constituents. Mr Speaker, you have done that. During your time you have presided over what you yourself have termed the “rumbustious” Parliament. Now, as you step down from the office of Speaker of the House of Commons, having what is undoubtedly the highest honour that the House of Commons has in its power to bestow, I wish you a prosperous and successful retirement, and thank you and your family—Sally, Freddie, Jemima, and particularly the great Oliver, who I know has more my view of modernisation than your own, at least with regard to wigs.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
May I start by thanking the Leader of the House for his statement? I note that there are no business questions this morning, but he did say that you would allow us a bit of latitude, Mr Speaker, so may I ask one question through you? When is Parliament likely to return after the election? Perhaps the Leader of the House could answer that in his own time.
Most people can read the basic facts about your life on your website, Mr Speaker, and on various other websites. You are the first Speaker since the second world war to have served alongside four Prime Ministers and to be elected to the post four times. I shall concentrate on my interactions with you.
Those of us in the 2010 intake were pleased that the rules were suspended slightly and we were allowed to ask questions before we made our first speeches. I think that made a huge difference to us. You spoke at, and gave up a Saturday evening for, the launch of the campaign to have a bust for Noor Inayat Khan, who served in the Special Operations Executive—Churchill’s special group. Karen Newman sculpted the wonderful bust that is now in Gordon Square. Noor was executed in the Dachau concentration camp. It was important to recognise her.
You allowed me the use of Speaker’s House for the launch of the Sidney Goldberg competition, which you attended and spoke at. Sidney Goldberg was in the headquarters ship during the D-day landings. It is important that you have opened up the use of Speaker’s House to civil society and charities—roughly eight a week, more than 150 a year. It is really important for people to see what goes on in Speaker’s House, and I am sure many people will thank you for that. When fielding a number of questions as guests walked through to the bed in the final room, we had to explain to them that it was not you and Sally who slept there.
With your friend since 1982, the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), you trained quite a lot of Tory candidates, and I am sure you have seen many of them here. You have obviously trained them well, because they have been quite argumentative towards you.
Valerie Vaz
Ah!
Being in the Chamber is what you have loved most, Mr Speaker. Perhaps they are going to patent your bladder—the sight of Ian and Peter checking your vital signs as you leave after a long session is quite interesting. As many people have said, you have opened the Chamber up to urgent questions. You knew which Select Committee Members served on and called people appropriately for urgent questions and statements.
I will not forget the phone call that you made to me; I thought I had done something wrong, but you picked up the phone and said, “It’s Mr Speaker here. Would you like to come to Burma?” I think Joan Ruddock could not make it. It was great to be on that trip with you, and particularly to see your groundbreaking speech at the University of Yangon, before Daw Suu was elected. We went to Mon state, where we visited the legal aid clinic and then a school. There were people looking through windows with cameras. They were not actually following us—they were sent by someone else—but I remember you waving your hand and saying, “Who are those people? Send them away.” And they did go—they listened to you.
There is a phrase: “Behold the turtle. He only makes progress when he sticks his neck out.” I think people would say that you are a turtle on skids, Mr Speaker. You commissioned “The Good Parliament” report by Professor Sarah Childs, and many of her recommendations, particularly on proxy voting, have now been implemented. You produced a landmark report on speech, language and communication needs for children. Ican, the children’s charity, has done a follow-up report, “Bercow 10 years on”, and I hope that it has made a difference and they have seen the difference that your initial report has made.
The Leader of the House mentioned the Education Centre, which has been used by many of our schools. It is such a delight to walk through Speaker’s Yard to the Education Centre. It has made a huge difference to the understanding of Parliament.
I was privileged to sit on your group for the Speaker’s school council awards. It was incredible to see the level of the children’s entries, how they were thinking about other people and how they want to change society. It is a tribute to you that that happened.
Then, of course, there is the Youth Parliament. Since 2009, you have chaired every Youth Parliament and you have been to every annual conference. It is incredible to see the way the members of the Youth Parliament have risen to the occasion. I am sorry that you will not be here for the next one, on 8 November. The level of debate, as you know, is absolutely exemplary and something that we can learn from.
It is UK Parliament Week next week, from 2 to 10 November—as part of my contribution to business questions, I am adding bits of information. There will be 11,400 activities—15 in Walsall South, but 11 in North East Somerset, so it has some catching up to do.
Mr Speaker, you are chancellor of two universities: the University of Bedfordshire and, your alma mater, the University of Essex. I know that you will continue to teach them about how Parliament can be opened up. You have opened up Parliament, which has been part of the golden triangle of accountability involving the Executive and the judiciary. Parliament is not the subservient partner, but, under your speakership, the equal and relevant partner. I say to the other side that I think you did do your job as a very impartial Speaker. I know that some of us on our side actually questioned you, calling other sides first. So everybody thinks that you are an impartial Speaker and have favourites one way or the other. However, you will be pleased to know that your ratings on the Parliament channel have gone up and that the word “Order” is now used by parents around the country as the new naughty step.
I thank your long-serving staff: Peter Barrett, Ian Davis and Jim Davey, those in your outer office and those in your inner office. They have always been absolutely exemplary to me, whether I was a Back Bencher or on the Front Bench, and to other Members.
Of course, we cannot forget the great Sally, who has always been by your side and supportive of the work that you do. We all need that person who will support us in our work—particularly Oliver, Freddie and Jemima. It was lovely to watch them in the Gallery yesterday, as they were looking down almost in tears. It was very nice for them to hear the tributes because I know that they have faced difficult times in the playground when you have been attacked.
So, John Simon Bercow, this was your life in Parliament. We wish you well in whatever you choose to do, and you go with our grateful thanks and best wishes.
Mr Rees-Mogg
The answer to the right hon. Lady’s question is that the expectation is that we will come back on the Monday after the general election for swearing in.
Sir Alan Duncan (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
Mr Speaker, may I echo the heartfelt comments that have been made about you from so many quarters over the past few days? May I do so by way of two confessions, which I have been needing to get off my chest? The first is that I was at a primary school—it is always there that you get the difficult questions—and I was asked, “What is the rudest thing that anyone has ever said to you in politics?” I thought for a bit and said, “Do you know what, it is when someone came up to me in the street and said, ‘Good morning, Mr Bercow.’” I hope that you will forgive me for that. The second confession is rather worse. I may well burn in the fiery flames of hell for ever having done this. I am known occasionally in the Tea Room to have referred to you as Mr Speaker Hobbit. I hope that you will forgive me this affectionate teasing and, in paying my own tribute to you, it gives me pleasure that my last words in this House are to wish you the best for the future.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I say that for the last time. I was just saying to the SNP Chief Whip, given that questions were allowed to go on for 40 minutes longer, Bercow must go.
I was, of course, one of your nominees 10 years ago. I would therefore like to congratulate myself on my solid and sound judgment on that occasion. I always knew that you would make an excellent Speaker. Even that awful impersonation you did of Peter Tapsell when you were trying to be elected did not disabuse me of that notion. But I did not know that you would be such a transformative Speaker. The way in which we do business in this Chamber is now forever changed because of your speakership. You have pioneered and transformed. The speakership of this House is now no longer just about overseeing the business in the Chamber, and the way in which we debate and interact with each other. It is about asserting the rights of Parliament and championing parliamentary democracy. And you have been singularly brave in the way you have challenged various Governments who believed that it was their gift always to get their way. We will never go back to those days now, because of the way in which you have challenged that assumption.
I will never forget sitting with you in that curry house in Buckingham, when MP4 did a gig for you in your constituency. That curry house stayed open because Mr Speaker was coming with some strange guests from a rock band, and the vindaloo you ordered that night had to be specially prepared. We could not get you to come up on stage with us that evening, but now you have a bit more time. Given the Prime Minister’s Sinatra reference yesterday, maybe you could give us a rendition of “My Way”; we would happily supply the backing for that occasion.
The culture of this House has been totally and radically transformed. You have ensured that the Back Benchers are now fully accommodated. I have been here long enough to remember the days when urgent questions and statements were cut off after half an hour or 40 minutes, and it would always be the Back Benchers and Members of the smaller parties who would lose out on an opportunity to say something and give their point of view on the issue of the day. That no longer happens. Everybody is now accommodated. I hope that that transformation that you have made will continue to be adopted as we go forward. We all now get an opportunity to give our point of view in this House, and it is important that that remains the case. For that, we thank you.
We on these Benches will miss you, and you will forever be a friend of Scotland and of the Scottish National party. On behalf of our party, I wish you and your family—Sally, Freddie, Jemima and Oliver—all the very best for the future. I wish your staff, Peter, Ian and Jim, all the best as well. I hope that you enjoy the next stage of what has already been a fascinating and unique journey. You are a one-off, sir, and we will miss you.
Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)
Mr Speaker, a couple of days ago, you commended me for my brevity, so let me be brief. Two weeks ago you were kind enough—or possibly unkind enough—to remind me that I was the longest serving member of the Panel of Chairs. Let me say on behalf of that panel, thank you for your guidance and wisdom over very many years of service. All your friends on the panel wish you and your family well in your retirement.
Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) (Lab)
Mr Speaker, you are my fifth Speaker now, and I can say from that experience that you have been a remarkable Speaker of this House. You have been a champion of Parliament and a reformer. As other hon. and right hon. Members have said, you have thought about opening up this House so that young people all around the country can see that it is their Parliament that is here for them. You have been a great champion of the Youth Parliament. The Leader of the House and the shadow Leader of the House were right to say that everybody agrees with that now and recognises that it is a thoroughly good thing, but you had to fight for it because there were those who resisted change and said, “We cannot have all these children here in the House of Commons. We’ve got work to be done.” You relentlessly, and in a principled way, pushed for it, and I thank you for that.
You have used the Speaker’s state rooms to give outside organisations a sense that their work is recognised by and valued in this Parliament. As the shadow Leader of the House said, over 1,000 organisations have come into this House, and the grandeur of those state rooms has inspired and encouraged them, in knowing that their works in communities all around the country are valued here.
I would like to pay particular tribute to the work that you have done for the women’s movement. Organisations campaigning for equal pay have been in those grand state rooms surrounded by those 20-foot-high portraits of former Speakers. They have had their place there: those championing equal pay; those complaining that we need more childcare; those campaigning against domestic violence. They have been there; you have brought them in and endowed them with a sense of importance.
You actually turned one of the bars of the House of Commons into a nursery for the children of staff in Whitehall and in the House and of Members. That too is something we can be proud of, but it is something that you had to fight for. We had been fighting for it for decades and had failed; it was not until you were in the Chair that you made it happen. You supported the coming into this Chamber of 100 women MPs from 100 Parliaments from all around the world so that here in the mother of Parliaments we could validate their work in their Parliaments all around the world.
I think we can fairly say that you are politically correct, but it was not always the case. You have been on what they describe as a political journey. You started off going towards the views of the Monday Club. You are woke now, but my goodness me, you were in the deepest of slumbers.
You really have made a huge difference in championing us here in the House. Above all, you have been concerned about the role of Parliament in being able to hold the Executive to account. That is not just about Back Benchers and Front Benchers; it is about the role of Parliament. Members who have come here more recently perhaps would not remember this—I thank the Library for getting this information for me—but in the 12 months before you took the Speaker’s Chair, two urgent questions were granted in that whole time. The impact of that was that people outside the House would be discussing issues but they would not be discussed here, and therefore Parliament felt irrelevant. In the past 12 months, you have granted 152 UQs. You have made Parliament relevant. I thank you for that—but again, it has not always made you popular. Ministers would rather sit in their Departments talking to civil servants and junior Ministers who agree with them than come here and face the House. But it is better for Government to be held to account. It is easy to make mistakes when doing things behind closed doors. You have always believed that the minority must have its say in Parliament, and you have championed that, but you have also always believed that the majority must have its way, and that is right.
Precedent offers less help in unprecedented times, which we have been experiencing, but you have had a profound sense that you are accountable to the House and that you want to enable and facilitate the House, and that is what you have done. You leave the Chair in uncertain and, I would say, even dangerous times. Thank you for your support and recognition of all those Members—men as well as women—who have gone about their business under a hail of threats of violence. Our democracy should not have to experience that. I would like to thank you for being tireless in your work, and I would like to thank your family for their support of you. They can be rightly proud of what you have done, and we are too.
Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)
I am disappointed that I am not able to put my question to the Leader of the House regarding the lack of funding from the national lottery for Southend West and the lousy ticket machines installed by c2c, but I will get over that.
The House is at its best when we are being nice to one another. This will not last, as we are about to embark upon a general election campaign. Mr Speaker, you and I have known each other for a long time, and I cannot imagine how you and the others who are leaving this place voluntarily must feel today. I wish each and every one of those colleagues every good fortune for the future.
You and I followed very different paths to this place. It has not been easy for you being the Speaker, particularly in the circumstances in which you took that great office, but you have been a champion of Back Benchers, in so far as you have ensured that every voice is heard, particularly when you notice that a voice is not always heard within a Member’s own political party. You would be the first to say that you could not have done the job so well without your magnificent backroom team—I am not going to show favouritism—of Peter, Ian and Jim. They have been wonderful.
I know that we will have tributes to Reverend Rose later, but she was an inspired choice. For those of the Catholic brethren who were in the Crypt last night, it was particularly wonderful to hear her speak with my great pal Father Pat Browne, who has just celebrated 10 years as the Catholic chaplain to the House.
Mr Speaker, among the things that you have done, you have made sure that it is worth while being on the Order Paper. It took colleagues a little time to get the hang of it, but you gave everyone on the Order Paper a chance to have their say. You have also done a magnificent job in promoting the work that you do throughout the country.
The election of the new Speaker will be held on Monday. A number of the contestants are in the Chamber at the moment, and each and every one of them would do the job splendidly. I did not seek to fill your shoes because those shoes would pinch. I do not have your control of the bladder, and I certainly do not have your photographic memory, but if there is an opportunity for a slightly different role, I will certainly be a candidate.
My final point is about your family. You and Sally can look after yourselves. This is a very tough job when you have children. When my children were young, they did not take kindly to the fact that not every member of the general public thought their father was wonderful. Your children have somehow got through all that, and they are a credit to you and Sally—of that there can be no doubt. I wish you every future success and every happiness, especially in your new role as a sports commentator.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
Mr Speaker, I do not intend to repeat the warm and generous tributes that have been paid to you and your speakership today, except to agree wholeheartedly with all of them. There have been some extremely good summaries of the particular flavour that you have brought to the speakership.
Mr Speaker, you took over in very difficult times—right at the height of the controversies about expenses—when the House had to regain a great deal of good will from the public. You did so in a way that I think few would have expected, given where you began your political career. The thing I saw most quickly about you was that, although you had a respect for tradition, you also had a very open mind about how it needed to change. I referred to that in my own maiden speech, when I came into this House in 1992, and it is a rare combination. It is particularly rare, I suspect, coming from someone who began his life in the Federation of Conservative Students.
It was clear, Mr Speaker, that you had not only the capacity but the desire to go on a journey, and many of us noticed your particular commitment to your principles as you grew into them when you resigned from the Conservative Front Bench because you objected to being whipped to vote against the equalisation of the age of consent. It was nasty for anyone, in what was then a rapidly modernising social situation, to be expected to do that for their party.
The journey that you have taken on matters of equality, Mr Speaker, has been noticed by all of those who were oppressed by not having access to it. It has been celebrated, and the LGBT community in particular owes you a great deal. You have been an untiring and unfailing champion for women’s rights, for the rights of those who have disabilities, and for LGBT and BAME people. That commitment has been shown in many of the decisions you have taken in your executive role. I was privileged to be able to serve with you on not the most glamorous of committees—the Speaker’s committee behind the scenes—as you drove forward some of the modernisation that you have been responsible for, as Members on both sides of the House have pointed out in their tributes to you today.
Mr Speaker, the reactionary resistance that you faced in driving that change—for example, on the education department, or to allow the Youth Parliament to sit in this Chamber—had to be seen to be believed. However, if I may say so, you have driven a coach and horses through that resistance and achieved real and lasting change, which—when you are finally in your bath chair, and I know that will be a very long time from now, watching Roger Federer still winning the veterans trophy at Wimbledon—I think you will be able to sit back and reflect very much on.
I have a couple of other points, Mr Speaker. One is that I have always loved your use of language and command of the House. You are never one who is content to say “medicine” when you can say “medicament” or “suitcase” when you might say “portmanteau”. Many of us have enjoyed that aspect of your time in the Chair.
There is one place still far too hidebound by tradition that needs your open and reforming zeal, Mr Speaker, in order that we might deal with it. This is a question for the Leader of the House: why on earth does the right hon. Gentleman not get up now and say that he recognises the absolute ability you have shown to drive change in fusty-dusty organisations and send you where you belong—to the House of Lords?
Mr Speaker
Thank you. [Hon. Members: “Answer!”] The Leader of the House has made his contribution, but he may respond.
Mr Rees-Mogg
Mr Speaker, I think this has changed from a statement into a succession of speeches, and it would be tiresome for the House if I popped up every other moment.
Justine Greening (Putney) (Ind)
Let me add my congratulations to you, Mr Speaker, on a fantastic 10 years as Speaker during what has probably been one of the most turbulent and difficult times that this House and this Parliament have seen. I echo all the points raised by others about how you have reformed the way the House works, and the causes you have championed. Our relationship has changed over the years. I have been a Back Bencher asking questions, as well as a shadow Minister, a Minister, and a Secretary of State—all while you sat in that Chair and adjudicated over our proceedings.
In my experience, the approach that you have taken to parliamentary matters, in particular urgent questions that have allowed Members to raise issues with Ministers and Departments, has been unfailingly fair. Whenever a Department has been genuinely getting on with an issue and had a good case to make for a question not being urgent, you have looked at that point and processed it fairly. I was a Minister for many years, and I never had any issues with the way you made such a decision. Indeed, I welcomed the chance for my Department and ministerial team to be held to account in the Chamber. In my view, your decision made us behave more appropriately and up our game, which is exactly what it was meant to do.
One final point that has not yet been highlighted is the Speaker’s parliamentary placement scheme, which has enabled the House to become accessible to a range of young people from backgrounds that are very different from those of the more traditional cohorts of MPs and employees. Like a number of other Members, I have had two candidates from the scheme in my office over the past two years, and they were both outstanding. Not only did they learn, I hope, from the chance to take part in the scheme that you set up, but my office, my team and I also learned and grew from having those candidates as part of our team. The chance to open up Parliament to a new generation of young people who would otherwise not get the chance to come here, and let them realise that this is everybody’s Parliament, is one of the most powerful steps you have taken. I very much hope that your successor will continue the scheme, and consider how it can be expanded so that young people from all over the country, and many more MPs, have the chance to experience the wonderful Speaker’s parliamentary placement scheme.
Mr Speaker, you have been a parliamentary referee during perhaps the toughest game that we have played here for many years. I am sure that has taken its toll on both you and your family, and the support you have received from them has been amazing. I wish you well in the next phase of your life. As I, too, leave this House, perhaps our paths will cross again, but in different capacities.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
I will start from a slightly different place from other Members, and thank you, Mr Speaker, for the support you have given me on the House of Commons Commission. We have not necessarily seen eye to eye on every matter raised, but I am sure we both wish to thank the staff who supported you, and the civil servants who supported me. I have no idea whether I will be back seeking their support again, or indeed whether I will return to my position as spokesman for the House of Commons Commission, but they do sterling work for us and support us effectively.
I want to start, as others have, by thanking your family. We all know, as politicians, that our families are often on the frontline. They do not see enough of us and when they do, it is not exactly quality time that they get with us, so I hope that you will spend very valuable time with them in the future. I remember, as one of the highlights of being in this place, attending one of the events you organised in the Speaker’s House and your children coming in to kiss daddy goodnight. I remember that and often use it as an anecdote when I am doing my best to entertain people.
I want to commend you for your commitment to modernising this place. Many people have referred to some of the initiatives you have spearheaded, whether proxy voting, the Youth Parliament, the education service or the much greater frequency with which urgent questions are heard in this place. I would like to commend you for improving the diversity among staff and making the House of Commons a place where hopefully anyone will feel comfortable working, including our excellent Chaplain, Rose, who has served us so well.
As one of the House of Commons Commission members, I want to draw attention to the work you have done in pushing through the restoration and renewal project. That is something that needs to move forward. The mother of all Parliaments is at real risk of simply collapsing around our ears. The role you have played in making sure that the restoration and renewal project proceeds will certainly rest as one of your legacies in this place.
Finally, and I think perhaps most importantly, I would like to commend you for ensuring that this Parliament is not an encumbrance to be trampled upon, but a sovereign Parliament proud and resolute in standing up for the rights of our constituents and the people of the United Kingdom. From the Liberal Democrat Benches, I wish you a very bright and positive future.
Mr Speaker
I thank the right hon. Gentleman very warmly for that. We have worked together for a long time.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for calling me, for once, quite early on in proceedings and not “saving the good doctor” for tail-end Charlie. [Laughter.] One of the disadvantages, it must be said, of having originally met you 15 years before we both entered the House in 1997, is the fact that you have, from time to time, felt it incumbent upon yourself to demonstrate that you were showing no particular favouritism to a personal friend by not calling me perhaps as early as I would have liked.
I was impressed that the shadow Leader of the House referred to our 10-year period training up Conservative activists—I think 600 in all—before we entered the House of Commons together in 1997. At that time, I used to do the campaigning part of the course and you used to do the oratorical part of the course. You used to say that in a good speech the speaker should have, at best, one key point and at most two key points to convey to the audience. So, my one key point about you, your character and your speakership is that you have shown that you are a good man to have by one’s side when the going gets rough. That does not just apply to individuals; it applied to Parliament as a whole, because when you came into office in 2009 the going was very rough indeed.
You made your entry into Parliament in a somewhat dramatic way as the MP for Buckingham. Such were your skills as an orator during the selection process, you had been shortlisted for not only Buckingham but the Surrey Heath constituency. You were due to be in the semi-final in Surrey Heath and in the final in Buckingham on the same night. You will recall that, at my suggestion, we organised a helicopter to enable you to go from one interview to the other, so that you would not have to withdraw. I know that you have felt for many years a great deal of gratitude towards me for making that possible. I have to tell you that that gratitude was entirely misplaced, because I knew that only a few days later, the process of selecting for New Forest East was going to begin, and we were both on the longlist. [Laughter.] I thought, “If I can’t get this blighter selected, I’m not going to have a chance,” so it worked out as a win-win situation.
It has often been remarked, and has been again today, that you went on a political journey, but the detail of that political journey has not always been spelt out as clearly as it should be. There is a myth out there that the young Bercow was part of the Monday club, had very right-wing views, and then saw the light and repudiated them all. It is with great pleasure, therefore, that I remind the House that on 2 December 1997, when we had both been elected and there was a Second Reading debate on the treaty of Amsterdam, I was making only my fourth speech from the Benches of the House of Commons and you—chuntering from a sedentary position—kept heckling me on why it was that I was such a johnny-come-lately to the cause of ardent Euroscepticism. Some people may wish that some journeys had been rather shorter than they turned out to be.
I will not detain the House much longer, other than to make a couple of closing points. I am still waiting for the dinner that I earned in a bet with a young female Conservative MP—now a Minister, I am delighted to say —when she made a bet with me that you would not last one year as Speaker without being ejected. And I observe that now, finally—at last—freed from the constraints of the speakership, you will feel able to speak your mind and not hold back your views so self-effacingly.
On a more serious note, but a heartfelt one, as well as thanking you for your personal friendship over many years, I am sure that you will agree that it would be nice to close this tribute to you with a personal tribute that I would like to make to the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd). She has been here for 35 years, and in all that time, she has never ceased to promote human rights at home and abroad. From the opposite side of the Chamber, I salute her as I salute you, Mr Speaker.
Mr Speaker
Thank you. I completely endorse what the right hon. Gentleman just said about the right hon. Lady, who has been fearless, principled and insistent on speaking up for the rights of people around the world when those rights have been egregiously abused. If ever there has been, in this Parliament, a voice for the voiceless, she has been that voice.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
On a personal note, Mr Speaker, you know that I met you before you were a Member of Parliament, and I can remember what an irritating young man you were at that time. [Laughter.] You were clever, and you knew it, and a bit arrogant with it, and you wanted to tell me just how right you were on every political issue—this is before you were in Parliament. Over the years, I have got to know and like you a great deal, and I hope that I can count you as a friend. You actually like my ties, which is something that recommends you to me.
When I chaired the Education Committee, I remember that you asked me to come to your constituency, and then much later you asked whether you could come to Huddersfield to see what sort of constituency I represented. I have told the House this before. I met you at Wakefield station. You got off the train and said, “It’s a hell of a long way, isn’t it?” Of course it is—it is nearly 200 miles to Huddersfield. We had a fantastic day together. I think you have learned a great deal from going to people’s constituencies and finding out what the journeys are like and how vulnerable we are when we are travelling. I think you woke up to that on that day and have been such a good influence ever since—remember this was just after Jo Cox was murdered. It was also the day after the referendum, so it was an auspicious occasion.
On a more personal note, you know I have a large family: three daughters, a son and 12 grandchildren. A few years ago, we were wondering what to do on Boxing Day. We were all down in London for a big reunion and thought we would go to London Zoo. Of course, the favourite place to go was the penguin pool, and who did we find there? You, your wife and your children. It gave a flavour of you as the great family person we all know you are. We love that you and Sally have been living here with your family. The kids seem to have grown up really wonderfully even in this strange environment. I congratulate you on all that.
You are very easy to get on with, and you are a very good friend, so may I have the privilege of giving you some careers advice? I give a lot of careers advice. I am told it is one of the things I am quite good at: helping people to identify their talents and moving them on a bit. Now, I did not realise that you are a very good manager. I recall the dark days in this place before you became Speaker. It just needed management. From those early days, you built up a great team of people around you. It was not easy, but you made changes in a place that was desperately badly managed. We had inherited a crazy system, but you came in and transformed the management of this place. I think we will look back on the Bercow years as great years for Parliament. It is more efficient and sensitive in so many areas—families, children, women and diversity—and you will be remembered for all that, but you will also be remembered for bringing this place back to life. We were in deep trouble and you helped us to save it and led that saving process.
I want to repeat something I said earlier about what you went through at a certain stage in your career and how the press treated you—not just the red tops, but The Times, The Daily Telegraph, people who used to be MPs. Political sketch writers used to be funny—not some of those who hounded you. We know who they are. They stimulated on social media some ghastly stuff that you and your family had to put up with, and I am proud that you stood up to it. It didn’t get you down and you are still here, a robust champion of everything you did.
The careers advice comes now. You are still very young. I hope to be re-elected as the Member for Huddersfield, and if I am successful, I will miss you, but you are only in your mid-50s, I think, which is just the time to start a brilliant new career. I won’t talk about Frank Sinatra. His voice, though I loved it, had gone by then. You are in the prime of your life and I see you making a contribution greater even than the one you have made up to now. I say to the Leader of the House: it would be an absolute insult to the House if the tradition that the Speaker is offered a seat in the House of Lords was not respected. I was worried this week when the Prime Minister failed to pay a warm tribute to the Father of the House. I hope that that kind of pettiness will not go to a repudiation of a long tradition that our Speaker, when he retires from this place, is offered a place in the House of Lords.
Even if that happened, Mr Speaker, you have your talent—that of mimicry, your voices and all that stuff. Yesterday, I was phoned by ABC, which said, “Would your Speaker be interested in doing a programme? We love him in America.” I said, “No, we want him to have a brand new television programme about politics called ‘Order, Order!’” So, Mr Speaker, I want you to stay in politics, do a really good job on the media and bring that to life in the way that you have brought this place to life. But whatever you decide, Godspeed.
Mr Speaker
I am extraordinarily grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I am conscious that these exchanges have become very lengthy, and there is other business with which the House has to deal. That is not a criticism of anybody. People have spoken genuinely from the heart, and I appreciate that, but if we are to accommodate colleagues and then get on to the very important business of tributes to the Reverend Rose, which must happen, and in the most fulsome terms, perhaps a little self-discipline would assist us.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
You will be aware, Mr Speaker, that it was recently announced that we are being given a new hospital in Harlow, one of six to be built—in the early stages—in the country. I mention that because much of it is down to you. You gave me five debates. You allowed me to ask questions. You helped me when I came to you to say that this was a very important issue in my constituency. That example is recent, but it is one of many throughout my time in the House since 2010. What is not known in the media is how often you help MPs who have real constituency issues to make their case to the Government, and I think that the Leader of the House mentioned that.
You have been unfailingly kind to me, and unfailingly helpful whenever I needed to support the people of my constituency. Whatever may happen at the general election, much of what I have been able to do is down to you, and the people of Harlow owe you a debt for what you have enabled me to do in my role as MP. I thank you for your constant kindness to me over the last few years. I will never forget it, and I wish you every possible success in the future.
Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)
I do not use many words, but I want to say to you, Mr Speaker, that I cannot imagine this place without you. I have been here a very long time now, as the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) and my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) know. When it was difficult for women to get into politics, my hon. Friend helped me to become the MEP for Mid and West Wales, and I thank him for that. I have disagreed with the right hon. Member for New Forest East, particularly on defence matters over the years, but I still look on him as a friend.
As for you, Mr Speaker, the BBC, apparently, has a particular tribute to you. It talks about your catchphrase,
“the traditional cry of Commons speakers through the centuries…‘Order!’, often elongated and twisted into an extraordinary sound that is all his own.
To mark his retirement, the BBC has analysed 100 years of Hansard—the official Parliamentary record—to discover just how different he was to any previous occupant of the chair.
The first thing we discovered is that he has said ‘Order!’ nearly 14,000 times.”
I think that must be a record, but it
“is just the beginning of the Bercow story in statistics.”
I want to thank you in particular, Mr Speaker, on behalf of those of us in this place who are older. There is a place for older people in this Parliament. Sometimes we are not able to jump to our feet quite as fast as we used to when we first came here 35 years ago. I am grateful that, when I had a new knee, you allowed me to sit down but still get in on questions. Thank you for that.
Thank you also for understanding people’s weaknesses and strengths in this place. I have sat here since 1984—I cannot count under how many Speakers, but it is quite a number—and you, in my view, have been the best, because you have given us Back Benchers, in particular, the opportunity to get in on questions, urgent questions, statements and all the rest. Sometimes it has been difficult to catch your eye, although I usually wear a red coat. However, I quite understand that, and I feel grateful to you for opening up this Parliament to everybody, which many of my hon. Friends have mentioned. That is particularly the case with Speaker’s House. People from outside who have come here have been amazed by how accessible you have been to the public.
You have been particularly nice to children. My nieces and nephews wrote to you after being here. They wanted to know what you have for breakfast; you had some conversation with them about food. They were very young and kept asking me that question, so I said, “Why don’t you write and ask him?” I think they got an answer as well.
Thank you for everything. Thank you for being such a good human being. You were very active before you were Speaker, particularly on human rights, so I hope you will continue to be the voice for people who need your help all over the world. I am sure you will be, because that is your natural instinct.
Diolch yn fawr, Llefarydd—thank you, Mr Speaker. Welsh is my first language; I spoke my first few words here in Welsh. Thank you very much from all of us. I will not say happy retirement. I do not like the word “retirement” because those of us who want to keep on talking will, I am sure, use every opportunity to do so.
Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd). In so doing, may I thank her for her exemplary public service over so many years?
The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) referred to career advice. I can remember, Mr Speaker, that you once asked me, at one of these meetings of potential Conservative candidates, whether I could give you some advice as to how you might become a proper parliamentary candidate selected in a constituency. The advice I gave you, which you followed, was that you should get married. That just reminds us, does it not, of how times have changed?
You and I have been friends for many years. I had the privilege of nominating you for the Conservative party candidates list at a time when our views were very similar. Indeed, one of your qualifications then was that you regarded, as did I, Enoch Powell as a schoolboy hero. I think that in more recent weeks, you have been following the advice that Enoch gave. I had the privilege of serving with him on the—[Interruption.] Yes, back in 1984 this was. Enoch Powell was on the Procedure Committee, and he gave advice to us that, in the absence of a written constitution, the procedures of the House are our constitution. That is something that you have taken very much to heart over recent weeks and months, Mr Speaker. I hope that nothing that has happened in that period will cause pressure to build for a written constitution, because that would deprive us of those flexibilities.
You have obviously been a really good servant for Back Benchers. You have also always had your finger on the pulse. I will give just one example of that. Back in 2010, after the coalition Government were elected, there was an announcement that the Government were going to bring in a measure which had not been in the manifestos of either of the two coalition parties: to change the prerogative powers of the Prime Minister to call a general election. You, with your finger on the pulse, chose me to secure the first Adjournment debate of that Parliament on the subject of the Dissolution of Parliament. The debate, which I think went on for about an hour and a half, was an opportunity for new Members and old to hold the Government to account for their extraordinary announcement, which at that stage was for a threshold of 55% in order to trigger an election. We asked questions such as, “55% of what?” On that occasion, Mr Speaker, you showed your perspicacity regarding which issues were going to be—and indeed still are—important.
You were fantastic, Mr Speaker, when we had the presidency of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. You went out of your way to impress our colleagues across the other 46 countries that belong to the Parliamentary Assembly, and then you stood up for those of us in this House who found ourselves being arbitrarily removed from membership of the Parliamentary Assembly because we had had the temerity to vote against the Government’s attempts to try to rig the referendum by suspending the rules of purdah. Your intervention caused the Government to be put into the naughty corner. As a result, a few years later, those of us who had been removed from the Parliamentary Assembly were reinstated. I thank you for that and for your fantastic service to this place and to democracy over so many years.
Mr Speaker
Thank you. I really appreciate what the hon. Gentleman has said. We have known each other for 35 years and I richly appreciate his words.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I do not think that the Leader of the House should be so shy today. He is an innovator—we have now had a statement that has become a debate. That has never happened before in the history of Parliament, so he is a great innovator and we look forward to his many more innovations.
I want to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd). Tony Blair never managed to say that correctly; according to him, it was always “Sinon Valley”. I first met her on a trip long before I was a Member of Parliament. She was already a doughty figure in the Labour movement when we went to Chile many years ago. As many Members have said, she has stood up for human rights—and for that matter sat down for human rights in Tower colliery. I know that her constituents, and mine in the Rhondda too, for that matter, have a great deal of respect for her.
As for you, Mr Speaker, I hope that you remember Tom Harris. Tom was not the most left-wing of Labour MPs. Indeed, on one occasion in the Tea Room, when he was trying to say that he was a leftie, I said to him, “Tom, the only vaguely left-wing thing about you is that you quite like the gays”—he decided he would have that on his tombstone one day.
It is not often that I speak solely about the LGBT issue, but I think it has been an essential part of your journey, Mr Speaker. There have been occasions when Speaker’s House has felt a bit like a gay bar night after night, which is wonderful, because change has come so quickly in this country, as has acceptance and diversity. You have played a very important part in that.
The main reason why I wanted to speak is that I want to say a very specific thank you. For centuries, as hon. Members will know, Members of Parliament and their very close relatives have been allowed to get married in St Mary Undercroft. Many have taken advantage of that and it has been a great delight to them. Of course, that was never available to gay MPs, and it still is not because of the rules of the Church of England. I fully understand that, although I did have to persuade Richard Harries, the former Bishop of Oxford, that he could not marry me, first because canon law did not allow it and also because the law of the land did not allow it.
When it was mooted that we should be able to find somewhere in the Palace of Westminster where gay and lesbian MPs would be able to form their civil partnerships, you, Mr Speaker, were the first person who leapt forward and said that you would do everything in your power to try to make it happen. I know this to be the case because you rang Chris Mullin to ask him what he thought about it. Chris Mullin has always been a very liberal-minded chap—he is always in favour of the modern world, diversity and so on—and he was very friendly to me and my partner, Jared Cranney, but I happen to know, because it is Chris Mullin’s published diaries, that he said that he thought that civil partnerships in the Palace of Westminster would be a step too far at that time. But you ploughed on, Mr Speaker, and what was particularly nice was that opening up the Palace to allowing civil partnerships meant that any member of the public could form a civil partnership in the Palace. We have now made that possible for several hundreds of people, I understand, which is a great delight.
I particularly remember Harriet—if you don’t mind my calling the Mother of the House that—chatting to Cilla Black, Sally, Pat Brunker and lots of other women from the Rhondda Labour party, with copious quantities of champagne and everyone enjoying themselves enormously. We were the first civil partnership in Parliament, and that was entirely down to you, Mr Speaker.
Mr Speaker
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I think it was on Saturday 27 March 2010. I remember it extremely well and it was a very happy occasion. It brought no harm to anyone, but it brought much happiness.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
As you know, Mr Speaker, I did not vote for you to become the Speaker when you were elected in 2009, and I am sure you will recall that I spent about an hour with you, sitting down at a table over a cup of tea and explaining all the reasons why I was not going to vote for you to become Speaker. I think that it is also fair to say, Mr Speaker, that we have had our disagreements, particularly on the decisions you have made over Brexit in recent times; I do not think that will come as a great shock to anybody either in the House or outside the House, but we have always conducted those conversations in perfectly civil terms.
Mr Speaker, you have always been immensely kind to me in my time in the House of Commons, not least during the preparations for our wedding—mine and Esther’s—next year, about which you have been especially kind. I must at this point pay tribute to Rose, the chaplain—an inspired appointment by you, Mr Speaker—who has been equally amazingly kind to me and Esther, and indeed is so kind that she has offered to come back to conduct the service even after she has left, which is a mark of her as a person and which is very special for both me and Esther; we are very privileged that that has been the case. That was an inspired appointment by you, Mr Speaker, and you have been incredibly kind.
However, Mr Speaker, I think and hope you will be most remembered for your support for Back Benchers. As you know, I am a permanent Back Bencher, Mr Speaker, so this is more important to me than anybody else; as I always say, the one thing that the Prime Minister and I always agree about is that I should be on the Back Benches. You have always been a champion of Back Benchers, to allow everybody’s opinion, whatever it is, to be heard in the Chamber, and I have always been immensely grateful for that.
Some people have very short memories, but I remember when I first entered Parliament in 2005 in Question Times we barely got beyond Question 6 or 7 on the Order Paper and at Prime Minister’s questions those with a question after Question 10 had no chance of being called, to the great irritation of many colleagues who had spent ages trying to get on the Order Paper for Prime Minister’s questions only to find that they could not even get to ask their question. I do not think anyone could possibly go back to that kind of regime now; indeed, I do not think the House will allow any Speaker to go back to such a regime, and that is because of your making sure that Back Benchers get to have their say. That has made what I think will be a permanent change to the way that this House operates.
I have been very grateful for your friendship over many years, and the fact that you came to my constituency and spoke at Beckfoot School, which those there particularly cherished. I hope we will stay in touch after you have finish your term, Mr Speaker, and I wish you every success for the future.
Mr Speaker
I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He and I will continue to have curry together: I think we can be sure about that.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
May I take this opportunity, Mr Speaker, to put on record my thanks to you and my appreciation for all your guidance and support since the day I was elected? You are an extraordinary parliamentarian, human being and friend to so many—and I extend that to your family, who also deserve our thanks. As I know, your welcome to new MPs goes a long way towards settling them in the House at a very daunting time for them, when everything is so confusing. It went a long way towards giving me the confidence to stand up in the House and do my duty on behalf of my constituents, and I thank you for that.
May I also say thank you on behalf of my family? My brother Sundeep in Australia has just texted me to say that he, too, wants to extend his best wishes and his thanks to you, particularly for your support when we were going through extremely difficult times, notably the illness and death of my father. You were accommodating when I had to leave before a debate ended; you came to our last family tea downstairs; and your letter to my father wishing him good health was a huge boost to his spirits in his final months.
Your commitment to equality and wellbeing has been second to none in the House. I know how much you have done. It has indeed been an honour to serve on your Speaker’s Committee on equality, diversity and inclusion since very soon after I was elected, and I am grateful for the opportunity to do so. You have done incredible work, often behind the scenes, to secure a proxy vote for colleagues who are benefiting from that now. You have been committed to increasing diversity in senior and significant positions in the House, and the visibility of that diversity has gone a long way towards making the House seem feel more relevant and inclusive, not just to us here, but to those outside.
Seema Malhotra
These are responses to a statement.
Mr Speaker, your work on the Education Centre has been extraordinary. You are an agent of change, and you set a standard for how to push the boundaries to achieve the reform and revitalisation that are so desperately needed, no matter what the organisation. I also thank you on behalf of my constituents, because I know that hundreds, if not thousands, have been through the Education Centre. Young people, many of primary school age, have been able to experience the House and build a connection with a place that is their House and is fighting for their future, too. I have no doubt that future parliamentarians, and indeed future Speakers, will embark on their roles in public life as a result of their experiences of our fantastic Education Centre and all who work in it.
You have opened up Speaker’s House, where we have held events such as National Sikh Awareness and History Month. Indeed, you hosted an event marking the first anniversary of the launch of a project in Hounslow, Hounslow’s Promise, which seeks to advance the educational attainment, social mobility and employability of our young people.
I also pay tribute to you for your defence of this House and our democracy. This is a House that is a beacon of democracy across the world. Its integrity and its reputation as a national institution go beyond us as individuals and must never be taken for granted. It is indeed for each of us to protect and safeguard the House, because it is our democracy that keeps our nation safe.
You have led us through unbearable times—events that have stunned the nation, such as the terror attack on Parliament and the murder of our dear friend Jo Cox. You have also seen us through the unconventional but extremely important and peaceful unveiling, on a Saturday, of her coat of arms here behind us, by her husband and her children. I was honoured to be here that day, along with local councillors Adriana Gheorghe, Candice Atterton and Samia Chaudhary, and others who came to support the family at that time and to remember Jo.
In the Chamber, Mr Speaker, you have been tough and fair when that has been needed for either Front or Back Benchers, but you have also been generous when that has been needed. You have, for instance, been generous in respect of urgent constituency matters—including events such as the life, and then the death, of young Charlie Gard from my constituency—and, indeed, in respect of policy matters such as those relating to young offenders in Feltham young offenders institution. You have allowed us to raise those issues at moments of great importance, and I am grateful to you, as are my constituents, for the times when that has made the difference.
Mr Speaker, you have touched the lives of hundreds of thousands who have walked through the doors of this place. You are loved by many across the House, political friend and foe alike, and you will be deeply missed. I know, however, that this will not be the end of a sterling career and that whatever you do next will be a great contribution to our democracy and to our country. I am excited, as well as intrigued, about what it might be.
Richard Harrington (Watford) (Con)
You have been given careers advice today, Mr Speaker, by people rather more experienced than I am, particularly the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), but I have been thinking a lot about this. At first I thought that perhaps you could be the host of the Radio 4 programme “Just a Minute”, but, given your experience, can you imagine no deviation, hesitation or repetition? No chance!
Then I thought of a programme of my childhood, which older Members may recall; you may recall it, Mr Speaker, and the Leader of the House may as well. I thought that there might be a remake of the programme “Call My Bluff”. You could be the Frank Muir character. Let me explain for the benefit of younger Members that each of the members of one panel would give a definition of an English word—most of the people listening would have no idea what it meant—and the others had to decide which version of was correct. “Chunter” is a good example, and now you have made it into a household word, Mr Speaker. It can be a verb, an adverb, a noun —almost anything.
You are the only Speaker who has been in the post during my time in the House, and I think that you have been a very fair, very decent and very honourable Speaker. Given the nonsense that you have put up with—here, in the press and everywhere else—it is to your credit that you have seen your way through it all. Your system, Mr Speaker, is based on what my children and my former employees have called my system: parenting and management by sarcasm. I think you should be very proud of that, because you have taken it to a new level. Sarcasm can be used as a way to control 650 people—as well as my children and my former employees.
You have fans everywhere, Mr Speaker. My mother has a large photograph of you on her mantelpiece at home, and I am continually asked, “Why can’t you be like John Bercow?” Harriet Rainbow in my office, the doyenne of the Watford parliamentary office, is also a big fan.
Every time I have stood up to speak in the Chamber, I have said, “Thank you, Mr Speaker”—so I will finish by saying, “Thank you, Mr Speaker.”
Mr Speaker
The hon. Gentleman is extraordinarily generous. He has talked about employees, and as well as being a very diligent Member of Parliament, he has employed a lot of people over the years. As his mum knows very well, before he came into this House he was an extremely successful business person. That is something that I have never been. There are lots of things I have never been, and I have never been a successful business person. I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he has said and for the way in which he has said it.
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
For the very last time: I am grateful to you for calling me to speak, Mr Speaker. It has been a real pleasure to work under your speakership for the past nine and a half years. My right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) stole a little piece of my thunder by mentioning the fact that the BBC reported this morning that you had used the term “Order, order” no fewer than just under 14,000 times. Maybe you are fortunate in one way, because you might not have achieved that record, had we been living through less interesting political times. Those interesting times were exemplified two Saturdays ago when we assembled here in this Chamber for Prayers and your Chaplain used the words, “be not anxious”. A nervous giggle ran around the House, and I thought that that was a moment to treasure because it captured the mood of the House, and the mood of the country, in the light of the political position we are currently in.
Mr Speaker, you have been a true champion of Back Benchers for the entire duration of my nine and a half years’ tenure in this House. For nine of those years, I have served as a member of the Backbench Business Committee, and for the past four and a half years, I have been Chair of that Committee. Sir, you have been a champion not just of Back Benchers but of the role of the Backbench Business Committee, which came into being when I first entered the House. Through your speakership, the Committee has allowed Members across the House to air issues of vital importance to their constituents across the whole United Kingdom. You have been a true champion of their capacity and ability to do that. You have allowed us as Back Benchers to hold the Executive to account.
On behalf of my elder sister, I also want to thank you for pronouncing my name correctly. I think we had a little lesson about that in a curry house not too far away from this very establishment. It has been a pleasure to work under your speakership, and I wish you a very long and happy next stage of your career.
Sir Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)
May I please ask for your indulgence, Mr Speaker? I have to go and chair a debate in Westminster Hall, but I should like, initially, to pay tribute to the Speaker’s Chaplain. Bishop Rose has been an inspiration to us all, and one of the great joys of having an early question on the Order Paper has been to come into Prayers and hear the uplifting, spiritual and wholly Christian way in which she conducts Prayers.
When I came back into the House in 2001, after a short absence courtesy of an ungrateful electorate, you and I became friends, Mr Speaker. In fact, we always happened to sit near each other in the Chamber, on the third row back, quite near where the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) now sits. You always gave me good advice. I had been in the House a few years before that, but the House had changed a great deal. At that stage, you were, at different times, shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury and shadow Secretary of State for International Development. We had some very interesting discussions. In fact, you were so robust that you made me look like an old-fashioned Tory wet and a moderniser. You also taught me something else. Whenever you jumped up to try to catch the Speaker’s eye, you had a habit of giving the back of the Bench in front a loud, firm kick. I will not try to demonstrate that now. It always worked, because Speaker Martin would look up, see you and call you to speak. On one occasion, when I was trying to get called, you were sitting next to me but not trying to get called. I started kicking the Bench in front, but Speaker Martin called you, even though you were not standing.
Sir Henry Bellingham
Well, that is certainly not a fault with you, Mr Speaker. Your memory and recollection of every single name and detail regarding every colleague is beyond extraordinary.
I have spent the last fortnight or so on the Speaker election hustings. The candidates have not agreed on everything, but one thing that all nine of us have agreed on is that you have done the most superb job for Back Benchers. You have done this through the urgent question revolution, through Back-Bench debates and through calling colleagues to speak when you know that they have a particular constituency interest.
We also agree that what you have done for outreach, for children and for schools has been transformational. In the past, when school parties came down from Norfolk, they would meet me in Central Lobby and we would struggle to find a Committee Room and there was nowhere to go for a cup of coffee. Now, they can go to the Jubilee Café and to the new Education Centre, and it is a completely different experience, thanks to you. You have made the lives of those children much more fulfilling in terms of their understanding of democracy than was ever the case before.
I entirely agree with the Leader of the House that you look out for colleagues who have individual constituency cases. When there is a real issue, you come to the rescue of those colleagues and help them to get justice and some form of satisfaction for their constituents. The hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) and I were both on the HS2 Select Committee, and during that inquiry we spent a lot of time going along the route of HS2. That included a number of days in your constituency, Mr Speaker, where we had meetings with action groups and residents in communities and villages. One of the things that struck me—and, I am sure, the hon. Member for Gateshead—was that, whenever you arrived at a meeting of distraught village residents, you not only knew the name of every single one of them, but you knew everything there was to know about the village. You were the local MP who was on their side, and you were admired and respected in a way that few of us could aspire to achieve. You were able to do that in spite of also carrying out your duties here as Speaker.
I thank you for the way in which you have helped me on a lot of different issues, to do with my constituency and elsewise, both in my capacity as a Minister and as a Back Bencher. You can leave this place confident and secure in the knowledge that you are leaving behind a powerful, special and long-lasting legacy.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
I should like to carry on this theme about names. When I was selected as a candidate, my constituency neighbour, John Prescott, seemed to have a problem with my name. He kept calling me Melanie. Then, when I got to the House of Commons, the then Speaker seemed to have a problem with my name as well, because he referred to me as Jacqui. So I am delighted that you have never had a problem with my name, Mr Speaker. You have always called me Diana, for which I am very grateful.
First, I want to thank you on behalf of the children of Hull, because through the Hull Children’s University, so many of them have been able to visit Parliament and to use the Education Centre, which I know is very dear to your heart. Huddersfield is a long way from Westminster, but Hull is even further, so this is a great tribute to your commitment to ensuring that this place is accessible to children from all around the country. I also want to thank you on behalf of the Youth Parliament for the work you have done to support those budding politicians and for inviting them into this Chamber and overseeing their proceedings.
I personally would like to thank you for the kindness you have shown me when I have come to you with illness or adversity. You have always been a very decent, kind man, and I very much appreciate that.
Your use of urgent questions has been remarked on by many in the House today. I think I probably have the record for the number of urgent questions you have granted to any Back Bencher, and they have been on the issue of contaminated blood. I know that the community who have been infected and affected by that awful scandal in the NHS hold you in very high esteem and regard for allowing parliamentarians to pursue the Government of the day and to seek justice for what happened to them. I want to say a very big thank you on behalf of that group.
You have also been innovative with urgent questions. I remember coming to speak to you when the Church of England made the ridiculous decision not to allow women bishops, and I asked you what Parliament could do to make the Church of England think again. You advised me that, although it had never happened before, an urgent question could be submitted to bring the Second Church Estates Commissioner to the House to answer for the Church of England, so a big thank you for that. I am delighted that we have one of the women bishops in the Church of England with us today.
You have always been a great champion of women’s rights, particularly on sensitive issues such as abortion. You have allowed debate in this Chamber on issues that people find difficult and sensitive. The way that you have allowed debates to take place, particularly on the issue in Northern Ireland, has been really important. My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) is a doughty champion of women’s rights, and I know that she holds you in high regard.
I am going to miss you, and I send you every good wish for whatever it is you go on to do. Whatever it is, it will be an enormous success, but we will miss you.
Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)
I can exclusively reveal that the tactic of kicking the Bench in order to be called works, Mr Speaker. I start by echoing the opening words of the Leader of the House about what you have done to revolutionise the work of the education service. The way that it now brings children of all ages through this place and introduces them to Parliament is phenomenal. I also pay tribute to what you did with the Youth Parliament. I was lucky enough to be the Minister with responsibility for the Youth Parliament, and I stood at the Dispatch Box, with the shadow Leader of the House opposite me, to make the opening statement. I found it really quite intimidating, and the quality of debate in the Youth Parliament was incredible, so I thank you for bringing that through here.
I want to make my own personal tribute to the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd). I do not know her particularly well, but I hold her in great esteem and shall miss her and, indeed, the many experienced colleagues who are leaving this place. Young whippersnappers like myself need wise counsel from those who have been here for many years. I am grateful that we in Kent have my right hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale), who gave all new MPs elected in 2010 templates for what he does to help us in dealing with our constituents. I know full well that if I have a difficult piece of casework, there are Members across the House who have seen it all before and to whom we can go for advice.
I have known you for what I thought was a long time, Mr Speaker, but we have never been for a curry, so perhaps we do not know each other as well as I thought. However, a few weeks ago, I said to Mr Speaker that I had fallen out of love with the Chamber in recent months. It has been an incredibly challenging time in Parliament, and I just was not feeling like I was here or that I really valued what we do. Mr Speaker has been kind enough to call me on a regular basis over the past couple of weeks for questions and interventions and so on, and I have fallen back in love with this Chamber. I thank you, Mr Speaker, for giving me the confidence to move from the Front Bench to the Back Benches and feel like I can make a positive contribution in a debate. I am genuinely grateful to you.
I do not know whether colleagues are aware of this, but in all good bookstores there is now a book called “Be More Bercow”. It is an excellent book—
Tracey Crouch
Mr Speaker did not write it but, like some other hon. Members, I have had him sign a couple of copies for auction. The book has quotes that he has said over many years and then, on the next page, some self-help. For example, as we have heard Mr Speaker say many times, “Calm down man”—a quote that will follow you around for some time—may be on one page, and then there will be a mindfulness lesson about how to breathe properly in order to calm yourself down. We can all learn from elements of “Be More Bercow” but one lesson that is not in there is how not to go to the toilet for over nine hours. Mr Speaker, you have the bladder of a camel. Had you not announced your retirement, we ought to have thought about reinstating the commode that was under the Speaker’s Chair once upon a time.
You are an extraordinary character, Mr Speaker, and I have sat here since 9.30 am listening to some incredible tributes to you, but it is about time that I offered some balance. It is true that you have been a champion of Back Benchers, and you are also a champion of sport, which I really appreciated when I was Sports Minister—I am still very sorry for playing football here in the Chamber. However, Mr Speaker, you are still a Gooner. I would like all Speaker candidates to promise me that the next Speaker will not allow another debate paying tribute to Arsène Wenger or, indeed, any other Arsenal manager, particularly if the Sports Minister who has to reply to it is, like me, a lifelong Tottenham fan.
I do not refer to those I employ as my staff. I think of them very much as part of my team. In this place, we are nothing without those in our team, so I take this opportunity to pay tribute not just to you, but to Jim, Peter and Ian, who work for you. There are others whose names I do not know, but I am sure that they keep you under control. I also thank Reverend Rose, who is very much part of our team in Parliament. I have taken great comfort from her spiritual guidance, and I will be forever grateful that she christened my son Freddie. I thank her and thank you, sir, and I wish you well in whatever happens next.
Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)
It was all going so well. [Laughter.]
Paula Sherriff
What can I say, Mr Speaker? I hope we have moved on since that Wednesday a few years ago when you threatened me with an antisocial behaviour order here in this Chamber. I will keep my remarks brief today but, as the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) just suggested, we are nothing without a good team, and I want to thank Jim, Peter, Ian, Rose, of course, and all the others in your private office who have served you and all of us so well. They are simply the best of us. As an example of their humanity, when I was working on the period poverty campaign, one of those gentlemen to whom I just referred approached me in the corridor one day with a carrier bag. He had gone out and bought loads of women’s sanitary products, and he said, “Will you donate these to somebody in need? I have never done this before. I have never gone into a supermarket or a chemist and bought these items.” I just thought that was really touching.
Mr Speaker, your humanity and personal touch will never be forgotten. They have been in evidence on some specific occasions, but none more so than when we lost Jo. The next day, you came to Birstall, which is next door to my Dewsbury constituency, and you did not just turn up and lay flowers, but you stayed and talked and empathised with local residents and then went on to the local church and spent time there. It was so appreciated—not just the gesture of being there, but your authenticity and just spending time with local people who were feeling that loss so much. Equally, after the dreadful terrorist incident here a couple of years ago, when we lost such a wonderful police officer and it was such a traumatic time for so many of us, you were not only typically stoic, but very supportive as well. The same has been true in the past few months, which at times has been a difficult period for me, particularly with some of the abuse that I have received, as have other Members, particularly female Members. You called me at home one Sunday morning to ask whether I was okay, because I had received a particularly unpleasant death threat—all death threats are unpleasant but I had received something that was particularly unkind. I was very grateful for your support at that time.
You are an extraordinary man, Mr Speaker. I will miss you hugely. I wish you and your family every happiness. I had the pleasure of chatting to them last week, and your delightful young daughter Jemima is an absolute credit to you and Sally. I look forward to reading your memoirs, and I particularly look forward to seeing you in sequins in a future episode of “Strictly Come Dancing”. Thank you, above all, for your kindness, Mr Speaker.
Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
First, I want to apologise for not having been here at the beginning of these tributes, Mr Speaker. I had to engage in a podcast with the Father of the House. It was a joint podcast. I say that, but he took up at least 90% of it, so it was joint in the sense that it is joint whenever you sit to hear him and you ask him to speak briefly and he does exactly that!
At the outset, I also want to say a farewell to you, Mr Speaker. We have known each other for a significant amount of time. I believe you once referred to me as a “sea green incorruptible”. You may or may not recall that. I am not sure to this day quite what you meant by it, but I had been rebelling against the Government then for some time and I fancy that you thought that was a good thing. It was on the back of that that when I became leader I employed you in the shadow Cabinet, as shadow Chief Secretary. It was not altogether a happy period. I recall being approached by one particular colleague of ours, who will remain nameless but who upbraided me in the Lobby, saying “It is fantastic that you have got somebody who is really campaigning on the rights for gay people and out there speaking on all these subjects. I was thinking, “Oh, very good, thank you.” He then said, “Do you think we could have a shadow Chief Secretary when you next get to the appointments for the shadow Cabinet?” I think he was not altogether enamoured of your journey, but it was certainly a journey, one that you have taken personal ownership of. You have been part of changes that have come about, all of which have been overdue. I fancy that your legacy in this matter will also therefore be recorded by everybody, notwithstanding your period in the Chair.
On that note, I wish briefly to deal with the idea of legacy. I recall a quote from “Julius Caesar”:
“The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones”.
I wish to reverse that process and simply say that there is much that you have done in this House that will stand the test of time and will return this House, in a way, to where it probably was many, many decades before, before it became too subjected to the concept of the overarching power of the Executive. I was a little tongue in cheek there. When I was, unexpectedly, in the Cabinet for six years, I regularly used to curse you in the mornings at about 9 o’clock when I heard that you were about to grant an urgent question—I think such questions came at noon—and I had to give you some reason why we should not have the UQ. Almost invariably I was told by your office that you had read what I had put but not required that it was the case and had granted the UQ. During that period, I do not think any Minister would not have been frustrated, annoyed and angry. However, having returned to the Back Benches, I have to congratulate you on reinvigorating the UQ, turning it from being an unusual event to being a very standard one, and I hope I have taken advantage of that. Of course the Government do not like that. When one is in government, surrounded by all the decisions one has to take and things one has to do, coming back to the House and being forced to answer questions is a nuisance, but it is a nuisance that really does matter.
I recall being frustrated as a junior Back Bencher on many occasions because I could not get in on a question and I thought that I had been pushed to one side, that everybody senior had got in and that the usual rules had applied. Any Member coming in here now will not have any knowledge of how it was before and they will just be used to standing and getting called. I often say to such Members, “It was very different in the old days. You might stand for three separate questions not related to each other and still not get called. Eventually you would approach the Chair and the Chair would say, ‘Next time we will call you. And you would then argue, ‘Well, I may not have an interest in the next question” but you would still have to come in and stand. Banishing that and getting rid of that process will stand as an important legacy of yours, because it allows non-Privy Counsellors to get their word in. I have one word of slight advice: my general rule is that in this place after about an hour there is absolutely nothing that anybody is going to get up to say that has not already been said at least three or four times. You have been incredibly tolerant that even on the fifth time it is worth hearing and sometimes quite important.
In that regard, your use of this place and your reforms of this place were overdue. I also remind colleagues that you came in at a difficult time; this House was in shame. The expenses scandal was all that people in the country saw and thought of us in this place. They thought all of us were corrupt and involved only for our own sakes, which is completely untrue but was overarchingly the view. As you know, Mr Speaker, people come here because they genuinely believe that they want to do good and to try to improve the quality of life for their constituents and for citizens around the country. To some degree, we are still suffering from that view. We needed the reforms such as opening this place up, letting younger people come here, using the education service and expanding that process, and giving colleagues the power to bring Governments to the Dispatch Box so that they could ask those questions and force Ministers, even in difficult moments, to answer the most difficult questions of the day. That is a set of vital reforms and I cannot see any future Speaker reversing them, nor should they, because they are absolutely structural.
We have not always agreed on everything, Mr Speaker, nor should we; I confess there have been times when I have been somewhat frustrated. However, as colleagues have said, this is not really about being frustrated about the decisions; it is about whether or not somebody is consistent in the process they engage in. The one thing you have been absolutely consistent in is your belief that Back Benchers have the right and should have the power to be heard, regardless of whether you agree with them or not, and of whether they sometimes say things that might be an abhorrence. You believe that they have the right, because they were elected to this place, to be heard here without fear or favour. Restoring that process will be your greatest legacy, so I wish you a good retirement—although I suspect it will not be retirement and you will have some other kind of career. Perhaps you will be speaking across the States, where I gather you are becoming quite a celebrity on the speaking circuit. Whatever else you do, I know you will bring to it longer speeches, with words that nobody has ever understood or heard before. Notwithstanding that, people will be fascinated by them, as I have always been by your approach at the Chair. So I wish you the very best of fortune, and I consider it in a way a privilege to have been in this House when these reforms have taken place, and you were the architect of them. Thank you.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
I get the opportunity for the second time today to call Thangam Debbonaire.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
I want to thank you, Mr Speaker, on behalf of three groups of people. As other Members have mentioned, the schoolchildren who have been through the Education Centre, thanks to you, have been inspired by that experience. I echo the tribute on that that others have paid to you.
There are two other groups, and one of them is my constituents. You have a lot of fans in Bristol West, so if ever you feel like popping down, you will get a warm welcome. Many of them have asked me to pass on to you their admiration and to tell you that they have been glued to the television over the past year. It is an interesting by-product of where we have been politically that people text me to say, “What’s that funny thing you do when you bow at the table?” You have facilitated that sort of interest.
This is a slightly quirky one, but I want to thank you on behalf of the very unofficial parliamentary string quartet, the Statutory Instruments. It was in your Speaker’s palace at a Christmas celebration last year that Emily Benn and I first hatched the plot. We were enjoying the Christmas tree, and I think probably some Christmas carols and possibly some mince pies. I will always be grateful to you for being there at the birth of the parliamentary string quartet, and then at its first performance. Every time we play, we will be thinking of you. We are a little bit thwarted, because we were supposed to play at a concert for the Archbishop of Canterbury on 12 December but I gather we are doing something else on that day. Nevertheless, the Statutory Instruments are grateful to you.
Other people have said this, but I feel I must add that you and Reverend Rose—I cannot be here for her tribute—have been here for us at our darkest hours, as well as our moments of joy and celebration. Those dark moments been very dark indeed: June 2016 in particular and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) mentioned, the murder of PC Keith Palmer. There have been other times as well. You have been here for us and it has been incredible. It is a source of great support and comfort, both spiritual and non-spiritual, that the two of you have given to us as individuals, and to me as a Whip.
Your views on Whips are well known, Mr Speaker. Despite what has been said about your views on Whips, I have always known you to be really rather kind and helpful to us. I have sat in Whips’ corner for three years now—I cannot believe it has been three years, but I think my Chief Whip will confirm that I have been an Opposition Whip for three years—and you have been extraordinary. I have learned such a lot from working by your side and also, of course, from Peter, Ian and Jim, to whom I also owe a great debt of thanks. I hope they will not be leaving us, even if you are.
The Leader of the House could perhaps have cleared up a mystery for us. He said that to him the word “modernisation” is an expletive; if that is so, I am slightly perplexed as to why he has not taken this opportunity to confirm that your 10 years of public service will be rewarded in the traditional manner. I think it would be courteous if somebody on the Treasury Bench could clear up that mystery for us at some point in the not-too-distant future. I think the traditional time to do that would be today.
Thangam Debbonaire
The Leader of the House is shaking his head at me, but I do think that somebody ought to clear it up. Nevertheless, I know that whatever it is that you go on to do, Mr Speaker, you will do it, I hope, billowed up on a cloud of love and admiration from us all, and with the great enjoyment and collegiate spirit that you have shown to us and, I hope, we have shown to you. Some of the greatest and the darkest moments in my four years here have been enhanced by your presence in the Chair, including a tiny little thing involving a packet of peanuts and an Order Paper that I think will best be left to my memoirs or yours. Yes, you know of what I speak.
Thank you, Mr Speaker, and good luck.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
Time does not allow me to do justice to all the amazing work that you have done in the service of this Parliament, Mr Speaker. Before I came to Parliament, I was a young barrister, and I was told, “Brevity is a virtue, not a vice, so keep it short.” You have applied that rule when we have all spoken.
I wish to cover three things: accessibility; the way you have treated Back-Bench Members of Parliament; and wellbeing. First, on accessibility, all Members of Parliament are among equals in this place, and you have applied that rule. As a young Member of Parliament, many years ago, when I thought I needed to talk to the Speaker, I contacted the Speaker’s office and said, “I would like to speak to the Speaker of Parliament.” I was told, “Thank you, Mr Chishti,” and within minutes the Speaker could be reached on his mobile phone in his constituency. I thank you, Mr Speaker, and the brilliant team around you—I see one of them standing there, and there are others. Members of Parliament judge the moment when they need to speak to our Speaker—you are our Speaker—and accessibility is key for Members of Parliament and for anyone when they want to reach a person in a position of responsibility. You, Mr Speaker, has have always ensured that.
Secondly, Mr Speaker, you have been the champion of Back-Bench Members of Parliament. We all have our own cases. One thing on which I can never compromise —I never have throughout my time in Parliament—is freedom of religion or belief. I came to this country as the son of an imam. My father was an imam, my grandfather was an imam and my uncles were imams. I came to Gillingham in 1984, and we could practise our religion openly and freely at every level. Morally and ethically, it would be wrong for me not to stand up at any level when I see individuals of minority faiths being persecuted.
In 2014, I wrote to you, Mr Speaker, to ask for an Adjournment debate on the abuse of blasphemy laws in Pakistan, where they are used to target minority faiths, and the case of Asia Bibi, who was on death row. Before the case came up in the media in the past year, I wrote to you, Mr Speaker, and you gave me the chance to raise it on the Floor of the House. And it was not just then, because you know what matters to Members of Parliament. We all champion different issues, and you have been absolutely brilliant in realising what issues matter to Members of Parliament. When I resigned from the Government in November 2018—the Government did not agree with my view on the Asia Bibi case, so I stepped aside—I wanted to question the Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s questions, but I was not listed on the Order Paper. I was sitting on the Bench right there, and although I am slightly short, I was still bobbing up and down. You, Mr Speaker, called me so that I could raise my issue with the person who had to make the final decision. You have been absolutely amazing as a champion of Back-Bench Members of Parliament.
Thirdly, there are some outside who do not see Members of Parliament or those who work here as fellow human beings. We are all human beings, and we all suffer from the same challenges that every other citizen in our great country suffers. We all have challenges and issues that arise. I wish to touch on the work that you, Mr Speaker, have done on the wellbeing of Members of Parliament and of those who work in this great Parliament. I cannot thank you enough for the way you have dealt with those issues with compassion, decency and complete regard to human dignity. You have put in place a system with the brilliant Dr Madan. It is a clinician-led approach, and I thank Dr Madan, because often those who do the work behind the scenes do not get the credit. They do an amazing job. If everyone applied your approach, Mr Speaker, of making sure that those who work here, at whatever level, get support when they need it—and quickly, swiftly and appropriately—individuals could go on and be better than before. That comes down to individuals in responsibility taking such decisions.
I was very fortunate to represent the Prime Minister in the Holy See at the canonisation of Cardinal Newman. I did not know much about Cardinal Newman, but when I was there I listened to people speak about that great man’s values. One of the hymns was “Lead, Kindly Light”, which has the lyrics:
“I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.”
In the 10 years for which you have sat in the Chair, Mr Speaker, every step that you have taken has been for the betterment of this Parliament. Thank you, Sir.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
I listened carefully to the opening statement by the Leader of the House and was interested to hear what he had to say. I always listen to him carefully. He chooses his words carefully and gives me the impression, at least, that he understands the meaning of them—after all, he is the only person I know who reads the words “lounge suit” inside his jacket and takes them as instructions for use. You, Mr Speaker, have challenged the House in respect of the rights of Back Benchers. There are people in the House who have benefited from that at times but who, now that time has moved on, perhaps do not quite appreciate how you have stood up for the rights of this House and for those of us who have wanted to stand up for our constituents.
In particular, I want to pay tribute to you for standing up for the people of the 48% who voted in 2016 to remain in the European Union. If people had listened to the Government’s views on the outcome of the referendum, which we all respect, they would have believed that it was a resounding victory, and that the country was not split at that time. But, indeed, the country was split, and it was for this House to stand up and hold the Government to account and to speak up for the views of those people who wanted to remain in the European Union, or who wanted, in leaving, to retain as much of our relationship with the European Union as we could. Without your strength of character, Mr Speaker, to stand up to an Executive who were prepared to try to ride roughshod over those of us who wanted to hold the Government to account, we would have been in a very different place now. That is a tribute to you, and your actions during these very trying times have earned you a place in history. You deserve enormous credit for that. I will always admire you for what you did, because, at times, it was very difficult for you. You were out there as an individual having to stand up to those people. I understand that you have an excellent team around you, but you did it none the less, and you did it for us. For that, I will always be grateful.
I am also grateful to your team. I do not do this very often, but I pleaded with them to ensure that I was called at Prime Minister’s questions to raise something on behalf of a disabled constituent who had had their personal independence payment taken away, and was about to have their car repossessed on the Thursday after that Prime Minister’s questions. I did not think that I would be called, Mr Speaker, but because you had been generous with time at Prime Minister’s questions—you allowed it to overrun—I was called right at the tail end. I always seem to get called at the tail end, but if you are patient, you get there. I thanked you, Mr Speaker, when I was interviewed on the radio subsequently about this issue. As a consequence of my being able to raise that matter at Prime Minister’s questions—because you heard my plea and called me—the life of my constituent was completely transformed in a moment. That is the power of being in that Chair, and I pay tribute to you for how you stood up for us Back Benchers so that we could stand up for our constituents. My constituent’s PIP was reinstated and they did not have their car repossessed.
Your inspired appointment of Rose Hudson-Wilkin was, again, a testament to your strength of character, and to your determination to modernise and to take us forward as a House of Commons, representing all the people. I pay tribute to Rose. She has an amazing career ahead of her and will be a very influential person in our society in whatever role she goes on to do when she ceases to be Chaplain to the Speaker of the House.
Mr Speaker, you came into the House in 1997, the same time as me. You have a constituency in the home counties; I have one in London. No doubt schools from your constituency have frequently visited this place and you have taken them round on tours. But on rainy days, when they wanted to have their packed lunch, children used to be told that the Speaker of the House and the Serjeant at Arms did not allow packed lunches to be eaten in Westminster Hall. There was no cafeteria down there, and when we got one, it was not accessible to schoolchildren, because they had to buy something to be in there. This was an appalling place for young people to visit in terms of how they were welcomed, although they were awestruck as they were taken around the place and no doubt educated by all the MPs who were boring them to tears with the details of the House. None the less, it was important that they were here. They were inspired by the House, but it was very unwelcoming to them.
The changes that you have made in opening up the Education Centre and making this place feel welcoming to young people have been inspired. I want the Speaker who follows you to do more of that, and it is a mark of the way that you have brought modernisation and change to this House. You have earned your place in the history of this House and I wish you all the best for your future.
Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)
Mr Speaker, it is a pleasure to pay tribute to you today. I have known you for the best part of 30 years, and I echo everything that has been said in the Chamber today. I will not repeat those tributes, but instead add to them by saying things that have not been said.
I thank you for your patriotism, for being an upholder of tradition and for being a lover of your country. You are a patriot. The Mother of the House said that you were politically correct, but on those issues you have never been politically correct. It was you, Sir, who supported the long-running campaign to ensure that the flag of our country was flown from the Victoria Tower every single day of the year. Members will recall that it used to be flown only when the House was sitting. In the early part of 2010, the House agreed, with your support, Mr Speaker—a statement was made in the House—that the flag would fly permanently, 365 days of the year. That is, I think, a subject of pride in our country and it is appreciated by many.
It is also you, Mr Speaker, who has upheld the tradition of St George’s day for England. When we celebrate our traditions for England, Speaker’s House has been opened to the Royal Society of St George and to organisations that celebrate our English heritage. I thank you, Sir, for allowing the St George’s day organisations to come to Speaker’s House to celebrate 23 April.
I also remember that it was you, Mr Speaker, who allowed the tradition—the sad tradition—of crests of MPs who have been assassinated and murdered to be displayed in this Chamber. For a very long time, the crest of Airey Neave was in the Chamber, but the previous Speaker was not in favour of additional crests. You may recall, Mr Speaker, that Lord Howe of Aberavon and I came to see you and asked whether we could have a crest in memory of the late Ian Gow, who was murdered. You were very supportive of that, and that led to crests being put up not only for the late Ian Gow, but for Dr Robert Bradford, Jo Cox, Sir Anthony Berry and others who were killed by Irish terrorists. It was you, Mr Speaker, who allowed that tradition to be reinstated so that we could remember Members of Parliament who were so cruelly taken from us by assassination and political murder.
The diamond jubilee of Her Majesty the Queen was a great celebration for the whole of Parliament, but it was Mr Speaker who opened Speaker’s House for a wonderful celebration for representatives of all Her Majesty’s realms and territories. Indeed, how can we forget the renaming of the Clock Tower as the Elizabeth Tower? There are many things that you will be remembered and thanked for, Mr Speaker, but from my personal point of view, it will be your kindness, your friendship, your understanding, your willingness to deal with issues as they arose, and your being on the side of Back Benchers who need a voice—you have always made sure that we have had that voice.
Mr Speaker, you have been a wonderful champion of this House. You have promoted the Mother of Parliaments, and I believe that you will be remembered for many years to come.
Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
May I start by saying what an honour it is to sit next to my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) who will be sadly missed? I completely associate myself with the remarks that were made by the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis).
I want to say something rather different, Mr Speaker. I want to take you back to a trip that we made together to Sudan. I know that you agreed to go at quite short notice: we needed a Conservative Member and you agreed to come on that trip. I had never been to Sudan—and this was pre-secession—without getting unwell. When we say that someone looks green, we are usually greatly exaggerating, but I can assure Members that, when we flew round on that trip, I looked at you and you were green—you were absolutely unwell—but you carried on and we got to Nyala, which was, at that time, the heart of the struggle for Darfur. As we got there, all the lights went out, but it was wonderful because our hosts said, “Don’t worry, we’ll go to the local takeaway and get you something to eat.” I remember that we had not had anything to eat all day; we probably did not want anything. I am a vegetarian and could not eat the food that they brought back, and I am eternally grateful to you for being there, because you did eat it.
The great tribute that our hosts paid us was that we were to share the President’s bedroom, so you and I went to the President’s bedroom—and that was fine. But we were then able to take advantage of using the President’s toilet. Now, I do not know whether or not it was a Sudanese tradition, but the President’s toilet had previously been used. And I now know why you are such a steadfast Speaker, able to sit in the Chair for nine hours. It is because you and I decided that it was one ask too many to use the President’s toilet, and waited. Dare I say that the constitution of this Speaker was built in that President’s palace in Nyala?
People do not realise that making such trips—visiting the trouble spots of the world—is part of our role and responsibility. You did that, and I hope that you will do so in the future, because you will be welcomed and admired. People will see you not only as the former Speaker—unlike in the States, where people are always referred to as Congressmen and Senators, even when they are no longer in office. It has been an honour to call you a friend, and that trip will always stand in my memory even though I have been a number of times since. Long may your life continue, and I hope that future toilets will be slightly better than the one we were asked to use on that occasion. Thank you, Mr Speaker.
Mr Speaker
Bless you. I have never forgotten that trip, and I never will—for all sorts of reasons.
Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
I thought I had missed the tributes to you, Mr Speaker, but I am delighted that I have not. By the way, it is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew). I fear that I lack your constitution, Mr Speaker, because I have been dying for the loo, but I also wanted to get in, so I am holding it in for the moment. I actually came to the Chamber to follow your advice to persist, persist, persist. I am following up on a point I made earlier in the week, to get an answer from the Leader of the House—if he wants to give one—on whether the Government would allow a future debate on Huawei and the importance of 5G, but I am very happy to ignore that request if you feel that it would be inappropriate at this moment.
Mr Speaker
No, no—I said to the hon. Gentleman that he could raise what he wanted to raise with the Leader of the House.
Mr Seely
That is very kind of you, Sir, because I fear that I might—not for the first time—have misread the Order Paper. However, it will make you happy to know that since “Erskine May” has been available online, I have been reading it in bed every night. Indeed, I was going to raise a point of order to ask why paragraph 12 of chapter 20 consisted of not one paragraph but two, but the Whips advised me against it; I think it was during the Saturday sitting and we were all very keen to get away.
Mr Speaker, your support for Back Benchers is always important and incredibly welcome, and your calling Ministers to account is excellent because scrutiny always strengthens. Any good Minister always appreciates being called for an urgent question, because it gives them the chance to explain the Government’s position. If a Minister is happy to explain the Government’s position, they are confident of the Government’s position. And if they are not, there should be questions about why they fear being called. I thank you for that, and I hope that the tradition of UQs will continue under all future Speakers; it is very important that it does.
Likewise, the Education Centre has been superb. The excellent teacher at Ryde Academy on my Island often brings the kids down. In fact, the most trying interviews that I have are often with primary and secondary schoolchildren from my Island, who test me and my knowledge as best they can. Long may that continue.
Some of my constituents have specifically written to me to say how much they will miss you, but specifically to say that they will miss you chastising me. One of them told me that so frequent has that reprimanding and guidance become that they regularly look forward to my being told off by you on a regular—indeed, almost weekly—basis. You have brought joy to many people—occasionally to myself, but very often to my constituents, especially if you have been beasting me.
On the point of persist, persist, persist—if the Leader of the House has a chance to answer—5G is very significant issue, and there is very little public and parliamentary debate about it. What can we do about it, and can we have debate before decisions are made so that we can give our opinion and say what we think the options are?
Mr Speaker
That was extremely gracious of the hon. Gentleman, whom I have known for a very long time. I thank him for what he said, and I know the Leader of the House will want to respond to him.
Mr Rees-Mogg
As this is a statement, I probably should have been replying to everything, but I think, in the broad context, it was better not to have done. But 5G is of course a matter of concern and one that the Government take very seriously, and the security and resilience of the UK’s telecom networks are of the greatest importance. I obviously cannot promise debates at the moment, because we will have Dissolution on Wednesday, but the general election is coming up and I have a feeling that this is a matter that will be of interest to many people, who will want to ensure that we have a safe and secure system. The Government have not yet made a decision on the matter, and that is an important point to underline. In spite of press reports to the contrary, a decision will be made in due course. I think that a wide debate among the British public is the best thing that we can have; we should always trust the people.
Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)
I do not intend to speak for too long because some wonderful compliments have been paid, and it is sometimes hard to sit and listen to people complimenting you—that is very human. I would just like to say thank you. Thank you for the first handshake and words when I took my oath; the lovely note after my first speech; and the tea morning for the new entrants held by Rose and yourself in your chambers. I also thank you and your staff for the huge help that you have given with regard to Grace’s Sign and the Any Disability symbol, and for the J. P. Mackintosh lecture that took place in Speaker’s House, which was gratefully received by his family and the people of East Lothian. For all that and so much more, thank you.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
Mr Speaker, I can see that you are saving the best till last. It is a huge pleasure to say thank you this afternoon. I wonder, though, whether when we bump into each other again in years to come, I will feel as I did that time I jumped off my bicycle and a man 6 feet taller than I looked at me and said, “Hello, sir. I notice you haven’t polished your shoes today.” It was the academy sergeant-major from Sandhurst and I was wearing trainers. He was pointing out what he knew then, which is that standards matter, and you have defended the standards in this House religiously. For that, I can only be extremely grateful.
Defending the rights of parliamentarians is not actually about defending 650 people who may or may not have an opinion on a subject. It is about defending the very principle of democracy in our country. It is about defending the very principles of freedom of thought, freedom of expression and individual liberty. And it is absolutely about defending the foundations of the economy and society that we have built with much care and many failures, but over many, many decades. For that, I am hugely grateful.
On a personal basis, if I may, there is another thing for which I would like to thank you. You have not only introduced us to a wonderful chaplain, who is here and to whom I pay huge personal thanks and tributes, but you have also introduced a new chaplain in Father Pat Browne. To have a Catholic chaplain in this House and to have a regular mass on a Wednesday afternoon is an act of extreme kindness to many of us in the Catholic community in this place, but it also reflects the fact that this House does not now legislate for the exclusion of one religion, does not now silence one form of worship and does not now reject the individual practice of so many people in these islands.
I know that you have been on a journey, Mr Speaker. Some people have spoken of your origins on one wing of the party, and your arrival at the seat in which you now find yourself—the defender of many liberties, which would have surprised others 20 or 30 years ago. Many of us have been on a journey. I see the Leader of the House sitting there on the Front Bench. When I used to sit next to him, he was a guardian of the purity of this House, but he has gone with the speed of a whippet from the purity of the Vestal Virgin to the Whore of Babylon deep in Executive power.
We have all been on various different journeys, Mr Speaker, and I am delighted that your journey has taken you to where you are now. I am personally grateful that the past four years, particularly the two in which I had the privilege of chairing the Foreign Affairs Committee, have been under your speakership. You have enabled those of us who are very new to this place to have a voice and, I hope, to represent some of the views that need speaking up for in our House. Even if we may sometimes chunter when criticised, almost certainly justifiably, that might give us cause to remember that your defence of this House means that sometimes we are in the wrong, too.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
May I, on behalf of the Democratic Unionist party, thank you, Mr Speaker, for all that you have done as Speaker?
May I also pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd), who sits behind me so regularly, very often in her colour of red? I said to her this morning before we came into the Chamber that she has often been the conscience of many in this Chamber with regard to human rights issues. When she has spoken here on human rights issues, I have been more than pleased to join her in those opportunities to speak out and speak up for those across the world who do not have a voice. We in this House are very privileged to be the voice for them.
When I came here as a new Member in 2010, Mr Speaker, as I said earlier, I was just a tad nervous and maybe a wee bit apprehensive. I never, ever thought that I would be in the House of Commons. It was a dream, perhaps, but not something I really thought would happen in my life, and it did. I vividly remember meeting you. You shook my hand with a very welcoming and generous introduction. At once, I felt the warmth that you exuded then and you exude now, and that put me at ease in this House. I was not put at ease when I made my maiden speech, because I was as nervous as can be about that, but once I had got that speech over with, I realised that you could do it.
As I learned the rules and regulations of the House under your guidance, Mr Speaker, you occasionally chastised me, always rightfully and always justly. I found out that the word “you” can only be used for your good self. I am not quite sure whether I have learned that yet, but I am trying hard and I will endeavour to do so over the next period.
As the Back-Bench champion that you are, Mr Speaker, we in this House, and I, have felt that our views would always have an opportunity to be heard. To quote you, the voice of Strangford must and will be heard. It was heard in this House, and we thank you for that.
Your choice of Speaker’s Chaplain, which we will have a chance to refer to in a few moments—I wish to do that as well—was right and appropriate, as was your choice of the Serjeant at Arms. I supported both those choices. I thank you for all your team’s support. Peter, Ian and Jim are always kind and courteous and undoubtedly a great team.
Behind every great man—and I believe, Mr Speaker, you are a great man—is a great woman. You have been very blessed and very privileged to have at your side, as your wife, Sally. Her support for you was and is vital. I thank Sally and the children for the support they give you. I know myself how important it is to have a family behind you to give the support that you need.
I believe that the future for you, Mr Speaker, will be successful; it will be incredible. I am a great believer, as you know, in the power of prayer, and always have been. Your chaplain will know that as well. I believe that with prayer we can move mountains. Every morning I pray for you, Mr Speaker, and I will continue to do so in the time when you are not in that Chair and have moved on to other jobs. You will not be forgotten in this House, certainly not by me. I will miss you, not least for the Adjournment debates that you and I shared on many occasions. Not having you present will be a minus for me, but I hope that there will be someone else there who can take your place.
I want to thank you, Mr Speaker, for your kindness, for your friendliness and for the wise guidance that you have given to me and many others in this House. I wish you Godspeed. I thank you for all that you do and did, and wish you every success for the future. Thank you so much.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
Mr Speaker, I am coming to you. But, first, for the Leader of the House, William Morris said that
“the very foundation of refinement”
includes
“green trees, and flowery meads, and living waters outside.”
My constituents in Market Deeping seek just those things, as they crave open spaces. I hope that the Leader of the House, in the time available—for there are two more days, after all—will allow time for an urgent statement on how planning policy guidance can be altered, so that open spaces are provided for communities such as those in the Deepings and future generations have the chance to choose to work, play and rest in them and enjoy them at their leisure.
Now to you, Mr Speaker—my friend. My wife said to me, “How will you manage when John goes?” I said, “I have no idea, I suppose I will have to compete on equal terms.”
John Ruskin said that
“no cultivation of the mind can make up for the want of natural abilities”.
You, sir, have no such want. Indefatigable, irrepressible and incomparable you certainly are, but much more than that: in a time in which our politics is an unhappy marriage of hysterical hyperbole and technocratic turgidity, you have brought theatre to this place, and life and art to your role. Some of those on the Conservative Benches see that art as a sort of Jackson Pollock with a touch of Damien Hirst, but I see you more as Van Gogh, with a vibrancy and vividity, a colour and theatricality, which reveals rather than conceals sensitivity and deep humanity—for those are your qualities.
Many people have spoken of your achievements, the Education Centre and the change in balance between the House and the Executive prominent among them. The business of making this place alive and relevant, and giving our proceedings that very theatricality which gives life to our democracy, will be your most lasting legacy. That is why you are so widely known outside this place—and widely admired, by the way, too. I thank you profoundly for that. As our polemic has become increasingly strange, brutish and cruel as a result of social media—I have never seen it myself, but I understand that it takes place on computers and other sorts of devices—you have stood proud from that.
I thank you for all you have done. and I thank you for your friendship, which, of course, I hope and trust will endure long beyond the roles we now play. Thank you, Mr Speaker.
Mr Speaker
I am almost beyond words. I am extraordinarily grateful to the right hon. Gentleman.
Mr Rees-Mogg
Good heavens, Mr Speaker—our right hon. Friend was as beautifully eloquent as ever. On his request for a debate or a statement on open spaces, I could bring his attention to the Adjournment debate that will take place on Tuesday, to which I will be responding. The only drawback is that it is primarily for right hon. and hon. Members who are retiring—a category into which I hope he is not tempted to fall.
Mr Speaker
It may well depend upon the interpretive approach taken by the Chair. It will not be me, but we shall see what happens. I note what the Leader of the House has said.
Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)
First, I need to say that I will not be here for the tributes to the chaplain, but the House’s loss is Canterbury’s gain, and I am thrilled that I will get to see much more of Rose Hudson-Wilkin in my constituency; that is brilliant.
Mr Speaker, it is so difficult to put into words what seeing you in the Chair means to people like me on the Back Benches. Some of the speeches today have been incredibly moving. I need to find a new word for kindness, because when we look at today’s Hansard, that is the word that will come up the most.
I do not know how to express my gratitude for how immensely patient and lovely you have been; I do not want to get too emotional. My father has Alzheimer’s, and his recent memories are not that great, but he will never forget and never stops talking about the day that I was sworn in and how kind you were to my very ordinary family, who had never set foot in a place like this. You made an effort to wave to them and mention them, and my dad was talking about it even yesterday, when we were at a family funeral. It meant a great deal to him and my family, and that is something I will never forget.
When those of us here—especially women and Back Benchers—who are pretty terrified of this experience get up and talk about things that are personal and make us vulnerable, we can stand here and look at you, and you are a bit like a lighthouse in a stormy sea. During the speech that I made recently, when I felt very vulnerable, you kept me going. I just kept concentrating on you, and I knew that you were there, emotionally holding my hand; you have done that physically as well, which is lovely. I do not know how to thank you enough, but I am trying to say thank you. I will never, ever forget your kindness. Thank you very much.
Mr Speaker
The hon. Lady does not have to thank me at all. It has been a great privilege, as in respect of every other colleague, but I hugely appreciate what she said, which was said with evident and palpable sincerity.
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
Mr Speaker, this is a very special day for you. I was not going to speak, but I want to put on record a couple of my times with you.
As I mentioned to you on shaking your hand when I took up my place here in 2015, we had a tea together many years ago—perhaps when you were in a different place politically, but we will put that aside.
There is one kindness you have given me. You have earned me a few pennies while I have been in the House. I am not always the first to be called or the last, but I have earned many a good coin from my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen), because we often have a little bet as to who will be up last. I am grateful to you for adding to my wealth and detracting from the wealth of my hon. Friend.
I had a very difficult experience at the end of last year and the beginning of this year, which you took a great interest in throughout. The day after my acquittal, there were business questions. I came to speak to you at the Chair, to tell you that I had rather more to say than is appropriate at business questions. You allowed me, on that very special day for me, the opportunity to explain in far more minutes than one would usually allow for business questions what I had been through and the annoyance thereof.
There is lots that I have not agreed with you on over the last few years, but I will never forget your fairness to me and to others in the House who face difficulties. That was an opportunity to put on record in this great international public space what I had been through and the annoyance that I felt. I thank you for that occasion probably more than for any other since my time in the House, and I wish you every great success in the future, a long life and much happiness.
Mr Speaker
That is extremely gracious of the hon. Gentleman, and I thank him from the bottom of my heart.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
The hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess)—the great city of Southend—was right when he said that today is a day when the House comes together to say a fond farewell. There are so many to whom we can say a fond farewell. Indeed, some of them are in the Chamber: my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) and my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham). I want to add a fond farewell to the remarkable right hon. Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman). She is a truly outstanding parliamentarian who was prepared to put the national interest over narrow party political interest. She is lionised by Jaguar workers and Land Rover workers, as we have worked together to defend the interests of our manufacturing base against the background of Brexit. She will be sorely missed.
Mr Speaker, yours has been a remarkable trajectory, from being a member of an organisation so right-wing that even Norman Tebbit abolished it, to being a fully paid-up Macmillanite, to I know not where. I know not where because you do not wear your politics or your prejudices on your sleeve. You are truly impartial.
In 600 years of our parliamentary democracy, there have been few champions of Parliament as great as you, writing a noble chapter in the history of Parliament and, crucially, enabling Parliament to hold the Executive to account. That may sometimes be frustrating for those on the Treasury Bench. There have been times when the right hon. Member for Downton Abbey, the Leader of the House, has expressed his concerns and frustrations, but you have allowed Parliament to hold the Executive to account. You have done that without suffering the fate of some of your predecessors, who literally lost their heads.
You have been a great champion of parliamentarians. There is no question about it: our country is deeply divided. Sadly we see a politics of hate on the march, sometimes manifested in attacks on parliamentarians. You have been a champion of parliamentarians, including on that front. You have also been a champion of reaching out to the country. In troubled times, you have truly been a bridge over troubled waters.
You have been a champion of opening up Parliament. You have built a brilliant team, including the wonderful Rose, reflecting the rich diversity of our capital city and our country. You have also been a champion of opening up Parliament to young people. I will never forget your powerful addresses at the four Erdington Youth Parliaments. I remember meeting a group of apprentices from the Erdington Skills Centre the week after, and one of them said, “That bloke Bercow, he’s really something, isn’t he?” As a consequence of what you have done, tens of thousands of young people have come to the cradle of our democracy, and they have loved every moment.
You have a remarkable, Shakespearean turn of phrase and a rhetorical flourish the like of which I have never heard. You are also humble, reaching out to those suffering difficulties in their life or in their career in Parliament. So many Members here today will never forget your kindness when kindness was desperately needed.
You are not just one of Parliament’s greatest Speakers, who in centuries to come will be remembered like some of the great figures of the past. You are a profound family man, but also—forgive me for saying this—you are just a plain, decent man. We will never, ever forget you.
Mr Speaker
I am immensely obliged to the hon. Gentleman. I have told him many times how much I appreciate his support, and I do so again in the public square this afternoon. Thank you.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
Mr Speaker, before turning to you, I want to make one point. There has been unconfirmed bad news about my constituent Amelia Bambridge. Everyone wished that she would be found alive and well. I ask that people use sensitivity and common sense and avoid circulating distressing images.
May I say, Mr Speaker, as technically the longest-serving Conservative Member of Parliament, although the Father of the House properly holds that title, that all of us, from me to the most recent person elected to this House, acknowledge all the good that you have done and the good that has been done while you have been Speaker?
I have to warn those who want to write you off in retirement, Mr Speaker, that in 1656 Cromwell found out that a unicameral Parliament was a bad idea and he created the Other House. Those at the time could not decide on the title, which is why we use the expression “the other House” for the House of Lords. In the last 363 to 361 years, we have relied on some of the words that Speaker Lenthall used. He actually went from this Chamber to the Other House and then came back as Speaker, and that course is open to you if you want to break precedent in more ways than you have already.
When a decision was taken in the Chair by you, Mr Speaker, I submitted to the Clerks an early-day motion giving a direction that it should not happen again. They, I think humorously—I assume it was humorously—asked me how I could do that. I said, “What are the only words people can remember of a previous Speaker?” The answer was Lenthall’s words that he could only do as the House “directs”. If that is true, putting down a motion to give a direction to the occupant of the Chair would seem perfectly proper and the motion was accepted.
I want to say, Mr Speaker, that although you were not my first choice in the year that you were elected as Speaker, I honour you. I praise Sir George Young for asking you, and you agreeing that he could have his party in your House. I think that shows the mood and the friendship that exist in this place, and that has continued strongly with you as Speaker.
I explained to my constituents that had they chosen you rather than me in Worthing West in 1996, they could have been represented by the Speaker for the last 10 years. When one of them said that your tenure of 10 years seemed rather longer than the nine years, I said, “He did say he was going after nine years, and 10 years is after nine years, isn’t it?” If any pedant uses the word you actually put in your letter, I shall criticise them for being too pernickety.
I have dragged you to the Chair twice, Mr Speaker. We do not have to drag you out of it because you have chosen the time to leave. As people heard me say privately a year ago, I think you deserve a margin of appreciation. Those who would want to make a great fuss about the time you have been in the Chair are wrong. However, at some calm period, we may wish to discuss whether the normal expectation should be that the Speaker will do up to nine years, as you had once indicated.
It would also be a useful idea if we could have a debate, in some period of calm, about whether we should have a regular discussion—perhaps every two years—on the way the Chair is occupied and how decisions are made. It is one of the areas where we can contribute, and the occupant of the Chair and the Procedure Committee can consider whether anything can be done.
There are a few things that people do not know about what you do, Mr Speaker, but it is worth mentioning the one referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Sir Henry Bellingham) about your relationship with your own constituents. During the Select Committee considering objections to HS2, we went around with you on a number of occasions, and I think people who only see you in public will not know what you are like in private with your constituents. The Speaker is knowledgeable, he is calm, he is reasonably quiet and people trust him. That is what people can ask of their Members of Parliament, and the service you have given to them should be remembered in these tributes today.
There are other things I could say, but I think the best thing to do is to say that the good you have done should be remembered—and you have acknowledged the good that we have done—and were there to be a signal honour motion, we hope that it would be passed with acclamation. Thank you, Mr Speaker, for occupying the Chair.
Mr Speaker
Let me thank the hon. Gentleman who has made the concluding contribution from the Back Benches, and in thanking him I want to register the view that, in addition to all his other attributes, the hon. Gentleman is a gentleman. What he has said is very much appreciated by me, and it will not be forgotten.
I do want to thank colleagues. This is quite an embarrassing experience, and people watching may think it bizarre or surreal, but it is a procedure that very often takes place. It was opened with considered élan, style and good humour by the Leader of the House. The right hon. Gentleman always places a premium on the Chamber and regards his overriding duty to be in it whenever possible. If that was true as a Back Bencher, it is true almost in triplicate for the holder of a designated office, and most assuredly it is true for this holder of the office of Leader of the House when business to which he is speaking is involved. Notwithstanding that fact, I do think that the right hon. Gentleman deserves some appreciation for staying from the very start to the very close of this series of exchanges—it has been genuine and sincere, but also long—so I thank the Leader of the House very much.
I would like to thank all colleagues—all colleagues—who have spoken. They do not owe me anything, but I thank them for what they have said. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns), who is on the Treasury Bench, says, “And those who can’t speak”. He and I have known each other a long time, and I told him outside the Chamber the other day how impressed I was by the way in which he had conducted himself at the Dispatch Box. Anybody would have thought that he had been a Minister for many years, as opposed to being virtually an ingénue, but I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his sedentary chunter.
Standards
(5 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)
I beg to move,
That this House—
(1) approves the First Report of the Committee on Standards, Keith Vaz, HC 93;
(2) endorses the recommendations in paragraphs 99 and 101; and
(3) accordingly suspends Keith Vaz from the service of the House for a period of 6 months.
Today’s motion follows the publication of the first report of the Committee on Standards of this Session on the conduct of the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz). I have been asked to say that he cannot be here today to listen to this because he is currently in hospital. The report was agreed by the Standards Committee following a process of investigation and consideration by recognised due process, and it was published on Monday 28 October. The Government have sought to schedule a debate as quickly as possible, as is the usual practice.
It is always regrettable when a motion such as this is before the House. The matter before us today has been investigated by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, and it has now been reported on by the Committee on Standards. I thank the former commissioner, Kathryn Hudson, and the current commissioner, Kathryn Stone, for their work. I also thank the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), the Chairman of the Committee on Standards, and the other members of the Committee for their work in producing this report.
The motion approves the report of the Committee on Standards, endorses the recommendation of the Committee and proposes that the right hon. Member for Leicester East be suspended from the service of the House for a period of six months. I commend this motion to the House.
Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)
I am replying for the Opposition, Mr Speaker. Before I do so, however, may I say to you, Sir, that I want to identify myself with absolutely everything my right hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House said in tribute to you. You have been an outstanding Speaker, and you deserve the gratitude of us all. I know that to be praised by the Opposition Chief Whip will probably not help your standing with your colleagues, but let us face it—just between the two of us—it is probably too late to make amends. I can truthfully say, Mr Speaker, that nobody is going to miss you more than I am.
To turn to the matter at hand, this is a sad day for us and for me personally, because I am friends with the right hon. Member who is criticised. However, we accept the report, we accept the findings and we accept the recommendations in full. I want to say thank you to my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) for chairing the hearings and to both commissioners who have conducted the investigation. I also want to thank the Committee, and particularly the lay members of the Committee. The introduction of the laity into affairs of this kind was controversial, but it seems to be working well. On behalf of my party, I certainly accept the report—and the obvious consequences —in full.
Mr Speaker
Ordinarily, I would go to the other side of the House, but it seems appropriate to call the Chair of the Standards Committee first, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will accept that.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
May I add my own warm tribute to you, Mr Speaker, because you have been an exceptional Speaker throughout my time in Parliament? I am sorry to contribute to this short debate, and I thank the Leader of the House for bringing forward this motion before Dissolution next week.
I assure the House that the Committee on Standards has taken the greatest possible care with all the information that was put before us. We have done our best to focus only on issues that pertain to this House’s code of conduct, and not on extraneous matters of personal and private conduct. Neither have we wanted to put any information into the public domain, other than where that has been absolutely necessary to explain the reason behind the Committee’s decision. The decision is unanimous, and we have accepted the recommendations of the current commissioner. We are grateful to her for her work, and for the work of the previous commissioner. I wish to put on record my thanks to all colleagues on the Committee, and to my Clerk and his staff.
Subsequent to our report, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) put some information on his website. I assure the House that all the points raised in that posting are addressed within the Committee’s report. I and my Committee appreciate that constitutionally, no Parliament can bind the actions of the next Parliament but our view—we have placed this on the record in a letter to the Leader of the House which is published on the Committee’s website—is that should the right hon. Gentleman be returned to the House at the forthcoming election, we urge the incoming Parliament and the new Leader of the House to pass a resolution as quickly as possible to ensure that the full period of the proposed sanction is served. I am grateful for the chance to contribute this afternoon.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
I thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to speak in this debate. Although I am the originator of the complaint to the Committee on Standards in September 2016, I rise more in sorrow than anger to comment on these matters. I, too, wish to thank the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Kathryn Stone, for her diligent work on our behalf, protecting the reputation of this House. I also thank her predecessor, Kathryn Hudson, and all elected and lay members of the Committee on Standards.
After 37 months we have the report. It is 69 pages long, and it makes grim reading for those colleagues who have taken the time to wade through it. The recommendations of the Committee include the longest suspension to be handed out since records began—six months—which in normal times would trigger a recall. The Committee also said that the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) should not be offered a former Member’s pass when his time in this House ceases.
It is clear why this investigation has taken so long, and the delays, deflection and confusion that the Committee believes the right hon. Gentleman to have conducted, have been quite damning on his character. He sought to drag out these proceedings so that if he does not stand at the next election, none of the punishment will be meted out to him, and he will have avoided a suspension. If the House decides to accept the recommendations, they will be in place for only a few days, not for six months, and there will therefore be no recall. Effectively, the only censure that he will face is that of not having the privilege of a former Member’s pass when he ceases to be here.
I am aware that the right hon. Gentleman is not present, but the Chair of the Committee on Standards hinted at a statement that he put on his website immediately after the publication of this report. In fairness to the right hon. Gentleman, and to inform the House, I would like to read the statement that was posted on his website on 28 October, shortly after the release of the report by the Committee on Standards into his conduct:
“The events of 27th August 2016 were purely personal and private, and occurred in circumstances where neither Mr Vaz’s public nor his Parliamentary role were engaged.
Mr Vaz has never bought, possessed, dealt with or used illegal drugs. He has a cardiovascular condition which would mean that were he to consume any non-prescribed drugs he would in all likelihood die. The Commissioner has confirmed that Mr Vaz has not committed any criminal acts. The referrals made (including by Andrew Bridgen MP) were a waste of police resources.
The transcript of the recording which the Committee and Commissioner rely on has been completed discredited by a highly qualified forensic scientist, who has cast considerable doubt on its reliability. She stated: “Overall the transcript supplied to me fell significantly short of what is expected in terms of a transcript intended for use in legal, disciplinary or similar proceedings and it cannot be considered a reliable evidential record of the speech content of the questioned recording.
Mr Vaz has cooperated at all stages of this process. At no stage during the inquiry has either Commissioner stated in writing or otherwise that Mr Vaz has been uncooperative. Commissioner Hudson stated in terms that Mr Vaz has been helpful. Mr Vaz vigorously rejects the allegation that he has failed to cooperate with the inquiry: to the contrary he holds the standards system in the highest regard and with the highest respect.”
There are then some links to reports from the inquiry that are available on the parliamentary website, and it indicates where people should look in the report for various information that the right hon. Gentleman regards as evidential to support his statement. The statement concludes:
“Keith Vaz has been treated for a serious mental health condition for the last three years as a result of the events of 27th August 2016. He has shared all his medical reports in confidence with the Committee. He has today been admitted to hospital and this office will not be making any further comments.”
I have read the report, and there is no apology from the right hon. Member for Leicester East. There is no hint of apology, no hint of regret, and a complete denial of the unanimous conclusions of the Committee on Standards. That may hint at his state of mind—he is in complete denial about the level of dissatisfaction that the public feel with the behaviour of some Members of this House, and he has certainly detracted from our reputation.
Many tributes have been paid to you today, Mr Speaker, and I wish to add my own. If you had acted on the letter that I wrote to you in September 2015—a year before the incident involving the then Chair of the Home Affairs Committee—in which I raised my concerns that if the actions and activities of the right hon. Gentleman came to light, they would risk seriously damaging—
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman will resume his seat. This matter was raised on a previous occasion and I am going to say, in all solemnity and with firmness, to the hon. Gentleman and to the House what the position is.
I could not have known that the hon. Gentleman intended to use this debate in the way that he has thus far—in an orderly fashion, but in a way that I could not have predicted. I certainly could not have anticipated, and the hon. Gentleman did not do me the courtesy of telling me, that he intended to address my reaction to these matters, but I will say to the House that I do recall—I do not have the detail in front of me—the hon. Gentleman writing to me highlighting his concerns about the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) and imploring me to act. I indicated to the hon. Gentleman, in terms, that both on the basis of my own knowledge, I say to the House, of the role and responsibility of the Chair, and on the strength of the professional advice of the Clerk of the House, that it was not—repeat, not—for me to intervene in any way, shape or form.
The premise upon which the request by the hon. Gentleman for me to intervene was based was entirely—I emphasise the word “entirely”—misplaced. It is not for the Speaker to get involved in the study of, or investigation into, complaints that are made about individual Members of Parliament. It is not for the Speaker to perform a second job as a kind of night-time Columbo looking into matters that one Member wants to raise about another. That is not only not necessary, but not appropriate. It is totally outwith—I say this with complete clarity and for the avoidance of doubt—the role of the Speaker.
If, after nine and a half years in this place, notwithstanding my best efforts to help the hon. Gentleman to do better, he still labours under not merely the misapprehension but the ignorant delusion that it is somehow the responsibility of the Chair to intervene, frankly, I have to say to colleagues, I cannot help him. I cannot help him. I have tried to help the hon. Gentleman and I have tried on many occasions to educate the hon. Gentleman, but if the hon. Gentleman will not be helped or educated, I cannot do anything about that.
What I can do something about—I have sought to do so for 10 years—is securing compliance with the procedures of this House. It is absolutely legitimate for the hon. Gentleman to speak in this debate if he thinks it is proper to do so. If the hon. Gentleman feels that the general approach that he has adopted to these sorts of matters—allegations of misconduct against other Members—enhances his standing in the House, it is entirely for him to make that judgment. If he thinks it makes him a more popular or respected Member to spend quite a lot of time writing to the Standards Commissioner to complain about this one, that one or the other one—if that is the approach to parliamentary service, or a part of the approach to parliamentary service, for which the hon. Gentleman opts—that is his privilege. If he wishes to speak in this debate, including when I have resumed my seat, he is welcome to do so. He might usefully make a judgment about whether the House wants to hear him at great length when there is a clear judgment by the Committee that has been accepted and endorsed by the Opposition Chief Whip, but if he still feels he wants to speak at some considerable length, if it makes him feel better and if he thinks what an excellent contribution he has made, that is his prerogative.
What the hon. Gentleman will not do is to breach the rules of this House and tell me—I say this not least to members of the public—what the job of the Chair is. I know what the job of the Chair is and I have done it to the best of my ability. To err is human, so I make my mistakes, but I have done it to the best of my ability for over a decade. I do not simply assert or suggest but state with complete confidence that it is not part of my job to make representations to a Member that, because of this rumour or that rumour, or this allegation or that allegation, or this person disliking him or that person disliking him, it would be best if he stood down from the chairmanship of his Select Committee. That is not the responsibility of the Speaker of the House of Commons. If the hon. Gentleman still thinks otherwise, I fear he is beyond redemption in the matter. I would like to help him, but he just does not want to be helped.
Andrew Bridgen
Mr Speaker, I thank you for your advice, as always. For the past 10 years you have advised me on many occasions, but had you waited for my conclusion, you would have seen that I was going to extol your decision not to get involved in this matter. Had you done so, we may well have protected the reputation of this House, but I doubt that we ever would have got to see the full report that is now before us.
Despite this report being public knowledge—it has been available for Members to read for several days—the right hon. Member for Leicester East remains a member of the Labour party. He has the Labour Whip. He is still a serving member of the Labour national executive committee and he is still currently the candidate for Leicester East at the forthcoming election. That, of course, is a matter for the Labour party, and it is also, I believe, a matter for the public we all serve in our constituencies, not least in Leicester East. I believe—I think that many other people do—that Leicester East deserves rather better, Mr Speaker.
We can recall what we have done in the past and the way we have voted. We will all be held to account for that very shortly, on 12 December. Only a month after the right hon. Member for Leicester East rather reluctantly resigned, following the rent boy and cocaine scandal, from the chairmanship of the Home Affairs Committee, he was nominated by the Labour party to serve on the Justice Committee. That was only four weeks after he had considered himself unsuitable to continue as Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sorry, but I must invite the hon. Gentleman to resume his seat and I will tell him why.
The hon. Gentleman tries to demonstrate how fair he is being by saying that, belatedly, he agrees with me, which he has never previously given any indication of at all. If that is what he now says, I am glad he has come to recognise the error of his past ways and the extreme folly, as well as the sheer nastiness, of making repeated representations to the Chair to intercede in a matter in which the Chair should not, of course, intercede.
What the hon. Gentleman is doing now is what he attempted to do on the occasion of the debate about the nomination of the right hon. Member for Leicester East to the Justice Committee. What the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) is seeking to do is to drag into this debate, as he dragged into that debate, material that it is not appropriate to share with the House in the context of the debate. This is a short debate on a report. The reason why the hon. Gentleman’s point is not relevant or appropriate is, first of all, that he is going back on matters to do with the Justice Committee, of which I think the report does not treat. The report does not get involved in that. That is a historical matter. It was a matter of political opinion and parliamentary debate at the time; it is not relevant to the Standards Committee’s report.
Secondly, I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman, who is a party politician and a campaigning party politician—I acknowledge that—just cannot resist getting into the subject of whether it is or is not appropriate for a particular person to be a candidate in a given election. The hon. Gentleman gives his view—he obviously thinks it is enormously important and interesting, although it may not be enormously important or interesting to anyone else—as to whether the health of the people of Leicester East is best served by representation by its current right hon. Member or by someone else. I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that I am not interested in that. Frankly, I do not think that the House is interested in that. If the hon. Gentleman wants to say, “Look, I complained and I was right, and the report has criticised, censured and punished, or proposes to do so, the right hon. Gentleman,” he could have done that and sat down by now.
I give him a final warning, and it is a warning: I am not going to have the House abused by the way in which the hon. Gentleman chooses to behave. If he has a sentence or two that he wants to utter as to why he thinks that this is a decent report and he agrees with it, that is fine. If he wants to launch a further ad hominem attack on the right hon. Member for Leicester East, this is not the time or place to do so.
I say in all sincerity and kindness to the hon. Gentleman: show some antennae, man, for the will of the House, and show some sensitivity. You have made your point in making a complaint, which you had every right to do, and the Committee has determined the matter. It would be, I think, seemly if the hon. Gentleman speedily brought his speech to a conclusion.
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman will resume his seat. It is not help and advice; I am telling him what the position is. Don’t mix it with the Chair. If you have a couple more sentences to utter, you will do so; if you want to dilate at length, you will not.
Andrew Bridgen
Mr Speaker, I will bring my remarks to a conclusion, but it is clear to me, and it will be clear to the public, that to the fag-end of your tenure in that Chair, you are defending the indefensible and your very close relationship with the right hon. Member in question. The House can come to its own conclusions. The Standards Committee has come to its own conclusions. And, Mr Speaker, the public will come to theirs. Thank you very much.
Mr Speaker
I am quite sure that the public will come to their own conclusions. Let me say to the hon. Gentleman that he can try to smear me; he will get the square root of nowhere. I am friendly with the right hon. Member for Leicester East, as I am friendly with the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), the right hon. Member for Aylesbury (Sir David Lidington), and the hon. Members for Stroud (Dr Drew) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I am friendly with a great many Members, having served in this place for 22 years. I do not get involved in matters appertaining to standards. There is a machinery for deliberation on those matters in the form of a Parliamentary Standards Commissioner and a Committee. They deal with those matters.
The hon. Gentleman, only a few moments ago, was saying, in what he thought was a frightfully clever twist, that he had come to accept that I was right to say that I could not get involved. If he is now saying that, in fact, my close relationship shows that I am trying to defend the right hon. Member for Leicester East, he is contradicting himself not within days, weeks or months; he is contradicting himself within minutes. I am not trying to defend the conduct of the right hon. Gentleman. What I am doing, on behalf of and in support of the House, is—colleagues; members of the public—defending the integrity of an independent process. If the hon. Gentleman cannot or will not grasp that fact, with the very greatest of respect to him—or such respect as I can muster—that says more about him than it does about me.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
I, and I hope the whole House, wish that the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) recovers and that his health is restored.
I strongly support the motion, which says that the House
“approves the First Report of the Committee on Standards …HC 93”,
and that we endorse
“the recommendations in paragraphs 99 and 101”
and the suspension from the service of the House for a period of six months.
I served with others on the Standards Committee in the early 2000s, when Elizabeth Filkin was the Standards Commissioner. She was badly treated by the House and treated even worse by the right hon. Member for Leicester East. Paragraph 97 of the report states:
“Mr Vaz has previously been found to have been in serious breach of the Code and in contempt of the House. In 2002 the Standards and Privileges Committee found he had recklessly made a damaging and untrue allegation against another person, which could have intimidated them, and had wrongly interfered with the House’s investigative process: in particular that ‘having set the Commissioner on a false line of inquiry Mr Vaz then accused her of interfering in a criminal investigation and threatened to report her to the Speaker’”.
It goes on to other points that he made.
My hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) rightly read out some of the words on the right hon. Gentleman’s website, which are totally contradicted by the report that I have in my hand. I think that someone who has done that after the report has come out should have the suspension doubled to a year.
I say this: this is not a party point, but the right hon. Gentleman should not be nominated. If he is nominated, he should not be elected, and if he is elected, he should be suspended for a very long time.
Sir Christopher Chope
I had not intended to participate in the debate, but I am a member of the current Committee. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) will recognise, serving on the Standards Committee is one of the less pleasant responsibilities that falls to Members, but that is the position I have been in for quite a long time. I can recall a time when we passed sentence, in a sense, on my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), saying that she should make an apology to the House. I was in the House when she made her apology, and I recall the sense of outrage that her apology was not as full as some people might have wished. As a result, she suffered additional penalties in her constituency—it was a long time ago and I am sure that has all been forgiven.
In that context, when I listened to my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) reading out what is on the website of the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), it filled me with horror, because it is totally contradictory to the findings of the Committee. What does not come across in a report such as this is the detail that has been gone into by the members of the Committee—including lay-members, who do it for love, really—the commissioner and her predecessor. An enormous amount of work has gone into this, and we reached a conclusion:
“We are satisfied from the evidence we have considered that Mr Vaz did on 27 August 2016 offer to procure and pay for illegal drugs for use by a third party.”
Paragraph 54 states:
“On the basis of the evidence supplied by the audio-recording and the transcript, we reach the following conclusions germane to the Commissioner’s findings…that Mr Vaz’s explanation of the incident on 27 August 2016 is not believable…that on this occasion Mr Vaz expressed a willingness to procure a Class A drug, cocaine, for the use of another person…that on this occasion Mr Vaz engaged in paid-for sex. We consider that the evidence supporting these conclusions is compelling.”
On that basis, I follow my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) in asking whether it would be reasonable, if the right hon. Gentleman is returned following the next general election, for the Standards Committee to revisit this issue, having regard to what is on the website now. I commend the work of the Standards Committee and particularly that of its Chair, the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), but it seems to me that what is on the website is designed to bring the work of the Standards Committee into disrepute.
Mr Speaker
I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who has expressed himself with his customary courtesy. I think that the answer to that question—I am looking plaintively in the direction of the Chair of the Standards Committee, the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green)—is that that is a matter for the Committee. It would be quite wrong for me to seek to influence it any way, and I do not do so. It is absolutely not a matter for me or, indeed, for any occupant of the Chair. It is, I think, a matter for the Committee. I say this by way of explanation and attempted intelligibility to observers: the Committee has authority in this matter and, if you will, ownership of it. Committees are in charge of their own inquiries. It would be a matter for the Committee, but obviously not in this Parliament. That is the best way to leave it.
Obviously, although I heard the recital—I do not use the term “recital” in any disobliging sense—by the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) of what was on the website, it is not something that I have studied, and I hope people will understand that it is not something that the Speaker would have studied. There is no reason to expect that I would have done so. It is a matter for the Committee. It has a range of sanctions available to it, and it makes the judgment as to which sanction or set of sanctions it wishes to recommend to the House. If, for whatever reason, the Committee does not recommend an apology, an apology is not required. If, on the other hand, it does, it might be. A very different matter was recently brought to my attention in relation to a non-Member and the allocation of a pass, and I had to point out that there was not an unpurged contempt. A person had behaved badly and been criticised, but he had not failed to apologise when instructed to do so. For whatever reason, he had not been instructed to do so and was therefore not required to do so. My understanding is that that is the case in this instance. Whether that is the right thing or the wrong thing is a matter for the Committee.
Sir Peter Bottomley
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. On that point, we notice that the motion is in the name of the Leader of the House, so were the person concerned to be re-elected, we would not have to wait for the re-establishment of the Standards Committee. The Leader of the House could re-present a motion in the same terms, and if, subsequently, the Standards Committee wanted to take further action, that would then follow.
Mr Rees-Mogg
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. It might help the House if I explain that the Standards Committee has specifically asked that the next Leader of the House—or me, if I continue in office in the new Parliament—bring the suspension forward as soon as the House reassembles, so that it is not, in effect, only a two-day suspension. That has been specifically requested by the Committee.
Mr Speaker
Forgive me, but I was myself perfectly clear on that point, although I am grateful to the Leader of the House for making it clear to colleagues. It was always intended that, if the House accepted the report, the suspension would take effect after the election. Whether the Committee wishes to revisit the issue, in the light of what the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) and others have said, is, if he will forgive me saying so, a slightly different point.
Kate Green
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. My understanding is that in the event that the right hon. Member is returned, we would like the next Leader of the House to bring forward a motion to continue the suspension, but neither this Parliament, this Leader of the House nor any Member of this Parliament can compel that. It would be a matter for the next Parliament. In so far as the next Committee is concerned, any Member is at liberty to make a complaint about the conduct of a Member at the time that he was serving as a Member. We have recently introduced new provisions around historical cases, but the Committee would be a new Committee, and would not be able simply to pick up an old case conducted by our current Committee.
Mr Speaker
Thank you. That was by way of a public information notice from the Chair of the Committee, which I hope is helpful to colleagues.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House—
(1) approves the First Report of the Committee on Standards, Keith Vaz, HC 93;
(2) endorses the recommendations in paragraphs 99 and 101; and
(3) accordingly suspends Keith Vaz from the service of the House for a period of 6 months.
Tributes to the Speaker’s Chaplain
(5 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
As people will speedily see, we move from one subject to another quite quickly, and we now come to the very happy business of the motion on tributes to the Speaker’s Chaplain. I have the great pleasure of calling the Leader of the House to move the motion.
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)
I beg to move,
That this House congratulates the Reverend Prebendary Rose Hudson-Wilkin on her twenty-eight years of ordained ministry in the Church of England, nine years of which have been in the service of Mr Speaker and this House as Chaplain to the Speaker, the first woman and the first BAME holder of that post; expresses its appreciation for the generous, ecumenical and compassionate spirit of her work among hon. Members and staff of the House; and wishes her every success in her forthcoming ministry as Bishop of Dover and Bishop in Canterbury.
You are absolutely right, Mr Speaker, to say we are moving on to a really happy discussion. It is a great honour to move the motion and give the House the opportunity to pay tribute to the Reverend Prebendary Rose Hudson-Wilkin, the 79th Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons. I would like to thank her on behalf of the whole House for her service.
“Let the people praise thee, O God; let all the people praise thee. Then shall the earth yield her increase; and God, even our own God, shall bless us.”
These are the beautiful uplifting words that the reverend prebendary reads to us in her strong, resonant, resounding voice every morning when we meet in private to send up our petitions to God. It is when your chaplain, Mr Speaker, creates an atmosphere of prayerfulness that allows right hon. and hon. Members to set their souls at ease with God as they prepare for the business ahead of them. She does so in a way that would move the heart of the most stony-hearted atheist to feel there is a true and a divine presence. To achieve this through the power of speech and the use of language is a great achievement, and one that has daily been the triumph of your chaplain, to the benefit of Members of Parliament.
It is not only liturgically that your chaplain, who is now retiring to go on to greater things, has been a major asset to this place, Mr Speaker; it is also in her pastoral work, for the chaplain has been a help to many Members, in counselling, guiding and supporting them through difficulties in their lives and giving them succour as a true shepherd to her flock. She has worked closely in a spirit of ecumenism with Father Pat Browne and has not been in any sense narrowly sectarian. Anybody who has had dealings with your chaplain or who has met her has found it a help and benefit. What more can possibly be asked from someone in clerical orders?
It has been 359 years since the first Speaker’s Chaplain, Edward Voyce, was appointed in 1660, and while it is of great significance that the reverend prebendary is the first in the intervening three and a half centuries to be a woman and the first to be from an ethnic minority, I look forward to the day when we no longer have to remark on the race or sex of the Speaker’s Chaplain. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. She is a person of God—the highest calling of all. Dare I say it, but the calling to God is a higher calling than the calling to political life, and all that matters is that calling?
For the chaplain, it has always been very simple. God’s calling has made her who she is, and she has followed her calling with the calm confidence we all admire so much. Her key responsibilities, in addition to pastoral care and daily prayers, have included running a weekly eucharistic service in the chapel and performing weddings, marriage blessings and baptisms for Members and their children. She has also led many services to celebrate the lives of those who have died during their service to Parliament. I think many of us would particularly like to thank her for her part in the commemorative ceremonies and her support following the loss of a dear colleagues, Jo Cox and PC Keith Palmer. We will never forget the bravery and passion of all those who have worked in this place, and we will never forget the chaplain’s dutiful care to her flock.
The chaplain has always shown her devotion to those who need her, whether in Montego Bay or on these shores, and I know so many people in the parliamentary estate feel that her remarkably self-possessed view of life has sustained them through difficult times. We will never forget the chaplain’s trust in God’s grace, which has, I think, helped give her the courage of her convictions to speak out during her ministry. We should all seek to live by her words on the importance of improving the culture in Westminster and making this a place where everyone is treated as they should be.
It only seems suitable to end with words from the 1662 Prayer Book—that great book of liturgical beauty, that ornament of the Church of England and, speaking as a Catholic, that bit of the Anglican Church of which I am possibly the most jealous; some of our translations are nothing like so beautiful. Leaving that to one side, it seems suitable to end with words from the Prayer Book:
“Almighty and everlasting God, who alone workest great marvels: Send down upon our Bishops and Curates, and all Congregations committed to their charge, the healthful Spirit of thy grace; and, that they may truly please thee, pour upon them the continual dew of thy blessing.”
I hope, Mr Speaker, that as your chaplain moves to Dover, the continual dew of God’s blessing will rain down upon her.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
I thank the Leader of the House for a really wonderful tribute to Reverend Rose. Before I pay tribute to Reverend Rose, I want to refer to your statement yesterday, Mr Speaker, on the new Speaker’s Chaplain. We welcome Reverend Canon Patricia Hillas, who will be with us shortly. I am sure she will do the same wonderful job as Reverend Rose has done. I was sorry to miss mass yesterday, when Reverend Rose and Father Pat were together. They have made a formidable team in our darkest hours.
We wish Reverend Prebendary Rose Hudson-Wilkin—I am sorry she is not here in the Chamber, in her usual place—a heartfelt farewell. Reverend Rose arrived in the United Kingdom to join the Church Army as an 18-year-old young woman, displaying the Windrush generation’s adaptability. It did not take long for Reverend Rose to flourish, and in 1994 she was ordained to the priesthood, at the point where women had only recently been allowed to be priests. She continued to splinter the glass ceiling spectacularly, given the context of the male-dominated area she was called to—not only for women, but crucially, and seemingly effortlessly, for women of colour.
It is no surprise to those of us who know her that, while holding the prestigious position of 79th Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons—as you heard, Mr Speaker, in tributes to you, a well-deserved appointment—and being one of the three chaplains to Her Majesty the Queen, she is much loved by her congregation at Holy Trinity church, Dalston, and at All Saints church, Haggerston, where she has worked for over 16 and a half years.
If you ask Reverend Rose, I am sure she will say that her pastoral missions both here and in Hackney share a common thread, and that is to make sure that everyone is well spiritually and everyone feels good enough to do their jobs well. The Leader of the House was right: when she says prayers, which she does every day, I often feel as though I have never heard those prayers before. She has an amazing way of making you feel that that is the first time you have ever heard those important words. Reverend Rose will tell you that prayer is at the heart of what she does.
Reverend Rose has always been a visible presence and is often seen around Parliament, as she says, “loitering with intent”, comfortable in her own skin and “in her hair”. I know that she has sought out hon. Members when they have faced difficulties. We have not had to go to her; she comes to us, and she makes sure that she counsels us in the appropriate way.
But what Rose has always been keen to emphasise is that in all she does she feels connected with—rooted to—her past in Jamaica, her grandparents and their grandparents, with sacrifices, ideas and hope passed through stories flowing from one generation to the next. She says that such a foundation will be an integral part of success for the next generation of young black people growing up in the UK, on the basis that “they survived, so we must thrive.” Yes, she has a way with words.
True happiness, Reverend Rose maintains, flows from where you come from, where you are rooted and the depth of spirit that tells you who you are. She poses questions: why should women be seen and not heard? Why not live in this world and not in the past? Why should not women be in leadership? Why should people of colour not be seen in all walks of life? But a good leader, she says, acts with integrity and loves the people whom they serve.
We certainly have felt the warmth of the Reverend Rose Hudson-Wilkin’s spiritual leadership while she has been in Parliament, and at a very exacting period of our history. In an interview with The Observer, she revealed that her secret prayer was that she would like to see a more civil attitude among MPs. She warned that the world was looking in, and she would like to see a change in the way we MPs handled listening and speaking to one another. I think that it is a work in progress. Perhaps, when she is looking back on us from Dover, she will see that we have achieved her aims.
I have seen Reverend Rose sitting through many debates, particularly the European debates. Rose, we shall miss having you with us, guiding us gently but—in the words of Labi Siffre—with “something inside so strong” so that we learn to deal with our individual experiences through the way in which we respond to them, and, in the case of us women, teaching us to respond to high barriers by becoming taller.
We wish you, Ken, your two daughters and son all the very best in your new role. We know that you will continue, as Bishop of Dover, with your own mantra: to achieve, to excel, to overcome obstacles—that no limitations will rule your efforts. As we have already witnessed, we know you will go on to greater things and are proud to have crossed paths with you. A true pilgrim’s progress, from Jamaica to Canterbury. As Aretha Franklin would say—respect! Reverend Rose, we thank you. You were there for us when we needed you most.
Mr Speaker
I must thank the shadow Leader of the House, and I think I speak for the House in doing so, for the sheer warmth and magnificence of that tribute. I think that there is an electricity in the Chamber as a result of what the right hon. Lady has said and the unadulterated passion with which she has delivered it, and I want to thank her.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
As parliamentary warden of St Margaret’s church, Parliament Square, may I join in supporting the motion of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House? The only thing that surprised me about his speech is that he did not mention—although the motion does—that Rose Hudson-Wilkin will be the Bishop in Canterbury, where my right hon. Friend married his wife, with a number of people presiding, and he managed to incorporate in this currently Anglican cathedral a Roman Catholic mass. I think that it is almost coming home time for him.
May I say how much I welcomed the words of the right hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz)? Watching Rose Hudson-Wilkin work with John Hall as Dean of Westminster, with Andrew Tremlett and with Jane Sinclair, who have been the rectors at St Margaret’s, and in her sharing of the monthly parliamentary communion and the breakfast in your house, Mr Speaker, we have seen closely in private what she is also well known for in public. I add that it was a delight to meet her grandchildren at the reception in your house, Mr Speaker; they are a tribute to the modern generation in this country, and if some of them were to come here not perhaps as Speaker’s chaplain but as Members of Parliament it would be a delight, especially if I could remain here to welcome and join them.
I want to end with some words that will be familiar to Rose Hudson-Wilkin:
“Our vision is for everyone, everywhere to encounter God’s love and be empowered to transform their communities through faith shared in words and action.”
She says she comes from Montego Bay; I say she comes from the Church Army, and those words are the Church Army dedication. I thank her for her dedication to us.
Mr Speaker
Bless you; I am deeply obliged to the hon. Gentleman for what he has said.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Mr Speaker, I hope you will not mind if I start by briefly expressing my thanks to you for your service in the Chair and wishing you all the very best for the future. You have been a source of encouragement and sound advice to many of us in the Scottish National party, and I have been particularly grateful for your support in my role as Chief Whip. Of course, for Scottish National party Members, staying at Westminster is not a long-term ambition, but the role that you have played and the reforms that you have introduced have certainly made our time here more tolerable.
As others have said, Mr Speaker, one of your most significant legacies and early decisions is the appointment of Rev. Rose Hudson-Wilkin as your chaplain. I remember as a younger, keener but casual observer of business in this place reading some of the coverage and criticisms of that appointment at that time, but, as you have previously said, Mr Speaker, those critics were wrong in every single respect.
From the start, SNP Members here have found that Rose brings a presence of welcome, comfort and reassurance. There are some who would question the value or relevance of starting the parliamentary day with Prayers, but of course participation is voluntary and, as the Leader of the House alluded to, I do not think that anyone, believer or non-believer, who has had the privilege of experiencing the prayers led by the Rev. Rose Hudson-Wilkin could doubt their value. No matter how tense the day may be, no matter how important or portentous the business to come, her tone and eloquence at the start of each day have a levelling effect and remind us all that ultimately we are all equal—for believers, we are equal in the sight of God.
Prayers, especially in recent times, have provided some memorable moments, even if they have not always been visible to the public. The Rose’s choice of texts often matches with uncanny ability the occasion of the day and hits the right note. At the start of our proceedings on the historic Saturday sitting a couple of weeks ago, she began with St Paul:
“Do not be anxious”.
That was the moment that broke the ice, and chuckling could be heard across the Chamber.
By leading those prayers, Rose has ministered to the House collectively. Her presence in the Under Gallery, literally praying for us as we have taken part in some of the biggest and most historic votes of recent years, has not gone unnoticed. She has also ministered to many Members individually as a chaplain, especially at times when tragedy has struck Parliament and the House. She has also built strong ecumenical relations, forging, in particular, a firm bond with Canon Pat Browne He may officially be titled the Roman Catholic duty priest to the Houses of Parliament, but to the Catholic community in Westminster—and, I believe, to many others—he too is undoubtedly a chaplain, and early-day motion 71 congratulates him on his 10 years of service. He invited Rose to address us at mass in the crypt yesterday—it is, after all, the chapel of her chaplaincy—and her reflection was once again on that admonition to not be anxious but to trust in God. We hope that that is what she will do as she takes on the role of Bishop of Dover. Once again she is breaking down barriers and conventions, as she has done here in Westminster, and as you have done, Mr Speaker, in appointing her.
We will warmly welcome, in due course, Canon Tricia Hillas. She brings considerable experience of promoting diversity, inclusion and ecumenism, all of which means that we can have every confidence in her as a worthy successor to Rose.
Rose said to us last night that, although she was leaving this place, she would carry us in her heart and in her prayers. She can be assured that we will do the same for her, in ours. This morning, at Prayers, she invoked the priestly blessing from the Book of Numbers:
” The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you”.
Perhaps, in return, we can invoke the old Irish blessing:
“May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face; the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.”
Mr Speaker
I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he has said. I hope that observers of our proceedings understand the enormous affection and esteem in which we all hold Rose. I just want to mention that a constituent of mine, and a former constituent, are in the Public Gallery: Julie Kincade, my constituent, and former councillor Sue Polhill, who was one of my constituents until relatively recently. In this session, I hope that they are seeing the House at its best.
I want also to mention, because I think it is apposite and there is a piquancy about it, that the Church of England’s diversity adviser, Elizabeth Henry, who has helped to deliver real beneficial and progressive change, is with us as well. Elizabeth, you have been the most enormous asset to the Church, but I want to thank you publicly. You have been a great support in relation to Rose—you were an early champion of hers, knowing her quality—and you greatly assisted my colleagues and me only the other day in the recruitment of her successor. I salute the work that you do, the passion that you share, the experience that you bring, and the counsel that you offer. They are very precious.
Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)
I have always thought that the job of the Speaker’s Chaplain is rather like the job of the person known as “the bish” on one of Her Majesty’s warships. That person prowls around the lower decks, surrounded by heathens and heretics, waiting for somebody to call upon him. I guess that this place, particularly in the last few months, has been just a little bit like that. But the wonderful thing about Rose is that she has always been there to be called on when she is needed, and through some very stressful times for everyone on both sides of the House she has been a tower of strength.
You guys and girls have come to say goodbye to Rose. I have come to say hello. As my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) said, the Bishop of Dover is the Bishop in Canterbury. Let me also say, just as an aside, that earlier today, during questions to the Church Commissioner, it was asked, “How does the Archbishop of Canterbury manage when he has so much to do, not only at home but overseas?” The answer is, of course, that he is not the Bishop in Canterbury. That will be Rose, and I know that she will be a tower of strength to Archbishop Justin, as she has been to this place.
But Rose is coming to east Kent, and I have warned the lady who is going to become Bishop Rose that one of her first duties will be to visit the wonderful constituency of North Thanet, and to spend a happy couple of hours on Margate’s seafront—in January, when the rain and the wind and the snow will almost certainly be horizontal. That is when we in Margate celebrate the Blessing of the Seas. That is the occasion, on the feast of the Epiphany, when we throw a small Greek Cypriot boy into the freezing waters of the North sea and—so far without success—try to drown him. The Bishop of Dover—the Bishop in Canterbury—plays a key role in that event. Rose, we are looking forward enormously to welcoming you to east Kent.
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in this tribute, but I regret that I was not in my place to take part in the tributes to you, Mr Speaker. I should say that I was not here for your tributes because I was adhering to your rule that we cannot just beetle into the Chamber after the start of a debate, although I realise that you might not have been adhering to that rule quite so strictly today as on other occasions. Had I been here from the start, or had I had the opportunity to participate, I would have said that one of the things you have done, with which I would like to associate myself in every way, is to give steadfast support to Rose. Not only before I joined this House but subsequently, on a number of occasions I have heard you stand steadfastly and resolutely against racism associated with her as an individual, and against gender bias and gender discrimination. What you have exuded with your appointment of Rose as Speaker’s Chaplain is what I hope we as a House embody. I have never heard a Member of this House—maybe they did previously— criticise Rose. I think she is wonderful. She exudes a faith that I do not talk about often but that I hold personally and privately.
The shadow Leader of the House, who is also a wonderful lady, said that she was sorry that Rose was not here. I think that that embodies Rose’s character. She was here during your tributes as a steadfast support for you, Mr Speaker, but she is much too humble to be here for this. She exudes the Christian strength that we should all embody. I have been here four years. On occasions I have gone to Rose, tapped her on the shoulder and shared with her the difficulties that some of my colleagues have been facing. I know, without asking, that she then went to see them. She provided the strength, the assurance and the love that she exudes on our God’s behalf.
The Leader of the House mentioned the comfort that we get from liturgy. There is huge comfort from liturgy, but depending on who gives it, it can often appear repetitive. That has never been the case during Prayers in this House. I remember the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), who is not in his place, talking about Rose’s beautiful intonation. The poetry she injected into scripture brought it alive for us. As somebody from Ulster Protestantism who knows how important Sunday morning is, I did not think I would skip into those Anglican ways of believing that coming into this Chamber for Prayers was important. Not only is it important, but it has provided huge comfort for me. Not every day, but on the days when we are facing difficulties collectively and on days whenever, nationally, we know that politics is in a bad place, just coming here for those three or four minutes and hearing the Word expounded in such a beautiful way is a huge source of strength.
I have never spoken publicly before, and I probably will not do so again, about the difficulties that my wife faced when my son was born. Those difficulties meant that public baptism at the front of church was not an option. So, two years after he was born, Rose baptised him here, very privately and very personally. As a two-year-old, when the light of life was passed, he blew it out. When solemn prayers were being shared, he was trying to run around. Rose just put her arm around him and held him there during all those precious moments. She has been precious to me and to my wife, and I know she has been precious to many in this House. For my part, Mr Speaker, I thank you for allowing me to speak so early and for giving me the opportunity to participate in this debate and to thank Rose from the bottom of our hearts.
Sir David Lidington (Aylesbury) (Con)
I am delighted to be able to associate myself with and wholeheartedly support the motion moved by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. I want to say two things about my memories of Rose. First, from those few minutes at the beginning of our parliamentary days when the Speaker’s Chaplain reads a psalm and leads us in a brief session of prayer, I will always remember the sheer musicality of Rose Hudson-Wilkin’s voice, which gave extra resonance and meaning to the texts in which she was leading us. I remember, too, her willingness to vary the normal order of prayers when the occasion made that right. There have been times—I remember this from when I was Leader of the House in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attack on Westminster bridge and the Palace of Westminster—when the sense of shock in this Chamber at the beginning of the day has been palpable. Somehow on those occasions, Rose knew which psalm, which passage, which prayer to introduce in place of one of our usual prayers to reflect that mood in the House and to respond to the particular occasion.
My second point is about her pastoral care. The hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) has spoken of his and his family’s experiences. Again from when I was Leader of the House, in the months and, indeed, years that followed the dreadful murder of our colleague Jo Cox, one of the things that is etched in my memory is how Members on all sides—particularly, though not exclusively, women Members—began to open up about the abuse and threats that they had been suffering for quite some time. Whether it was about those things or whether it was dealing with a Member at a time of personal or family crisis or tragedy, Rose was always there: quiet, listening, offering comfort, and offering solidarity when it was most needed.
In years when the reputation of this House and of its Members collectively has been under fierce and sometimes vicious attack, Rose was also willing to speak up in public to affirm the value of the political vocation and to assert that, from her experience, she knew that most Members here, regardless of which political tradition they represented, had come into politics with a noble motive of trying to make things better for the people they serve.
Rose is now going on to greater things within the Church, and I am sure that the people of Margate and the rest of north Kent will soon discover that they have in Rose Hudson-Wilkina shepherd of great talent and unparalleled pastoral commitment. Those of us in this House now, whether we are hoping to stay or intending to leave, will always remember Rose with affection, with pride and with a sense of love, because love was what she brought to this place and what she always sought to embody.
Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)
I appreciate that you, Mr Speaker, are occasionally someone who believes in constructive iconoclasm. This is the sort of occasion when I say to myself, “Would it not be wonderful if, just for once, we could not sit as Robespierre demanded we sit in the revolutionary council, on the left and the right, but we all sat together, on one side or the other?” I say that because today we are not divided. We are not divided by politics, theology or religion; we are divided in no way. We are united by an extraordinary admiration for a truly remarkable woman. We have heard some extraordinary contributions. Everyone who has spoken related to Rose Hudson-Wilkin in their own particular and personal way. That is so typical of the henotic qualities of the woman: that she appealed to every one of us, from our different traditions, in so many different ways.
Some of the tributes that have been paid today have been emotional. Some of them have been stirring. Some of them have been hard to listen to. But in many ways, that was Rose’s ministry here in this place; sometimes she went when the words were difficult to say. When my mother died, Rose was an extraordinary source of comfort to me, and I think every one of us has had a similar story to tell. The hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) was slightly censoring his comments when he gave that famous Irish blessing about the wind always being at your back and the road always rising up to meet you. I mention my late mother, God rest her soul, and I seem to remember that the last two lines of that blessing are:
“And may you be in heaven
half an hour before the devil knows you’re dead.”
I cannot imagine why my late mother, Dominica, felt it appropriate for me to learn that couplet, but she certainly did and, in the manner of education back in those days, she made me repeat it on a regular basis.
Slightly oddly, we have heard Rose described as the “Reverend Prebendary Rose Hudson-Wilkin. As she ascends to the Episcopal purple, some of us refer to her as the “about to be bishop”. But whatever we call her, a Rose is just as sweet by any name, and what we have here is our Rose, be she bishop, prebendary, or canon. Be she whatever, she is our Rose Hudson-Wilkin and she is remarkable for that.
The horror of the murder of Keith Palmer was mentioned earlier. Many of us were in the House on that occasion, and many of us remember that Rose and Canon Pat Browne organised three different services on that very day, so that everyone could have the opportunity to make their peace with God and to find comfort and succour on that day. It was a truly remarkable occasion, and she rose to that occasion. I think you rose to that occasion too, Mr Speaker, as did the House. It is a tragedy that it took that appalling, cold-blooded murder of such a good man for us to come together, as we did in the memory of Jo Cox. We have had some terrible times in Parliament in the past decade, but we have also had some great, great times, and the terrible times have been mitigated by the love, warmth, illumination and prayer of Rose Hudson-Wilkin.
Last night, as my friend, the hon. Member for Glasgow North said, Rose concelebrated the holy mass in the Chapel underneath. The reading was from Romans, which has wonderful lines saying, “Don’t worry too much about praying because if you can’t find the words, God will give you the words. God will always find the words for your prayer. You don’t need to worry about getting the words right. You don’t even need to worry about getting them in the right order. You don’t even need to worry about your vocabulary or your enunciation. God will give you the words.” Rose Hudson-Wilkin always had the words; she always knew what to say, be it a short contribution or a long one.
It has been mentioned that Rose is not in her usual place in the Under Gallery, where I have seen her sit many a time, shaking her head, almost imperceptibly, but sending us the message that says, “Oh dear, oh dear, what are you doing now?” and praying for us. I believe she is without at the present time, but close, and I like to think she will always be close to this place.
The former Bishop of London the Right Reverend and right hon. Richard Chartres and I were at school together. We have an arrangement whereby he does not say anything about what I got up to and I reciprocate. We took different theological paths, but when it came time to appoint the next Bishop of London, I felt it appropriate to write to him to say, “I make no suggestion as to who the next bishop should be, but she should be a woman of colour, she should be a woman, her initials should be R. H. W. and if possible, she should come from Montego Bay. If you can find anyone who fits those criteria, I am sure she would make an excellent Bishop of London.” An excellent choice was made, and I am glad to say that Rose has found her bishopric down on the south coast—although I have to say that when the right hon. Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) talked about hurling young boys into the foaming brine for some extraordinary marine sacrifice, I thought that perhaps a bit of exorcism might be appropriate in such places. Had Rose been appointed the Bishop of London, she would have broken not only another ceiling but a stained-glass ceiling. That is what Rose has done. She would have achieved so much by doing that.
I find Rose’s kindness, generosity, warmth and love remarkable—they are characteristics from which I draw strength—but let us not forget her intellect. She has a formidable intellect: she is a great Bible scholar and a great student of theology. From the discussions we had, perhaps from slightly different theological perspectives, I learned such a number of things from Rose. She is one of those people who believes that intelligence is like a fire to be lit and a brain is like a bucket to be filled. She actually wants to draw you out and discuss matters with you. She is a truly remarkable woman. I feel the need to head down to Dover just to keep in contact with her. Whether or not I transport myself corporeally down to Dover, all I know is that her prayers will be enveloping this building and this place, because she is part of our history and part of the culture that we have here, and we are the better for it.
This morning, during the tributes that were quite rightly paid to you, Mr Speaker, one thing we could not do was give any credit to your successor, because we do not know who your successor is—bookmakers appear to know, but that is entirely inappropriate to mention—but in the case of Rose we can mention my good friend Tricia Hillas. On behalf of all the community and congregation of St Barnabas Northolt, may I say what an excellent choice you have made, Mr Speaker? Despite an unfortunate predilection for Watford football club—I rather suspect she was attracted to Vicarage Road for theological reasons, rather than the lure of Troy Deeney—I must warn you, Mr Speaker, that when we come to meet Tricia Hillas, there will be dancing, singing and music, because Tricia Hillas can never stand still in one place from one minute to the next. We have talked about our different theological traditions—I tend to be with the late Monsignor Ronnie Knox, who felt that by and large enthusiasm was not a good thing and that we have a bit too much of it—but Tricia Hillas is an enthusiast. She is a marvellous pastor and will bring so much energy, courage, colour and excitement to this place.
I am, of course, backing away from the stage and the limelight, returning to well-merited obscurity—[Hon. Members: “What a shame!”] No, no; were it put to a vote, I think I would have left years ago. [Hon. Members: “Never!”] Well, I think there is precedent for holding a seated vote, or a standing vote—I forget which one is which—but let us not chance fate. I wish everyone who is standing in the election every success and happiness. I want Members to know two things for when the new House assembles and they meet Tricia Hillas. First, she is absolutely a woman of God to the marrow of her bones. She is a woman who will bring God’s blessing to this place. Secondly, it is almost impossible to imagine anyone following Rose Hudson-Wilkin, but believe you me, Mr Speaker, Tricia Hillas is going to come very, very close.
We are here to mention Tricia for the future, but for the present and for the future in Dover, let us remember for a moment how incredibly lucky every one of us has been to be touched by that extraordinary, joyous, joyful Christian woman Rose Hudson-Wilkin, the Chaplain to the Speaker, a woman who has taught us all so very much.
There was a time when I was the mayor of Ealing, and I revived the old habit of appointing the mayoral chaplain, which had fallen into desuetude. I appointed Father Pat Foley, my parish priest. At the beginning of each council meeting, he would stand, look at all the councillors, look at them again and then cast his eyes up to heaven and pray for the Borough of Ealing.
I have to say that Rose has never ever stopped praying, not just for us poor parliamentarians, but for what we stand for—for our democracy, for our nation, for our community and, I hope, for a better, fairer and safer world. Rose has been an exemplar. She is going to Dover, but she is going with our prayers. Let us ask her to take with her our thanks, our gratitude, our respect and, if you will allow me, Sir, our love.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
As I have listened to the successive tributes, I have been looking at my page of notes of all the things that I wanted to say in order to show appreciation for everything that Rose has brought to this place during her years of service here, and I have been having to cross them off one after another, because the heartfelt speeches so far have really encapsulated everything. But, as we know, Mr Speaker, in politics, everything may already have been said, but the show is not over until everyone has said it.
I wish to try to say something that has not been said explicitly, from a slightly unusual perspective in this context. What I mean is that most of the tributes that have been made so far have clearly come from people blessed with deep religious belief, but, sadly, I am not such a person, having had my religious belief holed below the waterline when I read too much for someone at a young age of some of the things that had happened in British and European history in the first half of the 20th century.
If, as some people say, religion is irrational, then also agnosticism can be irrational, too. What do I mean by that? I mean that somebody who does not have a particular religious belief is nevertheless hugely touched and impressed by those people who do, and particularly by those people who do and who put it into practice by praying on one’s behalf. At the risk of slightly embarrassing him, and I suspect that he will be the next to be called, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) has a habit of sending little notes to colleagues on the eve of elections—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I know that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) would want to hear this. The right hon. Gentleman is referring to him and I am sure that he will want to hear it.
Dr Lewis
As I was in mid-sentence saying, the hon. Gentleman has a wonderful habit of sending little notes to colleagues at election time and at other times when he thinks that they may need a little bit of encouragement saying, without any sort of patronising air, but with an air of true Christian love, that he is praying for them and their welfare. As someone who is not blessed with deep religious faith, I know how much I deeply appreciate that, and that is, I am sure, one of the reasons why he, irrespective of politics, is loved and respected in all parts of this Chamber. Rose Hudson-Wilkin falls into, from my perspective, exactly the same character. It must have been very daunting for her to descend into this pit of monstrous egos, but she carried it off tremendously. She has never talked down to us or scolded us. She has gently guided us. As has been said, she has given hints through the choice of appropriate prayers and appropriate language, and through the putting forward of a philosophy of righteousness, encouragement and love from which we all have benefited, whether we are religious, whether we have faith or whether we lack it. For that and for her kindness to all who work in this place, I thank her.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis). He has come through a hard time in relation to health. As I was aware of that, I made it my business to hold him very much in my prayers, as I do many people in this House—not that anyone will know, because our prayers are private. The right hon. Gentleman does know that, however, because I spoke to him about it.
I am also very pleased to follow the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound), who made a constructive contribution, as he always does. I will miss him when he leaves, as he is my friend in this House. In fact, he was one of the first Members I met when I was first elected to the House. I wish him well in whatever the future may hold; I know it will be a good one. I have very much enjoyed our fellowship. He has also had a hard time health-wise, and has come out the other side, due—I believe in my heart—to the prayers of God’s people.
I wish to add my voice to the many who have paid tribute to the Speaker’s Chaplain, Rev. Rose Hudson-Wilkin. I have met her on many occasions, and I have always been inspired by the gentle, measured and thoughtful manner with which she has approached personal conversations as well as scheduled events. I do not think there is one of us who could say that they did not enjoy and feel uplifted by a conversation with Reverend Rose. I know that I always did; I just always felt so encouraged by what she said.
Scripture says, in Proverbs 31, “Who can find a virtuous woman? Her value is greater than that of rubies.” Well, this House has been blessed and encouraged to have been guided spiritually by Rev. Rose Hudson-Wilkin. We can easily see the worth of her guidance and the worthwhile things that have been accomplished in this place. Rose by name, rose by nature; I think every one of us has enjoyed her time here. Parliament has seen frustration and tempers rising to unheard of levels in this place, with repeated calls for calmness and compassion. Reverend Rose has had a gentle spirit and calming influence, and has been a true ambassador for the Lord Jesus. We are exhorted by the word of God to speak the truth but to do so in love, and she does so all the time. That has been missing all too often in this Chamber, but never, ever in the actions of Reverend Rose.
I am a member of the Baptist Church. When I first came to this place, I was made aware that there was holy communion in St Margaret’s church across the way. Although I am not an Anglican, I felt that I should—I wanted to—be there. From the very beginning, I was encouraged by that holy communion. As I look around the Chamber today, I see many Members who were also at holy communion. We enjoyed that time of fellowship together.
We have daily Prayers in the Chamber. People back home ask me whether we still have Prayers and Scripture in the Chamber, and they are encouraged when I tell them that we do. I am also encouraged every day when I come into this Chamber and hear Scripture and Prayer, which is so important. I can honestly say that that makes me feel encouraged for the day ahead. I said to Reverend Rose once, “I would like to have holy communion at least once a week or maybe every day, if that is possible, instead of once a month, because every day that we have holy communion I feel that we have had a visit from the Lord himself.” Holy communion was an important part of what she did.
My hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) referred to the empathy and compassion that Reverend Rose has shown him, his wife and his young child. None of us in this Chamber—especially not me, as his colleague and friend—could fail to be moved and encouraged by that.
I wish Reverend Rose every success and God’s richest blessing as she continues her ministry as the new Bishop of Dover. I exhort her to keep pressing towards the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. May the words of St Patrick—our patron saint in Northern Ireland—be her battle cry as she moves forward:
“Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.”
I thank Reverend Rose. God bless her in all that she does and will do in the future. I know that in Dover or wherever it may be, she will serve her Lord and Saviour, who we serve here.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).
The hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) referred to the holy mass. What is the meaning of the word “holy”? Daily, at Prayers, we invoke the fellowship of the Holy Ghost. I know that the hon. Member for Strangford would say “Holy Spirit”, but I prefer to stick with the original words. I have no idea how to define “holy” or “holiness”, and I am satisfied that there is no satisfactory dictionary definition, but I know holiness when I have encountered it, and we have encountered it in the presence of Rev. Rose Hudson-Wilkin.
Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
I want briefly to add a personal note of thanks and tribute to Rev. Rose Hudson-Wilkin. Rose married Anne-Louise, my wife, and me about 18 months ago. She did that with great charm, great style and joyfulness, and great Christianity. She showed great care and sensitivity to us in preparing us for that wedding, and also to our families, and, in particular, Anne-Louise’s two children, who had lost their own father tragically. The care that she showed has always stuck with us. Since then, particularly in the past few months, when Anne-Louise, sadly, has been unwell, Rose’s continuing support and prayers, and the kindness that she has shown to our family, mean more to us than any words that I can say in this Chamber could ever adequately convey.
I also want to say a quick word about Rose’s husband, Ken, who has been a great support to her, and who I, as Chair of the Justice Committee, had the pleasure of meeting when he was working as a prison chaplain. He, too, has been a great servant of God and of the broader community, and a great witness to his faith. That enables me also to say how valued the work of the prison chaplaincy service is by many in difficult times of their lives.
Anne-Louise specifically asked me to come here today and say that she is still in hospital but on the mend, and that Rose’s support has meant more to us than anything. For those of us who do have a Christian faith, she could not be a better pastor and shepherd. For those who do not have such a faith, there could be no better ambassador. Dover will gain immeasurably from her arrival as its suffragan bishop.
Finally, Mr Speaker, I wish you every success and your family every happiness for the future. It might not be so easy for me to see directly eye to eye with your successor; that might be more of a physical challenge for some of us. I wish you well and hope that all goes happily for you and your family in the future. In the end, we ought to remember that the things that bring us here in our desire to serve our communities are more important than the things that may divide us on political grounds.
Mr Speaker
The beauty of the hon. Gentleman’s tribute to Reverend Rose will, I think, remain with colleagues for a long time to come. As to the matter of physical stature, he, I and the right hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Sir Alan Duncan) share in common that characteristic of notable shortness, but I have always argued that we should at least be regarded as environmentally friendly on the grounds that we do not take up excessive space.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
It is a pleasure to join these tributes to Reverend Rose. Only a remarkable lady could have come from Montego Bay to the position of your chaplain, Mr Speaker, and those of us who have heard something of her journey realise how remarkable it has been.
I am one of those who has regularly attended her morning communions, followed by breakfast in your apartments, Mr Speaker. One of the great beauties of those occasions is that, as the Leader of the House said, the service is based on the Book of Common Prayer, which is vastly superior to all that has followed. We have heard a wide range of speakers from the community, and Rose has introduced us to many people who have shared with us the challenges of their ministry or work, which has been exceptionally valuable. On those occasions, Rose has also invited individual Members to describe their faith journey, and I have found those sessions to be of particular value.
I also want to talk about Rose’s wider ministry. Last year she came to my parish church in Grimsby, St Giles with St Matthew, and I learned that she has visited other Members’ constituencies—or, in my case, the neighbouring constituency—to preach at their parish church. It was a wonderful occasion, and I know that the whole congregation greatly appreciated it.
As we heard earlier, Rose has varied the Prayers that she says at the beginning of our daily sessions. I am sure that that has caused a few ripples here and there, because the exact prayers that must be said are probably laid down in statute, but it has been extremely helpful and valuable. She is not in the Chamber at the moment, but when I popped out a short while ago, she was providing pastoral care and comfort to a Member. That just shows her devotion to her calling, which I think we would all want to place on record.
Mr Speaker, if you will indulge me for an extra minute or two, I would like to say a few warm words about you. We first met when I was the constituency agent in Gainsborough. I drove you around on various visits, one of which was when I was studying at Lincoln University, and you spoke to the politics group of which I was a member. I can assure you that that went down particularly well. You returned to Lincoln University two or three years ago to give an address. You spotted me in the audience and spoke very warmly about me as a Member. My wife said to me, “He’s going a bit over the top, isn’t he?”, and I said, “John going over the top? No, never!” I greatly appreciated that.
You have called me relatively early in the proceedings. One or two of us at this end of the Chamber have, on odd occasions when we have been bobbing up and down, thought that your eyesight may be failing. You have always been particularly courteous to me, and I thank you for that. In particular, this occasion calls for our thanks to Rose. May God go with her.
Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Ind)
I shall be very brief. Throughout the time that Rose has been the chaplain to the Commons, it has been abundantly clear that her pastoral skills are outstanding. Those of us who have gone to the monthly communion in St Margaret’s have come to value her fellowship and her company. In addition, we have had the benefit of seeing her around the building and enjoying her pastoral support at times when some of us have needed it.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), I have had Rose visit my parish to preach, during a time when we had an interregnum between priests. She was something of a star attraction, which showed just how extensive her reach had become in using her chaplaincy of the Commons to spread the gospel and the word that she wanted to put forward in her own way. I will be very sorry at her departure, but I am delighted that the Bishopric of Dover will be available to her, where I am sure her pastoral skills will be used to full measure. I wish to use this opportunity—on behalf of both myself and my wife, who got to know her—to wish her farewell.
Finally, I would just say that Rose was of course your choice, Mr Speaker, which I seem to remember attracted some controversy at the time. As we consider the end of your career here in the House and of your period as Speaker, I would just like to repeat my thanks to you. It is abundantly clear that if you have ruffled feathers, there are some feathers you ruffled for very good reasons. Ten years on, those who look back will conclude that our proceedings and our life in this House were enhanced by many of the things that you did.
Mr Speaker
I am very grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman. That is very kind of him, and I take it in that spirit. As he knows, I wish him extremely well. Quite apart from his contributions in the House, the right hon. and learned Gentleman is the most exemplary county colleague that anyone could want. He has been a brilliant colleague for me in Buckinghamshire over the last 22 years, and I salute him.
Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)
At the beginning of my short address, perhaps you will allow me, Mr Speaker, to thank you for and congratulate you on your work. I think we have known each other in excess of a quarter of a century. You have visited my constituency, and you were very helpful to me when I was Chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. You have championed Back Benchers; I have a long record of being one. I would like to thank you and wish you well for the future.
Mr Speaker, you very kindly allowed me to use your state rooms on the occasion of my wedding reception on 7 February 2015. Mentioning that leads me seamlessly into thanking Rose for her work, because she did me the great honour of marrying my wife Annie and me on that date in the chapel downstairs—St Mary Undercroft. What a wonderful day it was. No one who attended will ever forget it. It still gives us strength and fills us with great affection when we look back at it. I well remember that I had to be interviewed separately, Annie had to be interviewed separately and then we had to be interviewed together before Rose recommended to the Dean of Westminster that we should be allowed to be married, and it was a wonderful occasion. That is my personal recollection.
It has also been wonderful to see Rose in action over the past 10 years. I have attended many services. I tend to go to the one at 12.45 pm in the chapel downstairs, which is immediately after Prime Minister’s questions, and it is a welcome contrast from that experience to hear Rose tell us about Christianity, peace, love and how important the way we treat each other is. I hope that one of her many legacies, as she goes, will be for us to remember that how we treat each other is very important. Personally, I will never say anything in this Chamber in a tone or in words that I would not say outside it to the person I am talking about or to, and I hope that we could all try to do that as we move forward. I think the public would really like us to take on the lesson that Rose has taught us.
It hardly seems credible that, 25 years ago, there was a terrible split in the Church of England about whether to ordain women. That seems incredible thinking back. I was very much on the side of ordaining women because I believe that the person who should get the job is the one who is best qualified and best able to do that job, regardless of whether they are a man or a woman. I am glad the right side won in that debate, because we would have been deprived of the services of Rose if that debate had gone the wrong way. Many years on, when it came to the question of women bishops, it was hardly a debate at all—quite rightly—and that has enabled Rose to move on to be appointed as the Bishop of Dover.
I would like to thank Rose for all the enormous work she has done in this place, and the messages she has instilled in us about Christianity, the beliefs and what it means to be Christian. I would like to wish her all the very best as she goes forward.
Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)
It is a pleasure to take part in this brief debate, Mr Speaker, and have the opportunity to offer my own tribute. I will start by offering a tribute to you, Mr Speaker, because I was not able to be here earlier. I remember well, as a young man, running into the party conference in 1985 to hear you speak, so we must have known each other for at least 34 or 35 years. You were a remarkable young man, and you have had a remarkable, and in some ways famous and controversial, speakership. Of all the things you have done—someone said earlier that you have undoubtedly ruffled feathers—I think that your best decision was to appoint Rose as your chaplain.
Rose has served this House extraordinarily well, and she always seemed to have a knack of knowing what to say. In one of the most difficult times in my life, I happened to bump into her in New Palace Yard. She looked at me from across the yard, pointed at me, and said, “I need to see you.” Although I had not talked to her at all about the difficulties I was facing, she already knew. She had a way of having her finger on the pulse and of knowing who needed help and counsel. Within an hour and a half or two hours, she had made time in her diary, and I spent probably 80 minutes in her study. Those were the most reassuring and illuminating 80 minutes of all the time that I spent talking to people about the difficulties I was facing, and she gave me an enormous amount of reassurance and relief. Rose has an extraordinary gift for pastoral care, and I shall always be extraordinarily grateful to her. She set me on the course that I am relieved I ended up on, and I felt reassured by her that it was an okay course on which to embark.
I endorse the tributes we have already heard. The Church of England often gets a lot of stick, and people worry about the future of our established Church. I believe that so long as people such as Rose are within it, and rising within it, the future of our Church will also be secure.
Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)
I appreciate the opportunity to pay a tribute to Rose. Like many in this House, I had experiences here that, when the personal combined with the professional, meant that I found myself having what might professionally be called “a bit of a wobble”—I know that many colleagues from my intake have had similar experiences. The one thing I would say about Rose is this: she was there. Her office is one of duty, but everyone would agree that her performance goes far beyond that. She makes time to see people, and gives them the opportunity to speak. She listens, far beyond the level that her office would necessarily require.
Rose has set an incredible example and a fantastic precedent for new Members and the future chaplain to follow. More broadly, the prayers that she leads before each sitting of the House give us the chance to reflect. In a time when we are constantly on social media and looking at emails, iPads and phones, that gives us a moment to step back in silence, listen to the words being said and think about the principles that are laid out here and that make this place and make us who we are. That is one of the greatest contributions that Rose has made to this place. Both personally and professionally, Rose has helped all Members strive to become the better part of ourselves while we are here, and I thank her on behalf of myself, my colleagues and our families.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House congratulates the Reverend Prebendary Rose Hudson-Wilkin on her twenty-eight years of ordained ministry in the Church of England, nine years of which have been in the service of Mr Speaker and this House as Chaplain to the Speaker, the first woman and the first BAME holder of that post; expresses its appreciation for the generous, ecumenical and compassionate spirit of her work among hon. Members and staff of the House; and wishes her every success in her forthcoming ministry as Bishop of Dover and Bishop in Canterbury.
Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Will you indulge me for a moment? I have a bit of FOMO—fear of missing out—because as a Front Bencher I have not been able to say thank you for everything that you have done in the House. I thank you for all you have done on issues of equality and for not shying away from talking about race. I thank you for all you have done on LGBT+ issues, and for making this House more inclusive. Thank you for opening your state rooms, so that small organisations that thought the Houses of Parliament did not care about them could come to some of the grandest rooms in the Palace and feel valued. Thank you for all you have done.
I also want to thank you, Mr Speaker, for bringing Reverend Rose into the House. Hearing everybody’s testament on how she has touched all our lives has been very moving. She has touched my life in many ways. My right hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) spoke about Labi Siffre. Reverend Rose and I talk often about this song and I just wanted to say the first verse:
“The higher you build your barriers
The taller I become
The further you take my rights away
The faster I will run
You can deny me, you can decide
To turn your face away
No matter ’cause there’s
Something inside so strong
I know that I can make it
Though you’re doing me wrong, so wrong
You thought that my pride was gone, oh no
There’s something inside so strong”.
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for being so strong. I thank Reverend Rose for all that she has done for the House, for me and for everybody. Thank you.
Mr Speaker
Well, that was extraordinary and magnificent. I thank the hon. Lady for her excessively generous personal remarks as regards me, but what is much more important is what she said about Rose and I want to underline and reinforce that.
Colleagues, I am extremely grateful to each and every one of you, as we approach the end of this Parliament, for sparing the time and making the commitment to share your experience of and demonstrate your—I was going to say respect for—devotion to the Reverend Rose, who has after all been devoted to us for nine years. In every particular—I say this not so much for colleagues, but for those observing our proceedings—Rose has not just done the job, she has excelled beyond anything that we could reasonably have imagined or contemplated. Her daily commitment is there for all to see, day after day, combining her duties in the Chamber with the responsibility for the conduct of services and the need to attend to St Mary-at-Hill in the City and to interact with large numbers of people on the parliamentary estate.
On big occasions, as so many colleagues have eloquently evidenced, Rose has found the words that needed to be expressed. She has expressed them with feeling and with a transparent and undeniable sincerity. It is that authenticity about her that impresses everybody who hears or meets her. We all know, of course, that a very important part of Rose’s role, as has been referred to by many colleagues during these tributes, is the offer of pastoral care. To Members, to Members’ staff, to the staff of the House, to anyone not employed by the House but contracted to work for it, or to anyone who has reason to be on the parliamentary estate who needs help, Rose has been there to provide that help. It has been a singular and unforgettable contribution.
I certainly do not mind vouchsafing to the House that as well as being aware in many cases of when, how and to what extent Rose helped other colleagues, she has been a terrific source of support, succour and counsel to me. Until my dying day, I will appreciate that support, that succour, that counsel and that camaraderie, which she has been able to provide. Many people have also referred to the circumstances of the terrorist attacks. In those circumstances, we could not have wanted anyone, for the purpose of providing comfort and mitigation of pain, other than Rose.
So many people over the past three years have referred to our departed and beloved colleague, Jo Cox, and someone referred earlier to Birstall in Yorkshire, where the then Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition went the day after the appalling murder of Jo. Of course I went as well, but what was really significant was how Rose went, and each of us, the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and I, observed the impact of Rose’s presence and persona—her love, kindness, compassion and empathy—on people who were experiencing quite unendurable pain. That pain could not be removed, but it could at least be mitigated, and it could be mitigated by no one better than the Reverend Rose. I have a sense, my friends and colleagues, that we are all agreed in this Chamber that the House of Commons’ loss is Canterbury and Dover’s gain.
Adjournment of the House
Ordered,
That, at this day’s sitting,
(1) the Speaker shall not adjourn the House until—
(a) any Message from the Lords has been received and any Committee to draw up
Reasons which has been appointed has reported; and
(b) he has reported the Royal Assent to any Act agreed upon by both Houses, and
(2) Standing Order No. 41A shall not apply.—(Rebecca Harris.)
Northern Ireland
(5 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
We now come to motion No. 4 on Northern Ireland. It says in the dossier “Minister to move”, but we have an upgrade, as the Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office, observes from a sedentary position. I call not merely any Minister, but the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, no less.
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Julian Smith)
I beg to move,
That the Northern Ireland (Extension of Period for Executive Formation) (No. 2) Regulations 2019 (S.I., 2019, No. 1364), which were laid before this House on 21 October, be approved.
I just wanted to add to my tribute yesterday to your speakership by saying something about the Education Centre, Mr Speaker. During my comments, I did not mention all the amazing feedback that I have had from my constituents on the centre, which you were so key to developing. Listening to the tributes that have been paid to you, it seems to me that you will have limitless invites to the Kennington Tandoori, should you so wish, over the coming years.
Having sought the House’s approval for the Northern Ireland Budget Bill yesterday, I now seek the House’s approval for this equally vital statutory instrument. I announced on 21 October an extension of the period for Executive formation to 13 January 2020. That is the only extension permitted under the terms of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019, and I have no discretion as to the length of the extension.
I took the decision because, despite relentless engagement over the summer with the political parties and the Irish Government, the political parties have not been able to reach the accommodation that we know they need to reach to form the Assembly and the Executive. I was disappointed to have to take this approach and extend the period, but failing to extend the period and leaving it to expire at the end of 21 October would have severely constrained the ability of the Northern Ireland civil service to make decisions in the absence of Ministers. It would also have precipitated an Assembly election. That would not have been the right approach for Northern Ireland at this time.
I am pleased that, in the last week, the Northern Ireland political parties have indicated a willingness both within and outside this place to restore the institutions. There will be a short window after the general election, and before the 13 January deadline, when talks should be convened. I hope that both parties will engage seriously. As I have said in this House many times, the remaining issues are soluble if the will is there. These regulations ensure it is possible to undertake that swift work once a new Administration is formed in December. I will remain in close contact with all political parties in Northern Ireland throughout the election period, and I am sure the whole House will join me in urging the parties, particularly Sinn Féin and the DUP, to show leadership and to be ready to restore the institutions. I commend these regulations to the House.
Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)
The Secretary of State knows that it is inevitably with considerable regret on both sides of the House that we once again confront the need for these regulations to be passed. Come the 13 January deadline, Northern Ireland will have been without an Assembly and Executive for about 1,100 days, if by then there is still no newly formed Executive or Assembly in operation. I hope the general election campaign will be conducted in Great Britain and—even more importantly—in Northern Ireland with the kind of decorum that does not entrench antagonism between people and that we come out of it more likely to reach agreement in this Parliament, yes, but most certainly in Stormont. Elections can be healing, but they can also of course be divisive.
I do not plan to say an awful lot more. The Secretary of State and I, and the Minister and the shadow Minister, have debated these issues many times. We could once again talk about the paucity of decision making that bedevils Northern Ireland, the things that are not being done and the problems this causes. Those things are a matter of record. It is important that there is continuity of Executive function over the next weeks and in particular that the Secretary of State does not find himself in the extraordinary position of having to call an election during that period.
I do not think the House has any ambitions to do anything other than pass these regulations, but I am bound to finish on the following note. We are now at the end of the road for this particular process. Whatever follows in the new year has to be more creative—let me use that word—and the creativity may be the creation of an Executive and a Northern Ireland Assembly that functions.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I will not detain the House for long. It is with some regret that we reach this decision, but we understand why the Secretary of State is bringing forward these regulations. He has to bring them forward—it is logical to do so—to the Chamber today and to extend the timescale. It is vital that, after the general election on 12 December and the run-up to it, and after that the discussions to find a way forward, we can engage again, including in the new year.
At the DUP’s party conference this Saturday past, our leader, Arlene Foster, made several suggestions that could lead to discussions being engaged in again. They were constructive comments; they were meant to be. They were positive comments from the point of view that we wish to find a way forward for the Northern Ireland Assembly to engage. The leader has done that very well.
We debated the budget Bill last night in the Chamber. We all understand the issues for the budget in Northern Ireland and why it is important that those decisions be made by the Northern Ireland Assembly. I would be very pleased to report to the Chamber that the Assembly was back up and running. There is one thing we all agree on, and that is that we all think that that is the way forward.
I do not want to be entirely critical of other political parties, but I will say this: our party, the Democratic Unionist party, is willing and able and will be at Stormont on Monday morning, or whatever Monday morning, to engage in the political process and move forward. I would encourage Sinn Féin to have the same understanding of how the process works. This election will perhaps delay that. It is better that we do what we are doing and then after we can move forward, hopefully with a constructive attitude. Certainly the DUP will be of that mind. We hope that Sinn Féin will be as well.
Question put and agreed to.
Civil Partnership
(5 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Before I invite the Minister to move the motion to approve these regulations, I should inform the House that the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments considered them at its meeting yesterday and agreed to draw them to the attention of the House. The relevant extract of the Committee’s report is available in the Vote Office.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)
I beg to move,
That the draft Civil Partnership (Opposite-sex Couples) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 21 October, be approved.
In what has been an emotionally charged and very moving day in the Chamber, this statutory instrument is, I hope, a cause for celebration, as it allows opposite-sex couples in England and Wales to form civil partnerships. This Government want to see more people formalise their relationships in the way they want with the person they love. We know that there are over 3 million opposite-sex couples who cohabit but choose not to marry. Those couples support 1 million children, but do not have the security or legal protection that married couples or civil partners enjoy.
That is why we announced last year that we would extend civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples and why we supported the Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration etc) Act 2019, which was taken so ably through Parliament by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). The regulations are before the House. In short, section 2 of the Act enables the Secretary of State by regulation to amend the eligibility criteria for civil partnerships to make other appropriate and consequential provision. The Act requires the regulations extending eligibility to come into force no later than 31 December 2019.
These regulations, as Madam Deputy Speaker said, have been expedited in their consideration by both Houses. I am extremely grateful to the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, which considered them yesterday. In particular, the chairmanship of the hon. Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) was helpful in understanding the urgency of this statutory instrument.
I will outline briefly the concerns of the Committee and the response of the Government to those concerns. Our approach on conversion—that is, conversion from marriage to civil partnership and vice versa—maintains a difference between opposite-sex and same-sex couples in their ability to convert their civil partnerships into marriages. Importantly, those two groups are not in a directly comparable position. The right to convert a civil partnership to marriage was introduced to enable same-sex couples to marry without having to dissolve their civil partnership as marriage had historically been denied to them. That same consideration does not apply to opposite-sex civil partners, who will always have been able to marry.
Even if same-sex and opposite-sex couples can be compared, the Government consider that maintaining the status quo in the short term is justified. Extending conversion rights to allow opposite-sex couples to convert their civil partnership to marriage now, while we are considering responses to the consultation, would risk creating uncertainty and confusion about future rights. We do not wish to introduce a new, potentially short-term conversion right that might subsequently be withdrawn in 2020.
Once we have made civil partnerships available to opposite-sex couples, our priority will be to resolve our longer-term position on conversion rights for all civil partners and to bring forward further regulations as soon as possible next year. I hope this reassures hon. Members that we have considered these issues carefully and we consider the regulations to be compliant with the Human Rights Act 1998.
Let me again pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham, and also to Baroness Hodgson of Abinger, for their skill and tenacity in driving the Act through Parliament. I know that my hon. Friend has been invited to a civil partnership ceremony which the happy couple hope will take place on 31 December. We intend to implement the regulations on 2 December, which would enable the first opposite-sex civil partnership ceremonies to take place on 31 December, given the usual 28-day notice period. I very much hope that my hon. Friend will be able to make those celebrations.
I know how long some opposite-sex couples have waited for the opportunity to formalise their relationships, and to enjoy the stability, rights and entitlements that other couples enjoy. This is the final legislative step in the process, and I look forward to the first opposite-sex civil partnerships being formed by the end of the year.
I hope, Mr Speaker, that you will allow me a moment away from the important issue of civil partnerships, so that I can play my part in the tributes to you on your last day in that very special seat in the House. It is indeed an honour to be at the Dispatch Box today, and, of course, to hear the wonderful tributes to your chaplain, Rose. May I thank you personally for your service as Speaker of the House over the last 10 years?
As I was preparing for this debate, I sat in our wonderful House of Commons Library. Around the ceiling of one of the rooms are 30 wooden panels containing the names of every single Speaker, dating from 1377 to 2009, when you were sworn in. Your impact on this place will be present not just on those wooden panels in the Library, but in the day-to-day business and interactions of the House. Having sat here in the Chamber hearing some of the tributes to you—which have ranged from the very personal and very serious to some more light-hearted and fond recollections—I will, if I may, add one of my own. I consider it to be one of the achievements of my parliamentary career; it may, in fact, be the only achievement of my parliamentary career. By describing the name of my cat, I caused you to stand up and say:
“I am as near to speechless as I have ever been.”—[Official Report, 20 December 2018; Vol. 651, c. 984.]
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, for everything that you have done for the House, but also for me, at the Dispatch Box and also as a Back Bencher. I wish you, and your loved ones, the very best for your future.
Mr Speaker
Does the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) wish to speak in the debate?
Mr Speaker
Just before I put the Question, I want to say, by way of response to the Minister, a big thank you. That was a very generous and gracious tribute from her. If I may return the compliment—and I think it is relevant to the whole question of the language of discourse—let me say that the hon. Lady has perfected the art of disagreeing agreeably. She is a brilliant advocate of her case, and a very highly respected and rising member of the Government. It is obvious that, in conducting debates in the Chamber, she relishes the political argument, the analysis of policy, the competing claims and so on, but in my experience—and I have heard her speak many times at that Dispatch Box—when engaging in debate, she always plays the ball rather than the man or the woman, and that is to her enduring credit. I reciprocate her very warm wishes: I wish her all the best.
Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)
I welcome the regulations, and I congratulate the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) on his campaign. I too called for the law to be changed, so I am delighted that the Government are finally introducing legislation that will put everyone on an equal footing.
Last year, I pointed out:
“The Government should have already legislated to ensure all couples have equality of choice.”
At the time, I called on the Government to
“take action and change the law to ensure all people have access to civil partnerships”.
I have no idea why it took so long. I have no idea why the Lib Dems and the Conservatives did not want this to happen a lot sooner. It was over a year ago— 16 months, in fact—that the Supreme Court ruled that restricting civil partnerships to same-sex couples was discriminatory. The judges ruled that current UK laws were incompatible with human rights laws on discrimination and the right to a private and family life, so there was no reason for the delay. As the Minister said, there are 3.2 million cohabiting opposite-sex couples, and this is unfortunately another example of the Government dragging their feet on equality. Maybe it is a result of all the changes in Ministers and all the upheaval, but this foot-dragging on equality is unnecessary and quite costly. The Government seem to be letting a lot of people down when it comes to equality.
This change only came about because of the brave steps taken by Rebecca Steinfeld and Charles Keidan. In October 2014, the London couple tried to form a civil partnership at their local registry office in Chelsea Town Hall, but they were told that they could not do so because they were not a same-sex couple. They bravely took their case all the way to the Supreme Court, but they should not have had to do that. I would like to remind the House what Ms Steinfeld said outside the court. She said:
“We are feeling elated…But at the same time we are feeling frustrated the government has wasted taxpayers’ money in fighting what the judges have called a blatant inequality.”
When the Minister gets to her feet, perhaps she could explain to the House how much it cost the taxpayer to take this to court. It was the Lib Dem-Tory Government who decided not to do anything at a time when they could have just changed the law; if they had done so, we would not have had to go through all this.
As I have said, I am pleased with this decision, as it will give cohabiting opposite-sex couples the recognition that they deserve. It will provide stability and security, and ultimately allow couples to decide what is right for them in their relationship. It will give stability to families and children. I am looking forward to the election, because I hope that we will then be able to form a Government with a stand-alone Department for Women and Equalities and be able to push equality issues a lot faster than we have seen over the past 10 years.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
I have a bit of a sense of déjà vu all over again on this Bill. It has been a long journey getting here, but this is a happy day that will lead to very many happy days for happy couples, starting on 31 December. I will be going out to buy a new hat in anticipation of those events shortly. Before I make my brief comments and put some specific questions to the Minister, however, I just want to take issue with the hon. Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler). It is a shame that the Opposition Front Bench has taken a slightly churlish attitude in this debate. There is a simple response to her question as to why this has taken so long. Very simply, it is because, having promised me that they would vote for it, Labour Members voted against the amendment to the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 that would have achieved this several years ago. So she might like to look to her own side before she tries to cast aspersions on what has been a magnificent effort by the Government to get here today.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend. I have been campaigning on this for many years. I was approached by two sisters at the time of the passing of the original Civil Partnership Act 2004 by Tony Blair. The sisters had lived together for many years and faced being evicted and losing their home because they could not have a civil partnership. Will my hon. Friend say a bit more about that particular case?
Tim Loughton
That would probably be stretching out of order, but I appreciate that my hon. Friend took up the issue before I did. It is a cause with which I have some sympathy, and there have been measures in the other place for a Bill on that topic. This legislation is about couples and relationships and recognition and protections that are not available. The matters to which he refers, which relate particularly to siblings who are living together and are entirely dependent on each other, are largely financial ones, and that should be addressed in financial legislation. I would absolutely support him if that were to happen in the future.
I just want to pay some tributes, because this might not have happened today. If this debate had not happened before the end of this Parliament, the necessary regulations that form part of the 2019 Act, which received Royal Assent back on 26 March, would not have been completed in time for the first civil partnerships between opposite-sex couples to take place, as promised, before the end of this year. I am therefore grateful to the Chief Whip, the usual channels, the Minister, the Statutory Instruments Committee, which met hurriedly yesterday, and the officials, who worked tirelessly in order to get us to where we are today. Otherwise, the promises that we made to the people who were looking forward to having their happy day on 31 December might not have been kept.
I have constantly stated that many register offices around the country have been taking provisional bookings for civil partnerships, including on the very last day of this year. A lot is hingeing on this, and many people will be watching these proceedings and the news that comes out. The issue was that, in order for civil partnerships to take place by the end of this year, the regulations had to be laid and then there is a minimum of 28 days—it is not really a cooling-off period—between a couple registering their interest in a civil partnership before it is able to be conducted. That meant that if the regulations had not been approved before 2 December, that process could not have been gone through. I am therefore grateful to the Government, because it was always a big thing for me that this should happen this year, rather than there be yet further delay. The Minister, true to her word, was able to persuade the powers that be to agree to that. I am grateful to all the officials and Ministers who have made this possible.
It is something of an honour that this will be the last piece of debatable business in this Parliament and the last debatable business that you will oversee, Mr Speaker. You have been a big supporter of this change, although you would never admit it and show any degree of partiality, but I know, unofficially, that you have got behind this change, which has been of great help and comfort to people outside this House who see this as an obvious equality measure that should have happened some time ago.
The process has been expedited, but I just have a few brief questions for the Minister. First, will she confirm—I think she already has—that the fact that we are debating this well before 2 December does not mean that the 28 days start from today? If so, we may need to expedite the purchase of hats before the end of November, rather than the end of December, but I think she has confirmed that the earliest that the first civil partnership ceremony can take place will be 31 December 2019 for those who have registered their interest by 2 December. Emergency civil partnerships are an exception and, as happened with civil partnerships between same-sex couples back in 2014, could be approved in a matter of hours or days after 2 December. Some people who have been part of the equal-partner civil partnerships campaign and who have terminal illnesses are very much looking for the change to happen as soon as possible. Perhaps the Minister can confirm that for the benefit of those for whom the date is particularly crucial. Could the Minister also confirm the status of opposite-sex civil partnerships registered outside England and Wales, for example, on the Isle of Man, which was the first part of the British Isles to approve opposite-sex civil partnerships and where key people involved in the campaign have undergone a civil partnership? Will their civil partnership be recognised in our law from 2 December or 31 December, or will this still be contingent on further work on regulations that needs to take place?
I fully appreciate that this measure is not the end of the story; this enables new opposite-sex couples to engage in a new civil partnership and there is much work still to be done on the conversion for those who are already married, just as there was a conversion the other way round in respect of civil partnerships for same-sex couples. Looking through the regulations, which are detailed and technical, I appreciate the work that has gone into everything from gender recognition to the status of children, the warm home discount and digital switchover. All that legislation, extraordinarily, has to be considered in these regulations in order to get this right. Will the Minister therefore clarify the status of existing overseas or ex-England opposite-sex civil partnerships?
Will the Minister also issue guidance as soon as possible to registrars around the country that they should be open for business from 2 December? There has been confusion as to whether this would happen and some registrars, the more far-sighted ones, have been taking provisional waiting lists as from 31 December, whereas others have said, “It’s not happening, so don’t call us, we’ll call you after 31 December.” It is important that clear instructions are now issued. If she could signal from the Dispatch Box as well, that would be helpful, because people need to prepare. People who have been waiting years and years for this day to happen want to be able to get on with it, and we need to ensure that registrars know what they are doing in order to facilitate their request.
Finally, let me say that this is just but one part of my Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration etc) Act 2019. There are three other parts to it. I raised the issue of mothers’ names on marriage certificates with the Second Church Estates Commissioner, which has yet to be resolved by formal regulations. The second issue is about the Secretary of State giving the go-ahead for coroners to have the power to investigate stillbirths. The last issue is the review of sub-24-week stillbirths. They are all important parts of my multifaceted Act that still require further regulations. I appreciate that today we are dealing purely with the civil partnerships part of it, but it would be helpful if the Minister gave some indication that work is ongoing on those other important parts of this Act.
Once again, may I thank the Minister in particular for expediting these measures today, just in the nick of time? For many hundreds of couples up and down the country waiting on this, it is a really important and happy development.
Victoria Atkins
As always, my hon. Friend asks me many questions. I sometimes think he is doing it in the hope of catching me out, so I am going to do my best to prove him wrong. The date on which the regulations come into force is set out in regulation 1(2) and they will be very much in force on 2 December, so that the 28 days’ notice can be in force for civil partnerships on 31 December, with the exception, as he rightly points out, in respect of emergency applications.
On overseas civil partnerships, overseas relationships can be recognised as civil partnerships in England and Wales if they meet the conditions set out in the Act. Opposite-sex couples who formed a civil partnership on the Isle of Man will be recognised as civil partners in England and Wales on the day these regulations come into force—in other words, from 2 December. I should say that the regulations include a list of specified overseas relationships that will be treated as civil partnerships here, but other overseas relationships can also be recognised as civil partnerships if they meet general conditions.
Yes, the General Register Office will issue clear guidance to local registration services about the commencement of the new scheme. I do not have a date to hand, but when I discover one, I will write to my hon. Friend.
On the other matters in the Bill, I am delighted to confirm that the General Register Office is currently working on the secondary legislation, IT systems and administrative processes required to implement the marriage schedule system. Officials are working with the Church of England and the Church in Wales on the details of the proposals, and a timescale will be announced in due course. I am keen that we help to get mums’ names on to marriage certificates as soon as possible.
I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me in respect of the other matters he raised. We have concentrated on civil partnerships, so I will have to write to him on the other two matters—he caught me out on those two.
Question put and agreed to.
Royal Assent
Mr Speaker
I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that Her Majesty has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:
Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019
Northern Ireland Budget Act 2019.
Business without Debate
16:37 - The House divided: - Ayes: 206 / Noes: 33 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Mr Speaker
We come now to a series of motions that I think we should take separately, for reasons that will become obvious. Before I invite a Whip to move motion 6, which is the first in the sequence, I must announce my decision on certification for the purposes of Standing Order No. 83P—“Certification of instruments”. On the basis of material put before me, I certify that, in my opinion, the instrument does not meet the criteria required for certification under that Standing Order.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),
Income Tax
That the draft Income Tax (Trading and Other Income) Act 2005 (Amendments to Chapter 2A of Part 5) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 14 October, be approved.—(Leo Docherty.)
Question agreed to.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),
Representation of the People
That the draft Representation of the People (Annual Canvass) (Amendment) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 14 October, be approved.—(Leo Docherty.)
Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I understand that the Historical Institutional Abuse (Northern Ireland) Bill has now passed all its remaining stages in the other place, which means that there is capacity for the Bill to come to the Commons. The Opposition have made it clear to Government business managers that we will cause no impediment to the orderly and rapid passage of that Bill through this House. The House recognises that this is a matter of justice for people who were the victims of abuse and are now survivors, some of whom are very elderly. They deserve both the recognition that the Bill will give and some level of financial compensation. I hope that, if the business managers were to approach you, Mr Speaker. you would ensure that the facilities of the House could be managed such that the Bill could come before the Commons in the days before Dissolution.
Mr Speaker
It is up to the business managers. Is there scope for that to happen? The answer is yes, and it is perfectly feasible to imagine that the hon. Gentleman will achieve successful closure. It is not in my hands, but he has made his point with force and alacrity. It is on the record, and it will have been heard by the most senior representative of the usual channels, who is bestriding the Treasury Bench—none other than the Patronage Secretary.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. My right hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) has been very industrious today, talking with the Government to ensure that there will be no obstacles to the Historical Institutional Abuse (Northern Ireland) Bill coming forward next week. Will the Government do everything they can to ensure that the legislation can come before the House on Tuesday, so that it can become law before Parliament dissolves, meaning that these victims who have been waiting years for compensation can have their just deserts?
Mr Speaker
I do not think that that requires any response from me, other than to say that the hon. Gentleman has made his point with great clarity. It will have been heard, and he will have to await events.
Ipswich Northern Bypass
Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
Mr Speaker, may I briefly pay tribute to your diligent stewardship of the House in the nine years or so that I have been here and to all you have done to modernise the procedures of this place, while maintaining appropriate traditions? I am sure that I echo the comments made by many others earlier in the day.
The petition of residents in my constituency rejects any and all proposals by Suffolk County Council and its leader, Councillor Matthew Hicks, for an Ipswich northern bypass. The petition is ongoing, but since late July 2019, it has already received 5,372 signatures. I am particularly grateful to Nick Green, Nick Deacon, Gerard Pearce, Amy Waspe and everyone in the Stop! campaign for all their dedication and hard work in collecting signatures for this petition.
Residents in both north Ipswich and the rural villages that I represent recognise that there is little or no evidence to support the building of the bypass, and that the many thousands of extra homes that would need to be built to fund it will further increase traffic congestion and pollution in Ipswich. Importantly, an Ipswich northern bypass will do little to improve traffic flow in and around Ipswich for the few hours every year that the Orwell bridge is closed. The environmental damage that would be caused by the bypass is inconsistent with Suffolk County Council declaring a climate emergency and its desire to become the greenest county.
The petition states:
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government and the Department of Transport to press upon Suffolk County Council and its Leader Cllr Matthew Hicks for the need to reject proposals for an Ipswich Northern Bypass, and to bring forward properly evidence based and environmentally sustainable solutions to decongesting central Ipswich.
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of residents of North Ipswich, Kesgrave, Rushmere St Andrew, Claydon, Grundsburgh, Westerfield, Hasketon and villages in the Central Suffolk and North Ipswich Constituency,
Declares that Suffolk’s residents reject any and all proposals by Suffolk County Council and its Leader Cllr Matthew Hicks for an Ipswich Northern Bypass; further that residents recognise that there is little or no evidence to support the building of the Bypass and that the many thousands of extra houses that would need to be built to fund the bypass will increase traffic congestion and pollution in Ipswich, recognises that an Ipswich Northern year that the Orwell Bridge is closed, acknowledges that the environmental damage that would be caused by the Bypass is inconsistent with Suffolk County Council declaring a climate emergency and its desire to become the Greenest County Council; further recognises that Suffolk’s local authorities have already identified an evidence based housing land supply until around 2035 and therefore rejects proposals for any additional houses to be built in the East Suffolk and Mid Suffolk District Council areas in order to fund the Bypass; and further that this petition is on-going but since late July 2019 has already received 5372 signatories from both residents of North Ipswich and rural Suffolk.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government and the Department of Transport to press upon Suffolk County Council and its Leader Cllr Matthew Hicks for the need to reject proposals for an Ipswich Northern Bypass, and to bring forward properly evidence based and environmentally sustainable solutions to decongesting central Ipswich.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P002539]
Housing Succession Policy
(5 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)
Mr Speaker, it is a real privilege to see you sitting in the Chair for this debate, as it will be the last time that you do so. I join colleagues on both sides of the House in the tributes they have paid to you today and previously. I also want to pay a personal tribute to you for all your work to transform this House for the better. You have been a powerful advocate on many things, including human rights, which is an issue close to my heart.
Mr Speaker, you have also championed our values of equality, fairness and justice, and you have stood up against those who seek to inflame division and hatred in our country, including one President. When the question of inviting him to this House came up, you rightly pointed out that we have a reputation to uphold of being against racism and sexism, and of standing up for equality before an independent judiciary. I am summarising what you said, but it is important that we remember the courage and bravery with which you held to those standards.
I hope that whoever succeeds you, Mr Speaker, will build on your work and legacy, will have the courage to stand up for what is right and decent, will hold the Executive to account, and will stand up for the sovereignty of our Parliament. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for everything you have done and all the support you have provided to Members on both sides of the House.
I also want to pay tribute to Rev. Rose Hudson-Wilkin for all that she has done, as this is also her last day. She has contributed much to this country, particularly here in Parliament and, of course, in my part of London. We wish her the very best of luck in her new role.
This debate is about the policy of succession in social housing. Social housing, whether council housing or social landlord housing, is the bedrock of successful communities in my constituency of Bethnal Green and Bow as well as many other parts of the country. It is important to remind ourselves of the original purpose of social housing, because it was not only to provide a safety net for the poorest people, or a last resort for the most vulnerable and those desperately in need. The purpose of social housing was to provide safe, stable and affordable homes, often close to city centres and sources of work—for all on middle and low incomes as an alternative to rip-off rents and exploitation. That need has not gone away. The principle should be maintained, but it has been under threat for a very long time.
Social housing is about not just homes but communities in which the same families live through the life cycle while growing together, helping each other out, putting down roots and building a real community spirit. That is the spirit of the social housing in my constituency, as it has been for generations. It has been a springboard for social mobility, aspiration and success. As the then Housing Minister, Nye Bevan, said, the goal was
“the living tapestry of a mixed community”.—[Official Report, 16 March 1949; Vol. 462, c. 2127.]
Our goal should be mixed communities with people of different incomes and backgrounds living among one another, not monocultures or sink estates.
Social housing provides security and stability, and part of that stability has been the right to pass tenure from parent to child, if needed. Under the Conservative-led coalition Government of 2010 to 2015, this right was severely undermined, and I believe that that has done serious damage to people in my constituency and many others across the country.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate. I have been a great supporter of social housing over the years and I understand exactly the point she is making. Does she not agree that associations need the legal capability to have limited discretion so that qualified and experienced staff can use their wisdom and discernment to ensure that there can be as just a succession policy as possible—in other words, to make it possible?
Rushanara Ali
I very much agree with that point. People need to be given the right advice about the legal framework when they apply so that mistakes are not made, and I will come on to mention some of those. Individuals in public organisations such as housing associations and local authorities find themselves in the very difficult position that while they feel they have to apply the law, that law itself is flawed, which is why we need action from the Government.
Section 160 of the Localism Act 2011 ended the right of those who are not spouses or civil partners to succeed to secure tenancies that were agreed after 1 April 2012. The Act passed responsibility for decision making to local authorities, and clear central guidance has meant that many more bereaved children have faced eviction after the death of their parent. In the depths of their grief, they have had to fight bureaucracy, and often legal threats, just to stay in their homes, all the while dealing with the consequences of losing a family member.
Guidance on the allocation of accommodation for local authorities was issued in 2002. It includes guidance on when it might be appropriate to grant a tenancy to members of a household. For example, that could be when someone has been living with a tenant for a year prior to that tenant’s death, when they have provided care, or when they have accepted responsibility for the tenant’s dependants and need to live in the family home. There are many example of caring responsibilities that people have fulfilled over many years, and such people should not be treated in such a way.
The whole House will understand why, when left to their own devices, local authorities prioritise those in need on the housing waiting list. They are often placed in an impossibly difficult situation and need to make difficult choices. However, that does not balance out the needs of vulnerable people who are at risk of being made homeless, and who are treated inhumanely and unsympathetically at a time of bereavement.
No one suggests that large family homes should be occupied by single tenants— the 2002 guidance makes that clear—or that the rent book should stay with the same family in perpetuity. As the MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, I know all too well the desperate need for more affordable homes, and for an end to overcrowding and appalling housing conditions. The rationing of housing has meant that even in those cases, people are threatened with eviction because of changes made in the Localism Act 2011. Surely that is an unintended and pernicious consequence of the Act, but the way it has been interpreted by local councils and housing associations means that people face homelessness at the very time when they need support from the state and solace, rather than having to think about whether they will be allowed to live in their homes. If ever there was a need for a humane and flexible approach, it is this.
I have had to deal with so many cases over the past few years. Families with caring responsibilities have had to fight multiple eviction notices having just buried family members. Older children have given up their own council properties, because they could not afford private accommodation or to buy, and have moved in to look after a parent for many years. They are then faced with eviction when that parent dies.
One constituent moved out of his own council property to care for his father, who suffered from a number of serious health and mobility conditions. After successfully registering to have him and his wife added to his father’s tenancy agreement, the housing association sent a letter, two days after his father’s death, to explain that that may not be possible. My constituent eventually received an eviction notice. I am pleased that he was ultimately allowed to stay and the housing association reversed its decision, but he should never have faced the trauma of having to go through that so soon after the death of a family member.
Another constituent wanted to succeed to her late mother’s tenancy, having lived in the property as her main home since the late-’80s. She suffers from a number of health issues. She feels that the EastendHomes housing association applied discretion appropriately, but she now faces eviction.
There have been many cases where constituents of mine have been wrongly served eviction notices in the circumstances of bereavement. I even had a case where a constituent came to my surgery who, having just lost her partner of 19 years, was told, wrongly, that she could not succeed to his tenancy. In one case, the combination of an eviction threat and a bereavement faced by my constituent, after having cared for her mother for over a decade, was driving her to the edge of a nervous breakdown. She was worried about bailiffs coming to her house—she had received eviction notices—and that she would be thrown out. The only thing I could offer her was that I would go there and stand with her, and do whatever was needed to help her so that she did not get seriously ill as a result of the pressure and, in essence, the harassment she was experiencing at the hands of the state.
There have been so many cases that we have had to fight. Many hon. Members from across the House will have had similar cases. This is no way to treat hard-working and caring family members who, through their caring responsibilities, have saved the state billions of pounds. We should be supporting them, especially through bereavement, rather than punishing them. What can we do? In so many cases, it is too late for those who have experienced such treatment. People have been evicted from their homes and subjected to needless concern, worry and stress. That has affected their mental health and wellbeing. In other cases, the effect has been even more severe.
Being treated this way by the national Government and by local government, through legislation, is wrong. Surely, we can do better in the future. Surely, we can reach cross-party agreement to look at this issue and look at the number of cases around the country. It is very hard for us to get the aggregate statistics on the impact on our constituents across the country, and this is a major problem. I strongly urge all local administrators to be made to adopt a humane, compassionate policy for those facing such difficulties. The Government should instruct them to stop sending eviction notices to our constituents when they have been bereaved. There should be a significant length of time before matters such as remaining in the properties they are resident in are considered, even if they are larger properties, so that they have an appropriate time in which to grieve and recover.
I am extremely grateful to Ministers and hon. Members from across the House for attending this debate, given that we are in the midst of an election campaign. I appreciate that this issue may well get drowned out in the election campaign because there are so many other big issues such as Brexit, the NHS and other public services that we will want to talk about. However, I hope that when the next team of Ministers returns to the House, we can all agree that we need action. I therefore ask the Minister to address the following points.
Does the Minister agree that passing a tenancy to an appropriate person who might be a relative—a child or a carer—can be an appropriate way to maintain stability and ensure that the parent receives the right support and that the child, who is often an adult, is not made homeless and punished for dutifully providing care to a family member? What assessment has she made of the workings of the Localism Act with regard to tenancy succession for those family members who have been carers for many years? How many cases end up in court? What is the financial and personal cost, in terms of health and wellbeing, to residents? Does she not agree that we need national guidance to provide clarity on how local agencies and authorities should treat people in such circumstances and that local authorities must not use eviction notices or bailiffs to threaten our constituents with eviction when they are suffering and grieving? That is utterly unacceptable. There is a wider point about the use of bailiffs by local authorities that this Government need to act on, because in such circumstances we can see how much damage is done. What steps will she take to ensure that there are common standards and that public servants take appropriate, sensitive actions in these times of need? Finally, will she commit to a timetable to deliver change?
In conclusion, to lose a parent or a relative is a terrible blow. The aftermath requires a suitable period of grieving and healing, and the amount of time required will vary as between different people. Those of us who have grieved for loved ones will know that we cannot put a fixed timetable on grief and recovery from it. Just because I am talking about people who are not wealthy, who do not have the means to own their own properties and do not have the resources but who have cared for a loved one does not mean that their suffering should be treated in this way—that they should not be treated compassionately for what they are doing, not only for their families, but as a public service. They have shown a duty of care and love to their family members and loved ones as their lives have come to an end, providing them with the dignity that they rightly should have, and we should make sure that such people are also treated in a dignified, caring way.
Mr Speaker
I thank the hon. Lady for her speech, including the very kind remarks that she made at the start.
I referenced a constituent and a former constituent earlier, whom I am absolutely thrilled to see in the Gallery. As we approach the end of the day and just before I call the Minister, whom I regard as a personal friend, I want to reference three other people in Gallery, because I regard their presence as being of great significance. First of all, Stephen Benn is in this place more often that he is out of it, and he has forged a magnificent link between the science community and Parliament. As a result of his prodigious efforts, boundless energy, personal charm and obvious commitment, those links are stronger now—I say this almost as much for the benefit of members of the public as I do for Members of the House—than they have been in the past. That is an enormous tribute to you, Stephen. Of course, you know that our bond is also strengthened by the fact that I came to know you through your late father, Tony, who was, without question, one of the great parliamentarians of the 20th century. I came to know Tony well and benefited from his counsel and support. I think of him pretty much every day and often regale audiences with anecdotes flowing from my friendship with and benefit gained from him.
I also want to mention Tim Hames, who has worked as an adviser to me for the last decade and who is as near to being a polymath as I know. He is one of these people who is incredibly accomplished at a very large number of different things—at writing and speaking, as an academic, as a journalist and as somebody who ran the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association very successfully for a very long period—but who, in particular, has been a wonderful counsellor to me, of which I am enormously appreciative, as I think he knows. Tim, it is great to see you, and to see you accompanied by your wife Julia, and to have you in the Gallery as we approach the end of the day—my last day in the Chair—has a very special significance for me.
The Minister for Housing (Ms Esther McVey)
It is indeed an honour to be answering this debate—the very last debate that you will chair, Mr Speaker. In that regard, it is quite an occasion. Many of us will only know you as the Speaker. You have a reputation for being a thorn in the side of Ministers, but as a Minister I appreciate that your job is to help to ensure that Back Benchers hold Ministers to account, and you have done that better than anyone else. That is your job and your purpose for being here.
Many people have also mentioned how you have been a modernising Speaker, that you have ensured that Back Benchers have had more say and, in doing that, that the public have had a greater say in this House, as a centre of democracy; the people are being heard.
I wish you well as you go forth. There is a chapter closing here, but I do not want to dwell on that. I want to look forward to a chapter that will be opening, for you and your family. I am sure we have not heard the last of your dulcet tones. You have accrued an almost—no, not almost—an encyclopaedic knowledge of what goes on in this House, of its processes and procedures, and I hope you take that forth into another job that allows you to speak about what happens in Parliament. I hope you remain a good friend of this House too.
I want to also pay tribute to Rose—I will call her by her first name because most of us class her as a friend and call her by her first name. She has touched the hearts of many, as we have heard here today, and has been there for many during this turbulent time when people have turned to her in their time of need. She has celebrated with us and spent sad times with us. She has not left the House entirely: she is coming back next September, when I shall be, late in life, getting married for the first time.
I turn back to this important debate. I commend the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) for securing it and bringing this matter to the Government’s attention. The Government recognise the important role that affordable housing in general, and social rented housing in particular, plays in supporting people and communities. That is why the Government are committed to increasing the supply of affordable housing and have made £9 billion available through the affordable homes programme, to March 2020, to deliver 250,000 new affordable homes of a wide range of tenure, including homes for social rent. It is also why we are determined to ensure that social housing is safe and decent and that those who live in social homes are treated with dignity and respect. The hon. Lady raised very relevant issues about those who have been bereaved and could be going through a period of grief.
The hon. Lady talked about succession and social housing. Social housing confers many benefits, including security of tenure and below-market rents. For local authority tenants, it also confers the statutory right to buy. It is incumbent, therefore, on local authorities and housing associations to manage their housing to benefit the community, particularly those in greatest need; they need that housing. It is important, therefore, that the succession rules strike a balance between the needs of those members of the deceased tenant’s family who consider the property to be their home, the interests of the local authority and the housing association in making best use of their housing, and the interests of those on the housing waiting list who are also in need.
There will always be sensitive and difficult cases that cannot always be foreseen or captured by the statutory provision, which is why there is an addition to that provision: the social landlord can exercise discretion to take into account individual circumstances such as those the hon. Lady raised, and that is what they should be doing. Provided it is in line with their own allocation policies and the Regulator of Social Housing’s tenancy standards, there is nothing to stop a social landlord granting the surviving family member a new tenancy in the same property, or they may be able to offer a tenancy for a different property, should that be more appropriate. Indeed, it is partly because the previous succession rules were considered too inflexible and not sufficient to allow for a household’s individual circumstances to be taken into account that the Government introduced changes under the Localism Act 2011.
Those changes apply to social tenancies granted from 1 April 2012. They mean that social landlords are no longer limited by law to providing only one succession to a spouse or a partner, or, in the case of local authorities, to a resident family member. Instead, social landlords have, since April 2012, been able to give to new tenants more extensive succession rights in tenancy agreements, in addition to the statutory one succession to a spouse or partner. That important flexibility means that, for example, carers or adult children who have lived in a property for many years can be provided with the assurance of a right to succeed to the tenancy, regardless of whether a previous succession has already taken place.
Striking the right balance between competing interests is never easy.
Rushanara Ali
I would be grateful if the Minister addressed the point about discretion. In some cases, discretion is being applied positively, humanely and compassionately, but, because of the pressures that local authorities face, in others they are being very hard line, which is the subject of the debate. Is she prepared to write to local authorities, giving them clear instructions on such situations, so that we avoid causing further harm to people’s lives?
Ms McVey
The hon. Lady raises a good point. As she rightly says, some authorities are doing this very well, but perhaps, in her circumstance, that has not necessarily happened. I will indeed work with her to write that letter, or to ensure that this happens and that this discretion is used when it should be.
On affordable house building, we want to ensure that everyone has a place that they can call home. In our 2017 housing White Paper, we pledged to address overall housing supply, and in the autumn Budget 2017 we set out our ambition to deliver 300,000 homes per year, on average, by the mid-2020s. Affordable housing, including affordable homes for rent, plays a vital role in reaching this target. Since 2010, we have delivered over 430,000 new affordable homes, including over 308,000 affordable homes for rent. We continue to support housing associations and councils with grant funding for the construction of new affordable homes. We have made over £9 billion available.
A mix of different tenures is vital to meet the needs of a wide range of people and to allow housing associations and local councils to build the right homes in the right places. That is why we have reintroduced social rent as part of our expanded programme. Social rent will meet the needs of struggling families and those most at risk of homelessness in areas of the country where affordability is most pressured. That would be in the hon. Lady’s constituency.
We have also set a long-term rent deal, announcing that increases to social housing rents will be limited to the consumer prices index plus 1% for five years from 2020. Through all those measures, we are creating an investment environment that supports councils and housing associations to build more. That in itself, if we are building more, could ease some of the pressures the hon. Lady mentioned.
Housing associations build the majority of this new affordable housing. Going forward, we want to see housing associations continue to maximise their contributions to housing supply. That is why we have been listening and working to create a stable investment environment to support the delivery of more affordable homes across the country. We have introduced strategic partnerships to offer housing associations greater flexibility, ensuring funding can be allocated where it is needed across multiple projects while still meeting overall delivery targets. That funding certainly also makes it more viable for developing housing associations to invest in more ambitious projects with greater delivery flexibilities and funding guaranteed over a longer period.
We have gone further, providing the sector with longer-term certainty of funding. Last September, the Government also announced £2 billion of long-term funding, which will boost affordable housing for associations. This unprecedented approach will deliver more affordable homes and stimulate the sector’s wider building ambitions. Strategic partnerships and our 10-year funding commitment mark the first time any Government have offered housing associations such long-term funding certainty.
That is what we need to do to ensure that we can always have that human interaction with tenants in houses when a bereavement happens. We have already opened up £1 billion of this funding through Homes England and we are working closely with the Greater London Authority to open bidding for London. I will close there and again thank the hon. Lady for bringing this debate to the House.
Question put and agreed to.