Speaker’s Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Wednesday 12th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

I echo what has been said and offer my thanks to those involved in the recruitment process and to those who have given their service. I also pass on our best wishes to Ms Middleton, who seems to be an eminently suitable appointee for the role.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Richard Thomson]

I had just finished, but I will find something else to say.

[John Spellar]

I thank the hon. Member for giving way. I have no knowledge of or animus towards the individual concerned, but once again it is the great and the good. She is someone who has just recently retired from HMRC. How cosy that they all slot into these positions. It is never truck drivers who are keeping the country going, or nursing sisters who are keeping the health service going, or those from a whole range of occupations—it is always out of the quangocrats and retired civil servants. I would hope that the Scottish National party and our own Front Benchers would be saying, “We need a broader range of people in public appointments, and not just the same merry-go-round of the great and the good”—however good they may be, and who knows whether they are great.

[Richard Thomson]

I feel like I have been given an unexpected opportunity to hold court, which I shall not take. Nevertheless, the right hon. Gentleman is correct: we are very much of a bias towards the good, rather than the great, and it is perhaps unfair to load all those concerns on to this particular appointment. I am sure the Leader of the House will have plenty to say in response to that. All public appointments, in our opinion, should be drawn from the truest possible breadth and depth of the talent that is available.

Question put and agreed to.