Speaker’s Statement

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

But not until we have heard from, I think, two other Members. The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) is a national institution and I want to save him until the end. I call Catherine West.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Sheerman]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I was going to start my remarks by saying that I have been in the House longer than you, and that is true. I am also well known to be a bit of a chunterer; I often turn to the person next to me and say quite rude things—not dreadful, but rude—about something I disagree with. This is a serious point of order: I cannot believe that this House is going to get to the stage where these events happen when someone says something under their breath—“What a silly sod”, for instance, which I say very often, quite loudly, under my breath. We cannot have a system here where we start lipreading something someone has said to their next-door neighbour when passions are high in this House. It is supposed to be a place of high passions, but it is also a place where we treat people like adults, and today we have been like badly behaved children. We are in a crucial time in the history of our country—the most delicate and worrying time in my time in the House—and we have spent all these hours on this matter. I believe the Leader of the Opposition said what he said; let us draw a line under it and get on and act like grown-ups.

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he has said. Before we proceed, all I would like to do is to plant in the minds of hon. and right hon. Members one simple fact, which is that a number of very senior Members with long experience of this House, and coming from both sides of it, have in recent months made a very similar point. Today, the hon. Gentleman has made that point, and I do not think that the right hon. Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett) will take exception or cavil if I say that she made a similar point at an earlier stage in our proceedings. It is a point that has also been previously made by the Father of the House, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke). They do have long experience, they do know what they are talking about, and it might be a good idea to have a degree of calm and a readiness to heed their wise advice.