Serjeant at Arms

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

It is a delight to be thirding, if there is such a thing—I know there is not—this motion.

The Serjeant at Arms role is rather a curiosity in the way we do our business. It is something that we have exported around the world to many other parliamentary democracies based on the British system. One of the previous Serjeants at Arms was a regicide, and one of the jobs of his successor was to gather up all the bodies from the previous regicide, chop them up into pieces, and display them in Westminster Hall. Lawrence never had to gather up bodies, though perhaps he knows where the bodies are.

I was once at a dinner party in Islington—this is obviously now mandatory for all Labour MPs—where somebody asked Malcolm Jack, the former Clerk of the House, exactly what the Serjeant at Arms’ job was. I remember very clearly that he said, “Well, he is the chap who dresses up in black silk stockings and patent leather pumps to chase MPs out of the toilets in the Division Lobby with his silver sword.” There are elements of our parliamentary system that do perhaps need a little reform, I gently suggest. Perhaps we should not limit our search to people who like wearing black silk stockings and patent leather pumps.

I am not sure what training is required for the job, but it is interesting that the last two Serjeants at Arms have come not from the traditional cadre, which has always been military or naval, but from very different forms of service and not necessarily through the almost hereditary process of the past.

There are several jobs in politics that have to be done with good grace, such as Leader of the House and a Conservative Secretary of State for Wales. Another is Serjeant at Arms, and Lawrence has done it abundantly well.

I want to make one apology to him, though. I cannot tell all of this story, I am afraid, because you would rule me out of order, Mr Speaker. On 27 March 2010, thanks to your good offices, it was possible for me and Jared Cranney to get married in the Members’ Dining Room. We are not allowed in the Chapel yet, but who knows? Maybe one day. Lawrence was then the Deputy Serjeant at Arms and he made himself and his team fully available to all of my guests. It was the first time it had ever happened in the building and he was absolutely charming. Unfortunately our guests were not allowed to pass through Westminster Hall itself, and I cannot tell you why, but I shouted, ranted and raved at him at the time, for which I apologise. With that, I wish him all the best in his new job.