Points of Order

David Lidington Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call my very loyal and brilliant next-door neighbour of over 20 years in constituency terms, Mr David Lidington.

[Mr David Lidington (Aylesbury) (Con)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. May I—as an elector in the Buckingham constituency, not least—offer an expression of thanks to you for your work as a constituency Member of Parliament over the past 22 years? Talking to neighbours and acquaintances in all parts of the Buckingham constituency over the years that you have represented it, I have been struck by the fact that men and women of very different political persuasions, and indeed those of no particular party affiliation, are united in their appreciation of the fact that you have never allowed your considerable duties as Speaker of the House to detract from your responsibility to represent their interests in Buckingham and to respond to the concerns that they raise with you. Colleagues in all parts of the House will speak about your record as Speaker, but those of us in Buckinghamshire will know how you have continued to speak on and champion local interests and local issues.

I know, too, that you will be missed among the somewhat eclectic team of hon. and right hon. Members representing the county of Buckinghamshire. It is perhaps a good measure of the fact that in this place, despite frequent clashes and disagreements, we can still manage to get on. Those Buckinghamshire parliamentary meetings bring together not just you and me but my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan) and both my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) in a spirit of harmony, at least on county matters.

I thank you for what you have done for us locally and, if I may say so as a former Leader of the House, for what you have done to communicate more to people, particularly to schoolchildren and students around the country, about how this place works and the constitutional significance of Parliament in defending the liberties and debating the interests of the next generation.

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for what he has said. I want to observe—others will bear testimony to this, in the light of what he has just said— that the right hon. Gentleman was, frankly, an outstanding Leader of the House of Commons. He is one of the most co-operative and collaborative colleagues whom one could hope to meet. He gets things done, he is extremely personable, and I think it is fair to say that he works based on periodic political difference but continuing personal amiability. If others of us were able to model ourselves on the way in which he has gone about his work over the last 27 years as a Member of Parliament, we would probably be doing better. I thank him for what he has said.