Election of Speaker

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Tuesday 13th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

May I begin by associating myself and my party with the Prime Minister’s remarks and the remarks of others about the outrages in Manchester and in London? These sorts of horrible acts have absolutely no place in our democracy, and we all join together to condemn them.

You will forgive me, Mr Speaker-Elect, if I begin by welcoming my new hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake). The good people of Ceredigion will be represented by a Plaid Cymru Member once again, and we look forward to his contributions.

On behalf of my hon. Friends, I would of course like to congratulate both you, Mr Speaker-Elect, and the Father of the House. I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House look forward to the incisive, knowledgeable and supremely confident interventions of the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) during what is likely to be one of the most lively and important Parliaments of recent years—not least because the main matter before us, the UK’s place in Europe, has been one of his central political concerns for so long.

I congratulate you, Mr Speaker-Elect, and hope that you will continue in your positive attitudes towards the working of this place, the modernisation of that working and the rights of Back Benchers, and in the very fair treatment that you have always provided to the smaller parties.