Retirement of the Clerk of the House

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Wednesday 16th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

I hope that the House will forgive me for following the line of distinguished right hon. and hon. Members who have just been speaking, but I thought that a Member from the 2010 intake might say a few words. Before this debate, I consulted the Clerk of the House to find out whether I could amend the motion. I thought it might be sensible to table an amendment to say that Sir Robert could not retire until he had exceeded the length of service achieved by one Paul Jodrell, who managed 43 years in the post. I am sure that everyone in the House would have wanted that, as his retirement is a matter of great sadness and regret. It is a loss to us.

Sir Robert is a walking “Erskine May”. He is “Erskine May” made flesh. He understands and appreciates every bit of that great document and gives us the benefit of his wisdom. As a new Member, I came into the House and saw this splendidly bewigged figure. There is a lot to be said for wigs, as I am sure you will agree, Mr Speaker. I found him to be a gentle, amiable and knowledgeable person who was willing to help Members to find their way around procedures and help them to use those procedures to achieve their ends, rather than saying that precedent did not allow things to be done. When I asked him about a particular motion that I was thinking of tabling, he told me that it had not been used recently, by which he meant that it had not been used since 1751.

That is exactly what we want from a Clerk to the House. We want someone who is so steeped in the history that he understands where things have come from, and therefore how they can be used. When Sir Robert appeared before the Procedure Committee recently to discuss the concept of renewing petitioning and introducing e-petitions—a very modern idea—he took us back to 1305 and the origins of petitioning. Indeed, petitioning predates 1305. He explained how powerful petitioning had been in the earliest days of Parliament, and we drew the interesting conclusion that e-petitioning could be equally powerful in the new Parliament. That is where precedent can take us. It does not show us what cannot be done; it shows us what can be done. It is more a living aspect of this Parliament than a dead hand that does not allow change. Sir Robert saw that clearly; he got that right.

Sir Robert therefore enabled us to do things in a better way by ensuring that the powers of the House were there to be used, ideally, to keep a check on the Executive, which is what we are here to do. I am sorry that quill pens went out when he came in. Modernisation can sometimes come in too quickly and be taken too far. Finding that there is a precedent for exercising our power is at the heart of what we do, and the precedent of this House, which is vested in the Clerk, is the way in which we stop arbitrary uses of power. In Sir Robert, we had a man who was able to help us to hold the Executive to account, to stop arbitrary uses of power and to preserve democracy in this country. Whoever succeeds him will have a very hard act to follow. His departure represents an enormous loss, and I am very sad that he is not going to exceed the length of service achieved by Paul Jodrell. As a cricketing man, he will know that, although 42 is not a bad average, one will always want to carry on a bit longer in any individual innings.