Select Committee on Governance of the House

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Wednesday 10th September 2014 Commons Chamber

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

It is with some diffidence that I follow the greatest luminaries in the House who have spoken in this debate. It must be a rare debate that has had quite so many former Leaders of the House speak in it, and it is of fundamental importance.

It is worth looking at how this situation has evolved. In giving up his prerogative to appoint the Clerk, the Speaker made an important modernising and opening-up move, and that is to be commended. The setting up of a panel was a good way of opening up the process, even if I do not like the conclusion that it reached. Once it all came out, there was then, in this more open process, naturally a greater interest from the House in how it had all happened and whether it had happened in the best possible way. The Speaker has therefore been wise to agree to, and even to suggest, a pause in the process so that it may be thoroughly considered and a Clerk appointed who has the confidence of every Member of the House.

We have heard a very important debate on whether the role should be divided—on whether a Clerk can, by his nature, be good at running a big organisation, or a chief executive from outside can be a good Clerk. Underlying all that, there is this fundamental point: whatever other qualities the Clerk has, they must have the complete confidence of the House when advising individual Members and the Speaker on what the procedure is.

The great thing about an unwritten constitution is that, to an extent, we make it up as we go along. In this country, there are not really any constitutional experts; there are just people who insist that they know more about the constitution than the next person they talk to. There is an enormous amount of bluffing when people tell us what our constitution is. The more authoritatively people say they know what it is, the more they get away with it. [Laughter.] I know that, because it is a bluff that I am not ashamed to use myself from time to time. That is very important in a Clerk, and having a Clerk of 40 years’ experience may well be essential—they could well be an Australian Clerk, as the Australian Parliament follows some very similar procedures to ours, so there is no objection in principle to an Australian—because when a point of order is raised and the Speaker is quickly whispered advice by the Clerk, or one of the assistant Clerks, the whole House must then accept that ruling as authoritative. Otherwise we would have endless points of order questioning the authority of the Chair and the advice being given to the Speaker by the Clerk sitting in the row in front of him. That would lead to complete disorder. The procedures of the House cannot operate properly without confidence, and that requires the experience that allows the bluff to be realistic.

Then there is the question of seniority. Sometimes the requirements of democracy, and particularly the rights of the minority, need inefficiency within our systems. If we have a purely efficient system, the Government get all their legislation through, as they feel like it, with very little debate and rapid progress through the House. The inefficiencies ensure that the Opposition have their say—and those of us on the Government Benches must always remember that we will not remain there for ever. We therefore need the Clerk as the most senior figure and the one who can bluff the best.