Points of Order

John Hayes Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Colleagues, I hope you will forgive me if I say this very publicly to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I bet others have noticed it—I certainly have, ever since he came into the House and we got to know each other. The hon. Gentleman is a person of strong religious faith. As it happens, I am not. I have always been proud of my Jewish roots and my Jewish identity, but I am not a practising religious person. What I admire about the hon. Gentleman—and it makes him a most lovable figure in the House of Commons—is that he radiates warmth, empathy and compassion. He is one of those people of faith who do not spend time preaching it but live it.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Such is the length of our relationship and our friendship, which has been long suspected and about which I think we can now come clean, that I rushed here from Lincolnshire when I heard the news of your imminent departure. In an age of technocratic turgidity and mechanistic mediocrity, you have brought colour and style to this place. No one could deny your eloquence or your extraordinary, encyclopaedic grasp of facts, of which we are all envious. I do not know how you manage to remember not only facts about our constituencies but our birthdays, wedding anniversaries, children’s names—what don’t you remember, Mr Speaker?

You have given life to this place in a way that few could ever have managed and few of your predecessors achieved. You have made this place far more interesting than it would have been without you. But there is something else that is rarely said about you, and it is this. I fully recognise your sensitivity and humanity. There are countless acts of kindness that you have shown Members of this House that are never publicised—because they would not be by their nature—and to which it is only fair now to draw attention. When Members have had difficulties of one sort or another—the trials and tribulations which are the inevitable consequences of life here—you have always been there for them. That work as our Speaker needs to be recorded and celebrated, and acknowledged today. I will miss you not only for your indulgence, of which I have been a frequent beneficiary, as you well know, but for your character and style, and that will last long after you leave the Chair, as I hope our friendship will.

[Mr Speaker]

Let me say to the right hon. Gentleman that our friendship will endure for a long time to come. Among other things that we have in common, we share a passion for, and a slightly obsessive preoccupation with, historical statistics relating to tennis.

By the way, I have never lost any sleep over a work-related matter, because it is not worth doing. The nights without sleep that I have tended to experience over the years, and doubtless will do so in the future, have ordinarily been during either the US Open or the Australian Open, when, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, my normal practice is to forgo sleep if the alternative is the opportunity to watch my all-time sporting hero, Roger Federer.