Select Committee on Governance of the House

Debate between John McDonnell and Jesse Norman

Wednesday 10th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House welcomes the Speaker’s announcement on 1 September of a pause in the process of appointment of a new Clerk of the House and Chief Executive, to give time for further consideration; and accordingly determines that:

(a) there shall be a select committee, called the House of Commons Governance Committee, to consider the governance of the House of Commons, including the future allocation of the responsibilities for House services currently exercised by the Clerk of the House and Chief Executive;

(b) the Committee report to the House by 12 January 2015;

(c) the Committee shall have the powers given to select committees related to government departments under paragraph 4(a) and 4(b) of Standing Order No. 152;

(d) Mr Jack Straw be the Chair of the Committee;

(e) the Committee shall consist of seven other backbench members, to be elected by parties in the proportion of three Conservative, two Labour and one Liberal Democrat, together with one representative of the other parties represented in the House; the parties shall forward their nominations to the Chair of the Committee of Selection by 14 October and any motion made in the House on behalf of the Committee of Selection by the Chair or another member of the Committee shall be treated as having been made in pursuance of Standing Order No. 121(2) for the purposes of Standing Order No. 15(1)(c).

It is an honour to open a debate on a motion to which so many distinguished Members have added their names—the co-sponsors include the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), the right hon. Members for Derby South (Margaret Beckett) and for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart)—and which has commanded support at all levels throughout the House.

The role of the Clerk of the House dates back to at least 1363. Today, the Clerk serves, first, as the House’s adviser on all aspects of procedure, practice and privilege and as the editor of “Erskine May”; secondly, as the chief executive of the House service and chair of the management board; and also, importantly, as accounting officer, as corporate officer, and as the head of the Clerks department, responsible for some 800 members of staff.

The motion is straightforward. It welcomes the announcement by the Speaker of a pause in the current recruitment to the post of Clerk; it establishes a new time-limited Select Committee to consider the governance of the House; it nominates the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) as Chair of that Committee; and it outlines the powers of the Committee, its reporting date and the election of its members. The debate arises because of widespread concern among Members in all parts of the House that the process governing the appointment of the next Clerk of the House was seriously flawed.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Jesse Norman]

I should be delighted.

[John McDonnell]

I merely ask for clarification. Does the hon. Gentleman see the new Committee as a time-limited exercise, or as a permanent body?

[Jesse Norman]

As the motion makes clear, the Committee will be time-limited and report in January next year.

There has been some misunderstanding, and much heated discussion, of the clerkship. Those are issues to which I have no desire to add, but the following facts are not in dispute. First, the chosen candidate, Ms Carol Mills, an administrator in the Australian Parliament, was not qualified for the specifically constitutional and procedural functions exercised by the Clerk. Secondly—

BBC (Proposed Cuts)

Debate between John McDonnell and Jesse Norman

Thursday 1st December 2011 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

There are always benefits from a process like this. My concern is about the long-term future and some of the short-term implications that the hon. Gentleman himself pointed out. We should not wander into this debate naively, because there is a separate agenda, which was set by James Murdoch at that time. The tone of sheer arrogance in that speech somewhat contrasts with the tone of his performance in the hearings by the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport. In that speech, he proclaimed his advocacy of Darwinism, and he said that he believed in natural selection in all things, particularly within the media market. It was like Gordon Gekko in “Wall Street” saying, “Greed…is good.” James Murdoch proclaimed that the law of the jungle worked. It was almost Orwellian. I shall quote him exactly:

“There is an inescapable conclusion that we must reach if we are to have a better society. The only reliable, durable and perpetual guarantor of independence of the media is profit.”

That is exactly the agenda that was set. It is that philosophy in other sections of the media that has led us all the way down to the Leveson inquiry and the descent of parts of the media into the gutter. This is not a conspiracy theory. I do not need to mention the 11 occasions on which the Prime Minister has met Murdoch’s News International. I do not need to mention the six occasions on which the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport has done so, or the three occasions on which the Deputy Prime Minister has done so. I do not think that it is part of those meetings; I do not think that it is part of a conspiracy. I simply think that the Government share that agenda.

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

Until the hon. Gentleman began to personalise this and mention individuals, I was prepared to share some of his concerns about the Murdoch speech and some of the claims that were made. Two things should be perfectly clear. First, many Government Members feel very warmly towards the BBC, and want to enfranchise and support the tradition of public service broadcasting, which it does better than anyone else in the world. That comes not just from Back-Bench Members but, I am thrilled to say, from the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister.

The second thing is—