Election of Speaker

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker-Elect]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that speech. He has set out very clearly for new Members how to take one’s opportunities at the outset of a new Parliament.

I do not know whether any other colleague wishes to contribute, but if none does so—

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker-Elect]

Mr David Blunkett.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

On behalf of Back Benchers, Mr Speaker-Elect, I should like to congratulate you, and I should like to thank the Father of the House for reminding me that I was only 12 when he was elected to the House. That has made me feel a lot younger.

Mr Speaker-Elect, you held the Chair for 10 months in the last Parliament. We remember that, as you described this afternoon, you were even handed and fair to all major parties and between Members. You were also rigorous, so I shall be brief.

One of the things that you advocated and that was debated at length was the need for new politics. This House must be able to hold the Executive—the Government—to account more effectively. On many occasions with my own Government, you allowed to be called to the House through private notice questions Ministers who did not report to the House things that they had announced in public before the House had had a chance to meet. I hope that that continues, despite the fact that it would appear that three major constitutional announcements that relate to the House—to the voting system and the upper Chamber, on expenditure cuts and on changes to how the House might rid itself of a Government that no longer had the confidence of the House—all appear to have been made prior to Parliament convening next week. One of those announcements was made only 48 hours before it would have been possible for the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Chief Secretary to report directly to the House.

Mr Speaker-Elect, we look forward to you defending our interests as Back Benchers from whichever party, but we look forward most of all to your being able to reassert the ideas that were promoted before the last general election—that we should not be engaged in fixes and we should not have the old caballing, and that we should have open, honest, forthright debate and that parliamentarians should genuinely be able to hold this new coalition to account.

[Mr Speaker-Elect]

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough, who has reminded me of my commitment to scrutiny and accountability, and I happily underline that commitment this afternoon.

In closing my remarks, I should like to reiterate what has already been said by others: namely, new Members deserve a huge welcome and every possible encouragement and exhortation to go about their business in the way that they think fit on behalf of their constituents.

Adjournment

Resolved, That this House do now adjourn until tomorrow at ten minutes past Three o’clock. —(Mr Dunne.)