Election of Speaker

Debate between Lord Clarke of Nottingham and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 4th November 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (in the Chair)]

I invite Sir Lindsay Hoyle to take the Chair of the House. [Applause.]

Mr Kenneth Clarke left the Chair, and Sir Lindsay Hoyle was taken out of his place and conducted to the Chair by Jackie Doyle-Price, Mr Nigel Evans and Caroline Flint.

[Mr Speaker-Elect]

(standing on the upper step): No clapping. [Laughter.]

Mr Clarke, thank you for the way you have chaired our proceedings. We have kept you longer than expected and I really appreciate it. You have been steadfast in the job you have done and it really is appreciated.

May I say thank you to all the candidates? Whoever was selected would have made a great Speaker. We thank those who withdrew—Sir Henry Bellingham and Mr Shailesh Vara—for the way they wanted to ensure that we did not have to stay for another two rounds.

As I have discussed, it is about the campaign and the challenges ahead for me and this Chamber. I stand by what I have said and stand firm. I hope that this House will be once again a great, respected House, not just in here but around the world. I hope that once again it is the envy of the world. We have to make sure that that tarnish is polished away and that the respect and tolerance that we expect from everyone who works here will be shown, and we will keep that in order.

I also want to say something to my family. [Applause.] There is one difficult part that I want to get over. There is one person who is not here: my daughter Natalie. I wish she had been here. We all miss her, as a family, and none more so than her mum Miriam. I have to say that she was everything to all of us. She will always be missed but she will always be in our thoughts. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”]

I hope to show that the experience I have shown previously will continue. As I have promised, I will be neutral. I will be transparent. I think that this House can do more to ensure that that transparency continues, and nowhere more than in respect of the Commission. I have never served on the Commission—I have never even seen the minutes of the Commission—but I do believe there is a need for a little bit of transparency once again.

I have to say thank you to my family, but also to the staff from my office who are also with me tonight. They have been with me for a long time. In fact, Bev, who is up there and who will get all embarrassed, has been with me for 21 years. She left university and said, “I’m never going to get married. I’m never going to have children. I don’t want any of that in my life.” Guess what? She is married; she has children; and she is still with me. The same with Peter and Mike. They have done a fantastic job. They have been really good.

I want to thank everybody. It has been a long night. I do not want to keep you any longer, but I do stand by what I have said. This House will change, but it will change for the better. Thank you, everybody.

The Speaker-Elect sat down in the Chair and the Mace was placed upon the Table.

Government’s EU Exit Analysis

Debate between Lord Clarke of Nottingham and Lindsay Hoyle

Wednesday 31st January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

I call Rachel Maclean.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Oops. I call Mr Kenneth Clarke. You were not on my list, but you have just been added.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison McGovern]

Does the Father of the House agree that the extraordinary actions taken by the Governor of the Bank of England in response to the vote are very poorly understood, which creates an even worse impression of the forecasts made beforehand?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. I must inform the House that there will be a six-minute limit after the current speech, and if people intervene I will have to bring it down further. I do not want to stop debate; I just want to warn everybody.

[Mr Clarke]

I agree entirely with the hon. Lady. The Governor actually lessened the impact that the Bank forecast by taking very prompt action to minimise the consequences. He would still agree with me, however, and has done publicly, that there has still be damage to the economy already, and he has tried to quantify the effect on GDP as a whole.

I will conclude with one last point—I said I would be short—about these forecasts. I hope we get more full information from the Government as events unfold and some impact assessments of their policy, once they have decided what it is, but it is almost inevitable that the impact will be detrimental to some extent. I know of very few economists who believe in market economics at all who would say that leaving the largest, richest multinational trading agreement in the world can be anything other than, to some degree, detrimental. I look forward to someone such as my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood), with whom I often agree on economic policy, trying to explain to me how leaving the single market and customs union can have anything but a negative impact on the economy. How on earth can tariffs and customs barriers between us and our major market on the continent—the planning permission for those lorry parks, the recruiting of those thousands of staff—have a positive effect? How can regulatory divergence, which will damage trade, particularly in goods and services, have a positive effect? Whatever the best efforts of economists in these and future papers, they will be trying to measure the detrimental effects on the British economy that this step is bound to have. The country will be poorer if it pulls out of its present economic and trading relationships with the EU. It is our duty in this House, on a cross-party basis, to do what we can to minimise the damage.

Nuclear Safeguards Bill

Debate between Lord Clarke of Nottingham and Lindsay Hoyle

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 16th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend has just confirmed that the Bill is necessary only because the Government have announced their intention to leave Euratom. I voted against the proposal when it was put to the House before the last general election, and I have yet to hear a rational reason for our leaving Euratom. As all our previously satisfactory arrangements for nuclear safeguarding are set aside, all our existing agreements with the IAEA are put in difficulty. Safeguarding is necessary to comply with the non-proliferation treaties, to which we apply a great deal of importance.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The right hon. and learned Gentleman may be the Father of the House, but that does not allow him to make a speech when everybody else is waiting. He has more experience of this House than I will ever have, and he ought to use it.

[Mr Clarke]

Will the Secretary of State give an argument in favour of abolishing a satisfactory arrangement that has lasted for almost 50 years?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

It might have been helpful if the right hon. and learned Gentleman had asked that question to begin with, rather than giving a speech.