Clerk of the Parliaments

Lord Newby Excerpts

Monday 24th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, I associate myself with the comments of the Leader and the Leader of the Opposition. Everybody in your Lordships’ House knows that Sir David Beamish is a man of many talents. One that he hid from me at least was the one that both speakers have referred to—namely, his ability as a quiz show contestant. Not only did he win “Mastermind”, he also won “Master Brain”, which was an amalgamation of the radio quiz “Brain of Britain” and “Mastermind”. His specialist subject there was the works of Beatrix Potter. I wonder if he thought of himself as Parliament’s equivalent of Mr McGregor. I suspect not because he was far too kindly. He honed his knowledge on that subject, apparently, on car journeys by thinking up questions to ask himself. I am not sure whether he whiled away the longueurs of committee meetings in your Lordships’ House by following the same pursuit, but if he did, I doubt whether committee members would have been aware of it.

Sir David began his career in an era when the regulation of banks in the City was allegedly done largely by the raising of the Governor of the Bank of England’s eyebrow. In David’s case, he expressed his displeasure, in committees at least, by knitting his brow and frowning in a manner that implied that he had thought of at least three compelling arguments why the proposal being propounded, no doubt by some relatively new and inexperienced committee member, was not seriously to be entertained. That could have a seriously restraining influence on more experienced members of the committee who, having seen David’s frown, were less inclined to support the proposal because they knew that he was, albeit elegantly, about to shoot it down in flames.

As we have heard, Sir David’s career covered, by House of Lords standards, a period of unparalleled change. His role was often to strike a balance between accommodating change and doing so in a way that was within the overall traditions of the House and therefore likely to command its support. He was extremely adept at doing so. We all know that there is a very considerable gap in the ages at which we expect our officials to retire and those at which your Lordships retire, and David is retiring at the height of his powers. I believe that he has a number of interests that he is keen to pursue more vigorously. I did not know about Wikipedia. No doubt noble Lords will be looking at their entries to see if they are changed in the foreseeable future. We wish him well in these endeavours and a very long and happy retirement. In wishing him well, I too wish Ed Ollard the new Clerk of the Parliaments, the new Clerk Assistant and the new Reading Clerk well. We are very fortunate in the calibre of staff in your Lordships’ House and we look forward in particular to working very closely with these three new appointees in the new Parliament.