Sittings of the House (Wednesday 17 April)

John Bercow Excerpts

Tuesday 16th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[George Galloway]

It is a very important qualification. He was—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I say, as I do not wish the hon. Gentleman to be led away from the path of virtue, that the point may be of interest to scholars but it is at best tangential to the sittings of the House motion?

[George Galloway]

As would have been what I was going to say about Neddy Scrymgeour, the great temperance MP who was Mr Churchill’s partner in the two-Member constituency at that time. How we could do with some temperance, some prohibition in the House today, at least as far as the hon. Member for Falkirk (Eric Joyce) is concerned.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I know the hon. Gentleman is developing his argument, but I ask whether he would be good enough to withdraw the reference to an hon. Member who is not present, and to continue with his main speech.

[George Galloway]

I happily withdraw the remark. It was unworthy, but I have some history with the hon. Gentleman. I hope you, Mr Speaker, and the House will forgive me for that unworthy detour down Dundee way.

My point is that Mr Churchill was a deeply divisive figure. He was a man who changed sides, ratted and re-ratted; a man who was in Parliament, out of it and back again; and a man whose conduct of public affairs was very controversial and divisive. However, by the time he died, only a tiny percentage of the population were churlish enough to imagine that such a man should not be given the full 21-gun treatment and the full gun carriage treatment.

Virtually everybody in this country knows that, were it not for Mr Churchill, this Parliament would either not exist or it would speak in German. I argue that the very existence of the country was saved by Mr Churchill. That makes him worthy of a national funeral. That is what made him—whatever one’s point of view of his domestic politics—deserving of the muffling of the chimes of Big Ben, and deserving of the lowering of the cranes on the Thames.

No such consensus exists—you must know this, Mr Speaker—about the deceased in this case. Vast tracts of this land—the north, Scotland, the midlands and south Wales, and other industrial areas of this country, which were reduced to distressed areas in Mrs Thatcher’s term of office—have never forgiven her, but they are being asked to pay for this funeral. In fact, they are not being asked; they are being told that they must pay for it.

The deceased was a great proponent of private enterprise and a great enemy of public expenditure and the role of the state, which she wished to shrink. You were once a devotee of those things, Mr Speaker, but age has brought wisdom, as it has in some respects to all of us. Is that not an irony? As Ken Loach, the great film director, put it, surely we should have put the funeral out to tender to the private sector, and invited companies to sponsor it. Surely that is what Mrs Thatcher would have wanted at a time when our pensioners are shivering to death in a long winter that has stretched into the spring. At a time when we are virtually nationally bankrupt, is it right that the public should be told—not asked, but told—that they must pay for a party political funeral? I believe not.

The public have not been consulted on any of this. If my postbag has any relation to anyone else’s, it must be obvious that a lot of people are very unhappy. The public had one chance, to which I alluded a moment ago. They could download “Ding-Dong!”, the song from “The Wizard of Oz”, as they did in very large numbers, but the state broadcaster, which has led the fawning, censored the music that the public chose with their money in private economic decisions—Mrs Thatcher was a big fan of those.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I was awaiting the conclusion of the hon. Gentleman’s sentence, but I struggle to see how what he has just said relates to the terms of the sittings of the House motion, to which I know it was his intention, and is now his intention, immediately to return.

[George Galloway]

Indeed, Sir. Of course, the backdrop cannot be separated from the motion. Many watching on the Parliament channel will know what the backdrop is—[Laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen may laugh, but that is because they are not used to being watched on the Parliament channel.

Perhaps that is just as well—[Interruption.] They cannot silence me. Some Members are not for turning, and I am one of them. Better men than they have tried to do so. [An Hon. Member: “You are hardly ever here.”] But when I am here, people listen, unlike some—[Interruption.] Well, I have had a lot of tweets about the speeches that preceded this one, and they are not at all complimentary.

The backdrop to this motion is clear, and it has been one thing after another. As Mr Macmillan said, it is not one damn thing, it is one damn thing after another. It is the state mourning that was effectively declared by the state broadcaster. It is the decision that the Government made—it is speculated that your office, Mr Speaker, was not wild about the idea—to recall Parliament at vast public expense. Members of Parliament were offered up to £3,700 to fly back from their holidays to attend what was, in effect, a state eulogy for a party political figure, and then to fly back at public expense to their holidays. I hope that IPSA will release the details of who claimed and what they claimed. That was a grotesque and totally unnecessary decision. Monday was the day on which Parliament returned, and Monday was the day on which people could have paid tribute and made the points that they wished to make. That was the second problem. The state mourning was the first, and the unnecessary and fantastically expensive recall of Parliament was the second.

The muffling of the chimes of Big Ben was the third, the banning of “Ding-Dong!” was the fourth and now we have this motion. The shadow Leader of the House, politely as is her wont, made the point that there is every belief in this House that this Prime Minister likes to avoid Prime Minister’s questions. If he avoids it tomorrow, he will have avoided it for four consecutive weeks— [Interruption.] I am at every Prime Minister’s questions— [Interruption.] I again caution hon. Gentlemen—as I must call them—on the Government Benches: people are listening to this debate, and this Thatcherite chorus, cackling like hyenas, would do better to show a touch of sensitivity to the fact that millions of people in this country hate Margaret Thatcher and those who followed her.

If the Prime Minister dodges Prime Minister’s questions tomorrow, he will have dodged them for four consecutive weeks. As Mr Wilson said, a week is a long time in politics. Four weeks is a long time to miss Prime Minister’s questions, the only mass audience—

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[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Will you rule whether such turns of phrase are parliamentary?

[Mr Speaker]

The short answer is that what has just been said was distasteful, but was not disorderly. It does not seem to have evoked any great display of misery on the part of the hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke), but I know that when the hon. Member for Bradford West rises to speak again, he will do so with the degree of calm and measurement of his words for which I know, in future years, he will want to be renowned.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

There was I under the impression that the hon. Member for Bradford West (George Galloway) was a great orator. In the context of his last comments, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would wish to congratulate this Prime Minister on ensuring that Parliament is not absent for four months, and on bringing the House back in September for those two sessions of Prime Minister’s questions that, until recently, did not happen.

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[George Galloway]

Welcomed? My goodness. I do not know where it was welcomed—certainly not by the financial commentators; certainly not by the markets; certainly not by the public; certainly not by the opinion polls—but the Prime Minister has not been able to be questioned about it. The Prime Minister has not been able to be questioned about anything for four weeks, neither domestic nor international. Our country is involved in very many serious matters overseas—you will be very happy that I do not seek to dilate upon them, Mr Speaker—and the Prime Minister has not been able to be questioned about them.

I just feel, and I think that the attendance here this evening indicates, that there are many who feel, whether they are in the official Opposition or not, that this has all gone too far. An attempt at canonisation of a person around whom there is—I see that Mr Speaker is frowning. I speak as a religious man. I am not against canonisation where it is justified, but there has to be a consensus before one can be canonised, and no such canonisation is possible—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is an insistent noise from the Back Benches, which I think is rather unseemly. Members cannot both cavil at what is being said and make a raucous noise themselves. I simply say to the hon. Member for Bradford West that I was not frowning at him; I was listening attentively to him.

[George Galloway]

Thank you, sir.

The point is that beatification and canonisation is something that can happen only when there is a consensus. There is no such consensus about the former Prime Minister, yet people are acting, the state is acting. The state broadcaster and now the parliamentary authorities are asking us to accept things that are too close to royal. Mrs Thatcher famously had a slightly fraught relationship with the palace, and I can understand why. Mrs Thatcher might to many Government Members have been great, but she was not great to up to 60% of the electorate when she was alive, and, according to the polls, more than 50% of the people now being polled are against her—strongly against her and feel that she did bad things here and abroad. It brings into discredit this kind of funeral, this kind of state occasion, if it is awarded when many people in the country feel it is unjustified, and feel that it is being rammed down their throats for partisan and ideological reasons, for which they are being asked to pay.

Through you, Mr Speaker, I caution the establishment of which I suspect you are not fully regarded as a member, though you ought to be, because your office is one of the great offices in the land. I say to the establishment, through you, Mr Speaker, that it has gone too far. There has been too much of this. It is too expensive, too elaborate, too regal, and many people in the country are unhappy about it. And to compound it all by effectively cancelling a vital part of British political life would be to add insult to the injury already suffered.

My last point—[Hon. Members: “Hurray!”] Gentlemen—[Hon. Members: “And ladies!”]—and ladies, although the misbehaviour is coming exclusively from gentlemen, as I think they are called, on the Government Benches, my point is this. This funeral did not have to be organised so that it would clash with Prime Minister’s Question Time. It could have been held today or on Thursday. The state was vitally involved in the organisation of this funeral—we know that, because we are paying for it—and it was the state that organised the clash with Prime Minister’s Question Time, so why should the House of Commons be asked to accept the abrogation of its proper role tomorrow, given that the Government are responsible for the clash?

It is too late now to change the time of the funeral, but it is not too late for the House to refuse to abandon its responsibilities at Prime Minister’s questions. If the House divides on this at the end of the evening, as I hope it will, I hope that a decent number of Members of Parliament will reflect the feelings, if not of their own constituents, then of the tens of millions of constituents of many of us on the Opposition Benches—and of some Government Members too—who feel that the adoration of the Maggie has gone far enough.

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[Mr Skinner]

I am just making a statement about the fact that during the course of Margaret Thatcher’s parliamentary time, especially when she was Prime Minister, she was divisive, first, in the sense that she got rid of all the wets so that she could set about her agenda. There is no question at all about that—I know that has nothing to do with Question Time being abandoned, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. A moment or two ago the hon. Gentleman was very much on the issue of Prime Minister’s questions and I know that he will wish to return to it.

[Mr Skinner]

I do not need any lectures from Tories about what they did to Mrs Thatcher, because I remember that night and the following day, when she stood at that Dispatch Box. She had not had a night’s sleep and she was making her final speech in Parliament. Why was she making the final speech in Parliament? It was not because the Labour MPs had put a knife in her back. There is no question about that: a succession of Tory MPs had gone to her in the night and said, “I don’t think you should run again for the second ballot.” That is the truth of it. So, whatever I am saying here today does not compare with the fact that a woman who had won three elections in a row then suffered the indignity of being kicked out like a dog in the night by her own Members of Parliament. That is the truth of it, and whatever I say today is minimal compared with that.

Yes, I would like to have Question Time tomorrow, of course, and I have a few questions prepared. Perhaps I should ask the Leader of the House my questions; he might answer them when he winds up. One of them is undoubtedly about getting rid of the bedroom tax. I also want to tell the Prime Minister that it would not be a bad idea to do something about agency workers. There is all this talk about immigration, but the real problem in our society is the fact that a majority of the foreign people who come to this country are now being dictated to by agencies, and it is time we got rid of them. They are undercutting the indigenous workers. I worked with Poles in 1948, down the pit. Why were there no rows? Why did nobody get worked up about the displaced persons—the Poles and the Ukrainians? Because they were in the union with us, and they were paid the same wages. And there wasn’t an agency in sight. So that is another question that we could have put tomorrow.

We could also have put a question about doing something, now that the country is skint, like we did in 1945—

[Mr Skinner]

It was caused by that great economic tsunami that swept across the world—[Interruption.] And why did it sweep across the world? Because in 1989, in one of her last acts, Mrs Thatcher talked about the brave casino economy, the big bang in the City and deregulation. That was the moment it began. We never knew when it would turn into a recession, but we knew that somehow or other, that society of instant gratification would cause a recession at some time. That is how it all began.

It was just like that with the share-owning democracy. We could have discussed that tomorrow. Mrs Thatcher, that non-divisive character, sold off all the public utilities. She said, “We’ll sell off all the public utilities—gas, electricity and all the rest—and everybody will have shares. You can buy them off Sid and you’ll be able to be part of that great British share-owning democracy.” What happened to that? What happened to the share-owning democracy? EDF is now owned by French electricity; E.ON is owned by Germans; Scottish Power is owned by Spain’s Iberdrola; and npower is owned by the German company RWE. Anglian Water has gone to Canada, and Thames Water is owned by the Germans—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am trying to help the hon. Gentleman. He is absolutely in order, and it is relevant to the motion if he refers to matters that he would raise if there were a question session. In other words, he can raise the questions, but it is not in order for him also to provide the answers.

[Mr Skinner]

So who owns Orange and T-mobile? Have a guess. France and Germany! Who owns Cellnet and O2? Spain! Who owns Arriva buses? The German Deutsche Bank!

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[George Galloway]

I am grateful to the Leader of the House. He would not want to mislead the House or the public on that point. First, I was elected on 29 March, and the House of Commons has been on holiday 50% of the time since then. I am in the House of Commons every day; I just do not want to vote for Tweedledum or Tweedledee—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I ask the hon. Gentleman to resume his seat?

There are two issues here. First, it was not clear to me, but it has since been signalled to me, that the Leader of the House has concluded his speech; I thought he was giving way to the hon. Gentleman. Secondly, the hon. Gentleman should not accuse someone of misleading the House, which I thought I heard him suggest.

[George Galloway]

Mr Speaker, I said he “would not want to” mislead the House.

[Mr Speaker]

I am genuinely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that correction. There is no argument.

The debate has been concluded by the Leader of the House. Those who wished to speak were called to do so. I do not think anybody would say I have been other than fair in facilitating a proper debate, and I listened respectfully to all the speeches, as I always do.

Question put.