Election of Speaker, 22 June 2009

ten nominations were put forward for the post of Speaker of the House of Commons. After the first round of voting, where MPs could vote for one of the candidates in a secret ballot, the results were:

Sir Alan Beith 's proposals for the Speakership

Sir Alan Beith wants to lead Parliamentary reform as Speaker of the House of Commons.

In the recent contest for the post of Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Alan Beith set out his vision for the Speakership.

What the Next Speaker Needs To Do

The next Speaker of the House of Commons will be expected to lead a process of openness and reform, and will have a mandate to do so. The election will be quite unlike any other Speakership election of modern times because of the circumstances in which it is taking place.

An open and transparent approach to the Speakership needs to be one of the symbols of an open and transparent House of Commons. A determination to link the public with Parliament needs to characterise the Speakership and the workings of the House. And it needs to be a House of Commons which is seen to be doing its job well, scrutinising the Executive and challenging it where necessary; controlling public spending, including its own; ensuring that all the legislation it passes is fit for purpose; providing for the grievances of constituents to be dealt with; and debating policy choices in a process which constituents can recognise as rational discussion rather than a shouting match.

My own view is that public anger has created both a need and an opportunity for wider onstitutional change, which is something to which I have been committed throughout my political life. The leaders of the three largest parties have each now linked themselves to the aspiration for constitutional change; the analysis is partly shared, although there are more differences on the measures to be taken. Many of the proposals would profoundly affect Parliament, and are intended to do so. The Speaker must therefore be part of these discussions, while preserving the ability of the Chair to preside over debate in the Chamber with total impartiality. But it is in the procedures and practices of the House itself that the influence of a newly elected Speaker can be decisive in maintaining the momentum for reform and ensuring that change serves and does not damage the ability of Members on all sides of the House to represent their constituents.

So where is change most needed? Clearly in respect of allowances and pay there is now no serious challenge to the view that these things need to be taken completely out of the hands of MPs to be determined and policed by outside authorities. Self-regulation is over. Parliament has already ended it for occupations ranging from lawyers to gangmasters and security guards. What was sauce for them is necessary sauce for us.

But that is only the beginning, and has effectively already been decided; the Speaker will need to work with the House to ensure that it is fully carried through. Just as important to our constituents is that the Commons should be able to do its job effectively. That must start with managing its own business, as most other democratic Parliaments do. The Government has a job to do, in devising policy, proposing legislation, managing the public finances and running the departments of state. So long as it has the confidence of the House, it needs to have the powers to do so. But that does not free the Executive from scrutiny or challenge. It is not the Executive's job and should not be its right to decide how Parliament does its job. Yet that is what our Standing Orders currently allow the Executive to do, by giving it total control of the effective time of the House, aside only from Opposition day debates, private business and private members' bill time, which is itself too limited to allow controversial bills to get through. The Speaker and the Deputy Speakers should chair a Business Committee with no government majority and strong back-bench representation, with the power to allocate the time of the House. The Government can then propose legislation, but the Business Committee can decide how the time of the House is used to consider it, and whether the programme is manageable in the time scale of the session. The Business Committee would be directly involved in discussions about which items in the draft Queen's Speech proceed in the following session. It, and not the Government, should move amendable business motions such as motions on the order of consideration of a bill or motions to extend the time allocated to an item.

Similarly, it would be for the Business Committee to decide whether a Private Members' Bill justifies additional time on the basis of the support it has received. It should also be expected to allocate time for Private Members motions, a facility the House lost in relatively recent times. There must be few democratic parliaments which give their MPs (as opposed to parties) no opportunity at all to bring forward a motion on which a vote can take place.

The House needs to overhaul the way it deals with public finance, particularly the Estimates of government departments. At present much financial procedure is either nominal in character or mystifying even to experienced members. Endless billions of pounds are voted through "on the nod". The Speaker's principal Deputy, the Chairman of Ways and Means, could take on a key role in supervising the Parliamentary handing of the Estimates, and there should be a process by which significant issues genuinely arising from the Estimates can be brought to the floor of the House by Select Committees.

Prime Minister's question time is an embarrassment to Parliament. Constituents liken it to a school playground. A new Speaker should get backbenchers and party leaders together to discuss how best to make it work effectively and rationally. It has developed several legitimate functions, not all of which need to be dealt with through the same procedures: it enables some M.P.s to raise issues affecting their constituents directly and publicly with the Prime Minister, which can lead usefully to him becoming personally engaged and using No.10 resources to help deal with serious problems. It serves as a test of whether party leaders and the P.M. can carry the confidence of their own parties in the way they present their case. But as a mechanism for getting real answers to questions and challenging inadequate answers it is hopeless, and as mere raw material for the media sketch-writers it cannot be justified.

The question sessions which Prime Ministers experience at the Liaison Committee, which are far from popular with the sketch-writers, nevertheless show that much more effective probing can take place in the less heated atmosphere of a Select Committee. There is now so much No. 10 involvement in departmental policy that it is appropriate that the Prime Minister should come before departmental Select Committees on some occasions, particularly when he has taken a very a very close interest in an issue they are considering. More generally, the Select Committees are a Parliamentary success story and they should be strengthened and made more independent - for example, by secret ballot in the election of Chairmen and members. Some Select Committee reports should be open to debates with votes on key recommendations.

Any programme to improve the House of Commons needs to be based on analysis not just of its weaknesses but also of its strengths. It does some things reasonably well. Most members work hard on behalf of their constituents, and many put in hours of work far beyond many other occupations, to the astonishment of those who have tried "shadowing" M.P.s. Parliamentary allowances that are so much criticised pay the wages of members' staff who go to endless trouble to help constituents who face a huge diversity of problems, and often have to deal with initial hostility intended for their M.P. The staff of the House itself, including Library and committee staff, provide efficient, courteous and impartial support to members. Select Committees engage with many sections of the public through evidence sessions and e-consultations, and they are often well respected among those who work or take an interest in their fields. All -party groups of M.P.s campaigning in support of vulnerable people and minority groups bring public concerns to the attention of government and bring many members of the public into direct contact with politicians. Parliament needs to build on its strengthens as well as tackling its failings, and both need to be recognised.

I said at the beginning that the Speakership itself should symbolise the House it serves. Openness should characterise how it functions. Rulings should clearly explain the basis on which they are made. The list of members likely to be called in a debate should not be a closely guarded secret, and the rationale of choosing members to speak should be recognisable and, where necessary, explained. Members who have attended throughout the debate should be given preference over members who have come late into the debate or have been sent in by the Whips to fill time, a practice which should itself be discouraged. The Speaker and his Deputies should accept a public role outside the Commons, supporting the work that M.P.s do to explain Parliament's role to their own constituents. Lastly but of fundamental importance, the Speaker must reassert the traditional authority of the office, exemplified by Speaker Lenthall and re-enacted as the doors are closed on the sovereign's representative at every State Opening, of protecting the independence of the Commons from Executive power. The rights of the Commons are there because they are the rights of those who elect us; it is on their behalf that they should be exercised.