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The Prosser Perspective.... a weekly column from Dover and Deal MP Gwyn Prosser.

25 June 2009

On my first day in the Commons in 1997 the first business was to agree a Speaker for the new Parliament and Miss Betty Boothroyd, who had been in the Chair since 1992 was re-elected by the popular acclaim of the whole House.

Since then subsequent Speaker elections have been rather more torturous affairs and have taken rather more time. When Betty stood down in the year 2000 there were a dozen candidates and the election of her successor engaged the House for seven hours and included eleven separate divisions before Michael Martin was eventually able to take his place in the Chair.

Those procedures were further prolonged by repeated points of order and by attempts to change the rules of the election half way through the proceedings. Those attempts fortunately failed but six months later new rules were agreed and it was under these arrangements that this week’s Speaker elections took place.

Instead of selecting the Speaker by a series of motions, amendments and divisions the new arrangement is by secret eliminative ballot which is a fairer and more efficient way of voting. We had a choice of ten candidates this time and unlike past years they all produced manifestos and subjected themselves to parliamentary hustings.

There was all the usual lobbying and cajoling which accompanies elections in Westminster and it’s common knowledge now that a big majority of Labour MPs supported John Bercow but I wasn’t one of them.

Members of John’s Labour campaign team described him publicly as the ‘clean break reforming candidate’ but when they approached me requesting my backing their reasons for promoting him were rather more base. “Electing Berco as Speaker would get right up the noses of the Tories” I was told by one of his Labour promoters. Hardly a good enough reason to qualify for one of the highest offices in the land.

John Bercow’s a good orator, he’s personable and in recent years he’s shown far more support for the Government than for his own Party but before he was elected things were very different. He was a Keith Joseph supporter, a member of the right wing Monday Club, an extreme Thatcherite and a Special Advisor to Jonathan Aitken. I’m all for being non-partisan in the selection of Speaker and I appreciate that John has given all the appearances of having moved to the centre or centre left of British politics but I was looking for a more rounded candidate.

Margaret Beckett’s candidature ticked many boxes – experience, gravitas and a good feel for the House but it just doesn’t seem right to elect a Speaker who has just stepped down from the Government. So I cast all my votes for George Young, the respected and independently minded Tory who Chairs the Standards Committee. It’s true that Sir George is an Eton educated Baronet but I decided to swallow my prejudices.

In the event, it was John who won the election and on that basis I’m willing to swallow those other prejudices and give him the support that every House of Commons Speaker deserves.