Jesse Norman is the MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire. His latest book, The Winding Stair, a novel focusing on the rivalry of the 17th century legal titans Edward Coke and Francis Bacon, is published by Biteback.
I have always liked Lindsay Hoyle, and he has been a very welcome change from his predecessor. But Wednesday night was a disaster for the Speaker.
There is still widespread misunderstanding about what happened and why. But at its root was a simple question: whether the Speaker, and by extension Parliament, should allow themselves to be intimidated by public opinion – and what the consequences are if that occurs.
Let’s briefly recap what happened. This was an Opposition Day debate, held in favour of the Scottish National Party, which put down a motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
The options open to the Government were, as always, to accept the motion, to vote against it, or to amend it. On this occasion, it decided to put down its own amendment.
On Opposition Days, the convention has long been that the House votes first on the motion, and then on any amendment. Otherwise, every motion would be amended by the Government of the day, and Opposition parties would never get a vote on the substance of their motions.
However, on Wednesday the Speaker set aside established precedent by allowing two amendments, one from the Government and one from Labour. In so doing, he ignored the advice of the Clerk of the House, to the extent that the Clerk then felt obliged to write a public letter setting out that advice.
The effect of the Speaker’s action was to frame the vote in a way that clearly favoured one party, Labour, at the expense of another, the SNP. The foreseeable effect, as the Speaker had apparently been informed, was to put the Labour amendment first, and so to undermine the Opposition Day for the SNP.
Moreover, the Speaker did not take the Chair for the closing speeches and points of order – to my mind a serious abrogation of responsibility at such a moment – and ignored repeated calls from colleagues in the Chamber to return to the Chair. The effect of this was to leave Rosie Winterton (a former Labour Chief Whip, now a Deputy Speaker, then in the Chair) to take the full brunt of the reaction to the Speaker’s own mistaken decision.
The Speaker also did not require the Clerk or the Clerk Assistant, the two most senior Chamber officials, to be present in the Commons at the closing, so that they could give authoritative advice on points raised.
As a result, although the Government’s decision not to move its motion had the effect of destroying the rationale for the Speaker’s original decision, as MPs highlighted in the Chamber, the Chair never recognised this and never changed course.
In the event, Deputy Speaker Winterton waved through both the Labour amendment and the SNP motion without a division, despite the fact that there was a huge body of very noisy “Noes”, as the recording makes clear.
This too was a breach of Parliamentary protocol. The Bible of procedure, Erskine May, states that the Chair must take the sense of the House – clearly here, intense disagreement – and then offer an opinion by saying e.g. “I think the Ayes have it”. If that opinion is contested, as it loudly was in this case, the Chair should then proceed to divide the House.
This she entirely failed to do.
These are the facts. What about the explanation offered by the Speaker for his decision: that the issue was so controversial that he felt all parties’ positions ought to be voted on?
In principle, many people would think this view understandable, in the wake of the murders of Jo Cox and David Amess; all the more so perhaps with a crowd of people screaming outside in Parliament Square, as they were on Wednesday night.
Far from avoiding political controversy, however, this approach arguably worsened it. In any event, its intrinsic drawbacks should have been obvious from the start.
Allowing three votes, on the motion and the amendments, made it likely that the final vote, the Government amendment, would never take place. Putting the Labour amendment first prevented the SNP from a clean vote on its motion, when that was the whole point of the Opposition Day.
But there is a deeper objection. The Speaker said that his decision was taken out of his concern about popular anger (that is, danger to MPs). But in fact that is only likely to be worsened if the belief takes root that the Speaker, and the House, can be bullied.
There has been understandable bewilderment among journalists and the general public at these supposedly arcane procedural points.
But they, and a neutral Speaker, are absolutely central to the ability of MPs to discharge their judgement as representatives. So too is the principle that Parliament, while highly sensitive to public opinion, should never be intimidated by it.
Far from being arcane, these principles are the essence of our democracy – and with votes on the most emotive public issues, such as the Gaza conflict, they are more important than ever.
Jesse Norman is the MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire. His latest book, The Winding Stair, a novel focusing on the rivalry of the 17th century legal titans Edward Coke and Francis Bacon, is published by Biteback.
I have always liked Lindsay Hoyle, and he has been a very welcome change from his predecessor. But Wednesday night was a disaster for the Speaker.
There is still widespread misunderstanding about what happened and why. But at its root was a simple question: whether the Speaker, and by extension Parliament, should allow themselves to be intimidated by public opinion – and what the consequences are if that occurs.
Let’s briefly recap what happened. This was an Opposition Day debate, held in favour of the Scottish National Party, which put down a motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
The options open to the Government were, as always, to accept the motion, to vote against it, or to amend it. On this occasion, it decided to put down its own amendment.
On Opposition Days, the convention has long been that the House votes first on the motion, and then on any amendment. Otherwise, every motion would be amended by the Government of the day, and Opposition parties would never get a vote on the substance of their motions.
However, on Wednesday the Speaker set aside established precedent by allowing two amendments, one from the Government and one from Labour. In so doing, he ignored the advice of the Clerk of the House, to the extent that the Clerk then felt obliged to write a public letter setting out that advice.
The effect of the Speaker’s action was to frame the vote in a way that clearly favoured one party, Labour, at the expense of another, the SNP. The foreseeable effect, as the Speaker had apparently been informed, was to put the Labour amendment first, and so to undermine the Opposition Day for the SNP.
Moreover, the Speaker did not take the Chair for the closing speeches and points of order – to my mind a serious abrogation of responsibility at such a moment – and ignored repeated calls from colleagues in the Chamber to return to the Chair. The effect of this was to leave Rosie Winterton (a former Labour Chief Whip, now a Deputy Speaker, then in the Chair) to take the full brunt of the reaction to the Speaker’s own mistaken decision.
The Speaker also did not require the Clerk or the Clerk Assistant, the two most senior Chamber officials, to be present in the Commons at the closing, so that they could give authoritative advice on points raised.
As a result, although the Government’s decision not to move its motion had the effect of destroying the rationale for the Speaker’s original decision, as MPs highlighted in the Chamber, the Chair never recognised this and never changed course.
In the event, Deputy Speaker Winterton waved through both the Labour amendment and the SNP motion without a division, despite the fact that there was a huge body of very noisy “Noes”, as the recording makes clear.
This too was a breach of Parliamentary protocol. The Bible of procedure, Erskine May, states that the Chair must take the sense of the House – clearly here, intense disagreement – and then offer an opinion by saying e.g. “I think the Ayes have it”. If that opinion is contested, as it loudly was in this case, the Chair should then proceed to divide the House.
This she entirely failed to do.
These are the facts. What about the explanation offered by the Speaker for his decision: that the issue was so controversial that he felt all parties’ positions ought to be voted on?
In principle, many people would think this view understandable, in the wake of the murders of Jo Cox and David Amess; all the more so perhaps with a crowd of people screaming outside in Parliament Square, as they were on Wednesday night.
Far from avoiding political controversy, however, this approach arguably worsened it. In any event, its intrinsic drawbacks should have been obvious from the start.
Allowing three votes, on the motion and the amendments, made it likely that the final vote, the Government amendment, would never take place. Putting the Labour amendment first prevented the SNP from a clean vote on its motion, when that was the whole point of the Opposition Day.
But there is a deeper objection. The Speaker said that his decision was taken out of his concern about popular anger (that is, danger to MPs). But in fact that is only likely to be worsened if the belief takes root that the Speaker, and the House, can be bullied.
There has been understandable bewilderment among journalists and the general public at these supposedly arcane procedural points.
But they, and a neutral Speaker, are absolutely central to the ability of MPs to discharge their judgement as representatives. So too is the principle that Parliament, while highly sensitive to public opinion, should never be intimidated by it.
Far from being arcane, these principles are the essence of our democracy – and with votes on the most emotive public issues, such as the Gaza conflict, they are more important than ever.