Sir George Young explains why his experience lends itself to the task of becoming Speaker.
How has the row over expenses and the debate on Parliamentary reform affected the role of the Speaker and the public perception of the role?
I think that it underlined the need for somebody to speak for the House of Commons and put the whole thing in context. I understand entirely why it was difficult at the moment. I think Betty Boothroyd might have been able to perform that role if she had still been Speaker, but I think Parliament really needed somebody that the public could look to, to understand what was going on, to put the whole thing in perspective.
I think the way it was presented by the Telegraph got the thing out of perspective. It was very difficult to find anybody here who could get up and say, "Actually, this is what's been going on. The rules were not as tight as they should have been. There has been some abuse and we're going to sort the abuses out and we're going to have some better rules in the future". If you leave it to the government, or if you leave it to the party leaders, you then get an auction which is in effect almost what happens - a series of bidding. I think you needed to speak for the House of Commons and I think a Speaker must be able to perform that role.
Should the Speaker take on a more public role, or even a media presence?
The word that I’ve used, and others have used, is "ambassador". The parallel I would draw is with what Helene Hayman's been doing with the House of Lords since she became Lord Speaker. She has been raising the profile, giving talks, explaining what the House of Lords does and I think that's quite a good model to follow. I’m not sure that the Speaker should give a running commentary on what's going on in the House of Commons. But I think some well-timed interventions… putting the thing in perspective and standing up for the House of Commons and getting over the message that there are people here who work hard, who do the job as effectively as they can. Compared with other democracies, we've got an institution here that we can be proud of.
Should the Speaker be leading reform?
I think there's a risk that if the Speaker arrives with his own agenda and then tries to drive that through the House, you begin to blur the distinction between a referee and a player. And the Speaker is more referee than player. Again the word I have used is "catalyst". I think the Speaker can act as a catalyst and say, "I think there's an area over here where we can make some improvements, where we can make better use of the time. How about this committee having a look at these ideas which I or other people have put into the public domain and see if we can take it forward?".
I think one needs to build a consensus around the need for change. There are some things which the Speaker can do off his own bat, time limits for speeches for example, and statements. All my instincts there are to go for shorter speeches and to try and re-engineer the time of the House and have more topical statements and fewer debates. If you look at the Opposition days, quite often they don't get a lot of coverage, and quite often it's quite difficult to get speakers from both sides of the House.
My idea is you should trade the time that you have for an Opposition day for the right to demand a statement on something the government does not want to make a statement about. I think that if you convert debating time to statement time, it becomes more topical and you get more people in the chamber. Because it is easier to intervene when someone makes a statement rather than wait two-and-a-half hours to make a speech which no-one reports, which is what happened to me yesterday. Took part in the debate on the health service, very important debate, and it shows in some ways what's wrong with the House at the moment.
No-one is focusing on holding the government to account, on looking at the legislation. We are all pre-occupied with the future of the prime minster, our own future, and I think we've simply got to get back to the agenda as soon as possible.
What are your views on the role of a business committee?
Yes I’m pro business committee. I sat on the democracy taskforce and I think there are various models. One model is you have two business committees. One, the government model, dealing with its share of the time in the week, and the other is the House of Commons business committee which deals with its share and you carve up the time. The other is to have a business committee with more backbenchers on it. You probably have to have a government majority but a much more open process, transparent process for arriving at the business, as has been adopted in other parliaments.
What about the whips?
I sit on the committee of selection, which is dominated by the whips. Just to give an example of where something didn't go quite right - last December I sat through the second reading of a bill and a Labour backbencher made a very good speech in which she said "I would like to be on the public bill committee". She voted for the second reading. She was not put on the public bill committee. I sat on the selection committee and it was because of something quite different - she had caused some difficulty within her party. She should have been on the public bill committee and it's quite wrong, in my mind, that the whips kept her off. I think the public bill committee wasn't as good without her.
So by all means put the whips on the committee of selection because a lot of these statutory instruments, you need the whips actually to get the names. For the select committees and some of the public bills, I think people ought to write in and say "I’ve spoken at second reading" or "I’m interested in this and I’d like to serve". The committee of selection can look at the people who want to sit on it and come up with the right balance. At the moment, we just tend to rubber stamp the names of the whips and there's an unspoken code that the Opposition whips don't challenge the Labour nominations and they don't challenge ours.
And sitting hours?
There’s no way we're going to go back to all-night sittings. My complaint about the hours isn’t about sitting reasonable hours. It is that they cut the hours and increased the number of bills and then guillotined everything. I hope that in the next Parliament, we might have fewer bills, properly scrutinised, and keep the hours roughly where they are. I think there needs to be more flexibility in the public bill stage. I think the Opposition ought to say to the government, "you can have the bill by June 23, but we would like flexibility as to how we use the time between now and June 23". Instead of it being chopped and you find you just zip through bits of the bill, perhaps more flexibility on report stage. We've had quite a lot of bills that have gone through report stage without bits being debated. I think a business committee might come up with a better answer than where we are at the moment.
What are your attributes for the role?
I think I’ve got a background in how the House works. I’ve sat on the modernisation committee, I’ve sat on the House of Commons commission, I’ve sat on the Liaison committee, and I’ve chaired one of the domestic committees, standard and privileges. I think I’ve got an insight into how the place operates. Also I spent some time looking at how we can improve and reform the House, which is why time on the democracy taskforce, which produced this, makes it right that colleagues have the opportunity to vote for me or not vote for me.
I think that my pitch is the background of experience and also recognition for change, sensible sustainable reform. As you know, I’ve been round this course before, so this is not the first time I’ve thrown my hat into the ring. Last time, I was runner-up and last time I’d only just stopped being on the frontbench. I think it was only three years since I’d been in the cabinet. I think I’ve now done some quarantine and those are all spent convictions. I’ve had a very useful time since the last Speakership election really doing some heavy-lifting - sitting on public bill committees, being quite active in the chamber and taking an interest in some of the debates on how we reform and modernise ourselves.
How will you convince colleagues that you are a fresh broom for reform?
I’d say I’ve got a programme of sustainable, balanced reform which is the result of being here, but also talking to the younger intake, who recognise that we've simply got to move into the twenty-first century and change how we operate and make better use of our time. We've got to be more independent of the government. We've got to be more effective and we've got to be more relevant. And we've got to be more accessible. Those are the things that I put in my pitch.
What are your views on the ancient rituals?
I think it’s difficult to go back to the wig, and I wouldn’t do that. I’m just conscious that the language we use is still a little bit quaint. I had to speak yesterday with my standards and privileges hat on. Standards and privileges sort of resonates, but I had to use words like "contempt" and "privilege" because that's the currency in which we deal. I was just conscious as I made that speech, "What will the people in the gallery think of all this?" I did actually have to qualify it by saying, "These are the terms i have to use". I think there's an opportunity just to modernise the language we use and some of the procedures, just to bring us up to date. If the Lord Chancellor is prepared to wear a wig at the state opening, then I think for the traditional and the ceremonial… they are important. One can respect that. The House of Commons is a working, modern chamber and it should be seen as such. I’d go for shorter speeches.
Which Speaker do you most admire?
I’ve admired all the Speakers in their ways. You tend to remember the first one, which in my case was Selwyn Lloyd. I think the Speakers that I admire, are the ones who've had authority and respect and an insight into the mood of the House. They have been able to read the mood of the House and take the right decision. I think Betty Boothroyd did that well and I think Jack Weatherall did that well. So if you press me, I’d probably go for those two.
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