Tradition and efficiency in parliament

Media

Part of Panorama

Title: Tradition and efficiency in parliament
Language: English
Source: Panorama Volume XVIII (No. 4) April 1966
Year: 1966
Rights
Fulltext: ■ The Speaker of the British House of Commons hare explains the way Parliament works and the nature of his job as Speaker. TRADITION AND EFFICIENCY IN PARLIAMENT Do you think, Mr. Speaker, that Parliament clings too much to ceremony and ritual and tradition nowadays? I would not want one scrap of that tradition which em bodies the history of the growth of British democracy to go. For example, when Black Rod comes and we shut the door in his face, we are reminding ourselves of the time in history when the House of Commons was de ciding that Charles H’s bro ther should not become King of England because he was a Catholic, and Charles had sent Bladk Rod to dissolve Parliament, while the Com mons were insisting on pass ing their law before Charles dissolved them. While it is helpful to re member such a thing, when Black Rod does come, and the Commons proceedings have to be interrupted to go to the Lords to hear, say, the Royal Assent, isn’t it often very inconvenient to members, and haven’t they often protested about this? No, very rarely: we usual ly know when Black Rod is coming; though there have been two or three times since the war when Black Rod’s entry has been a little in convenient and when the Commons (or some of them) have protested their own in alienable right to carry on with the business they want ed to. Isn’t it possible that the ritual and ceremony, because it is so deeply rooted in his tory and tradition as you pointed out, induces an at mosphere which is resistant to change, particularly in matters of parliamentary pro cedure? Maybe in parliamentary procedure, but not in the issues which divide the House. Do not imagine the procedure of Parliament is merely romantic; most of it April 1966 17 is 300 years’ diluted common sense. It is not to prevent members from fighting, but to see that they fight in a dear, honest, and courteous way. Ctntld I remind you of what you said when you gave evidence as Deputy Speaker, before the Select Committee on Procedure: you said that you were a traditionalist, and that traditions were part of the glory of Parliament, but you also said 7 would say cut out the mumbojumbo by all means’. What did you have in mind when you were talking about ’mumbo-jumbo’? Sometimes when the House wants to show displeasure with a Minister, we reduce the vote that we are giving to that Minister's depart ment. My Deputy has to put that' in a form in which a sum of £16,123,900 is moved and the amendment is to be £16.123,800. I think we could shorten that. There are lit tle bits of the formulae that we use that might conceiva bly be shortened. In other words, if tradition stands in the way of efficien cy, you would try to deal with it? That is roughly what 1 said before the committee. There has been a spate of articles and books in recent years critical of Parliament, suggesting that its reputation has declined, its prestige has suffered. Do you agree with this? Do you think there is any ground for this — are you worried about it? It is one of the myths of Parliament that the old Par liament consisted of Glad stone and Pitt and Burke, all the great figures, making wonderful orations without any scenes: this is the best behaved Parliament of the century. But do you not sense to day, Mfr. Speaker, a mood for change in the way Par liament goes about its work, among many of the younger generation? We have probably the keenest and most intelligent intake into this Parliament of any in the last fifty or sixty years, and obviously they want to make their contri bution; obviously they feel a little frustrated. Democra cy is participation, and the problem of democracy, and the problem of Parliament, is to make the fullest use of 18 Panorama abilities of every member. This has got to come. This is what the uneasiness is about. As one who has given over 1,000 lectures in your time, on Parliament and how it works, do you think that the way Parliament work is ade quately understood by the electorate as a whole? I believe in communica tion. I said at Geneva, about six weeks ago, to the parlia mentarians of Europe, that parliamentary democracy has got to make the fullest use of all the resources of mo dern techniques. I think they must come to terms with television, for instance. I would want this Parlia ment, any Parliament in the world, to make the fullest use of this new instrument of communication. When Parliament consi ders this matter, as it is go ing to do in the Select Com mittee on the subject, how would your views be given? Televising Parliament If the Committee asked me I would give evidence before them, as Speaker, or really as a Member of Par liament of some years’ stand ing. There is a case for and against the televising of Par liament. I would not want Parliament to become mere ly a show. There is some thing very intimate about the debating in the House: it is person to person. The fear of some of the older members is that televising may make it a sort of formal performance. Nobody will want that. On the other hand, I think this is a tre mendous new means of com municating to the democrats of Britain the heart of their democratic institution. May I ask you to explain a couple of points which per haps are not properly un derstood by the public, and certainly not understood sometimes by students of Parliament. Why is it that there sometimes seems to be a difficulty about someone like the Prime Minister mak ing a statement on some worldshaking event, even when the House wants him to do so? Somebody once said: ‘Par liament can do anything ex cept make a man a woman’. But Parliament must be una nimous if it wants to break its own procedure. If the April 1966 19 House of Commons unani mously wants to do something it can do it. And on the two very rare occasions you have in mind there was a dif ference in point of view be tween the Government and the Opposition. But if the Government and the Oppo sition made up their minds that something had to be done, procedure would not stand in the way. And in deed the Prime Minister, perhaps as of right (and the Leader of the Opposition si milarly), can overrule most of the basic procedures of the House. Turning to all-night sit ting, which is another thing that puzzles people, how do you justify that — if indeed you do justify it — as a sen sible way of conducting busi ness? If1 I were a selfish human being I would be against all-night sitting, because whenever the all-night sit ting takes place, one thing is quite certain: that I and my Deputy, Sir Samuel Sto rey, carry the biggest bur den; we are there all the time. But I would fight to the last gasp for the all-night sitting. This is one of the resorts of democracy. If a man does not like what the Government has done, it is his job to use every vestige of his parliamentary power to impress that on the Gov ernment, and that includes all-night sittings. And when do you get most of the allnight sittings? On the Fi nance Bill, as I know to my sorrow, having taken the longest and most complicat ed Finance Bill through. It was painful for me but it was very precious for the country. Some Speakers in the past have left their mark on par liamentary democracy; they have influenced the way Par liament has developed. Can a Speaker hope to do that nowadays? Artist and technician It is difficult to be objec tive about yourself. In the line of Speakersi, I would hope not to let the job down. It would be a myth to say that the Speaker is merely a machine interpreting the rules of parliamentary pro cedure. He must know the law of Parliament, but he is dealing with 630 human be ings. Politics is an art as 20 Panorama well as a science. The Speak er should be an artist as well as a technician. You said in your evidence to the Select Committee: 7 am one of those who think that the power of the execu tive is growing and that it ought to be diminished’. What can you do as Speaker to support that philosophy and put it into action? My predecessor, a long time ago, said that 'if the Speaker keeps the House to the rules of order he is by that same token preserving the rights of the individual member against the execu tive’. All the procedure of Parliament has been devised with two ends in mind: one is to preserve the rights of the individual back-bencher, of the tiniest minority, while closures pnd guillotines on the other hand see to it that in the end the majority rules. Both have rights; I have to preserve both rights. Do you think that your policy — with the co-opera tion of the House, that is — of speeding up Question Time aS much as you have done, might weaken the pres sure which Parliament can put upon the executive by going a bit too quickly? I talked to the House about that recently. It is not my policy: the House of Commons itself felt that ques tions were taking too much time, and I had a pretty clear instruction from the House to speed up questions. There is a danger; for every man his question is the most important one in the world. This is what he came to Parliament for, so did 629 waiting for their questions. The Chair’s job is to see that he allows the full rights of a questioner without jeopar dizing the full rights of some body else who is waiting in the wings to come and tak£ the stage. This is a matter of judgment, it is a matter of balance, and it must also be a matter of seeing if the question itself is a $60,000,000 question that the House has a chance to get its teeth in to it. One of the greatest acade mic authorities on the Bri tish Constitution, Sir Ivor Jennings, said about the Speakership: ’The qualities required of a Speaker are not really very high, and so great is the prestige of the April 1966 21 office,, and so careful are all parties to maintain his inde pendence and authority, that any reasonable man can make a success of the office’. Is that fair, do you think? I have had that at the back of my mind for a long time, and I bow to Sir Ivor Jen nings. I spoke at a grammar school dinner recently and the Headmaster referred to boys of ability who were there, and boys of modest ability, and I said to the dinars: ‘If you are of modest ability don’t worry; you may not become Prime Minister or Leader of the Opposition but you have the chance to become a Speaker’. I think that’s about it. What is the most difficult part of your job? Because thefe are* some very difficult aspects indeed, despite what Sir Ivor Jennings said. I think the real heartache of the Speaker is choosing who is going to speak in a debate. How do you do that? Do you make up your mind be fore the debate, or do you make it up as you go along? All the time. Members write to me to say: ‘I’d like to be called in such a debate; this is my reason, I’m an agriculturist, I’m a great far mer, this is an agricultural debate^ I’ve not spoken for the last six months’. That is happening all the time. They come to me in the Chair, they stand up in the House. For instance, at least forty-five men wanted to be called in the Territorial de bate. It is almost true to say that all of them had equal claims. My job is to balance these minutiae of equality or disparity between them. It is a heartbreaking job. One has heard it said, in deed one has read it in au thoritative works, that in fact the Whips of the main parties make their list of people whom they would like to see called to go in to bat for them, as it were. Do you get such a list, and do you pay any attention to it? That may have been true in history. Neither of the chief Whips would dare to come to me and say’ ‘I think ■you ought to call s6-and-so*. I make my own choice. 22 PANORAMA And do you choose people according to whether they are likely to make a more interesting contribution in debate? Are you concerned with how good the debate is? This is one factor — but there are a hundred factors. And there is the fact that a man has not spoken for a long time. There is the fact that a man have very inti mate and special reasons — he has just come from Japan and we’re debating Japan: a hundred and one things. And in the last resort, if two men have exactly the same right on the Speaker to be called, you may be inclined to call the man who does not speak as long as the other one. Do you ever get bored sitting in the Speaker's Chair? Never. Is this because of the cons tant factor that you might be called upon to make a ruling, or are you always in terested in any speaker, how ever boring he may be? I am interested in Parlia ment; I took this highly complex Finance Bill through last year but was not bored. I was fascinated ajl the time, even though we were on abs truse and difficult technical subjects. At any moment, too, a speaker may drift out of order. The Chair must be awake and aware all the time. You have to make a num ber of very quick decisions, don’t you, in which you can not always refer to your ad visers? This is true. I meet the clerks every day; we discuss what is going to happen, what is likely to happen, the implications. But when Par liament is sitting the issues are arising, and most of the issues that arise are those you have not prepared for. The decisions are on the spot. — From 'People to Watch’ (BBC-2) April 1966 23
pages: 17+