John Bercow at the Mile End Institute

[Music] you thank you very much I'm aware that round of applause wasn't for me so my name is Philip Kelly and I'm sure thank you thank you you're still getting two twos I don't need to introduce tonight's speaker because that's why you're here those of you that have been to these events before will know the format I do my sort of slightly lame Jimmy young style questioning for about 30 to 40 minutes then we throw it open to you and the frustrations that have been building up as I've failed to ask the questions you want asked it can be relieved and you can then ask a pile in and ask whatever you like mr. speaker is already very generously done a hour-long session with the students which was fantastically informative so I'm hoping that what follows is just as great you were elected speaker in 2009 just after the expensive scandal which used you said caused reputation or carnage to the House of Commons a few years later you said I cannot think of a single year in the recent history of Parliament when more damage has been done with the possible exception of when Nancy forms fell on the Chamber in 1941 now we are currently in another scandal how do you see the two I mean do you see this one potentially as damaging as the scandal of 2008 it could be but I hope and I'm cautiously optimistic Phil that it won't be for two reasons first and I say this with a degree of caution and humility because I cannot be sure I don't think that anything like so many people will be caught up in this latest scandal as were to a greater or lesser extent caught up in and implicating by the expenses scandal of 2009 so I think sheer numbers won't be as great and therefore that might and probably will limit not remove not render insignificant but limit the damage secondly I think that we will get to grips with it by acting speedily and effectively both to ensure that people who are suspected of wrongdoing are investigated and in particular to ensure that a complaints mechanism is established which is characterized above all by independence independence is key in dependencies absolutely front and center stage to giving people confidence to come forward and complain and giving people confidence to believe that not only can they come forward and complain but they can get a fair outcome including if appropriate restitution so I'm not diminishing the significance of this it's a real and big challenge but I think almost learning from past scandal can help us react to and deal with it better and I think for the other reason I've explained it's not quite in the same category as the expenses scandal by the way I should just say in responding to your first question Phil it's a pleasure to be here thank you for having me and I have a rather Anna rakish devotion ladies and gentlemen to visiting universities because I enjoy meeting talking to and hearing from students and academics and members of civil society who turn up very often at events of this kind and in particular I'm very keen to get round all the 20 universities participating in the parliamentary Studies module which is part of a politics degree in some cases part of a joint degree and Queen Mary College London University is the 13th of the 20 that I've visited so I'm keen to get round the remaining 7 now this is a great University whether you measure it by research excellence whether you measure it by teaching excellence whether you measure it indeed by the gold award that the University won - it's huge credit for its work in public engagement so it's a fantastic institution and very different from other universities within the Russell Group as has been explained to me the makeup of this place is dramatically different the tremendous ethnic mix here is hugely to the credit of the University the number of students who are international and indeed the percentage of students who are coming to University for the first time in and can I just say that I empathize with those students I'm told it's 49% of the students at the University who are the first in their family to go to university I empathize with those students because I'm in that position myself I'm not suggesting I I'm not claiming that I come from a hugely impoverished background but I come from a very ordinary background I went to a state school I have had two parents who were perfectly capable of going to university my father couldn't dream of going to university he was brought up in Dalston in Hackney in the 1930s his parents didn't have to hate mr. up together and the overwhelming expectation was that he and his three siblings would leave school work and contribute to the family upkeep my father would actually have been rather a good barrister he spoke in paragraphs and he was a highly intelligent fellow but it was no way he was gonna go to university my mother left school at 14 in Huddersfield she was the daughter quite uncommonly at the time she was the daughter of a single mother and she left school and got a job as a junior reporter on the Huddersfield examiner and then eventually gravitated to London I'm proud to say my father died thirty years and more ago my mother is still alive my mother finally got a degree in English literature from the University of Middlesex in the late 90s aged 69 and I was that she had the chance to get that degree which she did of course for fun it's just a pity that her entry to university was delayed by more than half a century um that's your personal journey to the speakership can I ask about your political journey to the speakership because normally you almost strike me as being unique amongst politicians that I've met in that many politicians who fall out of love with their party tell a story in which the party has changed and they've been constant mmm and you are pretty unique in accepting that it's you that changed you you've been on a massive political journey since you were well since I first became aware of you when you were on the right and not just on the slight right and evolved in the Monday Club and I just wonder what was it that led to that journey you're absolutely right I changed the Conservative Party didn't exchanged in various ways from time to time but not very fundamentally I changed I think probably one should distinguish very briefly between the two types of change in the case of the Monday Club of which I was a member of very right-wing pressure group on the fringes of the Conservative Party anti-immigration Pro repatriation of immigrants and very hard line on all sorts of things the case of the Monday Club in an act of quite extraordinary stupidity and folly and lack of self-awareness I joined the Monday Club to my abiding shame in 1981 aged 18 and I resigned three years later having had a year of not being involved at all but I finally resigned in January 19 January or February 1984 and I wrote to the chair of the club saying that the club contained elements whose views I found on palatable truth is I came across people who were profoundly racist including people who were profoundly anti-semitic and I am myself of Jewish origin I had no business joining the Monday Club at all but I joined I think partly because as a young man I was rather ideological I became attracted to an ideological brand of conservative politics and quite apart from mrs. Thatcher to him I was very politically attracted I was at that time very attracted to Enoch Powell who seemed an extraordinary intellect and logician and rhetorician and I read his various books of speeches and was inspired by them but it was completely wrong headed and mad to join the Monday Club and as I say a very bitterly regretted it later but I just came to think well this is a racist organization and I should have absolutely nothing to do with it my only plea and mitigation is that if most people in this audience believe in the rehabilitation of offenders Act you know I would hope 33 years later you know it is acknowledged and accepted that I'm a very different person today than I was then in the case more widely you know post being elected to Parliament of shifting from being a Thatcher right right winger when I was first elected to being very much in the center ground politics to the extent that some people speculated that I might defect to the Labor Party which I never intended to do but nevertheless I shifted substantially why a mixture of factors fell to to be precise first the experience of devastating electoral failure for my party it wasn't so much 97 colleagues when the Conservatives were slaughtered it was more 2001 funnily enough when after four years of the Blair government of which I had rather disapproved my colleagues had rather disapproved of my party had rather disapproved Tony Blair got back again with another scarcely reduced majority his majority went down from if memory serves me correctly 178 to 167 and that made me think well clearly he's doing something right and we're doing something wrong and that was then the second thing I thought well what is it that is unattractive about our party we're viewed as quite nasty and prejudiced not very interested in the rights of women not very interested in minorities make sexual or otherwise not very interested in the quality of our public services which had been heavily underfunded and labor had started to restore and not very bothered about huge gaps between the rich and the poor and the plight of people in our inner cities and I basically just started to think about those issues and the more I thought about them the more without wanting to shift party I thought my party has got to react to Blair ISM in the way that labor shifted to the center to take account of the achievements and potency and appeal of the conservative party under mrs. Thatcher and there was one issue it but it led to all sorts of other issues with one issue on which I first changed my mind which may seem a small issue but for me it was big I hadn't voted at least once if not twice for the retention of the statutory discrimination against gay people for the unequal age of consent and I think in doing so I was uncomfortable I did say was the most conservatives at the time dear but I thought quite sure what the rationale for this statutory discrimination is and I went away and talked to teachers and to people in the church in my constituency and it was quite obvious that the statutory discrimination was really just historical and symbolic and it didn't achieve any benefit and arguably it was damaging in health terms to a lot of young people that couldn't be open about their sexuality because you couldn't be openly gay before the age of 18 and so I decided well next time this matter comes up I'm gonna vote for reform and there was a Tory MP who's now in the house adores a really decent patrician moderate left-of-centre Tory and people Tim Boswell himself stray married pair and I think grandparent whatever who'd long supported an equal age of consent at 16 and Tim said to me John if you've decided to vote for change can I offer you a word of advice and I said please do and he said speak in the debate a because you should explain to the house where you've changed your mind Abby he said the house is rather tolerant I'm receptive to people who want to explain a change of heart it was very good advice and I took it and I voted for sixty men it then led this may seem curious to you but it led to me rethinking my attitude to quite a lot of other matters so all I say whenever I'm accused and it's sometimes done in an accusatory way not by you but if it often is when I'm accused of having changed my political views on a very substantial scale I always say oh it's absolutely true I'm not seeking to deny it for a moment the only thing I say is that it is an honest change I didn't change my political views or some really downmarket fifth-rate scribblers of sometimes suggested in order to become speaker that is to be blunt and it is very low-grade I changed my views because I changed my views and the fact that subsequently that both attracted huge opprobrium from my party of the conservative party and a lot of support from other parties is a matter of fact but it wasn't done as an act of political opportunism it was done as a matter of political conviction in the session with the students just now you you quoted speaker length all the famous 1642 quote you did from you did it from memory but I'm gonna read it out cuz my memory is not as good as yours may it please your Majesty I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the house is pleased to direct me whose servant I am here it struck me several times well you've been speaker that your your view of the speaker goes a little bit beyond laughs occasionally you don't just do with the house directs you you are trying to lead the house places sometimes particularly on reform where you you've had to take people with you but where there is a distinct boko view yes [Music] has that been difficult at times or is there I mean how do you find the appetite for reform amongst or colleagues it can be difficult because there are quite a lot of colleagues notably people who've been around a long time but not always exclusively people who've been around a long time who are not so keen on reform if you feel well things are fine as they are and you know why do we need the speaker proselytizing for change or seeking to be a catalyst for or a trailblazer of change we don't need all this change so it can be challenging and I also accept your point that whereas lentil saw himself as simply doing what the house said I absolutely admit that I have tried to be a bit more than that I suppose I feel that what's changed which makes it legitimate Phil is that whereas the speaker just used to emerge and actually was often a very reluctant occupant of the chair because it was very hazardous certainly before the English Civil War to be speaker because if the speaker displeased the monarch the speaker would be sent to the tower and have his head chopped off literally and no fewer than seven of my predecessors met their end on the executioner's block in the modern age people want to be speaker that old slightly pompous almost like snobby idea for a chapter that's gone people want to be speaker it's an office and there were 12 candidates in 2000 when I stood there were 10 candidates I don't think it will be uncontested ever again therefore you set out your story people literally now I did publish manifestos the hustings last time so you know I felt that I had a democratic mandate and I was very clear that if you elect me you're electing someone who wants to bring about necessary overdue and broadly not necessarily unanimously but broadly desired change I admit that I have sometimes pushed it a bit and some people think oh well John pushes too hard and sometimes sort of Avery is himself generally speaking I think if I may say so it has been effective in that we have achieved over the last eight years a lot of change I see we not just I but the house has achieved quite a lot of change and I think I've played my part in that have I sometimes mishandled something or overreached myself yes I mean I'm very happy with the outcome to allow three years ago about the position of clerk of the house which a lot of you may not even remember that a few of you might there was a row when the clerk retired and I felt very strongly that the clerk should not also be the chief executive of the house the clerk is a procedural specialist with a very deep understanding of an experience in parliamentary procedure the legislative process Standing Orders the interpretation of asked in May in the Bible of Parliament and it is a very learned person but there is no particular likelihood on the law of averages that that person will also be the person that would be on top of the school at the Harvard Business School and the skill sets are just different and the idea that the person who's Clarke the house should also be in charge of the management of the house as a service provider and as a deliverer of fairness to employees and as somebody who can decide what the building project should be I mean what order and how they should be choreographed and sup struck me as bizarre and so I said well the role should be split now at the time I think I tried too little too late and to ineffectively to get an official split between Clark and chief executive the Clark himself the outgoing Clark was very unsympathetic he thought for the status quo was fine the leader of the house at the time was Andrew Lansley who was similarly I didn't mean this in a hostile nasty way but he was just unsympathetic to my point of view he didn't agree with me and therefore I sort of decided what I would try to bring about a change by having a wider variety of applicant invited and I remember saying well just as the clerk can be achieve executive wrongly in my view the chief executive somebody with the chief executive background could be the clerk there were loads of other clerks or experts in parliamentary procedure and the clerk of the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament for example there's not a parliamentary specialist that's person is in many cases an ex civil servant with experience in running things running an institution that's an employer or a World Heritage Site or whatever so I tried to do it that way and I ran into trouble and in the end we got the split in roles but it was done in a rather messy way and if I look back well I'm very pleased with the outcome and I've no fundamental regrets did I handle this as well as I could have done or should have done and I didn't that I learned something from it and I still maintain that albeit in a slightly messy and controversial way we got to the right point in the end what about a more recent example the issue of the Trump State is it where you pronounced on your view of the Trump estate visit from the chair as far as I'm a way there was there was no vote I mean I think I could probably guess what quite a lot of members would have thought but that wasn't the house speaking was it that was you speak well that was me speaking I mean I was making the assessment there I'm completely unrepentant you know I've shown that I'm mildly repentant in relation to the handling of the Class C fwiend saga we'll see if we can get more than mildly repentant in a minute yeah okay well and I've also been extremely repentance about my stupid past and the Monday club 33 years ago I mean I suppose I could own up to all sorts of other sins real or imagined I mean I could say to you yes I street make it down conscious to High Street at the age of 20 in 1983 but it would suffer from the disadvantage of being untrue so it might amuse you but it would be wrong no I'm not repentant about the Trump thing that's anyway yes I was speaking my own view I had a sense that I was speaking for a majority in the House I was unscripted as I've very often am in fact usually and so I didn't have a text in front of me and some people think I spoke more forcefully than I should have done but Steven Doughty a Labour MP in Wales had raised a point of order with me about the process ladies and gentlemen the process for inviting a visiting dignitary to address both houses of parliament Commons and Lords specifically in Westminster all which is the most prestigious setting where President Obama spoken uncensored she spoken Mandela spoke before my tenure and he wanted to know what the process was and he was hostile very much hostile to Donald Trump coming and speaking in Parliament that he'd read various Press reports to the effect that there was likely to be a visit quite probably a state visit and that Trump would come to address Parliament and I'd seen it suggested that he would be invited and the suggestion seemed to be emanating from government and I frankly was keen to get the point across of which a lot of people were not aware that frankly that whether there was a state visit was way above my pay grade I think I used the expression way beyond and above my pay grade that's a matter for the Prime Minister she wants to invite President Trump to the UK that's absolutely for her and she would no doubt discuss it with the palace if it was a state visit and so on but the question of whether there's an invitation to address both houses of parliament he's not a bauble to be handed out by the prime minister of the day it's not a government prerogative that is a matter for the speakers of the two houses now I apologize subsequently to norman fowler the Lord speaker because I hadn't consulted him before I made my remarks but then I didn't know that I was about to get that point of order from Steven Doughty and I gave Steven an honest answer and I stand by my view that were two good reasons I think I focused principally on one why Trump should not be invited to Parliament the first an overwhelming reason was that I felt there was huge controversy at attaching to President Trump and I think I said before the imposition of the migrant ban I would not myself for favoured an invitation to President Trump to address both houses in Westminster all and after the imposition of the mic and I'm even more strongly opposed to the idea I think I spoke on that occasion for quite long half there was actually hour second reason and that was that it was incredibly early in Trump's presidency it was true that Barack Obama had come and I'm still very proud of the fact that we invited Barack Obama to address both houses involved in Westminster but Obama was elected president in November 2008 and took up the presidency in January 2009 and he came and addressed us in Parliament in May 2011 and that was much more in keeping with what one would expect the idea that the prize should be offered to President Trump within weeks of his election struck me frankly as absolutely extraordinary and to those who say well I was expressing a political view the house has said that the speaker has a role in this matter you can't be impartial as between wanting to invite someone and not wanting to invite someone so I did accept that I've reached any impartiality obligations and to those who said oh well the speaker's trying to crush free speech ladies and gentlemen forgive me it's not about free speech the president of the United States can always find and add anything President Trump has any difficulty in that regard the issues not about free speech the issue is this an address to both houses of parliament he's not an automatic right it is an earned honor and my view was that he had not earned that honor and my view is that he has not [Applause] now I guess spell that I could I guess I could see you know fairly quickly that it was going to cause some reaction but I mean I think and I think you know we can all make mistakes I don't think that was one of them but did I ever think well this is going to be fatal for me no I mean the were people who were very angry with me and a small number of MPs who tabled a mission of Mayor confidence in me but I genuinely felt and he was very relevant to your point about you know you just be compared so I genuinely felt that I was speaking for a majority of my colleagues and a lot of the Labour Party was almost certain to a man and a woman opposed to Trump coming but a lot of conservative members as people do came up to me privately and said well said Mr Speaker you know I don't want Trump coming here now were they necessarily going to speak out in public no but did I feel that I was speaking only for a minority of the house I frankly I thought then and I think now that I was speaking for a large majority of the house and and I do feel that everything that has happened since has really served to vindicate my view in terms of dealing with with members there's a lovely description of you wants as being like a Victorian head teacher overseeing a noisy assembly um do you ever sometimes think you've gone too far when you put someone down I mean have you ever apologize to someone afterwards for the way you've responded yes yes I think I have I think I have gone over the top I mean I think on the whole going over the top and being overly aggressive and overly angry was more a phenomenon of my early period as Speaker because I think that you know something would annoy me or I think that you know behavior was untoward and I would get very cross and then over a period you and it may seem to you very obvious but I think I'm not I wasn't a natural for it at first I think I was naturally quite strong and authoritative and I think I had a good memory and I I knew what I was doing in the chair but I was sometimes overly abrasive and with people and then I think after a period I thought look you know it is better to defuse situations with a bit of humor and sort of gently to tease our colleague into being quiet or into recanting of some sin that he or she had committed so I think most of the the really angry stuff was early on and I was sometimes over abrasive and then once recently I absolutely admit you know you can make we all make mistakes once recently I was convinced that a member had arrived too late you're not supposed to stand to ask a question on a ministerial statement of you weren't there at the beginning and I was convinced that a particular member had come into the chamber way after the statement had started but it just turned out he'd been there or he'd either been there or elsewhere in the chamber for some time and I was just wrong but he carried I said you know order members were arrived after the start of the statement should not be standing and expect to be called and I notice that this chat carried on standing and I was annoyed about it so I eventually sort of rounded on him and I and said you know I I said you know if you arrive late expect to take part and the member concerned came beetling up to the chair to say I'm sorry mister speak but I didn't you don't know what you're talking about I've been here 40 minutes and I think he'd been sitting elsewhere so I was wrong and when I did eventually come to call him I apologized to him now obviously you don't want to be doing that too often otherwise it detracts from your authority but I think that you know when you are when you do make a mistake the best course of action is just to say I'm very sorry and an absolutely fulsome an unqualified apology I did the honorable gentleman a disservice he was here and we must now him and and he he very graciously came up to the chair and said I'm you know I'm so surprised that you get it right as often as you do and wrong as rarely as you do or where's that effect he was very civil and courteous about it but yeah I have sometimes got it wrong but I've tried to learn from that and one of the innovations under your speakership is that Prime Minister's Questions which used to finish religiously after 30 minutes has begun to creep up in length in fact the last forum was over 50 minutes so it's not even just sort of a couple of minutes here and there anymore I mean I have multiple thoughts about this one of them is that given it's the least edifying bit of the entire parliamentary process shouldn't we keep it to a bare minimum but what's the logic for letting it go on for almost twice its scheduled lane where it doesn't always but it sometimes does the logic basically ladies and gentlemen is that if were the original logic for extending it a bit which was not extending it as much as I'm currently doing was that if the Prime Minister had begun with a statement about recent deaths you know in combat or some humanitarian tragedy that was perfectly fitting and proper and I wasn't protesting about it but I didn't think frankly that it should be taken out of the time allocated for members to question the Prime Minister so I used to think right well we were immediately in a bit of injury time because the Prime Minister has taken a minute or two minutes or whatever to make that announcement or to express that regret or tribute I also thought well if there's a lot of noise and heckling and I keep having to interrupt to calm people down why should backbench members lose out the leader of the Opposition will always get his six questions because they come early in the session that's the way it is you tend to call the new the opposition at the point at which he wants to be called but backbenchers who are lower down on the list or who haven't got a question on the order paper and they're trying to get what we call a free hit which is when there are two members of the same party in succession I immediately look across the house or somebody from the other side to break it up why should they have people lose out because of the amount of heckling there's been and then more recently I'm afraid I've felt and I'm not wanting to knock either of them both are impeccably courteous to me and I've had very good relations with both Teresa Mayor Jeremy Corbyn but the exchanges between the front benches sometimes take a very long and and I appreciate they're important but I think it's also an occasion for backbenchers to question the Prime Minister so I've tended to take the view right well it's 1218 and we've only got to the end of the exchanges between threes a man Jeremy Corbyn and and sometimes it's been 12 2012 21 after Ian Blackford the SNP leader has finished his two questions but I've still got 14 15 people on my list that I want to get through so I'm afraid I basically take the attitude well let's extend it let's hit have backbenchers heard now I'm told that the fellow who runs the daily politics program and the Thursday night programmed the late-night program Neil Andrew Neil yeah and renewal yeah now I'm told that he used to preserve the last 10 or 15 minutes of his daily politics programme on a Wednesday to talk about how premises questions had gone and then it greatly irritated him that that opportunity for him and his guests was missed because question time was still running on because of me well it may come as most enormous surprise to Andrew Neil who cannot be accused of attaching insufficient weight to his own position or placing but the running of Andrew Neil's program and his personal convenience or even opinion is not a material factor thinking he may say that that's absolutely shocking but I couldn't give a flying flamingo what he thinks I'm concerned about trying to do the right thing for the house and I haven't generally had protests you can't please everybody but I haven't generally had protests um in a recent speech you you gave you outlined three reforms that you would like to see made to the comments you'd like the right of the house to recall itself under specific circumstances the reform of prime private member's business to make it less easy to talk out or otherwise block private member's legislation and you'd like a House Business Committee the the one bit of the right committee that yeah recommendations has not been implemented given that one mistake reformers often make is to want too much and then fail get any of it if you could only have one of those three reforms which is the most important the most important day-to-day is the House Business Committee it may sound those German really dull and uninspiring but he's actually very important we have had since 2010 a backbench Business Committee which is normally known by the shorthand BB Kong capital B backbench capital B business Kevin C Committee recommended by the right committee championed even before the right committee was set up by me and other people by me and my campaign to be Speaker I said I can't make this happen on my own but I'm standing as a candidate who thinks that we should establish a backbench business vide it's time the house I think I used the expression took control of its own core functions so B become chooses the business one day a week and it's backbench business it's non government business but the backbench Business Committee can choose for debate something that backbenchers maybe on the basis of an electronic petition constituency representation personal views often cross party matters they choose for debate whether the government or the opposition front bench would want that chosen or not and some backbench business committee rates have made a real difference there was one which led to a huge conservative back bencher rebellion which eventually led to the Tory party changing its position to being in favour of a referendum on British membership of the EU now whether you think has a good thing that they changed their position that way or not what I'm saying is become as effective in that matter and in a number of others but we were also supposed to have as you say a House Business Committee so that government business would be sheduled it would be deciding what was debated and when and for how long not by the government whips office almost cursorily or maybe better than cursorily consulting or informing the opposition whips office but with the government web Sophos very much in the lead deciding what would be debated it would be a House Business Committee capital H capital B capital C with opposition members upon it maybe the chair of the liaison committee or a prominent select committee chair and other back-bencher representatives I wasn't trying to boost my own power it wouldn't I be chaired by the speaker it probably be chaired by the senior deputy speaker ideally meeting in public there wouldn't have to and discussing and debating what shall we debate next week in the week after and then resolving the matter with a vertical proposition mm sensible modern inclusive democratic way to decide what is discussed instead of which it's still decided by the government now the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats committed to the creation of a House Business Committee if I'm charitable I'll say well the reason it didn't happen and it was supposed to be by the third year of the 2010 215-pound it's simply because the sheer weight of business and governmental responsibilities caused a momentary lapse of memory on the part of the prime minister and his liberal Democrat coalition partners they simply forgot they overlooked it they meant to do it they didn't get around to it in fact being less charitable but more factual that wasn't their explanation what happened was that I think the the backbench Business Committee proved to be rather more potent than Prime Minister Cameron had envisaged or ever wanted and there was an occasion when Peter Bono an outspoken independent minded Tory MP asked about the House Business Committee and either because he misunderstood or perhaps deliberately Cameron started banging all about the backbench Business Committee which already existed and he said how many days it had four debates and Peter bone called out not enough and very revealing it was that David Cameron replied honourable friend says not enough let me say to him more than enough and that was very revealing it was obvious that Prime Minister Cameron frankly wasn't best pleased about how significant an actor on the parliamentary stage the backbench Business Committee had become and he was clearly determined to snuff out the chance of a House Business Committee and as I've often had cause to observe David Cameron was perfectly entitled to his view on that matter but he did suffer from the rather material disadvantage of being wrong three three short questions to finish off and then Willie will take Q&A from the floor the best speech you've heard since you've been speaker the most moving of all was Allison McGovern's speech in a back page Business Committee inspired debate on the Hillsborough disaster in which he was pleading for a major inquiry and that has happened on this still worked me done into the historical verdict but the fans were to blame for the Hillsborough disaster back in 1989 and Allison was eloquent and passionate and well informed and visibly moved she's quite an emotional person a strong person with quite an emotional person and you could hear a pin drop she made a huge impact on the house and am I saying that she's the best public speaker or parliamentary orator I've ever heard no I'm not suggesting that to limit anything she would claim that she's very good but I'm not suggesting that but that was the outstanding speech that I remember more than any other and if I picked a second I would say Mike freer who's a Conservative MP in North London Finchley Mike free speech in support of equal marriage on the same-sex marriage legislation was a stunningly good speech a very brave a very personal and a very powerful speech so during my speakership those are the best two otherwise I suppose you know if I look back at who the best parliamentary auratus have been in my time people often talk about William a well it makes a very very good speaker in in an Oxford Union sort of way but the two best speakers I heard in my time in the House of Commons before I became speaker were in no particular order malcolm rifkind and robin cook I mean Robert Robin cook wasn't not just a very fine speaker Robin Cook was I think the most formidable debater debater that I heard in my time in the house I mean that man have a razor-sharp mind he was so quick and of course I wasn't there for his arms to the rack speech in the mid 90s I wasn't a member of parliament then but it is said that he made the most brilliant speech which did the Conservative government huge damage but I mean Robin was a formidable intellect and a formidable parliamentarian Robin wasn't always enormous ly popular I didn't want to speak ill of him I came to admire him enormously he wasn't always hugely popular partly because he found it not only difficult but quite unnecessary to conceal his view that he was by some margin the cleverest person in the room but he was weak on the subject of great parliamentarians the question that I often ask at the end of these sessions but you think you've already answered it is who was your political idol when growing up but I take it from the earlier answer your political idol when growing up was Powell factor I really had to Margaret Thatcher was a heroine of mine and I was and I am very ashamed of it because you know Kyle's views on immigration and race relations and repatriation were absolutely wrong and they were immoral and I think they were hugely damaging to race relations for a considerable period to the reputation of his party and I completely disagree with him and have done for over thirty years but you just be absolutely clear about that but at the time if we're talking when I was growing up and becoming interested in politics age 16 I met mrs. that I met Enoch Powell a number of times and you know at the time I admired him and I was wrong headed about that but I did partly because he's a formidable speaker and very clever and so on so forth he was utterly wrong Margaret Thatcher I who regarded as a heroine and I met mrs. Thatcher I went to listen to her last public meeting in the Finchley constituency that she held when she was leader of the opposition just before she became prime minister in 1979 and I suppose I must have been quite pushy because I sidled up to the front and at the end of the meeting and met her and said how much I'd enjoyed her speech and I was 16 at the time and I've always remembered I think was either the first of May 1979 or April the 30th seventy-nine and she said to me mr. Barco are you a member of the young concept' and I said well I'm afraid I'm not mr. sure but I have come to hear you and as I've said being greatly inspired well you most certainly should be and she proceeded to tell me where to go to join and I was very impressed by her I mean I still think she was a huge figure and she was a transformative Prime Minister in the way that a plea were not in the same way but she was transformative Prime Minister one of the two most transformative prime ministers of the post-war period aptly being the other and she was brave and gutsy and she was in a male-dominated party and she beat the lot of them and she was very formidable but she was also profoundly wrong about a number of things and there were huge gaps in her record and you know my hero is she today a heroine of mine no absolutely not I've got a number of heroes Martin Luther King Gandhi Eleanor Rathbone who is an amazing parliamentarian representing the universities constituencies he did huge amounts for for women and and for Jewish victims of Nazi genocide policy and so on so there are various people who are heroes or heroines of mine and is mrs. Thatcher her and of mine today she isn't and easy not pal absolutely not that you know I'm trying to answer you absolutely honestly and final question if you had a piece of advice for a young person interested in going into politics what would that advice be do something else before you go into Parliament you know I'm all in favor fell of people massively in favor of people getting involved in politics as young people I'm absolutely passionate about public engagement generally an engagement with young people in particular I spend a lot of time going to schools not just in my own constituency which any MP ought to do but more widely and universities and every year I chair the UK Youth Parliament on its annual sitting in the House of Commons on a non sitting Friday it's tomorrow by the way the ninth year in succession I'll have been chairing it and I always go to their conference wherever it is in the UK and I've done that since 2009 and will go on doing that if they want me to do so and I always say get involved during a party join a pressure group publish a pamphlet get involved in campaigns but if you want to be a parliamentarian you should definitely do something alongside any youthful political activity different from politics you shouldn't go to university become a research assistant to an MP and then become an MP you should get a job whether it's in industry or commerce or the city or the health service or teaching or the charitable sector or working to fight global poverty or whatever it may be because it will make you a more rounded and better MP when you get there and because it will actually make it more likely that a political party will select you as a candidate so that's I think would be my advice when you got into Parliament if any of you go young person goes into Parliament what would my advice be it would be to do one thing I didn't do you know in trying to progress as a parliamentarian I honed my debating skills and my questioning skills my power of interrogation my knowledge of parliamentary procedure by spending a huge amount of time in the chamber but I was very much a generalist I was a sort of jack-of-all-trades my strong advice to anybody newly elected to Parliament would be specialized specialised specialized don't try to be a generalist don't try to take part in everything establish a reputation on one subject or - and if that's - preferably very different subjects from different government departments and maybe one domestic and one international in which you are really respected by the house and don't try to pop up on everything people who try to pop up on everything tend to be heard less respectfully and I think that you know I think I became a good debater and a good questioner but I think that for quite long periods I was probably rather discounted because people thought oh there goes John you know he feels he has to sound off about everything and that was a valid criticism if I started again I think I would try to specialise earlier okay brilliant thank you and we will now take questions from the floor we should have some microphones I think brilliant thank you you can pop up and sound off on anything now in in the way you were just told not to so let's take this chap down here in the white t-shirt we'll start there if we can keep questions as short as possible and we will try to keep answers as short as possible and then we'll try and cram as many of you in as we can if you talk to the average person on the streets about PM Q's they probably wouldn't have a very good very high opinion of it do you think that it's a place for scrutinizing the government or do you agree with a lot of people who would say that is too raucous I do think that it allows scrutiny up to a point and I wouldn't want to get rid of it I've lost count of the number of countries I visited around the world where they say we wish our Prime Minister had to come and respond to questions each week so I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater by scrapping it but you put it very succinctly do I agree with those very large numbers of people who will say - raucous the short answer is I do the fact is it's not representative ladies and gentlemen of the rest of the week most of the rest of week is much quieter I won't say necessarily cerebral but sometimes quite cerebral and much more measured fewer people attending because people tend to attend when they want to speak and that's perfectly proper lots of other elements to the MPS job you know it's not that sitting in a classroom people can be doing other things that required them to be in the chamber but the rest weeks very different but the fact is p.m. cues is what by a huge multiple is most seen and heard by the public and if the decibel level causes deep purple which was the loudest band in the world in the 1970s to be regarded by comparison as positively Sauter voci well we're spray-painting our shop window and I think most people don't like it look we're never going to be a group of Trappist monks and we're not an Oxford Union debating society there are real and passionately held different opinions and people now and again get angry when real people's lives are affected by policy so I don't say there shouldn't be a bit of anger I didn't even say there shouldn't be a bit of noise I don't think it's a disaster if there is the occasional heckle but when there is braying cat calling and orchestrated bera king and heckling and attempts to shout people down I think it gives a terrible impression I didn't answer that part of Phil's question he sort of implied well given that that's characteristic of PM goos wouldn't it be better to finish it earlier well maybe not have it or not have it now I think that the the answer is all I can do is deal with the manifestations of disorder by calming a member down I try to do it humorously you know by saying you know I had high hopes for the Honorable junk once apprenticeship to become a statesman but it's quite obviously some considerable distance still to travel or you know I I tease a member that you know he's making too much noise and maybe you should take some sort of soothing the Dickerman which will have the desired effect but it will only really get better and it should and maybe the current candle another opportunity and I will underline this when I next meet the Prime Minister near the opposition maybe it can change but it will change fundamentally away from this very very aggressive culture only when the party leaders wanted to that's the brutal truth I can deal with the symptoms but it will only change fundamentally if the leaders and their whips wanted to if the leaders and their whips said stay to the back benches I do not want mass noise a bit of cheering for me fine but I do not want constant barking when opponents are speaking if they said that and gave out that instruction behavior would be changed overnight it hasn't changed overnight and you can deduce from that the obvious conclusion that the leaders haven't wanted it I wish they would and I hope they will and if they do things will change shopping the blue jumper that deep down here it's a very short question could you talk us through the events of the last 48 hours of the 2015 Parliament or the 2010 2015 Parliament yes and who do you blame do you know I'm not absolutely certain your question is self-contained as far as I'm concerned but not as far as the audience is concerned legend gentlemen right at the tail end of the twenty ten to fifteen Parliament there was an attempt to change the rules on the reelection of the speaker after a general election and the motion tabled by the leader of the House if passed would have meant that instead of the speaker being reelected after a general election by a straightforward vote of the house which had always been the case it would have required simply one person to shout no no no to the proposition that I returned to the chair and the would then have had to be a vote by secret ballot now the argument for the secret ballots in my view is flawed but the argument in a nutshell was now that the speaker is elected by secret ballot he or she should have to be reelected by secret ballot that thesis is fundamentally flawed because the proponent of is he's not comparing like with like when there is a vacancy for the speaker it was a number of candidates the house decided I didn't actually favor this as it happens but the house decided that it would conduct the election speaker by secret ballot so that colleagues could privately choose who they wanted to be speaker ladies Jim as a general election the speaker by long-standing convention and express preference of the political parties does not stand as a party candidate I haven't been a member of the Conservative Party since the day I was elected and the night I was elected Speaker in 2009 the speaker stands as the speaker seeking re-election and again by convention the major parties don't oppose the speaker and the working assumption therefore the logic is that the speaker is reelected in his or her constituency to the house as MP for the constituency but in the expectation that he or she will continue as speaker and the major parties have supported that so I think it's not unreasonable to assume live notwithstanding that we elect somebody wants to vote the speaker out somebody should be prepared to go through the division Lobby to express that preference I think that David Cameron William a Michael go thought in the run-up to the fifty-fifty that if it was left to a straightforward division of the house I would be reelected again but that if they could make it a secret ballots people might think well within the privacy of the secret ballot and particularly if they were encouraged by Cameron Hey he gave et cetera they might be inclined to try to vote me out what happened was that was a plan for that reform to be discussed by the end of that Parliament at all the procedure committee was not asking for it in that final week procedure committee had actually argued for the vote to come forward earlier and the government had ducked it and then the leader of the house at the last minute sprang a surprise such a surprise he didn't even tell and in a monstrous parliamentary discourtesy didn't even tell the chair of the procedure committee he was bringing forward the procedure commission's report and proposing to have a vote on that motion and it wasn't a free vote it was a whipped vote that the Tory parliamentary party was kept back to hear a presentation by Linton Crosby with a view then to voting on that motion and William Hague came to tell me about it 5:30 p.m. the night before to say the government was that night tabling that motion and he said it will be a free well it wasn't going to be a free vote now the House defeated that motion and I say openly to you sir as I've said on a number of other occasions that was hugely to the discredit of the government's final auditorium he's rebelled against it and the motion is defeated so I was reelected after 30 15 election by the normal method or the division and the wars now they've rejected my chair as far as whether it was Cameron Hague or Gabrus can said I'm pretty clear in my mind it came from the top the leader of the house should not just be the government's representative in the house the leader of the house the best leader of the House in history has the best leaders of house in history have recognized this their duty to be the houses representative in the government and William Hague should have said this is ridiculous and discreditable and I will have no part of it to his great discriminant take that attitude he was happy to act as David Cameron's agent and it was a display of malice and incompetence on an industrial scale put very simply Hague made a mess of it on his last day in Parliament sad sad sad and my friends I know I know I do tend to be rather gentle and restrained and understated in these matters one of these days I'll tell you what I really think well that I think thank you at Orion we met earlier because you were part of the parliamentary Studies module class is a very political question and I think that I should be very careful in my response to that look there's no secret that you know when I was a member of the Conservative Party because I shifted from the hard right to the centre I became a strong and insistent advocate of the modernisation of the Conservative Party I think the Conservative Party needed to move to the center I think it needed to become much more interested in public services and much less obsessed with tax cuts it needed to have a view ranging way beyond Europe and it shouldn't obsess or as David Cameron put it keep banging on about Europe it needed to be much more female friendly and ethnic minority friendly and inclusive in its approach whether the Conservative Party did change in that fundamental ways a debatable point but certainly David Cameron brought about a substantial change in the public face and the image of the Conservative Party as I say whether it really changed very fundamentally is another matter Theresa May herself was an early exponent of the case of a modernisation in a famous conference party conference speech she said that the party had come to acquire she wasn't saying that it should have done all that it was necessary accurate but she said it had come to acquire the reputation of being the nasty party and it needed to change that and I'm very much in agreement you know with that view that was certainly my view at the time I mean I think I was an outrider myself for mobilization I was in favor of more modernization earlier and I was of that view with all due respect considerably before David Cameron was but he was the facilitator of change I think it's a continuing challenge for political parties to modernize and-and-and that challenge certainly applies to the Conservative Party but I'm not sure it's really for the the speaker to specify what the the route maps a conservative change should be I mean suffice to say I do think on the whole elections are won in the centre ground and the mythical parties that want to win elections have their core vote yeah the Tories case on the right and their Labour's case on the left but if they're going to win in the centre ground I think they win with a focus on quality of life issues the state of the public services prospects for people in retirement and attitude to our international obligations and I'm sure all of that is known to resume the challenge front of course for Prime Minister May is to navigate a path to progress for her party and her government in a situation in which she doesn't have a natural majority so it's a huge challenge for her I didn't want to pass judgment on her I think it'd be totally in inappropriate for me to do so the only thing I would say is that for all the problems that she's gotten the pressures that she faces I've myself always found her courteous about always had good personal relations with her and I did against the revelation of a state secret to say that I get on better with her than I did with Prime Minister Cameron and I used to get on well with David when we were the first pair in the House of Commons and House of Lords tennis team where I must say in fairness to Cameron he was a very good partner McEnroe like in intolerance of his own mistakes but pretty tolerant of mine but after he ceased to play together for House of Commons Arsenal's tennis team our relationship seemed permanently to deteriorate Leeson Andy when she came talked about how she's habitually sort of well when she first started she was sort of shouted down by male members and how there is a real fight for women within the house what do you think you've done as speaker to sort of battle sexism like when would you just speak up a little bit a bit what do I have done to tackle sexism Linda in the house as speaker speaker what do I think I've done to tackle sectors are first I've tried to encourage more female participation not by having a mechanistic approach that says you know I've got to call X number of women or in this particular order but I've got an instinctive sense that I do not want to be calling if I can avoid it six men in a row I don't want to be doing that I'm constantly looking for a balance balance between parties of balance between intakes people who came in 40 years ago and people who came in a few months ago a balance on particular subjects between proponents of one point of view on say breakfast and proponents of an alternative point of view on that same subject and I'm constantly thinking about the gender balance in debates that's one thing that I've done in a way that I suspect perhaps it wasn't done so decidedly or with such a focus in past secondly very early on and this isn't just about women but it is about family friendliness I took the view frankly it was absolutely ridiculous when I stood for election the speaker that there was a shooting gallery in Parliament where people could go pistol shooting but there was no nursery which MPs and staff could pay for to broker a better work/life balance for eight years later I'm pleased to say we have a nursery which MPs and staff can pay for it's very well subscribed indeed thank you very much but we have no shooting gallery any longer and house because it's been closed down and that seems to me to be an altogether more satisfactory state of affairs I have myself also commissioned research from Sara Charles dr. professor Sarah childs who's written a wonderful report she's an academic at Bristol University and well-known to Phil she's written a poor report called the good parliament which is an intended route to a gender sensitive Parliament and a number of the recommendations of that report I am keen to take forward one of them was to start by establishing a committee on representation and inclusion across party committee that I chair proposals for baby leave and the possibility of proxy voting when people are taking maternity leave are coming forward and I want to see those aired and debated and voted upon in Parliament and there are other proposals for example to do with having gender balanced select committees and other Committees of the House which I strongly favor so you know I have done a bit and I've also worked on the staff side leaving aside members for a moment the staff side I've worked hard to try to ensure that more capable people in the house women ethnic minorities are promoted in the House service or attracted to apply to work in it in the first place I launched an initiative to give more younger female clark's rising procedural specialists the chance to serve at the table which the clerk's regard as the Holy Grail to serve at the table in front of the speaker in the chamber and some of the the old guard senior male clocks were completely taken aback but I asked the senior clerk at the time how long will it be before X a young middle-ranking female clerk how long before she serves at the table well have any important business vigor that she has the competences and I said yes yes I appreciate that but there are other clerks at the table she could be mentored and answer my question how long before she serves at the table and eventually it became clear to me that it was going to be about 15 years before this young ish but not very young clock in her early forties was gonna have the chance to serve at the table exactly exactly how ridiculous is that well we've changed that but we need to do more I've worked hard to recruit into the house the first female and beer me speakers chaplain in the history of the house the first be Emmie sergeant-at-arms Kemal muhammad al in the history of the house used to be it was once a a woman but otherwise it was always an upper-middle-class male usually ex-military Kamal's doing a great job and I've recruited the first female and BME speaker's council senior lawyer in the history of the house so is there a lot more to do yes a lot more to do I'm not at all satisfied I don't think the record is good enough but I am trying to make progress and I think I'm making progress if you allow proxy folks the whips will kindly offer to be the proxy but yeah that is a rich help you act yes I think it has to be I mean I fulfill I think you're right I think there's some sense of the whip might be keen on it if it's given to the whip to to cast I think my feeling is that it should be that it has to be for the member to decide by the way look the whips have an important role I'm not saying that there shouldn't be a role for whips there is a role for whips just as in any decent public health system you have to have sewers it's very important but the important thing is that the whip should know their place I I always had when I was a Conservative MP I had a relationship with my whips characterized by trust and understanding I didn't trust them and they didn't understand me you do the sewers - I didn't know that right maybe to the palace of Westminster's in a dreadful state repair and the are enough seats for enough legislators do you think it's time for Parliament's moved to another building or even another city such as Manchester or Leeds whilst it's right for Parliament's and measures in place so women or men can report inappropriate behavior in the light of the suspected suicide of Carl Sargent what should be done to protect the frailties of the accused on restoration refurbishment that work will have to be done there's an argument about whether it requires D can't or not and I would like a decision to be made it's not for me to make but a decision that does have to be made do I honestly think that we should have a completely new building no I don't because I think there's a lot to be said for our building and to construct something completely new would probably be even more expensive the fact that the chamber doesn't seat everybody in my opinion doesn't particularly matter because there are only a couple of occasions a year when apart from p.m. queues when most people are just sitting to observe only a couple occasions a year when people can't sit down and that's the day of the budget speech and the day of the Queen's speech and I think that if you change the chamber the intimacy would be damaged and the acoustics would probably be inferior so I don't think personally that's a problem and moving to another city no I'm in favor of having political debates perhaps between the party leaders or between the health secretary Machado health section of the education section education century in either big town halls around the country possibly chaired by the speaker and if people wanted it or in great universities around the country I think there'd be a lot of interest I'd anything people are uninterested in politics I think they're often irritated by the way the the spats take place but are they interested in the issues I think they are I don't myself favor going outside London to whatever exists because the fact is even with modern communications acting as a help government departments are principally based in London and I think it would not be workable to have that and ministers having to travel to debates in Manchester on a day to day basis in terms of protection the frailties of the accused I think that's incredibly important in the light of what's happened in world but it was predictable and even if people are suspected of wrongdoing they may well need and should be given help understanding support for example it may be I'm not referring to any particular case but it may be that somebody who is suspected of committing or has committed a an offense or even something that's not an offence but is widely regarded as an abuse such a person might have real problems in his or her own life and needs support in tackling them or living with them and managing them and I think that is part of our responsibility but the other point which is absolutely front and center stage is this I reluctant to get into any one case because they all tend to involve members of parties and you know I'd rather not at this stage get into individual cases if a member is going for example to be sacked or denied the whip of his or her party for God's sake that member is entitled to know of what he or she is accused and that member is entitled to learn if a judgment has been made about suspension or dismissal of that suspension or dismissal first and not first through the media it's a bit like our attitude if I may say so okay it's not the same issue but it's a bit in terms of principle it's analogous to the way we behave in relation to terrorists we have certain standards and we I hope insist on upholding our standards the fact that a terrorist or a would-be dictator doesn't care about human rights and is willing to slaughter innocent people in pursuit of his or her prejudices doesn't mean that we should operate in the same way we believe in fair trial we believe in innocent until proven guilty we believe in due process and okay on a different scale and in a different level in a different way but the principle that we give people due process and if I'd not give it out of a spirit of generosity but we have an obligation to provide it is absolutely unarguable I plant this thought in Phil's mind and he may say no because all good things have to come to an end I'm willing to take one more clutch of questions if you're given if you're if you let them but I hate disappointing take three take three very quick ones so we're going to take and given the success for your career since do you have any regrets surrounding your time in the shadow cabinet in the early 2000s and did you have any ambitions for one of the big big four positions in government thank you hello given the recent allegations that are happening regarding the sexual allegations you've pushed for an independent process you've supported an independent process but you've also left the handling of the matters with the respective leaders of the party given that they have sort of intentionally or unintentionally fostered such an environment where people couldn't come forth and speak do you think that that's wise and do you think that it is an obligation of yours to take a more active role in leading the change thank you does the continued presence of hereditary peers in the House of Lords cheap and as a function of democracy continue keeping it as a function of democracy thank you right did I in the light of my Shadow Cabinet career in the early noughties regret the way it ended I mean first of all I resigned over the Conservative Party's imposition of a three-line whip on Tory MPs including of course members of Shadow Cabinet to vote against to vote against the right of unmarried and gay couples jointly to adopt children I thought that matters should not be the subject of a whip vote I was in favor of the right of unmarried and gay couples jointly to adopt children and I pleaded with Ian Duncan Smith not to impose that three-line whip but he insisted on doing so and so I said well in that case I must leave the Shadow Cabinet and speak and vote in accordance with my own conscience think actually although I hugely enjoyed a year or so later getting a year a shadow international development century and it fueled my interest in the fight against global poverty so I don't regret it in a big way I think it was probably a mistake to come back onto the front bench and Michael how my wife and I normally understand each other but she was surprised at the time that I wanted to come back I'd just become a dad and she thought that you know it wasn't a great priority and to come back she told her I should bide my time and in a way it was probably mistaken it ended badly in that I fell out with my cloud which frankly wasn't sort of terribly difficult to do but I did and I ended up being sacked by Michael although actually Michael did me a great favor he probably won't welcome you saying that Michael did me the most enormous favor and dismissing me from my post and offering me a an alternative base which I didn't want on which I refused to accept and therefore which caused me to leave the front pinch he did me a huge favor because it was that but frankly caused me to make up my mind now I don't want any of those top jobs I'm not very good as a team player I'm no I'm not a very good team player I didn't frankly greatly admire any of the conservative leaders under whom I served I didn't really think any of them was going to become prime minister and that since I was right and I didn't want to be a minister and I thought now I've got to resolve this dilemma when I'm on the back bench I want to be on the front and when I'm on the front bench I want to be on the back and this is a recipe for unhappiness so now it decided me no I'm gonna stay on the back benches I'm gonna pursue my causes I'm going to try to get on the speaker's panel of chairs that chair debates in Westminster all the subordinate chamber and build committees and then when the speakership comes up I'm going to see whether there is support for me and if I think I've got a decent chance of winning the speakership because I'm passionate about Parliament about debate about representation about back-bencher opportunity about scrutiny of the executive I'll have a go so do I have any regrets that I didn't become a minister now I I think it's far far far far more fun and stimulating to be speaker should I take a more active role in the resolution of the sexual harassment scandal and you know given that the parties and a sense almost have been the genesis the problem I think there is a role for me to play I certainly think as far as parts of house process are concerned we can look at improving those so where we've got a respect policy that covers House of Commons staff MP staff are not employed by the House of Commons we can look at extending that policy and seeing whether we can make it more widely available to MP staff and others but that does have to be looked at very carefully but that doesn't mean that I'm trying to long grass it I want that work to get underway I also do believe there's a role of advocacy for me I think I can legitimately say and I do believe that the code of conduct for MP should it include now a specific provision as the parliamentary standards commissioner recommended some time ago on harassment and bullying and if it did then complaints about harassment and bullying would be justiciable it could be adjudicated by they'd be adjudicated by the parliamentary Standards Commissioner which would it be an improvement on the present however I do feel that if there is to be a new body that might potentially require either a vote of the house or even primary legislation which would certainly require a vote of the house the reason why I have sort of said well the parties must take the lead is that although a number of the party leaders of the premise was referred to Parliament as the institution the fact is that Parliament is overwhelmingly made up of members of political parties and therefore it is really only if the parties come together and agree to bring forward change including legislation that that change can happen and the idea that it is for the speaker to lead that whole process I think is wrong is the however a role for me to play in terms of advocacy and facilitation I think there is and you know I'm certainly not running away from my responsibility but I I don't think the speaker should seek to impose a blueprint but the speaker should be a facilitator do I think the continued presence and hereditary is in the House of Lords cheapens democracy I'm not sure that I want to use the term cheapens I certainly think it is wrong and I was back in I think 2007 where there was a whole series of votes on House of Lords reform and I predominant I voted for either a wholly or a predominantly elected ii j abbreviated for different options but i was very much in the elected second chamber camp i was i think on medication the only Conservative MP in 2007 who voted for the immediate removal of all of the hereditary peers because I simply thought that it was utterly unsustainable that in the 21st century a part of the legislature should include people who were there by accident of birth and I think that my view was a pretty unremarkable view though it was remarked upon that I was the only Tory MP who voted for the immediate removal of the said hereditary peers what you might think is mildly amusing about it is that my constituency chairman at the time horizon drivers are very supportive and good constituency chairman was himself an auditory he he wasn't in the Lord's at the time he was James younger the son of the late George younger secretary state defense and sexual state from Scotland and James was very keen to become an it wasn't technically at the time but it became clear later that he was very keen on you come on a reddit or appear and he did become a hereditary pair I hasten to add James Young who is I think even now a member of the government you know is a very capable chap and he was a very good conservative association chairman for me lives in my constituencies a very agreeable fellow and but he is in a reddit area and he it was no fodder in our subsequent conversations she showed no indication of hostility or resentment but one or two people said to me John it's quite amusing that you were a key advocate of this your own constituency chairman is one of these are reddit airy types and he might possibly take umbrage and I said well when's that ever bothered me in the past thank you very much that was fascinating session it's shown that you don't bear any grudge against William Hague at school William I should just say by the way William Willett went between them and the wine you know all right well William improve the Conservative Party's representation in Parliament from 165 when he became leader in 1997 to 166 the 2001 election now on my reckoning that had to be fair I mustn't do a minister's service on on my reckoning William would have become prime minister at that rate of progress at the age of 840 the one conservative game net was made by the fact that in Tatton Martin Bell stood down and George Osborne and took the seat it wasn't actually any gain at all on that basis but for tat button the Conservative Party made no gains at all in 2001 so what you mean he would never have ever Bannister what a tragedy for the nation all that notes on that page bombshell outside there is someone it is proof for all of you that is not where your fees are going I discover that as soon as you have a tart but please show your appreciation in the usual manner [Applause] well I just want to say thank you what order what's not to like about talking to and hearing from students it's been huge fun thank you very much [Music] you

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Keywords: qmul, Queen Mary University London, Mile End Institute, Philip Cowley, John Bercow

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Length: 86min 4sec (5164 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 13 2017