Twenty years to build a reputation and five minutes to lose it: why the Commons must defend itself
There have been serious blows to the reputation of the House of Commons over the past 15 years: but it has been too passive and unresponsive
The House of Commons can be its own worst enemy. That is a tall order in today’s media atmosphere, but it is still sometimes true. I don’t want to rehearse the various crises which the House as a body has faced over the last 10 or 15 years, but we can all think of some: expenses, bullying and harassment, a would-be-overweening executive, the Prorogation-that-wasn’t. There is no common thread to the origins of these scandals, but there is a commonality in the miserable response, and that is consistent failure on the part of the House of Commons.
The Commons doesn’t really have a statutory existence. It has simply emerged over centuries, beginning, roughly, with Montfort’s Parliament of England in 1265 and decisively sitting separately from the Lords by 1341. Even earlier, the Parliament of Scotland is recognisable by 1235, though its Thrie Estaitis sat together until the body was dissolved in 1707.
There is a statutory body to manage the Commons’ internal affairs. The House of Commons Commission was established by the House of Commons (Administration) Act 1978 and was given responsibility for the management, finances and staff of the House, though many of its tasks are delegated to other bodies. The Commission is chaired by the Speaker and consists of the Leader of the House (currently Penny Mordaunt), the shadow leader (Thangam Debbonaire) and four other MPs, as well as three lay members and, importantly, the Clerk of the House (currently Dr John Benger). It is a hybrid body, therefore, of elected Members, officials and non-executives.
Although the Commission deals with a lot of important issues, there are many urgent matters which slip under its radar. And it is circumscribed by its statutory creation, which lays down its responsibilities. It meets—wholly understandably—in private, and publishes agendas and decisions with entirely proper concision. It has in recent years begun to list its “successes” on the parliamentary website, which is revolutionary by the standards of the administration I remember, but it is, fundamentally, an inward-looking body. And that’s fine.
There are two more hands-on bodies to oversee and, if necessary, advise reform of the way the House works. The Procedure Committee, numbering 17 members and chaired by Karen Bradley (Con, Staffordshire Moorlands), is responsible for the way business proceeds: as Bradley recently described it, “From ‘Order, Order’ to ‘Order, Order’ and all the bits in between.” It has examined issues like the presence of babies in the Chamber, proxy voting and the arrangements for sitting during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Administration Committee, 11 members led by Sir Charles Walker (Con, Broxbourne), examines the services delivered to members and staff. Each committee can make recommendations to the House but, as with almost all reform, the responsibility for initiative lies with the government and its control of the parliamentary agenda.
The problem comes when a matter arises which is a threat to the Commons as a whole, not merely to individual Members or single parties. As we have seen, there are supervisory bodies which examine and scrutinise the way the House works, but none of them has any kind of crisis control responsibility, and all are very inward-looking and process-driven. Henry Kissinger may never have uttered his famous remark, “Who do I call when I want to speak to Europe?”, but even the apocryphal notion can be turned on the House. Who do you approach when you want to speak to the Commons?
The obvious answer would be the Speaker, currently Sir Lindsay Hoyle, a former Labour MP. I like the Speaker a great deal (I was his private secretary for a couple of years in a previous life), and he handles both business and the House itself with calm aplomb and an uncanny sense for what it wants to do. The Speaker’s Office does have some responsibility for representing the House to the outside world, so the Speaker will receive eminent visitors from abroad and represent the House internationally at various levels.
However, the Speaker’s primary duty, one which is absolutely vital to his role, is political impartiality. If he is not trusted to be fair and unbiased, he loses the authority over the Commons which he simply must have. It was the failure in this duty which finally and fatally undermined John Bercow’s position as speaker, as he acted in ways which convinced many inside the House and beyond that he was passionately opposed to Brexit. He had offended many in his decade in the chair, but this was intolerable.
The Speaker is supported by a small staff. His secretary (and, modishly, “chief of staff”) is his principal personal adviser, and can be seen standing next to the Speaker’s Chair for questions and some other business. There are two deputy chiefs of staff, for external affairs and parliamentary affairs, and other administrative staff. For most of his duties in respect of the House of Commons, the Speaker can, of course, call on the advice of the Clerk of the House and the whole House Service. But he is a figurehead and speaks publicly only on uncontroversial matters, or at least those on which there is cross-party agreement. He would be ill-equipped and badly placed to act as a spokesman for the House in times of crisis.
If one cannot look to the Speaker, who else? The Leader of the House of Commons has a title which might suggest its suitability. And the Leader is a party politician, a member of the Cabinet and (almost always) the holder of an ancient office of state. The current incumbent is Lord President of the Council, but predecessors have been Lord Privy Seal or Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. The role of the Leader is to deliver the government’s legislative programme and, with the whips, manage the law-making process. However, she also has a representative role as the House’s voice in the Cabinet.
Being Leader is not, and cannot be, a sharply partisan job. She is as much a member of the executive as any, and will vote with the government like any other minister, but it is a requirement that she commands the respect of the House as a whole, and is trusted as an honest dealer when massaging conflicts between executive wish and legislative privileges. This semi-ambassadorial role is reflected in the Leader’s membership of the Commission, the Public Accounts Commission (distinct from the Committee of Public Accounts) and the Speaker’s Committee on the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority.
This lack of an obvious figurehead has cost the House dearly in the past. The expenses scandal which erupted in 2009 laid horribly bare Michael Martin’s shortcomings as Speaker: he was cautious, defensive, saw his duty as protecting MPs as if they were the members of the trades unions he had once helped run and lacked any kind of charisma or public persona. While he and the Clerk of the House—their relationship rapidly deteriorating—stumbled towards some kind of defence of the House and reform of its processes, there was no-one authorised by the House as a whole to face the media, night in, night out, setting the record straight, explaining what was happening and giving assurance that change was being implemented.
It also contributes to death by a thousand cuts. Away from the maelstrom of major crises, the House suffers periodically from witting or unwitting assaults on its reputation. Rarely will more than a few weeks pass before a journalist—ignorant or mischievous—uncovers a huge amount of money claimed in “expenses” by an individual MP. It is a useful barb to throw at anyone in the immediate spotlight, because the charge is short and simple while the explanation is long and nuanced. Of course, the journalist is always taken on, by an MP’s member of staff or another journalist or an informed commentator (yes, I’ve done it myself), and the details almost always wash away the supposed sin.
Generally, the ill-informed or ill-intentioned will see a six-figure sum and boggle at it; almost always the vast majority of it will represent staff costs for people working in the MP’s office. Extremely rarely are there egregious claims for luxury or unnecessary goods. That was, undoubtedly, a problem before 2009, and it was a lazy conspiracy abetted by too many interested parties. But most MPs now are far too aware of the danger of hostile media to indulge themselves through the public purse.
Wouldn’t it be a huge benefit for the House and its reputation if a senior figure, one with authority which cannot easily be dismissed, were able to say simply “No, this is misleading or wrong, here’s the truth, any questions” and have the caravan move on? Imagine the time saved, and the corrosion prevented which comes from these misfired pot-shots lingering in the political atmosphere? It would be something which would benefit all MPs, of whatever party, and might even be disproportionately beneficial to smaller parties who are less able to grab the oxygen of publicity.
It seems to me there are two approaches to this difficulty. The simple one would be to nominate a senior member of the House and authorise him or her to speak on non-partisan issues relating to the House’s administration; it could be the Leader, or, if that is seen as too partial, the House of Commons Commission nominates one of its members to answer parliamentary questions. It is currently the experienced and boisterous Sir Charles Walker, formerly chair of the Procedure Committee, though he has indicated his intention to stand down at the next election. It is not beyond the wit of parliamentary authorities to devise a way to give more support and resources to the Commission’s nominee and allocate an additional, media-facing role as, effectively, “spokesman for the House of Commons.”
The alternative, apeing the White House and the never-realised plans of Boris Johnson, would be to appoint a senior official as the House’s spokesman. On that model, the nominee would not be a policy-maker but an expert and experienced figure used to dealing with the media. He or she would take advice from officials and elected Members and propose strategies to present best House matters to the public, and could report to the Commission or to some other body. The appointment of such a figure could concentrate on communications skills and media handling as principal requirements, rather than tacking the job on to an already-existing post.
I have no clear preference at this point between those two possible solutions, and would happily entertain other ideas for giving the House a sharper outward image and ability to present itself. Of this, however, I am quite sure: as long as no such figure exists, the Commons will suffer reputational damage from time to time through misinformation, misunderstand and lack of transparency; in addition Members will continue to see themselves as the badly handled victims of a faceless and arcane system rather than participants in a process over which they have considerable control and which not only would welcome but needs their input.
That would do something very important. It would take away the ability, the excuse, if you like, of MPs to plead helplessness and lack of control in the face of criticism. It would drive home to them that they are, each individually and taken together, responsible for the image and the authority of the House of Commons, and empower the vast majority of well-behaved and honest Members to take action against the bad apples among their colleagues.
So it’s a matter for MPs. They don’t, as a group, always relish initiative and the power to make things happen, and must sometimes be prodded into it. There are many in the House who can prod much more effectively and closer to the issue than I, but, if it gets any kind of momentum going, consider this a gentle, respectful shove.