Dame Angela Eagle
MP for Wallasey · Labour · United Kingdom
“The Kremlin increasingly relies on proxy organisations to pursue its objectives, seeking to undermine our security while maintaining a degree of plausible deniability. The so-called GRU Volunteer Corps is a clear example of that approach. It is not an independent force or a loose collection of volunteers.”
“This Government have introduced support for the Jewish communities who have been threatened and directly targeted by IRGC proxies. Just a couple of days ago, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced an extra £250 million for policing to ensure that we can support and protect our Jewish communities.”
“I will move on to the Islamic Movement of Companions of the Right. The IMCR has publicly claimed seven attacks at UK locations linked to Jewish and Israeli communities and to Persian-language media, including the antisemitic arson attack on four Hatzola ambulances in Golders Green on 23 March.”
“We expect platforms to act responsibly and not to provide space for state threat-linked activity, propaganda or recruitment. We will be keeping a close eye on that, as well as liaising with social media companies to tell them about how this law impacts them.”
“The IRGC Quds Force and the IRGC Intelligence Organisation, together with the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, form the Iranian intelligence apparatus. As a key component of the Iranian state’s security apparatus, the IRGC is answerable directly to Iran’s Supreme Leader.”
“It provides a targeted and proportionate means of disrupting those involved in foreign power threat activity based on the recommendations of Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of state threat legislation. To answer the hon.”
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Every one of 5,924 lines we hold for Dame Angela Eagle, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 67 of 119.
“If we are talking about the cap—it is not referred to in the motion, but we are considering it for our own policies—we need to consult so that we can reach a sensible decision about what it should mean. What impression are our constituents expected to form when Lord Heseltine opines on “Newsnight” that being an MP is “not a full-time job”, or when Lord Lawson tells Sky News that “if you’re just a constituency Member, you do have time on your hands”? That is not a description of the job of being a Member of Parliament that I have ever recognised in the 23 years in which I have had the honour to represent the people of Wallasey in this place. It is not a description, either, that the public are willing to accept.”
“It is about remuneration, and the perception that Members have other interests that they may be putting before their primary interests. Given the cynical age in which we live, we need to think about that a great deal more carefully than we may have done in the past.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. I am trying to establish that we must move on from the status quo, and today’s motion is about how we can do that.”
“Let me take this opportunity to make it extremely clear that the motion is not aimed at any particular individual. It is concerned with what Parliament should do to modernise the way in which it interacts with the world outside. I night add that I suspect that ex-Prime Ministers have a rather higher earnings potential than many of the rest of us. Furthermore—I should make this point, now that the hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales) has brought the issue up—I understand that my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath gives every penny of that money to charity, and does not take any of it himself. Given the import of the hon. Gentleman’s question, I think that should be put on the record.”
“I last heard that the Scottish National party had received some particularly large donations from individuals, but I do not want to have this kind of debate about the issue. I am trying to talk about the future, and about how the House regulates matters that have such an important bearing on the way in which our constituents regard this place and us. If we are to increase trust in our politics, we must pay very close attention to what is happening in this instance.”
“Our intention in the motion is simple. We need to be completely clear with the public that when they do us the honour of electing us to Parliament, they can expect our attention to be focused primarily on serving them.”
“All our existing Members of Parliament and candidates who are standing at the general election have been put on notice to expect that. If the Government had accepted that rule when we first argued for it in 2013, the reputational damage inflicted this week would not have happened. The motion also states that we need “a wider regulatory framework for…second jobs” for MPs. The Prime Minister was wrong when he sought to characterise our proposals as an outright ban. We have set out some ways in which a regulatory framework might operate. That could include setting a cap on earnings from second jobs that is sufficiently high to allow, for example, Members to maintain professional qualifications. However, we will consult on that point with everyone who wishes to share their views. Our aim is to get a system that is fair and workable.”
“The proposals in the motion are just a start, but if enacted they would enable us to deal with the ongoing and corrosive issue of remunerated interests, and to begin to restore the health of our democracy and our constituents’ trust in the people they send to this place. Let me turn to the actual terms of the motion, rather than the wildly inaccurate version that the Prime Minister sought unsuccessfully to dismiss earlier today. Our proposal states clearly that after “the start of the next Parliament” no Member of the House should be permitted to hold a directorship or a paid consultancy or, if our manuscript amendment had been accepted, be a paid trade union official. That is a commitment that we will honour in the Labour party by changing the parliamentary Labour party standing orders.”
“My understanding of our position on the IPSA pay award is that the leader of our party has said that it should not go ahead as long as other public sector workers and workers in this country are experiencing a huge standard of living crisis. That is the situation as set out by my right hon. Friend. It is time that we acknowledged the very different context in which we must all do our jobs, as it has changed. A YouGov poll in 2013 showed that 62% of people felt that MPs should focus on their parliamentary job full time, and over half favoured an outright ban on all second jobs.”
“No, not really. There is something in the motion about remunerated interests. It is possible for someone with those connections to keep in touch to carry on doing jobs, but not in a remunerated way.”
“We want to consult appropriately on this, but Ministers give up their interests and put them in trust when they go into government. There could be proposals that would enable Members to keep hold of the things they did before they were elected without being directly paid for them while they served in this place. There is a consultation process and if the right hon. Gentleman wants to get involved, I am more than happy to listen to what he has to say. It is important, however, that we make this break with the past. Decades ago, being an MP might have been seen as a second job but times have changed radically and we need to change with them.”
“My hon. Friend, as ever, makes a point that is acute and important. To those who argue that this will all narrow the experience of politicians in Westminster, I would argue that experience useful in our legislature is not purely gained by being paid for doing a second or third job. I have found many interesting and enjoyable ways over the years to stay in touch with constituents and gain a valuable insight into what is happening in the communities we represent. The payment of large supplementary incomes is not essential in gaining that experience.”
“In opposition, the Prime Minister said: “Being a Member of Parliament must be a full-time commitment…The public deserves nothing less.” He knew it then, but once in power he refused to do anything to deal with the problem of second jobs, preferring instead to defend the discredited status quo in which the public have lost faith. The amendment that the Leader of the House will, regrettably, soon move defends the status quo, and even at this late stage the Prime Minister could admit that there is a case for change and get on board.”
“I see no reason why the cap cannot be constituted in such a way as to ensure that people can carry on serving in the armed forces. Government Members must not caricature these proposals. They are about remunerated directorships and consultancies, not about the sort of things that people did before they came to this House. It is a matter of great regret that the Prime Minister has been so unwilling to recognise the damage that second jobs are doing to the reputation of Parliament and that he dismissed so quickly the attempts of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition to make cross-party progress on a ban earlier this week.”
“I have given way a lot, so I will not. The Deputy Prime Minister said earlier today: “The principle is if you are devoting yourself to public service, that is what you should do…I don't think anyone finds it acceptable…people regard politics as nothing more than a part-time hobby.” He went on to say that “the principle should be you are elected to do a job, that is your vocation, that is your act of public service, that is what you should be doing for your constituents”. Well, I agree, and it is not often that I agree with the Deputy Prime Minister. In the light of that comment, perhaps he will confirm that he and his colleagues will join us in the Lobby tonight. If they do, we can really begin to make progress.”
“No, I am right at the end of my speech and I have given way a lot. The choice is clear. Are we here to serve our constituents or are we here to serve our own self-interest? Are were going to change a broken system or are we going to ignore the public’s clamour for reform? After the election, no Labour MP will have a paid directorship or consultancy, and Labour’s manifesto will include a promise to ensure that that applies to all MPs. Wider reform is now being rejected because the Conservatives are the defenders of a tired and discredited status quo. To reform our politics, we need to stand up to vested interests, not cosy up to them. We need to stand up for the powerless, not the powerful. And we need to accept that sometimes in this place, things need to change. That time has come.”
“To make it clear again, the parliamentary Labour party will change its rules and its standing orders so that from the start of the next Parliament no Labour MP will have remunerated directorships or consultancies. All our candidates and all our existing Members of Parliament will have to change their arrangements in order to comply with this change of rules. Will the right hon. Gentleman now commit to his party doing the same?”
“Surely I would be certain of winning that one, because, judging by his welfare reforms, that man has no hope of finishing anything. I gather that the Liberal Democrats are organising their own fundraiser, too: instead of an auction, they are going to sell off their principles to the highest bidder.”
“This year, in a doomed bid to limit the PR disaster, they banned ostentatious displays of tuxedos and champagne, but they did still auction a 500-bird pheasant and partridge shoot for tens of thousands of pounds; a bronze statue of Margaret Thatcher for £210,000; and, hilariously, a holiday in Cobblers Cove. I have been inspecting the auction lots and if I had more money than sense I could have bought shoe shopping with the Home Secretary or a personalised cartoon from the Leader of the House’s private collection, where he is depicted as a “bionic babe”. Perhaps he could tell us what that went for. I could also have paid to take on the welfare Secretary in an endurance race across hills, woods, streams, hedges and hay bales.”
“He drove teachers round the bend, he has put this place on the road to nowhere, and his Government hold the record for the most U-turns. He certainly will not be allowed anywhere near our magenta battle bus. On Monday night, the Conservative black and white ball raised millions of pounds and gave a whole new meaning to the term “by-election”. According to the Daily Mail , the Prime Minister partied with the kings and queens of sleaze, including a porn baron, the owner of a strip club and the boss of Ann Summers. Perhaps they should have changed their theme to black, white and a little blue.”
“Most appear to have responded by suddenly dumping hundreds of statutory instruments on the Order Paper, but the invisible man—the Tory Chief Whip—has responded in his own unique style. On a day when he failed to show up in Parliament—the day before Parliament adjourned five hours early—he gave a speech on the “myth” of the zombie Parliament. His key evidence was an increase in urgent questions under this Government. But, Mr Speaker, you grant urgent questions and you grant them when the Government are avoiding scrutiny. I read this morning that the Chief Whip has literally been back-seat driving, but not at the Department for Education: he has been taking vanity trips in his Jaguar to travel the 400 yards between Parliament and No. 10.”
“Yet this is the first Government since 1874 who have left people worse off at the end of the Parliament than they were at the beginning. While he was there, he even decided to channel Lord Kinnock, but I would have used a different speech: “I’ll tell you what happens with impossible Tory pre-election promises. They’re pickled into a rigid soundbite, a code, and you end up in the grotesque chaos of a Tory Government—a Tory Government!—hiring chauffeur-driven limos to scuttle round Davos handing out huge tax breaks to its own donors.” The Prime Minister has reportedly told the Cabinet that he is fed up of this zombie Government and that he wants Ministers to get back to work.”
“Since the Prime Minister became leader of his party, those donors have given him £5 million and HSBC’s chairman, Lord Green, was appointed a Minister in the Government after the scandal was public knowledge, with no questions asked about his oversight of this rogue bank. Does that not say everything about this Government? On the Government’s own estimate, uncollected taxes rose by a massive £34 billion last year. Their sweetheart Swiss tax deal is full of holes and has brought in less than a third of what they promised, and they have cut taxes for millionaires and hedge funds, which have given them £47 million since the Prime Minister became leader. With the election looming, our shameless Prime Minister travelled to the British Chambers of Commerce to steal a TUC slogan and suddenly declare that “Britain needs a pay rise”.”
“Given that the Government were quick to welcome the Francis report but have made it their mission to make people pay to access employment rights and protection from bullying and arbitrary treatment everywhere else, may we have a debate on the protection that Britain’s workers deserve against bullying at work? May we especially have a debate about the 60% fall in employment tribunal cases since the Government introduced steep payments for access to justice in the workplace? Yesterday we learned that a string of Tory donors banked with the Swiss arm of HSBC, which has been caught red-handed facilitating tax abuse.”
“I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the post-recess business. On Tuesday, the Standards Committee published a review of the standards system in the Commons, led by the lay members. We need radical action to restore trust in our political system, so I thank the Committee for the report, which contains some sensible recommendations. Will the Leader of the House set out how he intends to take the report forward, and will he tell me if he will act on my suggestion and remove the Government majority on the Committee to address concerns about the Government protecting their own? Yesterday’s report from Sir Robert Francis revealed that nearly a quarter of NHS staff have experienced bullying or harassment—a problem that is all too prevalent in other workplaces across the country too.”
“We have a Tory Chief Whip who still pines after his old job and a Lib Dem Chief Whip so exercised by this Government’s legislative agenda that he is reportedly falling asleep in Cabinet. We have a Work and Pensions Secretary whose flagship benefit reform is so behind schedule that, at the current rate, it will take 1,571 years to complete. We have a universities Minister who is so out of touch that he is telling students not to worry about debt because three years of tuition will cost them only 13,846 cups of posh coffee. Using that coffee currency, I have estimated that the Government have missed their borrowing target by 64 billion salted-caramel lattes.”
“In my own constituency on the Wirral, 19 of the 21 secondary schools are facing serious financial strain, and this week we learned that the Tories’ solution is to slash the schools budget by 10% if they win the election, disguised by the Prime Minister in a speech last week as “flat cash”. The Prime Minister has broken so many promises that he has created a whole new medical condition—Camnesia. Cutting the deficit, not the NHS? Camnesia. The greenest Government ever? Camnesia. Balancing the books by the end of this Parliament? Camnesia. His condition is now so bad that he is officially even worse than the Liberal Democrats at keeping his promises. The Prime Minister laughably asserted yesterday that this election is a choice between competence and chaos, but he failed to notice the chaos around him.”
“Before the election he said that a Conservative Government would not cut any front-line services. Five years later we have almost 17,000 fewer front-line police officers, 9,000 fewer front-line NHS staff, and the 10 most deprived areas in the UK have suffered cuts 16 times greater than the leafy Tory shires. Before he was elected, the Prime Minister promised that education would be a big priority, but his previous Education Secretary managed to alienate everyone he came across. Even the Conservative-led Education Committee has concluded that there is no evidence that the Government’s ideological dash to create academies has made any difference to standards whatsoever.”
“This week marks the start of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender history month when we celebrate progress on LGBT rights while recognising that we must do more to banish bigotry and discrimination. This week my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), the shadow Education Secretary, launched Labour’s comprehensive plan to tackle the baleful legacy of section 28 and end the scourge of homophobic bullying in our schools. Will the Leader of the House arrange a debate on how we can make LGBT rights a reality in this country and around the world? On Tuesday we will debate motions relating to the police grant and local government finance reports, and nothing could better illustrate the huge gap between this Prime Minister’s rhetoric and his record.”
“I am sure we all enjoyed the first episode of Michael Cockerell’s documentary “Inside the Commons” on Tuesday. I think all right hon. and hon. Members will agree that it was a beautifully shot, illuminating depiction of life in this place, and I look forward to the remaining episodes with only a little trepidation. I must say that after a mere 23 years in this place, I had not realised until I watched the documentary that until very recently Members were entitled to free snuff. I feel that I have missed out. I was especially struck by the Prime Minister’s description of this place as half church, half museum and half school. All I can say is that this place certainly does not look like any school I ever went to, and Eton should clearly get a better maths teacher.”
“I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business. I welcome the publication today of the House of Commons Commission Bill, which will implement the recommendations of the Governance Committee’s report. Will he confirm that it is his intention to ensure that this legislation is on the statute book prior to Dissolution on 30 March? If that is his intention, may I assure him of our co-operation and support? Yesterday we had two vital statements on the inquiry into child sexual abuse and Rotherham, and as a result our Opposition day debates were severely curtailed. Given that the Leader of the House has to make such a superhuman effort to fill the Government’s paltry programme of business every week, will he grant Her Majesty’s Opposition a further half day to make up for it?”
“I notice one thing missing from this week’s business is any reference to plain packaging for cigarettes. After the Government had supported it, the House then backed it. The Government then changed their mind and opposed it, but last week the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison) U-turned on the U-turn late at night in an Adjournment debate, presumably when she thought tobacco lobbyist Lynton Crosby was not looking. Given the reports that more than half of Conservative Back Benchers are willing to rebel against the Government and oppose plain packaging—”
“I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business and for giving us a hint of what might follow thereafter. This week, we marked Holocaust memorial day and the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. The sheer scale of the evil perpetrated by the Nazis almost defies belief. Does the Leader of the House agree that the testimony of the survivors will help us to ensure that that obscenity is never repeated? Will he join me in welcoming plans for a new holocaust memorial in this country that will honour the memory of all the victims? Does he also agree that this anniversary must motivate us to redouble our efforts to combat anti-Semitism and other forms of prejudice, including racism, homophobia and religious hatred, which are on the rise across the world today?”
“His Cabinet colleagues looked on in horror as Beyoncé’s latest hit began blasting from the Chief Whip’s new smartwatch. Any watch that is smart enough to play Beyoncé should surely be able to tell him when business questions is.”
“This week, the Liberal Democrat Transport Minister, Baroness Kramer, turned up in Taipei on a rail mission with a very special gift. Local journalists looked on in horror as she gave the city’s mayor a watch, which is taboo in local culture because it suggests that the recipient’s time is running out. She should have given it to her party leader. The mayor was less than impressed, saying: “I can just re-gift it to someone else or take it to a metal dealer and sell it for cash.” I just wish we could get as much use out of other Lib Dem offerings. Someone else who has been struggling with timepieces is the invisible man, the Tory Chief Whip. In Cabinet, he inadvertently interrupted the Chancellor with a sudden musical outburst.”
“More than 1,000 ambulances a day are now queuing outside accident and emergency units, overstretched hospitals are cancelling 1,500 operations a week and all the Government have done is make it harder for hospitals to declare major incidents. The Tories’ pledge to protect the NHS is now in tatters. They promised they would put patients first, but instead they gave us a £3 billion top-down reorganisation and an NHS in crisis. They promised they would cut the deficit not the NHS, but borrowing has soared and they have missed every target they ever set themselves on the economy. They promised a recovery for everyone, but they gave us queues at food banks, record insecurity at work and tax cuts for their millionaire mates. I am not the only one who is glad there are only 98 days left of them.”
“Will he also arrange for a statement from the Cabinet Secretary on this Government’s widespread neglect of the Nolan principles for public appointments, as these appointments seem to have little to do with impartiality or integrity and much more to do with membership of the Conservative party? Given that Ofcom has today said that Baroness Noakes’s comments were clearly inappropriate, will the Leader of the House explain why she is still in her job? Yesterday, we saw the Prime Minister refusing to acknowledge that all the hospital units he stood outside and promised to save before the last election have been closed or downgraded while he has been Prime Minister.”
“and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), the deputy leader of the Labour party, was forced to write to the Culture Secretary about the disgraceful and overt political bias of another Conservative peer, the supposedly impartial deputy chair of Ofcom. This morning I have been reading about the extent of this Government’s pork barrel politics, abusing public money to prop up their candidates in marginal seats, and refusing to admit how much they are spending on it. So will the Leader of the House now arrange to publish full details of Government spending in marginal seats?”
“That has just been confirmed. Given those reports, will the Leader of the House acknowledge that he is going to have to rely once again on Labour votes to pass the measure? Will he also confirm that he will bring this debate to the Floor of the House before Dissolution? I notice that, just in the nick of time, the Government yesterday appointed someone to review the impact of their gag on free speech in the run-up to the election. But the man they have chosen to review the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014 is a Conservative peer who did not once vote against the Government on the Bill and who voted with them on some of its worst aspects. Yesterday, my right hon.”
“Alongside the obligatory dodgy Liberal Democrat bar chart, this leaflet contains—strangely—two photographs of the leader of the Labour Party, and absolutely none of the local MP, who happens to be the Deputy Prime Minister. In fact, I cannot see any mention of him at all. Moreover—this is the oddest part yet—it claims that the leader of Labour Party “wants you to vote Conservative”. It should be pretty obvious by now that the person who has been voting Conservative for five years is actually the Deputy Prime Minister.”
“I think we could all have told him what the outcome of that would be—it was fairly obvious before he began—but he did say that he enjoyed a Nando’s. That is hardly surprising; we all know that the Prime Minister is very partial to chicken. Meanwhile, the Deputy Prime Minister proposed his own constitutional change this week. He has decided that he would like to scrap Prime Minister’s Questions. Apparently, they are just “not a good use of his time”, and he would rather be “out of the Westminster bubble”. The Deputy Prime Minister keeps fleeing Westminster, so I thought that I had better look at what he has been up to in his own constituency, and in doing so I came across a leaflet.”
“If you destabilise your leader with defections, and if you keep arguing with Europe, you will be in for a bloody end before the year is out. Simon de Montfort was a rebel leader who held the King hostage and governed in his place—no wonder he is an inspiration to the many Conservative MPs who have similar ambitions. The Prime Minister has been brushing up on his history this week, in order to avoid a repeat of his failure, on prime-time US television. to know what “Magna Carta” actually means, but I am afraid that he bestowed an even worse embarrassment on the nation by insisting that the President calls him “bro”. Yesterday he failed a test on the radio to establish whether he was as cool as President Obama.”
“As Mr Speaker noted yesterday, we shall be celebrating a number of important anniversaries this year, including, this week, the 750th anniversary of the de Montfort Parliament. Let me take this opportunity to thank the members of the Speakers’ Advisory Committee for the 2015 Anniversaries for all their hard work on Parliament in the Making. I particularly thank the House of Commons Chair of the Committee, the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire (Sir Peter Luff), and—obviously—Mr Speaker himself. Mr Speaker was right yesterday when he said that we must remember our history, but, when we look back at the de Montfort Parliament, it seems there are some lessons that the Conservatives have failed to learn even after 750 years.”
“We welcomed yesterday’s top-line figures on jobs, but for millions of families up and down the country, there is a grim reality lurking beneath the headlines. More and more people are unable to obtain the hours they need at work in order to pay the bills. Real wages have fallen by record amounts, and 5 million people are being paid less than the living wage. That shortfall in wages is being made up by hundreds of millions of pounds of extra spending on tax credits. Will the Leader of the House accept that a low-wage economy is not just bad for hard-working people but bad for public finances, and will he arrange for an urgent debate, in Government time, on the low-wage economy that the Government parties have sustained?”
“A ban has widespread support across the country, it was backed by the House in 2011 and no less a person than the Prime Minister promised to introduce it in this Parliament. Will the Leader of the House now allow the Prime Minister’s promise to be delivered by granting the Bill Government time? On Monday we shall debate the remaining stages of the Infrastructure Bill. Last week I raised the last-minute tabling of 60 pages of badly drafted Government amendments relating to the electronic communications code and asked for more time to debate them, which the Leader of the House refused. Last night the farce continued as the Government dramatically withdrew all the amendments. Can the Leader of the House tell us what on earth is going on with this farrago of a Bill? Is this his definition of competence, or is it, once again, total chaos?”
“I thank the Leader of the House for his announcement of next week’s business. I thank him, too, for his announcement earlier that he has asked the Clerk to draft the necessary motion to allow the Bill proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford),which repeals this Government’s catastrophic top-down reorganisation of the NHS, to proceed finally to Committee. Since this Parliament is rapidly running out of time, can he clarify when that is now likely to happen? The Bill proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) to ban wild animals in circuses is scheduled, yet again, to have its Second Reading debate at this time tomorrow, after Conservative Members have made every effort to talk it out.”
“I therefore welcome your decision, Mr Speaker, to schedule a meeting of the Commission on Monday to decide on the next steps in the light of today’s debate. There is every sign that all parts of the House understand the need for speed of implementation. Since the beginning of this debate, everyone has focused on how we can best do that. All of us are anxious for the House to endorse the report so that we can move quickly to the appointment of a new Clerk of the House, as well as to the commencement of the process to appoint the first director general. That process should at least start before the Dissolution at the end of March. We need to move speedily to appoint people to both posts, although one will unavoidably take slightly longer than the other.”
“I rise to support the motion in the names of the Leader of the House and my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) and my own name, to adopt the recommendations of the House of Commons Governance Committee report. If we agree to it, we will begin to deliver a governance structure for this place that will finally be fit for purpose in our rapidly changing world. Since the publication of the report on 16 December, I have advocated acting on its recommendations quickly. I therefore particularly welcome the speed with which the Leader of the House has acted to ensure that the report was debated today. Should the House endorse the Committee’s recommendations—I hope and believe that it will—it will be incumbent on the House of Commons Commission to act with similar speed.”
“I see absolutely no reason why not. I know that the Commission will, if the House passes the motion, have that issue on its agenda on Monday. I for one—I am not the only one—am anxious to get on with both appointments as speedily as possible.”
“I strongly agree with the hon. Gentleman. I hope that anyone who wishes to apply for the post will read the Committee’s report, as well as all the fascinating evidence people gave in such a short time, so that they are well aware of the nature of the job and the authority that we intend should go with it.”