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John Bercow blames colleagues for flawed Commons clerk appointment
John Bercow blames colleagues for flawed Commons clerk appointment
(about 11 hours later)
John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, has suggested that parliamentary colleagues, including a Conservative cabinet minister, were to blame for the situation that led to the appointment of a new Commons clerk being terminated after protests from MPs.
John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, has suggested that parliamentary colleagues including a Conservative cabinet minister were to blame for the situation that led to the appointment of a new Commons clerk being terminated.
In an interview on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 on Friday, Bercow singled out Andrew Lansley, the former leader of the Commons, and Sir Robert Rogers, the former clerk, as traditionalists whose opposition to reform resulted in a flawed selection process.
In an interview on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 on Friday, Bercow singled out Andrew Lansley, the former leader of the Commons, and Sir Robert Rogers, the former clerk, as traditionalists whose opposition to reform resulted in a flawed selection process.
He also confirmed that Carol Mills, the Australian parliamentary official who was on the verge of being confirmed as the new clerk when the appointment process was suspended in September, will not be a candidate when a revised recruitment contest takes place in the new year.
He also confirmed that Carol Mills, the Australian parliamentary official who was about to be confirmed as the new clerk when the appointment process was suspended in September, will not stand again. The clerk, the most powerful Commons official, enforces the rules when the government and opposition tussle over making law.
The clerk is the most powerful official in the Commons and, although the job has partly involved serving as Commons chief executive, running services for MPs in the building, its main focus has been on legislative procedure. The clerk enforces the rules that apply when the government and opposition tussle over making law.
Mills had a limited knowledge of parliamentary procedure. A committee to investigate the role of the clerk said her appointment should be terminated. Bercow was accused of trying to further his modernising agenda.
Mills’s selection was opposed by some MPs because she was an outsider with limited knowledge of parliamentary procedure. Bercow chaired the panel that chose her, and he was accused of trying to impose an unsuitable candidate on parliament in the interests of furthering his own modernising agenda.
He said the Mills appointment went wrong because colleagues, including Lansley and Rogers, did not accept his advice to reform the role of clerk. “The selection committee was expected to recruit both a first class parliamentary proceduralist and a top flight chief executive in one. I argued to colleagues, including the then leader of the House [Lansley] and the outgoing clerk [Rogers], that the roles, common-sensibly, didn’t hang happily together and should be split. But that advice and request were rejected.”
Eventually, when it became clear that pushing ahead with the appointment could cost Bercow his job, he agreed to suspend the appointment in September to allow a committee to investigate what the role of clerk should be. That committee reported last week and it said that Mills’s appointment should be terminated, that a new clerk should be appointed and that a new post, Commons director general, should be created. The director general will take charge of the chief executive functions, but report to the clerk.
Speaking on the Today programme, which he guest edited, Bercow insisted that the Mills appointment went wrong because colleagues, including Lansley and Rogers, did not accept his advice that the role of clerk should be reformed.
The selection panel he chaired was working to an undeliverable brief, Bercow said.
“The selection committee was expected to recruit both a first class parliamentary proceduralist and a top flight chief executive in one. I had argued previously to senior colleagues, including the then leader of the House [Lansley] and the outgoing clerk [Rogers], that the roles, common sensibly, didn’t hang happily together and should be split. But that advice and request were rejected.”
He said that assuming the Commons as a whole accepts last week’s recommendations from the governance committee, which was chaired by Jack Straw, in future the problem should be resolved. “We should instead have a top quality proceduralist as clerk of the House, and a top flight manager as director general,” he said.
Asked if he had personally misjudged the situation, given that he chaired the panel that chose Mills, he replied: “Maybe I should have pushed harder for a split of the roles, or maybe I should have started that process earlier.
“When you are dealing with a very traditional institution, there are people who are steeped in that tradition who often feel very comfortable with it, especially if they have worked in the service of the House for two, three, four decades, so resistance tends to be very strong. My own view is that we needed to change but there was not a ready acceptance of that.”
Bercow also said he did not expect Mills, having now been rejected for the role of clerk, to apply for the new post of director general. “I’m not expecting to retread previous footsteps, if I can put it that way,” he said.
He also said that he expected a new clerk to be appointed before the general election.
David Natzler, Rogers’s deputy, is serving as acting clerk and now has a strong chance of being appointed to the role full time.
In a Commons debate in September Lansley said Bercow was at fault during the Mills selection process because he insisted on watering down the job description, with the result that it no longer required detailed knowledge of Commons procedures, just knowledge of them. This meant the process was ill-founded, Lansley said.
In his interview Bercow also defended prime minister’s questions but complained that the level of noise generated by MPs when it was taking place was unacceptable. “The gladiatorial clash is valuable, and it does demonstrate the passionately held differences of opinion, and it sometimes reveals things of interest or wider concern,” he said.
He added: “But, when the decibel level causes Deep Purple, which was the loudest band in the world in the 1970s, to seem positively quiet or sotto voce, we’re spray painting our shop window, we’re undermining respect for the institution of parliament and the democratic exchange.”
