Speaker’s Statement

Mark Francois Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order. I will reflect carefully on what she said to me. She is an extremely experienced and seasoned parliamentarian and, of course, a former shadow Leader of the House, so I will factor into my thinking the considerations that she has adduced. I do not think there is one single rationale for the emergence and continuation of the convention. I touched on some of the thinking behind it in my statement. It would be true to say that a concern with the judicious use of parliamentary time, when that time is finite, and the avoidance of its wastage is an important factor. Another important factor is ensuring clarity and consistency so far as the statute book is concerned. Associated with and underlying all that is a concept of respect for the importance of decisions made by the House and the weight to be attached to them. I will reflect carefully on these matters.

I say gently to the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg)—because I failed to respond to this point, which was very good and wittily delivered—that so far as tradition is concerned, he has a perfectly fair point. A tradition does matter and is important. What I would say to him is that just because it is not desirable to follow precedent in every case, irrespective of circumstance, that does not mean it is justified not to follow it. It depends on the particular circumstance. For example, it depends whether one is facilitating the House and allowing the expression of an opinion that might otherwise be denied, as was the case on 9 January.

In this case, of course, where we are talking about the same-question rule, I have already explained that this matter has been treated of by the House, so the question of whether a subsequent motion is the same, or substantially the same, is a live matter for consideration and judgment at the appropriate time. In fact, that seems to me to be so obviously commonsensical an observation that only an extraordinarily sophisticated person, perhaps bereft of such common sense, could fail to grasp it. The hon. Gentleman most certainly would not fall into that category, because he is both extraordinarily sophisticated and blessed, I feel sure, with a very large supply of common sense.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You have said memorably in the past that, sometimes, we have to take the rough with the smooth. Well, it seems to me that, today, that applies to others. May I ask whether this principle applies in other contexts as well? For instance, the House voted a few weeks ago on what became known as the Cooper-Boles amendment to overturn Standing Order No. 14(1), essentially to take control of the Order Paper for a day. That was rejected. Last week, the House then voted against what became the Benn amendment, which was, I would argue, substantially similar to the original Cooper-Boles amendment to take control of the Order Paper and override Standing Order No. 14(1). Now you on that occasion, Sir, judged that it was permissible to ask this question because it was not exactly the same as the first one. May I offer you a thought that if there were to be a third variant of that, if it were to be substantially the same, then, to be consistent, Sir, you would have to rule that out, too?

[Mr Speaker]

I am always grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I have often reminded the House, and I say this for the benefit of those attending to our proceedings, that I first came to know him in September 1983 when I unkindly and wrongly suggested that, intellectually, he was knee-high to a grasshopper. That was very unfair of me and, to his great credit, he did not appear to bear any grudge and we have got on pretty well over the ensuing 35 and a half years. I always listen to his advice. The answer is that everything depends on context and circumstance—[Interruption.] Yes, of course it does; manifestly and incontrovertibly it does. It is a question not of abstract principle or wallowing, as Edmund Burke would say, in the realms of metaphysical abstraction, but of attending to circumstance, and I would look at that with the important considerations and principle of which he has reminded me in the forefront of my mind in making a judgment. He is absolutely entitled to raise that point and I would indeed have to weigh up very carefully whether a proposition was in fact the same or substantially the same or whether it could credibly be contended that it was different.