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  • Paul Farrelly – 2019 Valediction Speech

    Below is the text of the speech made by Paul Farrelly, the Labour MP for Newcastle-Under-Lyme, in the House of Commons on 5 November 2019.

    It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend from Barrow and Furness—I suggest that he tries for size a majority of 30 on the third count at 6.30 in the morning.

    I am sorry not to have been here to listen to all the speeches, Madam Deputy Speaker. Once upon a time this was going to be a normal working day; I had a delegation from Slovenia here for a tour. Everyone will know that being a tour guide is an occupational hazard in the Commons, not least as I am the chair of the all-party British-Slovenia Group, the chair of the all-party British-German group and the vice-chair of the all-party group on Japan. Present difficulties notwithstanding, the internationalism of this place has always been a surprise pleasure that I will certainly miss.

    I also thank the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) for kindly losing to me in 2005—in the nicest possible way and as only he knows how—because otherwise I would not be here making these remarks. I still have his campaign T-shirt, which I found tidying up my cupboard, and which I asked him for as a present. I will keep it and cherish it.

    It feels strange to clear an office after 18 years. While packing up, I came across umpteen spare copies of my maiden speech from 2001, and I remember it well. I felt I had drawn the short straw, having to follow the lyrical Welsh tones of Adam Price, now the leader of Plaid Cymru. It felt like trudging in the footsteps of Richard Burton in a theatre audition. In making my speech, I felt sure I was the only grandson of a rabbit trapper from County Meath in Ireland to take his place on these green Benches. Now as I leave, I can burnish my Celtic credentials further, because on 2 March—my 57th birthday—the perfect present popped through the letterbox: my Irish passport. Whatever happens after ​the election, I will be remaining—no ifs, no buts, come what may—a citizen of the European Union, as will my three long-suffering children.

    It has been a privilege to serve as the MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme, my home town. I was the first born and bred “castle black”, as we say, for—well, I haven’t been able to find another going back 500 years. But 2001 was not my first general election; that came when I stood in Chesham and Amersham—my dry run—in 1997. So one of my first thanks this afternoon goes to my agent 22 years ago, Peter Ward, and his wife, Doreen, who wished me all the best again this week. I must also mention again the wonderful Keith Kingswood, the local constituency secretary back then. Just before the ’97 election, Keith flew to New York to see his son and collect a postal vote but tragically on the flight over contracted a mystery illness from which he did not recover. The day after the Blair landslide, while Labour was partying on the south bank, we were all attending Keith’s funeral in Chesham. My thoughts today are again with his wife Janet and his family.

    This job would be impossible without the support of families, so I have to thank my wife Victoria for putting up with all the late nights, the weeks and weekends away, the overseas visits and all the football and, in particular, rugby—she curses Commons and Lords RUFC. She was also the one person I forgot to thank on election night in 1997. In turn, I have never been allowed to forget it. In Newcastle-under-Lyme, I want to pay a special tribute to the first person I met when I first went back to help in 1993: a truly great council leader, Eddie Boden, who turns 80 in a few weeks. Happy birthday from Westminster, Eddie. My agent in Newcastle all these years, David Leech, has been a rock of support and strength. Sadly, he lost his wonderful wife and soulmate, Cynthia, last year. Newcastle is much emptier without her.

    Nothing could prepare me for this place. I was never a student politician or part of any network. I first got involved in politics in 1987, aged 25, when I took the day off work in London to do something, finally, about Margaret Thatcher. Through the occasional rebellions—student tuition fees, the dreadful war in Iraq, the dreaded B-word today—David and my officers in the constituency have always been loyal, steadfast and true. It was because of their efforts that a week last Friday in Newcastle-under-Lyme we were able to celebrate 100 years of continuous Labour representation in Parliament. We are one of only five constituencies in the whole of the UK to be able to do so. My majority might be a bit tight—we are one of 11 reluctant members of the “under 100” club—but I keep reminding people that at over 21,000 the Labour vote in Newcastle in 2017 was the biggest of my five general elections and the highest since that landslide under Tony Blair in ’97. It is the task of my successor as candidate, who was selected on Friday, to recreate that progressive alliance.

    Politics is a difficult and demanding trade, and that has never been more true than in these testing time, in the age of social media, but in this job one really can make a difference and be proud of doing so, for constituents and causes and projects that leave a legacy for the future. At the outset in Westminster, I was rebellious enough to stand up for students over high and variable tuition fees and had the temerity to organise a rebellion. I next crossed swords with my own Government through ​a private Member’s Bill to ensure fairer treatment of temporary and agency workers—protections eventually implemented, we should remember, by a European directive that helped vulnerable and low-paid people in 28 countries.

    I am also glad to have stood up for my beliefs in not voting for the legislation that paved the way for the referendum, or for the triggering of article 50. I understand that I am the only member of the Labour party to have departed from the whip on both those occasions, and the same applies to the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) in respect of the Conservative party.

    I am proud, too, to have served for 14 years on the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee. The Committee has certainly made a difference, pursuing phone-hacking and, more recently, investigating fake news and abuse of social media, as well as helping to change libel law in the interests of my former profession: responsible, serious investigative journalism.

    Locally, there is much for Labour, and retired colleagues in north Staffordshire, to be proud of, such as our brand-new hospital and the excellent Newcastle college, to name but two. In Newcastle, my favourite place of all is the wonderful Peter Pan Nursery for Children with Special Needs, and I want to record my thanks to Peter Traves, who was Staffordshire’s education director until 10 years ago, for his help in securing its future in brand-new premises opposite my old school in Wolstanton. He is simply the best officer in the public sector with whom I have dealt in 18 years.

    Let me end with two final votes of thanks. This job would be impossible without great staff. I have had wonderful staff doing a wonderful job for constituents—Caroline Eardley, who has been with me throughout, Dr Barry Schofield and Martin Bell—and, in Westminster, Hannah Matin, Thomas Brayford and, for so many years, Dr Neil Watkins. We always need good officers in our constituency parties, and I want to thank the chair of my constituency party, Allison Gardner, for her wonderful support. Her drive and motivation, and her great sense of humour, made the last two elections enjoyable, and without her help I would not be standing here today.

    Finally, I thank colleagues across parties for all the work that we have done here in those years. I will certainly miss them, and I will miss it.

  • John Woodcock – 2019 Valediction Speech

    John Woodcock – 2019 Valediction Speech

    Below is the text of the speech made by John Woodcock, the Independent MP for Barrow and Furness, in the House of Commons on 5 November 2019.

    What a privilege it is to follow that heartfelt speech. It is also a coincidence, because, as the majority of the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) has gone up at every successive election, mine has gone down. [Laughter.]

    In 2010, when I first came into the House, we achieved the lowest swing away from Labour in the entire country. In the most recent general election, in 2017, I hung on by a mere 209 votes. As most people who looked at that will know, it is a total miracle that I am here at all. I never expected to be able to make a valedictory speech ​and I have viewed every single day of this Parliament as an extra, unexpected bonus. It was hard enough to hold the constituency of Barrow and Furness, the home of the Trident nuclear submarine programme, with the former Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband). People, probably understandably, did not trust him entirely on the issue of Trident. However, it was an impossibility to hold the constituency with the current Leader of the Opposition. It was only by completely disavowing him that I was able, against all expectations including mine, to hang on.

    I have, of course, paid in one way or another since then, but I will never forget the moment at 1 o’clock in the morning of election night when I thought, “My goodness, we might actually hold on here.” I had to get on the phone to my ex, Mandy, who ran my campaign to get me into Parliament in the first place, and say, “Look, you know I’ve offered to take the kids all summer, well…” I am deeply indebted to her for her forbearance on that and on so many issues, as we have made a crazy modern family life work. More on that towards the end of my speech.

    I want to say how sad I am to be leaving, but I think we can be really proud of some the things we have achieved over these past nine and a half years. The brand new maternity unit literally would not have happened without the campaign led by local mums, including Mandy. Of course, I supported the campaign wholeheartedly —I knew what was good for me—but it showed that when the people of Barrow and Furness stand up, they are able to make themselves listened to. Together, we have effected real change.

    The Leader of the House knows that it is more unusual to win a vote at the moment than it is to lose one, and 18 July 2016 will always be etched on my memory as the day that this House voted by 472 votes to 117 to renew Trident and fire the starting gun properly on the Dreadnought submarine programme, which, even now, is providing 9,000 directly employed jobs and sustaining the whole Furness economy. I am just sad to be leaving at a time when we are making critical decisions on how we ensure that that investment can lift the whole area out of the still really appalling pockets of deprivation and the lack of hope that remains in the Furness area. If I can play any role outside this place—possibly in a David Brent way, if I keep turning up to former offices—I want to play whatever role I can to ensure that that can happen in future.

    I came into this House having been privileged to serve as a special adviser for a period in No. 10, and I never thought that the life of a constituency MP—trying to help the community change and lead that change—would be what drove me. That is what I will miss most of all from the job. It is well known in this place, but completely unknown outside it, how relatively little of that we drive ourselves as MPs, so—like many others—I need to give my heartfelt thanks to my team. Frank, Natalie, Angela, Carmen and the new arrival, Sian, have done extraordinary things. Literally thousands of people have had their lives changed for the better in ways that, more often than not, I have not known about personally, but they have delivered. I am so pleased that Cassie, my office manager, has come all the way here—it is a hell of a long way to get down from Barrow; it takes four hours on the train on a good day— and is in the Gallery today. Like a number of my staff—but none more so than ​Cassie—she has stuck with me through some really difficult times and has stayed loyal, and I will always be grateful for that.

    As a constituency MP, I am proud of what we have done, but I wish that I could be proud of what we have achieved in our politics over the last 10 years. We are not standing here as a Parliament of success. I am sorry that my attempt to wrestle my politics—the politics of the progressive centre-left—out of the hands of the extremists that have gripped my former party has not been a success. I am really grateful to my friends—who will remain my friends—in the Labour party, even though we have taken a very different view on how best to tackle that extremism.

    I am really excited about the challenge that I am going on to as the Government’s special envoy on countering violent extremism; I want to continue to play a role in public life. Although I am sad to be leaving, I am leaving for absolutely the best reason: it was not part of the script that Issy and I would be having a baby, but it is a wonderful, wonderful thing on which to leave. Their two sisters, Maisie and Molly, are going to be wonderful big sisters, and I just cannot wait for the future that we have got together.

  • Nick Herbert – 2019 Valediction Speech

    Below is the text of the speech made by Nick Herbert, the Conservative MP for Arundel and South Downs, in the House of Commons on 5 November 2019.

    Thank you for calling me to speak, Madam Deputy Speaker, and commiserations on yesterday—I congratulate the new Speaker. I apologise for being unable to be here at the start of the debate. I had not intended to speak, but I decided only last night to stand down as the Member of Parliament for Arundel and South Downs, the constituency that I have been honoured to represent for nearly 15 years.

    It was a pleasure to listen to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin). Some 33 years ago, while working as a ​young researcher, I helped a young candidate who was standing in a by-election in West Derbyshire. I claim that the 100 votes that my right hon. Friend secured to win the seat were won by me, and he claims that he would have won handsomely had it not been for my disastrous research.

    I went on to stand for Berwick-upon-Tweed in north Northumberland. Unfortunately, that was in 1997, the year of Armageddon. My efforts in that beautiful rural constituency were not helped early on when I opened a coffee morning with a speech urging everyone to vote Conservative, only to be told that I was in fact at a meeting of the Methodists. I could not have been expected to know that that particular village had two village halls, but I learnt an important lesson about knowing your constituency.

    I was immensely privileged to be chosen at the very last moment to stand for Arundel and South Downs for the Conservatives, and I believe that someone else will be very lucky indeed to be chosen at the very last minute to stand for what I believe is the best constituency in the country, full of the most wonderful people and strong communities. I will miss it a very great deal. I fought four general elections and my majority has gone up every time to a record level, and I know that it is smart to quit while ahead.

    I made my maiden speech in a debate on rural issues. I spoke last in that debate, too, and nobody told me that I was permitted to go to what the Americans call the restroom while waiting to make my speech. I waited for what seemed to be hours, absolutely desperate for it, and then made the shortest maiden speech in history as a consequence.

    I then went to see the Whips to explain that it was very important for the new Member of Parliament for Arundel and South Downs to watch Australia play the Duke of Norfolk’s XI at the Arundel castle cricket ground. The Whips told me that not only was that entirely possible, but I should submit any request, at any time, for any sporting event that I felt I needed to attend. I had no idea that they were being sarcastic and so proceeded to give them a long list of all the sporting events I wished to attend that year. I have never lived it down.

    I soon found myself on the Front Bench and, for a very brief time—this is a salutary lesson for all the young people who will enter the House after the election—was billed as a rising star. I then plummeted into the depths of the Home Office, a fall from which I never entirely recovered.

    I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Sir David Lidington) that attending this debate, in which we have heard some marvellous speeches, is rather like attending the reading of one’s own obituary. I am not entirely certain that everyone would be effusive enough, so I intend to list some of the things that I have been involved in—my serious point is that I intend to continue working in a number of important areas that I have worked on in this place. They include LGBT rights, which my friend the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) mentioned, the campaign for equal marriage, setting up the all-party parliamentary group on global lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights, and setting up the Global Equality Caucus, run so ably by Alan Wardle and supported by Andrew Slinn.​

    I also set up the all-party parliamentary group on global tuberculosis, to help fight the world’s deadliest disease. The Global TB Caucus has succeeded in driving TB up the agenda, with a high-level meeting at the United Nations. It is ably led by Sarah Kirk, with support on the APPG from Janika Hauser, and it was set up with brilliant initial work by my friend Matt Oliver.

    I have recently assumed the chairmanship of the Countryside Alliance, which I intend to devote a lot of time to, returning to my roots, because I believe passionately in supporting rural communities, in the freedom to choose and in ensuring that we protect the rural way of life. I will be running the think-tank that I have set up, the Project for Modern Democracy, just as I previously set up the think-tank Reform, because I believe we need new thinking on Whitehall reform, planning and how we ensure markets operate fairly in the modern world.

    I just want to say something briefly about Brexit. I set up the national no campaign against joining the euro. For a long time I was thought of as a Eurosceptic, but I led the Conservatives In campaign to remain in the European Union. Nevertheless, I accepted the result of the referendum immediately. I want to dispute the idea that the only principled position for remainers to take is somehow to gainsay the referendum result. I do not believe that that is true. Actually, I think it is a principled and honourable position to accept the result of the referendum, because in the end it is about democracy. I have done that, which is why I support the Prime Minister in successfully seeking a deal. I do not think that we should demonise the millions of people who voted for remain, but have accepted the result and think a deal is possible. Rather, we should investigate more closely why people voted for leave and what exactly they wanted, and have a more mature, sober and sensible debate on those issues.

    Finally, I would like to thank my brilliant staff: Michelle Taylor, my wonderful constituency assistant; Alex Black, who runs my office; Lynsey White, my wonderful secretary; and Chris Cook, my researcher. I would like to thank members of my Conservative association and my chairmen, Angela Litchfield, Sue Holland, Malcolm Gill and Peter Griffiths. I thank my constituents for doing me the great honour of returning me to Arundel and South Downs. Above all, I thank my partner, my closest and best friend, Jason Eades, without whose tireless and unquestioning support I would never have been able to do this job in the first place. Thank you all for doing me this great honour. I am very sad to be going, but I know it is the right time to do so.

  • Teresa Pearce – 2019 Valediction Speech

    Below is the text of the speech made by Teresa Pearce, the Labour MP for Erith and Thamesmead, in the House of Commons on 5 November 2019.

    I would like to thank my fantastic family, my friends and my staff, who are amazing, as well as all the people I have worked with here and in the constituency, but most of all I would like to thank my husband, who nine years ago put his life, dreams and ambitions on hold so that I could follow mine.

    When you come into this place, it is the strangest thing. The first thing I did was to look for a job description, and as hon. Members all know, there is none. You become a combination of a councillor, a barrack-room lawyer, a trade union official and a social worker, yet an MP’s power, particularly in opposition, is more perceived than real. People ask you to get involved in everything and anything. When I was elected, I got 22,000 emails in the first year. The level of expectation from people is that you can solve everything from mice in their flat to conflict in the middle east, and of course the bins—there is always the bins. There are myriad ways that people can watch you now, and I am told by my constituents that I need to be at all these events in the constituency, but then the same people say to me, “I was watching the Chamber, and you weren’t in there. Where were you?” And at the same time, they want to know why you have not answered the 22,000 emails, which is why many people receive replies from me at 1 o’clock in the morning.

    There was much I wanted to say this afternoon about the things I had done and the things I wished I had done, but we have sat here and passed the Historical Institutional Abuse (Northern Ireland) Bill. I listened to that testimony and it was familiar to me, so I have changed what I planned to say because I needed to say this. I could talk about what I have achieved, but what has been achieved by me here has actually been achieved because of my parents. Both of my parents were brought up in care—my mother in the infamous Nazareth House, which we heard about earlier, and my father by the Christian Brothers—and I can give personal testimony about the damage done to them for the whole of their lives. The shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound), who is no longer in his place, asked from the Dispatch Box: what must those children have thought of adults, and how could ​they ever trust? Well, I can tell the House that they never did. It became increasingly difficult as they got older, when we needed to get carers or meals on wheels to go in, because everybody who came in who they thought was from the authorities they sacked immediately the same day. They feared to the very end of their lives losing their liberty, because they had lost it as children when they had been incarcerated.

    It is testimony to my parents that they never visited on me and my sister Rose the horrors of their childhood, and it is testimony to them that I am an MP now. My mother lived to see me elected, and she was as proud as punch. Sadly, my dad died in 2009, so he did not get the same bragging rights. My dad, Arthur Farrington, was what people would call a bit of a character. He had a tendency to embellish the truth, and sometimes he just made things up. He used to say to me and my sister that he was born in the workhouse, but then he used to say a lot of things so we did not take a lot of notice. When I was elected and was doing research on children’s homes in the 1930s, it came as a huge surprise to find that his parents were actually resident in Ormskirk workhouse at the time he was born. It seems I owe my dad a bit of an apology, as he was actually telling the truth. However, I still do not believe that the ring that my auntie had, which clearly came from Woolworths, was given to her by the Pope.

    It is a privilege to hold the office of MP. I left school at 17, got married soon after and became a mother, but at 18 I found myself deserted by my husband and facing the world alone with a small baby and bleak prospects while the rest of my friends went to university. However, thanks to a small council flat in Belvedere, a GLC-funded day nursery and a Bexley Council-funded careers adviser, I was set on the road to independence, self-respect and a career. I have been successful and my family has thrived because society invested in me, and that investment has been paid back over and over. Sadly, however, those services no longer exist for many who find themselves in the same circumstances and do not have that ladder. In fact, the safety net of the welfare state that once saved me no longer exists in that real sense. It is more like a trapdoor you fall through and you may never get back up. That is why I have spent the last nine years trying to speak up for Erith and Thamesmead, so my neighbours get the opportunities that I had and can turn around their lives when they fall on hard times.

    I would like to thank my constituents for the support they have shown me for the last nine years, electing me three times. It is now time to pass the baton on to someone else, and I am sure that they will show her the same support.

  • Stephen Twigg – 2019 Valediction Speech

    Below is the text of the speech made by Stephen Twigg, the Labour MP for Liverpool West Derby, in the House of Commons on 5 November 2019.

    It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones). I will start, if I may, by thanking everyone with whom I have had the honour to work in this place. In particular, I wish to put on record my thanks to my amazing staff both in the constituency and here in Parliament.

    I had the privilege to serve for eight years the constituency in which I grew up and where most of my close family still live—Enfield, Southgate. That result in Enfield, Southgate in 1997 was once voted the third greatest television moment ever. This was in a survey in 1998, so it was fresh in people’s minds. In that poll, the greatest television moment ever was the first man on the moon, the second was the release of Nelson Mandela from prison and the third was my defeat of Michael Portillo in that election. I have told this story once or twice over the past two decades, and I should point out that it was a poll of The Observer readers and Channel 4 viewers, so was not necessarily a cross-section of the public as a whole.

    When I lost in 2005, I sought refuge in Liverpool, and I am immensely grateful to my local Labour party and to the people of the great constituency of West Derby in the city of Liverpool for electing me three times since 2010. Liverpool is a city with a truly amazing spirit, and that spirit is embodied by the campaign for justice for those who lost their lives at Hillsborough 30 years ago. I pay tribute to the families and campaigners who did so much to ensure that that injustice was properly addressed. It is a city with a very vibrant community and voluntary sector. One of the things I have done is to volunteer at a local food bank at St John’s church in Tuebrook in my constituency. I think there is something profoundly wrong that people in this day and age are relying on food banks, but I pay tribute to those who work in them.

    Education has long been my No. 1 passion, and I served for three years as Minister for Schools. In that role, I set up and led the London challenge programme to improve schools here in the capital city. In Liverpool, I have run the Liverpool to Oxbridge Collaborative to encourage more state school students to consider Oxford or Cambridge. I also chair the all-party parliamentary group on global education.

    Since 2015, it has been an honour to chair the Select Committee on International Development. I thank its staff and all its Members, past and present—in particular, my friend the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy). It is so important that the UK remains engaged globally, and one of the ways in which we do that is through our commitment to development and humanitarian relief. We can be proud of our 0.7% commitment and that we have an independent Department—the Department for International Development—that leads in the delivery of those programmes. We face huge challenges of climate change, conflict, poverty and inequality, and we have the tool of the sustainable development goals to address these crises, but we also need to maintain our focus on some appalling humanitarian situations in places such as Yemen and Syria, as well as the Rohingya crisis covering the people of Burma and Bangladesh. I hope that whoever takes over from me as Chair of the Committee will pick up those challenges.​
    In 1997, my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) and I were the first ever Members of Parliament who were openly LGBT at the time of our first election. I pay tribute to our friend Lord Smith of Finsbury, who for a long period was the only openly gay Member of Parliament. I am very proud that there are now 45 Members in this House who are openly LGBT and that we have seen huge legal progress in this country, although we still have a long way to go to achieve full equality across the world. Thanks to civil partnerships, I was able to marry Mark 13 years ago. We always called our civil partnership a marriage, but I was then very proud to vote with others across the House for equal marriage. I really thank Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron, all of whom showed great commitment to the cause of equality for people who are LGBT. As we move forward, I hope that we will address some of the very big challenges that LGBT people face around the world and ensure that part of our soft power and our approach to global human rights is about addressing those injustices, wherever they rear their heads.

    I conclude by echoing comments made by a number of Members, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones), who talked about the importance of appealing to the best instincts of the British people, and the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), who spoke very powerfully about how we need to bring people together. We have seen a growth of a particular strand of authoritarian populism across our continent and in the United States, Brazil and other parts of the world. It poses a huge challenge for our politics. Here in the UK, Brexit is in a sense both a consequence and a cause of some very fundamental divisions and inequalities that scar our society.

    Against that backdrop, I hope that the new Parliament will be able to do its best to bring people back together. I have never like the adversarialism in this place. I did not like it when I was a Government Member with a majority of almost 200; I certainly do not like it in opposition. I think we do really have a lot in common with each other. We need to be more open about the need to address the evidence that is available on the policy challenges that we face. One of the reasons I have enjoyed chairing a Select Committee is that it is cross-party working and it is based on the best available evidence, not the best available slogan for carrying the headlines that day. I hope that is something that we can all reflect on in the weeks, months and years ahead.

    I want to finish by quoting the late Jo Cox. I stand here in front of the shield in Jo’s memory. I only got to know Jo in that very brief period from her election in 2015 to her murder a year later. Jo said that

    “we are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us.”—[Official Report, 3 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 675.]

    That message is one that I hope we can all take forward in this election campaign but also into the next Parliament.

  • Harriet Harman – 2019 Tribute to the Speaker of the House of Commons

    Harriet Harman – 2019 Tribute to the Speaker of the House of Commons

    Below is the text of the speech made by Harriet Harman, the Labour MP for Camberwell and Peckham, in the House of Commons on 31 October 2019.

    Mr Speaker, you are my fifth Speaker now, and I can say from that experience that you have been a remarkable Speaker of this House. You have been a champion of Parliament and a reformer. As other hon. and right hon. Members have said, you have thought about opening up this House so that young people all around the country can see that it is their Parliament that is here for them. You have been a great champion of the Youth Parliament. The Leader of the House and the shadow Leader of the House were right to say that everybody agrees with that now and recognises that it is a thoroughly good thing, but you had to fight for it because there were those who resisted change and said, “We cannot have all these children here in the House of Commons. We’ve got work to be done.” You relentlessly, and in a principled way, pushed for it, and I thank you for that.

    You have used the Speaker’s state rooms to give outside organisations a sense that their work is recognised by and valued in this Parliament. As the shadow Leader of the House said, over 1,000 organisations have come into this House, and the grandeur of those state rooms has inspired and encouraged them that their works in communities all around the country are valued here.

    I would like to pay particular tribute to the work that you have done for the women’s movement. Organisations campaigning for equal pay have been in those grand state rooms surrounded by those 20-foot-high portraits of former Speakers. They have had their place there: those championing equal pay; those complaining that we need more childcare; those campaigning against domestic violence. They have been there; you have brought them in and endowed them with a sense of importance.

    You actually turned one of the bars of the House of Commons into a nursery for the children of staff in Whitehall and in the House and of Members. That too is something we can be proud of, but it is something that you had to fight for. We had been fighting for it for decades and had failed; it was not until you were in the Chair that you made it happen. You supported the coming into this Chamber of 100 women MPs from 100 Parliaments from all around the world so that here in the mother of Parliaments we could validate their work in their Parliaments all around the world.

    I think we can fairly say that you are politically correct, but it was not always the case. You have been on what they describe as a political journey. You started off going towards the views of the Monday Club. You are woke now, but my goodness me, you were in the deepest of slumbers.

    You really have made a huge difference in championing us here in the House. Above all, you have been concerned about the role of Parliament in being able to hold the Executive to account. That is not just about Back Benchers and Front Benchers; it is about the role of Parliament. Members who have come here more recently perhaps would not remember this—I thank the Library for getting this information for me—but in the 12 months before you took the Speaker’s Chair, two urgent questions were granted in that whole time. The impact of that was that people outside the House would be discussing issues but they would not be discussed here, and therefore Parliament felt irrelevant. In the past 12 months, you have granted 152 UQs. You have made Parliament relevant. I thank you for that—but again, it has not always made you popular. Ministers would rather sit in their Departments talking to civil servants and junior Ministers who agree with them than come here and face the House. But it is better for Government to be held to account. It is easy to make mistakes when doing things behind closed doors. You have always believed that the minority must have its say in Parliament, and you have championed that, but you have also always believed that the majority must have its way, and that is right.

    Precedent offers less help in unprecedented times, which we have been experiencing, but you have had a profound sense that you are accountable to the House and that you want to enable and facilitate the House, and that is what you have done. You leave the Chair in uncertain and, I would say, even dangerous times. Thank you for your support and recognition of all those Members—men as well as women—who have gone about their business under a hail of threats of violence. Our democracy should not have to experience that. I would like to thank you for being tireless in your work, and I would like to thank your family for their support of you. They can be rightly proud of what you have done, and we are too.

  • Pete Wishart – 2019 Tribute to the Speaker of the House of Commons

    Below is the text of the speech made by Pete Wishart, the SNP MP for Perth and North Perthshire, in the House of Commons on 31 October 2019.

    Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I say that for the last time. I was just saying to the SNP Chief Whip, given that questions were allowed to go on for 40 minutes longer, Bercow must go.

    I was, of course, one of your nominees 10 years ago. I would therefore like to congratulate myself on my solid and sound judgment on that occasion. I always knew that you would make an excellent Speaker. Even that awful impersonation you did of Peter Tapsell when you were trying to be elected did not dissuade me of that notion. But I did not know that you would be such a transformative Speaker. The way in which we do business in this Chamber is now forever changed because of your speakership. You have pioneered and transformed. The speakership of this House is now no longer just about overseeing the business in the Chamber, and the way in which we debate and interact with each other. It is about asserting the rights of Parliament and championing parliamentary democracy. And you have been singularly brave in the way you have challenged various Governments who believed that it was their gift always to get their way. We will never go back to those days now, because of the way in which you have challenged that assumption.

    I will never forget sitting with you in that curry house in Buckingham, when MP4 did a gig for you in your constituency. That curry house stayed open because Mr Speaker was coming with some strange guests from a rock band, and the vindaloo you ordered that night had to be specially prepared. We could not get you to come up on stage with us that evening, but now you have a bit more time. Given the Prime Minister’s Sinatra reference yesterday, maybe you could give us a rendition of “My Way”; we would happily supply the backing for that occasion.

    The culture of this House has been totally and radically transformed. You have ensured that the Back Benchers are now fully accommodated. I have been here long enough to remember the days when urgent questions and statements were cut off after half an hour or 40 minutes, and it would always be the Back Benchers and Members of the smaller parties who would lose out on an opportunity to say something and give their point of view on the issue of the day. That no longer happens. Everybody is now accommodated. I hope that that transformation that you have made will continue to be adopted as we go forward. We all now get an opportunity to give our point of view in this House, and it is important that that remains the case. For that, we thank you.

    We on these Benches will miss you, and you will forever be a friend of Scotland and of the Scottish National party. On behalf of our party, I wish you and your family—Sally, Freddie, Jemima and Oliver—all the very best for the future. I wish your staff, Peter, Ian and Jim, all the best as well. I hope that you enjoy the next stage of what has already been a fascinating and unique journey. You are a one-off, sir, and we will miss you.

  • Alan Duncan – 2019 Tribute to the Speaker of the House of Commons

    Alan Duncan – 2019 Tribute to the Speaker of the House of Commons

    Below is the text of the speech made by Alan Duncan, the Conservative MP for Rutland and Melton, in the House of Commons on 31 October 2019.

    Mr Speaker, may I echo the heartfelt comments that have been made about you from so many quarters over the past few days? May I do so by way of two confessions, which I have been needing to get off my chest? The first is that I was at a primary school—it is always there that you get the difficult questions—and I was asked, “What is the rudest thing that anyone has ever said to you in politics?” I thought for a bit and said, “Do you know what, it is when someone came up to me in the street and said, ‘Good morning, Mr Bercow.’” I hope that you will forgive me for that. The second confession is rather worse. I may well burn in the fiery flames of hell for ever having done this. I am known occasionally in the Tea Room to have referred to you as Mr Speaker Hobbit. I hope that you will forgive me this affectionate teasing and, in paying my own tribute to you, it gives me pleasure that my last words in this House are to wish you the best for the future.

    Mr Speaker

    I gently point out that a hobbit is a friendly creature.

  • Valerie Vaz – 2019 Tribute to the Speaker of the House of Commons

    Valerie Vaz – 2019 Tribute to the Speaker of the House of Commons

    Below is the text of the speech made by Valerie Vaz, the Shadow Leader of the House of Commons, in the Commons on 31 October 2019.

    May I start by thanking the Leader of the House for his statement? I note that there are no business questions this morning, but he did say that you would allow us a bit of latitude, Mr Speaker, so may I ask one question through you? When is Parliament likely to return after the election? Perhaps the Leader of the House could answer that in his own time.

    Most people can read the basic facts about your life on your website, Mr Speaker, and on various other websites. You are the first Speaker since the second world war to have served alongside four Prime Ministers and to be elected to the post four times. I shall concentrate on my interactions with you.

    Those of us in the 2010 intake were pleased that the rules were suspended slightly and we were allowed to ask questions before we made our first speeches. I think that made a huge difference to us. You spoke at, and gave up a Saturday evening for, the launch of the campaign to have a bust for Noor Inayat Khan, who served in the Special Operations Executive—Churchill’s special group. Karen Newman sculpted the wonderful bust that is now in Gordon Square. Noor was executed in the Dachau concentration camp. It was important to recognise her.

    You allowed me the use of Speaker’s House for the launch of the Sidney Goldberg competition, which you attended and spoke at. Sidney Goldberg was in the headquarters ship during the D-day landings. It is important that you have opened up the use of Speaker’s House to civil society and charities—roughly eight a week, more than 150 a year. It is really important for people to see what goes on in Speaker’s House, and I am sure many people will thank you for that. When fielding a number of questions as guests walked through to the bed in the final room, we had to explain to them that it was not you and Sally who slept there.

    With your friend since 1982, the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), you trained quite a lot of Tory candidates, and I am sure you have seen many of them here. You have obviously trained them well, because they have been quite argumentative towards you.

    Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)

    I was one of them.

    Valerie Vaz

    Ah!

    Being in the Chamber is what you have loved most, Mr Speaker. Perhaps they are going to patent your bladder—the sight of Ian and Peter checking your vital signs as you leave after a long session is quite interesting. As many people have said, you have opened the Chamber up to urgent questions. You knew which Select Committee Members served on and called people appropriately for urgent questions and statements.

    I will not forget the phone call that you made to me; I thought I had done something wrong, but you picked up the phone and said, “It’s Mr Speaker here. Would you like to come to Burma?” I think Joan Ruddock could not make it. It was great to be on that trip with you, and particularly to see your groundbreaking speech at the University of Yangon, before Daw Suu was elected. We went to Mon state, where we visited the legal aid clinic and then a school. There were people looking through windows with cameras. They were not actually following us—they were sent by someone else—but I remember you waving your hand and saying, “Who are those people? Send them away.” And they did go—they listened to you.

    There is a phrase: “Behold the turtle. He only makes progress when he sticks his neck out.” I think people would say that you are a turtle on skids, Mr Speaker. You commissioned “The Good Parliament” report by Professor Sarah Childs, and many of her recommendations, particularly on proxy voting, have now been implemented. You produced a landmark report on speech, language and communication needs for children. Ican, the children’s charity, has done a follow-up report, “Bercow 10 years on” and I hope that it has made a difference and they have seen the difference that your initial report has made.

    The Leader of the House mentioned the Education Centre, which has been used by many of our schools. It is such a delight to walk through Speaker’s Yard to the Education Centre. It has made a huge difference to the understanding of Parliament.

    I was privileged to sit on your group for the Speaker’s school council awards. It was incredible to see the level of the children’s entries, how they were thinking about other people and how they want to change society. It is a tribute to you that that happened.

    Then, of course, there is the Youth Parliament. Since 2009, you have chaired every Youth Parliament and you have been to every annual conference. It is incredible to see the way the members of the Youth Parliament have risen to the occasion. I am sorry that you will not be here for the next one, on 8 November. The level of debate, as you know, is absolutely exemplary and something that we can learn from.

    It is UK Parliament Week next week, from 2 to 10 November—as part of my contribution to business questions, I am adding bits of information. There will be 11,400 activities—15 in Walsall South, but 11 in North East Somerset, so it has some catching up to do.

    Mr Speaker, you are chancellor of two universities: the University of Bedfordshire and, your alma mater, the University of Essex. I know that you will continue to teach them about how Parliament can be opened up. You have opened up Parliament, which has been part of the golden triangle of accountability involving the Executive and the judiciary. Parliament is not the subservient partner, but, under your speakership, the equal and relevant partner. I say to the other side that I think you did do your job as a very impartial Speaker. I know that some of us on our side actually questioned you calling other sides first. So everybody thinks that you are an impartial Speaker and have favourites one way or the other. However, you will be pleased to know that your ratings on the Parliament channel have gone up and that the word “Order” is now used by parents around the country as the new naughty step.

    I thank your long-serving staff: Peter Barrett, Ian Davis and Jim Davey, those in your outer office and those in your inner office. They have always been absolutely exemplary to me, whether I was a Back Bencher or on the Front Bench, and to other Members.

    Of course, we cannot forget the great Sally, who has always been by your side and supportive of the work that you do. We all need that person who will support us in our work—particularly Oliver, Freddie and Jemima. It was lovely to watch them in the Gallery yesterday, as they were looking down almost in tears. It was very nice for them to hear the tributes because I know that they have faced difficult times in the playground when you have been attacked.

    So, John Simon Bercow, this was your life in Parliament. We wish you well in whatever you choose to do, and you go with our grateful thanks and best wishes.

  • Jacob Rees-Mogg – 2019 Tribute to the Speaker of the House of Commons

    Jacob Rees-Mogg – 2019 Tribute to the Speaker of the House of Commons

    Below is the text of the speech made by Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Leader of the House of Commons, in the Commons on 31 October 2019.

    Thank you, Mr Speaker. I do not need patience because proceedings in this House are always interesting. But let us now praise famous men. It was a privilege to propose you as Speaker in the 2015 Parliament and now, in the reverse of Mark Antony in relation to Caesar, I come not to bury you but to praise you, for that is the right thing to do when a period of long service comes to an end. That is not to deny that there will be a debate about your term of office, as there are debates about the terms of office of other Speakers in our history. However, I am very conscious that the good that men do is often interred with their end of service. I think the good that you have done should be heralded and that others at a later date will look at some of the criticisms that they may have. But now is not the occasion for that.

    In 2009, when you first addressed this House as a candidate for the speakership, you said that you did not want “to be someone”, but rather that you wanted “to do something”. Your agenda was “reform”, “renewal” and “revitalisation”, and although I think the word “modernisation” is an expletive, which I rarely allow to sound forth from my lips, there can be no denying that during your decade in office you have worked tirelessly to achieve those objectives.

    As the 157th Speaker, you have been a distinctive servant of Parliament, both in this place and beyond, representing the House to audiences around the United Kingdom and overseas. I think you share my conviction that politics is at its best when it is engaging. Your work with the United Kingdom Youth Parliament and your work with Parliament’s excellent education team should be celebrated. So many schools from my constituency have taken advantage of this service, and I have always been impressed by the knowledge of the people involved. I know that you had quite a battle to get the education building put up, and some people opposed you, but it has been a resounding success.

    During your speakership, our parliamentary democracy has been under intense scrutiny. We have been fortunate to have in the Chair so accomplished a glottologist as you are, in order that language, as well as the intricate and profound workings of Parliament, can be understood by everyone. I think the words “chunter”, “medicament”, “dilate”, “animadvert” and, perhaps my favourite, “susurrations” have been popularised under your speakership and, I imagine, are now in common parlance in pubs and clubs across England—or at least in Boodle’s, the Beefsteak, Pratt’s and the Garrick. But those sorts of clubs probably enjoy those words greatly.

    As you have dispensed your immediate duties from the Chair, you have come to be known as the Back Bencher’s champion. Our main purpose as Members of Parliament is to seek redress of grievance for our constituents, and you have been unswervingly diligent in your desire to ensure that all parliamentarians are treated equally, whether novice or hardened veteran. I cannot thank you enough for the help you gave me to ensure that we could get the drug Brineura for a constituent of mine: within about a week, you called me at oral questions, granted me an Adjournment debate and then gave me an urgent question, all of which helped to build pressure on the Government to act, to the great advantage of a very ill and very young constituent of mine. This is my view of what Parliament is about, and I think you facilitated that for me in a way that other Speakers may well not have done. My personal gratitude and, more importantly, the gratitude of the family who have benefited from that, is, I think, a real tribute to how you have operated. You have allowed parliamentarians to seek redress of grievance, and that is basically where our law making in this place comes from historically.

    The ultimate, most important, highest duty of the Speaker of the House of Commons is to be the champion of our House and its Members, and to defend our right to freedom of speech in defence of our constituents. Mr Speaker, you have done that. During your time you have presided over what you yourself have termed the “rumbustious” Parliament. Now, as you step down from the office of Speaker of the House of Commons, having what is undoubtedly the highest honour that the House of Commons has in its power to bestow, I wish you a prosperous and successful retirement, and thank you and your family—Sally, Freddie, Jemima, and particularly the great Oliver, who I know has more my view of modernisation than your own, at least with regard to wigs.