There has been an interesting response in the Tory party to Heidi Allen’s speech in which she criticised the tax credit changes. Many MPs are themselves worried about the changes, and didn’t disagree with what she had to say. But what has really riled them is the way in which she appeared to dismiss the Chamber as largely pointless – and that she spoke against the cuts having supported them once and then went onto vote with the government again on the motion before the House last night (though to be fair, she explained that she wouldn’t vote for the Opposition Day motion because she disagreed with its wording).
One MP who knows a thing or two about rebelling says ‘I couldn’t care less about her dissing the government: I do that too. But criticising the Chamber and saying it was all pointless is another matter.’
This was Allen’s criticism of the Chamber:
‘I have refrained from making a speech so far because sadly most days I feel that Members on both sides of the House are firmly married to their positions regardless of the debate, and so, frankly, why prolong the agony? Why sit in the Chamber for hours when I know I could be concentrating on helping my constituents with immediate needs now?’
The objections from her colleagues to these comments sound completely bizarre to anyone outside Parliament, but there is a significant number of MPs across the House who feel incredibly protective of the Commons.
You can see that protective instinct in action whenever a minister tries to mess the Chamber around by sneaking something past MPs with no time for debate, or tables a motion on one thing when they wanted to debate another. That’s why so many parliamentarians got so upset about the cunning plan to undermine John Bercow by introducing secret ballot for the election of the speaker. And why they got upset with Bercow himself when he tried his own fun and games over the appointment of the new clerk of the House. It’s why they got upset about the shenanigans over the European Arrest Warrant. And it was why Jacob Rees-Mogg offered a small history lesson on the primacy of the Commons over the Lords in his question at PMQs today.
Those MPs who will cause an almighty row in order to protect the Commons feel that it is an institution that should never be regarded as pointless, as that way lies more ministerial misbehaviour of the like listed above.
For what it’s worth, my own personal view as someone who perches in the press gallery above those MPs is that the Chamber is something rather precious indeed, but that it currently isn’t treated with the respect it deserves because its power is still dulled significantly by patronage. Some MPs do give dull speeches in the Commons that change few minds because they hope those speeches will pave the way to a promotion.
Perhaps Allen has been in the Commons for too short an amount of time to be the right person to make that point, though, so while her speech has garnered her considerable praise, it seems she needs to ensure she doesn’t alienate those around her who are similarly independently-minded.
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