The cross-party group of MPs opposing John Bercow’s appointment of Carol Mills as Clerk of the House have now submitted their early day motion designed to stop the Speaker going ahead without scrutiny. The motion is co-sponsored by Tory Jesse Norman and Labour chair of the Backbench Business Committee Natascha Engel.
Coffee House understands that 66 MPs from the three major parties have signed the EDM (all the more impressive given MPs are still on recess) and at least a further eight MPs will support the call for a debate on select committee pre-hearings before any appointment is made. The list of those 74 MPs who support this campaign is below. It includes nine former ministers (of which three are former foreign secretaries and a former deputy leader of the Labour party), four select committee chairmen, three former government whips and 11 PPSs.
The list is likely to grow when the Commons returns. Coupled with Number 10’s assertion yesterday that Mills must have support ‘from all sides of the House’, this campaign looks extremely potent. If the Speaker wants to continue to claim to be the ‘champion of Parliament’, he will need to heed the demands. He is already finding that the backbenchers that his reforms have supercharged are quite happy to use their new powers against him, to his embarrassment.
Jesse Norman MP
Natascha Engel MP
Jack Straw MP
John Hemming MP
Sir Malcolm Rifkind QC MP
Margaret Beckett MP
Sir Nicholas Soames MP
David Blunkett MP
Dominic Grieve QC MP
Sir Edward QC MP
Sir Oliver Heald QC MP
Frank Field MP
Sir Richard Ottaway MP
Rory Stewart MP
Bernard Jenkin MP
Graham Stuart MP
Gisela Stuart MP
Sir John Randall MP
Michael Fabricant MP
Dame Angela Watkinson MP
Damian Green MP
Crispin Blunt MP
Simon Burns MP
Sir Peter Luff MP
David Willetts MP
Charles Hendry MP
Mark Hoban MP
Graham Brady MP
Christopher Pincher MP
Dan Byles MP
Nadhim Zahawi MP
Chris White MP
Alok Sharma MP
Charlie Elphicke MP
Glyn Davies MP
Geoffrey Clifton Brown MP
Karl McCartney MP
Bob Blackman MP
Daniel Kawczyinski MP
David Morris MP
Nick de Bois MP
John Howell MP
Gareth Johnson MP
Simon Kirby MP
Steve Brine MP
Mark Garnier MP
Nigel Adams MP
Guto Bebb MP
Jacob Rees Mogg MP
Andrew Bridgen MP
Jackie Doyle Price MP
James Gray MP
Julian Smith MP
Karen Lumley MP
Nigel Mills MP
Robin Walker MP
Richard Graham MP
Jeremy Lefroy MP
Alec Shelbrooke MP
Simon Reevell MP
Neil Parish MP
Damian Collins MP
Richard Drax MP
Ben Gummer MP
Tracy Crouch MP
Matthew Offord MP
Angie Bray MP
Chris Heaton Harris MP
Simon Hart MP
Dr Sarah Wollaston MP
Steve Baker MP
Bob Stewart MP
Heather Wheeler MP
Henry Smith MP
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