Letter from Westminster 29 June 2009
June 29, 2009 10:04 AM
By Stephen Williams MP
By Stephen Williams MP
The most significant event of the week was the election of a new Speaker.
I was one of the 15 MPs who signed the motion of no confidence in former Speaker Martin so was keen to see a complete break with the old Westminster establishment.
The final list of candidates announced on Monday morning had ten nominations. So at 2.30pm I sat in the chamber and listened to ten speeches. Some spoke much better than I thought, while Margaret Beckett who had the double handicap of going first and being seen as the choice of the Labour whips, spoke dreadfully. It was clear that her enthusiasm for reform of the House of Commons was luke warm. Some of the Tory grandees who spoke were enthusiastic about reform but as I'd seen absolutely no evidence of this attitude before I dismissed them as saying anything to get elected.
The three interesting candidates were my colleague Alan Beith and Tories John Bercow and Sir George Young. In the end I plumped for John Bercow.
John started on the Tory right but I have only known him in his later phase as a socially Liberal Tory. He has supported socially progressive legislation, much of which was opposed by the majority of Tory MPs. He is also a formidable public speaker. I had also seen at close quarters his competence in chairing Parliamentary committees. I'm delighted that he won.
Speaker Bercow has promised to shake up the House procedures and to stand up for the House against the government. Expenses reform is largely outside his remit but he will surely encourage change. On the subject of expenses, the Bristol Evening Post has been running a series on all nine Greater Bristol MPs. I answered a lot of questions and was pleased on Saturday to see myself described as "a model for other MPs"!
In Bristol this week I went along to Stoke Lodge to take part in a citizenship exercise by year 6 of Stoke Bishop Primary and teaching students from the university. The children prepared a series of presentations on how they would like to see Stoke Lodge transformed as a community resource. Among the ideas were crazy golf, a cafe, youth club and my favourite, a miniature railway. There were comments from a Dragon's Den panel of a city planner, a cohesion officer and myself.
Over the weekend I took part in several community cohesion related events.
On Friday night I was at the launch party for this year St Pauls Carnival, which takes place next Saturday. On Saturday I spoke at the launch of a new community association for refugees from Darfur in Sudan.
I was also at the launch of Bristol Black Boys Can, who will run a Saturday school to help drive up the attainment of Afro-Caribbean boys.
Finally I spoke at the Bristol Sikh Temple on Fishponds Road, on the 25th anniversary of the Golden Temple massacre in Amritsar.
In Westminster I saw inside 10 Downing Street for the first time. The Prime Minister was hosting a reception to mark 40 years of the Open University. We were gathered in the garden but before leaving I had a
tour of the house, seeing the photographs of various cabinets in the basement and the portraits of past PMs on the staircase, as well as the cabinet and other staterooms.
I spoke in the debate on skills in older industrial areas and criticised the cuts in the budget of regional development agencies. In Bristol this has meant a set back to plans to redevelop the hideous Westmoreland House site on Stokes Croft. I visited Hackney College, the scene for this years VQ Day celebrations. This is the second year that vocational qualifications have been marked, with speeches from the Minister as well as my Tory counterpart and me. There were various skills displays, including motor engineering. I managed not only to squeeze into a racing car but also to avoid a photo-op disaster and haul myself out without getting stuck…
Well that's my race through the highlights of last week. Time will tell whether the new Speaker can make the House of Commons a 21st century legislature or whether he will be thwarted by the forces of darkness that have got us into so much trouble.
Stephen Williams MP
Bristol West (Liberal Democrat)
Parliamentary email - stephenwilliamsmp@parliament.uk
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