---

Speakership: House Committee Report

My Lords, one good answer to that question is: because the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, wants to be there; therefore, it must be the wrong place to be. The more important answer is that the House has already decided certain things. It has approved unanimously the report of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick. It has approved methods of election and so on for the Speaker, and we have agreed, albeit reluctantly—I suspect the noble Earls and I share this reluctance—that because the Government have decided not to allow us a Lord Chancellor, we have got to go down this route. Also, we have approved a report which says what the new Lord Speaker shall do. Everybody so far has concentrated solely on his role in sitting on the Woolsack and has entirely forgotten what is in the report about his role in representing this House, both in this country and abroad. Your Lordships spend a lot of your time—rightly—whingeing about the fact that this House is not properly appreciated and that its work is not properly understood by the rest of the country. I wholeheartedly agree with these whinges. But when somebody is to be given a role to try to remedy that and to go out and be an ambassador and explain what the House does and do it properly, are we really to send him out on a pittance which shows our contempt for the office he holds? If he is to do any good in this job, he must be a person for whom the House has shown respect and who is entitled to respect by others. If he is a £29,000-a year salaried clerk, who on earth can be expected to want to hear speeches by him explaining the role of this House? The noble Earls and the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, are, with respect, harking back and trying to undo what has already been decided. We are stuck with what has already been decided. Let us not spoil it for what is, with respect, a halfpennyworth of tar.