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Election of the Deputy Speakers

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight), the Chairman of the Procedure Committee, for explaining the difference between the two parts of this process. The House will want to agree the specifics of the preparation of detailed proposals for the election of Deputy Speakers, and he is right to draw our attention to the fact that his Committee will be considering the introduction of term limits. My view is that that will be difficult to achieve successfully. I can see why it is in the interests of the House for there to be a voluntary change of Speaker. It should be in the middle of a Parliament, although I can see why a Speaker might say that it would be more convenient for a term to end at the end of a Parliament, so that the change of Speaker does not cause a by-election. There may be a way of resolving that that the Committee could consider. Generally, it is better to trust people's judgment. My second caution is that although the question of having what is called gender balance has arisen in the Committee, I see no reason why, if this House is two-thirds male and one-third female, for example, we should not have two female Deputy Speakers and only one male Deputy Speaker. I see no problem with that. It would not be gender balance; it would be the consequence of the way people were chosen—or, under these proposals, elected. My gentle suggestion for the Committee to consider is that the first man and the first woman with the greatest number of votes could become Deputy Speakers, and that the third Deputy Speaker be the other candidate with the greatest number of votes, whether they get more or less than one of the other two. There are various ways of dealing with the matter, but having a rigid balance, or rigid proportions, strikes me as unnecessary. The other issue in my mind—besides recognising, as others have, the dedication of those who serve as Deputy Speakers and Chairman of Ways and Means—is that the House has been very lucky with those who have been prepared to hold those posts. Each of those positions is a position of service, rather than of ambition. That is one of the things that make this House rather endearing, and rather more effective than if all of us tried to go for such positions because we thought we needed the prominence.