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Clerk of the Parliaments

My Lords, it gives me enormous pleasure on behalf of the Opposition to second the Motion moved by the Leader of the House. I associate myself and my Benches with all that the noble Lord has said about the recently retired Clerk of the Parliaments, Michael Pownall. Michael’s long service to your Lordships’ House, his diligence and commitment to his work and, at the same time, his reticence and modesty are all qualities from which the House has enormously benefited. It is characteristic of Michael’s modesty that he somehow managed to contrive to retire during the recess while the House was not sitting, but we will not let him get away without paying tribute in the Chamber to all that he has done for the House and for the Members of this House. It is characteristic too, though, that even after leaving the job Michael Pownall will still be doing it because he has to return to give further evidence in court proceedings being brought against Members of this House, and it is on these issues that I wish to focus. In paying an overall tribute to the former Clerk, the Leader mentioned that he could only touch on Michael’s role in dealing with the difficult issues with which this House has had to deal in the past few years. For most of that time I was in the noble Lord’s place as Leader of the House, which gave me a particular perspective on Michael, and it is from that perspective that I shall address the substance of my remarks today. Parliament has had a bad time of it over this period: we have seen a scandal erupt; we have seen a media frenzy; we have seen the standing of Parliament lowered; we have seen trust eroded; we have seen Parliament fail the British people. In all this, your Lordships' House has not been impacted on to the same degree and extent as the House of Commons, but it has none the less been seriously affected. As the noble Lord the Leader said, we have as a result reformed our procedures radically. In all this, at every point, was Michael Pownall. I tell your Lordships this quite plainly: whatever difficulties this House has been in, they would have been worse, so very much worse, if Michael Pownall had not been in his job. At every moment, in every aspect of the issues involved, Michael was centrally involved not only in dealing with them but with stretching himself and his team to find ways of resolving them. As the then Leader of the House, I and my team worked with Michael hour by hour, day by day, night by night, weekend by weekend for many months dealing with the issues involved: with the distress to Members of this House, with complaints, with investigations, with new procedures to put right what was wrong and to put our own House back in order. At times, that work led to him being attacked and criticised in public, in the media and, indeed, by the media. He was anguished by that and could barely believe that it was happening. When at one point my office advised him that it was likely that he would be doorstepped at home by press photographers the next morning and to be ready for it, he was highly sceptical that it would happen and, characteristically, highly apologetic for his scepticism when it duly happened the next morning. It was wrong, highly wrong, for a public servant to be personally targeted in that way. Politicians have to take the rough with the smooth—it is unfortunately part of the job and goes with the turf—but public servants who are simply carrying out their duties, as Michael Pownall was, should not be subject to attack in that way. It is media bullying and intimidation. Sad to say, it is something that many in the media believe that they have a perfect right to do, but they are wrong. At the end of his career in your Lordships' House, as he reached the summation of that career in becoming Clerk of the Parliaments, Michael Pownall suddenly found that he had to deal with those kinds of issues in a way that none of his predecessors had. It is a real, lasting and permanent tribute to him that, because of the changes and reforms that he, with many others, worked so hard to put in place, it is unlikely that none of his successors will have to deal with them in the same way either. We welcome David Beamish as his successor as Clerk of the Parliaments. The transition from Michael to David has been handled well, and we now have a very strong Senior Clerks’ Bench, and, indeed, a strong team across the House authorities as a whole, to serve your Lordships' House in what may, in a very different way and with very different issues involved in terms of possible further reform of this place, be an equally challenging period ahead. We look forward to working with David as the new Clerk of the Parliaments and with Ed Ollard as his new Clerk Assistant. Despite his still having no doubt difficult work in court still in front of him, I know that Michael is looking forward to retirement, to spending more time with Deborah and spending a great deal more time at their house in his beloved Italy. This House is paying tribute to Michael Pownall today for his long career of distinguished service to your Lordships' House—rightly so. As Clerk, he has been a wise counsel, a man of judgment, dignity and integrity, a fair man, a just man, a genuinely nice man and, rightly, a popular man with the Members of this House and with the staff of the House whom he has led. The House owes Michael Pownall a particular debt of gratitude over this last period of that distinguished career, for, when the call of duty came in ways that in this House it had never come before for someone in his job, he rose to it. The trouble in this House was largely created by the activities of some of its Members, and it is right that we and other authorities dealt with it in the way we did. When this House was in trouble, Michael Pownall stood by it. That is a debt of gratitude which we shall never be able to repay.