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Clerk of the Parliaments

My Lords, I am sure that the whole House is extremely grateful for the fine and well deserved tributes which Michael Pownall has just received. We all know how genuine are the feelings that have been expressed on behalf of us all about Mr Pownall. That makes it particularly unfortunate that Mr Pownall is, I believe, the first Clerk of the Parliaments for centuries—I have been unable to discover how many centuries—to be retiring without a knighthood. I happen to think that that is extremely unjust to him personally, as well as being undeserved and unreasonable. I also happen to think that it is very much not in the interests of Parliament. As we know, Parliament, the House of Lords as much as the House of Commons, depends absolutely on the high calibre of our Clerks and on being able to attract into the cadre of Clerks young men and women of the greatest ability. They do not get much opportunity for public tribute to be paid to them, but the tradition that whoever rises to the top of this profession receives a knighthood is one way that enables us to make quite clear the esteem in which we hold the profession as a whole. Perhaps I may ask the Leader of the House to have a word in the right place to see whether this matter can be rectified.