Posts Tagged ‘Speaker’

The real problem is MP irrelevancy

Recently, Canada’s federal Official Opposition proposed measures for improving decorum in the House of Commons. These measures would require changes to the Standing Orders in order to increase the Speaker’s authority to discipline unruly MPs:

who use harassment, threats, personal attacks, or extreme misrepresentation of facts or position in the House, particularly regarding Statements by Members and Oral Questions, including:

i.  Revoking questions during Oral Questions from parties whose Members have been disruptive
ii. Issuing a warning to Members for a first offense
iii. Suspending Members from the service of the House for one sitting day for a second offense; five days for a third offense; and twenty days for a fourth offense
iv. Suspending Members’ sessional allowance for the duration of their suspension from the service of the House

Reaction has been varied. Sun Media’s David Akin pointed out that new rules aren’t required – if MPs want to stop this sort of behaviour, they can simply stop it. He also suggests that if the rules governing broadcasting of House proceedings were relaxed to allow reaction shots, that too might lead MPs to think twice about behaving boorishly:

The rules require that whenever the Speaker stands, the cameras may only show him. When he is not standing, the cameras may only show the MP who is speaking.

If TV networks – Sun News Network, CPAC, CTV, CBC, etc. – were able to control the cameras, we would certainly zoom in on sleeping MPs, on MPs giving others the finger, and so on.

Knowing that their hijinks would be beamed into the nation’s living rooms would surely be the best corrective.

I am not convinced that reaction shots would change much. The cameras in UK House of Commons do not stay focused on the Member who has the floor, and this does not stop other MPs from gesturing, making faces at, or heckling their counterparts on the opposite side. Akin is closer to the mark when he ends his column with:

But more unworkable and impossible-to-enforce rules?

Newsflash: They won’t work.

The problem isn’t really not enough rules, but that over the years (decades) the rules have been changed in ways that increasingly weaken the opposition and empower the government side – essentially rendering backbenchers – and the legislature – largely irrelevant. And I refer not only to the Standing Orders of the House of Commons, but also Canada’s Elections Act, as Aaron Wherry of Macleans explains in this post. The real problem in the Canadian House of Commons is that backbenchers are not free to ask questions of interest to them, they are given scripted questions by their party Whips. Ditto for most of the highly partisan Members’ Statements – I am certain most MPs would prefer to use their Member’s Statement as intended – to speak of something of interest to them and their constituents. Instead, they are given prepared, highly partisan statements by their party leadership.

What would be needed, more than new penalties the Speaker could impose on disruptive Members, would be rule changes to strengthen the Opposition, and to ease the control party leaders have over their MPs. A lot, maybe most, of the heckling and boorishness occurs because MPs other than those on the front bench are frustrated.

While the clip from the UK’s Prime Minister’s Questions in the above link might not show it, overall, the UK House of Commons is far more respectful and decorous than its Canadian counterpart. And the  main reason for that, I believe, is because backbenchers in the UK have far more freedom than do their Canadian counterparts. Part of that is due to sheer numbers – there are 650 MPs in the UK House of Commons – the Conservative party alone has almost as many MPs as does the entire Canadian House of Commons – and so it is simply impossible for the whips to exert the same level of control over backbenchers that Canadian party whips do. As well, MPs have more control over their party leader. For example, in the UK Conservative Party, a vote of confidence in the party leader can be triggered by 15% of the party’s MPs. This means that if 46 sitting Conservative MPs write letters indicating they are unhappy with Prime Minister David Cameron as their party leader, a confidence vote is held. If Cameron were to lose that vote, he would have to resign as party leader. He would not be permitted to run again for the post of party leader either. The Liberal Democrats require that a majority of sitting MPs pass a motion of no confidence in the leader to trigger a leadership contest, but the defeated leader is allowed to stand again. Labour has no such non-confidence provisions.

The UK House of Commons has also embarked on a series of reforms in recent years which have served to strengthen the House vis à vis the executive. I have blogged extensively about many of these (see, for example, my “Fixing Ottawa” series, first post here). Governing parties in the UK do not expect that bills that they put forward will go through un-amended – or that they will even pass, which is not the case here in Canada. Because the opposition parties in the UK know that they will most likely be able to amend any government bill, there is less need to resort to tactics to try to stymie Government business in the House.

I know some will argue that if a party “wins” an election, then it has a mandate to govern and to get its legislation through the House. This argument would have more weight if our electoral system actually reflected how people voted. I don’t know how anyone can argue that a party elected to majority government with less than 40% of the popular vote (and often dismal voter turnout) has a real “mandate” to push through any piece of legislation virtually unopposed. And no piece of legislation is ever perfect – amendments should be welcomed, not defeated at every turn.

The problems in the Canadian House of Commons are mostly due to the excessive control parties have over their Members, and to years of changes to the Standing Orders which have only served to strengthen the Executive at the expense of the legislature. Fining an MP for being disruptive during Question Period won’t change anything. The problems go much deeper than that.

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Inside the New Zealand House of Representatives

Like its Australian counterpart, the New Zealand House of Representatives’ debating chamber is arranged in a horseshoe shape. The Chamber measures 19.3 by 13.12 metres, which is  smaller than the Canadian  and UK Houses of Commons. As in the other chambers, the Speaker sits at one end, on a dais, and the Clerk and other Table officers are seated at a Table in front of and below the Speaker’s Chair.

The Members sit at desks arranged in three to five tiers. The MPs who are members of the Government side sit on the Speaker’s right, with the members of the executive nearest to the Speaker. The members of the Opposition parties sit on the left, with the members of the shadow cabinet nearest the Speaker, as we can see in this image from Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand:

The Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition and deputy to the Leader of the Opposition sit facing each other in recognised front bench seats. Their respective whips are seated immediately behind them. Other Ministers and members are allocated seats within the area of the Chamber occupied by the party to which they belong on a basis determined by the party. As far as practicable, each party occupies a block of seats in the Chamber, so that its members are seated contiguously. It is also a recognised practice that, if at all possible, every party leader should have a front-bench seat. Because New Zealand uses Mixed-Member Proportional voting rather than First-Past-The-Post, coalition government is the norm and so the government side of the House will include all of the parties forming the coalition.

In this image, we note that the horseshoe shape of the Chamber is divided at three points by gangways. One gangway at the far end of the Chamber leads beyond the bar of the House to an exit. The other two gangways are on either side of the Chamber. The one on the Speaker’s right leads into a lobby known as the Ayes Lobby, and the one on the left leads into the Noes Lobby. New Zealand MPs used to use these lobbies for divisions as is done in the British House of Commons, but since adopting MMP voting in 1996, the lobbies are used only for what are called “personal” votes. Party votes – which would be the equivalent of a whipped vote in other parliaments – don’t even require that all MPs be present. If a party indicates that is it voting in favour of a bill or motion, then a number of votes equivalent to the number of MPs that party has is attributed to the Ayes. Because of this, even the Speaker votes in New Zealand, which is not the case in other Westminster-style parliaments. The Speaker’s vote is included in any party vote cast and the Speaker votes in a personal vote, though without going into the lobbies personally – the Speaker’s vote is communicated to the teller from the Speaker’s chair. Because the lobbies are rarely used for divisions, they are now set aside for the exclusive use of members while the House is sitting as a place where they can go to relax.

Ministerial advisers are able to converse with their Minister from a bench situated immediately to the right of the Speaker’s chair (not shown in the diagram). Immediately to the left of the chair there are seats available for former members of Parliament, heads of diplomatic missions and visiting members of overseas parliaments.

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Inside the Australian House of Representatives

The Australian House of Representatives Chamber differs from the British and Canadian Houses of Commons in that the seating arrangements for Members are in a horseshoe shape rather than the Government and Opposition sitting on opposite sides directly facing each other. The Speaker’s Chair faces the main entrance, and the Government is seated to the right of the Speaker, the opposition to the left. Like the Canadian House of Commons, Members have allotted seats.

There are other notable differences in the Australian Chamber. There are two chairs on either side of the Table which are reserved for Prime Minister [#3] and Deputy Prime Minister on the Government side, and for the Leader of the Opposition [#4] and Deputy Leader of the Opposition on the other side.

You will also note the presence of sandglasses (hourglasses) [#1] on the Table. Before any division or ballot is taken, the Clerk rings the bells for the period specified in the Standing Orders, as indicated by the sandglasses kept on the Table for that purpose. For most divisions, a four-minute sandglass is used; a one-minute sandglass is used when successive divisions are taken and there is no intervening debate after the first.

While the Australian Chamber doesn’t have division lobbies like the British Chamber, recorded divisions do proceed differently than they do in the Canadian House of Commons. When not less than four minutes have elapsed since the question was first put, the Speaker orders that the doors to the Chamber be locked, and directs that the Ayes proceed to the right side of the Chamber, and that the Noes proceed to the left. Members then take seats on the appropriate side of the Chamber, rather than entering a lobby, and then the Speaker appoints tellers for each side, unless fewer than five Members are seated on one side, in which case the Speaker calls off the division and declares the result for the side with the greater number of Members. If the division is still on, the tellers count and record the names of the Members. The Speaker announces the result, but does not himself vote unless there is an equality of votes.

As in the British House of Commons, there are two despatch boxes on the Table [#2], exact replicas of the ones used at Westminster prior to their loss when the Chamber was destroyed by bombs in 1941. The Prime Minister, Ministers and members of the Opposition executive speaker from the despatch box.

The Chamber is designed to seat up to 172 Members with provisions for an ultimate total of 240. This means that there are currently more seats in the Chamber (172) than there are elected Members (150).

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Inside the UK House of Commons

In an earlier post, I described the interior of the Canadian House of Commons. In this post, I will provide readers with an overview of the layout of the British House of Commons.

The Chamber of the House of Commons is at the northern end of the Palace of Westminster; it was opened in 1950 after the Victorian chamber had been destroyed in 1941 and re-built under the architect Giles Gilbert Scott. The Chamber measures 14 by 20.7 metres, which is smaller than the Canadian Chamber (16 by 21 metres). This is noteworthy because there are more than twice as many MPs elected to the UK House of Commons (650). It is impossible for all MPs to sit in the Chamber at the same time; indeed, only about 427 MPs can be accommodated at any one time. Another noteworthy difference between the Canadian and British Chambers is that British MPs do not have individual desks or assigned seats; rather, all MPs sit on benches.

Legend

1. Speaker’s Chair
2. Table of the House
3. Despatch boxes
4. The Mace
5. The Bar of the House
6. Aye division lobby
7. No division lobby
8. Division Clerks’ Desks
9. Entrances to lobby
10. Exits from lobby
11. Petition bag
12. Prime Minister
13. Government Whips
14. Other ministers
15. Parliamentary Private Secretaries
16. Government backbenches
17. Leader of the Official Opposition
18. Opposition whips
19. Shadow ministers
20. Opposition backbenches
21. Third party
22. Other smaller parties
23. Clerks at the Table
24. Serjeant at Arms
25. Public servants
26. Strangers

The above schematic is how the Chamber would normally look when there is a single-party majority government in place. For example, when Labour formed the government, the parties were arranged thusly:

As we can see, the Government side, indicated in red, occupies most of the right side of the Chamber, except for one small area which is seating for members from smaller parties [#22]. The Opposition side was dominated by the Conservative party (blue), who formed the Official Opposition, and the Liberal Democrats, the third largest party in the House, were seated to left of the Conservatives [#21].

Because the current government is a coalition government comprised of the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats, the government side would be both blue and yellow. The front bench [#14] would consist of both Conservative and Liberal Democrat ministers, as would the section reserved for parliamentary private secretaries [#15]. On the government backbenches, however, the Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs tend not to intermingle, with the Lib Dems MPs sitting as a block to the right of the Conservatives. On the Opposition side of the House, the section numbered 21 is now occupied mostly by Labour MPs as the third party, the Lib Dems, are now on the Government side of the Chamber. (See this interactive guide from the BBC for a better view of the current seating arrangements.)

Another interesting difference between the Canadian and British chambers is the presence of division lobbies. Because not all MPs can be present in the Chamber at one time, MPs do not stand to vote in their place as they do in Canada. Voting is done in division lobbies [#6 and #7]. MPs have to walk through the two Division Lobbies on either side of the House and give their name to the Division Clerks [#8] at the end of the respective Lobbies to vote. They are then counted by the Tellers as they leave the Lobby. After all members have voted in the lobbies, the vote totals are written on a card and the numbers are read out to the House by the Tellers. The Speaker then announces these numbers a second time, announcing the final result by saying ‘The Ayes/Noes have it, the Ayes/Noes have it’.

Other differences include the despatch (or dispatch) boxes and the Petition Bag. The despatch boxes are two ornate wooden boxes [#3], one box on the Government side and one on the Opposition side of the table [#2] that divides the opposing frontbenches. Whereas backbenchers in both Parliaments generally deliver addresses to the chamber while standing at their seat, frontbenchers (ministers and shadow ministers) deliver their addresses from their side’s despatch box. For this reason, the expression “speaking from the despatch box” is often used to describe the performance of a member of parliament (even backbenchers) in addressing the Chamber. Here is a photo showing both despatch boxes, as well as the Mace [#4]:

The Petition Bag [#11] hangs on the back of the Speaker’s Chair [#1]. MPs present petitions by either giving a short statement in the Chamber or by simply placing the petition in the Petition Bag. The Bar of the House [#5], is not an actual bar as it is in the Canadian House of Commons, but simply a white line painted on the floor of the Chamber.

 

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Inside the Canadian House of Commons

(Note: If you’re looking for information about the British House of Commons, see Inside the UK House of Commons.)

I have written a number of posts explaining the role and purpose of various persons and objects in the House of Commons, but some readers want to know how the House of Commons is arranged – who sits where, who are those people at the table in the centre, etc.  The Canadian and UK Houses of Commons follow a similar lay-out, with government and opposition facing off on either side of the Chamber, while the Australian and New Zealand chambers have members seated in more of “U” lay-out. I will begin with a description of the lay-out of the Canadian House of Commons.

This diagram from House of Commons Procedure and Practice (2nd ed.) shows the House of Commons as viewed from the Bar of the House at the south end looking into the Chamber up towards the north end of the Chamber. The Speaker sits on a Chair on a dais [#2 in the diagram], and the Government side is on the Speaker’s right [#5] (but on the left in this image), and the Opposition parties sit on the Speaker’s left (but on the right in the image) [#3, 4 and 6]. You can see that the opposition side is divided between the opposition parties. The front bench of the Official Opposition party sits directly opposite the front bench of the Government party, with the Leader of the Official Opposition [#3] sitting directly opposite the Prime Minister [#1]. The other opposition parties are seated based on the size of their caucus (in decreasing order) in the House [#4]. Independent members wlll occupy the seats on the opposition side which are the furthest away from the Speaker.

Canadian House of Commons - lay-out
Unlike in the UK House of Commons, MPs in the Canadian House of Commons have individual desks assigned to them and must speak and vote from their assigned seat. The desks are equipped with microphones, an electrical outlet for laptop computers, access to the Internet, and a locked compartment in which Members may store belongings.

As stated, the Speaker sits on a Chair on a dais at the north end of the Chamber. The Speaker’s Chair is an exact replica of the original Speaker’s Chair at Westminster, made circa 1849, and then destroyed when the British House of Commons was bombed in 1941. It is approximately four metres high, surmounted by a canopy of carved wood and the Royal Coat of Arms. The oak used for the carving of the Royal Arms was taken from the roof of Westminster Hall, which was built in 1397. House of Commons Procedure and Practice also informs us that:

In recent years, the Chair has undergone some minor renovations. Microphones and speakers have been installed and lights placed overhead. The armrests now offer a writing surface and a small storage space. A hydraulic lift was also installed to permit more comfortable seating for the various occupants of the Chair. At the foot of the Chair, visible only to its occupant, is a computer screen which allows the Chair Occupant to see information generated by the computers at the Table, the countdown timer used to monitor the length of speeches and interventions when time limits apply, and a portion of the unofficial rotation list for Members wishing to speak. The screen also displays a digital feed from the television cameras in the Chamber, allowing the Speaker to see the image being broadcast.

The pages sit at the foot of the Speaker’s Chair [#20]. Pages are first-year university students who work for the House of Commons. They deliver messages and documents to MPs during sittings. The Table referred to above [#7] is where the Clerk of the House, chief procedural advisor to the Speaker, sits with other Table Officers. The Mace [#9] rests on the south end of the Table when the House is sitting.

The Proceedings and Verification Officers (PVOs) [#19] are part of the Hansard team, tasked with capturing Debates in the House. They are the eyes and ears of the production team, capturing details such as the name of the Member speaking, the item of business being discussed, the name of the occupant of the Chair, and using a stenomask to dub names of speakers, off-mike comments and other information that might be reflected in the Official Report.

The Canadian House of Commons conducts business in both English and French, and thus enclosed booths for interpreters are located in the corners of the Chamber opposite the Speaker’s Chair [#21]. Members’ desks are equipped with interpretation devices in order to receive simultaneous interpretation of the proceedings into French or English. Visitors in the galleries also have access to the sound reinforcement and interpretation systems and may choose to listen to the proceedings with interpretation in the official language of their choice, or without interpretation. Proceedings in the House have been broadcast on television since 1977, and TV cameras [#22] are located throughout the Chamber. Since 2003, proceedings are also carried over the Internet via the Parliament of Canada website.

There are several galleries from which proceedings can be watched and which can accommodate about 500 people [#11-18]. Some are reserved for specific purposes, such as visiting dignitaries, members of the diplomatic corps, parliamentary delegations, etc., Senators, departmental officials, and the press, while others are open to the public.

The Sergeant-at-Arms sits at the south end of the Chamber [#8], near the Bar of the House [#10].

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The Speaker’s Seat

In an earlier post, I wrote about some aspects of the UK House of Commons Procedure Committee’s report reviewing the election process for certain positions in the House of Commons. One part of the report which I did not comment on concerned the brief discussion of creating a “Speaker’s Seat”.

As I have previously mentioned in other posts, unlike Speakers in other Commonwealth countries, the MP elected Speaker of the UK House of Commons resigns from his or her political party. They also run for re-election as “the Speaker” and not as a member of a party. There is a long-standing convention in the United Kingdom by which the three main parties do not run a candidate against a Speaker seeking re-election; however smaller parties will contest the seat.

There has been a proposal raised at various times to create a Speaker’s Seat specifically for a Speaker seeking re-election:

The concept of a Speaker’s seat (sometimes referred to as St Stephen’s seat) envisages that any Member once elected by the House to the Speakership would cease to represent a normal parliamentary constituency, resulting in a by-election, and would be automatically returned at the next General Election, if he or she so chose, to stand in the Speakership election.

In other words, once elected Speaker, that MP would, in effect, cease to be an MP with a constituency to represent. A by-election would be called and a new MP would be elected to represent the constituency from which the Speaker hailed. In a general election, the incumbent Speaker would be automatically returned to the House from this “St. Stephen’s seat”, which, since it isn’t associated with an actual constituency, would not be contested by any other candidate.

The idea of a Speaker’s seat has been proposed time and again in the United Kingdom to counter a couple of perceived issues. The first is that constituents in the Speaker’s riding are, to a certain degree, not represented in the House of Commons to the same extent because their MP, the Speaker, cannot speak on their behalf in the House. Also, because the Speaker resigns from his or her political party upon being elected Speaker, and because the major parties do not contest that seat during general elections, voters are, to a certain degree, disenfranchised. Their only options are to re-elect the Speaker, or to vote for candidates from minor and fringe parties.

It is certainly true that Speakers are constrained in how they can represent their constituents. They cannot participate in any debates in the House, they cannot bring forward petitions, they cannot engage in any activity which might be perceived as partisan. This is true (to varying degrees) of all Speakers in all Commonwealth countries. However, this does not mean that they cannot represent their constituents and work on their behalf. For example, they can still raise their constituents’ concerns with the relevant agency or government department, and because they are the Speaker, they will often receive replies far more quickly than would be the case for a backbench MP. They can also attend events and undertake visits of a non-party political character throughout the constituency.

As for the question of voters being disenfranchised, this one is more problematic, as it is certainly true that voters in the Speaker’s constituency will not be able to cast ballots for candidates from any of the major parties. The Committee notes that the question of creating a Speaker’s seat was studied at length on at least three occasions: in 1938, 1963 and again in 1982. In each instance, the proposal was rejected largely on the grounds that “it was wrong in principle to create a new category of membership of the House, especially one that introduced indirect election, and that it would reduce the accountability of the Speaker to the Commons.” Speaker Lloyd is quoted in the report, stating in his farewell address to the House in 1976:

“I firmly believe that the Speaker should be elected for a constituency, as are other hon. Members, so as to keep personally in touch with the hopes and fears and the personal and individual needs of many thousands of ordinary men and women, meeting them face to face from time to time and to know the problems of the area which he represents”.

While the Committee did not undertake a detailed examination of this issue, they did conclude from their review of the arguments and history of the debate that the perceived advantages of creating a special Speaker’s Seat were outweighed by the disadvantages:

There are great benefits to the House and to the Speaker in the Speaker’s retaining responsibility for a normal constituency and being thereby fully aware of the issues currently causing concern to constituents. The access that the Speaker, like Ministers who are also unable to speak out in debates, gains to the Government in order to raise matters relating to his or her constituents compensates in no small measure for the lack of a constituency voice on the floor of the House. We are also concerned that the proposal would remove the important democratic check on the re-appointment of a Speaker by either the public or the House and would create a new separate, distinctive and privileged category of Member to the detriment of the House. Finally, we recognise that the existence of a Speaker’s seat could lead to worse consequences for a returning Speaker, if not re-elected by the House, than at present since there could be no possibility of a return to the backbenches in such circumstances and the traditional honour of a seat in the Lords could cease to be available in the foreseeable future. For all these reasons, we do not support the concept of a St Stephen’s seat for the Speaker.

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Comparing UK and Canadian House of Commons procedure

Going by the keyword search activity on this blog, there seems to be much interest in comparisons of parliamentary procedure in Canada and the United Kingdom. I have written many posts about various parliamentary proceedings which differ notably in both countries, and so I thought I would regroup that information into one post, with links to the more detailed posts for those who wish to find out more. Please note that this is not a comprehensive explanation of all of the differences between the two countries – I am looking only at major areas of interest. Read more

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On electing a Speaker

In an earlier post, I explained the role of the Speaker in Westminster parliamentary systems, and briefly touched on how the Speaker is chosen. In this post, I will expand on that topic since there seems to be a degree of interest in the topic, according the blog’s search statistics.

Canada: House of Commons

The Constitution Act, 1867 requires that the Speaker be elected by the House of Commons:

44. The House of Commons on its first assembling after a General Election shall proceed with all practicable Speed to elect One of its Members to be Speaker.

Prior to 1986, this amounted to the rubber-stamp approval of a Member nominated by the Prime Minister, and was usually, but not always, a Member from his or her own party. In 1926, and in 1979, Conservative Prime Ministers named Liberal MPs as Speakers.

In 1986, the Standing Orders were changed to allow for the election of a Speaker by secret ballot.

All MPs except for Cabinet ministers and party leaders are eligible to run for the Speakership. Any MP who does not wish to put his or her name forward must issue a letter withdrawing from the ballot by the day before the vote. All MPs who do not remove their name from the ballot as of 6pm the day before the election are listed as candidates on the ballot and are allowed a five minute speech to persuade their colleagues as to why they should be elected.

The election is presided over by the Dean of the House, the MP who is the longest continuously serving MP who is not in Cabinet.

After the first round of voting, if no candidate has received more than 50% of the vote, all candidates who received less than 5% of the vote are removed from the ballot. If no candidate received less than 5% of the vote then the MP with the fewest vote drops off. This continues, with a one hour break between ballots, until one candidate receives more than 50% of the vote. In the event of a tie on the final ballot, the ballot is taken again. This happened once, in 1993, when Gilbert Parent won over Jean-Robert Gauthier.

The Speakers of all of the provincial and territorial assemblies in Canada are also elected by their fellow Members, though the balloting system used may differ from one province to another. (See this post for a more detailed look at the election of the Speaker at the start of the 41st Parliament on 2 June 2011.)

The United Kingdom: House of Commons

Prior to 2001, a Speaker was elected through a series of divisions.  One candidate would be proposed as a Speaker in a motion and additional candidates would be presented as successive amendments to the original motion.  Each amendment would be voted on through a series of divisions until a candidate was finally chosen.  New procedures for the election of the Speaker were agreed by the House on 22 March 2001 (Standing Order Nos. 1A and 1B), but used for the first time only in 2009. This is because the UK has a tradition whereby if the Speaker from the previous parliament is re-elected and indicates that they are still willing to serve as Speaker, the Father of the House (the longest serving MP) calls on one Member to move the motion that the former Speaker should take the Chair as Speaker-elect.  This is the procedure that was followed after the 2001 and 2005 General Elections.

If a Speaker dies or retires, or does not return after a General Election, a new Speaker is elected by the House.  As part of the new procedures, put in to practice for the first time on 22 June 2009, an exhaustive secret ballot system is used.  Only Members of Parliament are able to vote for a new Speaker. Before voting begins, each candidate addresses the House, explaining why they believe they should be elected. At each round, Members are given a list of candidates and place an “X” next to the candidate of their choice. The votes are then counted. The candidate with the fewest votes is then eliminated, as are any candidates who received less than 5% of the votes cast.  Also, any candidate may withdraw within 10 minutes of the announcement of the ballot.  This process continues until one candidate gains more than half of the votes.

Unlike in other jurisdictions, once elected to the post, the Speaker resigns from his or her party. If he or she stands for re-election in the next General Election, they are listed on the ballot as “Speaker”, not as a member of any party, and the major parties in the House of Commons normally do not run candidates against the Speaker in order to better ensure that he or she will be re-elected.

Australia: House of Representatives

As is the case in Canada, the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act requires that a Speaker be elected:

35. The House of Representatives shall, before proceeding to the despatch of any other business, choose a member to be the Speaker of the House, and as often as the office of Speaker becomes vacant the House shall again choose a member to be the Speaker.

The Speaker is elected by the House of Representatives in a secret ballot. The Clerk conducts the election. Candidates are nominated by other MPs, and then asked by the Clerk if they are willing to let their name stand. If only one MP is nominated, than they become the Speaker. If there are two or more candidates for the position of Speaker, Members vote by secret ballot. If no candidate emerges with over 50% of the vote, the nominee with the smallest number of votes is excluded from later ballots, and a fresh round of voting takes place. This process is repeated as often as necessary until one nominee receives a majority of the votes, and this nominee is elected Speaker.

The first Speaker, Sir Frederick Holder, sat as an independent after his election as Speaker, but since his death in 1909 the Speakership has been a partisan office and the nominee of the government party has always been elected. Unlike the Speaker of the House of Commons in Britain, the Speaker continues to attend party meetings, and at general elections stands as a party candidate.

There is no convention in Australia that the Speaker should not be opposed in his or her constituency, and three Speakers (Groom in 1929, Nairn in 1943 and Aston in 1972) have been defeated at general elections. Because the Speaker is always the nominee of the governing party, there is no expectation that a Speaker will continue in office following a change of government. While the Opposition sometimes nominates one of its own members for Speaker after a general election, this is understood to be a symbolic act, and party discipline is always followed in any ballot.

New Zealand: House of Representatives

Members of Parliament vote to elect the Speaker at the start of each new Parliament (after every general election). This is the first task of every new Parliament once members have been sworn in.

Interested MPs nominate themselves as candidates. If there is only one member nominated, the Clerk puts no question to the House; there can be no vote on the nomination, and the member is declared to be elected Speaker. If there are two members nominated, a personal vote is held to determine which one is to be elected. For this purpose the Ayes lobby is used for those voting for the member whose name comes first in the alphabet and the Noes lobby for those voting for the other member. In the event of a tie on the vote the Clerk calls for further nominations, which may include either or both of the members who were first nominated.

If more than two members are nominated for Speaker, members initially vote from their places in the House rather than by going into the lobbies as they do on a personal vote. The bells are rung for seven minutes and then the doors are locked. Working alphabetically, members are then asked by the Clerk individually to rise in their places and state which of the nominated members they vote for. Members may record an abstention. No proxy votes are permitted. If, at the end of this process, any candidate has obtained an absolute majority of the votes of the members voting (that is, excluding any abstentions), that member is immediately declared elected. Otherwise the member with the fewest number of votes drops out and the votes are taken again until only two candidates remain. If the two candidates with the fewest votes have the same number of votes, the entire vote is taken again. If the two candidates with the fewest votes still have the same number of votes, the Clerk determines which candidate is to drop out by drawing lots.

When, after this process, there are only two candidates remaining, the election is decided by a personal vote. Again, no proxies are permitted. In the event of a tie on the personal vote, nominations are called for again. After the election vote, the Speaker-elect visits the Governor-General to be confirmed in office. The Speaker almost always comes from the Government benches.

The Speaker of New Zealand’s House of Representatives is allowed to maintain links with their political party, but must not show political bias when chairing business in the House. From 1996 under the voting system introduced as a result of MMP the Speaker’s casting vote was abolished. The Speaker’s vote is now included with the votes held by the party. In the other jurisdiction mentioned above, the Speaker votes only in the instance of a tie (the casting vote). In New Zealand, if a vote results in tie, the motion is simply declared lost.

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Sin binning

The issue of order and decorum – or rather, lack thereof – is a fairly prevalent one, not only here in Canada, but also in other parliamentary jurisdictions such as the UK and Australia. While the general public may well get the idea that heckling, name calling and other boorish behaviour is rampant during most parliamentary proceedings, the truth of the matter is that this sort of disorderly conduct is prevalent mostly during oral questions (in the UK, PMQs).

It is up to the Speaker to maintain order in the House, but he or she has limited options at their disposal. They can call Members to order, but that may only temporarily silence a Member. And if one Member stops heckling after being called to order, another one will often just pick up where the first left off.They can refuse to recognize a Member who is being disruptive, but this won’t necessarily stop the Member from misbehaving.

In the previous Canadian parliament, Speaker Milliken was sometimes criticized for not doing more to curb indecorous behaviour in the House of Commons during Question Period. In interviews, Milliken defended himself explaining that the only real punishment a Speaker can inflict on unruly Members is to name them. Naming a Member means that they are banned from the Chamber for the remainder of the sessional day. Speaker Milliken was very hesitant to resort to naming Members and has explained that this was almost more of a reward than a punishment for some Members – they would immediately run down to the lobby and talk to the press, getting more publicity and air time than Members who were behaving properly in the chamber. There was also the problem of minority government to deal with. Naming a Member or Members meant that they might miss critical votes, and this in itself could increase the tension in the Chamber.

I recently learned that Speakers of Australia’s House of Representatives have an additional tool at their disposal for dealing with disruptive Members. Standing Order 94(a) states that:

94. The Speaker can take action against disorderly conduct by a Member:
Direction to leave the Chamber
(a)  The Speaker can direct a disorderly Member to leave the Chamber for one hour. The direction shall not be open to debate or dissent, and if the Member does not leave the Chamber immediately, the Speaker can name the Member under the following procedure.

This practice is commonly referred to as “sin binning”. Ian Harris, Clerk of the House of Representatives, in a presentation to the Canadian Clerks-at-the-Table annual Professional Development seminar in 2006 stated that the concept of the “sin bin” first came to the attention of Australians in relation to hockey – the practice of sending a player off the ice for a few minutes for having broken a rule. The practice was adopted in both major forms of rugby played in Australia. In 1994, the House Representatives adopted the above rule allowing the Speaker to direct a Member who is behaving indecorously to leave the Chamber for an hour. The adoption of this rule was on the recommendation of the Procedure Committee,

which saw the mechanism as a means or removing a source of disorder rather than a punishment, enabling a situation to be defused before it deteriorated, and without disrupting proceedings more than necessary. A Member who is directed to leave the Chamber under this procedure may not enter the Chamber galleries or the room in which the Main Committee is meeting.

In other words, sin binning is the procedural equivalent of being sent to the penalty box. It is an interesting idea, and certainly one that would have worked better than naming in the previous parliament. It would have removed the disruptive Member (or Members) for one hour only, which (one hopes) would have had a calming effect on proceedings during Question Period (or other debate), but wouldn’t have punished anyone unduly or caused problems for parties in the event of a crucial vote since the Member(s) would be back in the Chamber in time to participate in any vote scheduled for that day.

Since the idea has a Canadian influence, it might be something the Canadian parliament might want to consider adopting.

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Speaker Bercow and accusations of bias

British House of Commons Speaker John Bercow annoys many MPs. There have been a rash of articles over the course of the past year hinting at behind-the-scenes plots to get rid of him. Having regularly livestreamed proceedings from the UK House of Commons, I find it difficult to assess why there is such animosity towards Speaker Bercow.

Reasons oft-advanced is that he is arrogant and overbearing, and that he hates the Conservative Party. It is this last point that raises some eyebrows. Bercow was a member of the Conservatives, until he became Speaker of course. Like all MPs elected Speaker in the UK, once elected to the post, Bercow resigned his party membership in order to maintain the highest degree of impartiality. And is perhaps because he does strive to be impartial that some Conservative MPs think he now “hates” the party.

Recently, the Daily Mail ran an article claiming that Bercow reprimands Conservative MPs twice as often as the does Labour MPs. This conclusion is based on figures compiled by Rob Wilson, the parliamentary private secretary to Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who counted the number of times Mr Bercow shouted “order” at MPs since the general election in May 2010. He found that Conservative members were admonished 257 times compared with 109 times for Labour MPs. The article quotes Mr. Wilson saying: “Those MPs who have suggested bias in the Speaker’s handling of the Commons would feel vindicated by these figures.”

Of course, there was no suggestion anywhere that perhaps, just perhaps, Conservative MPs were called to order more often because it was deserved.

Conservative backbench MP Douglas Carswell addressed some of the complaints made against Speaker Bercow earlier this year. He dismissed the claims that Bercow was biased:

Bercow’s biased, complain others. If by that you mean he shows favour to one side of the Commons chamber or party, that is demonstrably not true. If anything he can be tediously even handed.

What bias Bercow does undoubtedly have is one which favours backbenchers against the frontbenches - and in support of the legislature over the executive.

Under Bercow, even tiddly little backbenchers like me can force ministers to come before the Commons and answer urgent questions. It makes their life difficult – and keeps them on their toes.

Commentators have observed the way in which this Parliament is more rebellious than others. One of the key reasons for this is the way the Speaker calls amendments. Under previous Speakers amendments tabled by backbenchers that the government might have found inconvenient would almost never get called. Now, there is every chance that they will.

I suspect that is precisely why part of the Tory hierarchy has taken against Mr B. It is because the legislature is slowly getting off its knees, no longer lying prostrate before the executive, that some inside the government remember fondly the days when Whips anointed Speakers – and Speakers behaved accordingly.

This is the impression I have from watching proceedings in the House of Commons. If Bercow is biased, as Carswell notes, it is towards the legislature at the expense of the executive. He is helped in that role by some of the new procedures that were voted on by the House in the dying days of the previous Parliament, such as the creation of a Backbench Business Committee, new rules for electing committee chairs and choosing committee membership, etc., which have also strengthened the legislature vis à vis the executive. But Bercow has also appeared more willing to make use of existing rules, such as Urgent Questions. His predecessor, Speaker Martin, allowed only two urgent questions during his last year as Speaker; Bercow has granted over 60 in the first year of this new Parliament.

If the legislature is being strengthened at the expense of the executive, it is natural that the party forming the executive would perceive that as bias against them. Once in power, a party develops a sense of entitlement; having that undercut doesn’t always sit very well.

This is not meant to downplay many of the other criticisms levelled at both Speaker Bercow, and in particular, his very out-spoken wife. However, the charges of “hating” the Conservatives, and bias in the Chamber are, I believe, undeserved. The rules have changed, voted on and adopted by the House itself, and Speaker Bercow is simply applying those rules. Perhaps some MPs belonging to one of the parties forming the government believe they are entitled to more of a free ride in the House. Speaker Bercow disagrees.

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