Prime Minister’s Questions in the

Rt. Hon. John Bercow MP

At Westminster every Wednesday when the House in session the Prime Minister responds to questions for about thirty minutes. In recent years there has been some discussion in Canada about the pros and cons of instituting a similar practice. This article outlines the history of the British procedure and some problems that have developed with it over the years.

or most of the public Prime you may recall, a prohibition on cheering or chanting Minister’s Questions is from the audience. Does anyone plausibly contend that Fthe shop window of the the cut and thrust of debate between Messrs Brown, House of Commons. The media Cameron and Clegg suffered as a consequence? Did coverage of that thirty minute slot anybody at home feel short-changed by the absence of dominates all other proceedings cat-calling? in Parliament during the rest of What is worse is that, as I hope to illustrate in the the week. If the country comes next few minutes, Prime Minister’s Questions was to an adverse conclusion about never intended to have the character which it has since the House because of what it developed. When it was introduced in 1961, it had witnesses in those exchanges, then the noble work of three distinctive features: a dozen Select Committees will pale into insignificance by comparison. If we are serious about enhancing the • Questions were directly related to those areas standing of the House in the eyes of those whom we in which the Prime Minister had personal responsibility rather than treating him as if a serve then we cannot ignore the seriously impaired President in sole control of the entire British impression which PMQs has been and is leaving on Government. the electorate. It is the elephant in the green room. • Questions and answers were short and snappy There will be some of my colleagues who I expect, and dominated by backbenchers very sincerely, to disagree with me. They argue that • The exercise occurred in an atmosphere of PMQs is splendid theatre, that it is secretly loved comparative cordiality. by those watching on television and that it is even A little history is instructive. Before the 1880s, therapeutic for parliamentarians to let their lungs questions to the Prime Minister were dealt with no loose on a weekly basis. I have to say that I find this differently from questions to other ministers. They were argument utterly unconvincing. On the basis of its asked, without notice, on days on which ministers were logic, bear-baiting and cock-fighting would still be available (invariably Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and legal activities. To my mind, the last nail in the coffin Friday) in whatever order Members rose to ask them. of the case for PMQs as it occurs today was hammered Public business could not commence until questions in by the leaders’ debates during the general election had been completed. The first change was made in campaign. The rules for those encounters included, 1881 when as a courtesy to William Gladstone, then aged 72, questions to the Prime Minister were asked last on the list to enable him to come into the House John Bercow is the Member of Parliament for Buckingham in the somewhat later in the day than he would have done House of Commons in Westminster. He was elected Speaker of otherwise. the House in 2009. This is an edited version of a speech delivered to the International Centre for Parliamentary Studies in London The introduction of fixed time-limits for questions on July 6, 2010. For the full transcript see www.johnbercow. and the late slot for PMQs meant that while in theory co.uk/06072010_cps_speech.

6 CANADIAN PARLIAMENTARY REVIEW/SUMMER 2012 they were posed four days a week, in practice they to 33.4% by 2007-2008. This was not the result of any were often never reached and very rarely completed. deliberate action of the House. Indeed, backbenchers In 1953, in deference to Winston Churchill, then would make their irritation known if party leaders aged 79 and ailing, it was agreed that questions were excessive. , when Leader of the would be submitted on Tuesdays and Thursdays. An Opposition, averaged only 1.6 interventions a session. increasing dissatisfaction with the level of scrutiny This was partly because if she was due to speak in a this involved led to a landmark Procedure Committee parliamentary debate on a Tuesday or Thursday she report in 1959 which recommended that questions be frequently would not participate in PMQs at all but taken in two 15-minute slots on Tuesday and Thursday also because her team came to the view that if she which, a little reluctantly, the Government eventually had not drawn parliamentary blood in the first two accepted. The first PMQs was held on an experimental questions then it would be counterproductive to strain basis in July 1961 and, having been deemed a success the patience of the House with a third one. This self- by all concerned, the then Speaker announced it would denying ordinance or simple tactical retreat has since continue on a permanent footing in October 1961. gone out of fashion. Even so, there was a sense that PMQs was operating to the exclusion of backbenchers. It was a very different event to the one that it has In 1977, Speaker Thomas put forward a proposal to subsequently become. In the early 1960s, it was routine achieve the generally well-supported objective of for the Prime Minister to transfer questions which were getting through more questions at PMQs, only to not his direct responsibility to the relevant encounter resistance from the Opposition because it minister, the number of questions tackled was about would have restricted the opportunity for its leader to double in those thirty minutes a week to that of today make interventions. and backbenchers did the asking. In 1964, for instance, the norm was that the Leader of the Opposition, By this time, the comparatively civilised conduct Harold Wilson, would be called just the once in the of PMQs had already been undermined. In his Thursday session and not at all on Tuesdays. While autobiography, Speaker deplored the exchanges could be lively, contemporary accounts do decline in behaviour and blamed it on the personal not record them being remotely raucous. animosity between Harold Wilson and Edward Heath which in his view had poisoned the exchanges more All of this changed over time but more by accident broadly. It was certainly at about this moment, when than design. Questions continued to be transferred by Wilson was Leader of the Opposition for the second Jim Callaghan, and indeed it was at this time that the time, that a type of question first emerged in which Clerks in the Table Office devised the untransferable a government backbencher would in effect invite the question “if he will list his engagements for today”. Prime Minister to attack his principal opponent and his This formulation had the additional advantages that or her policies. This development was widely deplored the supplementary could cover any subject, and any but not halted. development even minutes before the start of PMQs; and it was convenient for Members because they did not It was only in the 1980s, though, that PMQs became need to think of a substantive Question to table when close to what they are today. Neil Kinnock came to it was long odds that they would be successful in the office as a relatively unknown figure and felt obliged to ballot anyway. Small wonder that “the engagements employ PMQs as a device for enhancing his profile. He question” has proved such a survivor. asked an average of 2.5 questions per PMQs, a much higher proportion that Mrs Thatcher had done, and But even as the engagements question became more would never let a session pass without an intervention. widely used, it was clear that the days of transfers The highly polarised nature of politics in the 1980s were over. Margaret Thatcher indicated at the start of was reproduced in the decibel level experienced in her premiership that she would not transfer questions; the Chamber. His successor, John Smith, was rightly and it was evident that she was as happy to answer on confident in his skills as a parliamentary orator and it the detail of what a Department was doing as it was was he who established the precedent that he would that the Ministers of that Department were horrified always take his full allocation of three questions per by the PM’s close interest. session, which his successors, and An informal understanding also emerged that the Tony Blair followed as have all the Conservative Leader of the Opposition would be called on both days, leaders since then. if he wished, and have the right to ask a supplementary. By the early 1990s, it was important to note, it was Hence the proportion of all questions asked by party universally recognised that PMQs was not what it should leaders rose from 10 % in 1967-1968 to 25% in 1987-1988

CANADIAN PARLIAMENTARY REVIEW/SUMMER 2012 7 be. As a result, the Procedure Committee was invited arrangements which suited the Prime Minister rather to investigate the event and to recommend sweeping more than they did Parliament. That instinct was changes. It was widely assumed that substantial reform reflected in the very first question which Mr Blair would be forthcoming. Colin Brown in The Independent received as Prime Minister, asked by the normally of June 15, 1994, for example, wrote that: mild-mannered Ian Taylor, then Member for Esher. Prime Minister’s Questions in the Commons Mr Taylor’s inquiry opened with the words: look likely to be reformed after both I warmly welcome the Prime Minister to his role and Tony Blair gave their blessing to changing of answering questions and I am grateful to him the procedure. The move to reform the twice- for finding the time in his diary to do so. At some weekly 15 minute exchanges follows growing point he might consult the House about these criticism that the Common’s clashes have changes. become so stage-managed and rowdy that they are bringing the House into disrepute. Mr Blair replied, it should be recorded, that the Procedure Committee should feel able to “review the The eventual Procedure Committee report of 1995 new system as time progresses” and “look at ways that broadly echoed Brown’s sentiments. It argued that it can be improved in the light of experience”. That PMQs, “could no longer be held to pass the test that offer has never been fully taken up, which is a strange the purpose of a question is to obtain information or omission. press for action”. The exchanges had, the Committee lamented, “developed from being a procedure for The failure to embrace change in 1995 still haunts the to hold the executive to account into us today. A Procedure Committee report into a partisan joust between the noisier supporters of parliamentary questions as a whole which was the main political parties”. The event was, “not seen published in 2002 really only glanced at PMQs, outside the House to reflect well on the performance conceding that the contest “tends to encourage ‘tribal of the House”. The Committee was convinced that a behaviour’ on both sides which damages the public radical overhaul had become overdue. image of the House, while the hopping from one subject to another which is the consequence of open The 1995 report set out a number of bold options. questions militates against sustained and serious Their suggestions included: scrutiny” but only one very minor procedural change • Changing to a procedure of short question and was recommended and accepted. The only real answer debates on substantive subjects. reform of note in all that time was achieved by the • Having backbenchers put questions to the Prime Minister in a Select Committee format. Liaison Committee. In their report Shifting the Balance • Making a distinction between the Tuesday in 2002 they suggested that the PM should attend session (which would continue to consist of open twice a year to answer questions from them. The questions) and the Thursday one (which would Government vigorously rejected the idea, but only focus on a small number of topics). a few months later – a good example of the delayed • Dispensing with the requirement for notice of drop effect so often experienced by persistent select a question by having name-only ballots to all committees – the Prime Minister himself agreed to it. questions. The Liaison Committee format is a huge improvement • Extending both sessions to 30 minutes each to allow for more backbench participation. but nevertheless has limitations. The lengthy cross- examination of a Prime Minster once or twice a year is None of the seriously bold elements in this package not a substitute for an effective event every week. was adopted. Instead the most notable change to occur in its aftermath was that Tony Blair collapsed the two All of which leaves us with the PMQs seen in 15-minute sessions into one 30-minute event in 1997 the last Parliament. We reached the point where with the Leader of the Opposition combining his almost nothing was deemed beyond the personal three questions across two days into six questions on responsibility of the Prime Minister of the day, where the one Wednesday. In recognition of their enhanced the party leaders were responsible for a third of all the parliamentary status, the Liberal Democrat leader questions asked (and often more like 50 to 60% of the would be allowed two questions. total time consumed) all set against a background of noise which makes the vuvuzela trumpets of the South It cannot be said that the whole House received African World Cup appear but distant whispers by these changes with rapture. Although in fairness to comparison. If it is scrutiny at all, then it is scrutiny by Mr Blair he had signalled his intentions in evidence screetch which is a very strange concept to my mind. to the Procedure Committee in 1995, there was still The academic analysis does not make for enjoyable a sense that the House had been bounced into new reading either. A survey by the Regulatory Policy

8 CANADIAN PARLIAMENTARY REVIEW/SUMMER 2012 Institute of all PMQs posed in 2009 concluded that the Cards available at their disposal if that were to prove Prime Minister had answered only 56 per cent of all absolutely necessary. questions asked of him. If it seems harsh to cite Gordon The second element involves the character of PMQs Brown in this fashion then it should be observed that which has shifted too far away from backbench the same survey determined that only 56 per cent of Members. Once again, it would be wrong to impose the questions asked of him were actually genuine changes unilaterally. The very fact of a coalition questions in the first place. What the detailed exercise administration has opened up a little more space revealed, depressingly, was that PMQs had become for backbenchers as the two questions previously a litany of attacks, soundbites and planted questions reserved for the Leader of the Liberal Democrats have from across the spectrum. It was emphatically not an been opened up to them. This is helpful in terms of the act of scrutiny conducted in a civilised manner. And balance of PMQs but it is hardly decisive. If the session this is what the House of Commons has allowed to be is to remain 30-minutes long, the next Leader of the placed in what I repeat is the shop window. Opposition could usefully ask whether he or she truly What could be done about this? It is not for the Speaker needed as many as six questions of the Prime Minister to dictate in this field or to impose his suggestions on in order to land a blow or whether, in the spirit of others. It is my duty, as my predecessors before me Margaret Thatcher in the late 1970s, three or four also felt, to point out to the House the reputational would do instead. Arguably, however, a 45-minute damage that our present arrangements are inflicting. or even 60-minute session conducted with mutual It seems to me that three steps could be taken which respect would be a huge and welcome advance on the might lead us to a more attractive outcome. status quo. In such circumstances, the current number of questions allocated to the Leader of the Opposition The first surrounds the culture of Prime Minister’s would be more appropriate. Questions. No committee can legislate for this. It would require the Prime Minister and a new Leader Finally, there is the content of the encounter. Is it of the Opposition, as so nearly happened in 1994, to the right device for ensuring effective scrutiny? Does agree on a common understanding of behaviour, one it need to be supplemented by other institutions? Are which offered teeth to our existing code of conduct open questions posed in the vain attempt to catch a which states unequivocally that “Members shall at Prime Minister out actually the best means of inquiry? all times conduct themselves in a manner which will It has been years since a Procedure Committee even tend to maintain and strengthen the public’s trust addressed these issues, let alone had their findings and confidence in the integrity of Parliament and accepted by colleagues. It seems to me that the hour at never undertake any action which would bring the which Mr Blair’s assurance of 1997 that the Committee House of Commons, or its Members generally, into would be able to “review the system” must now have disrepute”. A compact between the party leaders, arrived. The ideal result for the House in my view endorsed by the Whips, would allow Speakers present would be more scrutiny, more civility, less noise and and future to enforce order far more vigorously with less abuse masquerading as inquiry. the parliamentary equivalent of Yellow and Red

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