Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle is too weak to stop the government trashing parliament

Every time Sir Lindsay says something is unacceptable, unsatisfactory or contemptuous, the government shrugs and ignores him, and carries on corrupting the system

‘Sir Lindsay was revealed as a man unable to defend the Commons’ (Getty)

Not that anyone seemed to notice, or care, but Sir Lindsay Hoyle celebrated his second birthday as speaker of the House of Commons last Thursday. I doubt there was much of a party atmosphere in Speaker’s House.

The momentous anniversary fell on the very day the government dramatically abandoned its plan to oust the independent parliamentary commissioner for standards, get their old Brexiteer comrade Owen Paterson off the hook for corruption, and help Boris Johnson escape scrutiny about who paid for his flat refurbishment and freebie holidays.

It was towards the end of what Mr Speaker himself called a “dark week” for Westminster. The prime minister and the Conservatives paid a price in the opinion polls, but the biggest loser was the institution of parliament itself, confidence in democratic politics and, less obviously, Speaker Hoyle.

Sir Lindsay was revealed as a man unable to defend the Commons. When the revolt came, it was down to public opinion, the media, and above all the opposition parties’ refusal to cooperate with the government’s bogus reforms. It didn’t have much to do with any call to arms from Sir Lindsay. Last week, there was none. Had the Rees-Mogg/Leadsom “reform” been better thought through, it might have stuck.

So it was indeed a dark week. Over the past six years or so – the Brexit era – there have been far too many voices endlessly inviting the British people to believe that they are being betrayed by a selfish, greedy, traitorous clique, the “Westminster elite”, uncaring about their welfare and contemptuous of their views.

Now the “people’s prime minister”, Boris Johnson, as responsible as anyone for this toxic myth, is busy trashing the rest of parliament’s reputation, and faith in democracy with it. The pathetic thing is that so many of his own MPs were weak enough to collaborate in it. The frightening thing is how close they came to getting away with it. No thanks to Mr Speaker.

Lest we forget, in November 2019, Hoyle beat Chris Bryant, Eleanor Laing, Rosie Winterton, Harriet Harman and some stragglers in the race to succeed John Bercow. In his speech of acceptance, Speaker-elect Hoyle proudly declared: “I hope that this House will be once again a great, respected House, not just here, but around the world. I hope that once again it is the envy of the world. We have to make sure that tarnish is polished away and that the respect and tolerance that we expect from everyone who works here will be shown, and we will keep that in order.” Two years later, as the smart alecs on Twitter might say, how’s that coming along, Mr Speaker?

It was fashionable at the time of Hoyle’s succession, especially in Brexiteer circles, to deride Bercow as a squeaky, bumptious little dictator himself, defying long-standing conventions, ignoring the advice of the clerks and making the rules up as he went along, all to defy the “will of the people”.

It was alleged that Bercow had destroyed the legitimacy of parliament, and was himself an arch Brexit betrayer. Uniquely, Bercow was denied the usual courtesy of a life peerage when he retired. Equally uniquely, he later abandoned traditional neutrality and joined the Labour Party, maybe out of spite as much as anything.

In retrospect, it seems that Holye’s speakership has been the bigger disaster. Hoyle was elected as the antidote to Bercow, as more chair than activist. He was viewed as a man who wouldn’t stop Brexit getting done, a man who would follow precedent and the advice of the clerks, guardians of the constitution. He’s been true to that, but it hasn’t done him much good. The informal deal was that Hoyle wouldn’t muck about on Brexit, and in return Johnson would make his peace with parliament. It didn’t turn out like that, but still Hoyle stuck to the rules where Bercow would have put the realities of the moment first.

It was, after all, Hoyle himself who meekly called for debate on the ill-fated amendment to the standards committee report on Owen Paterson that started all the trouble. He pleads that he could do nothing else on a government motion, but all now agree that the standards committee’s business has nothing to do with ministers, and should certainly not be whipped. Speaker Bercow probably wouldn’t have entertained it, no matter what the clerks advised. Precedents were there to be broken and remade in Bercowland.

Neither Hoyle nor the office he holds have been treated with the respect they deserve. In common with any other independent body that displeases Johnson, parliament is a candidate for being roughed up and castrated. The Supreme Court, the civil service, the BBC, various standards watchdogs, the Lords, the Electoral Commission, the Charities Commission, the EU Treaty, regulators such as Ofcom and even universities are all given the same treatment – a culture war, some threats to funding, the clipping of their wings and the installation of cronies.

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In the debate, Hoyle stopped Tanmanjeet Singh from calling the prime minister “a tin pot dictator” – perfectly parliamentary language that Johnson wouldn’t even count as abuse. Indeed, the tin pot PM couldn’t be bothered to turn up for the debate; all Hoyle effectively did was read out his apologies for absence so that others could decide what they made of this blatant evasion of accountability.

Hoyle confined himself to telling MPs not to keep asking where the PM was. It was an extraordinary display of restraint, but to no great purpose. Johnson won’t be grateful. The most Speaker Hoyle can ever do is fulminate, but the more he threatens the weaker he proves himself, like King Lear. "I will have such revenges on you both / That all the world shall – I will do such things – / What they are, yet I know not, but they shall be / The terrors of the earth!”

In the case of the speaker, these “terrors” comprise dragging ministers to the chamber to answer urgent questions and agreeing to emergency debates, neither exactly “terrors of the earth”.

For two years, Hoyle has hardly stopped appealing for people to be nicer to each other or issuing empty threats. Ministers simply ignore him and the Commons, as they have done over unamendable Covid legislation, over the pre-announcement of lockdown measures, and over the wholesale release of the 2021 Budget to the press, without even an attempt to disguise the contempt shown to parliament.

Every time Sir Lindsay says something is unacceptable, unsatisfactory, contemptuous or shows a total disregard for the House, the government shrugs and ignores him, and carries on corrupting the system. It’s not pleasant to dwell on where all this might lead, but don’t expect Hoyle or this House of Commons to stop the rot.