Having entered the Palace of Westminster, I walked towards a grand arch to the right of the Elizabeth tower that houses Big Ben, under the arch, and across a grand courtyard to the most enormous front door – the entrance to the Speaker’s House. Once inside, I was greeted by a grand staircase with spectacular paintings of former Speakers on the walls, guiding my path to the Speaker’s regal office. I met Helen Wood, the Speaker’s Chief of Staff, who walked me through to the grandest waiting room I have ever seen. I’m not going to write this and lie to you: I was nervous. However, after being ushered into his office, I was instantly put at ease by the Speaker’s disarming smile and warm demeanour. His strong and friendly Lancastrian accent made me feel comfortable, and ready to conduct the interview.
I opened the interview asking if it had always been Sir Lindsay’s ambition to become Speaker. He instantly gave me my answer: ‘No’. And then expanded to say that his first ambition was ‘becoming an MP and then to hold the seat’.
He stated that he ‘worked hard in a marginal seat to retain it’. Had the rules for the election of a Speaker not changed in 2010, Sir Lindsay might well have remained as a Labour MP working hard to retain his marginal seat. But Sir Lindsay explained that ‘in 2010 the rules changed, and they were going to have elected Speakers… Once they said it was going to be elections, having a marginal seat, I thought I had fought many many elections in my life and thought that this was a new challenge and decided to run for Deputy Speaker.’
He was also honest in saying ‘when I first became Deputy Speaker, I hadn’t planned on becoming Speaker… and it evolved overtime… after 9 or 10 years of apprenticeship as Deputy Speaker I thought the time was right to put my name in the hat.’ He joked that ‘he had one of the longest apprenticeships in history; only Prince Charles had a longer one when he became King’. I asked Sir Lindsay what the best thing about being Speaker was for him ‘the best thing for me was being the first ever Speaker from Lancaster; I’m the 158th Speaker so creating history always feels good.’
He also explained his immense gratitude for the situation he is in ‘The privilege of having a golden opportunity to put my mark on the way that I want to do it’.
He also commented on what the Speakers have in common ‘I always say the only thing we have in common is we all do it differently; 158 [of us] and we will all have done it differently… We all bring a different style and hopefully we will be judged at the end of our term on whether our style worked or not.’
He summarised by saying ‘the best part is breaking that ground’ and that he ‘loves every minute’ of the job.
Turning to the downside of being Speaker, he paused, obviously finding it hard to find a downside. Eventually he said ‘we see what happened during the pandemic, Members not getting together, [it was] more difficult to hold the government to account [for their actions]…there is nothing better than Members being there and holding Ministers and the Prime Minster to account’.
I followed this by asking what the Speaker’s hardest time was in controlling the House. His reply delved more into the difficulties of not having a fully functioning House during the pandemic. ‘I think the hardest time was getting the Prime Minister to understand that we are a Parliament where we scrutinise, that is from back benchers holding the government to account, they have to be held to account.’ He did however say that this had been achieved ‘we got there; but it was a difficult difficult time.’
I decided to give the Speaker a comparison: I said that if my class behaved how MPs behaved we would all be in detention and then I asked if he wished he could put MPs into detention. He surprisingly didn’t shut down the idea but said with a warm smile on his face ‘I think it would be an interesting way forward’.
However, his reasoning was not down to punishment but down to maintaining a full House ‘I think we could do with detention on certain days when there are no MPs around… just to get them into the chamber!’.
He further emphasised this idea by using an anecdote: ‘I have to say it is interesting that when I came in in 1997, the chamber was always full – you couldn’t get seats.’
He then said ‘I’ve seen a steady decline and I think the pandemic told MPs don’t be in Westminster unless it’s something you want’ [are involved or interested in]. He stated his reasonings for wanting a full chamber: ‘I like the buzz of the chamber… recently we haven’t had enough people to fill questions and that is a bad sign for Parliament.’
Sir Lindsay is however, always a cup half full man. He wrapped up the point by predicting ‘when the local elections are out of the way… people will come back in the numbers I expect.’
As the interview was coming to a close, I asked Sir Lindsay which of his predecessors he admired the most and why. He replied by saying ‘Tragically I go to a funeral on Wednesday for my great friend Betty Boothroyd.’
He then stated why he always admired her ‘She is from the North and is everything I admire; she smashed the glass ceiling when she became Speaker… she was a special Speaker…. who stood no nonsense and was very clear on what she believed in.’
Sir Lindsay also linked her ideologies back to his ‘she believed in Parliament in the same way I do.’
As well as Betty Boothroyd he also mentioned a few other speakers ‘Of course Thomas Moore a very famous speaker… Speaker Lenthall who’s in the middle there [whilst pointing at a painting of Speaker Lenthall in the middle of the wall] who stood up to a King, who survived… who was brave enough to say to the King: no.. not many people did that.’
The final question I asked Sir Lindsay was how he would like to be remembered as Speaker. He responded by using a football analogy ‘If they’re not talking about me that seems to be like a football referee; if they are talking about the referee I don’t think that means we are doing our job’. He then talked of which qualities he would like to be remembered for ‘I would like to believe they thought I was fair, honest in the way that I presided over Parliament’.
Sir Lindsay was generous with his time, and it was a great experience meeting him. I hope he thinks some more about the idea of detentions for errant MPs; if he does, I claim credit for the idea!
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