Our Westminster Watcher gets down to the ‘more dramatic matters of state’
I read recently in the Confederation of Passenger Transport’s (CPT) regular Newsline that it is to publish a “vision for bus,” which will feed into the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) that will take place this year.
I had a recollection that the CPT had worked on a vison document almost a year ago – although I confess to never having seen it.
Be that as it may, I look forward to seeing this latest vision document. Normally I’m pretty sceptical about the value of these things as they tend to be – to parrot Jean-Claude Juncker, the EU President – “nebulous”, with lots of fine words and lofty aspirations but very little by way of hard substance.
But if the intention is to use the vision document to inform the CSR, insofar as the CSR will impact on buses, then I will take it a great deal more seriously.
This is going to be a very tough CSR settlement so the CPT’s vision will surely have to be hard-edged, with some very tangible deliverables in it, if it is to have any impact on the CSR. And if it is the same vision document that I thought had been produced a year or so ago, rather than an additional one, then I just hope the wait is worth it.
‘Extraordinary goings-on’
But to more dramatic matters of state.
The quite extraordinary goings-on in the House of Commons on 9 January, when against all precedent and the advice of his clerks, the Speaker, John Bercow, selected an amendment to a government business motion setting out the terms of the five-day debate on the Withdrawal Agreement, has taken parliament into a new, and potentially dangerous place.
This is highly technical procedural stuff, so I’ll spare you the boring details.
But the effect of the amendment, which was voted on and passed, means that Theresa May has only three days in which to return to the Commons with a “Plan B” if the Withdrawal Agreement is voted down.
Ministers believed that the government business motion was unamendable except by a minister – and indeed this was the view of the highly-experienced clerks – but against all precedent, the Speaker accepted an amendment tabled by a Conservative backbencher, and die-hard Remainer, Dominic Grieve.
The danger
The real danger for Mrs May is that her Plan B will be amendable by the Commons, so MPs could effectively take Brexit out of her hands by holding a series of votes, with the Speaker’s help to dictate what she should do next.
By the time you read this, we will know if Mrs May’s Withdrawal Agreement is passed or voted down, but we probably won’t have seen her Plan B.
But my point is this: The Speaker has shown that he is no longer politically impartial, which every Speaker must be. He is no longer fit for office at this critical time in our history.
