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Mr. Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd): Name them.

Madam Speaker: There's an old sourpuss over there!

I say to you, rejoice in your inheritance, defend your rights and remember always that the privileges the House enjoys were dearly won and must never be squandered. You elected me in the springtime, and I shall retire in the autumn, which marks a fitting seasonal conclusion to my period in office. Therefore I say to you all, in a phrase that you all know so well, but which has never been more true than now: "Time's up." [Applause.]

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Retirement of Madam Speaker

3.48 pm

The Prime Minister (Mr. Tony Blair): I beg to move,

That this House records its appreciation of the great distinction with which the Right Honourable Betty Boothroyd has occupied the office of Speaker; congratulates her on the skilful manner in which she has upheld the authority and dignity of this House; appreciates the wisdom, good humour and skill with which she has presided over its affairs, which are universally admired both in this country and abroad; and accordingly expresses its warmest thanks to the Right Honourable Member for her many services to this House; and unites in wishing her a long and happy retirement.

Madam Speaker, it is pleasure to be the first to speak to the motion and to address my remarks to you, confident that I am speaking for everyone in the Chamber. You have been a truly outstanding Speaker and you have greatly enhanced the reputation of your office. You have presided over the House with authority and impartiality and, not least, with warmth and humour. Your tenure of the speakership has been characterised above all by your transparent love of this place and all that it stands for. As you said on your election:

I have been a Member for nearly 20 years. For me, the Commons has never been just a career: it is my life.

You repeated that to us this afternoon.

Madam Speaker, you first came to the Commons more than 40 years ago as a secretary to a Member. In 1973, you were elected Member of Parliament for West Bromwich, West, and for more than a quarter of a century you have given exceptional service as a constituency Member also. Among those who will miss you most as you retire are your numerous friends in the black country.

When elected Speaker, quite characteristically you said at the time:

I realise the weight of responsibility. It is something more massive, more demanding than anything that I have known before.

It is, indeed, one of the toughest jobs in politics, and historically one not without risk. You, Madam Speaker, are the 155th occupant of the Chair. Some of your predecessors faced severe problems. During the reign of Henry VI, four Speakers were lost in the 10 years between 1461 and 1471. Two were beheaded, one was imprisoned and one was killed at the battle of Tewkesbury. That puts the problems of handling my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) into proper perspective.

Your judgments, made as they so often have to be, instantaneously--I believe that I speak for everyone--have been unerringly sound and fair. You can calm the House when it is angry and defuse it when it is tense. We all fear your knack of the legendary stifled yawn, which has been one of the most effective ways of bringing Members to a close.

Above all, however, you are a passionate parliamentarian. You are also--this has been another key to your success--a passionate Back Bencher. I know that there was one short aberration. For a few months between 1974 and 1975 you were an assistant Government Whip. I understand that, greatly to your credit, you were never entirely comfortable in that role.

In your acceptance speech on 27 April 1992, you summed up your feelings like this:

I have been a Deputy Speaker, but always at heart I have been a Back Bencher, and . . . I have never sought, and I have never expected, to occupy one of the great offices of Government.---[Official Report, 27 April 1992; Vol. 207, c. 15.]

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You may never have held one of the great offices of Government, but you have held and enriched the greatest office in Parliament.

Your decision to step down, Madam Speaker, was one of the best-kept secrets in politics. The clapping at that time and today may have been out of order, and there will have been part of you, with your strong sense of the traditions of this place, that perhaps felt disapproval. However, you will know, then and today, that it was a spontaneous expression of the House's deep affection for you.

It is not only people in this country who are going to miss you. You will be missed by people in many countries of the world. You have been a great ambassador for this Parliament and a passionate supporter of the Commonwealth. As we know, Prime Minister's Question Time is broadcast in many other countries, and while the performance of individual Members is not always greeted with acclamation, you receive rave reviews and, I am told, sackfuls of fan mail. You must let me into the secret.

You have spoken for the House on many historic occasions. I think for many of us the most memorable and moving was seeing you walk down the steps of Westminster Hall hand in hand with Nelson Mandela on his first official visit here as South Africa's President.

The role of Speaker, as you know better than us, can be a lonely one. You were always, by nature, a gregarious Back Bencher, enjoying the companionship of the Commons. But while maintaining the dignity of your office, you have never seemed remote, either to Members or to members of the public.

The House will miss you greatly. We would have liked you to continue. It is your decision, not ours that "time's up." But I am very mindful of your strict instruction to us a fortnight ago that we must be happy for you. Well, we are. Have a long and happy retirement. And do so in the certain knowledge that your great affection and respect for the House is reciprocated in the great affection and respect that the House feels for you.

3.54 pm

Mr. William Hague (Richmond, Yorks): It is an enormous pleasure on this occasion to support every word that the Prime Minister said and wholeheartedly to endorse the motion in his name.

For all of us, Madam Speaker, your retirement will mark the end of an era. Ever since I was elected to the House in 1989, you have occupied the Chair, first as Deputy Speaker, then as Speaker since 1992. For me and many other hon. Members, it is hard to imagine the Chamber without you sitting in that Chair.

Your election to the speakership was, of course, historic. After 700 years and 154 Speakers, the House finally elected a woman to take the Chair. I trust that the House will not take it as anything more than a general comment when I express my hope that you will be the first in a long line of distinguished Madam Speakers.

One of the reasons for that is that your speakership has been an outstanding success, as the Prime Minister said. That is true of the way in which you have conducted the day-to-day business of the House, and of the standing in which Parliament is held throughout the world. You have been a truly magnificent ambassador for the House in international gatherings and in welcoming distinguished visitors here.

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In your eight years as Speaker, you have become a national and international figure, with your inimitable call to order instantly recognisable around the world--augmented in pitch by a packet of cigarettes every day. While the televising of our proceedings has no doubt been a major factor in your worldwide profile--coverage of Prime Minister's questions has turned you into a cult figure in the United States--it is also in no small part due to the authority and unique personality that you have stamped on the Chamber.

You have governed the House with exemplary courtesy, charm and, when necessary, a little firmness, on one occasion even turning off the microphone of my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) in full flow--not something that many of us would ever dare to do. Ministers prone to long-winded replies and even long-winded questioners have been subjected to a well executed and exaggerated yawn, which it turns out even the Prime Minister has noticed.

Much of the success of your job depends not just on knowledge of procedure and close attention to the minute details of Commons rules, but to the wise interpretation of those rules. As one of your distinguished predecessors, Mr. Speaker Lowther, said:

The office of Speaker does not demand rare qualities. It demands common qualities in rare degree.

In carrying out your duties in the House, you have more than lived up to that criterion, and you have always been a source of wise counsel for a young Back Bencher or a seasoned Minister.

Defending the best traditions of the House is rightly one of the characteristics of your speakership for which you will be most remembered. You reaffirmed that in your statement today. You have been a redoubtable champion of the rights of Back Benchers of whatever party to hold Ministers to account, and in an age of spin doctors and soundbites, you have been insistent in calling on Ministers to make their policy announcements in the House. At a time when, to many, Parliament has appeared increasingly marginalised, you have done more than anyone to try to reassert its central role in our democracy and to resist its downgrading.

It has been said before that the position of Speaker in the House can be a lonely one. You are by tradition cut off from your previous party affiliations and the occasional refuge of the Tea Room, the Smoking Room and even the Bar, but you have been anything but cut off from the House and its Members. That has been true in your dealings with Members conducting parliamentary business, and it has also been evident in the magnificent hospitality that you have shown to Members and the innumerable charities and outside organisations which have been entertained in Speaker's House over the past eight years.

You said again today that for you the Commons had never been just a career--it was your life. After nearly 20 years as a Back Bencher and nearly eight years as our Speaker, nobody can doubt that. However, even that should not obscure the work that you have done outside the House with charities, your constituents in West Bromwich, West and in your position as chancellor of the Open university, which I know means so much to you.

Now you have an opportunity to have a life once more outside the Chamber, some of it, we hope, not too far away, but you will also be able to concentrate more time

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on one or two of your other great loves--visiting exotic places, and even hang-gliding when you get there. As we wish you a successful, long and happy retirement, you leave us in the sure knowledge that you have made an historic contribution to the House of Commons, and with our profoundest admiration and respect.

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