APPENDIX 1
Letter from the Rt Hon Sir Peter Emery
MP to the Chairman of the Committee
You asked me whether I would put in writing
the necessary alteration to Standing Orders I had suggested in
order to ensure that all nominees for Speaker could be assured
that their name would be put before the House. This is a very
simple matter.
At the moment, after the nomination of the first
candidate, an amendment may be put. If the amendment is defeated
then another amendment may be moved. This is what happened in
the election of Mr Speaker Martin. However, the single procedural
problem is that if the amendment is carried this becomes a substantive
motion and has to be put without any further amendment. The only
way candidates who still wish to be considered can proceed is
to defeat the substantive motion and begin the whole procedure
again with another new name being put forward. This is the normal
way we deal with amendments as set out in Standing Orders.
However I suggest that, in the case of the election
for the Speaker, the normal procedure for dealing with amendments
should be varied. In such circumstances, if an amendment were
carried, the House, instead of proceeding immediately to vote
on the Main Question, as amended, should be invited to accept
any further amendment which might then be proposed. Had this approach
operated, for example, in 1992, after the House agreed to the
amendment to leave out "Mr Peter Brooke" and insert
"Miss Betty Boothroyd", it would have been possible
to move to leave out "Miss Betty Boothroyd" and to insert
"Sir Terence Higgins" before putting the Main Question
as amended. Only once all candidates had been disposed of should,
under this procedure, the Main Question, as amended, be put.
The only alteration to Standing Orders would
be for an addition to Standing Order 1 along the following lines—"Provided
that if any such amendment is agreed to a further motion or motions
may be proposed (and the questions thereon shall be put as amendments)
before the main question, as amended, is put." A slight extra
addition would be necessary to Standing Order 31, adding the words
"subject to the provisions of Standing Order 1".
24 January 2001
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