Bernard WeatherillMr. Speaker, Your Excellencies, distinguished parliamentarians, my Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen.
I am sure that some of you will remember Tweedledum's proposal to Tweedledee: “let's fight until six, and then have dinner”. [applause]
Of course I wouldn't describe your proceedings over the past five days as fighting! [end p1]
But I am sure you have had many lively debates, in the best parliamentary tradition.
And now with this dinner, a little after six, sadly we bring your Conference to an end.
May I say, on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, how honoured we are that you have accepted our invitation tonight. [applause]
We hope you are enjoying your evening and that you've also [end p2] enjoyed also your stay in our country.
I know that in the week since the magnificent opening ceremony in Westminster Hall you have been very fully employed.
But I understand there has also been time for just a little relaxation, and the occasional visit outside the confines of the Conference Hall. [end p3]
Some of you have been to Jersey.
Others have been to Oxford - and what good sense you showed in your choice of university. [Laughter and applause].
That was a highly controversial comment, I can see!
We've been delighted to welcome you, and we hope you have felt at home.
You will have heard a lot of speeches during your Conference, and I do not propose to [end p4] inflict more than a comparatively short few words on you tonight before asking Dato Shahrir and Sir Joshua Hassan to speak.
We have all of us come together for this Conference because we share a commitment to parliamentary democracy.
We don't pretend it is perfect.
You will remember how Winston Churchill [end p5] put it:
“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government - except for all those other forms which have been tried from time to time”.
Parliamentary democracy is not of course just a matter of form.
I saw a calculation the other day that members of the Supreme Soviet in the [end p6] Soviet Union had raised their hands to vote 1½ million times without a single dissenting vote being recorded.
That's not quite what we understand by parliamentary democracy.
The institutions are of course fundamental.
An elected chamber presided over by an impartial speaker, and how much we owe to our speakers! Please let us all applaud them! [applause] - the chamber which has the right to [end p7] make laws.
But there are many other ingredients too as well as institutions: there's tradition, custom, procedure, and style.
I have visited and indeed had the honour of addressing a number of Commonwealth parliaments.
The similarities of practice and procedure are striking and reassuring. [end p8]
We in Britain are fortunate to enjoy the longest parliamentary tradition, going back over six hundred years, but that is not to say that the House of Commons has an unblemished record for industry and application.
Queen Elizabeth I once summoned the Speaker of the House of Commons after it had been sitting for some time and appeared to have done [end p9] nothing, and said to him: “Now, Mr. Speaker, what hath passed in the Lower House?”
To which Mr. Speaker replied: “If it please Your Majesty, seven weeks”. [Laughter].
It is recorded that Charles James Fox, one of our most famous parliamentary orators, that “on Thursday he spoke in the debate, went to dinner at half-past eleven at night, from [end p10] there to White's” - one of our famous clubs - ”where he drank till seven the next morning, thence to Almack's” - a gambling salon - ”where he won £6,000 and then set off to Newmarket” - for horse-racing.
Well, what dull lives we lead these days! [Laughter].
We occasionally have all-night sittings in these days, but they are not quite so exciting as that.
Or in a rather later age there was the example of one of my predecessors, the Earl of [end p11] Rosebery.
Once in the middle of an important debate in Parliament, his valet entered and was heard to say to him, “Your grouse is done to a turn, my Lord”, whereupon Rosebery promptly disappeared, leaving the debate to look after itself.
I don't think I could quite get away with that nowadays! [end p12]
Then there is the parliamentary style which we have in common - and which distinguishes the proceedings of Commonwealth parliaments from some of the more leaden performances one hears elsewhere.
It is a style which can combine scrupulous politeness in address with withering comment. [end p13]
That too is a tradition which goes back a long way.
One thinks of the opening words of William Pitt the Elder's maiden speech as a very young Member of Parliament in the eighteenth century, when Sir Robert Walpole, the first Prime Minister, had sneered at his youth; and Pitt said “the atrocious crime of being a young man I shall neither attempt to palliate or deny. Time will cure it.” [end p14]
I am sure that your debates over these past few days will have respected the parliamentary style.
It allows plenty of room for controversy, indeed it encourages it, and there is no harm in that.
When the House of Commons is sitting, I [end p15] have to attend twice - a lot more than twice a week, but twice a week for a very special purpose - to answer questions without any notice on any issue under the sun.
I envy the custom in some of your parliaments under which the Prime Minister can pass the question on to the other Ministers. I have no such luxury. I'm stuck with the questions and Parliament is stuck with the answers. And I still feel, after seven years as Prime Minister, a small record compared with some of your Prime Ministers - a fact which is a great encouragement to me - I still feel the tension which the House of Commons creates.
It is a tremendous stimulus - a stimulus to clarity, a testing ground of ideas and proposals which is second to none. [end p16]
Of course there'll issues on which you don't agree.
But where disagreement exists, I hope you will better understand the reasons for it.
And I hope also you will recall the phrase used in the Communiqu&eacu; of the recent Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting: “frankness in friendship”.
Yes, that sums up very well how we disagree in the Commonwealth when we do: “frankness in friendship”. [Applause]. [end p17]
In a moment I will be calling upon Sir Joshua Hassan, Chief Minister of Gibraltar, to speak and then invite Dato Shahrir, our new President, to follow him.
But before I do, may I congratulate you on your work at this Conference, and wish you a safe journey to your homes and Godspeed. And, as sadly you take your leave, may we all remember that the joys of friendship and the privilege of service and the loyalty to democracy will endure long after the issues which we have discussed have passed into history. That perhaps is the value of our great Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and of this conference. [end p18]
May I ask you therefore to rise and, in that spirit, to drink with me a toast to our Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, the joys of friendship, and the privilege of service. The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association!
[xyApplause].