Parliament is anachronistic: MPs are no better

By Graham Allen MP

It was Benjamin Disraeli who observed in the House of Commons that Robert Peel had caught the Whigs bathing and walked off with all their clothes, and it seems very little has changed since then. As I found out to my cost today the old boys club that is Parliament is still a place where the suggestion of a state of undress is still seen as the most heinous of political insults.

As I stood up in the Chamber to make a Point of Order I was promptly told, like the proverbial naughty schoolboy, to sit back down again (though thankfully not on the naughty step) by Mr Deputy Speaker. The reason for this was that I was in a “state of undress” and therefore apparently not worthy of speaking in the House of Commons.

Allow me to explain. This was not my “Chris Bryant moment”, my crime was far worse, I wasn’t wearing a tie. I would have hoped that my Paul Smith (yes, always support your local craftsmen) suit and Zara Man shirt would have been good enough for the Deputy Speaker, but it would appear not to be.

There is also a serious point which underpins this whole event. The Point of Order I was trying to raise was to refute a Conservative MP who didn’t want to let the UK’s Youth Parliament sit in the House of Commons chamber on special occasions when the MPs are not around. I thought it really was pathetic that many old fart MPs were using procedural tricks to try and stop this from happening. Unfortunately it is just this sort of behaviour that has lead has lead parliament to be seen as an irrelevant laughing stock, rather than the forum of the nation like it should be. Far from just allowing the Youth Parliament to use the chamber I believe we should be trying to encourage more groups (a Pensioner’s Parliament perhaps) to make use of the symbols of our democracy.

The Youth Parliament represents the best in our active, engaged, community-minded young people rather than the stereotype of wandering packs of hooded youths, they and others should be encouraged by the Mother of Parliaments. I hope the Government will now play its part by bringing forward, in government time a vote to enable these admirable young people the access they deserve, whether they’re “appropriately” dressed or not.

The ties that bind MPs to the past are the ones we ought not to wear.