Labour MP pledges not to ‘belittle or diminish or lecture MPs’ if he assumes the role

Labour’s Chris Bryant has said he hopes to replace John Bercow as the Speaker of the House of Commons when he leaves the role, promising not to “belittle or diminish or lecture MPs from the chair”.

Bryant, a friend and supporter of Bercow, who has been at the heart of multiple rows over parliamentary protocol during the Brexit debates, said he hoped to engender a more respectful and tolerant atmosphere.

Bercow had suggested he would step down after nine years in post but has shown no sign of resigning, with the Brexit process in parliament still to be finalised.

The Speaker has championed backbenchers and sometimes controversial procedures including allowing amendments to give MPs control over parliamentary business, but has also been the subject of multiple serious bullying allegations, which he denies.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest John Bercow, centre, speaking during a debate on the EU withdrawal bill this month. Photograph: Mark Duffy/AFP/Getty Images

Bryant said his recollection of MPs being belittled by Speakers dated back to when Michael Martin was in the role. “I remember very early on being an MP … he was giving a woman MP a dressing down,” he told the House magazine. “I wanted the ground to swallow me up, because I thought: ‘God, I wouldn’t want to be that poor MP.’

“The things you might say to another person, at a dinner party or in the bar or in casual conversation … when they’re said from the chair to an MP, it’s just devastating.”

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Bryant said MPs were “battered and bruised enough” in this parliament. “So, the first thing for me is I will do everything in my power not to belittle or diminish or lecture MPs from the chair, but, insofar as it is possible, to respect every single person.”

The MP for Rhondda, who chairs the finance committee overseeing parliament’s restoration project, is likely to be among a number of candidates for the position, including the deputy speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, and the former deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman.

Bryant said he would hope to see Speaker’s House, the residence on the Palace of Westminster where the Speaker lives, turned into a more welcoming space for events and receptions.

“It’s slightly strange we don’t have anywhere in this parliament to welcome international guests properly, and I know a lot of MPs have been complaining about this. We would like to have somewhere,” he said.

“I’d like to be able to do some of that hosting and making Speaker’s House a bit more open in that way. I think spouses of MPs get a rough time, so I’d quite like to have some events in Speaker’s House which are either exclusively or primarily for MPs and their spouses, or maybe just for spouses.”

He also suggested hosting a “Twelfth Night” celebration in parliament where clerks and staff could take over the running for the day. “This is a community of people. There’s a Welsh word, cwtch, which means hug. I just feel a bit as if – this is going to sound terrible pious – I just feel like it all needs a bit of a cwtch at the moment,” he said.

Bryant said the next Speaker should be someone who could smooth over some of the poisonous feeling in parliament, rather than a reformer with “a massive agenda of things that they are determined to ram through”.

“I think we’ve all been a bit bloodied and bruised of late, and the next Speaker has got to be somebody who is going to tend to those wounds a bit more,” he said.