Tories fear Labour-Lib Dem Parliament pact could leave them ‘irrelevant’

Senior Conservatives fear being locked out of democracy if Labour and the Liberal Democrats work together to stitch up key positions that control the workings of Parliament.

The Tories believe that, as the biggest party on the opposition benches, they should have two deputy speakers to maintain the traditional 50/50 split between Labour and Conservatives in the Speaker’s Office, which has one speaker and three deputies.

But there are concerns within the Tory party that Labour and the Lib Dems will agree an informal pact to elect a Lib Dem deputy speaker, which would leave the Tories with little influence over parliamentary business.

The speaker and his deputies have control over choosing which amendments to legislation are debated and put to a vote.

The Tories fear that, if they only have one deputy speaker – and possibly the most junior of the three – it will affect their ability to provide a robust opposition to Labour and leave them effectively locked out of democracy for the next five years.

The Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, was a Labour MP before he was elected to the post in 2019 and resigned from the party.

Convention dictates that the most senior deputy comes from the opposition, the second most senior from the speaker’s former party and the most junior from the opposition.

But the rules define the opposition as anyone who is not on the government benches, meaning a Lib Dem – or even in theory an independent MP – could be chosen.

One senior Conservative MP told The Telegraph: “It’s not just a precarious time for us, it’s a perilous time. This is not just about who sits in the chair, it’s about how Parliament operates – it’s about Bills, legislation and amendments.

“The Conservatives could become irrelevant if the Government just bulldozes legislation through. Of course Labour has a huge majority, and that limits how effective we can be, but we still have a constitutional role to play in providing an effective opposition.”

Sir Lindsay, who is politically neutral, has no say in the process of choosing deputies. Any MPs can put themselves forward for the roles, and the choice is made by a free vote in the Commons.

Whoever gets the most votes from the opposition benches becomes the chairman of ways and means, the most senior deputy, who chairs the committee of the whole house. It debates Bills clause by clause, meaning the chairmanship is a highly influential role.

As many as six Conservative MPs are expected to put themselves forward to become a deputy speaker, which senior MPs fear will split the vote and enable a Lib Dem to come first in the election.

With a Labour MP guaranteed the next most senior role – often only one will stand, meaning they are elected without a vote – that would leave the Tories with only the most junior job.

Because Labour has a majority, any Conservative candidate will need the backing of a considerable number of Labour MPs to get elected, and there are concerns that Labour MPs will vote in greater numbers for a Lib Dem candidate. The vote is expected to take place in the week beginning July 22.

One Conservative source said: “We should be narrowing down our candidate list, but the party is in disarray at the moment – we can’t even run our own internal elections properly.”

An election for MP members of the Conservative Party board, the party’s governing body, will be re-run after the name of one of the MPs standing for election, Mark Garnier, was left off the ballot paper this week.

There is also unrest over the process to elect the new chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs, which was won by Bob Blackman.

Some MPs said they were given the wrong time for when the ballot closed, meaning they could not vote, while others were unhappy that Sir Graham Brady, who is no longer an MP, was present in the room where the secret ballots were being cast.

There have also been claims that at least one MP was able to cast proxy votes for colleagues without proper checks being made that they had permission to do so.

Tory MPs have not yet been told when the vote will be held to elect the other members of the 1922 Committee, which must happen before a leadership contest can begin because the committee decides on the rules for the election as well as its timing.