Karen Bradley Wants To "Put MPs First" In Her Deputy Speaker Bid
2 min read
When Conservative MP for Staffordshire Moorlands Karen Bradley was elected in 2010, she would often come to the Chamber, simply to sit and listen.
“I just wanted to be there to absorb it,” she says. But soon, Lindsay Hoyle, then chairman of ways and means, approached and gently encouraged her to speak. Reflecting on Sir Lindsay’s kindness today, she tells PoliticsHome she hopes she “can do the same for others” if she is elected deputy speaker.
As part of her bid for the role, she is touring Parliament, ensuring MPs know she will be independent, non-partisan, and ultimately, that “they will be put first”.
“I remember during Covid, we did an evidence session,” she says. “The clerk said that if every single member spoke once every sitting week for normal sitting week, each member would have 1.2 minutes of speaking time. Now, if you think of it like that, we have to make sure that every member gets their 1.2 minutes.”
“Just because you're a media figure or something like that,” she adds, when asked specifically about how she would handle more unruly MPs, “it doesn't mean your constituents should have more of a voice than anyone else.”
For Bradley, ensuring MPs deliver for constituents goes beyond the Chamber. She believes that upholding good behaviour in Westminster is as much about disciplining MPs as it is offering pastoral care.
She points to the 150 new Conservative MPs who were elected alongside her in 2010 as evidence of the strain of office. By 2015, 45 per cent of marriages within that intake had broken down.
“There has to be the stick when things go wrong,” she says. “But we have to look after people and we have to look out for when things are going wrong, and take people under our wings”.
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