LONDON, (Reuters) – The leader of Britain’s third main party yesterday called for the House of Commons’ Speaker to step down and said parliament may need to be dissolved in the wake of an expenses scandal that has shaken its reputation.
The highly unusual attack on the Speaker, Michael Martin, by a party leader underlined the pressures on British politicians to try to rebuild public trust after 10 days of damaging media disclosures about extravagant expenses claims by members of parliament.
Newspapers said Queen Elizabeth had expressed concern to Prime Minister Gordon Brown over the disclosures, which have angered Britons at a time of recession when thousands are losing their homes and unemployment is rising sharply.
Pressure is mounting on Martin over his handling of the scandal which involves allowances paid to MPs from the public purse. He will make a statement to MPs today.
“I’ve arrived at the conclusion that the Speaker must go,” Liberal Democrats’ leader Nick Clegg told BBC television.
“He has proved himself over some time now to be a dogged defender of the way things are, the status quo, when what we need very urgently is someone at the heart of Westminster who will lead a wholesale radical process of reform.”
Martin’s spokeswoman said his statement would address the issue of dealing with the expenses problem as swiftly as possible. She would not comment further.
A motion of no confidence against Martin is expected to be put forward in parliament today.
“We would have a free vote on our side if there was a vote of no confidence in the Speaker,” William Hague, opposition Conservative foreign affairs spokesman and ex-party leader, told Sky television. “This needs resolving in the next couple of days.”
Sir Stuart Bell, an MP for the ruling Labour party, said Martin may attempt to mollify his critics by offering to stand down at the next election.
“I would expect the Speaker to make an announcement tomorrow, and that announcement would say that he’d stay on as Speaker of the House until the next election,” Bell told BBC television.
If ousted, Martin would be the first Speaker to be sacked since 1695. The position of a Speaker or presiding officer in British politics dates back to the 13th century.
As well as keeping order in the lower house of parliament and calling MPs to speak, the Speaker is the house’s highest authority who must have support across the political spectrum.
Clegg said politicians may have to go further than replacing Martin and reforming the system to win back public trust.
“We might well need to dissolve parliament,” he said. “I think this parliament will go down in history as a rotten parliament and we do need it cleaned out, renewed and the people and the procedures in it changed completely.”
In a series of disclosures from leaked files, the Daily Telegraph newspaper has targeted all the main political parties, detailing expenses claims ranging from moat cleaning and horse manure to adult films, and dog food.
In its Monday edition, the newspaper reported that some MPs were allowed to claim interest payments on their entire mortgages even though the loans had been partly repaid.
The ruling Labour party has been hardest hit and polls point to a backlash at next month’s European elections in favour of marginal parties such as the anti-European Union UK Independence Party, the Greens and even the far-right British National Party.
Labour has suspended two MPs and one of its junior ministers has stepped down pending an investigation into his finances.