MPs overturn a great British tradition: don't queue jump

Michael White
Thursday October 11, 2007

Guardian

Most MPs were horribly embarrassed yesterday to discover that an edict had been issued overnight telling all 10,000 people who work in parliament that "prior access to services throughout the parliamentary estate" must be given to MPs. In theory, that means that the Hon Member for Pomp and Circumstance can ignore that great national institution, the queue, and barge to the front for tea, lunch, postage stamps or photocopying, the travel office or the lift. They have always had that right in the taxi queue and sometimes even exercised it.

Being representatives, MPs are pretty representative, so there are a few pompous queue-jumpers in the ranks, as there always are. But, by and large, the Westminster village is a fairly democratic place. MPs know they depend on the staff - from the cleaners and electricians to the sergeant-at-arms (a retired general called Peter Grant Peterkin) and the catering supremo, Sue Harrison, who could have become a field marshal. The pair signed yesterday's memo. MPs also know the staff all have votes and friends with votes.

Former Labour cabinet minister Hilary Armstrong called the memo "nonsense". "Pompous nonsense," said a Lib Dem, David Heath. "Priority only matters when there's a vote on and some chap is trying to load a consignment of toilet rolls on to a lift." "It's unenforceable," said Michael Fabricant, a Tory. There aren't many major bottlenecks anyway: at the post office; the Portcullis House cafe, where a sign saying "Priority Access to MPs" went up next to the chicken hamburger and the steamed fish menu; at the Strangers' Bar when a big match is on TV.

So who is to blame for the latest assault on a hallowed British institution? The speaker, Michael Martin, who can be prickly, signed off on it. But the initiative comes from the cross-party administration committee, which manages in-house matters and is chaired by Labour's Frank Doran. The gossip is that the idea came from a Tory MP on the committee who felt members weren't getting sufficient priority. Other MPs went along with it, as committees do. It is meant to be discretionary, which is what happens anyway. In the tea queue yesterday I turned to a hapless youth and said: "You go first. You may be an MP."