Brown defends 'very, very good' Speaker
Speaker Michael Martin with his wife Mary in 2000. Photograph: Sean Dempsey/PA
Deborah Summers, Hélène Mulholland and agencies
Mon 25 Feb 2008 12.21 EST
Gordon Brown will tonight heap praise on Speaker Michael Martin, saying he has "huge experience" and commands "enormous respect for what he has achieved" in the job.
The prime minister will rally to Martin's defence again as pressure mounted on the Commons Speaker to explain his use of generous parliamentary expenses and allowances.
Underlining his support for Martin, Brown will tell channel Five's 7pm news bulletin: "As far as his work as a Speaker is concerned, I think most people know that Michael Martin, the Speaker, has been, and is, a very good Speaker.
"He obviously brings a huge amount of experience from things that he's done earlier in his life to the job and I think you'll find that there's any enormous respect for what he's achieved as the Speaker."
Earlier today the prime minister had joined Labour MPs in backing the beleaguered Speaker, saying: "It is a matter for the Commons but Michael Martin has been a very, very good speaker."
Asked about the sleaze allegations that emerged over the weekend, Brown will tell Five: "I think it is a matter for the House of Commons. There is a standard procedure for dealing with expenses and how they are claimed and how they are explained for the public and there is a standard system of reporting that actually happens.
"Most things that have happened have been reported formally and in some cases some time ago. Now that's a matter for the House of Commons."
The Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, also offered the Speaker some support today. "Worryingly, [it] looks like something of a witch-hunt against him," he told a Westminster press conference.
But he said that Martin would have to answer the allegations made over the weekend.
The substance of the criticism also highlighted the need for an "utter overhaul" of the parliamentary expenses system, he added.
John Lyon, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, was last night asked by the TaxPayers' Alliance to investigate whether Martin had abused parliamentary expenses and allowances in the light of a series of new revelations.
Martin's press officer, Mike Granatt, resigned over the weekend after admitting he had unwittingly misled the Mail on Sunday over £4,000 taxi expenses incurred by the speaker's wife, Mary.
The weekend also saw claims in two Sunday newspapers that Martin claimed £17,166 last year towards the cost of his Glasgow constituency home on which he no longer pays a mortgage.
John Spellar, Labour MP for Warley and chair of the parliamentary committee looking into reform of MPs' expenses, said Martin was the victim of "sneering and snobbery" by the Westminster media because of his humble background as a Glaswegian sheet metal worker and trade unionist.
He described the weekend reports as "disgraceful".
"We set up the rules [on MPs' expenses] and people operate within the rules so isn't it quite extraordinary that out of all this press coverage nobody has said Michael has breached the rules," the MP told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"He is an honest and decent man. It is disgraceful. It is MPs who decide the rules, not the press gallery."
The health secretary, Alan Johnson, said there was "a bit of an open season" on Martin. Talking on GMTV earlier today, he said: "It has been open season since he was elected to be Speaker.
"Yes, I do support the Speaker and I do think this will blow over and the people who are ... in some quarters of the press ... obsessed about Michael Martin will move on and pick on someone else".
Former cabinet member Tony Benn described Martin as the "very, very best" of the nine speakers he had sat under, while former home secretary David Blunkett insisted yesterday that Martin was being subjected to a "witch-hunt".
While some heavyweight Labour colleagues have been vocal, those across the house who want Martin to go have so far remained anonymous or silent, in keeping with the parliamentary convention which prevents sitting MPs from calling for the Speaker to resign.
MPs on both sides of the house hope that Martin, who will be 63 this year, will stand down as speaker before the next election in 2009 or 2010.
Peter Bottomley, the senior Tory backbencher, said he did not want to see Martin "hounded out" of office, but suggested that it would be "ambitious" for him to seek a third term as Speaker.
"When I first heard that there was some suggestion that he might be re-elected to be Speaker for a third term, I thought to myself: 'That's ambitious'," he told BBC Radio 4's The World At One.
"I think it would be totally inappropriate for him to be hounded out. Whether both health and happiness would mean that he ought to go on for a third term is frankly up to him."
Bottomley said that Martin's role as Commons Speaker appeared to have made him the "lightning rod" for wider concerns about MPs' expenses. He added that some of the coverage appeared "at least disproportionate if not unjustified".
Martin should wait until the present furore had died down before making any announcement about his future intentions, Bottomley said.
The Speaker thanked MPs for their support as he was greeted with a chorus of "hear, hear" from MPs in the chamber this afternoon, particularly from the Labour backbenches.
Spellar was cheered when he said it was a "pleasure" to see Mr Martin in the Speaker's chair, while lambasting the press for an "attempted coup".
But Martin Bell, the former independent MP for Tatton, called on Martin to go now.
Bell said he has been "besieged" by members of the public in his former constituency shocked by practices surrounding MPs' expenses.
He told the Today programme that parliament was guilty of misclaiming expenses on a massive scale.
"I am talking about pushing up to the edge of the allowances limit. That is within the rules, who sets up the rules? MPs. Who polices the rules? MPs. And who has the final say? The Speaker himself."