Jack Straw has become the latest senior MP to support a Commons backlash against a "a politically correct stunt" by John Bercow.
The respected Labour grandee is backing protests against the Speaker's attempt to install a controversial Australian as the most senior official in the Commons.
Mr Straw, a former Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Commons Leader and Justice Secretary, wants Mr Bercow's choice as Clerk of the Commons, Carol Mills, to face a pre-appointment hearing.
He is backing a plea in a letter to the Prime Minister by Conservative MP Bernard Jenkin, chairman of the Public Administration Committee of MPs, to give MPs a right of veto after a hearing.
In another highly significant development, Mr Jenkin's call is also being backed by Nigel Evans, a Commons Deputy Speaker until he stood down over sex charges, of which he was cleared earlier this year.
Mr Evans is now a member of Mr Jenkin's committee.
The row follows the resignation of Commons Clerk Sir Robert Rogers, seen as a Parliamentary traditionalist, after a series of clashes with the Speaker.
Ms Mills, who was selected by a panel of MPs headed by the Speaker, is currently head of the Department of Parliamentary Services (DPS) of the Australian Senate in Canberra, responsible for functions including cleaning and catering, but not debates, leading some MPs to call her "the Canberra Caterer".
Mr Bercow reportedly sees her as part of his drive to modernise Parliament. But critics claim it is not only a "politically correct stunt", but also a secret power grab by the Speaker because she will be unlikely to challenge his rulings.
Former Commons Speaker Baroness Boothroyd has claimed Ms Mills will be "totally out of her depth" and former Tory Cabinet Ministers Sir Malcolm Rifkind and Cheryl Gillan have backed the calls for a pre-appointment hearing.
The row took a sinister twist when it was revealed that officials in Ms Mills' department in Canberra used CCTV cameras to spy on the office of an Australian senator as part of an investigation into a parliamentary official.
That disclosure prompted Damian Green, Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims until last month's reshuffle, to say he was "extremely disturbed" by the parallels between the Canberra incident and a police raid on his office at Westminster in 2008.
After Mr Straw joined the backlash against Mr Bercow, one senior MP told Sky News: "There's now a groundswell of Parliamentary support for a pre-appointment hearing.
"What we have got to do is stop the Prime Minister sending the appointment to the Queen while there's so much controversy.
"John Bercow wants all this so he can have a Yes person. You'll never get Robert Rogers to go on the record, but he feels that too."
MPs opposed to Ms Mills also point out that in his Michael Ryle lecture on June 30 this year, in honour of a former Commons clerk, Mr Bercow praised pre-appointment hearings and said they should be "enhanced and formally institutionalised".
To which his opponents would say: "Hear! Hear!"
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/straw-joins-commons-backlash-against-bercow-194750257.html
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