Inside the Commons

[as Father of The House, Sir Peter Tapsell is the only MP who does not need to reserve a back-bench seat in the House of Commons, but despite this, he always does so]

Sir Peter Tapsell:
The reason I put in a card is because I don't want the embarrassment of turning somebody out of their seat who may not know the convention in a crowded house, especially if it was a lady, which is quite a difficult thing to do. And the problem would arrise: do I sit on *her* knee or does she sit on *mine*.

[MPs must arrive very early and attend "Prayers" if they want to reserve a seat in the House of Commons]

Sarah Champion:
What's the point of being there at seven in the morning? I can see if it's a shoe sale, but not to listen to a load of old men screaming at each other.

[Michael Fabricant plans to vote against the views of his party and the government on the issue of the new HS2 railway line]

Michael Fabricant:
I don't want to be on the "dark side", as the whips call it, and be seen as some sort of non-team player, but just occasionally, when you think the government's got it badly wrong, you have to make a stand.

[Charles Kennedy is showing the camera around the Members' Cloakroom. He points to a row of coat-hangers]

Charles Kennedy:
I suppose the only idiosyncratic feature of these is the pinkish ribbons, and would you believe this is for Honourable and Right Honourable Members, once they've hung their coats, to hang their swords. There you are. I have to say I've never seen them used in all the decades I've been here, but if you wanted to avail yourself of the opportunity, this is the place to come.

[as he carries on walking through the cloakroom, an attendant draws his attention to something]

Charles Kennedy:
Oh! Now look at that! This is the place where you say something and the minute you say it, it's contradicted. I suppose that's what the Mother of Parliament is supposed to be about. Somebody has actually got a wooden sword attached to their tassel. There's always a first for everything and we didn't make that up.

[talking about "planted" questions from a government MP to the Prime Minister which exist simply to let the Prime Minister reiterate a policy statement]

Charles Kennedy:
It's always so obvious when somebody's just been handed "Read this out", and it's pathetic. I just can't understand how anybody wants to get elected to a parliament, to *any* representative body, but least of all the the House of Commons, and then just be handed out a couple of sentences written by somebody else and say "Read this out". "Doesn't the Prime Minister agree he's doing a great job this week and will do an even better one next week." What is the point?

[Steve Rotheram is introducing his first Bill, to ban tyres that are more than ten years old being used on coaches and buses]

Steve Rotheram:
There are plenty of other rubber-related products that people would be rightly cautious about trusting if they were decades old.

[laughter]

Steve Rotheram:
So why would anybody trust their safety to a twenty-year-old tyre?

[the Government has just won a crucial vote on the European Arrest Warrant but have angered many of their own Euro-sceptic MPs because they did not first have the debate on the issue as they had promised]

Peter Bone:
Of course, outside in the Dog and Duck nobody will understand what's happened, but basically democracy lost and the Government won.

[the Speaker rules that the Prime Minister must let someone else speak]

John Bercow - Speaker of the House of Commons:
Order! Order!

David Cameron - Prime Minister:
But I haven't finished.

John Bercow - Speaker of the House of Commons:
The Prime Minister *has* finished, and he can take it from me that he's finished.

[laughter and cheering]

[in the debate on the plans to allow parliament to "recall" - meaning dismiss - failing MPs mid-term, MPs are voting on Zac Goldsmith's contentious proposals to give stronger powers to the MP's constituents in determining his fate. At the start of the vote, an MP points to one lobby and then the other]

MP:
Synthetic recall that way, proper recall that way.

[Steve Rotheram is decoding what he sees as the true meaning in the Queen's Speech]

Steve Rotheram:
"... Will continue to deliver on its long-term plan to build a stronger economy and a fairer society." I actually think she means "My government's legislative programme will make a valiant attempt to strengthen the economies of London and the South East, in order to benefit the wealthiest in society."

[Penny Mordaunt is making the opening speech, which is traditionally funny and irreverent, in the Queen's Speech Debate]

Michael Cockerell - Narrator:
She recalls her training as a reservist in the Royal Navy.

Penny Mordaunt:
Fascinating though it was, I felt that the lecture and practical demonstration on how to care for your penis and testicles in the field failed to appreciate that some of us attending had been issued with the incorrect equipment.

Penny Mordaunt:
[commenting afterwards on her speech] My office did take the trouble to look up whether those two words - penis and testicles - had ever been said on the floor of the House before. And they have, but in a medical context. And we did check that saying them would not be unparliamentary, and concluded that they were "things" and therefore could be said.