Seated And Covered
Taken from The Backbencher, the weekly newsletter from The Guardian.
House of Commons rules used to demand that an MP who wanted to make a
point of order during a division was "seated and covered". This
indicated that they were not trying to start a debate, which is
forbidden at this time.
When MPs stopped carrying hats themselves,
the Serjeant-at-Arms kept a couple of collapsible versions at each
end of the chamber for them to borrow.
But some MPs - notably Dennis
Skinner - were too embarrassed to wear the hat, especially when the
Commons was televised: "Nearly every time there was an argument
during a division in the past 18 years, I wanted to raise a point of
order... but I could not bring myself to wear the top hat," Mr
Skinner complained three years ago.
Others, like Derek Fatchett, wore
a handkerchief "knotted in the peculiar seaside way".
But a notable
row developed when MPs tried to substitute Order Papers. "I can
envisage a situation where a properly constructed paper hat was
appropriate, but not an Order Paper," pronounced the Deputy Speaker
in 1993.
Five years later, the Modernisation Committee intervened,
and the opera hat was consigned to the Stockport Hatting Museum,
never to be worn again.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 