Parliament is in crisis. Many MPs feel we need to make some radical changes to reassert the values of our democracy and to restore the public’s faith in its representatives. I’m one of those MPs and that’s why I ran for Speaker.

I may have lost the contest, but commentators as diverse as Twitter and the FT suggest I won many of the arguments.

I believe this is a unique time and opportunity to reform parliament. To do so the Speaker should clinically shift power away from the executive and from parliament and place it firmly back in the hands of the people. Only then can we begin to put behind us the recent destruction of public confidence over MPs’ allowances. It’s too late for evolution and time for us to be brave. I believe that if we firmly shift the pendulum of power back to the public they are more likely to put their trust in us again.

To give ownership of parliament to the people, ministers, shadow ministers and whips will need to relinquish their control of the parliamentary agenda. Through new technology like internet polling the public should choose the issues for ‘topical debate’.

Instead of poorly attended debates lacking atmosphere in Westminster Hall, parliament should relocate ministers and the entire apparatus for these debates to town halls around the country. A day of adjournment debates on local issues in the regions would be top billing in regional media and give us the chance to draw crowds to parliamentary proceedings.

I believe the Speaker also needs to do much more than preside over committees and parliamentary proceedings in the chamber. In a more public way than ever, the Speaker should be the interface between parliament and modern Britain, championing the role of MPs and encouraging greater participation amongst the public.

To truly change the settlement in favour of the public, the personnel who represent them will have to change too. At the current rate of progress parliament will not be representative of its racial, gender or class mix at any time in the next 100 years. The Speaker must actively push political parties to make changes to catalyse these changes over the short term, not 100 years.

At a practical level the House should institute crèche facilities within the parliamentary estate to enable MPs to pay for emergency child care provision. Such provision has been held back in the past partly because of the perception that it would be unpopular with the media. Well, the Speaker’s job is to make it popular, and to communicate the difference it would make to younger would-be MPs who want to have a family and a political career.
 
As politicians we need to accept that we are living in changing times. It’s time for us to be more deferential towards the public.

The British public want to see the executive loosen its grip. At present party whips don’t just influence membership and chairs of our committees; they even decide which MPs deserve a nice office. Parliament should elect its committee chairs, and all matters involving offices, allowances and the likes should be entirely independent of the politicians.

It is inevitable that there will be an element of ‘buggins turn’ and a closed shop mentality in our governing institutions whilst our upper chamber is full of political appointments and hereditary peers. Parliament is in danger of being left behind whilst the world moves on, so I hope John Bercow will play a leadership role in championing reform of the House of Lords. I do believe he will be a reformer and I’ll be urging him to go even further and take up some of these radical changes. Good luck to him.