Sir Lindsay Hoyle calls for review of Parliament's statues and paintings after Black Lives Matter protests

Dotted around the corridors of the Palace of Westminster, there are six paintings, statues and sculptures of Winston Churchill and William Gladstone, and another four each of Robert Peel and Oliver Cromwell.

If the anti-racism protesters at the gates of Parliament this weekend were allowed a poke around the inside of the 19th century building, they would barely be able to contain themselves at the depictions of these so-called 'imperialists' and 'racists'.

Yet Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the House of Commons, is having none of it. While other civic statues of politicians are under threat, Parliament's monuments to these great political leaders are staying put.

Speaking to The Telegraph's Chopper's Politics podcast, which you can listen to on the audio player above, he says: "They are the great politicians of history and they may be judged differently in the future but at the moment, they are part of the history of this House."

In fact, rather than tear down statues, Sir Lindsay would prefer that efforts were taken to explain and contextualise Britain's bloody past.

He says: "I'm a person who enjoys history, and history is very important to us - very very important it's about making judgement on history. It's about telling the right stories in history.

"If people don't want the monument where it is, I understand that and agree with that. But it should go into a museum, where the story can be told about where the wealth came from, how that wealth was accrued. Tell the story - don't destroy the statue."

But, in a concession to the concerns of anti-racism campaigners, Sir Lindsay would like a committee of MPs which oversees the House's works of art to check that memories of Britain's slaving past are not on the walls of the Palace of Westminster.

Sir Lindsay says: "I've been having a look round myself to see what we have got...  is there anything that depicts slavery? Not that I know of. Maybe, maybe some individuals, I'm not sure yet where we are.

"We've always got to consistently review what's on show in the House. I was asking the other day about paintings. Did the paintings depict somebody who'd been involved in slavery? People will be asking, and I think it is right that we review and we interpret what is there."

Since Sir Lindsay replaced John Bercow in the Speaker's chair as the 158th Speaker last November some traditions have already returned, such as the clerks wearing wigs on ceremonial days in the Commons.

Sir Lindsay even hints that he still might deliver on an early pledge to be the first Speaker since Bernard Weatherill in 1992 to wear a full-bottomed wig for the next state opening of Parliament.

He told The Telegraph's Chopper's Politics podcast: "I certainly keep the option open... It is about the office and I do support the office. I will remember the appropriate dress. But don't forget, nobody has worn this wig for 30 or 40 years."

Sir Lindsay, 63, will not be drawn on whether Mr Bercow should get a seat in the House of Lords and is determined to be less talked about than his predecessor who courted controversy by taking positions on Brexit.

He says: "It is about the game that's being played. We don't want to talk about the referee - I know when I have been to watch rugby league, and I have been talking about the referee. That tells me he didn't have a good game."

Sir Lindsay, who was first elected Labour MP for Chorley in 1997 and describes being made Speaker as "the meringue on the lemon", has overseen more far reaching change in the past five months due to the change in working practices, forced on MPs by the coronavirus crisis, than Mr Bercow's decade in the Speaker's chair.

The Covid-19 crisis has already forced a rethink of the grandiose plans for a decades-long refit of Parliament. Sir Lindsay says: "What the country has gone through and the cost of lockdown. Do I really think the Government is ready to issue a cheque for £15 billion? I'm not sure that that's the case."

The pandemic has meant that MPs are now able to ask questions in the Chamber either in person or by video link from home, while "virtual" sessions of select committees will continue until September at the earliest.

The queues of socially-distanced MPs voting - which Sir Lindsay likens to the lines of shoppers outside Booths supermarket in his hometown of Chorley - will get shorter too.

Next week MPs will start to vote using their ID cards: "You just put your card on the reader, and up will pop the name of the member, and it will say, 'Aye' or 'No'. This is a little bit of modernisation that - once we get this up and working - I think the House will stick with. Why do we want clerks running down the stairs because we suddenly call the vote?"

Sir Lindsay acknowledges the limit of just 50 MPs in the Commons due to social distancing has left the chamber feeling like a courtroom, to the advantage of the lawyerly Sir Keir Starmer over Boris Johnson at the weekly sessions of Prime Minister's Questions.

Sir Lindsay says: "Boris is a people person, he is flamboyant and he gets the crowd behind him, he is a showman; Keir Starmer is a barrister in court, who forensically goes through a subject. It is two completely different styles, we have only seen Keir performing in the chamber at the moment.

"It is a little like a court. The challenge will come at some day, we will see the House go back to what it was... That will be a challenge for the Leader of the Opposition because it will be a change in circumstance."

But Sir Lindsay makes clear that it is about "getting some excitement in there" as soon as it is safe to do so. He adds: "I think all parties miss that... it will be nice to get back to normality. What normality will look like may be slightly different than we remember."

Listen to the full interview on the audio player at the top of this page, and subscribe to Chopper's Politics here.