As Mr Speaker alluded to earlier, many years ago now, he and the Chairman of Ways and Means and I served on the Trade and Industry Committee with Sir David and one thing always stands out in my mind about the Clerk of the House: anyone might have thought he was a bit of a Scotsman because he was certainly very frugal,
to say the least, about expenditure and paying expenses. Gordon Brown always liked to talk about prudence, and I often wondered whether they came out of the same nest. Nevertheless, he often gave me good advice and he will be badly missed in this House; it will probably be a long time before we see his like again.