The bells of Big Ben and the Great Clock at Westminster are to be silenced as a mark of respect during Wednesday's ceremonial funeral for Lady Thatcher, the Commons Speaker has announced.
As unease about the scale of the funeral spread across political parties, John Bercow told MPs that silencing the bells was the most fitting tribute to the late prime minister following a number of representations. It is thought the bells were last silenced as a mark of respect during the funeral of Winston Churchill in 1965.
But the statement by Bercow came as Diane Abbott, the shadow health minister, became the first member of the Labour frontbench to criticise the funeral, which will involve more than 700 military personnel from the three armed forces.
One senior Tory is planning to boycott the funeral on the grounds that the Queen, whose aides are understood to have raised concerns about associating a divisive prime minister with the military on such a large scale, has been placed in an invidious position. It is understood that a number of Tories blame Gordon Brown for pushing for such a large scale funeral for Thatcher when he was prime minister, giving the palace no choice but to accept an invitation for the Queen on the grounds that the ceremony has cross-party consensus.
Ben Wallace, the Tory MP for Wyre and Preston North who is ministerial aide to Kenneth Clarke and who served in the Scots Guards, tweeted: "Most of funeral planned in 2008."
Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister in charge of organising Thatcher's funeral – Operation True Blue – has also come under fire amid accusations that he is planning to conceal the event's true costs from the public by omitting the wage bills of police officers and service personnel. Maude said the money paid to uniformed officers should not be included when calculating the overall costs to the public purse, an accounting manoeuvre that breaks with precedent. Calculations of the costs of the Queen Mother and Princess Diana's funeral included the costs of paying police and the armed services.
Labour MPs described the move by Maude as "indefensible". But Bercow said parliament would pay another tribute to the late prime minister when Big Ben is silenced during her funeral.
The Speaker told MPs: "I have received a number of representations, direct and indirect, formal and informal, concerning how the house and parliament as an institution might best mark this occasion. I have considered all of these, but concluded that the most appropriate means of indicating our sentiments would be for the chimes of Big Ben and for the chimes of the Great Clock to be silent for the duration of the funeral proceedings.
"I have therefore made the necessary arrangements to achieve this. I believe that there can be a profound dignity and deep respect expressed in and through silence and I'm sure that the house will agree."
Maude welcomed the Speaker's announcement. He told the Commons: "I am confident that this will be seen as a very dignified and respectful gesture on the part of parliament and I am very grateful to you. I am confident that Lady Thatcher's family will take it very much in that spirit and be hugely appreciative of what you have decided."
Big Ben is the main bell of the Great Clock atop Elizabeth Tower – named after the Queen in her diamond jubilee year in 2012 – which sounds every 15 minutes. It has occasionally failed to sound since it first chimed in 1859. But it was intentionally silenced for two years during the first world war when the clock was darkened to deter German Zeppelins, according to a report by the Associated Press in 2009 marking Big Ben's 150th anniversary.
John Mann, the Labour MP for Bassetlaw, was highly critical of the announcement. "I imagine [Lady Thatcher] wouldn't be too happy with this. The Luftwaffe couldn't silence Big Ben so I wouldn't have imagined she'd be at all in favour. But personally I am not bothered because it doesn't cost anything. My concern is all this money that is being spent on the funeral. No politician should be receiving a state funeral or semi-state funeral now or in the future."
Mann's remarks were echoed by Abbott, who criticised the arrangements for Thatcher's funeral. Her coffin will be drawn on a gun carriage of the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery from St Clement Danes church – the church of the Royal Air Force in the Strand – to St Paul's Cathedral.
The shadow public health minister told BBC London: "It goes against all protocol … Winston Churchill was different. He led a national government."
The Labour MP John Healey, the former housing minister who boycotted last week's parliamentary tributes to Thatcher, said military personnel and policing costs were likely to be a large part of the taxpayers' bill. "The public have a right to see a full account of the costs of the funeral. Any attempt to cover up part of the costs of this funeral is indefensible and likely to be unsustainable.
"This is a state funeral in all but name without the consent of parliament for funding and without the consent of the people. Churchill, who was the only PM over the past 100 years to have a state funeral, unified the country, while Margaret Thatcher divided it."
Ministers have responded by accusing Labour MPs of failing to maintain the tone of their leader, Ed Miliband, who was widely praised for his Commons statement on Thatcher. A government source said: "We are surprised that Labour are trying to play politics over a ceremonial funeral for a former prime minister, particularly given that the outline of the funeral was agreed under Gordon Brown."
Maude told Radio 4's Any Questions programme on Friday that reports that the funeral will cost £10m had mistakenly included the costs of police and soldiers who would be working anyway. "There are costs which are people doing their ordinary jobs which are costs which are being borne in any event. We have not hired more soldiers, we haven't hired more police. There is no one who has been hired who would not be doing their ordinary jobs which they would not be doing in any event. We are not hiring more police."
George Galloway, the Respect MP, is due to try and force a commons vote to prevent the cancellation of prime minister's questions to allow MPs to attend the funeral. He told BBC2's Daily Politics: "We're spending £10m on the canonisation of this wicked woman, this woman who laid waste to industrial Britain, to the north, to Scotland, to south Wales. We've already had the recall of parliament last week, with MPs being paid up to £3,700 to fly back from the Caribbean holiday that they were on and then fly back to start their holiday again, for a totally unnecessary fawning over this woman. And now they want to cancel prime minister's questions. It's absurd."
The Guardian understands that more than 3,000 police officers had leave cancelled and will be informed on Tuesday if they are needed to help secure the route of the cortege amid plans for mass protests.
The scale and the cost to the taxpayer of the funeral has been criticised by public figures including the Bishop of Grantham, Lord Prescott and George Galloway. It has been widely reported that the event will cost £10m. Previous ceremonial funerals have included "opportunity costs", which would have been incurred anyway if staff were assigned to other operations.
The Queen Mother's funeral – the last grand ceremonial funeral in Britain – cost £8.16m to the public purse, according the Guardian's calculations. Policing cost the Metropolitan Police £4.3m of which £2.3m was defined as "opportunity costs".
On Monday night the White House announced that Barack Obama had asked former secretaries of state George Shultz and James A Baker III to lead what might be seen as a low-key delegation to Thatcher's funeral.
Shultz served as secretary of state to President Ronald Reagan and Baker to President George HW Bush. Both served in the position while Thatcher was in office.
The White House said other delegation members would be Barbara Stephenson, the charge d'affaires at the US embassy in London, and Louis Susman, the former US ambassador to the United Kingdom.
House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said he was sending three Republican members of Congress: Marsha Blackburn, Michele Bachmann and George Holding.