Speaker of the House of Commons (United Kingdom)
The Speaker of the House of Commons is the presiding officer of the House of Commons, the lower house and primary chamber of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The current speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, was elected Speaker on 4 November 2019, following the retirement of John Bercow. Hoyle began his first full parliamentary term in the role on 17 December 2019, having been unanimously re-elected after the 2019 general election.
The speaker presides over the House's debates, determining which members may speak and which amendments are selected for consideration. The speaker is also responsible for maintaining order during debate, and may punish members who break the rules of the House. By convention, the Speaker is strictly non-partisan; accordingly, a Speaker is expected to renounce all affiliation with their former political parties when taking office and afterwards.
The speaker does not take part in debate or vote. Aside from duties relating to presiding over the House, the speaker also performs administrative and procedural functions. In addition, they remain a constituency Member of Parliament, are part of the Privy Council, and represent the Commons to the monarch, the House of Lords and other authorities. The official residence of the Speaker is the Speaker's House at the Palace of Westminster.
History
Early history
The office of the speaker is almost as old as the Parliament itself. The earliest year for which a presiding officer has been identified is 1258, when Peter de Montfort presided over the Parliament held in Oxford. Early presiding officers were known by the title parlour or prolocutor. The continuous history of the office of speaker is held to date from 1376 when Peter de la Mare spoke for the commons in the "Good Parliament" as they joined leading magnates in purging the chief ministers of the Crown and the most unpopular members of the king's household. Edward III was frail and in seclusion; his prestigious eldest son, Edward the Black Prince, terminally ill. It was left to the next son, a furious John of Gaunt, to fight back. He arrested De la Mare and disgraced other leading critics.In the next, "Bad Parliament", in 1377, a cowed Commons put forward Gaunt's steward, Thomas Hungerford, as their spokesman in retracting their predecessors' misdeeds of the previous year. Gaunt evidently wanted a "mirror-image" as his form of counter-coup and this notion, born in crisis, of one 'speaker', who quickly also became 'chairman' and organiser of the Commons' business, was recognised as valuable and took immediate root after 1376–1377.
On 6 October 1399, John Cheyne of Beckford was elected speaker. The powerful Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Arundel, is said to have voiced his fears of Cheyne's reputation as a critic of the Church. Eight days later, Cheyne resigned on grounds of ill-health, although he remained in favour with the king and active in public life for a further 14 years.
Although the officer was elected by the Commons at the start of each Parliament, with at least one contested election known, in 1420, in practice the Crown was usually able to get whom it wanted. Whilst the principle of giving this spokesman personal immunity from recrimination as only being the voice of the whole body was quickly adopted and did enhance the Commons' role, the Crown found it useful to have one person with the authority to select and lead the lower house's business and responses to the Crown's agenda, much more often than not in the way the Crown wanted. Thus, Whig ideas of the Commons growing in authority as against royal power are somewhat simplistic; the Crown used the Commons as and when it found it advantageous to do so, and the speakership was one means to make the Commons a more cohesive, defined and effective instrument of the king's government.
Throughout the medieval and early modern period, every speaker was an MP for a county, reflecting the implicit position that such shire representatives were of greater standing in the house than the more numerous burgess MPs. Although evidence is almost non-existent, it has been surmised that any vote was by count of head, but by the same token perhaps the lack of evidence of actual votes suggests that most decisions, at least of a general kind, were reached more through persuasion and the weight by status of the county MPs. In such a situation, the influence of the speaker should not be underestimated. Thomas More was the first speaker to go on to become Lord Chancellor.
17th to mid-19th century
Until the 17th century, members of the House of Commons often continued to view their speaker as an agent of the Crown. As Parliament evolved, however, the speaker's position grew to involve more duties to the House than to the Crown; this was definitely true by the time of the English Civil War. This change is sometimes said to be reflected by an incident in 1642, when King Charles I entered the House in order to search for and arrest Five Members for high treason. When the King asked him if he knew of the location of these members, the speaker, William Lenthall, replied: "May it please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here."The development of Cabinet government under King William III in the late 17th century caused further change in the role of the speaker. Speakers were generally associated with the ministry, and often held other government offices. For example, Robert Harley served simultaneously as Speaker and as a Secretary of State between 1704 and 1705.
The speaker between 1728 and 1761, Arthur Onslow, reduced ties with the government, though the office remained to a large degree political.
The modern speakership
The speakership evolved into its modern form—in which the holder is an impartial and apolitical officer who does not belong to any party—only during the middle of the 19th century.More than 150 individuals have served as Speaker of the House of Commons. Their names are inscribed in gold leaf around the upper walls of Room C of the House of Commons Library. Betty Boothroyd, elected in 1992, was the first female speaker. Michael Martin, elected in 2000, was the first Catholic speaker since the Reformation. John Bercow, elected in 2009, was the first Jewish speaker.
The speaker has significant influence on legislation, for example by selecting which amendments to a bill may be proposed, and by interpreting and enforcing the rules of Parliament as laid out in the official parliamentary rulebook, Erskine May. In 2019 Speaker John Bercow had significant influence in selecting which important amendments to legislation affecting Britain's exit from the European Union could be voted on, and later by not allowing the government to repeat a vote on the terms of exit, as the same motion may not be proposed twice in the same session of Parliament. Bercow was criticised for these interventions, but said that he was acting within his powers and enforcing clear rules in a non-partisan way.
Until 1992, all speakers were men, and were always addressed in Parliament as "Mr Speaker", and their deputies as "Mr Deputy Speaker". Betty Boothroyd was, at her request, addressed as "Madam Speaker". When Betty Harvie Anderson served in the 1970s as a Deputy Speaker, on the other hand, she was addressed as "Mr Deputy Speaker". Eleanor Laing, who was a Deputy Speaker from 2013 to 2019 and again from 2020 to 2024, was addressed as "Madam Deputy Speaker".
The speaker has traditionally been offered a life peerage in the House of Lords upon stepping down – even if ousted following a political scandal. This tradition was broken in 2020 when John Bercow became the first Speaker in 230 years to step down and not be nominated for the Lords by the government. Since the death of Baroness Boothroyd in 2023, it is also the first time in over fifty years that the membership of the Lords has not included a former Speaker.
Election
MPs elect the speaker from amongst their own ranks. The House must elect a Speaker at the beginning of each new parliamentary term after a general election, or after the death or resignation of the incumbent. Once elected, a Speaker continues in office until the dissolution of Parliament, unless they resign prior to this. The House customarily re-elects the incumbent speaker from the previous Parliament. Theoretically, the House could elect an opposing candidate to the chair, but the last time this happened was in 1835, when Charles Manners-Sutton lost the election to James Abercromby.The procedure for electing a Speaker has changed in recent years. Until 1971, the Clerk of the House of Commons became temporary Chairman of the House. As the clerk is never a member, and therefore is not permitted to speak, he would silently stand and point at the member who was to speak. However, this procedure broke down at the election of a new Speaker in 1971 and had to be changed. Since that time, as recommended by a Select committee, the Father of the House becomes the presiding officer.
Until 2001, the election of a Speaker was conducted as a routine matter of House of Commons business, as it used motions and amendments to elect. A member would move "That Mr do take the Chair of this House as Speaker", and following debate, a routine division of the House would resolve in favour of one candidate. There was, however, a considerable amount of behind-the-scenes lobbying before suitable candidates were agreed upon, and so it was very rare for a new speaker to be opposed. However, this system broke down in 2000 when twelve rival candidates declared for the job and the debate occupied an entire parliamentary day. The House of Commons Procedure Committee then re-examined the means of electing a speaker and recommended a new system that came into effect in 2007 and was first used in June 2009, following the resignation of Michael Martin.
Under the new system, candidates must be nominated by at least twelve members, of whom at least three must be of a different party from the candidate. Each member may nominate no more than one candidate. The House then votes by secret ballot; an absolute majority is required for victory. If no candidate wins a majority, then the individual with the fewest votes is eliminated, as are any other candidates who receive less than 5% of the votes cast, and as are any candidates who choose to withdraw. The House continues to vote, for several rounds if necessary, until one member receives the requisite majority. Then, the House votes on a formal motion to appoint the member in question to the speakership.
If only one candidate is nominated, then no ballot is held, and the House proceeds directly to the motion to appoint the candidate to the speakership. A similar procedure is used if a Speaker seeks a further term after a general election: no ballot is held, and the House immediately votes on a motion to re-elect the speaker. If this motion fails, candidates are nominated, and the House proceeds with voting.
Upon the passage of the motion, the speaker-elect is expected to show reluctance at being chosen; they are customarily "dragged unwillingly" by MPs to the speaker's bench. This custom has its roots in the speaker's original function of communicating the Commons' opinions to the monarch. Historically, the speaker, representing the House to the monarch, potentially faced the monarch's anger and therefore required some persuasion to accept the post. Contrary to an often repeated claim, no speaker has ever been executed for his actions in that capacity. Six former speakers were executed between 1471 and 1535 ; for five of these, the execution was due to behaviour in subsequent offices.
The speaker-elect must receive approbation by the sovereign before they may take office; this has only been refused once, in 1679, to Edward Seymour. On the day of the election, the speaker-elect leads the Commons to the Chamber of the House of Lords, where Lords Commissioners appointed by the Crown confirm him or her in the monarch's name. The speaker then requests "in the name and on behalf of the Commons of the United Kingdom, to lay claim, by humble petition to His Majesty, to all their ancient and undoubted rights and privileges, especially to freedom of speech in debate, to freedom from arrest, and to free access to His Majesty whenever occasion shall require." After the Lords Commissioners, on the behalf of the sovereign, confirm the Commons' rights and privileges, the Commons return to their chamber. If a speaker is chosen in the middle of a parliament due to a vacancy in the office, they must receive the royal approbation as described above but does not again lay claim to the Commons' rights and privileges.