A NEW Speaker will be revealed today after Remainer John Bercow retires from the chair. Seven candidates are bidding to take on the role following Mr Bercow’s departure with Labour MP Sir Lindsay Hoyle the bookies favourite. ORDER ORDER Mother of the House Harriet Harman – the current longest continuously serving female MP – is […]
A NEW Speaker will be revealed today after Remainer John Bercow retires from the chair.
Seven candidates are bidding to take on the role following Mr Bercow’s departure with Labour MP Sir Lindsay Hoyle the bookies favourite.
Mother of the House Harriet Harman – the current longest continuously serving female MP – is also predicted to do well.
The other four candidates are Dame Rosie Winterton and Dame Eleanor Laing, who also both served as Mr Bercow’s deputies, Labour’s Meg Hillier and Chris Bryant (Rhondda), plus Conservative Sir Edward Leigh.
Shailesh Vara and Sir Henry Bellingham have both withdrawn from contention.
Candidates submitted their written nominations this morning with their signed declarations needing to be supported by between 12 and 15 MPs.
The Commons will meet as normal at 2.30pm and each candidate will give a speech – the order decided by drawing lots.
A secret ballot among MPs will take place once the speeches have concluded.
MPs can only vote for one candidate and the result will be announced in the chamber.
Any candidate who receives more than 50 per cent of the votes will be proposed to the House as Speaker, although MPs will be asked to vote again if no candidate meets the threshold.
In the second round of voting, candidates who either came last or received fewer than 5% of the votes will not be on the ballot paper.
There is also a 10-minute period after each round for candidates to withdraw.
Ballots will continue until either one MP wins more than 50 per cent of the votes or only one remains.
A motion is then put to the Commons proposing the winner as Speaker and they will take the chair if this is agreed. If not, a vote takes place.
Speeches of congratulation are expected to follow the votes.
Mr Bercow departed the Speaker’s chair on October 31.
The 56-year-old entered Parliament in 1997 and held several shadow ministerial positions before taking the Speaker’s chair on June 22 2009, promising to serve “no more than nine years in total”.
He abandoned that commitment ahead of the 2017 snap election, but allegations of bullying by former members of his staff, denied by the Speaker, led to fresh calls for him to quit.
In recent months he also come under fire for a series of controversial Brexit rulings in the chamber which were widely considered to favour Remain supporters.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle – Labour MP Sir Lindsay is the bookies favourite to take over from John Bercow.
He is popular across the House and is currently Deputy Speaker of the Commons.
Sir Lindsay, who has a pet parrot called Boris, also went viral for the weird way he watched the rugby world cup final over the weekend.
Harriet Harman –Mother of the House, Ms Harman is the longest serving female MP in the Commons.
She has represented Camberwell and Peckham since 1982.
Known as a reformer, Ms Harman is also a champion of backbenchers.
Chris Bryant – Labour MP Mr Bryant has pledged to be neutral and increase the power of MPs in the Commons.
He is currently Chairman of the House Finance Committee.
Mr Bryant has represented Rhondda since 2001.
Dame Eleanor Laing – Tory MP Dame Eleanor is currently First Deputy Speaker under Mr Bercow.
She has represented Epping Forest since 1997.
Dame Eleanor presented herself as a candidate that would bring change to the role and said it’s important a woman takes to the chair.
Sir Edward Leigh – Tory MP Sir Edward is an outside for the Speaker’s job.
He has represented Gainsborough, and its predecessor Gainsborough and Horncastle, since 1983.
Sir Edward is currently the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.
The veteran MP said he would “submerge my personality into the office and be “rigidly impartial.”
Dame Rosie Winterton – Labour MP Dame Rosie is one of Bercow’s deputy speakers.
She is also a former Labour minister and was a chief whip in opposition under both Ed Miliband and Jeremy Cobryn.
Meg Hillier – Labour MP Ms Hillier is chair of the public accounts committee – one of the most powerful select committees in Parliament.
She has represented Hackney South and Shoreditch since 2005.
Ms Hillier described the chamber sit-in in October as “one of the most unedifying moments in our parliamentary history to have all that singing, shouting.”
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