The fifty-ninth Parliament of the United Kingdom assembled for the first time today. As usual the first business was the re-election of the Speaker of the House of Commons.
The custom is that proceedings for the election of a speaker are presided over by the member, present in the chamber and not being a minister, with the longest continuous service. As of last week’s general election that member is Sir Edward Leigh, an MP since 1983. His predecessor, Sir Peter Bottomley (MP since 1975) sought re-election but was defeated. Had Leigh also been defeated then the task would have fallen to Jeremy Corbyn of Islington North (formerly Leader of the Labour Party, but now sitting as an independent).
This person also usually has the honorific title “Father of the House”. I say usually because the Father need only be the member with the longest continuous service, and there can be times when that person is also a minister and/or not present in the chamber for the speaker’s election. So far the title has always been Father and never Mother, for no woman has yet achieved this distinction.
In 2015 Harriet Harman declared herself Mother of the House on account of being the female MP with the longest continuous service (since 1982 in her case) and this caught on with a few other senior members (including prime ministers Cameron and May). It is not quite clear why Harman only claimed the status in 2015 given that it was already true a parliament earlier, nor whether this title ought to be applied retroactively all the way to Nancy Astor.
Harman would have been the actual Mother of the House and the member presiding had she been returned at this election, but she chose to retire and ascend to the Lords instead, as did runner-up Dame Margaret Beckett. That left Diane Abbott, MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington since 1987, the most senior female member and the fifth most senior overall. She was called Mother of the House several times during speeches, and given a place of high precedence during the day’s events – i.e. taking the oath before the cabinet ministers did.
Despite the timetable not being as urgent, the fifty-ninth Parliament copied the fifty-eighth in having two royal commissions on the same day, one to actually open the session and the other to give the speaker-elect his approbation. In previous parliaments the approbation commission was deferred to the next day of sitting. As in 2019, the letters patent appointing the Lords commissioners were not read again the second time MPs arrived at the bar.
I noticed that the expedition from the lower house to the upper for the first commission was unusually small, consisting only of Leigh, Abbott and six other members (plus Black Rod and the Clerk of the House of course).
Finally I will note that the coordination of the hat-doffing by the commissioners themselves was frankly woeful. On the first occasion Lords Laming and True forgot to do it at all!
FURTHER READING
Robin Stanley Taylor 