2 Current arrangements for appointing
the Deputy Speakers
Standing Orders
4. Standing Order No. 2 provides that:
At the commencement of every Parliament, or from
time to time, as necessity may arise, the House may appoint two
Deputy Chairmen of Ways and Means, who shall be known respectively
as the First and the Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means,
and who shall be entitled to exercise all the powers vested in
the Chairman of Ways and Means, including his powers as Deputy
Speaker.
5. The Chairman of Ways and Means himself was
formerly appointed by Leader of the House or a Minister of the
Crown when the House first resolved itself into a Committee of
Supply following the meeting of each new Parliament. If the appointment
was disputed, the House itself then had to decide the matter.
Early in the 20th Century it became the practice for the House,
rather then the Committee of Supply, to make the appointment but
no Standing Order was adopted for this purpose.
Procedure
6. Under the present system the House appoints
a Deputy Speaker by agreeing to a motion moved, without notice,
by a member of the Government (since 1979 this has been the Leader
of the House). At the start of a Parliament, the motion may first
be made on the day of the Queen's Speech, immediately before the
opening of the debate on the Loyal Address. The lack of an Order
Paper on that day means that it would be impractical for notice
to be given formally even if this was thought desirable.
7. Where vacancies occur in the middle of a Session,
the motion to appoint a new Deputy is again made without notice
and may occur on any day. The last time this occurred was in 2000
when Mrs Sylvia Heal MP was nominated as First Deputy Speaker
on 2 November to replace Michael Martin MP after his election
as Speaker three weeks earlier.
8. In each case the motion is amendable and can
be subject to a division. The last time the House divided upon
such a motion was in January 1962, although in 1968-69 opposition
was expressed to a motion to appoint a former Government Whip
to a Deputy Speakership.
Nominations
9. The name put to the House for each post is
the result of consultation between the usual channels, having
regard to the conventions that the Speaker's team should show
a balance between Government and Opposition benches, that the
team should reflect the gender balance within the House, that
the candidate is likely to be acceptable to the House as a whole
and that the Speaker has no objection to him or her. These conventions
were codified and endorsed by our predecessor Committee in 2002
which drew particular attention to the last of them because of
the perceived requirement for the three Deputy Speakers to "work
as a close-knit team with the Speaker of the day"[2]
and for the Speaker to "have every confidence in their abilities,
their judgment and their capacity to command respect across the
House".[3] For this
reason, the Committee supported the existing practice that the
Speaker should be allowed "some informal say in the composition
of the team of deputies", if necessary being free to invite
party managers to think again.[4]
10. Of the 34 Members who have served as Deputy
Speakers since 1945, 20 had previously served on the Chairmen's
Panel. The Procedure Committee in 2002 considered that "service
on the Chairmen's Panel provides the best training in the skills
needed to take the Chair of the House as Deputy Speaker, as well
as affording an opportunity for other Members to assess the extent
to which individual candidates for a Deputy Speakership have mastered
those skills."[5]
The Committee therefore recommended that "when a vacancy
arises for a Deputy Speaker, first consideration should be given
to senior members of the Chairmen's Panel who are willing to serve."[6]
11. Once elected the Deputy Speakers usually
remain in office until the end of the Parliament unless their
post becomes vacant through death, resignation or elevation to
the role of Speaker. Although by convention the panel should demonstrate
a party balance (see above), there is no precedent for any Deputy
to stand down to ensure the restoration of that balance following
the election of a new Speaker. The 2002 Procedure Committee, whilst
strongly endorsing the principle of balance, considered that in
the circumstances where the House chose a Speaker from one party
at a time when two of the three sitting Deputy Speakers were also
members of that party, "it would be unfair to expect a Deputy
Speaker to resign merely to re-balance the team".[7]
2 House of Commons Procedure Committee, Second Report
of Session 2001-02, Appointment of Deputy Speakers, HC
770, para 22 Back
3
Ibid, para 23 Back
4
Ibid, para 24 Back
5
Ibid, para 20 Back
6
Ibid, para 20 Back
7
Ibid, para 29. Back
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