British MPs Elect Sir Lindsay Hoyle As New Speaker Of The House Of Commons
Sir Lindsay Hoyle was confirmed as the new Commons Speaker, succeeding John Bercow.
Hoyle won the election after four rounds of voting eliminated the other six candidates.
The new Speaker after elected used the medium to pay tribute to his daughter.
Here’s a little more from Hoyle’s moving tribute to his daughter, delivered from the Speaker’s chair in the Commons chamber. He told MPs:
“There is one person who’s not here: My daughter, Natalie. I wish she’d have been here, we all miss her as a family; no more so than her mum. I’ve got to say, she was everything to all of us. She will always be missed but she will always be in our thoughts.”
The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, in his congratulatory message enjoined the Speaker to be impartial in delivering his judgement.
“Mr Speaker, in congratulating you on your election I observe that you have prevailed over an extremely strong field and that every other candidate earlier on spoke forcibly and well.
“Speaking for myself, after long, happy years of dealing with you, I think I know what it is. And let me say, whenever any of us is preparing to speak in this chamber, we all know there is a moment between standing up and when the Speaker calls you when your heart is in your mouth.
“And, in that moment of anxiety about whether you’re going to make a fool of yourself and so on and indeed at the moment when we sit down amid deafening silence, the kindliness of the Speaker is absolutely critical to our confidence and the way we behave.
“And, Mr Speaker, over the years I have observed that you have many good qualities and I’m sure you will stick up for backbenchers in the way that you have proposed and I’m sure that you will adhere to a strict Newtonian concept of time in PMQs.
“But I believe you will also bring your signature kindness, kindness and reasonableness to our proceedings, and thereby to help to bring us together as a Parliament and a democracy.
“Because, no matter how fiercely we may disagree, we know that every member comes to this place with the best of motives, determined to solve, to serve the oldest parliamentary democracy in the world.
“And, to achieve our goals by the peaceable arts of reason and debate invigilated by an impartial Speaker, which was and remains one of our greatest gifts to the world. Thank you Mr Speaker, and congratulations.
Meanwhile Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said Hoyle would “stand up for the principle” of parliamentary democracy”. He added:
“The job of Speaker is not just a ceremonial one. It is about the rights of backbenchers to be able to speak up. It is about the power of parliament to hold the government to account.
“That is the whole principle and point of a parliamentary democracy; that we have a strong parliament that can hold the executive to account. And I know you will stand up for that principle because that is what you believe in.
