New lord speaker elected
Baroness Hayman has today been elected as the first speaker of the House of Lords.
The life peer, a former Labour leader of the House of Lords, beat off competition from eight other peers for the £101,000-a-year role.
The role of lord speaker was created following reform of the post of lord chancellor, who until now was responsible for overseeing debates.
Unlike the lord chancellor, the lord speaker will also chair the committee of the whole house – where all peers discuss a bill together – but she will not have the power to call the House to order or decide who can speak, like her counterpart in the Commons.
“Nobody could take up the position that I have taken up today without a sense of honour and without a sense of history,” Baroness Hayman told the House of Lords in her first speech on taking up the position.
She said she felt a great sense of responsibility and “would do my upmost” to live up to it.
Relinquishing his position on the Woolsack, Lord Falconer of Thoroton said serving the house had been the “greatest privilege”.
He expressed sadness at the passing of the position of lord chancellor, but added: “We change with the times. These changes carry with them the seeds of our future.”
Members of the House lined up to pay tribute to Baroness Hayman, who also chairs the Human Tissue Authority.
Baroness Amos, the Labour leader in the House of Lords said: “I have known and worked with my noble friend for many years. She has enormous respect for this house and its traditions.”
Conservative leader in the Lords, Lord Strathclyde, said the post of lord chancellor was “a unique office, a typically British anomaly; one that worked terribly well.”
“Let us hope that led by the noble baroness a line of speakers as long and distinguished as the line of lord chancellors now opens up.”
Lib Dem leader in the House, Lord McNally, said: “I have always seen her as a kind of Julie Andrews figure of British politics. It may be in her new role that she needs some of the skills of a nanny and those of a singing nun.”
He added: “This is a new beginning and we could have no better person to lead us into it.”
Other candidates for the role had included Conservative peers Lord Elton, Baroness Fookes and Lord Viscount Ullswater, Labour peer Lord Richard, cross-bencher The Countess of Mar, life peer Lord Grenfell and Lib Dem Lord Redesdale.
The new speaker will serve a five-year term and can serve no more than two terms.
