Speaker of the British House of Commons election, 2000

Michael Martin was elected Speaker

The 2000 election of the Speaker of the House of Commons occurred on 23 October 2000 after the retirement of Betty Boothroyd as Speaker. The election resulted in the election of Scottish Labour MP Michael Martin. It was the first contested election since 27 April 1992.

Candidates

Nominated candidates

Alan Beith

Gwyneth Dunwoody

Sir Alan Haselhurst

Nicholas Winterton

Menzies Campbell

Richard Shepherd

• Michael Martin (Labour), nominated by Peter Snape and seconded by Ann Keen
• Sir Alan Haselhurst (Conservative), nominated by David Winnick and seconded by Peter Brooke
• Alan Beith (Liberal Democrats), nominated by Dafydd Wigley and seconded by Jackie Ballard
• Gwyneth Dunwoody (Labour), nominated by David Davis and seconded by Marjorie Mowlam
• Sir George Young (Conservative), nominated by John MacGregor and seconded by Helen Jackson
• Menzies Campbell (Liberal Democrats), nominated by Martin O'Neill and seconded by Derek Wyatt
• David Clark (Labour), nominated by John Maxton and seconded by Joan Ruddock
• Nicholas Winterton (Conservative), nominated by John Wilkinson and seconded by Stephen Pound
• John McWilliam (Labour), nominated by Jamie Cann and seconded by Helen Brinton
• Michael Lord (Conservative), nominated by Tom King and seconded by Andrew Reed
• Sir Patrick Cormack (Conservative), nominated by Gillian Shephard and seconded by Tam Dalyell
• Richard Shepherd (Conservative), nominated by Martin Bell and seconded by Tony Wright

Candidate who withdrew

• John Butterfill (Conservative)

Election

This was the last Speaker election to be conducted by means of a conventional parliamentary motion with recorded votes on an amendment for each candidate. With an unusually large number of candidates, a significant number of MPs spoke in favour of switching to a less time-consuming procedure, but Sir Edward Heath, who was presiding in his capacity as Father of the House, declined to allow a vote on this issue.

The repeated ballots took nearly six hours. Each candidate gave their own speech of submission to the will of the House, having each been nominated and seconded by Members in separate speeches. Martin was the front runner going into the ballot and was never in any danger of losing during the election, winning every ballot by at least 76 votes.^[1]

As a result of this election, the rules for electing a Speaker were changed the following year to a use a secret and exhaustive ballot. This procedure was first used in the Speaker election of 2009.

Results

Once all Martin's opponents had been eliminated from the contest, the original motion that he be elected Speaker was met with some audible opposition. A division was therefore held, but the motion was approved by 370 votes to 8. Martin was thus conducted to the Chair by the MPs who had nominated and seconded him, Peter Snape and Ann Keen respectively.

See also

• Speaker of the British House of Commons election, 2009
• Speaker of the British House of Commons election, 1992
• Speaker of the British House of Commons election, 1971
• Speaker of the British House of Commons election, 1951
• Speaker of the British House of Commons election, 1895
• Glasgow North East by-election, 2009

References

1. ↑ http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2000/oct/24/speaker2000.politicalnews1

External links

• House of Commons transcript, 23 October 2000

C-Span video featuring part of the election proceedings: http://www.c-span.org/video/?160478-1/election-speaker