1.
House of Commons of the United Kingdom
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The House of Commons of the United Kingdom is the lower house of the countrys parliament. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster, officially, the full name of the house is, The Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled. The House is a body consisting of 650 members known as Members of Parliament. Members are elected to represent constituencies by first-past-the-post and hold their seats until Parliament is dissolved, under the Parliament Act 1911, the Lords power to reject legislation was reduced to a delaying power. The Government is primarily responsible to the House of Commons and the prime minister stays in office only as long as he or she retains the support of a majority of its members. Although it does not formally elect the prime minister, the position of the parties in the House of Commons is of overriding importance, by convention, the prime minister is answerable to, and must maintain the support of, the House of Commons. Since 1963, by convention, the minister is always a member of the House of Commons. The Commons may indicate its lack of support for the Government by rejecting a motion of confidence or by passing a motion of no confidence, confidence and no confidence motions are sometimes phrased explicitly, for instance, That this House has no confidence in Her Majestys Government. Many other motions were considered confidence issues, even though not explicitly phrased as such, in particular, important bills that form a part of the Governments agenda were formerly considered matters of confidence, as is the annual Budget. Parliament normally sits for a term of five years. Subject to that limit, the minister could formerly choose the timing of the dissolution of parliament. By this second mechanism, the government of the United Kingdom can change without a general election. In such circumstances there may not even have been a party leadership election, as the new leader may be chosen by acclaim. A prime minister may resign if he or she is not defeated at the polls. In such a case, the premiership goes to whoever can command a majority in the House of Commons, in practice this is usually the new leader of the outgoing prime ministers party. Until 1965, the Conservative Party had no mechanism for electing a new leader, when Anthony Eden resigned as PM in 1957 without recommending a successor and it fell to the Queen to appoint Harold Macmillan as the new prime minister, after taking the advice of ministers. By convention, all ministers must be members of the House of Commons or of the House of Lords, a handful have been appointed who were outside Parliament, but in most cases they then entered Parliament either in a by-election or by receiving a peerage. Since 1902, all ministers have been members of the Commons
2.
Speaker of the House of Commons (United Kingdom)
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The Speaker of the House of Commons is the presiding officer of the House of Commons, the United Kingdoms lower chamber of Parliament. The office is held by John Bercow, who was initially elected on 22 June 2009. He was returned as an MP in the 2010 general election and was re-elected as Speaker when the House sat at the start of the new Parliament on 18 May 2010. He was again returned as an MP in the 2015 general election and was re-elected, unopposed, the Speaker presides over the Houses debates, determining which members may speak. The Speaker is also responsible for maintaining order during debate, the Speaker does not take part in debate or vote. Aside from duties relating to presiding over the House, the Speaker also performs administrative and procedural functions, the Speaker has the right and obligation to reside in Speakers House at the Palace of Westminster. The office of Speaker is almost as old as Parliament itself, the earliest year for which a presiding officer has been identified is 1258, when Peter de Montfort presided over the Parliament held in Oxford. Early presiding officers were known by the title parlour or prolocutor, Edward III was frail and in seclusion, his prestigious eldest son, Edward the Black Prince, terminally ill. It was left to the son, a furious John of Gaunt. He arrested De la Mare and disgraced other leading critics, in the next, Bad Parliament, in 1377, a cowed Commons put forward Gaunts steward, Thomas Hungerford, as their spokesman in retracting their predecessors misdoings of the previous year. On 6 October 1399, Sir John Cheyne of Beckford was elected speaker, the powerful Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Arundel, is said to have voiced his fears of Cheynes reputation as a critic of the Church. Eight days later, Cheyne resigned on grounds of ill-health, although he remained in favour with the king, in such a situation, the influence of the speaker should not be underestimated. Sir Thomas More was the first speaker to go on to become Lord Chancellor, until the 17th century, members of the House of Commons often continued to view their Speaker as an agent of the Crown. As Parliament evolved, however, the Speakers position grew into one that involved more duties to the House than to the Crown, such was definitely the case by the time of the English Civil War. This change is said to be reflected by an incident in 1642. The development of Cabinet government under King William III in the late 17th century caused further change in the nature of the Speakership, Speakers were generally associated with the ministry, and often held other government offices. For example, Robert Harley served simultaneously as Speaker and as a Secretary of State between 1704 and 1705, the Speaker between 1728 and 1761, Arthur Onslow, reduced ties with the government, though the office did remain to a large degree political. The Speakership evolved into its modern form—in which the holder is an impartial and apolitical officer who does not belong to any party—only during the middle of the 19th century, over 150 individuals have served as Speaker of the House of Commons
3.
John Bercow
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John Simon Bercow is a British politician who has been the Speaker of the House of Commons since June 2009. Prior to his election to Speaker, he was a member of the Conservative Party and he served as a councillor from 1986 to 1990 and unsuccessfully contested parliamentary seats in the 1987 and 1992 general elections. In the 1997 general election, Bercow was elected the MP for Buckingham and he held posts in the shadow cabinets of Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard. In November 2002, he resigned from the cabinet over disputes concerning the Adoption and Children Act. In September 2004, Bercow was sacked after disagreements with Howard, following the resignation of Speaker Michael Martin, Bercow announced his intention to stand for the Speakership election on 22 June 2009 and was successful. He remained Speaker and was re-elected in his constituency at the election on 7 May 2015. He was re-elected as Speaker, unopposed, when the House sat at the start of the new parliament on 18 May 2015, in 2014 Bercow was appointed Chancellor of the University of Bedfordshire. Bercow was born to an English Jewish family in Edgware, London and his paternal grandparents were Jews from Romania who arrived in England a century ago. The son of a driver, Bercow attended Frith Manor Primary School in Woodside Park, and Finchley Manorhill. In his youth, Bercow had been ranked Britains No.1 junior tennis player, Bercow graduated with a first-class honours degree in government from the University of Essex in 1985. Professor Anthony King said When he was a student here, he was very right-wing, pretty stroppy, as a young activist, Bercow was a member of the right-wing Conservative Monday Club, becoming secretary of its immigration and repatriation committee. However, at the age of 20 he left the club, in 1981, Bercow had stood as a candidate for the national executive of the Monday Club and called for a programme of assisted repatriation of immigrants. He has since then called his participation in the club utter madness, after graduating from the University of Essex, Bercow was elected as the last national chairman of the Federation of Conservative Students, 1986–87. After a spell in merchant banking, Bercow joined the lobbying firm Rowland Sallingbury Casey in 1988, with fellow Conservative Julian Lewis, Bercow ran an advanced speaking and campaigning course for over 10 years, which trained over 600 Conservatives in campaigning and communication techniques. He has also lectured in the United States to students of the Leadership Institute, in 1986, Bercow was elected as a Conservative councillor in the London Borough of Lambeth, and served for four years. In 1987, he was appointed the youngest deputy leader in the United Kingdom. In 1995, Bercow was appointed as an adviser to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. After Aitkens resignation to fight an action, Bercow served as a special adviser to the Secretary of State for National Heritage
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Alan Haselhurst
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He was Chairman of Ways and Means from 14 May 1997 to 8 June 2010, and later Chairman of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association between 2011-14. He is currently the oldest Conservative MP and he was elected President of the Oxford University Conservative Association in 1958 and, for two years, served as Secretary and Treasurer of the Oxford Union from 1959. Before his election to Parliament, he worked in management in the chemicals industry and he was the Chairman of the Manchester Youth and Community Service from 1974 until being returned to Parliament. Haselhurst worked as an agent for Robin Balniel, Conservative MP for Hertford. Being elected in 1964, he served for two years as the Chairman of the National Young Conservatives. He was elected to the House of Commons at the 1970 general election for the Lancashire seat of Middleton and Prestwich, however, Haselhurst lost the seat at the next February 1974 general election to Labour by just 517 votes. The Conservative MP for the Essex seat of Saffron Walden, Sir Peter Kirk, died on 17 April 1977, Haselhurst won the seat with a majority of 12,437 and has been returned as the constituencys MP ever since. He served on the European Legislation Select Committee for fifteen years from 1982 and he was invited to ask the first question in Margaret Thatchers final Prime Ministers Questions on 27 November 1990. Following the 1997 general election, he was elected Chairman of Ways and Means, remaining in that post under successive Speakers Betty Boothroyd, Michael Martin, Haselhurst was a contender to succeed Michael Martin after Martins resignation as Commons Speaker on 19 May 2009. Haselhurst was opposed to Brexit prior to the 2016 referendum and he was elected Chairman of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Associations Executive committee, serving until October 2014, overseeing parliamentary procedure throughout the Commonwealth. Alan Haselhurst married Angela Margaret Bailey on 16 April 1977, and he is a very vocal supporter of community-based projects and was for a time a Director of Turning Point, a charity working with socially excluded young people, for five years from 1981. A noted Europhile, he is regarded as a one-nation Conservative and he was knighted in 1995 and sworn of the Privy Council in 1999. Saffron Walden Profile, dodonline. co. uk, accessed 21 October 2015
5.
Chorley (UK Parliament constituency)
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Chorley is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 1997 by Lindsay Hoyle of the Labour Party. 1885–1918, The Sessional Division of Leyland Hundred, and part of the Sessional Division of Leyland, 1950–1983, The Municipal Borough of Chorley, the Urban Districts of Adlington and Leyland, and the Rural District of Chorley. 1983–1997, The Borough of Chorley, and the District of West Lancashire wards of Parbold, Chorley constituency consists of the majority of the borough of Chorley. As well as the market town of Chorley itself, the seat extends into southern Lancashire rural hinterland with three major villages and minor villages. Chorleys expansion is assured with the building of Buckshaw Village, an urban development sprawling over the former Royal Ordnance Site east of Leyland in the seat. Chorley constituency was one of the largest in electorate at the start of the review and these changes took away from the seat all the areas to the west of the M6 motorway, namely Croston, Eccleston, Bretherton and Mawdesley. Since the 1945 general election Chorley has proved to be a bellwether, Chorley itself is Labours strongest area in the seat, with the rural hinterland and smaller towns and villages more inclined to vote Conservative. The Member of Parliament for the seat since 1997, Lindsay Hoyle of the Labour Party, is a Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons, endorsed by Coalition Government General Election 1914/15, Another General Election was required to take place before the end of 1915
