On Tuesday the Commons will resume following the general election. Here is a brief guide to what will happen over the rest of the week – and a few new MPs to look out for.
Re-election of the Speaker
Lindsay Hoyle was chosen as Speaker in November to replace John Bercow, in a secret ballot in which he saw off six other candidates. The Speaker is also re-elected following every general election, although this is usually a formality.
After parliament begins at 2.30pm on Tuesday the father (or mother) of the house – the title given to the longest-serving MP – takes the chair of the clerk of the Commons to oversee the re-election. With Ken Clarke having stepped down and Dennis Skinner having lost his seat, the role will be taken by the Tory MP Peter Bottomley, first elected in 1975. Hoyle will be asked whether he wants to remain as Speaker, and then MPs will vote on a motion approving this.
Lindsay Hoyle was born in Adlington, Lancashire, in 1957. The son of the former Labour MP Doug Hoyle, before entering politics he ran his own textile and screen printing business. Hoyle has been married twice, and had two daughters. One of them, Natalie Lewis-Hoyle, died in 2017 aged 28.
Hoyle was elected Labour MP for Chorley in 1997, and was elevated to deputy speaker of the House of Commons under John Bercow in 2010. He was elected Speaker in November 2019, succeeding Bercow.
As deputy speaker it was his job to chair the government’s budget speeches, and he also was in the chair in 2017 when he ordered the SNP to stop singing the European Union anthem Ode To Joy in the chamber.
As Speaker, Hoyle is obliged to renounce his former political affiliation, and remain strictly neutral. In hustings to take the role as Speaker, Hoyle said parliament needed to crack down on a drink and drugs culture. In his acceptance speech, he said he wanted the British parliament to once again be the envy of the world.
Martin Belam
Swearing in of MPs
Once the Speaker is in his chair, all MPs are sworn in, whether they are new or returning. This will take the rest of Tuesday and all of Wednesday. There is a strict order for swearing in: the father (or mother) of the house, cabinet ministers, shadow cabinet ministers, other privy councillors, other ministers then other MPs in order of how long they have served.
If MPs entered the Commons at the same time, their seniority is decided by when they took their oath – something which can become important many years down the line. Clarke and Skinner both entered the Commons in June 1970, but as Clarke was sworn in earlier he eventually became father of the house.
The oath involves swearing allegiance to the Queen – which is why MPs elected for Sinn Féin, the Northern Irish republican party, do not take their seats. MPs do, however, get a choice of a religious oath or an affirmation, and it can be said in English, Welsh, Gaelic or Cornish.
Queen’s speech
On Thursday, the Queen will be required to don her ceremonial finery for the state opening of parliament – just two months after the last one – and the government will table the Queen’s speech, giving its legislative plans for the parliamentary session.
As well as Brexit-related legislation, the programme is set to include a symbolic bill guaranteeing a certain amount of spending on the NHS.
Who are some new MPs to keep an eye on?
There were 140 new MPs elected last week. Here’s a small selection:
Conservatives
Dehenna Davison: Aged 25, Davison is not the youngest MP – two other newly elected Tories are just 24 – but is a prominent member of the party’s new contingent of northern representatives. She took Bishop Auckland from Labour. The former business analyst stood in the Sedgefield constituency in the 2017 election. Much of the pre-election coverage of Davison centred on her previous brush with reality TV, when she appeared on a programme about relationships with her then fiancé, who was 35 years older than her.
Nicola Richards: One of the youngest MPs, Richards, 24, took the West Bromwich East seat formerly held by Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson, the first time the constituency had changed hands since it was created in 1974. A politics graduate, she has worked for several different MPs and for the mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street, and is a councillor in Dudley.
Imran Ahmad Khan: Taking the Wakefield seat from Mary Creagh, one Labour had held since 1932, he has run businesses in several countries and worked with the UN. Put into the seat after the original candidate, Antony Calvert, was removed over comments about food banks, Khan – who was born in Wakefield – sought to counter the criticism he had been “parachuted” into the seat by literally parachuting into the town.
Kate Griffiths: The new MP for Burton is notable largely due to the circumstances of her selection. She is the estranged wife of Andrew Griffiths, who represented the constituency from 2010 until the election. The pair separated after it emerged he had sent thousands of explicit text messages to two young women in his constituency just weeks after the birth of their daughter. She challenged her husband for the seat, prompting him to step aside. A former corporate hospitality coordinator, she has said she will campaign on behalf of abuse survivors.
Danny Kruger: A more traditional sort of new Tory MP, now installed in the safe seat of Devizes, Kruger – the son of TV chef Prue Leith – is an Eton-educated former adviser to Boris Johnson, and previously to David Cameron, and is very well connected in Tory circles.
Labour
Florence Eshalomi: Replacing Kate Hoey in the ultra-safe south London seat of Vauxhall, Eshalomi is a former councillor and London assembly member, and has worked for charities among others. Having started her working life for a supermarket aged 16 as she took care of her mother, who had sickle cell anaemia, she saw off competition from the Momentum wing of the party to secure the seat.
Ian Byrne: Another new MP who had tough competition to be placed in a safe seat – West Derby in Liverpool, where he now has a near-30,000 majority – Byrne was closely supported by the Labour leadership, speaking alongside Corbyn at a pre-election rally in Manchester. A former printer, he came under pressure after the emergence of sexist and other offensive comments he formerly made on social media. He later apologised for them.
Sam Tarry: Tarry was director of both Corbyn’s leadership campaigns, and is an integral part of the Momentum left wing of the party. Already well known in Labour circles, he won selection for the safe seat of Ilford South, formerly held by Mike Gapes, who defected to the Independent Group for Change.
Liberal Democrats
Daisy Cooper: A newcomer to parliament – she won St Albans after contesting the same seat in 2017 – Cooper is nonetheless a Lib Dem insider, having headed Jo Swinson’s party leadership campaign. In her resignation speech, Swinson highlighted Cooper as an MP to watch. A diehard remainer, Cooper formerly worked for the press regulation campaign Hacked Off, and for the cross-party group More United.
SNP
Kenny MacAskill: A particularly veteran newcomer, the new MP for East Lothian, an SNP gain from Labour, spent 17 years in the Scottish parliament until 2016, and held the Scottish government’s justice brief for seven years. In this role, he approved the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, convicted for the Lockerbie bombing, on compassionate grounds due to terminal illness.
