 | |||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||
An election for Lord Speaker, the presiding officer of the House of Lords took place on 13 July 2011, with the result announced five days later. [1] Baroness D'Souza, Convenor of the Crossbench Peers, was elected after the 5th stage of counting. She took office on 5 September 2011.
On 9 May 2011, Baroness Hayman, who became the first Lord Speaker following her election in 2006, announced that she would not seek election to a second term. [2] A list of six candidates was announced on 27 June 2011: [3]
| Election of Lord Speaker, 13 July 2011 [4] | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Count 1 | Count 2 | Count 3 | Count 4 | Count 5 | ||
| Crossbench |  Baroness D'Souza | 186 | 188 | 202 | 240 | 296 | ||
| Conservative | Lord Colwyn | 166 | 167 | 193 | 213 | 285 | ||
| Conservative | Lord Goodlad | 145 | 145 | 150 | 168 | - | ||
| Labour | Lord Desai | 78 | 79 | 92 | - | - | ||
| Liberal Democrats | Baroness Harris of Richmond | 62 | 65 | - | - | - | ||
| Liberal Democrats | Lord Redesdale | 7 | - | - | - | - | ||
| Electorate: 770 Valid: 644 Quota: 323 Turnout: 644 | ||||||||
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest institutions in the world, its origins lie in the early 11th century and the emergence of bicameralism in the 13th century.
A crossbencher is a minor party or independent member of some legislatures, such as the British House of Lords and the Parliament of Australia. They take their name from the crossbenches, between and perpendicular to the government and opposition benches, where crossbenchers sit in the chamber.
Alan James Beith, Baron Beith, is a British Liberal Democrat politician who represented Berwick-upon-Tweed as its Member of Parliament (MP) from 1973 to 2015.
The House of Lords Act 1999 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed the House of Lords, one of the chambers of Parliament. The Act was given Royal Assent on 11 November 1999. For centuries, the House of Lords had included several hundred members who inherited their seats ; the Act removed such a right. However, as part of a compromise, the Act allowed ninety-two hereditary peers to remain in the House. Another ten were created life peers to enable them to remain in the House.
Helene Valerie Hayman, Baroness Hayman, is a British politician who was Lord Speaker of the House of Lords in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. As a member of the Labour Party she was a Member of Parliament from 1974 to 1979. When she became an MP at age 25, she was the youngest MP of the 1974–79 Parliament. Hayman became a life peer in 1996.
Thomas McNally, Baron McNally, PC is a British politician and a former Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords.
The Lord Speaker of the House of Lords is the presiding officer, chairman and highest authority of the House of Lords in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The office is analogous to the Speaker of the House of Commons: the Lord Speaker is elected by the members of the House of Lords and is expected to be politically impartial.
Frances Gertrude Claire D'Souza, Baroness D'Souza, is a British scientist and politician. She held the office of Lord Speaker from 1 September 2011 to 31 August 2016.
The Welsh Liberal Democrats is a liberal, federalist political party in Wales, part of UK Liberal Democrats. The party is led by Jane Dodds, who has served as an MS for Mid and West Wales since May 2021. The party currently has one elected member in the Senedd and one Welsh seat in the UK House of Commons. It also has several members of the House of Lords. The party had 69 local councillors serving in principal authorities as of the 2022 local authority elections, up 10 from 2017.
Nicola Claire Blackwood, Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford is a British politician of the Conservative Party. Baroness Blackwood was a Member of Parliament (MP) for Oxford West and Abingdon from 2010 to 2017. She has also been known by her married name Nicola Blackwood-Bate since 2016.
By-elections to the House of Lords occur when vacancies arise among seats assigned to hereditary peers due to death, resignation, or disqualification. Candidates for these by-elections are limited to holders of hereditary peerages, and their electorates are made up of sitting Lords; in most cases the electorate are those sitting hereditary peers of the same party affiliation as the departed peer.
The first election for Lord Speaker was held on 28 June 2006 after the House of Lords had determined the title, powers and responsibilities of the office following removal of the speakership from the Lord Chancellor by the Constitutional Reform Act 2005.
Susan Mary Hayman, Baroness Hayman of Ullock is a British politician and life peer who has served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs since July 2024. A member of the Labour Party, she was Member of Parliament (MP) for Workington from 2015 to 2019. Hayman served as an Opposition Whip from 2015 to 2016 and Shadow Minister for Flooding and Coastal Communities from 2016 to 2017, then as Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs from 2017 to 2019 and was appointed to the House of Lords in 2020.
An election for Lord Speaker, the presiding officer of the House of Lords, took place on 8 June 2016, with the result announced on 13 June. Incumbent Baroness D'Souza, who was at the end of her first term, announced on 11 February that she would not be standing for re-election.
The election for the 158th Speaker of the House of Commons took place on 4 November 2019. Lindsay Hoyle was elected with 325 votes in the final ballot, out of a total of 540 votes cast.
An election for Lord Speaker, the presiding officer of the House of Lords, was held from 13 to 15 April 2021. The incumbent, Lord Fowler, announced on 25 February that he would resign from the office in late April, about four months before the end of his first term.
Elections of the excepted hereditary peers were held in October and November 1999, before the House of Lords Act 1999 excluded most hereditary peers from the membership of the House of Lords allowing Earl Marshal, Lord Great Chamberlain and 90 others to remain in the House. Before the passing of the 1999 Act, the Lords approved a Standing Order stating that those 90 would consist of:
