An election for
Lord Speaker
The Lord Speaker 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 ...
, the presiding officer of the
House of Lords
The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...
, 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.
Election procedure and timetable
Members of the House of Lords who wished to stand for election were required to have a proposer and a seconder. The
alternative vote system
Instant-runoff voting (IRV) is a type of ranked preferential voting method. It uses a majority voting rule in single-winner elections where there are more than two candidates. It is commonly referred to as ranked-choice voting (RCV) in the Un ...
was used in the election and all members who had taken the oath in the current parliament by 25 March 2021 and were not on leave of absence, disqualified or suspended from the House were eligible to stand and to vote. The election was held remotely by postal and online voting.
Timetable is as follows:
*Friday 19 March (12 noon) – Candidate registration and postal voting registration deadline
*Tuesday 23 March – List of candidates published
*Thursday 25 March (2 p.m.) – First virtual hustings event
*Monday 29 March – Ballot papers sent to members requesting a postal vote
*Tuesday 13 April (10 a.m.) – Online voting opened
*Tuesday 13 April (10 a.m.) – Second virtual hustings event
*Thursday 15 April (5 p.m.) – Online voting closed and deadline for postal votes to be returned
*Wednesday 21 April – Results announced and Queen's approval notified
*Thursday 29 April - Old Lord Speaker presiding for the last time (prorogation)
*Saturday 1 May – New Lord Speaker took office
*Tuesday 11 May – New Lord Speaker presiding for the first time (state opening)
Candidates
The following members of the House were registered as candidates:
*
The Lord Alderdice (Liberal Democrat)
*
The Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Labour)
*
The Lord McFall of Alcluith (Non-affiliated)
Result
References
2021 elections in the United Kingdom
April 2021 events in the United Kingdom
House of Lords
Lord Speaker elections
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