1992 Speaker of the British House of Commons election 1992 Speaker of the British House of Commons election The 1992 election of the Speaker of the House of Commons occurred on 27 April 1992, in the first sitting of the House of Commons following the 1992 general election and the retirement of the previous Speaker Bernard Weatherill. The election resulted in the election of Labour MP Betty Boothroyd, one of Weatherill’s deputies, who was the first ever woman to become Speaker. This was at a time when the Conservative Party had a majority in the House of Commons. It was also the first contested election (with more than one
Speaker of the House of Commons (United Kingdom) examine the suggestion. The committee, chaired by former Prime Minister David Lloyd George, reported in April 1939 that no change should be made; it found that preventing opposition to a sitting Speaker would be "a serious infringement of democratic principles" and that "to alter the status of the Speaker so that he ceased to be returned to the House of Commons by the same electoral methods as other members or as a representative of a Parliamentary constituency would be equally repugnant to the custom and tradition of the House". With the outbreak of the Second World War, no general election