Authority and impartiality are identified as the chief characteristics required of a Speaker. Confidence in the impartiality of the Speaker is described in Erskine May as an “indispensable condition of the successful working of procedure”.

Some of the conventions of the House are designed to support the Speaker’s impartiality. The Speaker:

• takes no part in debate;

• votes only in the event of a tie; and

• stands in a general election not for his or her party but as the ‘Speaker seeking re-election’.

In some legislatures, including in the UK’s devolved legislatures, the Speaker remains a member of his or her party. However, the establishment of the role of Speaker in the Westminster Parliament pre-dates the development of the modern party system. At Westminster general elections, the convention is that none of the major parties stands a candidate against the Speaker.

Erskine May, the authoritative guide to parliamentary procedure, identifies three key roles and responsibilities that lie with the Speaker:

• Presiding Officer – the Speaker presides over debates and enforces the rules.

• Representative – the Speaker is the spokesperson of the House in its communications with the Crown, the House of Lords, and external authorities outside Parliament.

• Administrative – the Speaker has a range of administrative responsibilities, among the most important of which is chairing the House of Commons Commission.

Of the three roles, the second and third – the representative and administrative – have changed most markedly over the last couple of decades. The Speaker today has far more administrative responsibilities than predecessors before 1979, and the issues with which the Speaker deals, as chair of the House of Commons Commission (such as human resources, finance, freedom of information, communications, security, and conservation of the Palace of Westminster) are all more complex and demanding than was the case even a decade ago. The public engagement and outreach aspects of the representative role have also grown, although each Speaker can decide the extent to which he or she wishes to focus on this aspect of the job.

The Speaker is responsible for ensuring orderly conduct in the Chamber, in respect of both the behaviour of Members and the exercise of business. The Speaker’s responsibilities and powers include (but are not limited to):

• ‘naming’, suspending, or requiring an offending Member to withdraw from the precincts of the House for a specified period because of disorderly conduct;

• suspending or adjourning a sitting because of persistent disorderly conduct;

• ordering a Member to stop speaking or to reduce the length of his or her speech;

• selecting amendments to motions and bills for debate and potential decision;

• deciding whether to accept applications for emergency debates (under Standing Order No. 24) and Urgent Questions (under Standing Order No. 21(2));

• determining whether bills, Statutory Instruments and some motions should be subject to the English Votes for English Laws (EVEL) provisions set out in Standing Orders;

• certifying Money Bills as such;

• ruling on Points of Order;

• determining whether closure motions, particularly on Private Members’ Bill (PMB) Friday sittings, should be permitted;

• restricting debate by accepting the motion that ‘the Question be now put’, which forces the House to make a decision on the matter in hand;

• preventing an obstruction in the House’s proceedings – for example, by refusing to propose the question if a motion or amendment is deemed irregular; and

• giving notice for the recall of Parliament if ministers make such a request and the Speaker is satisfied that the public interest requires it.

As the spokesperson of the House in its communications with the Crown, the House of Lords, and external authorities outside Parliament, the Speaker’s responsibilities and powers include (but are not limited to):

• when summoned, attending the Queen in the House of Lords; presenting an Address on behalf of the House to the Queen on ceremonial occasions; conveying written messages from the Queen to MPs; and petitioning the Queen for the continuance of the Commons' privileges;

• conveying resolutions of the House or other messages of thanks, condolence, sympathy, censure, or reprimand to whomever the House may direct them, and conversely communicating the receipt of such messages by the House of Commons from, for example, foreign legislatures;

• issuing warrants to the Clerk of the Crown to produce the writs for the election of new Members;

• presenting Bills of Aids and Supplies for Royal Assent;

• assessing whether bills and amendments brought from the Lords infringe the financial privilege of the Commons;

• certifying bills under the Parliament Act 1911;

• discussing with the government procedural matters of concern to Members;

• issuing warrants to execute the orders of the House and give effect to legal sanctions and communicating messages to the House in relation to the arrest or imprisonment of a Member;

• representing the House, as an institution, in a wide range of public forums to promote knowledge and understanding of the House and its work.

The Speaker has a range of administrative responsibilities, some of which are set out in statute. Some of the non-statutory responsibilities are delegated, in practice, to the Clerk of the House and other officials. The Speaker’s administrative responsibilities and powers include (but are not limited to):

• a statutory responsibility to chair the House of Commons Commission under the House of Commons (Administration) Act 1978, as amended by the House of Commons Commission Act 2015. The House of Commons Commission is the body tasked with responsibility for the administration and services of the House of Commons;

• appointing the Panel of Chairs to preside over general debates;

• chairing the four permanent Boundary Commissions;

• chairing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission;

• chairing the Speaker’s Committee on the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA);

• issuing exemption certificates under the Freedom of Information Act 2000;

• overseeing the accuracy of the Votes and Proceedings (via the Clerk of the House) and of the Official Report of Debates (via the Editor of Hansard);

• convening and chairing Speaker’s Conferences at the request of the government to consider important matters, often pertaining to matters related to parliamentary elections and electoral law, on a cross-party basis.

The House of Commons has three Deputy Speakers, who chair debates in the Chamber when the Speaker is not present.

One Deputy Speaker is also the Chairman of Ways and Means. This means that he or she normally chairs debates in the Chamber on financial matters. He or she also has further responsibilities – in connection with legislative committees, private bills and Westminster Hall sittings – and in particular, he or she normally chairs any Committee of the whole House.

The two further Deputy Speakers are also the First and Second Deputy Chairmen of Ways and Means.

Under Standing Order No. 2A, the Chairman of Ways and Means and the Second Deputy Chairman should come from the opposite side of the House to the Speaker. The First Deputy Chairman should be from the same side of the House as the Speaker (under Speaker Hoyle, this is Labour).

The Standing Order also prescribes that among the Speaker and the three Deputy Speakers there should be at least one man and one woman.

Unlike the Speaker, the three Deputy Speakers do not resign from their party.

All three Deputy Speakers are elected at the start of a new Parliament. The process for the Deputy Speakers' election is set out in Standing Order No. 2A. The Speaker presides over the election. Until Deputy Speakers are elected, the Speaker nominates up to three MPs to serve temporarily in the role.

The Speaker normally announces the date for the Deputy Speakers’ election around the time of the Queen’s Speech. In recent years, the election has been held between four and six sitting days after the Queen's Speech, meaning around a week to 10 days in calendar terms.

Candidates must first be nominated, by at least six and no more than 10 MPs.

Under the default timings set out in Standing Orders, nominations are submitted between 10am and 5pm on the day before the election, and the election takes place between 11am and 12 noon.

The election takes place by secret ballot, using the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system.

If a single Deputy Speaker were required to be elected during a Parliament, the same arrangements would be followed but with candidates restricted to MPs coming from the required side of the House.

Hansard Society Procedural Guide, The role and powers of the Speaker of the House of Commons, [Available at: https://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/publications/guides/the-role-and-powers-of-the-speaker-of-the-house-of-commons]