Father of the House (United Kingdom)

Father of the House
Incumbent Sir Peter Bottomley since 13 December 2019
House of Commons of the United Kingdom
Member of	House of Commons
Seat	Westminster
First holder	William Wither Bramston Beach circa. 1899

The father of the House is a title that is bestowed on the senior member of the House of Commons who has the longest continuous service. If two or more members have the same length of current uninterrupted service, then whoever was sworn in earliest, as listed in Hansard, is named as Father of the House.^[1]

The only formal duty of the father of the House is to preside over the election of the speaker of the House of Commons. However, the relevant Standing Order does not refer to this member by the title of "Father of the House", but instead to the longest-serving member of the House present who is not a minister of the Crown. Until 1971, the clerk of the House of Commons presided over the election of the Speaker. As the clerk is never a member, and therefore is not permitted to speak, he would silently stand and point at the Member who was to speak. However, this procedure broke down at the election of a new Speaker in 1971 and was changed upon the recommendation of a select committee.^{[2][failed verification]}

Since the 2019 general election, Sir Peter Bottomley, who has been an MP continuously since 1975, has been Father of the House. His grandmother's cousin Robin Turton was also Father. The previous Father was Kenneth Clarke^[3] who became Father in 2017 after the death of Sir Gerald Kaufman. Both Kaufman and Clarke began their continuous service at the 1970 general election, but Kaufman was sworn in ahead of Clarke.^[4][5][1] Dennis Skinner also began continuous service at the 1970 general election, but was sworn in after Clarke. Clarke declined to seek re-election in 2019 and retired from the Commons. Skinner contested the 2019 election, so would have succeeded Clarke as Father, but was defeated.