Betty Boothroyd

The Right Honourable The Baroness Boothroyd OM PC
Speaker of the House of Commons
In office 27 April 1992 – 23 October 2000
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Preceded by	Bernard Weatherill
Succeeded by	Michael Martin
Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means
In office 11 June 1987 – 27 April 1992
Speaker	Bernard Weatherill
Preceded by	Paul Dean
Succeeded by	Janet Fookes
Member of Parliament for West Bromwich West
In office 28 February 1974 – 23 October 2000
Preceded by	Constituency created
Succeeded by	Adrian Bailey
Member of Parliament for West Bromwich
In office 24 May 1973 – 28 February 1974
Preceded by	Maurice Foley
Succeeded by	Constituency abolished
Personal details
Born	8 October 1929 Dewsbury, Yorkshire, England
Nationality	British
Political party	Crossbencher 2001 onwards
Other political affiliations	None 1992 – 2000 Labour 1973 – 1992

Betty Boothroyd, Baroness Boothroyd OM PC (born 8 October 1929) is a British politician, who served as a Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for West Bromwich and West Bromwich West from 1973 to 1992. From 1992 to 2000, she served as Speaker of the House of Commons. She was the first, and to date only, female Speaker. She currently sits as a Crossbench peer in the House of Lords.

Early life

Boothroyd was born in Dewsbury, Yorkshire, in 1929, the only child of Ben Archibald Boothroyd (1886-1948) and his second wife Mary, née Butterfield (1901-1982), both textile workers. She was educated at council schools and went on to study at Dewsbury College of Commerce and Art. In the 1940s, she worked as a dancer, as a member of the Tiller Girls dancing troupe.^[1]

During the late 1950s, she worked as secretary to Labour MPs Barbara Castle^[2] and Geoffrey de Freitas.^[3] In 1960, she travelled to the United States to see the Kennedy campaign. She subsequently began work in Washington as a legislative assistant for an American Congressman, Silvio Conte, between 1960 and 1962. When she returned to London she continued her work as secretary and political assistant to various senior Labour politicians such as Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Harry Walston.^[4] In 1965, she was elected to a seat on Hammersmith Borough Council, in Gibbs Green ward, where she remained until 1968.

Member of Parliament

Running for the Labour Party, she contested several seats – Leicester South East in 1957, Peterborough in 1959, Nelson and Colne in 1968, and Rossendale in 1970 – before being elected Member of Parliament (MP) for West Bromwich in a by-election in 1973.

Boothroyd's career then flourished. In 1974, she was appointed an assistant Government Whip and she was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 1975–1977. In 1979, she became a member of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, until 1981, and of the Speaker's Panel of Chairmen, until 1987. She was also a member of the Labour Party National Executive Committee (NEC) from 1981–87 and the House of Commons Commission from 1983–87.

Deputy Speaker and Speaker

She became a Deputy Speaker in 1987. In 1992 she was elected Speaker, being the first woman ever to hold the position. There was some debate as to whether or not Boothroyd should wear the traditional Speaker's wig upon her election. She chose not to but also stated that any subsequent Speakers would be free to choose to wear the wig.^[5] In 1993, the Government won a vote on the Social Chapter of the Maastricht Treaty due to her casting vote (exercised in accordance with Speaker Denison's rule). However, it was subsequently discovered that her casting vote was not required, as the votes had been miscounted and the Government had won by one vote. She was keen to get young people interested in politics, and in the 1990s even made an appearance as a special guest on the BBC's Saturday morning children's programme Live & Kicking.

On 12 July 2000, she announced in a statement to the House of Commons that she would resign as Speaker after the summer recess. Both former Prime Ministers Tony Blair and John Major described her as an "outstanding Speaker".^[6] Blair added that she was "something of a national institution".^[6] She resigned as Speaker and as an MP (by the device of the Chiltern Hundreds) on 23 October 2000.

Life Peerage and recent activity

Boothroyd was chancellor of the Open University from 1994 until October 2006 and has donated some of her personal papers to the University's archives. She is an Honorary Fellow of St Hugh's College, Oxford. In March 1995, she was awarded an Honorary Degree from the Open University as Doctor of the University. Boothroyd has also been given an Award of Doctor of Civil Law honoris causa by City University London (1993).

On 15 January 2001, she was created a life peer, taking as her title Baroness Boothroyd, of Sandwell in the County of West Midlands,^[7] and her autobiography was published in the same year. In April 2005, she was appointed to the Order of Merit, an honour in the personal gift of the Queen.^[8]

Two portraits of Boothroyd are part of the parliamentary art collection.^[9][10]

Boothroyd is a Vice President of the Industry and Parliament Trust and the Patron of the Jo Richardson Community School in Dagenham, East London, England, as well as being President of NBFA Assisting the Elderly.

Boothroyd in January 2011 posited that Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg's plans for some members to the upper house to be directly elected could leave Britain in constitutional disarray: "It is wantonly destructive. It is destruction that hasn’t been thought through properly". Boothroyd said she was concerned that an elected Lords would rival the Commons, risking power-struggles between the two.^[11]

Personal life

Never married and without children, Boothroyd has remained physically active, taking up paragliding while on holiday in Cyprus in her 60s. She has described the hobby as both "lovely and peaceful" and "exhilarating". She has long held an interest in lighting and became an Honorary Fellow of the Society of Light & Lighting (SLL) in 2009.

Footnotes

1. "Betty Boothroyd: To Parliament and beyond". BBC Online. 24 October 2001. Retrieved 21 January 2009.
2. "Baroness Boothroyd". UK Parliament Website. Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Retrieved 19 February 2016.
3. Political Correspondent (9 November 1957). "Sir Victor Raikes Resigns Seat". The Times.
4. "Betty Boothroyd Autobiography Paperback – 3 Oct 2002 (synopsis)". Amazon.co.uk. Amazon. Retrieved 19 February 2016.
5. BBC Parliament coverage of the election of the Speaker of the House of Commons, 22 June 2009;
6. "Boothroyd praised as 'national institution'". BBC News. 12 July 2000. Retrieved 19 November 2013.
7. The London Gazette: no. 56095. p. 719. 19 January 2001.
8. The London Gazette: no. 57645. p. 6631. 20 May 2005.
9. Art in Parliament: THE RT. HON BETTY BOOTHROYD CHOSEN SPEAKER IN THE YEAR 1992; parliament.uk; accessed 21 March 2014.
10. Art in Parliament: Baroness Boothroyd
11. Betty Boothroyd attacks Nick Clegg's 'destructive' Lords reform

See also

• Speaker of the British House of Commons election, 1992

References

• Betty Boothroyd: The Autobiography. Publisher: Century (4 Oct 2001). ISBN 0-7126-7948-0

External links

• Archives Hub – Papers of Betty Boothroyd (Biography)
• Brief biography by BBC News, October 2000
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Betty Boothroyd

Offices held