Lord McFall of Alcuith has been elected Lord Speaker

 _.Lord McFall of Alcuith, PC, a Labour life peer, has been elected Speaker of the House of Lords succeeding Lord Fowler, who retires on 1 May, 2021.

John Francis McFall, Baron McFall of Alcluith PC (born 4 October 1944) is a British politician, who currently serves as the Senior Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords. He was previously a Labour Co-operative Member of Parliament from 1987 to 2010, first for Dumbarton and then from 2005 for West Dunbartonshire. He also served as Chairman of the House of Commons Treasury Committee.

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 of the House of Lords and is expected to be politically impartial.

Until July 2006, the role of presiding officer in the House of Lords was undertaken by the Lord Chancellor. Under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, the position of the Speaker of the House of Lords (as it is termed in the Act) became a separate office, allowing the position to be held by someone other than the Lord Chancellor. The Lord Chancellor continued to act as speaker of the House of Lords in an interim period after the Act was passed while the House of Lords considered new arrangements about its speakership.

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