Why is there a distinction between the oldest male and oldest female MP but not between the youngest male and youngest female MP?

AY1975 · 15 Mar 2024

Does anyone know why a distinction is made between the oldest male MP and the oldest female MP in the House of Commons but not between the youngest male and the youngest female MP?

The oldest male MP is known as Father of the House, and the oldest female MP is known as Mother of the House, but they don't call the youngest male MP Son of the House and the youngest female MP Daughter of the House. Instead they just call the one youngest MP Baby of the House.

Of course, if they did make that distinction for the youngest male and the youngest female MP, then sooner or later the youngest MP might be a non-binary or transgender person who prefers to use the pronouns they/them rather than he/him or she/her and who doesn't particularly want to identify as either male or female. I'm sure that the tradition of calling the youngest MP Baby of the House has been around for much longer than non-binary or transgender people have been more widely acknowledged and accepted in society, though.

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TUC · 15 Mar 2024

AY1975 said:
Does anyone know why a distinction is made between the oldest male MP and the oldest female MP in the House of Commons but not between the youngest male and the youngest female MP?

The oldest male MP is known as Father of the House, and the oldest female MP is known as Mother of the House, but they don't call the youngest male MP Son of the House and the youngest female MP Daughter of the House. Instead they just call the one youngest MP Baby of the House.

Of course, if they did make that distinction for the youngest male and the youngest female MP, then sooner or later the youngest MP might be a non-binary or transgender person who prefers to use the pronouns they/them rather than he/him or she/her and who doesn't particularly want to identify as either male or female. I'm sure that the tradition of calling the youngest MP Baby of the House has been around for much longer than non-binary or transgender people have been more widely acknowledged and accepted in society, though.

Your overthinking shows why such a proposal is not likely to gain public support.

Mcr Warrior · 15 Mar 2024

AY1975 said:
The oldest male MP is known as Father of the House...

Is that statement actually the case? Thought that the "Father of the House" (of Commons) is the longest continuously serving MP, not necessarily whomever is the oldest, and currently is Sir Peter Bottomley (age 79 and an MP since 1975). Sir Bill Cash, MP, is 83.

edwin_m · 15 Mar 2024

Father/mother of the house is assessed by continuous service as an MP, not by age. According to Wikipedia no female MP has ever been longest serving, but if that happened they would presumably take on the only duty of the role, which is to preside over the election of the Speaker.

Baby of the House has no formal status.

AlterEgo · 15 Mar 2024

TUC said:
Your overthinking shows why such a proposal is not likely to gain public support.

Why would it need public support? They're just names MPs give themselves. The public aren't involved.

Purple Train · 15 Mar 2024

edwin_m said:
Father/mother of the house is assessed by continuous service as an MP, not by age. According to Wikipedia no female MP has ever been longest serving, but if that happened they would presumably take on the only duty of the role, which is to preside over the election of the Speaker.

Baby of the House has no formal status.

To (pedantically) add to this: Harriet Harman has been called the Mother of the House, but, as with Baby of the House, it is an informal term.

To put it another way, for official purposes, only the longest-continuously-serving MP has a role: currently they are called the Father, if a woman were to take on that mantle, they would be called the Mother. I don't particularly see a reason why the "Mother of the House" term is in use, as it is simply "longest-continuously-serving Member of the House who is of the opposite sex to the current longest-continuously-serving Member of the House". "Baby" I can understand a little more, but, as it has no formal purpose, I don't see much need to mess around with it.

nw1 · 15 Mar 2024

Purple Train said:
To (pedantically) add to this: Harriet Harman has been called the Mother of the House, but, as with Baby of the House, it is an informal term.

Surprised Harriet Harman (elected 1982) is the longest-serving, but I suppose prior to 1982, despite Thatcher as PM, there was less gender equality in the House of Commons.

Interestingly the Tory candidate in that by-election was a certain John Redwood.

Purple Train · 15 Mar 2024

nw1 said:
Surprised Harriet Harman (elected 1982) is the longest-serving, but I suppose prior to 1982, despite Thatcher as PM, there was less gender equality in the House of Commons.

Interestingly the Tory candidate in that by-election was a certain John Redwood.

Margaret Beckett was first elected in October 1974, but she was out of parliament between 1979 and 1983.

Worm · 17 Mar 2024

TUC said:
Your overthinking shows why such a proposal is not likely to gain public support.

Seconded, OP post intersections completely unrelated issues.

PaulHarding150 · 18 Mar 2024

Purple Train said:
To (pedantically) add to this: Harriet Harman has been called the Mother of the House, but, as with Baby of the House, it is an informal term.

The first time the phrase Mother of the House was used was by Harman herself in May 2015. She’s actually been ‘it’ since the death of Gweyneth Dunwoody in 2008.

As others have said it’s longest continuous service and not age (although of course those two things could coincide)

Father of the House (United Kingdom) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Gloster · 18 Mar 2024

It is a bit of an anachronism, but so is much of the procedure in Westminster and there are far more important things to sort out. The title of Father of the House has been around for a couple of hundred years, but the current convention of it being the longest continually serving MP only dates from 1898, twenty years before women (or some of them) were even allowed to vote. The usual gender balance has meant that it took decades before women were serving anywhere near long enough to be a potential senior MP, so nobody bothered with it. Mother of the House seems to have grown up as a friendly bit of politeness to a senior MP and it took a while before anyone realised that the senior MP (of all) could be female and be both Father and Mother of the House. So it has just sat there, probably waiting until the situation arises and they have to get some clarity.

Personally, I would just have one or the other used for the senior MP and the alternative falling out of use. If the senior MP is female, she is the Mother of the House and there is no Father, and vice-versa. But until it happens there are more important things to deal with.

Busaholic · 18 Mar 2024

Gloster said:
It is a bit of an anachronism, but so is much of the procedure in Westminster and there are far more important things to sort out. The title of Father of the House has been around for a couple of hundred years, but the current convention of it being the longest continually serving MP only dates from 1898, twenty years before women (or some of them) were even allowed to vote. The usual gender balance has meant that it took decades before women were serving anywhere near long enough to be a potential senior MP, so nobody bothered with it. Mother of the House seems to have grown up as a friendly bit of politeness to a senior MP and it took a while before anyone realised that the senior MP (of all) could be female and be both Father and Mother of the House. So it has just sat there, probably waiting until the situation arises and they have to get some clarity.

Personally, I would just have one or the other used for the senior MP and the alternative falling out of use. If the senior MP is female, she is the Mother of the House and there is no Father, and vice-versa. But until it happens there are more important things to deal with.

The first time I ever remember the term being used it was referring to the MP Ken(neth) Clarke. Then I read further, and there were another couple of MPs with exactly the same length of tenure, but Clarke was selected on the basis of alphabetical order! As someone whose surname comes towards the end of the alphabet I've always opposed this method of arbitrary selection.

hexagon789 · 18 Mar 2024

Busaholic said:
The first time I ever remember the term being used it was referring to the MP Ken(neth) Clarke. Then I read further, and there were another couple of MPs with exactly the same length of tenure, but Clarke was selected on the basis of alphabetical order! As someone whose surname comes towards the end of the alphabet I've always opposed this method of arbitrary selection.

It's not alphabetical order.

It's first by service.

Then by swearing-in.

Gloster · 18 Mar 2024

Busaholic said:
The first time I ever remember the term being used it was referring to the MP Ken(neth) Clarke. Then I read further, and there were another couple of MPs with exactly the same length of tenure, but Clarke was selected on the basis of alphabetical order! As someone whose surname comes towards the end of the alphabet I've always opposed this method of arbitrary selection.

Is it alphabetic order or is it who, on whichever day a group of MPs swear the oath after being elected, was the first of those still standing to have done so. I think that when Clarke became Father of the House, there were three others who had sworn on that day: one was Dennis Skinner (now, that would have been interesting).

Busaholic · 18 Mar 2024

hexagon789 said:
It's not alphabetical order.

It's first by service.

Then by swearing-in.

And they're sworn in on alphabetical order, assuming they've all shown up at the same time.

Gloster said:
Is it alphabetic order or is it who, on whichever day a group of MPs swear the oath after being elected, was the first of those still standing to have done so. I think that when Clarke became Father of the House, there were three others who had sworn on that day: one was Dennis Skinner (now, that would have been interesting).

Dennis Skinner would have been an ideal candidate, as someone who devoted his life to being an MP and doing whatever he considered to be the right thing, regardless of Party. Clarke, on the other hand...

PaulHarding150 · 18 Mar 2024

Busaholic said:
The first time I ever remember the term being used it was referring to the MP Ken(neth) Clarke. Then I read further, and there were another couple of MPs with exactly the same length of tenure, but Clarke was selected on the basis of alphabetical order!

Complete tosh as others have pointed out. After the 2015 election there were four MPs all of whom had served continuously since 1970 and as back in 1970 of those four it was Gerald Kauffman took the oath first he became Father. In Feb 2017 he did and then and only then died Ken Clarke become Father of the House.

Busaholic said:
Dennis Skinner would have been an ideal candidate, as someone who devoted his life to being an MP and doing whatever he considered to be the right thing, regardless of Party. Clarke, on the other hand...

That’s your opinion. There are people with differing views such as that Denis Skinner was an MP for 49.5 years and in that time never served on a bill committee, select committee or proposed any private members bills. He like Jeremy Corbyn also spent a lot of time between 1997 and 2010 voting with the Tories

Busaholic · 18 Mar 2024

PaulHarding150 said:
That’s your opinion. There are people with differing views such as that Denis Skinner was an MP for 49.5 years and in that time never served on a bill committee, select committee or proposed any private members bills. He like Jeremy Corbyn also spent a lot of time between 1997 and 2010 voting with the Tories

It is my opinion, but it was one shared by many of family, friends and colleagues, many of whom didn't share his political opinions in any way. I believe he considered it his duty to his constituents to attend the House of Commons chamber for as many hours as possible, and he certainly exceeded the attendance record of any other MP. Even if he'd wanted to be on a Committee, he'd have to be nominated by the Whips Office, and that was exceedingly unlikely, especially under Kinnock's rule. Private Members Bills are almost an irrelevance, as I'm sure you are aware, with very few being passed or even discussed. Almost the only ones that do get through are those that go through the MP's ballot process and are usually uncontroversial matters which could easily be incorporated into government legislation. I do remember him voting against the U.K. invading Iraq, which most of the Tories didn't, and which the majority of Western opinion now considers a disaster.

Gloster · 18 Mar 2024

Busaholic said:
It is my opinion, but it was one shared by many of family, friends and colleagues, many of whom didn't share his political opinions in any way. I believe he considered it his duty to his constituents to attend the House of Commons chamber for as many hours as possible, and he certainly exceeded the attendance record of any other MP. Even if he'd wanted to be on a Committee, he'd have to be nominated by the Whips Office, and that was exceedingly unlikely, especially under Kinnock's rule. Private Members Bills are almost an irrelevance, as I'm sure you are aware, with very few being passed or even discussed. Almost the only ones that do get through are those that go through the MP's ballot process and are usually uncontroversial matters which could easily be incorporated into government legislation. I do remember him voting against the U.K. invading Iraq, which most of the Tories didn't, and which the majority of Western opinion now considers a disaster.

My feeling is that the Skinner would have taken such parliamentary duties as the Father has, which consists primarily of overseeing the election of the Speaker, conscientiously. However, he would have probably been outspoken over any flummery that he felt was unnecessary.

Busaholic · 18 Mar 2024

Gloster said:
My feeling is that the Skinner would have taken such parliamentary duties as the Father has, which consists primarily of overseeing the election of the Speaker, conscientiously. However, he would have probably been outspoken over any flummery that he felt was unnecessary.

And what would the UK be without the flummery? i don't know, but I wouldn't mind if we gave it a go. God, we' d save billions overnight. :smile:

Why is there a distinction between the oldest male and oldest female MP but not between the youngest male and youngest female MP?

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