John Bercow spoke at the University of East Anglia on 26 November 2015 as part of the ‘Charles Clarke in-conversation’ autumn series.
On 22 June 2009, John Bercow was elected 157th Speaker of the House of Commons.
A former national Chairman of the Federation of Conservative Students and London Borough Councillor, he was elected Member of Parliament for Buckingham in May 1997 as a Conservative, serving on the front benches as spokesman for Education & Employment and Home Affairs.
He was appointed Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury in 2001 then Shadow Minister for Work and Pensions in 2002 and from 2003 to 2004 as Shadow Secretary of State for International Development.
He then became a member of the International Development Select Committee and served as a co-Chair of the All party Parliamentary group on Burma, vice-Chair of the APG on the prevention of genocide, Africa and Sudan. He was Secretary of the All Party group on Human Rights and established the All Party group on Brain Tumours.
In September 2007 he was appointed by the Government to lead a review of services for children and young people with speech, language and communication needs.
Appointed to the Speaker’s Conference on Parliamentary Representation in November 2008 he became Chair of the Conference on becoming Speaker.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7mXvQeTj08
Image credit: Wikimedia
