The role of speaker’s chaplain involves saying daily prayers in the chamber, conducting a weekly service in the parliament’s chapel and taking pastoral care of MPs and their staff.
Rev Preb Rose Hudson-Wilkin has been the chaplain since 2010 but in November she will become the Bishop of Dover.
The Speaker, John Bercow MP, whose role it is to chair Commons debates, announced on Monday that he will be standing down as speaker and MP at the next election, or on 31st October if that comes first, which lead to a series of tributes to him by MPs.
However, it was a point of order by David Lammy MP that prompted the speaker to turn the House’s praise to his chaplain when he said: “Thank you also for appointing Rose Hudson-Wilkin as chaplain when the establishment might have preferred a different choice”.
Mr Bercow responded: “I want to endorse in triplicate what he’s just said about the Rt Rev Rose Hudson-Wilkin, Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons, great servant to parliament, in her place in the under gallery now – the source of comfort and inspiration to me for the last nine years.”
She shook her head bashfully as he continued: “There has not been a single day, when I have not felt delighted and reinforced in my insistence – and it was my insistence – my insistence, that Rose would be appointed to that role. There is always scope for legitimate difference…
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