The Lord Speaker (or Lady Speaker) will be a new position in the British Parliament created once the Constitutional Reform Act's provisions about the Speakership of the House of Lords comes into effect. The Bill modifies the office of the Lord Chancellor who currently is the Speaker of the House of Lords. Once the Act comes into effect, the Lord Chancellor will not automatically be the speaker in the Upper House, and the House of Lords will have to come to new arrangements about their speakership.
The office will be analogous to the Speaker of the House of Commons.
Title
The House of Commons has a "Mister/Madame Speaker" as their speaker and the House of Lords is now expected to have a similar position (although the speaker in the House of Lords has generally a lesser role in debates) and a committee of the House of Lords in 2004 recommended that the new speaker be named the "Lord/Lady Speaker". They also recommended that the current arrangement of deputy speakers will have to be reformed too.
There has been opposition to the title from some in the House of Commons who feel that it will cause confusion between the House of Commons' Speaker and the House of Lords' Speaker. The title therefore has not yet been decided (the Constititional Reform Act gives the office the title of Speaker of the House of Lords), although the Lords will have the final say on their rules and speakership.
Role
The reform of the office of Lord Chancellor raises issues relating to ceremonial duties, such as the State Opening of Parliament, as well as the question of the Lords Commissioners. It is expected that the Lord Speaker will assume most of the duties of the Lord Chancellor that relate to his Parliamentary role. There also remains decisions on what the Lord Speaker shall wear.
The Lord Chancellor will remain as Lord Keeper of the Great Seal.
