Michael John Martin, Baron Martin of Springburn, (3 July 1945 – 29 April 2018) was a British politician who served as Speaker of the House of Commons between 2000 and 2009. A member of the Labour Party, he was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Glasgow Springburn from 1979 to 2005 and for Glasgow North East until 2009. He was elected as Speaker of the House of Commons in 2000, remaining in the office for nine years until his involuntary resignation in 2009. On his election to the post of Speaker in 2000, he was the first Catholic to serve in the role since the Reformation. He resigned from the position on 21 June 2009, as a result of diminishing parliamentary and public confidence owing to his role in the expenses scandal. He stood down from the House of Commons on the following day. Early life Martin was born on 3 July 1945 in William Street in Glasgow, the son of a merchant seaman and a school cleaner. He was one of five children, and was brought up in a tenement community in Anderston. The family later moved to Springburn when Michael was fourteen years old. He attended St Patrick's Boys' School, leaving a few days before his fifteenth birthday to become an apprentice sheet metal worker at a factory called Heatovent. He worked at a railway yard in Springburn for the train engine makers North British Caledonian Railways and became involved in the National Union of Sheet Metal Workers and Coppersmiths. He joined the Labour Party when aged 21. He worked as a sheet-metal worker with Rolls-Royce from 1960 to 1976, and worked at the plant at Hillington. By his mid-twenties, he was a full-time shop steward with the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers. At the age of 26, in 1973, Martin was elected as a Labour councillor of the Glasgow Corporation, representing Firfield ward. In 1974, he was elected to the City of Glasgow District Council, representing Balornock ward. He was a trade union organiser with the National Union of Public Employees (NUPE) between 1976 and 1979. Early parliamentary career In 1978, Martin was selected by the Labour Party out of five prospective candidates to replace Richard Buchanan. He was elected as the Member of Parliament for Glasgow Springburn at the 1979 general election. He was a supporter of Roy Hattersley and Denis Healey, who were ideologically on