Mr Bercow pledged to be impartial

Conservative backbencher John Bercow has won the race to become the 157th Commons Speaker.

The Buckingham MP received 322 votes to his rival and fellow Conservative MP Sir George Young's 271.

Mr Bercow was "dragged" to the chair, a tradition for the new Speaker. A message will now be sent to Buckingham Palace for approval.

He will replace Michael Martin, who stepped down after nine years in the job amid the furore over MPs' expenses.

Mr Bercow said MPs had bestowed on him "the greatest honour that I have enjoyed in my political life".

'Process of change'

He pledged to cast aside his political views and be "completely impartial as between members of one political party and another".

And he said while the House of Commons had to reform, he believed most MPs were "upright, decent, honourable people" who had not come into politics to "feather their nests" but for public service.

I continue to believe the vast majority of members of this House are upright, decent, honourable people John Bercow Profile: John Bercow

He was welcomed by Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, in short speeches in the Commons chamber.

Mr Brown congratulated him and said in the election process the House of Commons had taken an important step in the "process of change".

He said it was an opportunity for the House to "begin a new chapter" with a new Speaker.

Mr Cameron told him: "We share a collective responsibility for what went wrong, we share a collective responsibility for putting it right."

And Mr Clegg told Mr Bercow he had a "mandate for change" and urged him to get on with it.

The new Speaker Elect will not formally take up the role until after an Approbation ceremony later, when the Royal Commission assembles in Lords, Black Rod is despatched to the Commons, then MPs led by the Speaker Elect walk to the Lords chamber when the Queen's approval is given.

Opposition parties and campaigners have condemned Gordon Brown's decision to hold an independent inquiry into the Iraq war behind closed doors.

Tory leader accused Mr Brown of "an establishment stitch-up", while the Lib Dems threatened to boycott the "secret" inquiry.

John Miller, whose son Simon was killed in Iraq in 2003, said private hearings would be marred by "lies and deceit".

But others argued that closed proceedings would be more effective.

Tory MP, who was part of the Butler inquiry into the intelligence that led to the Iraq war, backed the prime minister's decision.

"Everybody who came in front of us... was able to speak frankly and they were able to say what part they had played in this bit of intelligence or that," he told the BBC.

"I don't think we could have done as good a job for the country as we were able to do if we had to sit in public."

'Full and candid'

The inquiry will start in July and take at least a year to complete. It will cover the period from July 2001 to July 2009 and be chaired by civil servant Sir John Chilcot.

It will not seek to "apportion blame", the prime minister said, but will aim to identify "lessons learned".

The government had been urged to hold it in public, but Mr Brown said privacy would ensure that evidence given by politicians, military officers and officials would be as "full and candid as possible".

Mr C accused the prime minister of reneging on promises he made just a week ago to introduce a "new era of democratic renewal" and make politics more transparent.

"The inquiry needs to be, and needs to be seen to be, truly independent and not an establishment stitch-up," the Tory leader said.

Former Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell rejected claims that a public enquiry would cost too much, insisting it would be "well worth the money if it stopped us making the same kind of mistake again".

The present leader, Nick Clegg, who has threatened to boycott any private hearing, said it would be possible for a public inquiry to handle sensitive information by hearing some sessions on an exceptional basis behind closed doors.

Mr Clegg told the BBC: "This, remember, was probably the biggest foreign policy mistake that any government has made since Suez.

"It's very important the the process by which we learn the lessons from that is open - the process of doing it is almost as important as the conclusions themselves."

'Day of reckoning'

"This would have been a great moment for Gordon Brown, who has said he wanted more openness and transparency in politics, to show he meant it."

Several of Mr Brown's own Labour MPs also spoke out in favour of full disclosure.

Gordon Prentice said he was "not prepared to accept a secret inquiry into Iraq", while David Hamilton said there needed to be a "day of reckoning" which could only come about through public proceedings.

Their feelings were echoed by relatives of those killed in Iraq.

It will give us some sort of government narrative that can then be picked apart Maj Charles Hayman Armed Forces UK

Mr Miller said that without apportioning any blame, the inquiry could not possibly deliver any real answers.

"To be honest, I could write on the back of a stamp what you would learn from this inquiry and that would be lies and deceit," he told the BBC.

But Maj Charles Hayman, editor of Armed Forces UK, said the inquiry would bring significant facts "into the open".

"It's not going to go as far as most people would have wanted, but it will certainly open the Pandora's box to the whole of this Iraq problem," he said.

"It will give us some sort of government narrative that can then be picked apart."

Discredited claim

Sir John Chilcot, 70, is a former permanent under-secretary of state at the Northern Ireland Office who sat on the Butler Inquiry into the intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

Also on the panel are former diplomat Sir Roderick Lyne, crossbench peer Baroness Prashar and historians Sir Lawrence Freedman and Sir Martin Gilbert.

The reasons for going to war in Iraq - including the now discredited claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction which could be used within 45 minutes of an order being given - have been a source of long-standing controversy.

Two inquiries - the Hutton and Butler inquiries - have already been held into aspects of the Iraq war.

The Butler inquiry looked at intelligence failures while the Hutton inquiry examined the circumstances leading to the death of former government adviser David Kelly.

In 2008, the government defeated Conservative attempts to force a public inquiry, saying it would be a "diversion" for UK troops serving in Iraq.

In February, Justice Secretary Jack Straw vetoed the publication of minutes of cabinet meetings discussing the legality of the war in the run-up to the invasion.