She may have no official role at Westminster, but few doubt the influence of Mary Martin, 62, wife of the Speaker.

The daughter of a steel smelter, she worked on the assembly line and married Michael when she was 21, before devoting most of her life to raising their two children.

Like her husband, she has always been aware of her working-class origins and watched as he turned this into his pitch for election over his main rival, making veiled references to those who were opposed to a “Rab C. Nesbitt” character taking such a prestigious role.

Friends viewed their election as as a triumph against the Establishment, and Mr Martin and his wife celebrated their first night in his official residence beneath Big Ben, complete with four-poster bed, eating macaroni cheese and drinking lemonade in the kitchen.

In her only public remarks since Mr Martin became Speaker, to the Glasgow Evening Times in 2001, she said: “We have not had it on a silver spoon. Anything we have had, we have worked really hard to get . . . Put it this way, if Mike said he was retiring, I’d feel as if I’d been given a lottery win.”

Mr Martin said the Speaker’s job allowed them to be together more. “Mary and I have a life like a husband and wife for the first time in 21 years,” he added. “I can be upstairs very quickly to make a nuisance of myself even if it’s only for 10 or 20 minutes. I’m a great tea hand.”

However, despite not being employed by her husband or holding any official position, she has carved out a role for herself.

When her husband needed to employ a new official secretary, she was allowed to sit in on the final interview and ask questions of three candidates for the £75,000 a year post, even though it was a position paid from the public purse and supposedly subject to normal Civil Service rules.

The Speaker’s spokesman confirmed the move at the time, and said it was cleared by an independent Civil Service appointments observer.

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