Currently their role as head of a parish automatically sees them given a seat in the assembly, a position they have held since the earliest records of States meetings.

BBC: Jersey Electoral Commission recommends smaller States

But the agreement - or carve-up, as the Tories see it - between Labour and Lib Dem GLA members to vote the former's Trevor Phillips and the latter's Sally (Baroness) Hamwee as alternating chair and deputy chair of the assembly will give the party more of a high-profile position.

BBC: Mayor Ken's big tent

Before the session was adjourned, DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson asked for clarification on the position of Progressive Unionist leader David Ervine, who has joined the Ulster Unionist Party Assembly Group.

BBC: NEWS | UK | Northern Ireland | NI politicians return to Stormont

When told of the Assembly's vote, a Downing Street spokesman repeated the government's position that it was too late to change the forms and that they should be filled in as they are.

BBC: Assembly's census row demand

The position of these Christian bodies is supported by the most authoritative body of Islamic clerics in the Philippines, the Assembly of Darul-Iftah of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao.

CNN: SHARE THIS

The Assembly elected Stephen Hall, Head of the UK delegation to the IOC, to the joint position of Chair of Group 1 (broadly consisting of Western Europe, USA and Canada) and vice-chair of IOC.

UNESCO: UK helps turn the tide at the IOC

Mr Robinson also accused Sinn Fein of chicanery when it agreed the Welfare Reform bill at the executive and then changed position when it went to the assembly vote.

BBC: Sinn Fein 'paralysed' by SDLP says Robinson

He does not want to be over-dependent on the mood among deputies: although TIM held 120 of the seats in the outgoing assembly, there is no guarantee that it will maintain such a dominant position in the new house.

ECONOMIST: Madagascar's government calls an early election