House of Commons Speaker John Bercow has said he will write to George Galloway, after MPs took issue with the fact he was still calling himself a parliamentarian on social media.

The controversial former Labour and Respect MP lost his Bradford West seat last year.

But at the time of publication, his official Facebook page is still called George Galloway MP.

Labour MP Chris Bryant raised the issue in the Commons on Wednesday, telling Mr Bercow: "I know that you take very seriously your responsibility in terms of protecting the rights of this House.

"I don't know whether you ever consult Facebook, but if you were to go there you would find that George Galloway, a former Member of Parliament, still describes himself as a Member of Parliament.

"Would it not be in the interests of this House to make it absolutely clear to Facebook that he is not a Member of Parliament and should not be claiming that privilege?"

Responding, Mr Bercow said: "It isn't my responsibility, but I'm perfectly willing to write to the former member.

"He cannot currently be heard in this place, but when he was here he was heard, fully - and sometimes loudly, and with very considerable eloquence.

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"But he's not a Member of Parliament, and I'm very happy to put that on the record.

"If there continues to be ambiguity about it or misleading impressions given, they must be corrected."

Mr Galloway's Facebook page has more than 525,000 likes.

Mr Galloway has since taken to Twitter to defend the name.

He tweeted: "Facebook doesn't allow name changes and with more than half a million followers I won't close it. The profile makes all clear tho'."

In a series of other tweets, Mr Galloway said that he "may be back" as an MP and that Mr Bryant has "quite an active internet life".

He also tweeted that "if Bercow does write to me it will be more than he did when I was hospitalised by a Zionist thug when I was an MP".