← Back to Parliament Matters episode page

This transcript is automatically generated. There are consequently minor errors and the text is not formatted according to our style guide. If you wish to reference or cite the transcript please first check against the audio version. Timestamps are provided for ease of reference.

Intro: [00:00:00] You are listening to Parliament Matters, a Hansard Society production supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. Learn more at hansardsociety.org.uk/pm..

Ruth Fox: Welcome to Parliament Matters, the podcast about the institution at the heart of our democracy, Parliament itself. I'm Ruth Fox.

Mark D'Arcy: And I'm Mark D'Arcy. And this week we are a hundred not out. This is the hundredth edition of this podcast.

Ruth Fox: So we thought we'd celebrate by looking back at the first year of this Parliament and of Keir Starmer's government.

Mark D'Arcy: And Ruth, the thing that really strikes me about the way this Parliament has had to work is the level of political fragmentation. This is not the traditional kind of bipolar Parliament where there's a government and then there's an opposition, and there are a few bit players scrambling around on the sidelines.

We have an absolutely [00:01:00] enormous government party in Labour, albeit elected on just a third of the vote and the quirk of the electoral system. There is something that's worth looking at. And then we have a unusually small Conservative opposition party, an unusually large third party in the Lib Dems, and then a collection of smaller parties whose numbers are going up and down like a yo-yo half the time with various sort of defections and movements between them.

You've got the Greens, you've got Reform, you've got the grouping around Jeremy Corbyn that may be about to coalesce into a sort of direct left wing challenger to the Labour Party. Then of course you've got the nationalist parties. There's the SNP and Plaid Cymru, and then you've got Northern Ireland parties as well.

So there's a galaxy of political alignments on the opposition benches, which is making the politics of this Parliament unusually complicated. Not least, of course, because this is all against the background of opinion polls, which show that Reform is now the lead party, even though it only has five [00:02:00] MPs in the chamber.

And that's just gone down to four.

Ruth Fox: Yes. I mean, that Reform is one of those parties that goes up and down as you say.

Mark D'Arcy: Reflecting their immigration policy. They didn't have a one in one out approach.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, and this is the challenge, isn't it? Because as you see at PMQs, I mean Keir Starmer seems to be focusing on Nigel Farage as sort of almost the lead opposition person he has to fight against, rather than Kemi Badenoch who's in front of him at the opposition despatch box.

Mark D'Arcy: And I certainly got the impression from this week's PMQs that the sound bites that are kind of being prepackaged for him against Nigel Farage were much more armour piercing than the ones that he directed at Kemi Badenoch. It's almost as if he doesn't really much care what she has to say. The real enemy is sitting on the Reform benches on his right hand side as he looks across the chamber.

Ruth Fox: So he's got that on one side. And then as you say, there's the possibility of this new party. We don't quite know what it's going to be or what it's gonna be called. This new Corbynite group that Zarah Sultana [00:03:00] said was going to be a new party she was going to co-lead with Jeremy Corbyn, although that's now stalled because Jeremy didn't seem quite ready for the launch.

Mark D'Arcy: It was a slightly stuttering launch, you might say. Zarah Sultana announced that she was leaving the Labour Party and was going to co-lead this party with Jeremy Corbyn. And as you say, Jeremy Corbyn looks slightly puzzled of the suggestion.

Ruth Fox: She was already one of those that had already lost the whip though, wasn't she?

So she was still a party member, but not a parliamentary party member.

Mark D'Arcy: You do see other Labour members who've lost the whip toeing the line in the hope of readmission. But I don't think anybody was totally astounded when Zarah Sultana decided to leave completely. I'm sure that there wasn't astonishment in the Labour Whips office at that decision, and they may be keeping an eye on a few more.

Because one of the things you do if you're stage managing a series of defections is that you spread them out so that each one's a story. I don't know if Jeremy Corbyn's party judging by the level of media management in Zarah Sultana's case is actually gonna do that. But certainly it would have a certain impact if there was a regular drift of other [00:04:00] suspended Labour MPs or even non-suspended Labour MPs off into Jeremy Corbyn's party.

Ruth Fox: And whilst they might not be too bothered about them in the House of Commons and can set them aside to some degree, the suggestions are in the polls that they might attract up to 10% so potentially up to 10% of the vote out there for them. So they can't ignore them entirely.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah. Well, fragmentation on the left, I mean, one of the people who should be worried about this are the Greens, because I suspect that a lot of people from the Labour left who became disillusioned with Sir Keir Starmer's leadership have been drifting towards the Green Party.

And I suspect also that whatever this new party is, if it does indeed kind of coalesce, will have to do some kind of deal with the Greens. I don't suppose either will like the comparison, but I'm old enough to remember when the SDP and the liberals were dividing up parliamentary seats between those who would fight this one, those who would fight that one, back in the 1980s.

And I think that this might be an example that they end up having to follow.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting question that, and I was thinking about this in [00:05:00] relation to, going back to Reform and, the defections we've seen this week are former MPs, not current MPs, but former MPs, David Jones, we've now heard the news this week that Sir Jake Berry, former Conservative Party chair, MP for about 14 years or so, began as an anti Brexit MP, but has now defected to Reform. And I do wonder if you're a party member in these parties and you sort of look at these figures who are sort of moving between parties about the sense of which, you know, where are the principles here, because they do seem to be able to move quite dramatically across boundaries.

I mean, how does somebody who began as an anti Brexit MP end up in Reform given its stance? We talk about the sort of the emotional ties within the House of Commons of defecting across party lines, but I also wonder what it does within parties at the local level in terms of selection processes and so on.

That feeling that amongst this generation of Parliamentarians, there isn't much that binds and [00:06:00] ties them in philosophical terms.

Mark D'Arcy: You do wonder, I mean, once you've got the ability to reach out directly to an electorate through social media without needing the traditional party machine behind you to quite the same extent, maybe it just changed the rules of the game.

But I would be quite interested to know, and I genuinely don't know whether, for example, Zarah Sultana took half a dozen Coventry Labour activists with her when she went, whether Jake Berry has got a few people from his former seats signing up as organisers to Reform as a result of him going, because that used to be quite an important factor in certainly in sitting MPs switching parties is trying to take a few of the troops with them as they went. But you should never also underestimate, for most MPs at least, the kind of emotional aspect of this. To get to be an MP in most political parties and certainly in the former big two Labour and the Tories, you need to have worked your way up.

You were probably a councillor. You got onto the candidates list. You were trooping around trying to get selected in a variety of seats. You got to know people. You got people who will be [00:07:00] angry and disappointed with you now for the decision that you've just taken. It's not an entirely easy thing to do.

Your entire personal life, your social life, possibly even your relationship may be tied up in the party organisation. So it's no easy thing to just upsticks for a lot of people. Although, as you say, it does seem a bit easy now somehow.

Ruth Fox: Well, I mean, that's the challenge, isn't it? I mean, we are seeing political fragmentation at a party level, but are we also seeing MPs or people who want to be MPs feeling less of a tie to their party and more of a tie to their local area and their constituency, of being a constituency representative.

And we've talked for many, many years about how MPs are increasingly more social workers in their community rather than legislators. And is the influence of that starting now to come through combined with all the factors of, like you say, of social media where they try and build their local reputation and it's more about the sort of protection of their own positions as opposed to really longstanding [00:08:00] philosophical ideological ties that bind?

Mark D'Arcy: It's an interesting question too. Which of the two big parties is the most vulnerable to defections at the moment? Only yesterday 47 Labour MPs rebelled on the third reading of the Universal Credit Bill, the bill that had originally started out being the one that was going to squeeze personal independence payments as well before that was all taken out of it, but it still led to quite significant social security cuts.

47 Labour MPs voted against that. Some of them were pretty predictable names. One or two slightly surprising in there perhaps, but might some of those MPs if sanctioned by the parliamentary party in some way decide to upstick? At the same time, if you look at the Conservative Party, it looks horribly, strategically, vulnerable and well behind Reform in the polls.

Now, might some sitting Conservative MPs start to conclude that their electoral prospects are better if they go and work for Nigel, in effect?

Ruth Fox: But going back to your Universal Credit Bill, third reading vote, yes, there were some names that you'd expect, [00:09:00] but there are also a few names that, they had possibly rebelled before, they're certainly not serial rebels, but they're not people that you'd imagine going off into a Corbyn type party. But they were also from across the spectrum of the Labour Party. They weren't just the traditional Corbynist left of the party that were objecting to this. There was a broader spectrum of names.

Mark D'Arcy: I think that that point goes to your point about MPs relating much more directly to their constituencies now. That possibly these are MPs who feel real constituency pressures who perhaps have been energised by issues that they've had to deal with as constituency MPs on behalf of their local voters.

So there are different reasons why this can happen in slightly unexpected directions.

Ruth Fox: And they weren't all MPs that were in highly marginal seats. Some of them are sitting on some of the biggest majorities. That's always traditionally been a thing that historically the whips might have said to MPs with modest majorities in very marginal seats, well, okay, you can sit this vote out, or we understand why you're gonna tell us you've a dental appointment.

But on this vote, there were some that [00:10:00] were sitting on some very, very safe majorities.

Mark D'Arcy: Mind you, having said that, I mean, there was plenty of Conservative MPs at the last election who thought they were sitting on very, very safe majorities. Plenty of Scottish Labour MPs in 2015 who had majorities of vast proportions, who suddenly found themselves out.

I think everybody's conscious these days that the electorate can just flex its muscles a bit and throw them out, and there are very, very few, if any, safe seats as you say.

Ruth Fox: But one thing this draws us back to, in terms of how the House of Commons operates, and we talked about it on the podcast before, that traditionally the rules of the house and how it works are built around this concept of two big parties, a big opposition party that historically has taken up 70 to 75% of the opposition benches.

In this Parliament, we've got a main opposition party that occupies just over 50%, and this increase in the number of independents, this increase in the number of MPs representing smaller parties. A consequence of that is that quite a lot of MPs in this Parliament are not [00:11:00] able to participate in some of the key proceedings of the House because they don't get places on, for example, legislative committees, whether that's a bill committee or a delegated legislation committee.

A lot of them are not able to get a seat on a select committee because it's carved up between the three main parties. So there's quite a lot of MPs who, in terms of their sort of parliamentary role, it's more circumscribed for them than it it would've been had they been a member of the main opposition party in the past.

Mark D'Arcy: And the flip side of that, of course, is that those members of the main opposition party now have to do a quite stuck overnight work rate. Lots of bill committees, lots of delegated legislation committees, all I've gotta go off to my select committee now. So they're rather on the treadmill, while all the independents and minor party MPs have, uh, perhaps a little bit more space for manoeuvre.

And another point about this is there's also a bit of jockeying for position between the smaller parties, between the Greens, the alliance around Jeremy Corbyn, the nationalist parties, there's quite a little pecking order there. Comparatively, small [00:12:00] changes in their numbers can affect who's entitled to what, who gets an opposition day, who gets called how often at Prime Minister's Questions, those kind of things.

So at that level too, the ability to get a bit of parliamentary profile for the smaller parties is affected by fluctuations in their number.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. And that's then a challenge for the Speaker in terms of how he divides things up and is fair to the parties. And I think it's fair to say Lindsay Hoyle is quite a traditionalist.

He's been an MP for many, many years. He thinks much more traditionally in terms of the main, big parties in how the system operates historically, but he's gotta adjust to this new environment.

Mark D'Arcy: And you don't get the feeling that this is a temporary phenomenon. This is not something where, you know, Parliament next time is going to default back to factory settings and have one large government party and one large opposition party and a few bit players at the edges.

And at that point you have to start saying that the parliamentary Standing Orders and the kind of bipolar arrangement are no longer fit for purpose and that the pie has to be divided up a bit more fairly. [00:13:00] Particularly on the opposition side. It would be ridiculous, for example, to have a situation where you had an official opposition that had say 141 MPs and a second opposition party that had 139 and all the power of the official opposition went to the first party and the second party was relegated completely to the sidelines. That would just seem totally unfair.

Ruth Fox: Well, this is actually something I talked about in front of the Modernisation Committee, the House of Commons a few weeks ago, that there needs to be a review of the Standing Orders of the House of Commons and we will have a report coming out on this in a few weeks time, looking at changes to the language of the House of Commons to make it more accessible and the procedures and how they're explained, but also the need to review the Standing Orders. And there's lots of reasons to do it. Not least the fact that the Standing Orders are not gender neutral.

So it still assumes that there'll be a male speaker and a male chancellor and, you know, all MPs are male, which, given this is the year 2025 is rather poor show. One of the other reasons is to be thinking about future proofing the Standing [00:14:00] Orders, and not to say we will implement all these changes at the start of the next Parliament, but to say if scenario X happened i.e. there were more smaller parties and they were closer to each other, then what would a fair model look like?

So that you're not reviewing the Standing Orders at the start of that Parliament when the votes already happened and you know what the results are.

Mark D'Arcy: And everybody's got a stake in the result much more definitely than they have if you do it in the abstract now.

Ruth Fox: So it'd be better to do it earlier rather than later.

Mark D'Arcy: And with that, Ruth, I think it's probably time to take a break.

Ruth Fox: Take a break. See you in a minute.

Mark D'Arcy: And we are back, and Ruth a year on from, almost anyway, Sir Keir Starmer's first King's Speech, his first legislative program, let's take stock of how they're doing in the law making business. It's not exactly been done at breakneck speed with vast bills being rushed through Parliament to transform the face of the country.

It's all been a bit sedate.

Ruth Fox: Well, it has in one sense. They got off to a relatively slow start, and then the bills have sort of [00:15:00] dribbled through. But once the bills have arrived and been presented to Parliament, a number of them have them been hammered through quite quickly.

If you think about, well, what were we hoping for in terms of how this government would treat the legislative program in relation to sort of the previous government and the criticisms we had of how they handle things, was this government gonna be any better?

And I think it's a mixed record. I mean, I might give them a C minus or a D plus. A number of bills have been pushed through quite quickly after second reading, you know, quite a number of bills of committee stage, report stage and third reading all in a day. As we saw, of course last week with the universal credit bill, the welfare reform bill.

Quite a number of bills with a lot of big Henry VIII powers. A lot of delegated powers. My favourite subject

Mark D'Arcy: All your bêtes noire...

Ruth Fox: yeah. And we've heard from the Attorney General Richard Hermer, that he was gonna crack down on this, that they wanted to more in primary legislation than in secondary or delegated legislation.

And I [00:16:00] think we've seen that in some bills, but certainly not all of them. We've seen quite a number of bills as you refer to it, being rewritten in midair. I mean the Employment Rights Bill, I think it's almost doubled in size as a result of the committee and report stage amendment process, which in itself is not necessarily a problem, but when the government itself is amending it, because it came through before they'd really finished the consultation processes and all these employment provisions and changes that they wanted to make, and therefore they're sort of rewriting it as it goes through Parliament.

That is not a proper policy development process. And it's not how the scrutiny process ideally should work and the consequences will be felt later when they're bringing forward the statutory instruments as a result of the powers in these bills to implement proposals and, and that's where you'll see difficulties, I think.

Mark D'Arcy: All oppositions, I think, promise that they're going to do better and have a better legislative process. And then all of them very quickly are seduced by the ability to hammer bills through very quickly and then think up the policy [00:17:00] afterwards and give themselves the power to implement whatever policy they come up with when they come up with it. Which may be sometime after the bill's gone through.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, and you sort of look at something like the product regulation bill, where immense power is really going to ministers to effectively decide how they're gonna align product standards, a really important policy area, important to our sort of economic future, how they're going to align standards in relation to the EU and whether or not we align or not, it's effectively gonna be taken as a ministerial decision.

And Parliament's not gonna have much say in it.

Mark D'Arcy: And potentially a government could de-Brexit by stealth almost.

Ruth Fox: That's the fear that's been raised.

Mark D'Arcy: The latest arrival presented today as we are beginning to prepare for this recording, is the devolution bill, which provides for a substantial reorganisation of local government in England.

And they really do have to move rather fast with this one because the voters are supposed to be going to the polls to elect the members of the newly created local authorities, and also elect the newly created mayors for particular regions next May. So [00:18:00] Parliament has to get its skates on to get this through in good time.

Ruth Fox: Well, this highlights of course, another issue that we've touched on in a little bit in previous podcasts, which is how long is this session going to run? Because the assumption would be in a normal situation, you'd have about a year. So about this sort of time or just before the session would've been wrapping up and you'd have a new king speech, a fresh legislative program.

It's pretty clear that this session is not gonna wrap up this summer, and I doubt it's gonna wrap up in the autumn. I think it'll be next summer. I think it'll be almost a two year session.

And they're gonna need that time to get, as you say, this bill through. There are other ones that are coming up in the pipeline.

Another feature of the year has been that quite a bit of the opposition, if you like, to the legislative program has come in the House of Lords, not in the House of Commons. And you know, Conservative peers.

Mark D'Arcy: And when you've had opposition in the House of Commons, it's usually come from within the ranks of the parliamentary Labour party, as opposed to the ranks of the oppositions. I mean, they're opposing too, but it's the parliamentary Labour party that's been making the difference here and forced the government into that excruciating climb down on personal [00:19:00] independence payments, which as we've been discussing in previous pods, is really hamstrung Keir Starmer's ability to deliver the kind of economic policy he intended to deliver.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, well this is where we get the debate about how much fiscal headroom has Rachel Reeves got, and the answer is not much. And that's another reason why we think the session will run long, because the budget will be in the autumn. Now, we've had reports this week from the Office of Budget Responsibility about the state of the economy, which were quite very negative and scary.

We've got questions about how is she going to plug this fiscal gap in the autumn. The assumption is that it's now gonna have to be tax rises of some form. But the other factor in all of this is her feature of this year has been that her financial announcements have not gone well. And you look ahead to the autumn and you think, well, what happens if they don't quite get the budget right?

If they don't land that well? Then, you know, looking at what we were seeing from the Office of Budget Responsibility, what we saw a couple of weeks [00:20:00] ago in terms of the response from the markets, Rachel Reeves crying at Prime Minister's Questions. You then look and think, if she doesn't land the budget, is there gonna be a response from the markets?

Mark D'Arcy: There are gonna be consequences, and we are not talking here about not landing the budget in the sense of George Osborne's infamous omni shambles budget in 2010, where the government got itself into a tangle on the taxation of pasties. We are talking here about something a lot more like Kwasi Kwarteng's disastrous budget, where the markets panic, the pound drops, like a paralysed falcon, the government's interest rate charges went through the roof.

So, Rachel Reeves is in a very vulnerable position as Chancellor. Perhaps the fact that the market's trembled at the idea that she might be removed has strengthened her position for the time being. But if she presents a budget that doesn't convince the markets, as you say, whew.

Ruth Fox: Problems.

Mark D'Arcy: Incidentally, Ruth, I think we should just for the benefit of listeners, explain the concept of a parliamentary session. A parliamentary session is a [00:21:00] kind of parliamentary cycle. It's usually, as you say, about a year. It starts with a King's Speech. His Majesty comes to Parliament, reads out a speech, listing all the bills that will be presented to Parliament. Doesn't mean that other bills can't also be presented to Parliament later. He reads them out. And the government then proceeds with passing all those bills and any other that occur to it. And then when they run out of steam, Parliament is temporarily suspended until a new King's Speech kickstarts another session.

So it's kind of the parliamentary cycle.

Ruth Fox: And we've had longer sessions than a year. I mean 2010 to 2012, start of the coalition.

Mark D'Arcy: They explicitly started out by saying we'll have a two year session. We've got a lot to do.

Ruth Fox: But interestingly, this government has not given an indication of how long the session needs.

So procedural nerds like us will look for indications and one of them is one of the dates of the Private Members Bills. That is one of the few things where it's set out in Standing Orders that you must have a certain amount of time per session. It's 13 sitting Fridays. [00:22:00] So you look at that and that 13 Fridays has been set down and expires later this month before summer recess.

So that's one indicator, but we know from the experience with the assisted dying bill that they're gonna need more time for Private Members Bills.

Mark D'Arcy: They're clearly gonna schedule more Fridays.

Ruth Fox: But the other indicator is opposition days because there should be 20 opposition days per session.

And, there's an opposition day debate scheduled for next week, and I think that's the ninth only.

Mark D'Arcy: So they're only halfway through.

Ruth Fox: So the assumption is that they're gonna schedule more Private Members Bill Fridays possibly, but that they're gonna run the opposition days through well beyond a year.

Now, I don't know, I have no private information suggesting when the session will end. But based on my, you know, knowledge and experience of how things have been handled in the past and looking at where they are with the legislative program, thinking that the Budget is gonna be in the Autumn, you don't want King's Speech and the Budget all happening sort of roughly around the same time.

They're your big set piece events. My [00:23:00] guess is it's gonna be next Spring and it could be sort of April, it could be even early May.

Mark D'Arcy: I guess it could be later than that, quite possibly.

And they'll also need a lot of extra time in the House of Lords, of course, for the assisted dying legislation and their prgramme's pretty congested there. But one of the points about the parliamentary session is that you are expected to have passed all your legislation before it ends. Anything that is not passed by that point dies. So if you're still standing when the music stops legislatively, that's it. The bill is lost.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. There's a few things that can be carried over. Subject to certain rules, depending upon where the bill is, what progress the bill has made. But the whole point of a session and having the cutoff and having the King's Speech is generally speaking, they don't actually want to carry many bills over because they want a fresh start.

Mark D'Arcy: It gives you a deadline to operate against. And I think that's almost the only point I can see to the system of parliamentary sessions. I've never really entirely understood why it has to work that way, but, uh, there we are.

Ruth Fox: Well, it brings into focus, when I've raised the idea of [00:24:00] ending sessions and running right through the Parliament is, of course governments want the advantage of being able to have that fresh start, that hard stop to force bills through.

Mark D'Arcy: And all the pageantry as well is quite fun.

Ruth Fox: They want the pageantry, they want the big press opportunity of a fresh programme. But of course it also has procedural implications in relation to the Parliament Act and the way in which the House of Commons can overturn objections from the House of Lords to legislation because that relates to sessions and how the Parliament Act operates.

So if you abolish the sessions as I'm quite in favour of, you have to deal with that procedural problem. You have to rewrite Parliament Acts. You have to deal with that.

Mark D'Arcy: What fun that will be. But as you say, a very long session in prospect, potentially a new King's Speech in May, maybe even June, who knows how long is a piece of string?

Ruth Fox: How long is a piece of parchment? I suppose the other thing that's gonna come up on the legislative agenda is the government has been busy making a number of international agreements, some of which will require legislation [00:25:00] to ratify them, to implement them. Most prominently, of course, the Chagos deal, that has been struck with the Mauritian Government and the future of the military base in Diego Garcia.

Mark D'Arcy: And that has a lot of critics, to put it gently.

Ruth Fox: Which is controversial because of the financial implications as well as the sovereignty questions. Probably worth saying, we talked a bit about, um, treaty scrutiny on the podcast and members of this government, including members of the cabinet and the front bench, were very critical in the last Parliament about their inability to scrutinise and vote on things like the Australian trade deal, for example.

And now they're in office are doing exactly the same thing.

Mark D'Arcy: So shocking, isn't it?

Ruth Fox: So, you know, the House of Lords had a vote on the Chagos deal under the terms of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act. This model, which enables them to register an objection to a treaty and to say that the government shouldn't ratify it. The House of Lords had a vote on that. The House of Commons, Kemi Badenoch wants a [00:26:00] vote on it. She's tabled a motion for it, but the government has failed to make time for it in the required period for scrutiny of it, and the government's response is, as it was with the previous government. we're gonna have legislation. So you'll have your opportunity then. I go back to saying as I did then scrutinising, debating, voting on the principles of a deal is different to scrutinising and voting on the actual legal text itself. They're two separate procedures. They were envisaged as two separate procedures. And the fact that the government's effectively turning them into to one and only offering one channel is really not good enough.

But I'm afraid the Conservatives are finding that they're on the wrong end of decision.

Mark D'Arcy: They're on the receiving end of the kind of things that they did in government ab.

Ruth Fox: Absolutely. And we go round the houses on this and so the wheel turns.

Mark D'Arcy: And of course there are plenty of other high powered international agreements floating around at the moment.

I was reading the other day about a proposed new mutual defence deal with Germany. And defence [00:27:00] cooperation with Germany and France and the international agreements around those need to be in inverted commas refreshed. And will Parliament get a look in there because those are potentially extremely significant.

Ruth Fox: There's also deals with European Union, with the United States. Of course there's a deal with India and others are coming through, so I know there is a lot there that ought to be being looked at. But at the moment, the House just does not have the procedures in place to enable MPs to properly scrutinise them.

Mark D'Arcy: Which, when you are in free trading, Brexit, Britain, striking free trade deals around the globe matters quite a lot.

Because actually if the idea is for Parliament to take back control, maybe it needs to scrutinise some of these agreements in a lot more detail than it normally ever manages to.

Ruth Fox: And one of the features of the House, I think, in this Parliament, is that there is not a mechanism, particularly to scrutinise our relationship with the EU

It is being done individual policy level by departmental select committees, but there's no mechanism in the House to look at it [00:28:00] across the piece and to look at it on a cross policy basis.

Mark D'Arcy: And those of us with post traumatic memories of the Bill Cash's European Union Scrutiny Committee have mixed feelings about this.

But it seems to me a fairly critical function of the House of Commons that it should be looking at. One of the most critical economic relationships we have. And it shouldn't all just be settled in the stratosphere by ministerial meetings between the two governments involved. Between government and the commission.

Ruth Fox: And whether or not the House has a mechanism to scrutinise the EU shouldn't solely be a decision that's taken by ministers and the leader of the House of Commons, either.

Mark D'Arcy: But spookily enough, that's the way it seems to have worked out.

Ruth Fox: Which is what happened at the start of this Parliament, is that the decision was made not to renew the Standing Order for that committee effectively to abolish it.

And here we are and given in areas we've talked about, the product regulation bill, there's whole areas of policy where we may or may not align with the EU and somewhere within the House of Commons, there should be a model to scrutinise that and [00:29:00] to monitor and to keep track of it.

Mark D'Arcy: What a time to be alive and staying on the committee corridor.

A minor mystery is beginning to come into focus around the Foreign Affairs Committee, which is they have 10 inquiries underway, but have yet to produce a single report in this Parliament. Eyebrows are being raised.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, I've seen some comments around and about that's interesting, that, you know, it's not that they're not working hard.

They're clearly, they're holding lots of inquiries, as you say. There's a lot of evidence sessions going on, but it's pretty unusual. The committees started up in sort of, what, October of last year? Pretty unusual at this stage for the committee not to have produced a report on something. Yeah, there's been some correspondence published and so on.

So whether this is, you know, planned, that they're gonna complete their inquiries then suddenly there were gonna be 10 reports all simultaneously, or whether there's an issue in the operation of the committee and how it's being managed and chaired or not? We don't know, but it is quite unusual and people are beginning to notice and remark on it.

Mark D'Arcy: I mean, one of the defence committee, uh, which [00:30:00] is suddenly where the action is a bit, uh, its rising concern about the state of the UK's armed forces. It seems to be doing a lot, building on the work of its predecessor committee in the last Parliament, particularly on things like armed forces, personnel service accommodation, and as a survivor of RAF married quarters in the early sixties, I can get on the board with that one.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. And one of the things we always say about select committees is when they start at the beginning of a new Parliament, you've got new members and a new chair, are they gonna sort of, you know, look back and take on the issues that their predecessor committee explored, and are they gonna follow up?

That's one of the big issues about how select committees operate. Will the follow up be done? And I think to be fair to the defence committee, they've got a very busy agenda. They've got a huge amount covering things like the defence Review and so on, and obviously the state of the world and the state of our armed forces.

But they are sort of appearing to be trying to do some follow up and carry forward the work of the predecessor committee.

Mark D'Arcy: And there is going to be a new player in the defence firmament in the shape of an [00:31:00] Armed Forces Commissioner. There's an Armed Forces Commissioner Bill that's in the queue waiting for Royal Assent, but we still don't know who the actual commissioner is going to be.

And this will be a person who can represent the interests of armed forces personnel in general, and also look at individual cases where people have some mistreatment to complain of outside of the chain of command, which is a rather touchy issue.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. And I think this is one to keep an eye on because the government said that they were modeling this on the German system.

In the Bundestag. And over there they've had a few commissioners. Now it's been going a good number of years that model and a number of occasions, the, uh, former defence minister or a former chair of the select committee, members of Parliament themselves have been appointed as the commissioner.

And they've left Parliament and taken on that role. So it'd be interesting to see who the government's preferred candidate is, how they see the role developing. And it will have, I think, the defence committee will have a look at it in terms of a [00:32:00] pre-appointment hearing.

Mark D'Arcy: Oh, I'm sure.

Of course, in Germany, the history dictates that they're much, much more rigorous about democratic control and democratisation within the armed forces because of the terrible Nazi years and so forth, but all the same. It would be very interesting to see how the arrival of this figure impacts on the working of the armed forces, because once upon a time, I think it was actually a disciplinary offence for a member of the armed forces to write to their MP to complain about the way they've been treated in some manner.

And this does provide a new channel and it's quite an interesting addition.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. And interesting to see how that the first person who takes on the role develops it. But also what their interaction is with Parliament and the reporting process and so on, how that develops and to what extent they sort of build the profile of that role.

Mark D'Arcy: One of the big uncomfortable decisions that the government took quite early on was to make a further cut in Britain's international aid spending. And the issue there is that the level of British international aid is actually [00:33:00] mandated in law. And the law that requires them to spend more than they're actually spending at the moment doesn't seem to have been repealed yet.

Ruth Fox: No. And this I think, is a bit of a mystery, and I would quite like the International Development Committee to ask the ministers if they've had legal advice about this, because I just find it odd that we have signed into law a rule about spending not 0.7% of GDP on international aid. We said that if for any reason we don't meet, that the government has to set out in a report, which in practice is the Foreign and Commonwealth and Development Office, I think it's called, isn't it FCDO, in its annual report, how it intends to get back on track. But the problem we've got is the government clearly doesn't intend to get back on track, so it can't put in its annual report what its plans are to remain in keeping with its statutory obligations. So how is it gonna get around that?

I mean, at one level you just say, well, you just ignore it. [00:34:00] There's no mechanism for enforcing it. But it does seem very odd that the government has got a law and it is on the face of it, clearly not going to abide by it and abide by the obligations Now. We are expecting the next foreign office annual report later this month.

It usually comes out mid to end of July, so we'll have to see what they put in that report, how they explain it. But it just seems very odd to me that in effect a department and the government is in breach of its statutory obligations. And in view of that, why would you therefore not repeal the act?

Mark D'Arcy: Sounds like a job for Sir Richard Hermer.

Ruth Fox: Well, yeah, and I also think it's also a question to be asked of the senior civil servants in the department, because surely they would be saying to ministers that there is a legal issue here. So you want to look out for, I think when the FCO report or FCDO report comes out

Mark D'Arcy: And another parliamentary committee with, a bit of an issue on its hands at the moment [00:35:00] is the committee on the National Security Strategy, national security, of course, shooting up the agenda at the moment. It's chaired by the Labour MP Matt Western and the committee is incredibly keen to have a session where it takes evidence from the Prime Minister's National Security advisor, Jonathan Powell, who back in the day was Tony Blair's chief of staff, and was crucial in setting up the negotiations for a settlement in Northern Ireland. They want to have evidence from him, the Prime Minister and Downing Street seem to be very against the very idea of him appearing before them.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, I mean, basically they're saying he's a special advisor and ministers are accountable to Parliament and the cabinet office advisor's, et cetera. the cabinet office minister, Pat McFadden has appeared and they can talk to Jonathan Powell in private, but not in public.

And the committee's not very happy with that. And this has been an ongoing, for months. Worth saying in the past, national security advisors have appeared before the committee, but it's of a piece with a, something that had been picked up across Whitehall, Institute for [00:36:00] Government has particularly been hot on this that, I mean, this is talking about, a special advisor, but also the government implementing some quite tight controls and constraints on civil servants appearing in public, speaking in public, answering questions in public. Now, obviously it's different in the House of Commons because particular rules apply. And for example, senior civil servants appear before the public accounts committee.

Mark D'Arcy: Our old friend the Osmotherly rules.

Ruth Fox: Senior civil servants appear at select committees alongside ministers and so on.

But the government does seem to be not very keen at allowing some of its most senior officials to appear on public platforms and to be questioned. And there are questions about. How sustainable is that really? In the long, in the long term. There's lots of sort of sectoral events, sectoral activities where, you know, getting the input of senior civil servants is useful and in this case, national security is so critical, so central Jonathan Powell is in the room for discussions involving the Prime Minister that Pat McFadden is not in the [00:37:00] room for.

And the sort of feeling of the committee is that they want to hear from him, they don't want to hear from Pat McFadden, doesn't look like there's gonna be a resolution of this. The government seems to be standing firm, but it's an uncomfortable position to be in.

Mark D'Arcy: The committee can stamp its feet, but it can't actually enforce any kind of ruling on this.

I suppose if they really wanted to go to Parliament and try and get a vote, all that would happen is that the government will whip against any such vote or not even shadow it in the first place.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. But this goes back to what I was talking about in terms of the review earlier, about the review of standing orders.

You know, this is also where the House perhaps should take a view on things about what its expectations are. You say the Osmotherly rules, which set out the responsibilities of civil servants to select committees. That is a government document. It's not a House of Commons document. The House of Commons should perhaps be taking a view of what they expect from civil servants in front of select committees and putting it to government that this is what we require.

Similarly, we see with the speaker getting frustrated with ministerial statements being made outside the house. He's trying to enforce the government's own ministerial [00:38:00] code, you know, and the government isn't. And the government isn't. And you know, again, if the House of Commons feel strongly about this, then it needs to take a view on what its expectations of ministers are and enshrine that in its own rules and practices rather than trying to enforce the government's own practices, which as we see with successive governments, they don't want to enforce.

They're quite, quite happy to ignore it because it's convenient.

Mark D'Arcy: And on that bracing note, let's take another break.

Ruth Fox: See you in a minute and we'll talk Mark. I think about running of Parliament and particularly the these new MPs.

And we are back. And Mark, I think something to look out for in the months ahead, and particularly, uh, if you're in a House of Commons department is cuts of around 10%.

We were just talking about the budget earlier. One of the consequences of cuts is that the House of Commons is also gonna face quite significant budget cuts, 10% across the board. That is gonna have an implication for how the House operates and the amount of support that's provided to MPs for scrutiny.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah. Indeed. parliamentary scrutiny requires [00:39:00] backup. It requires people like library staff producing briefings for MPs. It requires clerks. And also if your House is sitting for long periods, you need several shifts of people to provide the security and the ushers and all the functionaries who make the whole thing tick.

So if you are going to have more parliamentary scrutiny with fewer clerks and other staff to back up their whole operation. How's that gonna happen or isn't it gonna happen at all?

Ruth Fox: We've seen through Brexit particularly a bit like the civil service, we've seen an increase in resourcing of areas like clerking, select committee staff.

We've seen increases in the House of Commons library staff. But if we're then talking about taking significant cuts and taking away staff, and that's ultimately the biggest cost that they've got, that is gonna have an impact on their ability to produce those fabulous briefings that we rely on.

Mark D'Arcy: So

Ruth Fox: much everybody in

Mark D'Arcy: politics relies on so much.

Ruth Fox: And if it's not gonna be the Commons Library, where is it [00:40:00] gonna be? You know, in other departments, and contrast this with stories elsewhere on the parliamentary state, where quite significant sums of money are being spent on what I can only describe as epic failures. I mean this famous House of Lords door that has been inserted into the Peers entrance in the last year, which a kind of security turnstile

Mark D'Arcy: that

Peers are complaining furiously about. It's inconvenient and they get stuck in it and they're not happy and they don't like the thing.

Ruth Fox: Have you been in it? Have you seen it?

Mark D'Arcy: I must admit that I haven't.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. Well, I've been through it quite a number of times to meet members of the House of Lords and it's absolutely dreadful. I mean, it just doesn't work and in the end, you're either ringing a button to get somebody to come and help you to come through, or effectively they've got security staff, the other side of it who are basically releasing you through this door into the Lords.

I mean, it, it's absolutely hopeless.

Mark D'Arcy: And

Ruth Fox: of course

Mark D'Arcy: there's the sort of prison camp style fencing around the front of the House of Lords as well, which is pretty gently, deeply unattractive.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, well I think it's prison chic gates, so, you know, [00:41:00] so basically listeners, we have lovely Victorian style sort of decorative security gates across the front of the House of Commons. The House of Lords has not had fencing in front of it. There's been security issues that have been raised. There's a big car park in front of the Lords and they've wanted ready access to that, but at some point in recent months, somebody somewhere in the administration of the House of Lords and the security services and so on decided that they needed these security gates.

They've been erected and I think it's fair to say there's not much decorative imprint on them. They are very stark. They look frankly like you're outside a prison gate. Not a world heritage building. Can understand for security reasons why they need the fencing, but it's not in keeping with the rest of the fencing in the area.

It's not in keeping with the building. Apparently the security, the police force is not very happy about it, because it's obscuring their line of sight.

But this door has cost nearly 10 million [00:42:00] pounds apparently. Which is extraordinary. I mean that must probably be the most expensive door in possibly the world.

I dunno where else has a more expensive door. And then you've got these dreadful, ugly fences and. Part of the question is, you know, in terms of the governance of the estate, who's in charge of that and who agreed it? Because what's fascinating is the sheer number of peers who are asking questions in the House of Lords about, you know, who agreed.

Mark D'Arcy: This

Ruth Fox: all of

Mark D'Arcy: course costing quite a large amount of money. Yes, of course. Taking course us back to our previous subject.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. So it's all very odd and it doesn't seem to be a resolution in sight, and that door apparently is gonna take cost of fortune to fix. If indeed they can fix it, which there are questions.

Mark D'Arcy: But back tracking to 10% cuts across the board in the working of the Commons. It's not an institution that's designed to be penny pensioning and hyper efficient because it has to suddenly do things like cope with a sudden recall of Parliament to discuss some emergent issue. We're heading towards the summer recess.

Now, I bet you a week in at least two MPs a call for a recall to [00:43:00] discuss. In the good old days when I was on Today in Parliament, it used to be Tam Dalyell every year. But there's always someone who wants that, and a recall of Parliament is a very expensive thing to do. Because the first thing that happens when the Parliamentarians move out, it's the builders move in and start beavering away on various improvement projects.

And then if they come back again, the builders have to get out the way and the contracts have to be suspended and work has to be paused until they've gone away again after that. So just calling the House of Commons back can be a very expensive exercise. I don't know how they make 10% cuts. Maybe they just don't fill vacancies as they arrive.

You can do that sort of thing, but it will impact on the operation. Will Hansard be produced more slowly? Will it go completely online? They'll just stop doing printed versions of it perhaps.

Ruth Fox: They don't do much print now anyway, do they? It is a very largely digital operation.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah. So maybe they just suspend the print runs of all the vast quantities of paperwork that Parliament generates.

The way I generate earwax, frankly, there's [00:44:00] enormous quantities of it.

Ruth Fox: I don't think listers need that too much information.

Mark D'Arcy: That there are options out there in any organisation. And Parliament is a very big organisation that employs an awful lot of people, but all the same. A 10% cut is bound, I think, to impact on parliamentary scrutiny in some form or other.

And you can bet that if they do, for example, cut the paperwork, there will be MPs who don't like using a template complaining furiously to the speaker on points of order.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. Which I think then brings us on Mark to restoration and renewal. The combination of these issues. So we're a year into this Parliament and, uh, restoration and renewal has not moved forward very much.

I mean, there's clearly a lot of work going on behind the scenes, the officials doing, you know, all their sort of investigative work and uh, working up plans and so on. But in terms of really progressing the idea of restoring the building, restoring the parliamentary state, we are still stuck waiting for the plans, the options to be published. [00:45:00] We understand later this year. So this is gonna be a big issue, I suspect, in the sort of the autumn, late winter, if indeed they stick to this expected timetable.

Mark D'Arcy: I wouldn't put money on that all the time. No, but the key issue that has to be addressed, first of all, is whether or not you simply take everybody out of the old Victorian bit of Parliament, the gothic bit that everybody recognises.

So the whole thing can be renovated at once in one fell swoop over maybe five or six years. Or whether you try and maintain some kind of foothold for the Parliamentarians inside the buildings. So they'll continue to use either the Commons or the Lord's Chamber while the work goes on around them, which frankly strikes me as a bit nightmare-ish.

There's a lot of asbestos in the building. Are they gonna have to pressurise whichever chamber they're using to make sure asbestos doesn't get in? Are the Peers and MPs gonna have to enter and exit via pressurised poly-tunnels? Is it going to be more of a fire risk? Yeah, if work is going on around them while they're still there.[00:46:00]

And also apart from anything else, it is the most expensive way and the slowest way to restore the building is to try and do it around the politicians rather than clear them out the way and have them go and sit somewhere else.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. Well simply imagine this scene. You are running your, at least part of your national legislature, if not the whole, you're running one of the houses in the middle of a building site.

It's frankly ridiculous, but that is one of the options that's gonna be on the table. The other options will be to decant both houses somewhere. I mean, the understanding at the moment is the House of Lords has agreed that they are going to move into the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre across the road.

The bigger question is, what will the Commons do and what are MPs willing to support? Are they willing to consider the prospect that they will leave the House of Commons estate and go somewhere else? Whether that's, uh, another, you know, building nearby somewhere like Richmond House, the former Department of Health building on Whitehall.

Possibly Church House, something like that. Or are they gonna demand as MPs in the, at the [00:47:00] end of the last Parliament one, which is basically to stay in situ. Mm-hmm. And just keep putting it off and putting it off. But the bigger question in all of this is actually is the government gonna be willing to pay the bill?

Because we keep saying it's Parliament's decision. You know, the leader of House of Commons will say it's a decision for both houses. Well, up to a point. But ultimately the bill has to be paid.

Mark D'Arcy: Up to the point the chancellor is asked to provide the 10 billion pounds over X years that will be needed to fund it.

And having just balked at the idea of making 5 billion pounds worth of cuts in social security, are MPs really gonna vote that 10 billion pounds should be spent on renovating their place of work.

I strongly doubt it

Ruth Fox: Yeah. And that I think is ultimately a sticking point. And if they're not gonna do that. Then what are they gonna do?

Mark D'Arcy: I think they're gonna kick the issue into touch and just hope the place doesn't burn down around them one day, which it might. There was a brief moment when interest on this subject refocused after Notre Dame burned down, and people suddenly realised that old buildings with building work going on in them can be dangerously combustible.

[00:48:00] Yeah. And it would be quite an interesting symbol of the current state of our politics if the Houses of Parliament, one of the most recognisable buildings on the planet, went up in smoke because MPs hadn't bitten the bullet.

Ruth Fox: And that is a realistic possibility. Particularly if you walk through areas of the House of Lords.

I mean, when you sort of walking along a corridor and all of a sudden your foot almost goes through the floor.

Mark D'Arcy: You hear plugs that make the ominous crackling sounds when equipment is plugged into them.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. And that, you know, there are instructions that you can't use heaters in particular rooms, even in the winter.

You can't put fans on in the summer and you can't. I mean, we all know the risks. They've been laid out for quite a number of years now, but they just are unable to sort of bite the bullet, reach a decision. And part of this is the governance problems. Part of this is that no Parliament can bind another, you got new generation of politicians coming in.

They don't want what their predecessors voted for. What we don't know is what this new generation, this sort of class of 2024 want and are willing to [00:49:00] accept. And you know, you get the impression certainly from the evidence that's been submitted to the Modernisation Committee that quite a lot of them are not very happy with the House of Commons as a workplace.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, I think that the quality of the accommodation is not what they would expect, I think as an incoming mp, but also though, I think that they're gonna behave in the same way as previous generations of MPs have, which is faced with the potential bill for doing the work, they're gonna bottle it.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. And faced with leaving the building, faced with the potentially never coming back case,

Mark D'Arcy: Potentially never coming back in the lifetime of that Parliament. And it's entirely possible that the work will take longer than the advertised five or six years. And that there may be a whole Parliament elected, serves four and a half years dissolved.

Never gets to go inside that famous building and debate in that famous chamber where Churchill once orated. So that's something that an awful lot of MPs wouldn't like the prospect of, I'm sure. But the big thing is the money. I think it is incredibly difficult to cut billions outta the social security budget while spending billions [00:50:00] on the parliamentary building, however much you can make the case for it.

The politics, the optics, if you like, are just horrible.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. In which case I'm afraid I reach the conclusion that you have to say, well, if you're not going to do that, then you have to consider more radical alternative options. Move out to a new building, move out to a new building, and you know, that is not an easy choice either.

And there are all sorts of questions about where that building would go. And it has to be near to the government because of, you know, government is presence in Parliament, ministers have to appear for questions and select committee appearances and so on. You can't be in two entirely separate places.

Mark D'Arcy: Well,

Ruth Fox: the

Mark D'Arcy: idea of Parliament being relocated to York, which emerged at one point when Boris Johnson was Prime Minister, and I just had this vision of a minister summoned for an urgent question in the House. I mean, it's not on the inter city.

Ruth Fox: That's why we need HS2 perhaps. But no, that ultimately is the question that they're gonna have to answer is, if you're not gonna spend the money, then what are you going to do?

And just carrying on as we've done for the last 10 years, at some point the look will run out and the problems will really, [00:51:00] really come home to roost. And the question I think for Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves is it's fine to say you don't want to spend that money. It's fine to say, you know, muddle along.

But equally, do you want to be the Prime Minister on the day the House of Commons burns down and is a global story?

You remember what it was like when we all watched Notre Dame? Yeah. Yeah. And you know the horror of that, the House of Commons burning down, the national legislature, this World Heritage site, this iconic building, face of democracy for many people.

Just not a great look, not a great look for the country, I'm afraid. We're talking about what new MPs, you know, what attitude they may have to restoration and renewal and that they'll have to confront these issues, towards the end of the year if the plans remain on track. But what do you make, you've seen many incoming new generations of MPs after elections.

What do you make of this new intake?

Mark D'Arcy: Well, I think the first thing to say is it's an enormous new intake. The [00:52:00] turnover in Parliament has just been gigantic over the last couple of elections, and so actually there's quite a premium on being a veteran now who's actually been round the parliamentary block a couple of times.

The new generation strike me as mostly quite impressive, quite active, much more social media savvy than a lot of their predecessors. There's an awful lot more of the kind of Greek chorus of stage of social media on the activities of Parliament now than they used to be. I quite like the look of them.

I think this has so far been a fairly good Parliament. I think what's different about this generation is just a greater level of independence, a willingness to defy the party whip and explain why on social media. And that I think is something that makes this Parliament a lot more difficult to manage for all the party leaderships.

And there's always the possibility that if people are overmanaged or heavy handedly managed, they might upstick and join another party. As we were discussing earlier.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. I think another feature is and we see this a little [00:53:00] bit in the evidence that's been given to the Modernisation Committee, although quite a lot of it has not been published. So we, we are left to speculate about what the read between the lines. But from what we have seen and heard quite a lot of them mentioned earlier, frustrated with the way the House of Commons works, frustrated with some of the procedures, frustrated with the old fashioned nature of things, frustrated, particularly in that they feel the way the House works is not very efficient.

And as for their predecessors, one of the most precious resources they've got is their time and how they allocate it to certain tasks, both locally and in Parliament. And a lot of them feeling that they are sitting around wasting a lot of time. When there are better things that they could do with that time, if only things were more efficient.

A lot of them very frustrated with how the chamber operates, so they have to sit there for quite a number of hours waiting to get into debate.

Mark D'Arcy: Take 15 to 20 minutes for every vote.

Ruth Fox: A lot of frustration with the way the divisions operate [00:54:00] and wanting things like speaker lists, wanting things like electronic voting, but nonetheless also wanting greater presence of ministers in the lobby so that they can colour them.

So there's sort of, you know, these things have gotta be balanced. They run across one another. You only have to follow the Twitter feed, the social media feeds of lobby correspondents like Tolny Grew or ParlyApp, who we've had on the podcast previously, to also see that quite a few of them are still, not just new MPs, but some who've been there a number of years now.

Mark D'Arcy: It's, it's almost contagious, isn't it? If new MPs start referring to the person on the opposite benches who they're addressing as you, rather than saying that the Honourable member, Mr. Speaker should do such and such.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. Still struggling with some of the core etiquette of how the Chamber operates.

And getting themselves into trouble with the speaker and the deputy speakers and so on, even a year in. So, you know, I think the pressure will also be on to try and change some of that and to alleviate some of those difficulties.

Mark D'Arcy: Of course, at the beginning of every Parliament, people start speculating as to whether with a new set of Parliamentarians, there'll be a kinder, gentler, Prime Minister's question time.

And as far [00:55:00] as I can see, Prime Minister's question time as the centre piece of the House of Commons week is every bit as pointless, vacuous, and genuinely annoying as it ever has been. If anything, the answers are now more formulaic and the questions are now more servile. And that is a genuinely depressing point to have to make.

I think Prime Minister's question time should be an incredibly valuable resource for Parliamentarians. A chance to directly question head of government. Does the Prime Minister believe that my local football team is absolutely wonderful? Does the Prime Minister agree that he and his government are absolutely and totally marvellous in everything that they've done? Pass the sick bag, Alice?

Ruth Fox: Well, one of the features I think of this Parliament is the sheer number of questions that are being asked by MPs, written questions to ministers and the, frankly, quite poor quality of the answers. I mean, the volume is enormous.

Well,

Mark D'Arcy: I don't think those two things are unrelated. You know, you can't sit there and ponder brilliant answers to every question if you've just gotta get through dozens and dozens of them.

Ruth Fox: And that also goes to the question of budget cuts. Because actually [00:56:00] quite a lot of, you know, it's an expensive process processing all these questions that is a cost that I think a lot of MPs perhaps don't consider when they're tabling all of these things. But part of it is they just sort of feel that ministers are not answering the questions, they're not terribly accountable in the house, and they're not coming forward with fairly fulsome answers, which was ever thus.

Mark D'Arcy: When you are sitting on a gigantic parliamentary majority, maybe you just don't feel the need to be that diligent about answering parliamentary questions. It's all a bit bothersome and there's exciting departmental business to get through.

And can't they just shut up and let me get on with it?

Ruth Fox: Well, we can't really do a review of the year mark without mentioning the assisted dying bill. Not only has it been a big part of the workload of MPs, it's also been quite a big part of the workload of this podcast. I think it's had 14, 15 special episodes on the book and

Mark D'Arcy: There'll be more, after the summer when the assisted dying bill starts its journey through the House of Lords.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. But I do think for new MPs, on the one hand you can say it's been quite a [00:57:00] valuable introduction to legislative scrutiny. On the other hand, the procedures for private members bills don't operate in quite the same way as for government bills. So the lessons learned are not entirely translatable across.

Mark D'Arcy: But it has been a good way for new MPs to cut their teeth, facing an issue they probably hadn't thought a great deal about. Some of them may have, but facing an issue that most of them will not have been that preoccupied with. Deciding what they think about it, translating that into speeches in the chamber, tactical approaches to different amendments, translating that into the whole law making process and how they approach it.

I think has been a very good formative experience for the generation of 24.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. But at the same time, leaving quite a lot of them frustrated with how the process and procedures work. And you know, quite annoyed with the whole way in which it's unfolded.

Mark D'Arcy: If, certainly if you were drawing up a parliamentary process on a blank sheet of parchment, you'd never create the process that we have for private members bills.

But on the other hand, as we've pointed out repeatedly in this [00:58:00] podcast, this private member's bill has had more scrutiny than most government bills do. The much bigger pieces of government legislation has airily waived through the Chamber, the House of Commons, with far less discussion. And frankly, these are pieces of legislation that may touch many more lives than even the assisted dying bill does.

Yeah. So it's more a comment, I think, on the weak nature of the parliamentary process in the House of Commons than it is on this individual bill, the level of scrutiny it's received.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. Well, Mark, overall, how would you, uh, if you were scoring this Parliament, how would you judge it? Well, that's what we talked most about the House of Commons, really.

But how would you score the first year of this new?

Mark D'Arcy: I think I would give it a c plus, both for artistic impression and for technical merit. Really, a lot of the work has been workmen like. I think there are a lot of bright-eyed new MPs who are learning the job, who will potentially be, if they can survive in Parliament, very effective legislators in the future.

I think that the multipolar nature of this [00:59:00] Parliament makes it a lot more interesting, makes the politics of it a lot more interesting and gives MPs who become discontented with their own party a few more options than they previously had. So there are some interesting factors here in the way it works that weren't present in earlier Parliaments than I've been reporting on Parliament since the Tony Blair years.

And this one is in many ways tactically far more challenging than any of the ones before it, despite the fact that the government has such total dominance in theory in the Chamber, and we've already seen that they can lose their majority even with that majority.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. Well, listeners, I think that's probably all we've got time for after this run through all the issues and challenges of this first year of the Parliament.

As we said, it's our hundredth episode, so we are looking forward to the next hundred. Do send us your questions and we'll have another special episode dedicated to answering them. And, before you go, do of course, rate and reviewers on your podcast apps to help us attract more listeners, grow the [01:00:00] podcast into this next a hundred episodes.

So thanks for joining us. Thanks for your support over the last year, and, uh, we'll see you next week.

Mark D'Arcy: See you next week. Goodbye.

Outro: Parliament Matters is produced by the Hansard Society and supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. For more information, visit hansardsociety.org.uk or find us on social media @HansardSociety.

← Back to Parliament Matters episode page