• Hansard Society, Navigating Westminster: A Practical Guide to Parliamentary Papers and Resources (Tuesday 27 October 2026)

• House of Commons, Liaison Sub-Committee on Core Tasks of Select Committees

• Hansard Society (4 July 2006), The Fiscal Maze: Parliament, Government and Public Money

• House of Commons Library (24 April 2025), Select Committees – core tasks

• Hansard Society (25 April 2019), Evidence to the House of Commons Liaison Committee: The effectiveness and influence of the select committee system

• Hansard Society (23 September 2019), Paul Evans, The 2019 Liaison Committee report on the Commons select committee system: broadening the church, integrating with the Chamber

Please note, this transcript is automatically generated. There may consequently be minor errors and the text is not formatted according to our style guide. If you wish to reference or cite the transcript copy below, please first check against the audio version above.

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.

Ruth Fox: Witnesses before parliamentary committees increasingly need protection against any backlash from their evidence, a senior MP tells us.

Mark D'Arcy: Former minister Liam Byrne, who's leading a review of the role of select committee, says he favours a new parliamentary office of the budget to help MPs challenge the way the government spends taxpayers money

Ruth Fox: and Andy's new world, the state of British politics as the parties return to Westminster from their annual conferences, and how could the Lib Dems use Parliament more effectively to raise their national profile?[00:01:00]

Mark D'Arcy: But first the Commons is taking a look at how its select committee system operates. Does it have enough powers and resources? Is it directing its attention at the right things?

Ruth Fox: The review is being led by the Labour former minister Liam Byrne, who chairs the Business Innovation Science and Trade Committee.

So Mark and I went to see him in the Commons to find out where his review might lead.

Mark D'Arcy: Liam Byrne. Welcome to the pod. Is this inquiry there, because you've identified a problem on the Liaison Committee. Is there some crisis driven reason for looking now at the powers and abilities and purposes of select committees?

Liam Byrne: I think there's a couple of reasons. first, we've not really looked at this for 25 years and the world has changed a lot and the work of select committees has changed a lot. But second select committees are now doing things very differently. So a couple of examples, I think you see select committees now [00:02:00] prosecuting long-term questions and scandals if you like.

So the post office, for example, is work that we've done over a long period of time on our committee, but you've also had some real problematic appointments. So the work of the Foreign Affairs Committee, for example, in exploring how the appointment of Peter Mandelson was made and the problems around Ollie Robbins advice or non-ad advice has just raised a whole kind of series of questions about what is the work that we need to focus on and what's the kind of checklist that a modern select committee now needs to think about when it's setting about its work plan for the year ahead?

Mark D'Arcy: Is there then a bit of a tension between bread and butter scrutiny work of a day-to-day doings of a department as compared to the stuff that gets you headlines in the press.

Liam Byrne: I mean there's always been that tension. And I think what a lot of committee chairs think about a lot is how do you get the right mixture of slow bowling and fast bowling?

There's [00:03:00] often those kind of crisis moments when there's an issue of the moment where you really need a select committee to mobilise and light things up very quickly. So our work on artificial intelligence safety for example, is a good example where we've had to bring together where heads of AI companies with whistleblowers very quickly because we've got a bill coming down the track into the Commons that we need to ensure that Parliament is well briefed on.

We've got to, like all committees, put that alongside longer term questions. So RNA Jenkin for example, has had a long standing interest on how does government do long-term strategy. That's a really important question for select committees. How are we encouraging departments to think strategically and in multi-generational terms?

There's also, of course, a very different fiscal picture now to when we last looked at this back in 2002. And so I've got a particular interest in how do you use the committee system to promote fiscal literacy amongst members of [00:04:00] Parliament. This is something that the OECD as a whole is looking at and one of the conclusions of that work is that committees are one of the ways where you can grab members of Parliament attention around a particular moment and use that as a kind of a teaching moment to generate a much wider fiscal literacy about government budgets.

Mark D'Arcy: So this is understanding of the tax and spend position and how at the moment, for example, there is not much money in the pot.

Liam Byrne: Correct. So is a department running its business as efficiently as possible? That is going to take on an added dimension quite soon as devolution accelerates. So how a department's gonna work with other departments to pull budgets and then devolve responsibility.

How do we ensure that there is proper integrity and accountability around spending decisions in that kind of setup? So there's just a, a really different set of questions to today than there were back in 2002 when we last looked at this.

Ruth Fox: Financial scrutiny has been a, a longstanding interesting concern of the Hansard Society.

And Mark, we've talked about this on the podcast quite a number of times. [00:05:00] So on the one hand you've got the budget, how's the money raised, but you've also got the estimates, how is it spent And scrutiny of the estimates of departmental annual reports and accounts is one of the core tasks of select committees.

Have you any thinking about how that could be done better? 'cause at the moment, billions of pounds go through, almost on the nod two, three departmental estimates get debated in the House, but beyond that, there isn't the depth of inquiry and scrutiny. Are you thinking imaginatively radically about how that could be done better?

Liam Byrne: I've got my own view on this, which I've obviously got to generate a consensus around, but one of the limitations that select committees have got. Is that we don't have the wherewithal to do proper policy costings. Now, that is very different to say the United States where you have a congressional budget office.

If you look at parliaments across Asia Pacific, many of them have now got public budget offices. If you're look in Australia state, governments have got public budget offices, and what this allows parliamentarians to do [00:06:00] is not only generate alternative policy options and choices against which to judge a department's actions, but to actually develop different kind of costings for that.

Now, the fact that we can't do that in the UK Parliament means that our ability to really challenge a department on whether they're raising money in the right way or spending money in the right way is actually seriously limited. But more generally, how do you educate a Parliament? And improve its fiscal literacy.

Very difficult because people can't really take time out to go on training courses, do a bit of that, but it's quite difficult. But actually the fact that select committees issue a brief to their members once a week, they will have expert briefings in and around. That is, is a kind of a teaching moment if you like, where you can grab people's attention and actually do a bit of fiscal literacy education as well.

Ruth Fox: Is there any thought around how, for example, we could take time out of the calendar? So one of the problems with select [00:07:00] committees is lots of competing pressures in terms of parliamentary activity. You've gotta be in the chamber for a, an urgent question or a ministerial statement or a bill. And consequently one of the things the public sees is that you depart from the, the select committee members leave whilst evidence sessions are still going on and that elicits criticism.

And one of the things we've been talking about, the society is actually, looking at, for example, what happens in New Zealand where they have a whole week dedicated to scrutinising the budget by select committees dedicated to estimates, call it estimates weeks. you could be doing that here where we don't have as much attention on the chamber, but we focus more on select committee activity.

Liam Byrne: Yeah, I mean at this stage, the joy of this inquiry that we're running at the moment is that those are exactly the kind of ideas that we can explore. Obviously once you get into use of time in the chamber, that gets a little bit more constrained. But others, like leaders of the House have kind of particular opinions on what select committee should be up to.

And roaming around in the chamber is not necessarily top of their list of things to encourage, [00:08:00] but you're absolutely right. how we not simply structure our time, but structure our work and structure our presence. Because at the moment the estimates day debates are okay, but they're really time constrained.

And inevitably you end up zeroing in on the two or three acute political problems at the moment rather than taking a step back and thinking really strategically about what is the department trying to do? What are its policy objectives? Has it got a programme that's gonna hit those objectives?

Is it corralling public money in the right way to achieve those objectives or not? And so that's gotta be one of the kind of core questions that we explore. I think.

Mark D'Arcy: And I can't really recall ever sitting in on a select committee hearing where a departmental select committee had the Secretary of State in front of 'em and was saying to them, why are you spending so much of your budget on this when this ought to be a priority?

There, there's almost no questioning of kind of the balance of spending within a [00:09:00] government department. And maybe there should be, but maybe you've put your finger on one of the reasons that there isn't some kind of parliamentary office at the budget out there providing the ammunition for that questioning.

Liam Byrne: Yeah, the development of the Office of Budget responsibility was obviously a big step forward in public policy integrity in the uk, but even the OBR relies very heavily on the kind of costings estimates that are supplied by the treasury. It tends to kick the tyres on whether the method had integrity or not.

But that is not a great way really of testing whether programmes are well designed and whether the money associated with them is in the right place.

Mark D'Arcy: But the alternative to that is creating a kind of internal financial think tank for MPs at doubtless vast expense, high powered economists and accountants pouring over every aspect of government spending.

Independent of government.

Liam Byrne: True. But when you think about a government that is spending close on 40% of GDP, that's a lot of money. Making sure that money's well spent, I would say is pretty [00:10:00] good investment. a good example is, right now it is really difficult for committees like mine to afford a chief economist and yet trying to understand whether the department for business, innovation, science, and technology has actually got a plan that is growth enhancing could actually do with quite a lot of economic advice.

And our ability to go and Commission that kind of analysis and therefore provide a good challenge to government ministers is really constrained by that. And when you look around other OECD countries and how extensively they have now created exactly these kinds of facilities, the truth is the UK Parliament is falling behind global best practise.

Mark D'Arcy: Now, are you gonna find yourself going to the leader of the House after this report is published and saying, look, you've gotta stump up quite a lot of money to allow us to up our game on the committee corridor.

Liam Byrne: Too early to tell. But I think the first task for us is to basically work out what should be in this day and age, the core task of a committee, and then working through the consequential of that for the admin budget.

That's second base.

Ruth Fox: Can [00:11:00] we turn to legislation, which is another aspect of the, the work of committees. So committees will sometimes be set up to do pre-legislative scrutiny of bills. Sometimes departmental committees will be able to do scrutiny of the bill whilst it's going through the House addressing particular questions and issues that come up.

But there are holes in the process. My favourite subject Mark as you know statutory instruments and scrutiny of those, which is a task for select committees. But they struggle to do that and there isn't obviously the interest so much compared to what's going on in the House of Lords for example.

I argue there's a democratic deficit because the elected house is not doing the kind of scrutiny of some of that policy and legal work that needs to be done. It's all being left to the unelected house. And there's also post-legislative scrutiny, looking at policy and legislation after it's been implemented.

Has it actually delivered? Has it worked? completing the cycle of learning, if you like, around policy. There's not a lot of that going on either,

Liam Byrne: but I [00:12:00] mean that's why the core task exercises is so important. 'cause at the end of the day, if you're the chair of a committee, you've got about 30 sessions to play with a year.

And different committees set about their priorities in different ways. So for example, our committee goes on the road for a week or two, does a big conference, does a massive stakeholder engagement exercise to work out what business trade unions and consumer groups might think should be our kind of work.

I could probably fill out of that advice three or four years worth of sessions. And so ultimately committees have basically got to come down with a decision on how to use 30 to 32 sessions a year. And so making sure that committees and committee chairs in particular have got a framework for things that they ought to be thinking about is just helpful advice.

And I think, I suspect that we'll see a couple of things move up the agenda. So there's definitely gonna be more interest in senior appointments. So the way that we do this kind of pre. it's not a really [00:13:00] pre-appointment scrutiny because the governments tend to have appointed someone, and that's when we get to see them.

the way we go about that is really oddly constrained. You've gotta produce a report in 48 hours, which means you basically gotta agree the report after the meeting. You don't get to talk to the people who were actually on the appointment panel, so you can't really understand how they came to their decisions.

And this was lit up spectacularly around the appointment of Peter Mandelson and Foreign Affairs Committee did a brilliant piece of work. I think just understanding how that appointment was made. So I think there's definitely going to be some interest around that. There's definitely gonna be some interest around how good strategic thinking is in government.

I think there's gonna be some big questions about how we supervise devolved arrangements. And then there are some lessons to learn from successors. So the way in which a number of committees have been prosecuting long-term scandals post office is being won. But the Select Committee on Housing local government has done some really important Reform work [00:14:00] on leasehold Reform, for example.

Or if you think about the Foreign Affairs Committee's report on misinformation, that generated ideas that were then picked up in government. So we're not just looking at the gaps in select committee work. We'll also be looking at where have select committees actually done well and made a positive impact, and how do we then socialise that learning across the entire select committee system.

Mark D'Arcy: And picking up the point there about appointments, scrutinising appointments has always been something select committees have done with what used to be called pre-appointment hearings. And as you say then now the appointment's often taken place before the select committee get to sink their teeth into the person who's been appointed.

The, the contrast is always made with the US Congress Where congressional committees can block appointments and there are almost no appointments in the Kwang ocracy where that's true. I think it's the head of the OBR can be vetoed by the Treasury Committee, but practically no one else. And you have had instances where senior people have been appointed in the teeth of the disapprove of the relevant select committee?

Liam Byrne: That's exactly [00:15:00] right. And I think, again, this is a challenge for select committees. When you are running 30 or so sessions a year, but you've got at least 30 to 40 regulators in a particular department that you oversee. You've gotta be really selective about who you are bringing in and giving a thorough, working over to.

We've spent quite a lot of time with the CMA, for example, competition and market authority. Financial Reporting Council is another one that we're paying close attention to. A number of us are quite concerned about the way Ofcom is working. But if you look at the budgets for many of these regulators, there's several hundred million pounds a piece now.

They've been growing very quickly. The regulatory state Michael Moran called it is growing pretty exponentially. And there's a widespread concern that government has become sclerotic and therefore regulatory Reform is a really important part of what we're worried about. But how does select committees with [00:16:00] limited time show up to supervise regulators in a more assertive and forensic way?

a, a stronger role in appointments would be one of the ways that you could make an impact on that, because ultimately, as they used to say, personnel is policy.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah. I was gonna say, and should that include a power to block appointments where you think that someone is completely inappropriate for the job?

And can you ever imagine any government being prepared to give you that?

Liam Byrne: look, personal view is that select committees should have that role, and I think that would fundamentally change their dynamics. But I don't think you could just give that power to select committees without thinking more strategically about what it was you're trying to achieve.

You're trying to improve the quality of the regulatory state. One of the biggest problems that we've got right now is that regulators find it very difficult to work together strategically. So they often reinforce siloed government when actually you need them to work across the regulatory state in a more creative way in the future.

So you've got to [00:17:00] think, how does a, a pre-appointment confirmation power actually take its part in that wider system of improvement that you're trying to affect?

Ruth Fox: Is there a challenge here that the system is organised around departmental select committees and has been since it was set up in 1979?

A lot of the issues and challenges that we face now. take an interest for your committee. Artificial intelligence, for example. I'd say also the EU and our relationship with EU, it crosses departmental boundaries is the answer to that. Do you think just more joined up inquiries joined up working between existing committees?

Or is there a need to be thinking perhaps a little bit more, being a bit more agile about strategic focused committees that cross those boundaries? So a committee on ai, mark, I know you're a fan of this, a committee to look at ai. I think there's still a gap there to have a committee on EU relations 'cause it, it's so fundamental to, to so many areas and it's not something that foreign affairs [00:18:00] and cabinet office can do on their own.

Liam Byrne: No, I mean we do an awful lot of it. Yeah. So we produce two reports a year on UK-EU trade. But again, it comes down to the time that you've got available. So MPs are here Monday to Thursday. There is limited time in their diaries. And so once you begin setting up joint committees as well as select committees, you're beginning to multiply the work beyond the availability of MPs time.

So you've got to work within the time budgets that are available. as it happens over the last couple of years, you've seen committees roam pretty freely across departments around a particular issue. So if I was to add up the ministers that have come before me, for example, I would say that business ministers are probably a quarter of the ministers that we see.

Because we see our remit not just as the department, but for the growth mission more widely. We're often seeing energy ministers or treasury ministers or defence ministers because we look at defence sales and economic [00:19:00] security as well. So I don't think select committees feel constrained necessarily.

They will generally follow the agenda. But the bigger issue that I. Think this inquiry will get into is how we're gonna supervise devolved arrangements. And so if you are creating pooled budgets from many different departments, but then devolving responsibility for that to a mayor, then how are we gonna ensure that Parliament has got a grip on accountability and performance?

Now, one of the ways in which you could do that is by setting up regional select committees, which was yeah, actually, but actually it was, I was a regional minister back under Gordon Brown. I thought they were a tremendously effective way in which you enshrined a place focus in Parliament. If you have regional ministers and regional select committees, then actually you do create some pretty good governance and oversight arrangements that we lack today.

But again, you've gotta try and fit this within the time that MPs have got,

Mark D'Arcy: there [00:20:00] remains though this glaring hole in the scrutiny structure, which is about relations with the EU with and Burnham talking about a new deal with the European Union. But there isn't a select committee focused on that. Now, you, if for example, the UK were,

Liam Byrne: I would say we're pretty focused on that.

Mark D'Arcy: You are pretty focused on the trade and business areas of it. Yeah, but it goes beyond that, doesn't it? It's something that touches on pretty much every aspect. Of every department, every select committee could have a finger in that particular pie. It just seems to me that the government would find it quite convenient to be able to sort of soft shoe shuffle into some new deal without anybody being able to take a global view on it.

In the House of Commons,

Liam Byrne: we produce two reports a year on UK-EU economic relations. I know foreign affairs have taken quite a close interest in it. So scrutiny of the EU, as basically it is picked up by a select committee where the issue is most pertinent. But as we go into, if we go into a situation where we are [00:21:00] renegotiating, then we're gonna have to think about how we do it.

But again, select committees have got a fixed budget, and if you were to set up a new select committee within the system, that is gonna skin the resource out of all the other kind of committees. And so you've got to think, how are we best gonna do this? Do we do this by thinning out all of the other select committees?

You might actually have got some expertise and experience in doing this in order to create a new one. So there are just different options, And remember, you've still got this kind of devolution thing that you've got to keep an eye on as well.

Mark D'Arcy: I'm just thinking that, the, the history of European scrutiny by select committees isn't entirely a happy one.

A spectre is haunting European scrutiny, the spectre of Bill Cash.

Liam Byrne: I, like all, ambitious youngsters. When I got here, I was staffed onto European scrutiny, committee B, and I have to say, the scrutiny, that's it, is supplied of EU legislation was not great. Okay.

Ruth Fox: Can we turn to the powers of select committees?

Yes. whenever an inquiry into the [00:22:00] effectiveness of select committees has been held by the Liaison Committee over the last 20 years, the question of whether or not committees should have greater powers to call witnesses and to require them to attend always comes up. the spectre over that Mark is American Congressional Committees and the powers that they have compared to select committees here.

Is there any thought at the moment that this is still a problem or has this settled down and people are content with where we are with the powers that committees have?

Liam Byrne: It's definitely one of the questions we're gonna look at. And there's a couple of angles to this. So one is that we do now operate in an environment where Lawfare is a much bigger part of our work.

So I, along with a couple of other colleagues, have been reasonably forward in using parliamentary privilege to flag risks of Russian interference, for example, which MI five is now warning about more publicly. That has an [00:23:00] immense price because what you then have to contend with is a massive amount of lawfare from some pretty significant and wealthy individuals.

And so clarifying, for example, the way privilege interacts with data subject access requests is something that is gonna be really important to sort out and to ask whether actually the privilege protections are robust enough for this new age of lawfare that we're in.

Ruth Fox: Does this mean that what you are saying is that you're seeing wealthy people basically trying to take select committee chairs to court?

Liam Byrne: No, it's more trying to force disclosures of information that whistleblowers may have provided to us. And so ensuring that there is proper privilege protection, not just for what a member might say in the chamber, a protection that is widely understood, but making sure that there are the right protections about the supply chains of that information into [00:24:00] MPs is becoming really important too, because any kind of attack surface, if you like, that is available.

Rich vested interest will go for and are going for, every week. And then you're right, there's then a question about the force with which you can call for people and papers. And I think the balance here too has been, look, we'd rather not get into a very legalistic battle by enshrining these powers.

Let's try and maximise the use of persuasion. By and large, the powers of persuasion do work effectively. I, along with a couple of others, have had to use this pretty extensively in getting companies that really don't want to come into the spotlight. Into the spotlight. We generally find that the downside risks of refusing to attend outweigh the risks of coming to tell the truth in front of a committee.

But it's one of the questions that we've got to explore and look at as part of this new inquiry.

Mark D'Arcy: And I suppose the, the flip side of [00:25:00] this question is protection for witnesses in parliamentary committees there people who may, for example, be driving a coaching horses through some non-disclosure agreement that they've signed in the past?

Is there a way of extending protection to people who've testify before a select committee so that they don't get hammered as a result of that?

Liam Byrne: it's more serious than that. It's challenges around witness safety is now something that we think about and worry about an awful lot. the kind of upgrade to security arrangements in committees has had to be pretty extensive over the course of this Parliament.

And just as we have a debate that is pretty well known about MPs safety, what is, I guess less widely understood is that select committee chairs on the Liaison Committee thinks about and worries about witness security an awful lot. Because if you've got a situation where it's quite a, kind of a spiky exchange, but bad actors then [00:26:00] clip or edit that exchange in social media in order to incite aggressive bad behaviour towards the witness, that's a problem for our democracy because of course it will make it harder for us to get witnesses that we need to hear from on the stand.

Ruth Fox: Can I ask you a question, Liam, about impact of select committees? one of the things that I look at as an observer outside is what's the relationship between the minister and the, sort of the committee chair, what, what characterises for you as somebody who's been a chair now for quite a while, that sort of good departmental relationship that you can land your reports with the department, with the ministers, with the senior civil servants and know that it's gonna get listened to, read a hearing versus departments dragging their feet, not responding, not taking much interest in the work of the committee.

Liam Byrne: This is, we think about this question a lot. So there's three angles to this. so one is where you've got novel fields of policy where committees have to [00:27:00] be self-confident when the government just doesn't agree with any of their recommendations. So if I think about the work we're doing on economic security, for example, that is a pretty novel field of policy.

It's moving quite quickly. The recommendations that we made 12 months ago were by and large rejected. I think if I propose them tomorrow, an awful lot more of them would be accepted. So you've gotta be self-confident in looking ahead, seeing where events are moving to and actually saying, look, this is the forward agenda that government has gotta think about.

the second piece of the puzzle is just being prepared to stick to something long term where it is not getting sorted out. So if I think about the work of the DEFRA committee on the water industry, for example, they have just stuck to that month in, month out in a really effective way. If you think about the work that the transport committee is investing in, the national policy statements on Heathrow, for example, they are putting in serious time over the long term post office [00:28:00] scandal.

Another kind of good example. So you've gotta have the confidence to just prosecute something for the long term and often select committee chairs will like be in the chair for longer than the Secretary of State now. I'm on my third Secretary of State for business. Johnny Reynolds has held the post twice, nonetheless.

But that means I know quite a lot more about the post office scandal and how we fix it than many of the junior ministers in that department. But then the third piece of the puzzle is that there's no substitute for getting the timing right. So seeing when a bill is coming towards you and saying, I'm gonna make sure that Parliament is super well informed about the key issues at stake in that bill, and I'm gonna run a very quick series of hearings to light up a particular issue and zero in on something that needs to change is another important way of making impact.

So the immigration asylum bill, which is coming up, for example, we've just tabled amendments down on banning goods with forced labour, for example. I suspect that is gonna have quite a big impact on [00:29:00] what the government chooses to do because we've been running this debate on forced labour through our committee for a couple of years now, as has the Joint Committee on Human Rights, as has a couple of other committees do.

But precision strikes, if you like, on legislation that is about to arrive. It is just an example of how select committees sometimes make a bigger impact by just getting their timing right.

Ruth Fox: We're at the stage with the new government, the Burnham government. We've obviously had a ministerial reshuffle again.

so you've got new ministers coming in. So there's, again, there's a period of quite a lot of churn on select committees. parliamentary private secretaries have been appointed, members have come off. You're getting new committee members coming through. How do you deal with that challenge as an individual committee and a sort of a group of committees across the House?

What's the sort of opportunities you've got for training and strategic thinking with them and do you do away days and that kind of thing?

Liam Byrne: We are slightly different because we're one of the four travelling committees, so we spend quite a lot of time on the road. But one of the [00:30:00] tasks that you've got as a select committee chair is how do you create an esprit of core?

How do you create a shared worldview? How do you create a shared language? We have found that the best way to do that is to get the committee on the road to together quickly, which is why we do a national road trip once a year to tune into what businesses and unions or consumer groups across the country think we ought to be doing.

And the most, the, the most productive conversations are always in the bus, or on the train in between the meetings when people are saying, what did you hear what they said about that? Yeah. Actually, the group I was chairing said this, and that's where you are basically trying to find what John rules calls the overlapping consensus.

And so there's, there is just no substitute for that kind of grey, unstructured time between the meetings where you are jointly reflecting on what was interesting, what kind of struck you, and that, to be honest with you, that is where we get all of our ideas for inquiries, conversations on the bus.

[00:31:00] Don't tell the lobbyists that

Ruth Fox: cycle for the podcast.

Mark D'Arcy: A, a final thought. you've committee this week had some of the big names in AI in to talk about ai. What did you learn from that? How useful an exercise did that prove to be? partly because you can see that there's so much else going on in Parliament that a lot of your committee members were in and out of the room a lot of the time.

Liam Byrne: They were, but we had three goals for that hearing. So one is that we needed to bring to Parliament the testimony of whistleblowers to help communicate the catastrophic risks that AI presents unless we change the course that we're on at the moment. Second, we needed to expose the disarray amongst the big tech companies about how to get out of this.

Oddly enough, what we heard from the tech companies was a cry for help. They were in essence, communicating. They can't get themselves out of this dynamic that they're in at the moment. They need legislators. And the third thing we needed to light up is that the government has not yet [00:32:00] decided whether or if it is gonna legislate on AI safety.

That creates the gap in which my committee will now produce a report to Parliament that says, here are the things that we need to get right in the bill that is coming to us. So we had a very specific purpose with the hearings, which was to do a job, set the stage for the impact we want to have on the, cyber resilience bill that is coming.

And as it happens, it's the kickoff for a year long programme of work on AI safety and security, which we are launching today. And which will take us into questions about the UK safety regime for ai, but also what is the G 20 convention that the UK should be proposing in 2027 for AI safety.

Ruth Fox: And in terms of your select committee effectiveness committee, inquiry, what's your timetable for that?

Liam Byrne: so I'd like to try and get the report out by Q1 2027. So we've got hearings [00:33:00] over the course of November and December. I know it's a kind of a specialist interest if you like, but like you, I mean we've got, some people like you guys who think about this a lot and care about this a lot. And the call for evidence closes pretty soon, we are really open to taking written evidence over the course of November and December.

We will have hearings in public side of Christmas and then we'll try and wrap up. If we can get a consensus in the early part of 2027, it'll be out the door as soon as we crystallise the recommendations.

Mark D'Arcy: Liam Byrne, thanks very much indeed for joining Ruth and me on the pod today.

Liam Byrne: Thanks for having me on.

Ruth Fox: Mark, there was plenty there for us to chew on. And I think the big news for me was his point about lawfare and people trying to use legal means to find out the identity of whistleblowers and what they've blown the whistle on. and, frankly, even if they don't succeed, presumably they've got the resources to tie up committees in knots.

Mark D'Arcy: I [00:34:00] suppose you could call it a parliamentary version of SLAPPs, really, strategic litigation against parliamentary participation.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. Yeah. So it's looking at least one aspect of this is gonna be quite an intricate technical job for the MPs to do around parliamentary privilege to ensure that, that the rules don't allow that to happen.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, I, historically, people have always been terribly nervous about the idea of the legal framework around parliamentary privilege being formalised in some way 'cause that the courts in, and then things get very messy indeed, constitutionally. But I was also quite taken by the idea he floated there of having some kind of parliamentary office of the budget, rather like the one that they have in the US Congress, which would help MPs really scrutinise public spending.

There'd be economists and accountants backing up the analysis, providing the figures, doing the number crunching that would make that real questioning of ministers possible. Because it's always struck me how perfunctory a job Parliament does around voting, through government money to departments and billions are dispatched hither and yon with [00:35:00] a mere flick of the wrist.

And it's, it is all a, a, rather sort of ritualistic process with no real content to it.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. as it happens, the Hansard Society recommended a parliamentary budget office 20 years ago, mere in our, in our fiscal maze report. And, and funnily enough, while it's gonna survive into our evidence for this inquiry, which we will, we'll be submitting later this month, I was also struck by his point about the conversation on the bus between members of his committee when they're out on the road and, the discussions in the sort of informal private spaces that we don't see. They're often clearly as important as those in the formal spaces that we are privy to.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, having spent a disturbingly large portion of my life watching select committees, it's very striking that it's absolutely critical how good the chair is at facilitating that kind of esprit d'corp amongst the MPs who sit on a particular committee.

And you can also notice its absence when things are a bit frosty and the, the chairs lost control of the committee and some members want to go one way and the chair wants to go another way, et cetera, et [00:36:00] cetera. The soft skills needed to ringmaster the whole circus are incredibly important. And some committee chairs will be grappling with this again now because they'll have an influx of new members in the wake of the last government reshuffle as, yeah, some people have gone into the, through the pearly gates into government and others has been expelled from the garden of Eden that is Whitehall and they are finding a new role on the committee corridor.

Ruth Fox: Indeed. Yeah. listeners, we'll put details of the inquiry in the show notes, so if you've got any thoughts and ideas you can send them to, to Liam and his colleagues to ponder, I think then Mark, we should take a break. And when we come back, I wanna get your thoughts on, where we think the parties are now after party conference season as we lean into this critical autumn parliamentary term with the budget and other key milestones ahead.

But before we do listeners, in a few weeks time, we will be running an online training course, navigating Westminster, a practical guide to parliamentary papers and resources. As Parliament publishes a wealth of information, but knowing where to look and how to [00:37:00] interpret what you find takes a bit of practise.

So this session will help you navigate Westminster's official papers and website with, a lot more confidence. It's designed for people working in politics Parliament, perhaps in MP's offices, public affairs and campaigning. And of course, mark, anyone perhaps preparing for a career in the Westminster Lobby would benefit us as well.

So details are in the show notes and on our website at, hansardsociety.org.uk. There are still some places left, so if you've, if you've ever struggled to understand the order paper to find legislative papers or wondered what that will write letter is, this is the course for you. I'm afraid it's not free, but all the income that we generate, it helps to keep this podcast show on the road.

Mark D'Arcy: A very worthy cause, indeed, yeah.

Ruth Fox: Back in a minute.

Mark D'Arcy: We are back, and Ruth the age of Andy seems truly to have dawned since the party conference season as Parliament reassembles labour [00:38:00] MPs have a spring in their step. They've been given a glimpse of salvation after the awfulness of the May elections when so many of them saw huge defeats in their constituencies and contemplated electoral doom.

Now things look very different with Prime Minister Burnham in charge.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, I mean he's remaking the political weather really for labour, isn't he? He's, as you say, labour MPs, back in the spring and, frankly, for much of the last two years, really since not long after the, the general election labour MPs have been really quite gloomy and fearing that a short one term labour government was gonna, lie the ground for an incoming Reform government and all the concerns they had about that.

And now Labour MPs are quite chipper and the sort of big issues that, Andy Burnham has highlighted on the agenda, obviously electoral reform, social care, talking about a closer relationship with the EU, so these big picture policy areas that he wants to tackle. Obviously he's got a lot of political capital in his locker at the moment, but [00:39:00] that will dribble away over the course of the coming months.

And obviously the budget in particular is gonna be the big one. How that's received, things could look an awful lot, differently in a couple of weeks, Mark.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, there's a tendency, and I think it certainly happened to Rachel Reeves in her two budgets was for there to be a, a long run up to the budget in which every financial columnist was coming up with a new gloom and doom scenario about which taxes the chancellor was gonna raise and how he was going to hit, particularly middle income earners and bones would be chilled by these terrifying prophecies of doom.

But more than that, the budget is one of the few milestones we've got to figure out exactly what Andy Burnham is going to do. Now there's a long gap between aspirational ideas like a, a national care service that might get going in the early 2030s and a closer set of ties with Europe that might be enacted in a couple of years.

Those are all in the longer distance. What happens in the immediate future, and this is a guy with a [00:40:00] parliamentary majority, which would be the envy of Cle Attlee or any other previous labour leader, what's he going to do with that? Or are they just going to churn through a series of hundred bells and not really use the almost unlimited legislative power that they have?

Ruth Fox: That's the challenge, isn't it? So we are getting a sense of the short term vibes of the Burnham government. The short term vibes have improved compared to life under Keir Starmer. You've got a sense of some long-term vision. there's an awful lot of aspirational stuff around, remaking the 40 year post thatcherism, post 1979 consensus.

But as you say, very little sense of what are they then going to do in the remainer of this Parliament? 'cause they're not gonna get electoral reform through in this Parliament. they can do the preparatory work and have a Commission, but that is something that will end up presumably in the manifesto and that'll be for, legislation in a future term relationships with the EU.

it took 10 years to leave. I, it'll take [00:41:00] longer to go back if that's what he wants. And Europe will look very differently, quite possibly in, in the next couple of years. So an awful lot could happen. Along the way that makes our approach to that very different. And then social care, we are still awaiting, we understand it'll be next year the response from Louise Casey, the former civil servant who's been tasked with looking at this issue.

So you've got this, these big picture issues, but what is he going to do between now and then to set a course and as you say, to use this huge parliamentary majority that you know, really only Blair has had in terms of labour prime ministers.

Mark D'Arcy: Now there are several milestones along the way through to that promised land that Annie Burnham is talking about.

There is the budget coming up a little further down the line. There is going to be a comprehensive spending review, which will examine options redistribute the way government money is spent. There's going to be a 10 year plan outlining his much longer term vision. [00:42:00] There are gonna be big reports by people like Alan Milburn on Neats, not in education and training and as he's mentioned Louise Casey on the, social care system.

So there are things that will come along that will give Andy Burnham options. But to govern us to choose, he's got to choose what he's going to do with the proposals that emerged from these various or sa and grey beards. He's got beavering away on the big issues and he's got to start making progress on them.

And the cynic in me worries that the vibes are almost more important to him now than the actual policies. The effect of promising to do something on electoral reform, the effect of promising to get closer to Europe, the effect of promising to revamp the social care system. All these things bind some of the other left of centre parties to labour a bit more and attract left of centre outers, who may have been lured by the siren song of Zack Polanski back to the labour standard.

So there's a political value in the now. For promising those [00:43:00] things and doing them is something that can only be done in the more distant future. The preparatory steps are just barely visible to the electorate if visible at all. So in this medium term that we are talking about, the political effect is to reassemble a coalition that might win labour, a spring election next year.

And then what?

Ruth Fox: Yeah. quite a lot of people looking at this are speculating in that direction, aren't they? including from time to time over the last few weeks. But he's been clear that no, there won't be an early election. But we've heard Prime Minister say that before, so I take

it.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah. Theresa May said it, didn't she? And then she called one and of course, an early election may be the electoral death warrant for quite a number of labour MPs in quite improbable seats. I remember talking to Neil Duncan Jordan, the MP for Poole by 18 votes a Labour MP in Poole for heaven's sake.

Dorset. Gordon Bennett. So there are a lot of Labour MPs who career in Commons politics might be brought to an abrupt end by an early election, even if Andy Burnham emerges after [00:44:00] the election, still as the Prime Minister. But they don't get a say in this. Andy Burnham goes, the king advises the king to dissolve Parliament.

That's it. The king can only refuse a dissolution under very, limited circumstances, most of which have never occurred. So if he wants an election, he can, have it, and they don't get any chance to stop him.

Ruth Fox: If you're talking about a spring election, you were talking about May or June for example, and you're talking about dissolving Parliament in March, April.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah.

Ruth Fox: So between now and then you've got the budget. Things will look possibly an awful lot differently after the budget. Yeah. which may affect the mood music and the polls. You've got what the 10 year plan is due before Christmas? We don't have a date for it yet, but it's due before Christmas, so we'll have to see.

How substantive is that? Or actually is it again, a bit more heavy on the vibes rather than the detail you'd expect? The comprehensive spending review. I'm not sure when it's, they've got publish, the main vibe

Mark D'Arcy: is the spring, sometimes spring, summer. and it is one of these things where, [00:45:00] the comprehensive spending review will be by spring.

Which spring. Yeah. Spring or spring after.

Ruth Fox: And you've gotta then think about departmental spending plans start of the new financial year. When does the parliamentary session end? We've had a two year session at the start of the Parliament. You'd be expecting this to be a year, which would take you through to what next sort of may.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah.

Ruth Fox: So again, that could be a point of dissolution or it could be a part, a new king speech of a fresh start for a new session. So there's an awful lot of imponderables here. And my sense is that. I've not seen any or heard any labour MPs who are particularly keen on a general election for obvious reasons.

You look at the party structure, I'm not sure the parties in the position yet to,

Mark D'Arcy: but neither are any of the others.

Ruth Fox: No, there's so there's infrastructure and there's sort of funding issues that they'd have to resolve. I think you've also gotta look at situation in Scotland and Wales. the party would potentially face wipe out in those.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, I mean

Ruth Fox: in those areas

Mark D'Arcy: could

Ruth Fox: be really difficult.

Mark D'Arcy: Labour's rebound is much more an English [00:46:00] phenomenon than it is a Scottish or Welsh phenomenon for a start. And so an awful lot of Labour MPs in Scotland and Wales could be in deep trouble. Yeah. If there's an early election, that's certainly true because Labour's left wing competitors, there aren't the Greens, there are Plaid and the SNP and it's much more difficult to govern as the party of England.

Ruth Fox: What did you make of the Conservatives then? Because Kemi Badenoch's had a good conference, it is as much change as a result of the conference season.

Mark D'Arcy: Kemi Badenoch I think is establishing herself as someone with a bit of national name recognising now and a bit of a reputation.

People have a much more of a perception of her and I think the turning point for her in many ways was when one of her senior colleagues was keying up to defect to Reform and she preemptively sacked him. So Robert Jenrick may be the author of Kemi Badenoch's explosion onto the national stage, if that's not wildly overstating her position.

And since then she's looked tough. She's been an effective performer at PMQs. I wonder though if [00:47:00] her style, the sort of slightly scornful interrogatory style she's developed is better adapted to taking on Keir Starmer than it is to Andy Burnham that his Mr. Nice Guy approach at the Despatch box.

I think, makes her kind of Westminster debating style look perhaps the wrong instrument for tackling him.

Ruth Fox: Possibly. Although people might like her ignatious style, you're not left in any doubt about what she thinks, and she's prepared to say what she thinks, even if that might not really, be something that even people on our own backbenchers want to necessarily hear.

And this sort of idea that Andy Burnham can be a little bit windy and, there's possibly a bit of froth, particularly at PMQs saying things without the precision that possibly Prime Ministers need to have

Mark D'Arcy: Shooting from the hip and being hit when he shoots.

Ruth Fox: Yes. Quite. The other thing I think that came out though at conferences, and it reinforces her position, is that it's not obvious that the front bench behind her is [00:48:00] that strong.

Mark D'Arcy: In particular, one of the people who bombed at the party conference appears have been the shadow chancellor, Andrew Griffith, a much mocked speech. these things aren't in super, or conference speeches are very quickly forgotten most of the time. But if you need one of your top team to be a really effective performer, it's the shadow chancellor. It's the person who has to get up and set out what you would do in office as the official opposition. The person who's setting out what they hope are, will be accepted as credible financial plans who appeals to business, who is instrumental incidentally in getting those business donations into the party coffers, apart from anything else, the next most important member of the team.

So it's not great that he didn't really set the party conference a light.

Ruth Fox: No, and he's one of those businessmen coming into politics, incredibly successful businessman, and he's coming into Parliament. He's been there a while now, but perhaps hasn't still got those, some of those sort of deft political skills And, probably [00:49:00] needs a speech writer and somebody who can help him to function on the stage, yeah, that stage presence and how to finish a speech.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah. Political speech making is an unnatural act. Some maybe it comes to easier than others. But there are some people who really have to force themselves.

Keir Starmer is perhaps a classic example of this as someone who had, had in many ways a stellar legal career, but for years afterwards was addressing the House of Commons as if it was the court of appeal. So you do need to get out of the mil you were in before and learn how to do politics both in the House and on the stage in party conference and in the public sphere in studios and all the rest of it.

And those different kinds of projection that you need to learn to do. One, the absolutely unavoidable skills for a top tier politician now, and if you shadow Chancellor, you're at least aspiring to be a top tier politician.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. Green Party had a difficult few weeks to say the least.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, Zack Polanski, I think, was cornered into having to stand in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election. I don't think there was any alternative for him. [00:50:00] He simply had to pick up that challenge and then he didn't win. Is that terminal for him? I don't really think so. I'm old enough to remember Roy Jenkins wandering around the country trying to get elected as the leader of the newly formed SDP back in the 1980s.

He fought Warrington and didn't win it, and then went on to eventually win a seat in Glasgow Hillhead. So losing in one seat is not terminal for him, I think, and I suspect he may emerge in another London seat at the general election as rumours about Walthamstow taking on Stella Greasy rumours, which are slightly bolstered by the rather spiky social media exchanges they have from time to time.

But the Greens have also had this, Zionism, this racism controversy come around them. And, I think that's got them into more trouble than anything else really. The feeling that there's a, some, a rather student union element to their politics that makes them look less than fully serious, I think is what's really hurting them now.

And I've heard wild talk that some people in the Green Party want to expel [00:51:00] Caroline Lucas.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, it would be pretty extraordinary, wouldn't it?

Mark D'Arcy: The most significant Green politician Britain has ever produced. There was a one person band in the House of Commons. She was incredibly effective for the Green party.

Cut herself loose at that and there's an element of soaring away at the branch you're sitting on about that kind of thing. So that would be an extraordinary move for the Green Party to make and would suggest that the party has changed rather a lot since she was leading it.

Ruth Fox: Oh, quite to say the least.

Reform UK also had a difficult few weeks. they've had some difficulties really since Nigel Farage announced that he was standing down to force by-election in his, in his Claxton constituency. As we are recording this, we know that, in the next sort of 36 hours or so, there's gonna be an ITV documentary for which they're devoting well over an hour.

So they must have an awful lot of substantive material, but a behind the scenes documentary where they've obviously had somebody in the press office, it seems, and other parts of Reform, UK's [00:52:00] headquarters and various offices across the country doing a sort of undercover job and stories coming out already about the racist views of some of their staff and members.

So it's gonna be a difficult few days for Reform UK 'cause we don't yet know when the Parliamentary Commissioner for standards report in relation to Nigel Farage's finances are gonna come out.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah. It is. The, the chatter in Westminster is sooner rather than later. Yeah. And that could even lead on to a second Clacton by-election.

One has to feel a touch sorry for the poor voters of Clacton having to go round this mulberry bush time and time again, but there you go. But yeah, I think Reform have a number of issues here and certainly some pretty unattractive statements and behaviours have been trailed in what we've already seen from that, undercover of ITV documentary.

It's worth saying that this is not a unique factor to Reform in political parties. Yeah. not that long ago there were revelations about a pretty nasty WhatsApp group of Labour [00:53:00] MPs in the Northwest, I think the Greater Manchester area where some pretty horrible things were being said. I think if you scratched under the surface of a lot of political parties, you would find people saying and doing some pretty nasty things.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, no, I agree with that. And I think that's needs to be said for some balance here. That's not to excuse anything. No, absolutely not. That's happening with Reform. But yes, if you were to have undercover operations and journalists going in with cameras, discreet cameras, all over the place, you would find some pretty unpleasant things.

And, you can, as you say, the WhatsApp group, you've had people, attacks on people like Diane Abbott, some of the things Diane Abbott herself has said, which have caused offence. So the, there's plenty of examples both within the, the formal party structures in terms of staff, but also of course, members who are volunteers.

Yeah. And this is one of the challenges for political parties who are trying to grow is this is a voluntary operation for many of them. Yeah. There's no sort of ideological purity test or morality test or values test that you [00:54:00] take before you join a political party. Generally, you pay your money and you're in.

And of course, that's the problem the greens are now facing with these allegations of entry and sort of the bannisters of, of 10 years ago Now in entering the Green Party, the reforms got similar problems.

Mark D'Arcy: They've got an awful lot of these problems. Yes. There are hardly a day goes by without a Reform Counsellor somewhere in the country at the moment, having to resign or stand down or, yeah.

there is ee signed feuding in some group, on some council somewhere. So part of the problem of being a scrappy insurgency is that there's a lot of scrapping.

Ruth Fox: Yeah.

Mark D'Arcy: And that seems to be going on. Now. It, these may be teething troubles or it may be inherent in the kind of people who are being attracted to Reform.

And that's one of the things I'll be watching this documentary for.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. Is it cultural? Yeah. within the organisation, but also some of the money in the donations they've received, were supposed to be, to help them to put in place the infrastructure to weed out this stuff, particularly from their future candidates.

and presumably also to do the due diligence on staff. [00:55:00] So if that's failing, the question is why do they think it's failing and what are they gonna do about it? And if they don't do anything about it, then very clearly, there's an acceptance of it and it is cultural.

Mark D'Arcy: There is clearly an issue that Reform has to address, or it may end up with a very contaminated public image.

Yeah. And maybe it's getting that way at the moment, and if it becomes inre dig in the home counties, then it's got a problem.

Ruth Fox: So Reform doesn't have a monopoly on nastiness in party politics. You can look elsewhere for examples of that. As you say. On the other hand, the political parties that Nigel Farage has been associated with have all been beset by these problems in relation to racism.

And he is gonna have to get a grip and root it out, or I'm afraid he's gonna be facing this, constant problems.

Mark D'Arcy: And what about the Liberal Democrats? Ruth, Ed Davey had, it seemed to me a fairly reasonable party conference. It didn't really generate the kind of headlines that the Conservative conference did, where, there were [00:56:00] proposals on inheritance tax and things like that being announced.

No one came out with the great Lib Dems to do this kind of headline, it seemed to me, and Ed Davey has subsequently had a few resignations from his front bench team and calls for him to stand down and is he really the right person to lead the party into the next election? I suppose Ed Davey might be thinking to himself, I'm the most electorally successful leader that Lib Dems have ever had.

I imagine Keir Starmer thought something of the same, he's the most intellectually successful leader of the Labour Party ever had, but he seems to have consolidated his position. There was some kind of Lib Dem group meeting where they all got together and had some kind of group hug and, things have gone away for a while.

But I, there is a suggestion that he needs to show a different approach now.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, I mean there is this question hanging over his leadership that with this sort of band of 70 odd MPs, should he not be more effective? Should they not be making more of a splash on the national scene?

And I [00:57:00] think the challenge that they've now got though is that in the sense Andy Burnham stolen some of their issues. Stolen a march on social care, stolen a march on electoral reform, stolen a march on the EU. Now that's presumably not accidental, but it means that the Liberal Democrats have got this challenging position.

They're clearly not in an election scenario in which there's a hung parliament, they're clearly not gonna want to do a deal with the Conservatives or with Reform. So the only deal really on offer is with Labour. So they're in this position of having to develop policy ideas, put enough water between them and Labour, but trying to play footsie with Labour as well.

At the same time, it's a quite an awkward position to be in.

Mark D'Arcy: It, it's clearly very difficult and you watch Ed Davey occasionally taking a little jab at Labour at PMQs almost to collect merit badges. It sometimes feels, and I mean there is a real strategic dilemma here that the Lib Dems don't want to look like the sort of franchise operation for Labour [00:58:00] in constituencies that have a Gale's in their town centre.

That,

Ruth Fox: Gale's cafe, you mean?

Mark D'Arcy: Yes. This is one of the real strategic dilemmas that they have. Their obvious position, it seems to me is as coalition partners in waiting for labour after the next election, if not necessarily a full-blown coalition, sustainer labour government in some way in return for a few policy concessions, that kind of deal.

And that requires them not to poison the water with Labour, but it also requires them to try and build up some kind of independent profile. Now they've got all these MPs. I just wonder if they are utilising them effectively and to generate stories from the House of Commons that could perhaps help bolster the position of the Lib Dems as having a distinct offer.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. let's do free advice for the Liberal Democrat party then, because the suggestion is that after this week's, parliamentary meeting, that yes, ed safe for now, but the emphasis is very much on [00:59:00] for now. It's not clear that he would necessarily secure imposition for the long-term future. I suppose the advantage he's got is it's not obvious who the alternative leader would be 'cause because so few of his MPs have got a major national profile, but given the position, they're the third party in Parliament.

They do struggle for coverage from the media. From your former colleagues who, you and I have talked on the podcast before that you said that the lobby has a somewhat sort of sneering attitude to the Liberal Democrats, which is unpleasant. Yeah,

Mark D'Arcy: I do think that the lobby is instinctively reflexively dismissive of the Lib Dems in a way that a party with 72 MPs doesn't really deserve to be treated.

I think that they could do with possibly upping their game a little about that they're the third party, they're not the biggest story in town, but they can be a story. And I think the sort of default sear seems unfair.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, if we were advising them or advising a third party how to make more of the opportunities in the House of [01:00:00] Commons to make that splash.

And obviously there's opportunities outside the Commons, but this is Parliament Matters, in within the Commons what can be done. Obviously they've also got a big presence in the House of Lords as well. Yeah. And how can they utilise that? It seems to me that they need to pick, I don't know, three or four big issues where they're, the kinds of things looking ahead that they might want to have as a demand.

For a future coalition negotiation or more likely I think the confidence and supply agreement with the prospective Labour government, what are their demands gonna be? So clearly it looks like electoral reform is gonna be on the agenda. Yeah. It looks like social care's gonna be on the agenda. So what are the other two or three big issues that they ought to or could adopt?

And then how can they utilise the procedures of the House of Commons to make that play out?

Mark D'Arcy: And before we get on to what the issues actually are, I think let's talk a bit about what you can do to raise whatever issues you light upon here. I [01:01:00] take this, my example, the group of Brexiters who eventually cornered David Cameron into holding the EU referendum, what they did was that they met every Monday, went through the parliamentary agenda in detail and looked for opportunities to push their calls.

And it seems to me that the Lib Dems need to do that. They need to be looking at what's coming up. They need to be looking at how they push those issues, bring them to the fore, put down an amendment here, force a debate there, use the Backbench business committee to bring up an issue somewhere else.

All those kind of things can be instrumentalized to push causes within Parliament. So you are not without patent. And the procedural prerequisites of being the third party are pretty small. The biggest one is that Ed Davey gets to ask two questions every Wednesday at PMQs. Other than that, in parliamentary statements and debates, a Lib Dem front bencher gets called reasonably early on in proceedings.

But beyond that, you really don't have very much, once every thousand years you get an opposition day debate.

Ruth Fox: I think it's [01:02:00] three per session.

Mark D'Arcy: Three per session. I accentuate slightly. You've got very little else to play with there. So you're looking at ways to lever stuff into the agenda in the way that almost any backbencher might try to do and just mobilise your forces effectively.

And I don't get the sense that's happening very much at the moment.

Ruth Fox: and I think that's interesting. So is part of it that they actually need to be more strategic across the whole of the parliamentary party? So lots of Liberal Democrat MPs are putting down things like Ten Minute Rule Bill or going for adjournment debates.

And they get those and they're talking about their particular local issue or constituency issue. Do they need to be using that actually more strategically and saying, actually you need to just give that up a little bit back off that we need to be focusing more on. Four or five themes.

Yeah. Perhaps even just three big themes and really hammering home and using the opportunities even for our individual MPs adjournment debates to be [01:03:00] hammering these themes rather than just picking a smorgasbord of issues.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, I think that's certainly part of it. Part of the deep instincts, if you're an average Liberal Democrat MPs, so act as a local champion.

So they will want to, for

Ruth Fox: understandable reasons,

Mark D'Arcy: completely, that's how they got elected. Yeah. But they, they will want to talk about their local bypass, their local A&E, the redevelopment of the town centre or whatever it might be. certainly one issue I would really push, if I were the Lib Dem, and they have been saying some stuff about it, is on student loans, where clearly an awful lot of people are being absolutely crushed.

By the extent of the repayments that they're now being forced to make. And remember, the Treasury Committee produced a report a while ago saying if any private lender had behaved the way that the government is behaving towards people that has lend money to and then pushed up the interest rate on it would probably be illegal.

And there'd be in trouble with the financial conduct authority. So there's a real invisible injustice there. And that's an area where perhaps it feels like a third rail to the Liberal Democrats, given that they came to grief [01:04:00] so badly over student loans. When Nick Clegg was Deputy Prime Minister, he had campaigned very hard against a student loan system, then accepted it after the 2010 election when he joined into coalition with the Conservatives.

So it is been a very painful issue for the Lib Dems, but there are an awful lot of 20 somethings suffering a great deal and reducing the burden of payments on them might release the energy of a load of people who are basically so crushed under this burden of debt. And they'd be starting families and buying houses and starting businesses and just doing the things that energetic 20 somethings would then do.

So they have a range of policies on this issue, but it would be an issue I would hit very hard indeed if I were them and raised every possible opportunity.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. So you're appealing to younger voters, but you're also appealing to older voters. Yeah. Parents and grandparents are concerned about this, but also something like that is the kind of approach where you can be deploying your national strategy, your national messaging, but actually the sufficient [01:05:00] impact on every constituency that you could play into that from your local perspective.

Mark D'Arcy: And remember, a lot of Lib Dem seats are also university towns.

Ruth Fox: Yeah.

Mark D'Arcy: What other policy points would you be making if you were in Ed Davey's shoes at the moment?

Ruth Fox: I still think they should be hammering away at defence, but they've gotta come up with a coherent economic policy to support that. And, their defence spokesman is one I think of the more prominent spokespeople they've got.

But that's one area fits into national geopolitical issues. If you want to be taken seriously as a potential party of government, you've gotta talk to some of those big picture issues.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah. Yeah. It can't all be bypasses and hedgerows.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. Yeah. So I think they, might perhaps might not be defence, but they need to pick something that speaks to that.

That's one of that sort of collection of issues that they're gonna focus on.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah. They are, as you said earlier, very much bound to labour on a couple of issues here, because they want to move closer to Europe. They want. To Reform the electoral system. They want to get a national care system, but those are all [01:06:00] areas where they could push labour to go further.

So they could be the kind of outriders for a lot of policies that Labour's dabbling with and basically telling 'em to go for the full fat version.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. There you go. Mark, free advice for the Liberal Democrats or for any third party in the future. We'll see what happens. See whether they're listening with that.

I think, that's probably all we've got time for this week. Looking ahead next week, we'll probably be talking about the budget. Yeah. What the budget process, not, not the actual content of the budget, that'll be the week after.

Mark D'Arcy: Yes, indeed. The budget process always a mystery to those who watch from outside.

Yeah. The strange rituals around how budgets are enacted.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. But before we go, Mark, I just wanna make our regular appeal to listeners to rate and review the podcast in whatever podcast app you're using, whether it's Apple or Spotify, because it really does help other listeners to find us and to grow the podcast and for people to find out about how Parliament works.

So with that, Mark, I will see you next week.

Mark D'Arcy: See you then. Bye-bye.[01:07:00]

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