Parliament Matters

Are House of Commons select committees equipped to meet the new challenges facing parliamentary scrutiny? Liam Byrne, the Labour former minister leading a review of the committee system, joins us to explore whether committees have the powers, resources and support they need in the modern scrutiny environment. Among his concerns is the increasing use of “lawfare” to force the disclosure of informat...

Former veterans minister Johnny Mercer joins us to discuss his new book, No Way to Run a Country: An Outsider’s Journey into the Heart of our Broken Politics , and his struggle to change veterans’ policy from inside Westminster and Whitehall. Mercer entered Parliament after serving in Afghanistan, determined to improve support for former service personnel. He recalls arriving with little knowledge...

Recorded at Queen Mary University of London as part of Student Week, welcoming students at the start of the new academic year, this special live edition features three expert guests: historian Dr Robert Saunders; Private Members’ Bill specialist Dr Daniel Gover; and historian Dr Catherine Haddon, a senior fellow at the Institute for Government and former Queen Mary student. The panel begins by ass...

MPs have rejected the assisted dying bill – but why did a proposal they had previously supported lose this time, and what happens now?   Andrew Lewin MP, a supporter of the bill, hot-foots it from the Chamber to give us his immediate reaction. He describes the atmosphere when the result was announced, offers his explanation for the bill’s defeat and considers whether and how the campaign to c...

Andy Burnham made his despatch box debut as Prime Minister in the House of Commons this week with one of the longest ministerial statements on record and a promise to strengthen the Prime Minister’s grip on Whitehall while transferring power and resources away from it.   We examine the new Office of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and No. 10 North. Are they instruments of genuine decentralisat...

Joanna Cherry joins us this week to discuss her newly published memoir, in which she looks back on some of the most contentious battles in British and Scottish politics in the last two decades.   She arrived at Westminster in 2015 as one of 56 SNP MPs elected in a historic landslide that transformed Scottish politics and made the SNP the third-largest party in the House of Commons. She descri...

Canada’s Parliament shares its Westminster roots with the UK, but it has developed its own distinctive traditions, procedures and political culture. In this episode, Charlie Feldman – former President of the Canadian Study of Parliament Group and author of Unparliamentary , a collection of stories from the stranger corners of Canadian political history – explains how the federal Parliament in Otta...

Andy Burnham has unveiled his ministerial team. So, we assess what his appointments reveal about the Government’s priorities, the political calculations behind them, and the parliamentary tests that lie ahead.   We begin with the appointment of the new Chief Whip, Anneliese Midgley MP, who takes on one of Westminster’s toughest jobs despite having just two years’ parliamentary experience and...

Following the murder of Ann Widdecombe, we reflect on the dangers facing those in Parliament and public life. Earlier this year, former Lord Chancellor Sir Robert Buckland was appointed to lead the independent review into the circumstances surrounding the murder of Sir David Amess MP, examining whether any opportunities to prevent his death were missed. He joins us to discuss the risks facing poli...

Nigel Farage has quit the House of Commons to force a by-election in his constituency. In a blistering attack on what he called the media “pile-on” and a political stitch-up by the Westminster establishment, he insisted that the “people of Clacton should be the judge of my actions.”   So, this week we dissect his “resignation” statement and ask whether he has a point. Is Farage the victim of...

With a new Prime Minister preparing to take office and the Commons appointing its first female Clerk, we discuss these two pivotal appointments that will help shape how Parliament works in the years ahead. We explore the challenges they will face in managing Parliament, examine fresh warnings from the Lord Speaker that Westminster’s restoration plans risk stalling for lack of political support, an...

What would an Andy Burnham government actually look and feel like? This week we explore how Andy Burnham might govern, drawing on his experience as a Cabinet minister, his time as Mayor of Greater Manchester, and his own writings on constitutional reform. We ask whether a Burnham government would take a fundamentally different approach to Parliament – particularly the use of the party whip – and w...

Three by-elections delivered three very different results this week. To discuss the implications, we are joined by Professor Philip Cowley, a leading expert on MPs, party discipline and the realities of parliamentary power.   The Conservatives secured their first Scottish by-election victory since 1967, taking Aberdeen South from the SNP.   Meanwhile, the SNP held on in Arbroath and Brou...

This month marks the tenth anniversary of the Brexit referendum – a vote that unleashed four years of extraordinary political turmoil. Judges were branded "enemies of the people", MPs denounced as "saboteurs", political parties fractured, and Prime Ministers rose and fell amid relentless parliamentary drama.   Historian Dr Robert Saunders of Queen Mary University of London has written a new p...

The Cabinet Manual has been described as the “highway code” of the UK constitution, a guide that brings together the laws, conventions, precedents and procedures under which the Government operates. First published in 2011, it has not been updated since, despite a decade and a half of constitutional change. So why is the Government revising it now? What needs updating? Should Parliament have a rol...

In this episode, we explore the rules governing MPs’ financial interests, gifts and donations, as Reform UK leader Nigel Farage faces questions over a £5 million gift from cryptocurrency billionaire Christopher Harborne. Ruth and Mark are joined by Duncan Hames, a former MP and now Director of UK Policy at Transparency International, to ask whether the current transparency regime is working, wheth...

The row over Lord Mandelson’s appointment as Britain’s ambassador to Washington flared up again this week after the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) accused the Government of improperly redacting documents linked to his appointment. Back in February, ministers were forced to release papers under a Humble Address to the King, with the ISC tasked with deciding what could be withheld on...

A battle for Downing Street touched off by a ministerial resignation, a chunky new King’s Speech, and an increasingly unpredictable political environment provide plenty for us to discuss with our special guest, Professor Meg Russell, the former Director of the Constitution Unit. We begin with the Labour leadership contest, which was unfolding in real time as the podcast was recorded. With Labour P...

After an awful set of elections for Labour across England, Scotland and Wales, are the Prime Minister’s days numbered? Could the Cabinet revolt? Might a rival formally launch a leadership challenge? Or might it take another defining crisis – a further final straw – to trigger a revolt by the parliamentary foot soldiers?   We also examine how Labour’s leadership rules operate, including the no...

Keir Starmer has faced “ordeal by Parliament” this week. A tense statement in the House of Commons over his handling of Peter Mandleson’s nomination as Ambassador to the United States was followed by an emergency debate and then an awkward session of PMQs. Meanwhile the Foreign Affairs Committee held a series of hearings to pick over the PM’s account of what he knew about Mandelson’s security vett...

A bill to deliver the Government’s proposed “EU reset” is set to be a centrepiece of May’s King’s Speech. It will reportedly give Ministers powers to update UK law in line with certain EU rules (so-called “dynamic alignment”) in areas such as animal and plant health (known as Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS)), energy co-operation and emissions trading. Much of this is likely to be done through del...

The Government has announced that the State Opening of Parliament and King’s Speech will take place on Wednesday 13 May - just as we predicted last Autumn! However, Ministers have not confirmed when prorogation – marking the end of the current Session – will take place. It is likely to be the last week in April but could slip into the week of the local elections. That means when Parliament returns...

The Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood MP, is planning sweeping changes to the immigration system. So, this week we put immigration law under the microscope. Jonathan Featonby of the Refugee Council joins us to explain how major shifts to refugees’ rights, settlement routes and visa rules can be pushed through using Immigration Rules, with Parliament left largely powerless to influence or block them....

The Government’s plan to restrict the right to a jury trial for certain defendants cleared its Second Reading in the Commons this week – but the fight is far from over. The proposals in the Courts and Tribunals Bill are already provoking fierce criticism, including from a determined group of Labour backbenchers. To explore what’s at stake, we speak to barrister and former Director of Public Prosec...

In this episode we continue our special series tracking the progress of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, the Private Member’s Bill that would legalise assisted dying in England and Wales. With Committee Stage in the House of Lords progressing slowly – and time in the parliamentary Session running out – we talk to Conservative Peer Lord Harper, a prominent opponent of the legislation a...