Parliament Matters

Legendary political journalist Michael Crick joins us in the studio, to discuss the progress each party is making in selecting their candidates with the general election now less than a year away. Michael has been tracking candidate selections and reporting the results each week via his @TomorrowsMPs Twitter account. He explains how he is ‘lifting the secrecy on politics in the raw’ for what have...

Members of Parliament do not have a job description. So, what exactly is their role? How do they balance constituency and parliamentary responsibilities? How do they manage ministerial and party work? At some point in the next 12 months we will have a general election. Within days, a large cohort of newly-elected MPs will arrive at the Palace of Westminster. How can they prosper and flourish in th...

The crumbling state of the Palace of Westminster is a living metaphor for the wider constitutional decay that has taken hold in the UK, as the quality of our governance has nosedived in recent years. In this special interview, Lord Lisvane – crossbench Peer and former Clerk of the House of Commons – discusses his worries about the state of the constitution and explains why he thinks the House of C...

In this bonus edition of Parliament Matters, Mark and Ruth talk to Rob Hutton, columnist and sketchwriter for The Critic Magazine, about the way he practices one of Britain's oldest journalistic arts, sketching the proceedings of Parliament. 🔗 Read Rob Hutton's recent sketches on The Critic website here: thecritic.co.uk/author/robert-hutton 🎓 Access resources about issues mentioned in this episo...

Well, in the end, was it high drama or a bit of a damp squib? This was the week when Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s fate was supposedly in the balance, as MPs on his own side decided whether they were going to back his Rwanda Bill. As it turned out, he won and won quite handily. But what happens now?  To discuss the events of the week, we were joined in the studio by Rob Hutton, parliamentary s...

If Parliament feared that their proceedings would be overshadowed this week by Boris Johnson’s appearance before the Covid inquiry, they need not have worried. MPs rose to the challenge. There was a high-profile ministerial resignation, Rishi Sunak suffered the first Commons defeat of his premiership, and Suella Braverman delivered a vengeful personal statement to the House. But what is actually g...

Welcome to this special feature of Parliament Matters, where we talk to Tony Grew – the Secretary of the Parliamentary Press Gallery – about PARLY , his journalism and social media project that shines a light on the proceedings of Parliament. If you tune-in to episode 6, you can listen to Tony and podcast co-hosts Ruth and Mark dissect the key parliamentary issues of the week and find out why Tony...

This week we are joined by Tony Grew, a doyen of the parliamentary press gallery, to discuss the growing fashion for re-writing Bills mid-air as they pass through Parliament. We debate a new report from the Lords Economic Affairs Committee about the democratic deficit surrounding the Bank of England and we look at the four new special inquiry committees Peers have chosen to set up for 2024. And we...

Following the Autumn Statement Mark and Ruth are joined this week by Dame Meg Hillier MP, Chair of the Public Accounts Committee in the House of Commons. The Committee is the financial watchdog that has been going since the days of William Gladstone. As Parliament’s ‘Wastefinder General’, Dame Meg has got a list of ‘Big Nasties’: major public sector building projects that have been delayed due to...

What a week! Suella Braverman's sacking from Government was immediately eclipsed by the appointment of former Prime Minister David Cameron as the new Foreign Secretary. Mark and Ruth explore the many questions this raises, not least for scrutiny of foreign affairs by MPs - what options do they have to hold the newly ennobled Lord Cameron to account? And with huge ministerial churn across key depar...

Periodically we’ll have special ‘Urgent Question’ episodes to answer your questions about how Parliament works. In this episode we answer questions about whether Ministerial announcements to the media before they are made to MPs amounts to a contempt of Parliament, how parliamentary reform can be secured, and whether we really need a second Chamber. 🎓 Access resources about issues mentioned in th...

Four new Chairs of Select Committees have been elected but how much can they achieve in what is likely to be the final parliamentary Session before the General Election? 30 MPs have lost the Whip in this Parliament and a recall petition has just opened in the constituency of Wellingborough after former Conservative MP Peter Bone was excluded from Parliament for six weeks. So, Mark and Ruth discuss...

As the Government sets out its legislative plans for the next Session, Ruth and Mark look at the political and parliamentary prospects for the proposals and discuss the latest on what’s happening with HS2 legislation. They ask why Parliament has legislative Sessions that begin with State Opening and end with prorogation, and disagree over whether it’s time to abandon the pageantry! Mark and Ruth a...

Welcome to Parliament Matters, the new weekly podcast from the Hansard Society about the institution at the heart of our democracy – Parliament. This introductory trailer will give you a preview of what you can expect every Friday after the first full episode lands on 10 November 2023, three days after the King's Speech. Each week, Mark D'Arcy (the BBC’s former parliamentary correspondent) and Rut...