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 at the start of each minute.

00:00:00:18 - 00:00:17:08 You are listening to Parliament Matters, a Hansard society production supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. Learn more at hansardsociety.org.uk/pm. 00:00:17:10 - 00:00:55:14 Welcome to Parliament Matters, the podcast about the institution at the heart of our democracy. Parliament itself. I'm Ruth Fox and I'm Mark D'Arcy. Coming up this week. Money, money, money. Rachel Reeves draws the Commons dividing lines for the coming years. Dividing the spoils. What the share out of select committee chairs tells us about politics to come. And as Westminster prepares to welcome a new generation of parliamentary bag-carriers, a veteran Commons aide reminds them this ain't the West Wing. 00:00:55:16 - 00:01:29:08 But first, Ruth, it's got to be the starting point, I suppose. Rachel Reeves, this big statement to the House about the financial legacy of the previous Conservative government was exactly as billed, really. A massive exercise in pointing the finger of blame and the blame game produced some pretty sparky exchanges with the man she replaced in the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, about how much Labour knew about the state of the country's books before the election, and whether or not Rachel Reeves was, in effect, preparing the ground to break some of the promises she'd made about public spending and tax cuts 00:01:29:08 - 00:01:47:19 during that campaign. Yes, 22 billion pound black hole, she claims. Now, unless you've discovered some accountancy skills in the last week that I don't know about, I don't think either of us are in a position to judge who's right and who's wrong in all of this? But it will come out in the wash because eventually they will have to settle the books. 00:01:47:19 - 00:02:08:08 Parliament will have to approve additional spending if necessary if there is this black hole. But it's a pretty serious claim. And as you said, Jeremy Hunt and Rachel Reeves had some fairly harsh clashes. Jeremy Hunt isn't exactly Mr. Ferocious. No, he's normally the kind of person who, alright, can put the dagger in, but in a very sort of parliamentarian kind of way. 00:02:08:13 - 00:02:30:07 But there was visible angst and irritation. And in the middle of the chamber here. But this is central to the politics of the coming months. Now, Labour, if it has to take nasty decisions, wants them to be very firmly blamed on the previous government, not on themselves. And they also need to prepare their troops for those nasty decisions, which will come up in all sorts of Commons votes in the coming months as well. 00:02:30:09 - 00:02:47:17 Of course, this, Mark, covers one of the topics that we've talked about on the podcast previously, including last week, where we said that, you know, 1 trillion pounds worth of public expenditure was being put through the Commons without debate on the nod. It wasn't even a division on it. It was on the nod, on a voice vote. 00:02:47:19 - 00:03:09:07 And this is at the heart of the claims. So, you know, were the figures that were put to the Commons prepared by the previous government accurate or not? And Rachel Reeves' argument is she got into the Treasury and discovered that the departmental spending plans were not accurate. She highlights the Home Office and Transport departments. She says that the reserves, the contingency reserve, has been spent three times over. 00:03:09:12 - 00:03:31:08 Well, we're only four months into the financial year, so that in itself is a pretty extraordinary claim. She says the asylum system has got a projected overspend of 6.4 billion pounds. Train companies were given money that wasn't budgeted for to address shortfalls in passenger numbers after the pandemic. Military assistance to Ukraine is a big part of what was in statements of money as well. 00:03:31:09 - 00:03:50:19 Yeah, and the thing about that is, if all this is true, why wasn't it mentioned as Parliament was voting through these trillion pounds of government spending without debate only a short time before? And that's one of the questions that Jeremy Hunt immediately pounced on. Well if all this is true why didn't you mention it when there was a big vote just now? 00:03:50:21 - 00:04:23:22 Yes. And that's, I think, is a question worth exploring, particularly on this podcast more than any other, really, given it's, you know, central to what Parliament was doing last week. And I think the explanation is choreography in part. She clearly wanted to present it in her statement. There was pressure to get what's called these departmental spending plans, the main estimates approved before summer recess, which will perhaps come on to an explore a bit more detail spending plans with the previous government because they didn't get them approved because of the timing of the general election. 00:04:23:22 - 00:04:53:14 So in normal case, you'd present them in the summer. They'd be approved before the summer recess, usually approved in July, but the previous government hadn't presented them, laid them before Parliament prior to the election. The election then intervenes. In July, you've got a new government, so it's presenting the old government spending plans, and there were a lot of nervous financial officers in government departments and indeed in the devolved administrations looking towards Westminster and thinking, crikey, I hope they do get round to passing this money, otherwise there's going to be trouble. 00:04:53:16 - 00:05:23:11 Now listeners might think, why on earth are they approving departmental spending plans in sort of month 4 or 5 of the financial year? Why not at the beginning? Well, that's because they've already approved what's called the vote on account, which effectively gives government departments 45% of the money upfront in advance. And then the second stage, what's called the main estimates, is where you approve the department's expenditure plans and you take away the 45% that's already been approved, and you then approve that sort of the balance in effect. 00:05:23:13 - 00:05:50:14 And the reality is, if they don't get it approved by sort of the summer or early autumn, then departments do start to run out of money. And that's the concern. And this always reminds me of my summer days reporting on Leicestershire County Council back in the 1980s and early 90s, and there was a conservative councillor that he used to get up when they were discussing their budget and come out with this wonderful phrase, this is no way to run a chip shop, and this is no way to run a chip shop. 00:05:50:15 - 00:06:08:22 No. And, you know, we've complained at the Hansard Society for many, many years that the approach to the way Parliament, you know, scrutinizes financial matters, scrutinizes Government's tax and spend is poor. We're not the only ones. There have been other organizations who've sort of said over the years that you know, we need a better approach. We need more information that's provided. 00:06:09:01 - 00:06:34:24 I mean, this is one of the problems. Very difficult. Even if you'd had debates on the estimates, you'd have had a very small, limited number of them. So in the normal run of things, departmental select committees can and should look at the department estimates for the departments that they scrutinize. And then the backbench Business Committee will select 2 or 3 that it recommends should be debated in the Commons chamber on what are called estimates days debates. 00:06:35:01 - 00:06:55:13 Now, we didn't have that this summer because there's no backbench business committee to make those recommendations. And no select committee to scrutinize them. So the question then I think is, was the onus, therefore, on the government to have gone a step further and said, well, in the absence of select committees, in the absence of having the normal debates in this House, should they have done a statement? 00:06:55:13 - 00:07:12:12 Yeah, yeah. And here's 3 or 4 things that we might have debated on estimates days. Yeah. But I mean, this is one of the most extraordinary things about this whole system. I mean, we are talking about a Parliament that once fought a civil war and beheaded a king to assert its control over the national purse strings and questions of tax and spend. 00:07:12:17 - 00:07:36:22 Yeah. These days, that same parliament or its lineal descendant, you might say, approves trillions of pounds worth of public spending with a flip of a wrist without debate, has no leverage over how the national kitty is spent, indeed would be regarded as completely impertinent if it tried to develop some leverage over it. There's not a budget committee that takes the budget apart. 00:07:36:24 - 00:08:08:02 Budget debates, for example, are virtually a rubber stamping ritual rather than an effective examination of the budget. The Treasury Committee doesn't have the time to do a really thorough job on big financial events. It sort of has a quick ritual inquiry and then moves on. So actually, this is all completely within the control of the government. And if you think back to an episode we did some months back now, with former Lib Dem MP David Howarth, he talked about the Whitehall vision of the role of Parliament, which was essentially to rubber stamp the decisions of Government. 00:08:08:04 - 00:08:30:13 There's no better example of it than this. Yeah, but I think there's also a serious question that this government has got to answer, as well as the previous government accounting for what it may or may not have done in the final months of its life, which is: did this government present estimates last week, knowing that they were inaccurate and not say anything? 00:08:30:15 - 00:08:52:12 Which brings us back to should they have made a statement? Now, the government's argument was presumably we're making a statement a few days later. Rachel Reeves is clearing all this up in her statement on Monday. But MPs had to approve the trillion pounds by then. That's not very punctilious to tell people about the hole after the vote's been held. 00:08:52:13 - 00:09:16:08 It's not as if a whipped Labour majority would have done anything other than pass those, but I think it would have been more punctilious and one of the other arguments is that under the way Parliament operates, if these estimates hadn't been approved in one big economy package they'd have had to have been debated later, but separately one by one, and I'm not sure that's a bad idea from the point of view of a Labour government trying to point the finger at the Tories. 00:09:16:09 - 00:09:42:15 Well, no. I mean, this brings us to the choreography, because what could have been done is Rachel Reeves could have made her statement on Monday, highlighted the problems with the estimates, said, look, these are the previous government's estimates. They're not ours, but we're putting them through because we've really got no option in the circumstances and we will deal with them later in the year by providing what's called a supplementary estimate, which is normal practice to tidy things up in terms of the finances. 00:09:42:15 - 00:10:04:12 If additional money is required, they could have made that statement, presented the estimates. They could have then had the legislation they supplied an appropriation bill that's necessary to, you know, provide the legal underpinning for the departmental spending, which went through, again, with no debate, really last week. They could have had that yesterday and today. So we're recording on Thursday, the 1st of August. 00:10:04:12 - 00:10:24:13 They could have got royal assent for it in the Lords today. And that could have been it. What it would have meant, of course, is MPs sticking around for another two days and delaying recess, which possibly is, you know, what they didn't want to do, although it annoys me to no end that they drag MPs back across the country for one and a half sitting days in recess weeks. 00:10:24:13 - 00:10:53:06 It's just really frustrating. They could have sat later. Now, why is it in such a rush? Why is it important to have sort of, you know, got them through quickly? Well, there's a procedural issue. And this is where it also gets really interesting because not only. Anoraks on everybody. Not only have we got these constraints by the fact we haven't got select committees up and running, the elections undoubtedly contributed to the problems of the cycle, the scheduling of these things. 00:10:53:08 - 00:11:25:09 But we're also constrained by rules that were made in the 19th century and which have never been updated. So basically, as you say, MPs could debate these individual estimates, department by department and look at them in more depth. The reason they don't is because in 1896 or 1898, a motion was passed by Arthur Balfour, was tabled by Arthur Balfour, who was then the leader of the House of Commons to stop that, because back in the 19th century that is what they used to do. 00:11:25:09 - 00:11:43:24 They used to debate estimate motions. There used to be hundreds of them, and they'd be sweltering in the chamber of the Commons with the Thames, an open sewer, right beside. It was a pretty nasty place to be. Yeah. And they used to be sat and sat and sat in. The speaker didn't have a mechanism to bring the debates to a close. 00:11:44:05 - 00:12:07:09 So these debates used to be interminable. And they decided that that actually wasn't the best approach. So they introduced what's called the roll up motion. Now. And essentially it means if by the 5th of August, the House of Commons has considered the estimates and approved them, they will have separate debates and approval of the estimates chosen by the select committees. 00:12:07:12 - 00:12:24:14 So 2 or 3. But the rest of the estimates for the departments can be dealt with in one roll up motion. So you don't have an extended debate for every one of them. And you only have one vote. So it's quicker. So it seems more efficient on the surface. On the face of it. Now, why August the 5th you might ask? 00:12:24:20 - 00:12:52:02 Yeah, very interesting question. Why choose such a specific date? Yeah. Now you've got to bear in mind, in the 19th century, the house used to sit in a different sort of times, its concept of recess and holiday dates were somewhat different, but essentially they chose that, it is alleged, and it was alleged in the debate at the time in 1896, that it was chosen so that the timetable met the demands of grouse shooting on the Glorious 12th. 00:12:52:04 - 00:13:12:18 I kid you not. So you know that that was the day, basically, the MPs all wanted to have left the House by. So that was actually bad news for grouse. Yeah. Now so Labour's argument would be, you know, we have to get these done by the 5th of August. We therefore, recess, we're leaving at the end of July, therefore we have to get them done before this week. 00:13:12:18 - 00:13:32:14 We've got to have not just the estimates vote, but we've also got to have the legislation. So we need 2 to 3 days. Therefore we did it last week. Well, the counterargument is that it's in standing orders. They could have moved a motion to change it if they wanted. They could have had a written statement. So I'm not sure that it was necessarily deliberately intended as a slight to the House. 00:13:32:16 - 00:13:51:13 It may well have been that they themselves are not particularly familiar with the detail of some of these procedures. I'm going to advise that there perhaps was a different way they could have done it. It's I'm being generous. Well, sometimes these things are just there, and that's the way it's always been done. And no one really knows the reasons that things are done in that way before the great sort of monolithic engraved slabs of parliamentary tradition. 00:13:51:13 - 00:14:12:01 Yeah, but it does, I think, leave the government exposed to the fact that they have laid estimates before the House that they knew were problematic, and they, by not having a debate and not laying a statement, not even a written statement, never mind a ministerial oral statement at the despatch box that they knowingly allowed that to happen and asked MPs to approve something that was flawed. 00:14:12:03 - 00:14:32:07 Now we know it's flawed a few days later because of the statement, and it will get tidied up. As I said, in this sort of this supplementary estimates process that will come happen in the autumn. And of course, then we'll also have the budget because Rachel Reeves has announced the budget day. October 30th. Well it's probably a good moment for us to take a break and possibly nibble a bit of roast grouse. Back in a moment. 00:14:32:12 - 00:15:08:17 See you then. August is a landmark month for the Hansard Society. It's our 80th birthday. Founded by the MP Stephen King Hall, with initial support from the personal pockets of Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee, the Hansard Society was established to spark interest in and spread knowledge about the proceedings of Parliament. They believe that only by better understanding Parliament and how it works could it be protected for future generations and made more effective, Our founder believed that making Hansard, the record of parliamentary debates, more accessible will be a public service. 00:15:08:19 - 00:15:43:01 This belief inspired our name and has driven our work as Parliament's critical friend ever since. We organized the first ever parliamentary tours and educational programs leading Westminster to create its own education service. We pioneered online public consultations for select committees. We hosted the first public hustings for electing both the Speaker of the House of Commons and the Lord speaker. The Liaison Committee, which questions the Prime Minister three times a year, began life as one of our ideas to strengthen scrutiny of the nation's top politician. And the most popular parliamentary e-petition system anywhere in the world 00:15:43:07 - 00:16:09:04 is modeled on the approach we brokered between Parliament and government. Our mission remains crucial today to engage interest in and knowledge of the institution that most affects our daily lives, and to develop ideas to make it more effective. Our research on delegated legislation was used in the 2019 Supreme Court prorogation case, and cited in the recent judgment quashing the law, lowering the threshold on public protests. 00:16:09:06 - 00:16:33:19 At the general election, we supported 43,000 students and their teachers to run mock elections in hundreds of schools across the country. And just this month, our post on social media explaining how Parliament gets back to work after a general election have been viewed more than 3 million times. But our work, including this podcast, relies on your support. We don't have a wealthy benefactor. 00:16:33:21 - 00:17:09:24 Instead, we depend on donations from supporters like you to fund our work and maintain our independence. So if you value the work of the society, please celebrate our birthday with us by making a donation at Hansardsociety.org.uk. Thank you. Ruth, we're back. And one of the things that happened right at the end of the parliamentary sitting, before MPs went off for their summer break, was what seems like a fairly technical in-house thing, the distribution of select committees. 00:17:10:05 - 00:17:40:21 Now, the way this works is that the numbers of MPs who sit on select committees and the number of chairs allocated to each party in the Commons depends on the number of MPs elected in the election, the numbers in the House, if you like, and that distribution is always the subject of a lot of very intense negotiation between the various party usual channels business managers before it's finally announced and the distribution of select committees came out just at the last minute. 00:17:40:23 - 00:18:04:23 In a motion signed by the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak and Ed Davey, setting up all the various committees and saying which party is going to provide the chair of them. Quite an interesting set of things. Obviously Labour very, very dominant. Getting most of the select committees, the conservatives, since the official opposition, have an allocation, but some of the committees that they get are kind of determined by the rules. 00:18:04:23 - 00:18:24:00 So they will get to provide, for example, the chair of the Public Accounts Committee, they will provide the chair of the standards committee. And the Lib Dems as quite a large, almost unprecedentedly large search party in the Commons got a couple of select committees as well, and they're extremely pleased with their allocation. So take us first of all through the headlines. 00:18:24:00 - 00:18:39:24 What are the committees each party will be particularly pleased to have? Well the conservatives have got five. So as you said they've got to have public accounts committee and standards. So the choice that they get is more constrained than you might think. So they were really looking at okay, which are the other three that they could get their hands on. 00:18:39:24 - 00:19:04:11 And I think the interesting one they've got culture, they've got a public administration committee and they've got home affairs. Now of the three, I think possibly the most interesting one is home affairs, partly because I'm quite surprised that Labour's given that up, given the political salience of immigration as an issue. And you can understand, though, why the conservatives would want it to keep the focus on that issue and keep it at Cooper under the microscope. 00:19:04:13 - 00:19:28:18 So I think that is a big deal for the conservatives. And then the other one is public administration committee. Now it's got a very big remit. It's got sort of, you know, scrutiny effectively of the Cabinet Office and the civil service. It was originally partly set up to scrutinize decisions by the Ombudsman and follow up, where a finding of maladministration and bad government had been made by the ombudsman and pursue that. 00:19:28:18 - 00:19:50:10 But it's got, as you say, a much wider remit about the civil service and the workings of Whitehall and so forth. Yeah. So it will presumably be able to scrutinize Keir Starmer's five missions, that explore strange new worlds to seek out new policies. All these split infinitives. Sorry, I'm on a roll here. Presumably it'll do constitutional matters. 00:19:50:10 - 00:20:26:16 So you'd expect things like possibly something like the House of Lords legislation to go through and be looked at. If we get to things like votes at 16 and so on, you'd expect it to be picking up those kinds of issues. And then I think the interesting one is what it does with European matters, because the negotiating role, Nick Thomas-Symonds is the sort of negotiator with the EU on the sort of partnership arrangements, regulatory alignment and so on, things around the Windsor framework in Northern Ireland that has been moved into the Cabinet Office and therefore you'd expect that to come on the Public Administration Constitutional Affairs Committee remit. 00:20:26:18 - 00:20:50:10 Yes, indeed. That isn't, as perhaps you'd expect, a Foreign Office issue anymore. That's been given to Nick Thomas-Symonds, who's a very close Keir Starmer ally and someone who has had several shadow cabinet positions but is now just an inch below cabinet level as paymaster general. Yeah, well, Foreign Office has got some remit here because they have got sort of EU matters, some element of it within their remit still. 00:20:50:12 - 00:21:10:18 So it's not clear where the splits are going to be necessarily. And we'll have to wait and see what happens when the sort of ministerial responsibilities are all are all announced. But yeah, you'd expect the sort of the regulatory stuff, the alignment, the negotiations over this, a future relationship treaty renegotiation and so on. You'd expect that to be coming through the Cabinet Office, not least because of its coordinating role. 00:21:10:24 - 00:21:34:23 And meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats will be ecstatic that they have got the chair of the health committee. Yeah. The committees that they've been given include health and social care and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Petitions Committee. Now, health and social care is clearly something that they mean very much of during the general election campaign. They talked about the need to get it sorted. 00:21:35:00 - 00:21:58:17 And here they are chairing the crucial committee that will be focused on that very issue. And I wonder if this tells us that maybe Labour agreed to that because they think they can work with a Lib Dem on this issue, and they can get a bit of cross-party consensus around sorting out social care, which is something that will require some fairly painful and costly decisions if it's going to be made to work. 00:21:58:20 - 00:22:28:24 Yeah. So in there you've got, you know, Defra, the environment, food and rural Affairs differing. Yes. In that you've got environment, food and rural affairs, you've got health and social care, you've got the Home Office, you've got public administration committee. Those are four big committees where you'd want, you know, good, good chairs of those. So it also I think raises a question about what's the sort of view on the particularly in the Liberal Democrats, given their numbers, what's their view on where their parliamentary talent goes? 00:22:28:24 - 00:22:45:21 Because, you know, they've got to staff a frontbench and they've got a staff now these committees. So do you want somebody who's really good on health and social care to be chair of that committee, or do you want them to be shadowing the health department on the front bench? Yeah, and that's quite a tough decision for a lot of them, though. 00:22:45:21 - 00:23:20:02 I mean, the rumor is for the Lib Dems that Layla Moran, who'd been the Lib Dems foreign affairs spokesperson in the previous parliament and ended up talking a lot about Gaza, not least because of her family connections with Gaza, may well be the person who goes for the Health and Social Care Committee, and Layla Moran's back story is also that during the pandemic, she was the chair of the all party group on Covid and spent a lot of time raising very interesting issues, particularly around the question of long Covid and its effects and the need to provide proper care for it. 00:23:20:04 - 00:23:41:03 So she's got a bit of a background in this area, and she cut a bit of a dash on that issue. And it may be that other Lib Dem MPs, Munira Wilson, were suggested to me as another Lib Dem from the previous parliament, might fancy that job as well, but it would take her off the frontbench. But it would put her right at the center of the issue that the Lib Dems made the centerpiece of their campaign. 00:23:41:03 - 00:23:56:23 In so far as a policy was the centerpiece of any campaign, health and social care was for them. Yes. Well, we'll have to see. Labour, they've got, as you said, the bulk of the committees, they've got 18 of the 26. I don't think we'll list them all. The other big ones. But I mean, the critical one in many ways is Treasury. 00:23:57:03 - 00:24:16:05 And I think a lot of Labour heavy hitters will be casting covetous eyes on the Treasury committee. Look out for Meg Hillier trying. Meg Hillier, who was chair of the public Accounts Committee, is featured on this podcast. On this occasion, she can't be chair of public accounts because she's no longer an opposition MP. She's a government side MP and Treasury committee seems like a kind of natural evolution. 00:24:16:05 - 00:24:36:07 I wonder if Liam Byrne, who was previously chairing the business select committee, might fancy the job as well. He's, of course, a former Treasury minister. Yeah, might be all sorts of other people who we haven't thought of yet who might crop up for that one, but that'll be quite a scramble, I think, for those senior Labour MPs who haven't made it into government this time around to get a berth on the committee corridor now. 00:24:36:07 - 00:24:55:10 Yeah. The other one is defense. What do you think might happen there? Because we've talked quite a bit about the Defense Committee on the spot over the months, given the international situation. So it's rumored that, well, no, it's more than it's more than a rumour, I think she's explicitly said it on another podcast. How dare she? And Emily Thornberry has said that she is running for foreign affairs chair. 00:24:55:12 - 00:25:18:20 So who might get defense? And then, of course, there's also the other committee, which is not a departmental select committee, and won't have an elected chair. It's an appointed committee, but it is important. And that's the intelligence and Security committee. Yeah. This is actually directly appointed by the Prime minister with negotiations with the other parties to find its members on the premise that you don't want to elect someone to a committee like that, who the security services wouldn't touch with a barge pole. 00:25:18:22 - 00:25:44:14 So it's very carefully sort of structured to try and avoid concerns about leakage. So any fairly trusted figures get in there. It's difficult to know who would be the chair of that at the moment. One thought, which would be slightly precedent busting, is Admiral Lord West, Labour peer obviously in the House of Lords rather than in the Commons, but he has been security minister and he was a member of the previous intelligence and security member. 00:25:44:16 - 00:26:08:11 I think there might be a question there that you'd want it chaired by someone in the Commons. Yeah, it's the only barrier I see there. But yeah, I'm sure there are plenty of senior figures with Right Honorable as attached to their name who could be put into that committee and who'd do a job. Yeah. And on the domestic front, Labour has got the chair of all three of the territorial committees, if you like, sort of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland. 00:26:08:13 - 00:26:30:19 And it'll be interesting to see what happens regarding the membership, because if you'd be reflecting policy balance in the House of Commons, reflecting all the elections across the UK isn't necessarily a reflection of what actually happened in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. So there's going to have to be some additional negotiations there to ensure that some of the smaller parties who got representation in Scotland and Northern Ireland in particular, I suppose, applied in Wales as well. 00:26:30:19 - 00:26:49:05 Well, this is a major crisis in representation, a major gripe of the SNP, who always felt that they were underrepresented on the committee. That was the most interest to Scottish voters, and they felt that it really ought to work that way. But the breakdown on that committee should reflect the parliamentary breakdown in the area covered. Yeah. And you apply that to northern Ireland, of course. 00:26:49:05 - 00:27:09:15 And you'd have, you know, the DUP the Alliance Party. I'm not quite sure what you do about Sinn Fein representation since the Sinn Fein don't take their seats in Parliament. But it would be a more awkward exercise from a number of points of view there. But what they didn't like was a committee that reflected the Great Britain balance of power rather than the particular territorial balance of power. 00:27:09:15 - 00:27:36:24 And that's a very difficult question to unlock, because governments don't like to, in effect, relinquish control. And that might imply that they were going to relinquish control of those committees. Yeah, I mean, one way forward is to have better inter-parliamentary relations, which is perhaps a topic for another podcast, but certainly so you have, you know, relation committees that sort of better relationships with the sister committees or indeed the institutions of the entire Parliament in Scotland, Wales and, and Northern Ireland or the Assembly in Northern Ireland. 00:27:36:24 - 00:27:53:22 So one committee where we thought there might be an issue in terms of the chair was Clive Betts at the committee that he chaired in the last Parliament, the leveling up department. I mean that it's been renamed. So it looks like he's not going to be term limited in the way that we thought, that it's a technicality. 00:27:53:22 - 00:28:11:02 He may well be off the hook. It's a very convenient time to kind of see for him actually, because he's been chair in its various incarnations. What's now the housing, Communities and Local Government Committee for absolutely the ages, former Sheffield City Council. So he's got a bit of a background in local government, and he's been there for a very long while. 00:28:11:08 - 00:28:34:20 And at some point housing, communities and local government was some way down the list of exciting committees. Yeah. But now for this Labour government, with its agenda for, trying to release planning constraints, get Britain building, promote growth through infrastructure and housing investment, and actually housing communities and local government is right in the middle of what this government wants to do. 00:28:34:22 - 00:29:01:21 And I do find myself wondering if there might be some sharp elbowed incoming MP, perhaps a member of the newly formed Labour group, the backbench Labour group on growth. Yeah, you might want to muscle the way in that there is a precedent for relatively new MPs taking over select committees. Everyone thinks of Alicia Kearn's taking over the Foreign Affairs Committee in the last parliament, or Tom Tugendhat's Foreign affair, Parliament before that, and these things can happen. 00:29:01:23 - 00:29:21:03 So I don't know whether Clive will be out there already trying to shore up his position. And my understanding is the emails are out there. So I read. But the election is Wednesday the 11th of September, so it's the second week since they get back. So there'll be plenty of lobbying during the recess period and then lots of lobbying once they're back on the parliamentary estate. 00:29:21:03 - 00:29:42:15 The easy visual guide to who's lobbying for what actually is to hang around in portcullis House, the big parliamentary office block at the top of the escalators, and if you see, would be chairs or select committees. Looking around that glad handing people as they come up the escalators, there's really no scope of bringing you towards them inexorably. That's a sign of campaigning, going really life. 00:29:42:15 - 00:30:06:08 And you even start getting fliers on the coffee tables there as well. So it'll be fun to watch this space. One thing the government did do, alongside throwing the motion down for these select committee chairs, is they put another motion down to abolish the European scrutiny Committee. Now, if you remember, in the last, well, last few parliaments, this has been, Bill Cash, Bill Cash's empire. 00:30:06:10 - 00:30:28:08 He retired at the last election. This is the committee set up to, you know, throughout our time as a member of the EU to scrutinize the documents that came out of the European Union and sort of alert parliamentarians to any issues or problems with them, a workload second only, I think, to the Public Accounts Committee, given the gross tonnage of paperwork emanating from Brussels, even in the quietest times. 00:30:28:08 - 00:30:48:22 Yes, many people had concerns about the way Bill Cash approached that role. But I have to say, you know, it was a kind of rights exercise. And anyway, the government's decided to abolish it. Now it's argument, insofar as there was one put by Lucy Powell in a brief debate announcing this, was that, you know, we're no longer member of the European Union, so we don't need it. 00:30:48:24 - 00:31:10:20 You know, things have changed, which is true. But that committee had some roles and responsibilities that still exist, even though we are no longer member of the EU. So and and especially, frankly, since the government wants to renegotiate the treaty by which Britain after Brexit relates to the EU, that's due for a full sort of rethink in 2026, in any case. 00:31:10:20 - 00:31:28:02 And of course, the build up to that happens much before, you don't just sort of go there on the day. So there will be action going on. And so this is important stuff. Who scrutinizes it in Parliament? Is it going to be, we were just talking about the Public Administration Committee, which covers Nick Thomas-Symonds and the cabinet Office. 00:31:28:07 - 00:31:44:21 Is it going to be that committee which has got a huge wide ranging remit of plenty of other things to talk about? Is it going to be the Foreign Affairs Committee, which has a huge wide ranging remit of other stuff as well? Is it going to be the Northern Ireland Committee when we get into the stuff about the Windsor Framework deal that covers the Northern Ireland border with the Republic? 00:31:44:23 - 00:32:10:06 I mean, you know, all of these committees and plenty of other croissants to sautay. Yeah. So I hate to bother with statutory instruments again, but, retained EU law. Well, no, no, it's now known as assimilated law if we use the right terminology. But the reports that have to be produced every six months, setting out what the government intends to do in terms of what was retained EU law under the act that was passed last summer. 00:32:10:08 - 00:32:29:02 Those reports have to go every six months to a committee. Now. The last government chose that it would go to the European Scrutiny Committee. The most recent six monthly report has just been published just before recess. And the question is where is that going now. To be fair, you know, it doesn't say very much because it's been published by this government and it hasn't set out its plans in any detail yet. 00:32:29:08 - 00:32:46:17 So the next six monthly report will be the critical one to look at. But nonetheless, where is that going? Is that going to go? For example, an obvious candidate would be to go to the European statutory Instruments Committee, Esic, for them to look at it in future. Possibly. But again, we don't know what's happening with that committee. That is not an elected chair. 00:32:46:17 - 00:33:09:02 So it's not included in this list of 26 committees that we're talking about that will be set up later. But what we've got here is a yawning gap opening up in the structure of parliamentary scrutiny of important things that the government's doing. Yeah, and the renegotiation of our relationship with the EU. And there's plenty of talk that Keir Starmer wants to reset that relationship in important ways. 00:33:09:04 - 00:33:31:11 All that is now not really anyone's particular purview. They might decide to take a look, but it might not be very joined up. Unless, of course, the committees themselves get together and decide to do a joint inquiry, which is the sort of thing that happened a bit in the previous parliament, or maybe the Commons Procedure Committee, under new management, with a new chair in a few months time, might decide to recommend that there really should be a committee to cover this. 00:33:31:11 - 00:33:50:20 Well, I would say this is an obvious topic that the Procedure Committee could look at and then report to the Modernization Committee or the new modernization committee could choose to look at itself. You know, this is an important matter for the UK. It's cross-cutting across lots of different policy areas and therefore lots of government departments. Should there be a new cross-cutting committee? 00:33:50:22 - 00:34:10:22 I think the danger is there, isn't it, that it's nobody's prime responsibility and therefore it doesn't get done. And in effect, then it gets left to the House of Lords because they have a European Affairs Committee. Now, its remit again is different to European Scrutiny Committee as well as in the Commons. But it does some really, really good and very thorough scrutiny. 00:34:10:22 - 00:34:39:05 And there is a risk, again, that we could see MPs leaving important stuff to the House of Lords. Yeah, indeed. And if there's one thing MPs really, really hate, it's being upstaged by their lordships. So maybe that will provide some incentive for a bit of change. Should we pause there for a moment? And when we are back after another helping of grouse, we'll be talking to Max Freedman, veteran parliamentary bag-carrier and for 15 years the chair of the parliamentary branch of Unite the Union. 00:34:39:07 - 00:34:43:19 See you in a minute. 00:34:43:21 - 00:35:11:15 So, Mark, the parliamentary community is going to get a big injection of new members of staff, particularly, of cours, there's hundreds of adverts out there. Big question is what are the conditions going to be like for these new staffers? Because we've heard over, you know, of the last parliament, lots of cases and allegations about, you know, bullying and the state of conditions in Westminster. 00:35:11:17 - 00:35:32:19 So what condition is it going to be like? We've been to Parliament to speak to somebody who really knows. We've come into the precincts of Parliament, to the Norman Shaw South building. It's an old Victorian office building. It used to house the police. It used to be Scotland Yard. Now it's MPs offices. And we're here to talk to Max Freedman. 00:35:32:23 - 00:35:59:23 For 15 years he was the chair of the parliamentary branch of Unite the Union. The union looking after the interests of MPs staff. The reason we're here to talk to you, Max, is there's going to be quite a lot of new MPs staff coming in with the vast change that Parliament's just seen at the general election. We estimate anything up to a thousand, maybe more than a thousand bright, fresh faced new parliamentary bag carriers thronging the streets of Westminster. 00:36:00:00 - 00:36:17:15 Our first question really is what's it going to be like for them coming in here? What are the pitfalls? Thank you, Mark and Ruth, and it's very nice to be with you. I think you're entirely right. We've got more than half of the new MPs coming in, all new, fresh to Parliament, and they're all going to be recruiting. 00:36:17:15 - 00:36:41:15 They've started already. They're going to be getting in office managers, caseworkers and indeed parliamentary assistants. And on average, that work out about five per office. So with 300 plus new MPs, that's at least 1500 new staff coming in. They won't all be here in Westminster. They'll be up and down the country and the constituency office, or they will be once those offices have been negotiated and rented. 00:36:41:17 - 00:37:08:14 So there'll be a presence in every constituency. But yes, all of those MPs will be recruiting. And the average person that comes in is bright eyed and bushy tailed very frequently. Their first job straight out of university, very idealistic, ambitious as well, and hoping for a good parliamentary experience, along with many more long in the tooth experienced staff who've seen it all and try to do their best for the constituents. 00:37:08:16 - 00:37:36:11 And it's a very strange, individual job because you are reliant on the individual relationship that you have with your MP. And I often say to people that MPs may never have employed people before. And what we'll find, as we've always found, is there are some very good employers. There'll be some very bad employers. But what is universal is there's a personality type that becomes an MP and that tends to be driven very relentless, very high expectations of their staff. 00:37:36:13 - 00:37:53:18 People come into these jobs when they want to do a good job, but the MPs need to learn how to employ, just as the staff need to learn how to do those jobs. Because we're sitting here in an empty office and there are all three desks and a sofa, and you can imagine perhaps 3 or 4 people could work in here at a time. 00:37:53:19 - 00:38:13:15 You're talking about going into quite a claustrophobic, tight knit office unit and the personalities there, and the way people react to one another really matters. And a lot of the time it's not going to work. Absolutely. And in the 15 years that I've been chair of the trade union branch, unfortunately I've seen many instances where it hasn't worked. 00:38:13:17 - 00:38:32:09 Sometimes that's on both sides. Sometimes it's the fault of an employer not really knowing what they're doing. And you'll see some MPs with very high turnover of staff, who will then turn round to their colleagues and say, I don't know what's going on. I can't seem to get anyone good. Well, maybe if the turnover is that high, maybe the faults on the other side as well. 00:38:32:14 - 00:38:57:03 So the relationship is always essential. You are working very closely with a member of Parliament, and the work that you do can be very emotional. It can come at you fast pace. You can be dealing with some very unpleasant and stressful issues, and it's no wonder that relationships can fray. But within the office, you should all be working on the same side. 00:38:57:06 - 00:39:34:21 Hopefully it's a collaborative effort, and I like to think that over the years we've seen Parliament recognize that the people who work for MPs are a part of the parliamentary community and doing a job that helps to assist both the MPs and their constituents to really do a better job for the country. I think that's important, that concept of being part of the parliamentary community, because previously MP staff were very, very isolated and particularly in the constituency, but even here in Parliament, we talked to a few weeks ago to become a key researcher who's done a first study of MPs staff, and we were quite struck at the time where we marked the 4% turnover 00:39:34:21 - 00:40:00:15 of parliamentary staff per month was very, very high in this new parliament. Are MPs getting more support in terms of the recruitment processes to try and find that right match of staff, or is it still pretty much sink or swim, get on with it? It's interesting saying it's this is obviously a larger, unprecedented leak, but it's a very large turnover of the MPs and the parties and the House are doing more than ever before to try to support them. 00:40:00:15 - 00:40:27:01 And I very much welcome that and tried to work with them in the lead up to this election, to try to get better inductions and better knowledge of what needs to be done. For example, the Parliamentary Labour Party is currently offering a service where people can send the surveys into the PLP, who will then, as they tell me, put people who are experienced and vetted to the front so that they can come in and start working for these new MPs straight away, which is really the need at this stage. 00:40:27:03 - 00:40:46:18 But immediately before we go into the summer recess as we speak, where obviously there'll be more of an opportunity for MPs to start to recruit more widely, particularly from their own constituency. And that's one of the challenges that always exists. Balancing the team that you want to put together in Westminster with the team you want to put together in your constituency, which may be close, may be the other end of the country. 00:40:46:20 - 00:41:08:19 And quite naturally, a lot of MPs want to get to local people in who can help support them, particularly in casework roles to help in the community. But by that nature, the people that you're plucking from whatever town elsewhere in the country are less likely to have that experience than the pool of people down here in London who have previously worked for MPs. 00:41:08:21 - 00:41:35:21 So there is more structure to what's being offered. But some of those challenges will always exist, and whatever shape happens in the future, because there's been much talk about who should be the ultimate employers, who is the MP as it has always been. But the speaker's conference over the past couple of years, Lindsay Hoyle was looking into the prospect of the House employing his staff, even under those circumstances, should that ever come to be. 00:41:36:00 - 00:41:54:16 I've always thought it's important that MPs are the ones who recruit, because it is that relationship in the office which is paramount, and that it could not work in any other way, in my opinion. So you couldn't have someone just parachuted into your office by the parliamentary authority saying this is your new secretary or this is your new researcher, regardless of what the MP themselves actually wanted. 00:41:54:21 - 00:42:15:11 I suspect it could be done, but I don't think it would work very well. You think about the parliamentary labour party providing a service to try and sort of almost triage and so on. Find experienced staff. Isn't there a risk though, on the other side that that's a bit command and control. You know, the parliamentary party vetting the staff for their MPs and for me, you all look quite similar. 00:42:15:11 - 00:42:40:03 Quite similar skills, quite similar approaches to the job. I hear that criticism and it's things that have been raised with them as well. Personally, I don't think the people who have the resources to do full, deep dives into every CV that comes along to really vet people out of the jobs. But I think that there's other concerns to make sure that people should still be able to apply directly to an MP that they particularly want to work for, or indeed, say, this is someone I don't want to work for. 00:42:40:04 - 00:42:58:01 You know, there has to be that desire to work for the individual, come into play as well as simply, this is a workplace that I want to be in. So I hope the people who are listening to those concerns and making sure this will work. So what do parliamentary staffers think they're going to be doing and what do they actually turn out to be doing? 00:42:58:06 - 00:43:26:18 I'd love to sit here and say it's the most glamorous role you've all been missing out on. The reality is somewhat different from that. It is a great place to work, and you work with very interesting people on some of the most interesting issues of the day. And it's a real privilege to be here. That doesn't mean that in a gilded cage or anything like that, there's a lot of day to day effort going through, whether that's diary management, whether that's dealing with the stakeholders and constituents on different issues as they arise. 00:43:26:19 - 00:43:49:15 Caseworkers do a phenomenal job, in my opinion, having done limited amounts of casework in my time. That's a genuine consumer facing, front rank job of helping people with unbelievably difficult circumstances. So this will be things like, I need to get a council house or social housing. I need to get my relatives through immigration, whatever it is absolutely can be more urgent than that can be. 00:43:49:15 - 00:44:11:23 I'm going to be evicted tomorrow. What are you going to do to help me with the the state of my flat falling apart? And when people leave at that late, they are in desperation. And so as a caseworker, you need to have a thick skin to deal with people who are already in that mental state, but also the nous and know how to be able to try to help them in that short period of time. 00:44:12:03 - 00:44:33:09 I very much admired the efforts they put in. What are the things that perhaps parliamentary bag carriers expect to be doing, that they turn out not to do very much of? There can be some speechwriting, but you're probably not serving JFK and coming up with speeches about how you'll reach the moon. It's going to be a bit more down to Earth, literally down to Earth than that. 00:44:33:09 - 00:45:03:20 Putting things together, the opportunities exist. And in most offices, regardless of what people's job titles are, there's usually some pooling of activity. If you are particularly interested in one area, most MPs will give you your head to help out with that. The idea and again, I think it's probably ages and dates all of us that it is like the West Wing where you will be coming in and having slanging matches with the broadcast media to make sure that your MPs line is the first on the news is pretty unlikely. 00:45:03:22 - 00:45:21:18 I will say, just as a sidebar, that in nearly 20 years that I've been here, it's always been a bit of a running joke that you can tell when someone is too much into the West Wing, because that's when you start getting people with outlandish job titles like Chief of Staff or even worse, some of you deputy Chief of staff. 00:45:21:20 - 00:46:03:21 If you're dealing with an office of five people, then that's that's somewhat elevating you. I believe in your time. How do you think the culture of the house and the way that MPs staff are treated has changed? I hope for the better. But how has it changed? I do think it's for the better, and I hope that it's not just rosy spectacles that I think that the house has come to recognize that the I can't think what the latest figure of how many parcels there are, let's say, let's say 1500 or 2000, a staff of MPs with parcels who are often in and out of this place, that we're not just an irritant or 00:46:03:21 - 00:46:30:19 a an unfortunate byproduct of having to have MPs in here, that for many of us, this is our workplace to that we have a full part to play, that we love the place. As I said earlier, it is a privilege to work here and that we should be accorded our own rights and dignity in doing that. It's been a while since I've seen security guards, you know, be particularly aggressive with MPs staff, which historically very much happened. 00:46:30:21 - 00:46:54:22 This is now, I think, a more accommodating place that genuinely wants to see MPs staff have a good experience in trying to work for their members. And I give a lot of credit to the people who've made that happen over the years, not least the current speaker, who I think has taken that as one of the challenges that he wanted to address, and the resources of the House directed towards staff in a way that did not used to exist. 00:46:54:24 - 00:47:17:02 There had been a lot of concern about the levels of harassment and bullying, particularly of sexual harassment within MPs offices. Is this a problem that is going away because a new generation is more sensitive and alive to these issues, or is it as it always was? I'm not going to say it's gone away. I think that with every new intake, you hope that things are going to improve. 00:47:17:02 - 00:47:43:06 And, you know, fingers crossed they will. But as I referred earlier, there is a personality type that becomes an MP and they can be difficult to work with at times. I think one of the cultural things that has changed has obviously been the many more women MPs who've come in in the past 20 to 25 years, and that has had an impact on many of the cultures in Parliament, whether that be late night sittings, whether that be how young women in particular have found their experiences here. 00:47:43:08 - 00:48:13:18 But I do make a distinction between sexual harassment and bullying, where I think it's been less obvious what steps are taken to address that. In the past decade, there has been the creation of the ICGS, which is the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme in Parliament, which I and my colleagues lobbied Theresa May to produce in 2017. And I give her credit and particular credit to Andrea Leadsom, who then led the effort to create the IGCS. 00:48:13:20 - 00:48:41:20 I sat on the committee that helped draw that up over 18 pretty laborious months, and I do think that it's a system which is becoming more and more efficient and effective. We have seen bad employing and acting MPs and in some cases management taken to task. And in particular, I always think it's important to highlight the case of Peter Bone, who was recalled last year following findings that he had bullied his staff. 00:48:41:22 - 00:49:04:04 I really think that that aspect of it has gone under considered that if staff are mistreated, you can actually lose your seat for it. I hope that that has an effect of meaning these things don't happen at all. And we changed work cultures in this place. Much for the better. But if there are any MPs, including new MPs who've not yet taken that on board, just look at the facts. 00:49:04:08 - 00:49:23:16 Bullying your staff can actually end your career now. What do you make as somebody who is an insider at Westminster, but not completely inside the Westminster governance arrangements? What do you make of the way the House of Commons is governed? It's a good point. I, I do think, first of all, I think it's important to give credit where credit is due. 00:49:23:21 - 00:50:03:15 So much of the time we hear about bad behavior and about efforts not being taken to improve things. But I think you do have to recognize when people have made those attempts to tackle bad conduct. The one aspect that has changed also in the past five years is a speaker. Lindsay Hoyle has invited staff representatives to come along every month to the House of Commons Commission to bring issues of staff to his attention and the attention of the rest of the commission, who are the decision makers in Parliament over the state of the working conditions here. Again, that can only be a positive step. 00:50:03:19 - 00:50:27:10 There are so many committees within Parliament and I guess when I say Parliament, I do mean Parliament. I don't just mean the House of Commons. There's always the issues in the House of Lords as well. And I have represented some of my members in the House of Lords, too. And it can be bewildering even for people who've worked here for many years, to know exactly which committee internally makes decisions over which elements of our working lives. 00:50:27:12 - 00:50:46:18 But I've increasingly found them at least willing to give us a hearing, at least willing to engage and see what it is that we're raising. I don't expect to win every discussion, every argument that I have for different bodies. But if we get a hearing, if we can get some movement on any of these issues, and that's preferable to two never coming up to be considered at all. 00:50:46:20 - 00:51:05:23 But it does seem a very sort of mushy, unclear structure where there may ultimately turn out to be no one in charge of a particular issue who could just give you the management answer that you're looking for. Yeah, that can be a challenge. And that's why you need to be able to develop workable relationships with the people who are making these decisions. 00:51:06:00 - 00:51:33:08 And that's a challenge. When you've got over 50% of the MPs switching around you, people in the different positions running these different committees, and you've got to forge those contacts and those discussions once again. But I think that the prevailing mood has been that there needs to be reform in the right direction for inclusion of staff, for tackling misconduct and getting us where we ought to be, which is a modern workplace. 00:51:33:10 - 00:51:58:19 You've got a new set of people in charge of all these mysterious organs that ultimately run Parliament now. What do you hope to get out of them? I think the betting in, first off, of some of the changes that have been made, the acknowledgment once again, that staff of MPs play a full role in here and decisions should not be taken over our heads. 00:51:58:21 - 00:52:15:18 I'll give you an example. The R and R program, which is the restoration and renewal of the whole estate of Parliament, a nice little issue there, which is only going to cost several billions of pounds as and when it actually comes into place. I've been impressed in recent years, there have been attempts to reach out to staff to ask us our views. 00:52:15:20 - 00:52:38:01 To be honest, most staff don't have a particularly strong view about this, not least because the average tenure of a member of staff here is a couple of years before they move on. Not least because there's not historically been a lot of job progression and career progression within the jobs in Parliament. So many of them aren't thinking, well, what will this workplace in this building be like in 30 years time? 00:52:38:05 - 00:53:02:18 You wouldn't expect them to, but we're still being asked. We're still being asked what should a new parliament look like? What features and elements are important, and what do we think about the working conditions in the interim whilst the works are being done? I very much welcome that approach and hope we can give some useful input into that, even if it's not going to be something which actually affects all of my members. 00:53:02:19 - 00:53:28:10 The restoration and renewal is one of the issues that comes up most often in the podcast in terms of questions from listeners. There we're talking about a bill of billions of pounds when the government's facing all these financial problems, can it really say that it's going to spend all that money on refurbishing Parliament? Questions about whether it, you know, they should leave the parliamentary estate, move somewhere else to allow the work to happen, obviously, that have huge implications for staff as well as for members. 00:53:28:16 - 00:53:53:07 Do you think this is just going to get kicked into the long grass? Well, it's clearly been a pretty unedifying process so far with decisions being taken reversed. No clear steer for where we're actually going. Personally, I think it should be done as quickly, safely and inexpensively as possible, even if that means we all move out for a decade, 15 years, whatever it is. 00:53:53:09 - 00:54:21:16 Efforts are always made to look after staff on here, but it is an old and crumbling estate. How big a concern is it that something bad might happen to some of your members that are exposed to asbestos or a gargoyle falls off and hits them, or whatever it is? Will there be a worst case scenario? Obviously. And when my members raise these things, I've raised them with a speaker who has always assured me that they take action quickly when these things are spotted. 00:54:21:18 - 00:54:47:06 But this is a building that was built in the 1840s and 50s and needs to be restored. That being the case, I don't think they should waffle about it for too much longer. I think they should get on and do it, and do it for as reasonable a cost as they can get for the public purse. If that means that I and my members have to work somewhere a bit less salubrious, well, that's the price you pay for a safer workplace and for a better result for the country in the long run. 00:54:47:08 - 00:55:10:15 Max Freedman, thanks very much for joining me on the pod today. Pleasure. Thank you. Well, Ruth, that was Max Freedman on the life and perils of being a parliamentary bag-carrier. What do you make of that? Well, as he said, you know, West Wing it ain't. And I think that's the important thing for everyone coming into Westminster or thinking about applying for these jobs to remember is that it's not terribly glamorous. 00:55:10:17 - 00:55:29:01 It is really hard work sometimes. It can be challenging work. Particularly working in MPs office these days. We hear a lot about the hassle that MPs are getting the abuse, particularly on social media and so on. Those kinds of issues are really quite challenging, not just for the members, but for the staff as well, because it's also often directed at the staff. 00:55:29:01 - 00:55:48:02 You're the ones answering the phone, responding to emails. Yeah, they're the gatekeepers. They get it first. And often an important role that staff have is actually filtering out some of the really appalling stuff and deciding what's going to be reported and what's not. So, you know, they've got to have a very broad range of skills. And we know that there's quite high turnover. 00:55:48:02 - 00:56:10:14 You know, Max alluded to that, but I think it's quite positive to hear that, that in the early weeks, the House authorities and the parties were putting in some measures to try and support staff in a way that certainly wasn't there when I joined the House of Commons as an MP staff member, there was nothing. I mean, it was sort of, here you are, you were introduced to the MPs office and it was sink or swim. 00:56:10:14 - 00:56:29:19 There was no support at all. And you've got to remember, too, that it's hothouse conditions, that you'll be in a relatively small office working in close proximity to a member of Parliament who will be highly driven, highly motivated, and may on occasion possibly be highly frustrated and rather angry that something hasn't happened the way they want it to. 00:56:29:19 - 00:56:48:09 And you've got to be prepared for the odd detonation. Yeah, absolutely. And Max also alluded to the restoration and renewal of Parliament and its impact on working conditions. And of course, we've had news in the media this week, one of your former colleagues, Esther Weber, reporting that things have gone a little bit awry with one of the asbestos cases that the parliament has had to deal with in the last year or so. 00:56:48:09 - 00:57:18:06 So, you know, concerns there that that issue is going to be a long running one and one that the new intake of staff are going to have to deal with and manage. Yeah, I mean, the safety concerns around the ongoing work at the Palace of Westminster, you don't have to go very far to hear the drills and see the scaffolding and the buckets and you get rerouted around some current piece of work to realize that there are serious and very real health and safety issues in those buildings that are the natural concern of the parliamentary union. 00:57:18:06 - 00:57:36:12 So that's something that the speaker, the parliamentary authorities and the unions will be talking about every day in every way. Yeah. And I think the number one thing, the staff, people who are thinking about applying to be a staff member, they need to be resilient. Indeed. Well Ruth, that's almost it for us, for the summer break that's now approaching. 00:57:36:12 - 00:58:02:10 But never fear there is still a little bit of Parliament Matters yet to come. Yes. So we've got a special interview coming up with Nikki da Costa, the former head of legislative affairs in number ten for two former prime ministers, Theresa May and Boris Johnson. And we've got her to talk about her perspective on the King's speech, on the management of parliamentary business, how it works behind the scenes, but also what she makes of the new government in these early weeks. 00:58:02:14 - 00:58:22:10 But also, what advice would you give to the opposition now in the situation they're in, facing this huge Labour majority? How would you go about scrutinizing the government? It's absolutely fascinating. A special treat to keep you happy during the Parliament this weeks of August. So do join us for that and we'll be back again, barring a recall of course, in September. 00:58:22:12 - 00:58:33:12 Great. Enjoy your summer everyone, and we'll see you back in September. 00:58:33:14 - 00:58:53:11 Well, that's all from us for this week's episode of Parliament Matters. Please hit the Follow or Subscribe button on your podcast app to get the next episode as soon as it lands, and help us to make the podcast better by leaving a rating or review on Apple or Spotify and sharing your feedback. Our producer tells us it's important for the algorithm to give the show a boost. Tell us more about the algorithm. 00:58:53:13 - 00:59:16:24 What do I know about algorithms? You know, I write my scripts with a quill pen on vellum and then send it in by carrier pigeon. Well, before we go. A quick reminder also that you can send us your questions on all things Parliament by visiting hansardsociety.org.uk/pmuq. We'll be discussing them in future episodes including our special Urgent Questions editions dedicated to what you want to know about Parliament. 00:59:17:03 - 00:59:34:00 And you can find us across social media @HansardSociety to get more content related to the show and the wider work of the Hansard Society. 00:59:34:02 - 00:59:47:05 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.