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PMP E47 ===

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. And

Mark D'Arcy: I'm Mark D'Arcy.

Ruth Fox: Coming up. Meet the new kids on the committee corridor. What are the challenges facing the newly elected chairs of the Commons Select Committees? We'll be talking to parliamentary expert Mark Geddes, who's been crawling through the detail of the elections.

Mark D'Arcy: No change for the better at PMQs. The Commons Weekly Highlight is still as trivial and shouty as ever.

Ruth Fox: And the gathering financial storm. We're a month away from the budget, and everything in politics is now about the money.[00:01:00]

Mark D'Arcy: But let's start, shall we Ruth, with Prime Minister's Question Time. Do we have to? Sigh, sigh, sigh. It's just as bad as it ever was. I did nurture just such a slight hope that this might become something other than a kind of combination shouting match and dispensation of pre scripted soundbites, but it's just not happening.

It's identical to the sort of farcical nonsense and trivial waste of time that we used to get before the election. No bold new dawn, I'm afraid, is breaking over the Commons Chamber.

Ruth Fox: No, I mean, it was a little bit like back to the bad old days, wasn't it? The jeering, the shouting, the Prime Minister not answering any questions directly, the canned soundbites that we got turned out.

Like you, I suppose I possibly hoped with half a new chamber of new MPs that they might not quite fall into those habits quite so quickly. But I mean, incredible that they've only been in a few weeks and already they've sort of taken on board the [00:02:00] cheering and the jeering and so on. Clearly orchestrated by the whips, I'm afraid.

Mark D'Arcy: I imagine that what's happened is that all the newbies had been diligently watching parliamentary highlights for the previous year or so, to kind of get themselves in the groove for when they became MPs. And they assumed that this was how you behave, er, that's it, rather than thinking there must be a better way.

Ruth Fox: Yes, and every time Keir Starmer answered a question and sat down, you know, there was a whip clearly indicating to the MPs that it was time to start cheering. And giving him vocal backing.

Mark D'Arcy: I suppose we're nearly in the pantomime season, but there was a distinct, oh yes you are, oh no you're not,

Ruth Fox: Yeah.

Mark D'Arcy: kind of feeling about it.

Ruth Fox: There was an issue about, of course, Rishi Sunak in his final, final weeks of this journey. parade of PMQs each week. He asked pretty much the same question for, I think, four or five of his first six questions, which was about the winter fuel allowance, which had already been debated the previous day.

Perfectly legitimate question, I thought, to ask where was the impact assessment for the [00:03:00] winter fuel allowance decision. And the Prime Minister's response every time was 22 billion pounds black hole, didn't engage at all with the question of whether or not there is an impact assessment, and if there is, where is it, and if there isn't, why not?

I mean, we've not talked a lot about PMQs on the podcast, and we probably need to come back to it and do a special detailed analysis, a deep dive, with some of the people who helped prepare the leaders for PMQs each week. But it's scrutiny, but it's not, yeah, It is scrutiny, and, and I'm, you know, if you're the Prime Minister, it's, it's a managerial tool that you have to put the rockets up Whitehall to progress chase on issues across departments.

That's how, of course, Margaret Thatcher famously used PMQs.

Mark D'Arcy: The Prime Minister said at Prime Minister's Question Time, this must be done, so it must be done.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, and you know, demanding answers from departments before PMQs about the kinds of issues that you think might come up. So there's that that off stage that we don't see, but actually in the chamber, [00:04:00] it's pretty dire.

And I thought this week, interesting, that the first question was asked by a new MP, Torsten Bell, former head of the Resolution Foundation.

Mark D'Arcy: Star of the Treasury Select Committee for several years before.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, so he, you know, his regular appearances at the budget and the major financial statements, he was giving evidence before the Treasury Committee.

He's just written a book about the state of the economy, seen as a rising star already, a parliamentary private secretary. And he embarked, not on a question, but a statement. And he really got the Speaker's back up. I mean, I was quite shocked that the Speaker dismissed him.

Mark D'Arcy: He had his legs hacked out from under him pretty rapidly by Mr Speaker.

But this is one of the things that continues to surprise me. It's perhaps less surprising in a complete newcomer to the Chamber. Although, frankly, they ought to have noticed that you're not allowed to make gigantic statements at Prime Minister's Question Time in, in the pretense of asking a question.

But it's, it's something that also much older hands fall into and they get up and [00:05:00] they start this great prolix question.

Ruth Fox: It's prime time, isn't it? They think it's their moment in the sun.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, it's a primetime moment, but it's not more effective for their purposes if they burble on for ages to no particular purpose. If you're going to get a gig at Prime Minister's Question Time, craft a pithy, pungent, effective, and above all, short question.

Ruth Fox: Yeah

Mark D'Arcy: that the speaker is going to accept, that you're not going to be humiliated by being told to sit down and get it right next time.

Ruth Fox: Yeah,

Mark D'Arcy: and you will find that it's a much more effective way of performing in the chamber than just rambling on for hours Your effectiveness is not measured in seconds and minutes.

Ruth Fox: Yeah

Mark D'Arcy: It's measured in, uh, effectiveness.

Ruth Fox: Yes. Funnily enough.

Mark D'Arcy: Spookily enough.

Ruth Fox: I mean, I, one of the features, and it's, again, it's not new in this parliament, it's been going on for a long time, but if you look at ministerial departmental question times already now on the order paper. The number of duplicate, identically worded questions there are on the order paper, where clearly the parliamentary private secretary for the department or the, the whip have [00:06:00] put out a request for MPs to lodge this question.

The minister's clearly got something they want to say. They've got some figures they want out there or something. And you get multiple MPs, putting down the same question, and we had on the order paper earlier this week, 25 questions, of which 15 had at least one other question identically worded. There were six, I think, six questions that were identically worded, I think, in relation to special needs in education.

Now I understand the desire to be helpful to the Whips, helpful to the Parliamentary Private Secretaries. It gets you an opportunity to talk about special needs provision in your constituencies. But really, maybe adjust the wording of the question a little bit.

Mark D'Arcy: Have a little bit of dignity, frankly.

Ruth Fox: Yes, quite.

So again, it's not new, but I, I just sort of think if you've been elected to represent people, you could at least, if you're putting down a parliamentary question, you could at least adapt it a little bit.

Mark D'Arcy: Thinking it's like putting in a job application you've had an AI write for you[00:07:00]

But one of the points though about PMQs is something that's not there. What's not there is any sense of a great ascendancy by a Sir Keir Starmer as the incoming prime minister, who's just scored a smashing majority at a general election, who's in command? There doesn't seem to have been any kind of honeymoon at all.

There doesn't appear to have been any moment where the opposition has subsided into an embarrassed silence. You don't get the sense of a dominant figure yet, sitting on the Treasury bench as Prime Minister.

Ruth Fox: Well, I mean, if you remember last week, he kept calling Rishi Sunak Prime Minister. So I suppose this week, the fact he didn't was progress.

Mark D'Arcy: I imagine his handlers breathed a sigh of relief on that one.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. But I mean, is this something you have to, you know, You have to kind of grow into.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, there's a sort of cliche I picked up from the West Wing ages ago. There was a wonderful discussion in one of the sort of election episodes of the West Wing about using the presidential voice and one of the characters pipes up that the thing about the presidential voice is that you have to be [00:08:00] president to use it.

And I think Keir Starmer's in the process. Growing into the kind of prime ministerial authority that comes after a while. I mean Margaret Thatcher, remembered as a fantastically dominant Commons performer, wasn't necessarily all that great to start with. These things take a little while. You you have to kind of let your back brain accept that you're there perhaps. But that'll come and the point about Prime Minister's Questions at the moment is that neither of the main protagonists are actually all that good at it.

No. They are at best middling performers. Rishi Sunak was never wildly effective at PMQs. Keir Starmer was never wildly effective as leader of the opposition. Neither established a dominance over the other.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. And it'll be interesting once we get the new Conservative leader, how that then, you know, is there a change because they will be in a different position, they will, they will be new at the dispatch box in that role.

I mean, you know, they've all got ministerial experience, so they're used to standing up on the front bench, but it's different at PMQs when the cheering and the [00:09:00] jeering is going on and the focus is on you. So how they perform and how Keir Starmer stands out against them and manages, yeah, you know, a different personality in that role will be, uh, interesting to watch and it can happen in a moment.

Mark D'Arcy: Mm. You remember Tony Blair after the 2005 general election having seen off William Hague, having seen off Iain Duncan Smith, having seen off Michael Howard, finds himself facing the young David Cameron and David Cameron has this wonderful one-liner he deploys. He was the future once.

Ruth Fox: Yeah.

Mark D'Arcy: Kapow. Instantly established himself as someone who could actually go toe to toe with Tony Blair.

And you know, William Hague was an excellent performer at Prime Minister's Question Time for all the good it did him. But somehow Cameron established himself from being the bright young man no one knew all that much about to being someone who could do that and and it was it was a change in the atmosphere right there and you may or may not get that with whoever the emergent Conservative leader is in a few months time

Ruth Fox: Yeah, so watch the space and it'd be actually perhaps that's when we need to have the [00:10:00] conversation in a bit more detail about Pmqs

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah

Ruth Fox: You said earlier, though, Mark, that the Conservatives were being quite robust, pushing back on the Government, and particularly on this question of the 22 billion pounds black hole that's being blamed for every decision the Government's having to take, and particularly, of course, this week on the winter fuel allowance, and I think that is interesting.

I mean, they are really pushing back quite strongly, and you would think that some of the decisions that the government's currently having to make, the Conservatives had not been in government for 14 years, and only very recently. And we saw it this week with the winter fuel allowance debate where they are suddenly converts to the value of impact assessments and scrutiny by advisory bodies like the social security advisory committee and so on.

All good things as far as we at the Hansard Society are concerned. But suddenly the Conservatives are proponents of them when I think it's fair to say their performance in government on these issues would have been regarded as, um, well, C perhaps, if you're lucky, C [00:11:00] grade.

Mark D'Arcy: You're being very generous there.

Ruth Fox: I'm being very generous.

Mark D'Arcy: This is an example of a syndrome that you see with changes of government. What happens is that having spent years decrying the sins of government for not having impact assessments, for not going through the proper parliamentary processes around big announcements, for example.

The former opposition becomes a government and then does precisely those things itself, for precisely the reasons the previous government did them. Meanwhile, the people who were in government just a few months before, suddenly start complaining of the very sins they themselves were until recently committing, you know, each one of them instantly, where it's kind of role reverses. And you've got to admire their ability to keep a straight face while they do it.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. I think there's something else that work as well with the Conservatives though. They are pushing back very strongly and making some quite critical claims about the Labour government and in almost sometimes moral terms.

I think they 2010, where if you remember Liam Byrne. He of [00:12:00] the, the treasury who left behind the, the traditional note for ministers that all the money has been spent, there's nothing left. And that became the sort of, the, used by the Conservatives coming into government as a sort of signature message that even the minister admits the scale of the financial crisis they've left us and, and they made great play of that.

Mark D'Arcy: I think, I think this actually happened, didn't it? to James Callaghan when he came in as Chancellor under Howard Wilson's government in 1964. There was a letter on the table from, I think it was Reginald Maudling, the outgoing Conservative Chancellor. It was something like, sorry old cock, there's no money left.

Ruth Fox: and this was a tradition that I think ministers had always done when they left the Treasury. David Laws, I think it was, the Lib Dem minister, decided that he'd leak this and make great play of it. So I doubt that it's been happening ever since. But I, I think the Conservatives are taking the lesson, there was a feeling in Labour circles after 2010 that they did not do enough to push back on that, that they didn't do enough to defend the record, and partly it was a product of the sort of the Blairite [00:13:00] Brownite differences.

They didn't do enough to defend the Blair record in government, for example. I think the Conservatives are taking a lesson from that, that they are going to push back, they're not going to leave unanswered. This point about the 22 billion. They don't accept that it's, it's all their fault and that they're going to keep pushing back.

There is a risk, I think, in that, in that they push back so much, you know, for example, Robert Jenrick this week, blaming the government for releasing prisoners and saying, why haven't prisons been built as if he'd not been in the home office for a number of years, there is a risk of almost fighting the last war.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, exactly. And it also reminds people that they were in power until fairly recently. so why hadn't they built the prisons? And the answer to that is that it's extremely difficult and expensive to build prisons, but if you're going to complain about them not being there, maybe you should have done it.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, but although I'm critical of the failure to take responsibility, you can't ignore the fact that actually the Conservatives do have a point, that if you are taking a decision like the winter fuel [00:14:00] allowance, that's going to affect so many people. You're taking it quite quickly because you're saying that there's a black hole of 1.2, 1. 4 billion pounds in year that's got to be filled, but it is going to affect a lot of pensioners who are just above the pension credit limits. Parliament is entitled to have information about what the impact and effects are going to be. And I think Rishi Sunak is right, even despite his past record, he's right to be concerned, to draw attention to the fact that there is no impact assessment for this decision. And why? Has the government produced one and isn't giving it to parliament? Which itself is wrong.. Yeah, or isn't there one? In which case, why not?

Mark D'Arcy: Well, indeed, and there is a sort of meta political problem to this, which is that if you, as the Labour Party was doing when in opposition, say that when you're in charge, you're going to be cleaner and better and you're going to observe due process.

There's something very dangerous about turning out very rapidly to be just like all the rest.

Ruth Fox: Yes, and that is a claim that the Labour Party [00:15:00] made in opposition. I mean, the new leader of the House of Commons, Lucy Powell, I mean, was very explicit about wanting to raise legislative standards and doing things differently.

I accept on this there may be grounds of urgency and there may be need to do things. more quickly than is ideal. But, you know, Rishi Sunak's asking for this impact assessment, and we haven't got any clarity about whether there is one and whether it's going to be, appear at some point. But when it does, it's too late to inform Parliament.

That is not the right approach to take.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, indeed, and there'll be plenty more of this to be done. As I say, lots and lots of difficult decisions coming. And more than that, the select committee system will soon be up and running. and capable of taking a much more detailed look than is possible just on the floor of the House of Commons at particular decisions.

So ministers may have had an interval where they didn't have select committees breathing down their neck, but that interval has come to a close.

Ruth Fox: Of course this PMQs came, uh, after the Winter Fuel vote and, uh, what was the, I suppose, the [00:16:00] second mini rebellion of Keir Starmer's time in office after the King's Speech rebellion which saw seven Labour MPs lose the whip.

It wasn't the kind of major rebellion people were perhaps thinking might happen. Lots of Labour MPs abstained, found themselves away from Westminster with other duties, as we suspected.

Mark D'Arcy: It was a kind of halfway rebellion, really, because only one MP actually voted against the government. Around 50 found reasons not to vote for the government.

In some cases, it's things like ministers being abroad or whatever, and therefore not able to take part in the vote. But quite a number of MPs who clearly were uncomfortable didn't in the end vote for this, but they didn't vote against it either. And I'm not sure that helps them, in their constituency. I mean, if you've been going around putting out statements saying this is a terrible decision, old people are going to have a terrible time if their winter fuel allowance is taken away from them.

They're not following through with an actual vote against, so how much credit they will get with their voters for that. I really don't know. [00:17:00]

Ruth Fox: On social media, I mean, Rachel Maskell, the backbencher who was in the forefront of pressing the government to change their approach, she was getting absolutely hammered on social media for abstaining, but I thought there was an interesting statement put out by the MP for South Shields, Emma Lewell Buck, who herself didn't vote, and she said it cannot be fair that at a time when public services are crumbling and government finances are tight, the wealthiest in our society receive winter fuel payments.

It also cannot be fair that many vulnerable pensioners will now miss out. And she said, I'm deeply dismayed that MPs today were asked to vote either for or against a piece of legislation that proposes to remove the payment from the wealthiest, but also to means test it for those who are struggling. To vote against it is to say, I want the wealthiest to continue to receive public funds.

To vote for it is to say, I want my constituents to struggle. That's why I abstained on today's vote.

Mark D'Arcy: She's obviously been listening to your critiques of the workings of statutory instruments on this podcast.

Ruth Fox: Absolutely. And that sums it up, doesn't it? Because [00:18:00] there is no ability for members of parliament or indeed peers to amend statutory instruments, these regulations of which .

the winter fuel allowance was one. And that's one of the problems. If you have an objection, you can have an objection both ways. Therefore, you are left with no option but to abstain because you don't want to endorse either keeping it for the wealthiest or taking money away from from poor pensioners.

We've advocated that, you know, you need a different approach to delegated legislation. And, you know, how would our approach play out in this scenario? Well, MPs could have decided that they wanted a Regulatory Policy Committee to look at this, if the committees, of course, have been set up. I mean, the problem partly with this is it's too early in the Parliament for more scrutiny other than in the Chamber to take place because the select committees are not fully set up.

You could have had, you know, a minister brought in to answer questions. They could have gotten to the bottom of why there's no impact assessment that's been published. We've never advocated that statutory instruments should be amendable directly, but you [00:19:00] could have the motion that's tabled could be amended.

So people like Emma could express their views about what changes they think should take place. And that would at least pile the political pressure on the government to do something and to respond to that. The MPs could then have voted for that rather than having to, to abstain.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, it's just a system that is extremely convenient.

In a way, because government MPs are cornered into a position where the consequences of voting against the government are far worse than the consequences of voting for it, or at least they hope they are. And at this stage of the parliament, maybe this will all be forgotten by the time of the next election.

But, all the same, this is an uncomfortable harbinger for the government that they've got this many MPs already saying that they are prepared to at least abstain. It took a very long time for Tony Blair to find himself in this kind of situation. For years, Labour MPs were almost robotic in their devotion to towing the line.

Ruth Fox: As you said last week, those that feel that they've, they've had to vote in, or not [00:20:00] vote in a way that doesn't sit comfortably with them, are the ones who find that most difficult to absorb. And that is one of the things that sort of eats away at them. And you can sense that frustration in, in Emma Lewell Buck's statement.

But, as it stands, I think there was only one Labour MP who actually went over the top and voted against the government, and voted for the Conservative Party motion, and that was John Trickett. Now, as, uh, I'm not aware that he's actually lost the whip as yet, I've not heard anything.

Mark D'Arcy: There doesn't seem to have been any visible consequence yet, and John Trickett's actually quite a big figure.

Former leader of Leeds City Council, he was Gordon Brown's Parliamentary Private Secretary when Gordon Brown was Prime Minister. He was a member of Jeremy Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet. So, he's not some no mark backbencher having a fit of conscience in the shadows. He's someone who's reasonably prominent in the Parliamentary Labour Party.

So, it'd be quite a big step to discipline him. And while he has made himself a different case to the 50 abstainers Whether or not the government feels that it wants to go nuclear against him, you know, it's, it's, it's an [00:21:00] uncomfortable decision. But, you know, they will be thinking, this is not the last of these we're going to have to do.

You know, the budget is coming up at the end of October. The comprehensive spending review a bit after that. And these will contain big and probably extremely uncomfortable financial decisions. I suppose the other point to make about it all is that The window of minimal scrutiny that you were talking about is closing.

The select committee chairs have now been elected. The select committees will be in operation by the time of the budget. Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, will be before the Treasury Committee a couple of weeks after delivering the budget. And there will already have been a full dressed Treasury inquiry into the budget decisions she's made in that budget, so there'll be a lot more scrutiny coming down the line in future. And of course we'll be talking about all those select committees springing into action after the break, but let's take that break now Ruth.

Ruth Fox: Great, see you in a minute.

So we're back and we're delighted to welcome Mark Geddes, who's Senior Lecturer at Edinburgh University. And, he's written a book about select committees called [00:22:00] Dramas at Westminster, Select Committees and the Quest for Accountability, which, I recommend. Um, we're going to talk to him on what's not the best Zoom internet connection in the world.

So if the audio quality drops a little bit, our apologies. So, Marc welcome to the podcast. You've been crawling over the details of the select committee elections for chairs that have taken place this week. What are your thoughts on the, uh, the results?

Marc Geddes: Thanks Ruth and thanks Mark. Yeah, I'm absolutely delighted to be here.

And the elections were really interesting. I thought, um, straight off the bat, I would say that they're the most contested chair election since the Wright reforms were introduced, which took place in 2010 and introduced the electoral dimension. And this is the lowest proportion of chairs where people were elected unopposed at this time round at 30 percent. In 2010, 33 percent were elected unopposed.

So it's actually the most competitive election that we've had since 2010. In 2015, 48 percent of positions were uncontested and in 2017, it was [00:23:00] 63%.

Ruth Fox: Wow.

Marc Geddes: Whilst in 2019, it was 46%. Yeah. So there is quite a significant difference there. So that on its own, I think is really, really interesting. And it's also anecdotally hearing about the level of electioneering that took place, which I think is quite interesting.

Ruth Fox: We'll come to that.

Marc Geddes: To the extent that I don't know if you see it. But uh, Kat Smith's nomination paper, for example, to become chair of the procedure committee was explicitly on the pitch that there should be less electioneering allowed for these chair elections, which I thought was quite interesting.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, I mean, I think it might be worth touching on that because she, she began her candidate statement, every candidate has to put out a statement that the House then publishes, ran to 112 pages, all of these nomination statements this, this year. And her headline, her statement was, stop this nonsense. Are you feeling bombarded with WhatsApps?

And she said, basically, my, my pitch. is that, um, I want to stop this nonsense. Reign in over excitable colleagues. Please vote for me on Wednesday and hopefully we won't have to [00:24:00] go through a select committee chair silly season ever again. So yeah, there is that sense that MPs have just felt absolutely bombarded with leaflets under the door.

She was complaining about, you know, open your door and you slip on the, the cascade of leaflets. MPs campaigning. WhatsApps at weekends, emails bombarded with them. I think some MPs were thoroughly fed up with it all.

Mark D'Arcy: I can imagine. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So when you look at the chairs who've been elected, is there anything different about the composition, the gender composition?

I mean, obviously the party balance is set in advance. We know that certain committees are to be chaired by people of particular parties, Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat. But is there any other noticeable difference in, for example, the seniority, the gender?

Marc Geddes: Yes, there are. There are considerable differences.

So in 2019, 32 percent of chairs were women, which was the previous high point. By 2024, that was broken quite significantly, where 59 percent of chairs [00:25:00] are women MPs. So that's 16 out of 27 MPs are women chairs. And of that, quite a large proportion comes from the Labour Party, so 72 percent of Labour chairs are women.

Mark D'Arcy: And what about the seniority levels? Are there many newcomers, because there was a certain amount of talk about how some uppity new MPs were perhaps getting above themselves and running for the chairmanship of select committees.

Marc Geddes: Yeah, there was quite a lot made of these eight newly elected MPs that stood for election, so none of them, with one exception, which is the Scottish Affairs Committee, actually made it through.

So the Scottish Affairs Committee, as I said, I suppose a little bit different because both candidates came from the 2024 intake so there wasn't much choice there.

Mark D'Arcy: I suppose also, Labour's two sitting MPs in Scotland are both in the government, so they couldn't run anyway. So it had to be a second one.

Exactly, yes.

Marc Geddes: So, so I think that's a particular case, but otherwise those newly elected MPs did not stand a chance actually. If you look at the breakdown of the election results, you can see that the 2024 intake of MPs [00:26:00] did quite poorly compared to their more experienced colleagues. So those more experienced MPs won by quite considerable margin very often.

So, so even though there was much talk about these new MPs standing for election and offering a fresh pair of eyes and things like that. Their colleagues in Parliament weren't necessarily convinced by those arguments.

Mark D'Arcy: Still, sometimes it can be worth a try. I suppose there's the example of Tom Tugendhat or Alicia Kearns who both ran for the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee quite early in their parliamentary careers and achieved prominence thereby.

Marc Geddes: Absolutely. And there's no reason to think that these MPs can't stand again in the future at some stage. And they've probably got quite promising careers ahead. If you look at their nomination statements, for example, they do have quite considerable experience. And I think it's also important to say that if those MPs hadn't run in a lot of these chair elections, then they would have been uncontested.

And I think even giving those experienced MPs arguments to hold this election, I think gives an added legitimacy to the whole process, to be honest.

Ruth Fox: We've had quite a few questions in, Marc, about these elections, and we've had one from Sam Wilson on Bluesky. Who says, [00:27:00] how likely is it that we'll see some of those elected on the front benches before the next election?

Because of course, that is one of the questions about select committee chairs, you know, are they a post you take after you've served in government, which we've seen in the past, or are they a platform to launch your parliamentary career, as we've seen with people like Tom Tugendhat getting into ministerial office?

What are your thoughts on, on who might be the people to watch, who are currently now, chairs who might be people who get on the Labour front bench in the not too distant future?

Marc Geddes: That's a great question. So I think that there is definitely a case where things have in the past switched around quite a lot and are going to again in the future.

There was actually a really interesting Hansard Society blog that my colleague Stephen Holden Bates had written for you about the changing nature of chairs and whether or not it is an alternative career. And I think that is quite interesting in terms of the data, which suggests that chairs haven't replaced ministerial careers.

So I think a lot of those chairs that we now have are still going to be eyeing up a potential [00:28:00] future ministerial career.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, we will put the link to Stephen's blog in the show notes.

Marc Geddes: Oh great, super. In terms of somebody that I think is Somebody that I've been consistently impressed by is the MP Chi Onwurah who's going to be the new chair of the Science and Technology Committee.

Given her experience and her scientific background, actually, means that she has quite a lot to offer, and who's worked quite hard on bringing scientific issues in Parliament. So I think that's going to be a really interesting debate. Interesting committee to watch. And there's some obvious other ones who were previously shadow secretaries of state.

For example, Emily Thornberry and Debbie Abrahams. To see whether they are now trying to carve out an alternative career or whether at some point in the future dynamics might change. So that's on the Labour side and, and who knows what's going to happen following the leadership election in the Conservative Party, of course.

Mark D'Arcy: I suppose the other question that hangs over the select committee elections and the future of select committees is how effective they will be. First of all, in terms of scrutinizing a government with such a towering majority, there's [00:29:00] going to be a Labour majority on all these committees scrutinizing a Labour government, and it's going to be a very big Labour majority on all these committees.

And are they going to be able to work collaboratively? The government has come in saying that it's got a whole series of kind of cross cutting objectives on things like moving to a net zero economy and creating safer streets and driving growth and all the rest. Those don't naturally all neatly fall into particular committees' area of responsibility.

So, for example, on the Net Zero objective, you can imagine that the Energy Security Committee might want to work with the the Business Committee and maybe with the Public Accounts Committee in assessing the effectiveness of the government's performance, but is there going to be the willingness there for that kind of collaboration?

Because historically, select committees have often been quite tetchy about kind of guarding their borders.

Marc Geddes: Yeah, that's a great point. Increasingly, chairs have been been quite protective and defensive over their turf and their policy areas that they're responsible for. But I think that we've also seen greater willingness amongst chairs to bring different committees together.[00:30:00]

One opportunity, for example, arose over COVID-19, which brought together the Health and Social Care Committee and the Science and Technology Committee in the last Parliament. And there are other examples where other committees have used their sort of overlapping domains to try to hold government to account.

I think a lot of this will depend on the nature of the chairs themselves. It will depend very much on their personalities.

Mark D'Arcy: And the, the Science and Technology and Health Committee inquiry into COVID, for example, the two committees were chaired by two former Conservative ministers who'd served in cabinet together in Jeremy Hunt and Greg Clark. And so there was a natural relationship. And that leads me to look at the configuration now of the current committees. You've got Meg Hillier, former Chair of Public Accounts, chairing the Treasury Committee. And meanwhile, in the Public Accounts Committee, it's now chaired by Sir Geoffrey Clifton Brown, who was her deputy for seven years on Public Accounts, and they worked together very effectively. And those are two committees that historically have kind of eyed each other up and been very defensive, as you say, about their turf. So I wonder if you could suddenly [00:31:00] see Public Accounts and Treasury collaborating, and between them, perhaps providing rather more effective scrutiny of the way the government spends money than has been the case in the past.

Marc Geddes: Absolutely. And given how high profile economic questions are, that's actually really, really important that those committees. do work together. And, I mean, given Meg Hillier's reputation, for example, to work consensually and collaboratively with her committee members whilst she was chair of the Public Accounts Committee, I can definitely see that being the case in the future.

Mark D'Arcy: Was anything said particularly in the election statements from all the people vying to be chairs about, I want to work collaboratively with other committees to provide better scrutiny? Or is that a theme that hasn't really come out in public too much?

Marc Geddes: I have actually read through the 112 pages of the statements.

Whether I should have done or not, I don't know. But broadly the statements spoke about the experience and expertise of MPs and often the priorities that they would have. All their inquiries. A lot of them did also speak about the [00:32:00] importance of cross party consensus, but I think they were more talking about within their committee.

I can't remember specifically mentioned cross party working between different committees, but you never know. It's definitely something that committees are more aware of, and I think especially sharing some of the resources that they need to hold government to account as effectively as possible.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, I was very struck reading Meg Hillier's statement, uh, Marc, that it was a very practical pitch.

It wasn't just about what I think are the priorities, you know, how I'm going to run the committee, the culture of it, but very practical around, she talked about regular communication with MPs across the house about upcoming sessions. And then she had this wonderful line that she's going to produce weekly readouts of public hearings in a crop and drop format for your communication with constituents.

So it sounded like a sort of, I'm going to give you some text that you can copy and paste into your communications about what my committee is up to in terms of economic issues and economic scrutiny in the house. And she talked about proactively engaging with MPs on areas of interest [00:33:00] to you so that you can feed in your knowledge and expertise.

That was very much about sort of at an MP level rather than at a cross party, more formalized level.

Marc Geddes: Absolutely. Yeah. And I think it's worth saying that some of those MPs in the nomination statements have very, very clear ideas in terms of what they think they should be prioritizing for the their committee.

Um, so already listing, I will inquire into X topic. Others have emphasized far more, uh, collaborative working that they want to do.

Ruth Fox: So you're saying there that a number of chairs are, you know, pitching what they think their committee should be looking at. But of course, this is something that they will have to discuss with the members of their committees once they are chosen after party conference recess.

And we had a question from Morgan GD on social media who says, how will committees decide what to discuss or hold inquiries on? What's the process?

Marc Geddes: So usually what happens in committees is that they will have a discussion around what's coming up more generally in the political calendar and what are their important issues to cover.

But some [00:34:00] MPs and indeed some chairs come into their posts with very clear ideas of what they think are important issues that should be covered and that should set the debate in their particular policy domain. Another dimension is that MPs and committees have to deal with issues that are emerging, reacting to essentially the political debates and the media debates that are taking place.

That's one issue that, that committees will have to grapple with. So, there's quite a lot that goes into that pot. And I suppose one final thing that I would say about thinking about what committees should inquire into, what their work program looks like, is also the dimension of public engagement.

So some committees have been very proactive in asking the public to send in their suggestions for inquiries. I remember the Transport Committee has done this in the past and the Science and Technology Committee have done that as well. So there's lots of different ways. That committees can set the agenda for their work program and ultimately it's up to the chair and the members to do that in any way that they think is the most appropriate way to then hold government to account

Mark D'Arcy: Well Marc thanks very much [00:35:00] indeed for joining us. That's been a fascinating look at the potential future action on the select committee corridor.

Thanks for joining us on Parliament Matters. Thank you for the invite

Ruth Fox: Westminster is always buzzing with political drama and rumours. But whatever the daily gossip or the latest crisis, lawmaking and parliamentary scrutiny carries on regardless. So it's crucial to stay informed about what's happening in Parliament each week. That's why we've launched a new Parliament Matters Bulletin, our weekly analysis of what's coming up in Westminster, as a complement to this podcast.

Our approach is inspired by the informative articles Mark used to write each week for the BBC, which many of you have told us you miss. So if you want to know what's coming up in Parliament, sign up to our Hansard Society newsletter to get the bulletin straight to your inbox every weekend. Go to hansardsociety.org.uk and click on the newsletter button in the menu bar at the top and fill in your email details.

It'll only take a minute. Again, that's hansardsociety.org.uk.[00:36:00]

Mark D'Arcy: And Ruth, there are a couple of things that we didn't quite have time to cover with Mark, but there are a few oddities that have been thrown up by this latest round of Select Committee elections. I was struck, for example, by the position of Bob Blackman. Now, he's now the successor to Graham Brady as the chair of the Conservatives' very powerful backbench 1922 Committee.

I mean, so Graham Brady was basically almost a sort of angel of death for Prime Ministers coming in and having to tell them that the game was up on several occasions during his long tenure. Bob Blackman doubtless hopes that he won't end up calling time on too many Conservative leaders, but he's also unopposed, the chair of the Backbench business Committee, the committee that allocates a substantial block of Commons time for subjects for debates chosen by backbenchers.

All sorts of issues that have to be raised on a cross party basis. You can't turn up just with the phalanx of one party's MP saying we want to talk about this, you have to have a a cross party delegation appear before the [00:37:00] Backbench Business Committee and say, this is a very important subject that we want to talk about, and then they ask how many speakers you think you're going to get, and do you want to be in the chamber, or would you be content with a debate in Westminster Hall?

Bob Blackman's been a stalwart of that committee for quite a long time, but all the same, there's a slight incongruity about someone who has such an important internal conservative position being the arbiter over a selection of Commons time. Now, is there really a conflict of interest there? Well, I suppose we'll have to see.

Ruth Fox: It feels instinctively a bit uncomfortable, but I can't quite put my finger on why and whether, whether it will actually play out. The other interesting appointment, I think, is Alberto Costa as chair of the Standards Committee, who was, of course, in the last Parliament was on the Privileges Committee. The relationship between those committees is very close.

Membership, uh, similar. And of course, he was one of the Conservative MPs that was, uh, taking on Boris Johnson in, uh, in that famous inquiry in the last Parliament.

Mark D'Arcy: Who gave the thumbs down to Boris Johnson. Yeah. Yeah.

Ruth Fox: So, you know, he took on a sort of, uh, a brave role, uh, at that time.

Mark D'Arcy: Absolutely. I suppose at least it established that [00:38:00] he's capable of rising above party interests.

Now, the Chair of the Standards Committee is usually quite a low key figure in Westminster, right up to the moment when they're not. When something like the Boris Johnson Downing Street Partygate affair erupts and there are genuine questions about whether, for example, someone lied to the House of Commons.

So, it may be that his subsequent career as chair of this committee is untroubled by major controversies, but you never know. It can be one to watch, or it can be one that sails along more or less below the surface.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, and you have to say for the interest of the House of Commons, I hope we don't hear anything from Alberto Costa at all in this Parliament, but I fear that won't be the case.

I mean, the same way that I suppose for that committee you want a sort of a demonstration of impartiality and fairness. The other side of it is, because we've got so many Labour chairs of select committees in this parliament, the question is, are they going to be tough and stand up to the government and be effective in their scrutiny of ministers?

Um, particularly if, as we, we talked earlier with Mark, you know, they're perhaps hopeful of some of [00:39:00] them, of ministerial preference in the future. And I think one to look out for is Florence Eshalomi. We've mentioned her on the podcast before. She's actually the MP now for the area where we have our office.

So I suppose technically she's the Hansard Society's MP she's got the Chair of Housing, Communities and Local Government, Angela Rayner's big department, so she's in effect scrutinising the Deputy Prime Minister.

Mark D'Arcy: And this is of course a department that's fairly crucial to the government's drive to boost economic growth, all that planning reforms to get Britain building, to get more infrastructure built, go through that department and therefore through that committee.

So her ability to scrutinize that crucial area of government policy and possibly work with lots of other committees in order to scrutinize it where it goes kind of across borders and between silos is going to be very important.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, I thought it was interesting in her nomination papers, she talked about, I suppose, what we'd now call the lived experience.

She talks about how growing up with her single mother, two younger sisters, in council housing, after spending time in temporary [00:40:00] accommodation, and she knows what a sense of security, stability, and belonging to a community means when you've sort of lived in those uncertain housing circumstances situation, so interesting that she's got that very personal experience that she can draw on in such a crucial department when housing is such a big issue.

Mark D'Arcy: I think that's another important development in select committee land over recent years is that they've moved on a bit from just hearing from kind of Freudian authority figures who are world experts on housing policy or whatever it is and they have started talking to people on the sharp end of government policy so whether it's council tenants living in poor conditions or private sector tenants living in poor conditions.

Down trodden commuters or whoever there's much more of a tendency to try and hear what it's like at the sharp end as well as hearing the views of kind of the usual experts and that's been quite a big development I mean select committee has also come for all sorts of other things like an increasing tendency to get the celebrities who've been campaigning on a certain issue before them to give their views just as a bit almost a piece of [00:41:00] showmanship to highlight the issues and attract publicity for an inquiry.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. We actually had a question about that on social media from Stone Dweller Lucy. So Lucy, I think that partly answers your question. Talk a bit about how select committees engage with the public in the course of their work. So, you know, it's through social media, through these inquiries. And as you say, bringing in people, all the range from the famous person who can push a campaign right through to the policy expert, but actually getting out into communities as well.

I mean, sometimes select committees will go on the road to do their inquiries and visit places and hold inquiries out in the regions, as well. It's trying to get more of these people with, I hate the term, lived experience.

Mark D'Arcy: It's become an unavoidable term, but select committees now do have the ability to reach out simply because social media is now so powerful and it is possible to go onto the Parliament TV website and just watch any given select committee doing its inquiry live and commentate on it.

And I was very struck years ago [00:42:00] when people were looking at the social media operations during the Leave referendum. It was all about Cambridge Analytica, if you remember that. I said, this is one of the most extraordinary select committee hearings I've ever heard. And the torrent of social media interests that followed that comment got retweeted all over the place.

Much to my absolute amazement, showed that people really are watching when their interest is piqued by this stuff. And it is well, well worth committees remembering that. They have much more reach, perhaps, than they themselves imagine.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. Well, we had a question also from Julia Cushion, who's the Policy and Advocacy Manager at MySociety, who we've had, uh, had mentioned on the podcast before.

She's interested in what powers, both formal and informal, committee chairs have to encourage government to act on their recommendations. So it's all very well sort of getting on the Today programme, getting attention, getting social media coverage and so on, but But ultimately you want your recommendations as a committee to have some impact in government, in policy terms.

So what are the sort of ways in which [00:43:00] that can happen, and are there any examples of chairs who've done this quite successfully?

Mark D'Arcy: Well, there's no formal power for a select committee to make a government do something. They can produce recommendations, and their recommendations are all the more powerful if they have clear cross party backing.

If, for example, you have all the government MPs voting one way and all the opposition MPs voting another way on something and there's a minority report even, then the power of that is much diluted. But if you've got a unanimous select committee finding that such and such needs to be done, that's quite powerful.

And ministers would be expected to some extent to take notice. But there's nothing to force them to, except the power of the Select Committee to keep its jaws firmly locked on their ankle. And make sure that ministers at least have to explain why they're not doing what the Select Committee suggests.

And that can be followed up, for example, in Prime Minister's Questions. Will the Prime Minister explain why our sensible recommendations on X have not been followed up by his government? Will the Minister, explain why they still haven't [00:44:00] done what we said they should do at Question time, so on. So that's one way, the other way is of course calling a follow up hearing, and getting a minister in front of the camera to explain why they haven't done it, and chase them in great detail, and that can happen as well.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, there's also provision for select committee statements in the House. Periodically. I mean they get sort of 15 minutes dedicated time when the chair of the committee can stand up and talk about their report but that's not the same as actually having impact. The minister has got to at some point respond but it's pretty limited and one of the problems of course is there's so many select committee reports coming out, so many different inquiries that there isn't enough time in the House for members to debate them all and one of the problems is that some of these reports can sit on the shelf for quite a long time before they get aired.

Mark D'Arcy: There's an awful long lag time sometimes between a report emerging and anything being said about it on the floor of the House of Commons at all, which obviously dilutes the impact right there. But all the same, the key factor is a willingness by the Select Committee and the individual members of it, not just the Chair, but quite a number of the others to follow up [00:45:00] and harry the government and keep on the subject if the government isn't responding as they would wish.

Ruth Fox: Which Karen Bradley alluded to in her nomination statement, so she's the Conservative MP who has secured the chair of the Home Affairs Committee, so it's going to be scrutinising immigration issues for example, scrutinising Yvette Cooper's policy decisions.

And she talked about the importance of scrutiny by select committees drawing on her time as a minister. And she said it makes for better government for the country and our constituents. And this was the important bit, it genuinely helps ministers to push back against officials. So sometimes the value of select committees is influence that you don't see an influence that won't be acknowledged or admitted in public, but it's behind the scenes in Whitehall. I think it's what Professor Meg Russell at the Constitution Unit, who studied this stuff, talks about the sort of power of anticipated reaction. It prepares ministers and officials to think about what select committees might do or might say and makes them [00:46:00] think twice whether that is an action that they want to pursue.

So that it's a different kind of influence. You know, ministers can use the select committees and possible appearances before them to push back on officials to get something done or get some information or change a policy. And it can also persuade officials to not do something because they're going to get hold in front of a select committee and have to deal with the consequences.

Mark D'Arcy: Which brings us back to the central point about these select committee elections, which is how good are they? People in the chairs of all these different committees going to be at this kind of stuff. The combination of determination, flair, showpersonship that they need to be effective is quite a difficult one and not all of them will have it.

Some committees will turn out to be damp squibs. Some committees will be where the action is and it's very hard to predict at the moment, which is going to be where.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. Drawing on your time as a journalist, how much do you think behind the scenes pressure is applied by the party leaders, the party [00:47:00] leadership, to these elections and to the choice that MPs make?

We've had a question about this from Juan Incognito on, uh, on social media, um, and it's interesting. Interesting question.

Mark D'Arcy: It is an interesting question. This is where the limitations of journalists in Westminster are hit, because we don't often get to see very far beneath, as it were, the hood of the machine.

We don't see what's going on in the shadows too often. So doubtless, the Government has quite an interest in who's going to be scrutinizing it, but it's a very dangerous business to get into the position of trying to select their own scrutineers. You can get an awful lot of bad publicity very quickly.

Ruth Fox: It can go horribly wrong.

Mark D'Arcy: And it can go horribly wrong. I remember the attempt to defenestrate the late Gwyneth Dunwoody, who was chair of the Transport Committee and was giving the Blair government quite a hard time. And they got an awful lot of bad publicity.

So, you can get yourself into a tangle intervening too much. On the other hand, there are an awful lot of new Labour MPs, [00:48:00] completely new to Westminster, being asked to choose between people about whom they don't really know very much in a whole series of committee elections. So it wouldn't be totally surprising if some of them perhaps turned to their whips for a bit of advice on the choice before them.

So there would be some channels of influence at the very least for the government. How hard they really try and how definitely they lobby, though, is something that people like me just don't get to see.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. Well, talking of journalists and select committees, did you see the Guardian write up of these elections?

It did make me laugh. It's actually Mark Geddes who posted about this last night. It's headlined, near clean sweep for Labour MPs in Parliament select committee elections, as if they hadn't been allocated to the parties beforehand. And then it says, Emily Thornberry becomes head of Foreign Select Committee, which is, um, I'm sure that's music.

Mark D'Arcy: That makes it sound like she's chairing the House Un American Activities Committee in Congress or something, but it's a slightly odd choice of phrase anyway.

Ruth Fox: Well Karen Bradley is sole Conservative given [00:49:00] leading role. Which, um, probably comes as a, as a surprise to Geoffrey Clifton Brown chairing the Public Accounts Committee as a Conservative, given that that's certainly one of the most influential and important committees in the House. Just showed a complete lack of understanding of how this process works, disappointingly, yet again.

Mark D'Arcy: The fact is, of course, that the carve up of which party is going to provide the chairs of which select committee was agreed some time ago. What we've seen this week is just the elections to decide the precise individual from the precise party. who chairs that particular committee. So Karen Bradley gets to fend off competition to chair the Home Affairs Select Committee.

Geoffrey Clifton Brown fends off competition to chair the Public Accounts Committee and so on. And equally there are plenty of contests between Labour MPs. There didn't appear to be incidentally any contests for the two big committees chaired by the Liberal Democrats in the shape of the Health Committee and the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.

Ruth Fox: And Petitions Committee.

Mark D'Arcy: And I think that's interesting.

Ruth Fox: Because they, all three Lib Dem chairs were unopposed, you know, it does make you wonder, did they make an explicit internal [00:50:00] decision that they were going to arrange it within their ranks so that those, effectively, those seats were not chosen by the other parties for them?

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, yeah, I suspect that was the way it went.

Ruth Fox: Arguably against the rules. whole election process. Um, but you can understand why they did it. One chair that we haven't talked about, no doubt we will talk about in the future, that's the Liaison Committee, the chair of chairs. And we'll have to see what decision is made about how that chair is selected.

Cause in the past, it's been a dominant position. Number of different models. You know, the committee chairs choose from among their number who they'd like to chair it. Of course, it was quite controversial in the last Parliament because the Government got involved in, in parachuting in Bernard Jenkin as the name.

He wasn't chairing a select committee, but so he was introduced to be the Liaison Committee chair.

Mark D'Arcy: And this used to be quite backroom role in a sense of the Liaison Committee was about things like allocating travel budgets for select committees and coordinating their activities and occasionally mediating and turf disputes, which, which committee [00:51:00] got to invest, investigate which issue, but, uh, it's become a lot more prominent since it began under Tony Blair questioning the Prime Minister once or twice a year.

That's now where the Liaison Committee comes into its own with these, these briefings. PMQs sessions, if you like, which are supposed to be an antidote to the Commons Chamber PMQs in that they're much more detailed and inquisitorial, hopefully nuanced and interesting. They've very, very seldom in the past generated that many headlines, except on a couple of occasions. But, uh, it's an important part now of the parliamentary year and the select committee chairs will rather look forward to their moment in the sun questioning the Prime Minister.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. Yeah. And, and I think also, potentially has a, an important role in the future if some of you, you were talking at the beginning about select committee scrutiny being less siloed into these departmental committees and sort of thinking more strategically about the missions and so on. That's where the Liaison Committee. Can play a role in sort of helping the negotiations and liaison, funnily enough, between the committees.

We'll keep an eye out for [00:52:00] that. And then we flagged last week, Mark, that there was going to be, we thought, the motion to appoint the Modernisation Committee, and indeed it did come forward. So this is the new committee that is being set up. It was heralded in Labour's manifesto. It's going to look at advancing a reform in relation to standards, working practices, culture, procedures of the House.

Unusually it's going to be chaired by a minister, it's going to be chaired by the leader of the House of Commons, Lucy Powell. We knew that there were going to be 14 members of the committee, nine Labour, three Conservatives and two Lib Dems, and we've now got the names. A Government Whip's going to serve on it, the Leader's own Parliamentary Private Secretary is going to be on it.

So you can see just there the, the ministerial government interest. The shadow leader of the House of Commons is on it for the Conservatives. But what's striking, although, you know, when you think about it, not that unsurprising, really, given the high turnover of MPs at recent general elections, is how short on parliamentary experience the membership is.

I mean, five of the [00:53:00] new 2024 intake are on this committee. Six have got experience prior to the 2019 general election, but only one has got experience prior to 2010. So prior to Brexit, prior to COVID, prior to MPs expenses, you know, the experience of Parliament when it was not in crisis, you know,

Mark D'Arcy: long, long time ago.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, yeah. That one member is Christopher Chope, which has attracted quite a lot of criticism in some of the media, because he's not known as a natural reformer, but he's the experienced hand here.

Mark D'Arcy: He may not be a natural, in inverted commas, reformer, and I'm sure he would bridle at the very term, but Christopher Chope is someone who really understands how Parliament works, who has mastered the rules, and you may like him, you may loathe him, but at least he understands what he's talking about.

Ruth Fox: Yeah.

Mark D'Arcy: And that's not nothing on that committee.

Ruth Fox: No, no. Well, they've issued this morning, just as we were coming on air, so I haven't had [00:54:00] a chance to read it, they've issued a statement, a sort of a memorandum of some kind, setting out the rules, their plans and their strategic thinking about the direction of travel for this committee.

I understand they met for the first time, uh, this week in private session, so presumably that was presented to them and, and agreed. So we'll, we'll no doubt talk a bit more about that when the, uh, the House returns after party conference recess.

Mark D'Arcy: And we won't be back until that happens. This is going to be our last podcast for a couple of weeks.

We'll be back after the party conference season. And hopefully we'll be able to discuss the forthcoming agenda of the House, including things like the abolition of the hereditary peers, which is due to debut in the House of Commons their second week back, I think.

Ruth Fox: Yep. And we've had a few questions, um, about that.

So we've had a question about future House of Lords reform, about the role of the bishops. We've had a question about, uh, MPs hosting current affairs TV programmes and whether that should be tackled. I'm afraid we haven't got time for those this week. We've been inundated with questions about select committees, but we will get to them when we, we come back after [00:55:00] the conference recess in October.

Mark D'Arcy: Yes, because everybody has a design for reforming the House of Lords, or at least everybody in my world has a design for reforming the House of Lords, and there will be plenty to talk about, I'm sure, when we get back. Until then though, goodbye from us.

Ruth Fox: Okay, see you in a few weeks. Bye.

Well that's all from us for this week's episode of Parliament Matters. Please hit the follow or subscribe button in your podcast app to get the next episode as soon as it lands.

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Ruth Fox: And Mark, tell us more about the algorithm.

Mark D'Arcy: 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.

Ruth Fox: 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

Mark D'Arcy: We'll be discussing them in future episodes [00:56:00] including our special Urgent Questions editions dedicated to what you want to know about Parliament.

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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 at Hansard Society.