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Intro: You are listening to Parliament Matters, a Hansard Society production supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.

Ruth Fox: Learn more at hansardsociety.org.uk/pm. Finally, it's really here. 118 days after the general election, the first budget of this Labour government will be delivered next week. So we'll take you through what happens in one of Parliament's more complicated events.

Mark D'Arcy: Are you embarrassing yourself with these basic mistakes in parliamentary etiquette? Our guide for new MPs on what they're getting wrong in the Commons Chamber.

Ruth Fox: And the new chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, Layla Moran, stops by to talk NHS reform, assisted dying, and getting new MPs up to speed for life on the committee corridor.[00:01:00]

Mark D'Arcy: But first, Ruth, let's talk about the budget. It's finally here. You can argue that there's been a huge political vacuum left in the absence of Labour having an immediate Budget as soon as they took office, but finally next week, it's going to arrive. An all singing, all dancing financial statement with details of tax and spending plans for the coming year and probably for time beyond that as well.

And all sorts of incredible intricate. technical complexities about how the budget is debated, what the parameters of the debate are, how the documents around the budget are extracted from Exchequer, and much, much more. And it can look quite opaque to people watching from outside, as all sorts of slightly strange rituals are enacted.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, so should we take listeners through it step by step, Mark, so that when they're watching next week, they can follow. And some of this actually happens at quite a bit of speed. So it's quite tricky.

Mark D'Arcy: It's, it's all very rapid. [00:02:00] But the first thing that happens is that the Speaker leaves the chair to be replaced by the senior deputy speaker, the Chairman of Ways and Means.

And this is a historical oddity that goes back to, I think, the Restoration Era, where at one point the Speaker was seen as a tool of the monarchy. And so when the Commons wanted to discuss money matters, it resolved itself into a committee of ways and means that was not chaired by Mr Speaker. And that has persisted pretty much ever since through the ensuing centuries.

It's the one big parliamentary event that the Speaker doesn't chair as of right.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, and of course it's where, to some extent, Lindsay Hoyle made his name, because his presiding over the budget debate was one of the things that I think attracted support for him, that he was going to be able to take on the role of Speaker. He was qite theatrical and good at controlling both sides of the House.

Mark D'Arcy: He was very emollient. There were a lot of contrasts drawn during the Bercow Era. [00:03:00] He's so much better than John Bercow, Conservative backbenchers would mutter. Big Up Lindsay. And lo, he did indeed become Mr Speaker and this will be the debut of Nusrat Ghani who's the new Chairman of Ways and Means, the Senior Deputy Speaker. This will be the first time she's done this particular event and doubtless she's been studying hard on all the procedures and the rather intricate series of things that have to be voted through to get a budget done right.

Ruth Fox: Yes, so shall we start with um, before the Chancellor stands up to make the budget statement, a whip has got to move what's called a motion for an unopposed return. And that is essentially so that the House requires the government to produce for the House the budget documents. You know, what's known as the Red Book, the Office of Budget Responsibility documents on which so much seems to rest these days, and all the other supporting information and evidence that the Treasury is putting together.

Those of you who will remember during the Brexit years the use of a humble address to drag documents out of the Government's Possession and put them before the House. That can't be done. That same motion, a humble address [00:04:00] calling on the monarch to ensure the government provides the documents to the house, that can't be done for the budget because the chancellor of the exchequer is not technically a secretary of state.

So we have a motion for an unopposed return instead.

Mark D'Arcy: One of the weird things about the budget is that the opposition gets these documents at the last possible moment. And so they have an enormous wadge of incredibly complicated information thrown at them. And a team behind the scenes in the leader of the opposition's office, usually just behind the speaker's chair somewhere, has to deconstruct this information, get nuggets out of it, and pass them to the leader of the opposition as they respond to the budget.

So the leader of the opposition has got to get up, congratulate the chancellor on her speech, do all the sort of sonorous formal parts of this, and hopefully by the time that bit is finished, file cards will be reaching the leader of the opposition with the various points to make on them. And this will be pretty much Rishi Sunak's [00:05:00] last hurrah as a front ranked politician, one suspects, and so he'll want to get it right. And being a former chancellor himself, he'll hopefully understand this stuff a bit more easily than perhaps someone who hasn't got that background. But it's still an incredibly testing moment for any leader of the opposition because you're having to do something very difficult. Simultaneously making political points while absorbing new information that's been thrown at you while you're speaking.

It's quite a high wire act and you can come badly unstuck. And previous chancellors have been very, very cagey about how much information they give. Gordon Brown famously would redact large chunks of the information that was given to the opposition so that perhaps weeks afterwards new, interesting points about it would be found in the footnotes and in the detailed analysis that weren't obvious on day one.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's, uh, it's quite as easy as that these days when you've got bodies like the Institute for Fiscal Studies and, uh, the Resolution Foundation and so on pouring over it. But of course, quite a lot of it is leaking out, at least speculation. So at least that [00:06:00] helps the leader of the opposition in terms of informing his thinking going into the speech about what's likely to be covered and what sort of lines of argument and attack he wants to put together.

And of course, we shouldn't forget this is going to be a historic event for another reason, of course, because you said the Chancellor, she, presenting the budget, will be the first time ever in British history, a budget presented by a female MP.

Mark D'Arcy: And as you mentioned, the kind of prior leaking of some of the substance of the budget has become something of a tradition.

The days when chancellors had to resign if a scintilla of information had escaped before it was mentioned to parliament, you know, famously happened to Hugh Dalton back in the Attlee years. Those days are long gone now, and budgets are often pretty much out there well before they're delivered. Check Tim Shipman's piece in the Sunday Times the Sunday before and you'll probably get most of it.

And Rachel Reeves is making a speech to the International Monetary Fund as we're recording this, in which she's going to set out the approach she's going to take to debt, and in particular to borrowing for vital national investment. And that's quite an important part of the budget package. And you imagine Mr Speaker might not be entirely happy [00:07:00] that that has been telegraphed to a body outside Parliament before it's been delivered to MPs. But I think this comes down to market management.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, I mean, they're going to be concerned about what the market's reaction is to changes to debt rules and so on. Of course, historically, budget purdah existed, and this sort of veil of secrecy and news blackout on the budget historically, as you said, in sort of Hugh Dalton's day, to address that question of market sensitivity to protect against the prospect, for example, of people, organisations stockpiling or playing the market because they know in advance what taxes or what duties on things like fuel or cigarettes are going to be charged.

That has eased off somewhat speculation about what taxes might be raised on on petrol and diesel going on at the moment. But there's still provision in the formal parliamentary budget process to protect against that. So no matter how much leaking is going on with the media. At the end of the day, in Parliament itself, they have to have some procedural mechanisms to guard against it.

So shall we get into some of that technical [00:08:00] detail? Once that motion for an unopposed return is passed, essentially the budget process in Parliament consists of four distinct parts. So you have the financial statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and that will be listened to without interruption.

We'll find out what she's drinking at the Dispatch Box. By tradition in the Chamber, MPs can only have water, but an exception is made for the Chancellor during the Budget.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, they need to be sustained during what's often a very long speech, and previous Chancellors have drunk things like whiskey and water or brandy and soda.

Who knows what Rachel Reeves will choose? I'm betting on Horlicks, personally.

Ruth Fox: And then the second aspect, then we move on to the Budget Debate, and that's over four days, broadly thematic on things like, I would imagine, health service, education, housing, and so on. That's over four days. And then third element is what's called the budget resolutions.

So essentially motions have to be put to the house, they have to be passed. These are the founding resolutions for what then is [00:09:00] the fourth part of the budget process, and that's the Finance Bill, which is the legislative underpinning for the proposals in the Budget.

Mark D'Arcy: The provisional collection of taxes motion to take one of those early motions basically means that the duty changes that a Chancellor would typically announce on cigarettes and alcohol and so forth and petrol kick in pretty rapidly.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, so usually, it might be something like during the afternoon or at midnight, but it provides temporary statutory authority for those changes to guard against stockpiling and so on, until such time as the government can get the finance bill on the statute book.

Mark D'Arcy: And no one knows quite what would happen if the finance bill wasn't put on the statute book, because it's never actually happened that way, but presumably the government would have to give the money back or something.

Ruth Fox: Well, the provisional collection of taxes motion is valid for seven months, providing, providing the Government gets the second reading of the Finance Bill done within 30 sitting days. And if it doesn't, the Government has to return the [00:10:00] monies that have been raised under that provisional statutory authority.

So that's where there's a link between the motion and then what follows in the actual bill. After the provisional collection of taxes motion, then the Government will publish a whole set of what are called ways and means motions, and there can be dozens of them, because they need one for each of the tax or duty changes in the budget.

I mean, last time I think there were 80 odd of them. But only that first ways and means motion can be debated and amended. The rest of them, the other dozens of them, are put forthwith, without debate, and voted on at the end. Now, because you're only debating that first motion, The Speaker will give some latitude in the debate to cover other issues not covered in that first motion.

So you've got these four thematic days, they're quite broad, and the Speaker will be quite good at granting latitude to members to ensure that there can be a broad debate on the [00:11:00] range of issues in the budget. But the nature of that first motion is critical because what form it takes will affect how the subsequent Finance Bill, for example, can be amended.

Is it narrow or does it restrict what MPs can do?

Mark D'Arcy: It sets the kind of parameters for the debate. What can and cannot be debated within it. And this is where we get into quite deep waters, uh, because in previous budgets, there's been a thing called an amendment to the law motion, which seems to have fallen a little bit out of fashion in more recent years.

And that allowed really quite wide ranging debate. And that seems to have, as I say, fallen out of fashion now. And because of that, the scope of budget debates, and the ability of MPs to make changes to the budget, has also narrowed a bit. Now you're going to have to help me out here, because an amendment to the law motion is a deeply technical thing.

I always understood it as a kind of wide ranging power to make changes that might involve changes to the law.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, [00:12:00] so you have to listen out to what the motion says. So, if on the order paper and what's announced in the Commons is an amendment to the law motion, it will say, it is expedient to amend the law with respect to the national debt and the public revenue and to make further provisions in connection with finance.

So it's quite broad ranging. It doesn't relate to a specific tax or a specific duty or charge. Now the Government might put in some additional restrictions into that motion, so that might add some things on at the end, but it's quite broad ranging and that enables MPs to range over the types of taxes, tax relief, tax administration, duties.

The alternative, and as you say, that's something that they have done since 2018, is to choose what's called the income tax motion. It's a different form, different wording, and it specifically relates to income tax. And that means that the scope of the debate and the scope of the [00:13:00] amendments that can subsequently be made are restricted to that subject.

So you can't have or shouldn't have a wider ranging debate about tax relief and tax administration and MPs able to have the scope to put amendments in in those areas. Now, I say shouldn't have, because if we've learned anything in recent years in terms of parliamentary precedent, if there is a willingness in the House and a willingness on the part of the Speaker to go beyond precedent, there's enough desire among MPs to debate something, ways will be found to do it.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah.

Ruth Fox: We'll put our procedural guide to the budget process in the show notes, because this will enable listeners to look up the specific details of the text and get much more into the technicalities and look at what Erskine May says. Essentially it is, amendment of the law motion will enable MPs to range broadly.

If it's an income tax motion, it will restrict, should restrict to income tax.

Mark D'Arcy: Hmm. Whether it makes a great deal of difference to the ultimate [00:14:00] outcome when you've got a Government with such a vast majority is a completely different question and you almost wonder why a Government with such a vast majority would be that bothered.

Yeah. Typically, governments get into trouble on their budget when they've got a very narrow majority and a small group of awkward squaddies would then have enough leverage to make changes. I mean, the classic examples in the mid 70s, the Rooker Wise Amendment, which index linked tax thresholds. And this was, you know, Jeff Rooker, Labour MP, and Audrey Wise, another Labour MP, getting themselves onto the Committee Stage of the Finance Bill rather later in the budget process.

And, uh, with Conservative co operation pushing a hostile amendment that completely upended the Government of the day's financial policies.

Ruth Fox: Of course, this was, this was 77, wasn't it? So the government at the time had effectively lost its majority.

Mark D'Arcy: I remember reading in Tony Benn's diaries, thinking this is total disintegration, this is us losing control, what next?

Yeah. And it was a very bad sign for a government that it could get into trouble over the central part of what it's attempting to do. Its own finance bill.

Ruth Fox: [00:15:00] Yeah. And if you look at other examples, most recently, probably 2016, there was an amendment to address VAT on women's sanitary products, products of a very big campaign.

1994, John Major's Government MPs managed to agree an amendment to freeze VAT on fuel at eight percent rather than the what the government wanted, which was to increase it, I think, to 17 and a half percent. All those dates reflect the fact that the governments of the day had delicate majorities, or no majority at all.

Mark D'Arcy: And of course there are plenty of occasions when a budget has contained something which has produced a bit of uproar and there's been a quiet back down, things like the pasty tax. Especially when it's not a huge part of what they're trying to do. Sometimes it's just easier to make the concession.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, because of course one of the things the Government would have to do if an amendment was passed is they have to come up with a proposal to compensate for any lost revenue.

And one of the things to bear in mind is that because of the financial privilege of the crown, this idea that only the crown can propose an increase to impose a tax on the [00:16:00] people, MPs can put down an amendment that would freeze a tax or a duty, that would reduce it, they can look to changing reliefs, but they can't increase a tax as a result of their amendments.

Mark D'Arcy: And so it falls to some hapless Treasury minister to come up with a proposal that pays for the concession that they've just had to make.

Ruth Fox: Yes. And then, once all this is done, these motions have been passed, we get to the end of the budget debate, the formal vote will take place on the, on the first motion, and then that is amendable, and then the other motions are taken, and often the Speaker will group them, because the prospect of spending time having to vote on 80 odd motions would be intolerable.

Mark D'Arcy: That's a lot of trooping through the lobbies.

Ruth Fox: So the Speaker will group them and there will have been some discussions between the parties. The opposition parties will have indicated if they wanted formal vote rather than a nodding through of a motion.

Mark D'Arcy: There was an occasion when I think the SNP wanted to make changes on capital gains tax, so that was [00:17:00] taken separately as the third party if they were then to facilitate that.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, so there'll be a few divisions on specific motions where the opposition parties want to make a point, those divisions will take place. The Government, as you say, uh, inconceivable that it's going to lose. And of course, budgets are confidence matters. If the Government were to lose the budget or were to lose a centrepiece motion and proposal of the budget, then you're into the territory of a Government lacking the confidence of the House of Commons to continue in office.

Mark D'Arcy: And woe betide. the Labour MP who voted against the budget to start with. I mean I think on past performance, Keir Starmer's response would be to take the whip away from them and they might well not get it back.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. So assuming that all that is said and done, the government gets its way on all these ways and means motions, we then move forward to the Finance Bill.

And it can present the bill based on one of these motions which, having been voted on and approved, are now resolutions of the House. So these are the founding resolutions for the Finance Bill. And, uh, the government [00:18:00] can present the Finance Bill pretty much straight away. It usually does that, I think, day after I think.

And there'll be a moment where the Speaker will say second reading what day and the whip will declare tomorrow. And it never actually is. No, don't worry listeners, this is just a procedural oddity to get the bill on the future business papers. It almost never means. tomorrow, but that does confuse people who are watching.

Mark D'Arcy: It's a kind of incantation rather than a statement of fact, you could say. Yeah, yeah.

Ruth Fox: So second reading will follow later, and as we mentioned earlier, it's got to be done within 30 sitting days. It goes into committee stage. The most controversial clauses will be considered in committee of the whole house, or they'll be considered in the chamber.

The less controversial clauses will be kicked upstairs to a public bill committee, and a public bill committee on the finance bill is usually bigger than for a normal public bill committee. Usually something up to 40 members sometimes. So we'll sit on that. We'll come back to the chamber, report stage third reading, and then it'll go off [00:19:00] to the House of Lords in due course.

Mark D'Arcy: And that, again, it's a perfunctory process in the House of Lords. The House of Lords, of course, is not allowed to get its dibs onto financial matters. Last time it tried that, back in the era of the People's Budget, it didn't go well for them and the House of Lords had its wings clipped. So, actually, their debate on the Finance Bill is all stages, usually in a day.

Bish bash bosh, through it goes.

Ruth Fox: Second reading, there is a debate, but then Committee, Report and Third Reading are effectively just passed through. And of course that's because the role of peers, according to Erskine May, is to agree and not to initiate or amend.

Mark D'Arcy: Absolutely. So they take the thing in effect more or less in a single gulp.

Ruth Fox: Yes. And, uh, once the Finance Bill has got royal assent, then you're done.

Mark D'Arcy: Meanwhile, offstage, there's the Treasury Committee's inquiry into the budget, which is a sort of regular thing that Treasury Committees do every time there's a budget, and this will be pretty much the first act of the newly constituted Treasury Committee, now chaired by the senior Labour MP Dame Meg Hillier, former chair of the Public Accounts Committee in the previous Parliament, [00:20:00] and they hear expert evidence from witnesses. I think this may be the swan song of Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, who's been a witness in dozens of these budget inquiries. Torsten Bell, who's normally been part of a double act with him, is now a Labour MP, so I don't think he'll get to play a part in this.

Ruth Fox: No, he's a parliamentary private secretary to a minister in the cabinet office.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, so he won't be on the committee. So he won't be there. But it's all the same, there will be expert witnesses and ultimately the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, will come in and will be quizzed on the kind of nuggets of information that have been unearthed by the inquiry and so that will all happen in parallel with the full parliamentary debate of the Finance Bill.

Ruth Fox: And we've actually had a question, Mark, that relates to this from Suzanne Bold of Patriotic Millionaires who actually did want us to explain a bit more in detail about amendment of the law. So I think, I think we've covered that, Suzanne, and for more detail, read our procedural guide that I'll put in the show notes.

But she asks also, how can we improve scrutiny of the Government's tax measures in Parliament? What [00:21:00] are the likely channels for reform to improve debate and understanding of new tax measures? And are those measures in the gift of MPs? I mean, historically, lots of organisations, including the Hansard Society, Chartered Institute of Taxation and others, have called for an actual taxation committee, separate to the Treasury Committee, because of course it's got a huge workload, big, big sort of economic landscape to cover.

And this idea that you could have either a separate select committee or a subcommittee of the Treasury Committee that specifically looks at budget measures that's been proposed. There've been inquiries about it, but in the end, it all falls on the fact that the, usually the chair and members of the Treasury Committee, don't want to give that opportunity up to scrutinise the budget.

You want to hang on to that big bit of your empire. And ultimately how would it happen? Well, there'd have to be, I think, agreement by probably the Liaison Committee, the House of Commons, but I think the most likely route to it, this parliament, would be to try and get the Modernisation Committee of the House of Commons to look at it.

They've [00:22:00] just opened a call for evidence. If you're not aware of this, Suzanne, they've opened a call for evidence. I think the deadline is 16th of December. They're seeking ideas from the public about what that Committee should be looking at. And one of the work streams is parliamentary procedure and effectiveness.

Mark D'Arcy: And this is, after all, one of the more gaping holes, there are many gaping holes in parliamentary scrutiny, but this, this is one of the more obvious ones that, uh, stronger procedures around scrutiny of tax and spend is something that the Commons, which after all once fought a civil war to assert its control of the purse strings, and the Commons could really do with.

But ultimately for that to happen, a government has to acquiesce to it.

And governments. on the whole aren't that keen in increasing the scrutiny on themselves.

Ruth Fox: No, as you keep pointing out on this podcast.

Mark D'Arcy: Call me cynical.

Ruth Fox: Of course, one other thing that happens is you do get some pre legislative scrutiny of draft clauses of the Finance Bill.

That is something that governments have done in recent times. And I [00:23:00] think that's a good thing. It's an opportunity for organisations like Patriotic Millionaires and others to have a look at the detail of those clauses and how they'd be implemented and comment on them. And that's where I think, too much sometimes can be made about this idea of budget purdah.

Actually, having a debate about the detail of tax changes and their implications and the trade offs is a good thing.

Mark D'Arcy: I don't think other countries do budgeting in quite the same way. There isn't this sort of grand unveiling of the whole thing, and there's a more measured and phased scrutiny of big financial decisions.

Not everything that is done in a budget is so market sensitive that it must be shrouded in secrecy until the last possible moment.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, and we've moved away from that compared to the 1940s, you know, in Hugh Dalton's time. We used to have the pre budget report, of course, in the Labour years. We've got comprehensive spending reviews.

We've got the OBR reports. All of that points to the fact that we don't need that veil of secrecy surrounding it anymore. But nonetheless, once it is [00:24:00] unveiled, the opportunities for scrutiny are quite limited. And Suzanne points to one of the key points is understanding among MPs, let alone the public, both about the procedural process, because we've got so many new MPs in the House, but also understanding the implications of the tax changes and the trade offs.

The House of Commons has got a scrutiny unit which focuses on financial matters and can help MPs understand that. There'll be some excellent House of Commons Library briefings coming out, both before and after the budget, so look out for those. But MPs otherwise are dependent upon the information they get from their parties, the party line to take.

Or information they get from external bodies.

Mark D'Arcy: And this is the biggest thing that members of the House of Commons do. They vote on the decisions that lead to the Chancellor putting their hand into our respective wallets and taking large wadges of money out of them. So it is something that shouldn't be a perfunctory, ritualistic, empty process.

It should surely be [00:25:00] proper deliberation and quite frankly at the moment it isn't.

Ruth Fox: No. And sadly that, I'm afraid, is what we'd also say about the bookend of the process. So the budget is about raising the taxes and the estimates process that we've spoken about on the podcast is about how that money is then spent and divvied up between departments.

And both ends of that process, I'm afraid, are not great.

Mark D'Arcy: At that point, Ruth, maybe it's time to take a quick break. Have a breath. And in a moment we'll be back to talk about parliamentary etiquette, behaviour rules in the Chamber of the Commons.

Ruth Fox: See you in a minute.

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Well Mark, we're back and I thought we should talk about parliamentary etiquette in the chamber this week because the Speaker, I think he's getting a little bit frustrated with the behaviour of some MPs, both new and old. This week he declared, I really am going to have to say something to the whips as an MP walked between him and the minister, when the minister was in the middle of his answer, which is absolutely against etiquette. There's frustrations with how long MPs, particularly ministers, front benchers are talking, the length of their questions and answers, and him urging them to be quicker and, uh, them not following his instructions. And, uh, a [00:27:00] common frustration for the speaker and the deputy speakers is the number of times where MPs are talking about you, rather than talking through the chair, directly saying you, you know, the minister, you've done this, and the Speaker upbraiding them, because that is not how you're supposed to speak in the chamber.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, that is probably the most basic mistake of parliamentary etiquette that is being consistently made now, and you hear front benches, you hear all sorts of people saying the dreaded word you.

You is the chair.

Both: Yeah.

Mark D'Arcy: For the purposes of parliamentary debate and you talk about other people in the third person, will the minister explain or will the Secretary of State explain or, if you're referring to another MP, will the Honourable Member for such and such a seat. That's the way that you should talk but it's an unnatural act

Both: Mhm.

Mark D'Arcy: It's very difficult for people who are used to having normal conversations even in a council chamber to suddenly default into the slightly more formal habits that are required of a Member of Parliament speaking in the House of Commons.

So, I [00:28:00] think the Chairs, the Speaker and the Deputy Speakers have been giving people a little bit of latitude over this, but they are getting increasingly irritated, and so has Parli, the app which follows the proceedings of the House of Commons, getting increasingly irritated at people failing to keep to that rule.

And it's supposed to drain a little bit of the heat out of parliamentary debate, make it less confrontational for it to be, be spoken in the third person. And the Speaker is increasingly now policing that role, because after some months of this Parliament being in existence, people really should be kind of getting with the programme.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. I mean, the Speaker's office issued a guide to parliamentary etiquette, we'll put it in the show notes, last November, and they say about not using the term you. This is not just an archaic convention. It's essential in maintaining the civil tone and objectivity of debate and it avoids personal attacks as opposed to political criticism.

And they say members should be referred to as the honourable member for whatever the constituency name is, or my honourable friend, if it's [00:29:00] a member on your side of the house or the honourable member opposite. Problem of course is most of the MPs can't remember each other's constituencies.

Mark D'Arcy: The names change so you may find yourself addressing someone by the name of their constituency as it used to be.

Both: Yes.

Mark D'Arcy: So there are all sorts of little details like that and of course other terms, you know, once upon a time you spoke about the honourable and gallant gentleman if someone had been a military officer, for example. That's rather fallen into disuse and Labour MPs never really liked it because of the kind of class implications.

Or the honourable and learned gentleman if someone had been a barrister.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, I think there's also an assumption that you have to refer to the House of Lords as the other place.

Mark D'Arcy: Yes.

Ruth Fox: And in fact, also, that is also fallen out of disuse. You don't, you don't have to do that. You won't be upbraided for it.

Mark D'Arcy: And that's an expression that dates right back to the Cromwell era parliaments when the second chamber was called the other place because it didn't have Lords in it.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. And of course, you're supposed to know if a member is a member of the Privy Council because then they're a right honourable member, not just an honourable one.

But how on earth do you remember, because there's so many privy counsellors these days.

Mark D'Arcy: I always wanted to invent a new category, which would be the quite [00:30:00] honourable member. But that hasn't become fashionable.

Ruth Fox: And the other thing, I mean, I haven't seen it myself, but certainly some journalists in the press gallery have been reporting on it, that some new MPs have been seen eating and drinking in the chamber.

One apparently was eating an apple and another was drinking from a carton of milk. That is an absolute no no.

Mark D'Arcy: That's a no no. This is not people being pompous about it. This is a very serious place. You wouldn't get away with eating an apple in a court of law. You can't sit there as a juror with a set of Marks and Spencers prawn sandwiches munching your way through them as you listen to the evidence.

Equally, you shouldn't possibly do that in the House of Commons, and I think the chair is quite right to police that. Last thing you want is people sort of chomping their way through a packet of biscuits during a debate. If they want to do that, go outside.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, I mean, I find it annoying enough in the cinema, but, you know, the prospect of it being in our House of Commons chamber is a bit much.

Apparently, um, message has gone out from the whip, that that is not to happen anymore. They can have water, but that's it.

Mark D'Arcy: And they've also tightened up the dress [00:31:00] code a bit. The days of going tieless for male MPs are certainly gone now.

Ruth Fox: Again, referring to the Guide to Etiquette Members dress should demonstrate respect for their constituents, for the House and for the institution of Parliament in the life of the nation.

So they're expected to wear business attire. Jeans and chinos and sportswear are not permitted. T shirts are out. You might occasionally, though, still see MPs dressed down, shall we say. If they're simply there for a vote, they're allowed to. If they're in the chamber To speak and they're sitting there for the debate.

They're not supposed to be dressed that way. Dress up a bit

Mark D'Arcy: There was an occasion I think where Caroline Lucas the former Green Party MP was rebuked by Speaker Berco for turning out with a campaign slogan t shirt

As well, so this is all there just to ensure kind of due solemnity and MPs turning up in a Pink Floyd t shirt or chowing down on a burger during Unimaginable

Ruth Fox: Yeah, [00:32:00] the other thing is speech limits. This is clearly something that's also grating on the Speaker. So there's only a certain amount of time for debate.

There are dozens and dozens of MPs that want to speak. Quite a lot of them. We're still going through maiden speeches. I think we've only about three quarters of the way through the number of maiden speeches that are required. So lots of MPs putting in to speak in debates. The speaker is therefore having to impose time limits.

I mean, on the employment rights bill this week, I think it was five minutes for frontbench, three minutes for backbenchers, and five minutes if it was a maiden speech.

Mark D'Arcy: And I think MPs, particularly backbenchers, have to watch out because sometimes they will find that the chair says the debate's going too slowly, I'm going to have to cut down the allowance.

So it's a very good advice to come into the chamber with a sort of throwoutable paragraph or two so that you can shorten your speech down to the desired length.

Both: Yes.

Mark D'Arcy: You should also beware of the illusion that the longer you talk, the better your parliamentary performance is. It really doesn't work that way.

What you need is good points well made, [00:33:00] not just an ability to drone on until people get bored with you.

Ruth Fox: Yes, a recommendation to new MPs, you don't want to be the Ian Blackford of this Parliament.

Both: Cruel but fair.

Ruth Fox: He had a bit of a reputation for droning on and people wanting him to wrap up, and him ignoring.

So that is an issue. And devices in the chamber also. Devices are now permitted, mobile phone or an iPad, but they're supposed to help you in the debate. They're not supposed to be there for you to be sitting there doing your constituency correspondence. You're in the chamber to listen to the debate. It's supposed to be a back and forth.

You're supposed to be listening. You're supposed to be thinking about intervening. If you're sitting there

Mark D'Arcy: playing tetris or watching tractor porn or whatever.

Ruth Fox: Let's not go there. But, um, one of the things I learned, Mark, when we were doing commentary on BBC Parliament, which I, I confess I've been in the chamber a number of times and never realised, is that there's also a radio gallery, a broadcasting gallery, at the back of the chamber.

Yeah. And you can see, if you're in there, you can see out into the [00:34:00] chamber, but the MPs can't see you.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, you're behind this kind of smoked glass. It's on the speaker's right as he looks down the chamber, towards the doors at the far end. And on the right there is this gallery, and behind that will sometimes be sat three or four people doing commentary for radio or television.

I've been in there on numerous occasions. And one of the things some MPs don't realise is that they're standing against that wall, scrolling through their messages, and the journalist behind them can read them. So beware.

Ruth Fox: If you're on the government side, the government benches, don't stand near that window.

Mark D'Arcy: The worst thing about that gallery actually is that the view is terrible. And sometimes something will be happening in the chamber and a producer will be screaming to you, What's happening? What's happening? And you can't see. All you've got is a very poor view. You can just about see the opposition front bench, but anything that's happening on the opposition side of the chamber beyond them, you just can't see.

Especially if you've got people scrolling their messages, sitting in front of you, you may be able to read their messages, but you can't see anything else much.

Ruth Fox: So there's a warning to those new MPs.

Mark D'Arcy: [00:35:00] Giving away professional secrets here, but hey.

Ruth Fox: Your former colleagues will not be happy.

Mark D'Arcy: I think the other thing is going in and out of the chamber.

Yeah. MPs are expected, if they're making a speech, to be there for some time beforehand.

Both: Yes.

Mark D'Arcy: And to stay and listen to the speeches afterwards, particularly the one immediately afterwards where someone might react to what you're saying. It's considered very discourteous to just sort of pop in, start standing up expecting to be able to make a speech.

And often you find people being rebuked for that. The Honourable Gentleman wasn't here at the beginning of the debate. I'm not going to call them, the chair will say, but it's very discourteous to make your speech and then just shake the dust of the chamber from your feet and depart. You're supposed to listen to responses and you're also supposed to be there for the conclusion of the debate, you know, with a parliamentary debate lasting for several hours, you don't necessarily have to be there for the whole thing.

But it's sometimes quite a good idea to do that.

Ruth Fox: You learn how the chamber works, you get a feel for it. But I am struck by the number of new MPs who at the start of past parliaments have said one of the great [00:36:00] frustrations is how much time they have to spend sitting in the chamber on the benches, waiting to be called, not knowing exactly when that's going to be.

They thought they might get a five or six minute speech or, you know, prepared for that. And then they get 15 seconds at the end.

Or they don't get to speak at all and it's very very frustrating and as you know you can understand they've got very busy lives, very busy professional responsibilities, demands from their constituency.

It is frustrating but I'm afraid it is a critical part of their job and their constitutional responsibilities.

Mark D'Arcy: Because the pecking order is that first of all normally a minister will speak if it's a government debate they'll open a debate and then the front bench spokesperson for the opposition will respond, then a senior government side figure is called, then the third party spokesperson will be called, and then maybe select committee chairs will have next dibs on the chance to make a speech, and then senior privy councillors and that kind of thing, ex ministers, those kind of figures.

And so if you are a new intake backbencher, you are way, way down the pecking order, [00:37:00] I'm afraid, and you just have to wait and grin and bear it.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, and I don't think the Speaker sticks to the hierarchy quite as much as it used to be in the past, but it's still there. Yeah, um, and obviously if you're a government backbencher, there's so many of them that as the Speaker's trying to move the debate from the right to the left of the chamber as he looks at it and balance it out it does mean that it's going to be harder for some Labour backbenchers to get called.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah if you're an opposition backbencher you've got a far greater chance of being called than a government backbencher precisely because of that.

Ruth Fox: Yeah and one of the things that the Speaker's office requires in some cases and encourages in others, if a member wants to speak in a debate and has a particular constituency interest or a particular personal interest, or is on a committee that's relevant to the debate, to let the Speaker know that you want to intervene and that helps him work out how many people want to speak and therefore how long are the speech limits going to have to be and to adjust it accordingly as time ticks by in the debate. But one of [00:38:00] the absolute no no's is if you've done that, to then not turn up. Yeah.

Mark D'Arcy: I mean in the last parliament there was almost an opposite problem, which was the debates were collapsing quite early because there weren't that many people in the chamber to start with, which is a good way to up your statistics as a speaker. If you know that a debate is running short, you can get up and drone on and you probably get more time than you otherwise would have.

And MPs are very aware of places like theyworkforyou.com that presents sort of quantitative figures on how often someone's spoken or asked a question or done all sorts of parliamentary activities. Now those figures may not reflect the quality of your contribution but there is a kind of league table out there of who speaks the most and MPs don't want to be at the bottom of it.

Ruth Fox: No, it's a bit of sort of gaming the system has gone on with that website and of course something that quite a number of new MPs don't realise is that the Speaker and his office themselves collect detailed statistics on who's spoken, when, how many times, for how long, and use that to inform the choices that they make in subsequent [00:39:00] debates.

Mark D'Arcy: So Ruth, um, we've also had quite a number of questions on various other aspects of parliamentary life. We probably don't have time to deal with them in this episode.

Ruth Fox: No, we've had quite a lot of questions, so I thought, Mark, what we'd do, we'd have a separate urgent questions episode and start to tackle those.

But before we do that, we have had actually from a couple of members of the House of Lords who are regular listeners. So I just wanted to just mention those. Lord Wolfson contacted us, former government minister, David Wolfson. He just pointed out in the discussion we had last week about the role of the Lord's Spiritual, the bishops in the House of Lords, we talked about other faiths being represented and the fact that the chief rabbi has had a seat in the House of Lords previously, and he just noted that previous rabbis, Lord Jakobovits and Lord Sachs, were members of the House of Lords, but the current chief rabbi is not. So perhaps that needs to be rectified in the next round of appointments. And then we had a point that was made to us by Baroness Hoey, Kate Hoey, former Labour MP, now in the House of Lords.

She [00:40:00] was just expressing disappointment with us, Mark. We let the side down. She was disappointed that when we talked about Private Members Bills, those that had been tabled last week, we didn't mention Jim Allister's bill of the TUV party in Northern Ireland. His bill is going to be considered on the 5th of December and she says it goes to the heart of democracy in the union. Northern Ireland should matter to anyone who cares about the Union and our Parliament. Now this bill is about the European Union Withdrawal Arrangements Bill, and I think it was on our list to talk about, but I think neither of us was entirely sure exactly the detail of what he was pushing for.

Mark D'Arcy: Perhaps we should have mentioned it, but added that we just didn't want to pontificate about it without knowing exactly what it was aiming to do, because it's such a complicated area.

The last thing we want to do is misrepresent someone on this, but it seems to be about the operations of the Windsor Protocol, the current arrangements for Northern Ireland's dual membership of the UK single market and the EU single market.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, so I think, um, for Baroness Hoey and others, we are going to look at Northern Ireland in a bit more detail because if you look at our [00:41:00] autumn briefing of 14 things to look out for in Parliament in the next few months, one of the issues there is that there is going to have to be a vote in the Northern Ireland assembly, the democratic consent vote on some of the provisions of the Windsor Framework, and whether they should remain in place, and this whole business about the movement of goods across borders and so and the fact that Northern Ireland benefits from being in the EU market and UK market.

The Northern Ireland Assembly is going to have to vote on that. We think in December.. We hopefully will have more news on that from the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Hilary Benn, in the next week or two. And as and when we know when that democratic consent vote is, I think we'll probably look to do an episode on that, because it is going to have implications. If the Northern Ireland Assembly members reject the continuation of the current arrangements, or there isn't cross community support for them, then there's going to have to be a review. And Westminster's going to have to be involved in that, so we'll want to talk about what happens.

Mark D'Arcy: Some very serious devolution action will be coming down the track at that point.

Both: Yeah.

Mark D'Arcy: But in the [00:42:00] meantime, Ruth, time to take a break, and on the other side of that, we'll be talking to the Health Committee Chair, Layla Moran, about all sorts of things really. NHS reform, assisted dying, and indeed the whole business of getting the Health Select Committee up and running to tackle the challenges ahead of it, with a whole slew of new Members of Parliament.

Ruth Fox: See you in a minute.

And we're back and earlier this week Mark and I had a conversation with Layla Moran, the new chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, one of the most interesting committees this session. When it faces issues like NHS reform, the assisted dying bill, we went along to talk to her about her plans for her new committee.

Mark D'Arcy: Well, Layla Moran, first of all, the Liberal Democrats were very pleased to get a number of select committee chairs after some years in the wilderness without such wild parliamentary luxuries. And you, as chair of the Health and Social Care Select Committee, find yourself in kind of the eye of a policy storm already with Wes Streeting, the health secretary, [00:43:00] announcing all sorts of changes to the NHS and a rethink of its operations.

And you've got to ringmaster an entirely new committee composed mostly of entirely new members of parliament to start handling this. So before we get into the gory policy details, how are you preparing yourself? How are you going to be preparing your committee members to grapple with the challenges that lurk ahead of them?

Layla Moran: Well, thank you. Thank you for having me on the podcast. I'm a big fan. And, uh, well, it's probably because I'm a big fan. I love select committees. I love all of this stuff that sort of sits behind the scenes of parliament. And you're absolutely right. The gory policy detail is exactly what I'm in it for. Um, so it is wonderful, especially post election to really sort of focus on this level of detail.

And yeah, the Liberal Democrats are finding ourselves in this position of having three, but we sort of knew the number before we knew which ones. And I don't think in a million years, we thought that we'd be in the privileged position of having health and social care, having put that front and centre during the [00:44:00] election.

It's interesting what happens when whips get together. And I still don't know the full story about what happened in the background, but I'm delighted to be able to do it. And I'm going to posit that one of the things that they want us to do is to help find some consensus in what can be quite a difficult space.

So we're, first of all, all going to have to get up to speed. My background is in science, so at least, you know, I know how to read a good graph. I keep saying to the clerks and scaring them a bit, you know, if you can tell it to me in a graph, I'd rather have that than long prosaic sentences. So, um, I'm looking forward to sort of getting into that level of detail.

I have been presented with every single report that we can find, former select committee reports, NAO reports, Lord's reports, whatever it is in the space, library briefings, you name it, I've got them. I even went on holiday and took them with me to the beach and people thought that I was studying for an exam and stopped to ask me about it.

So buried in the detail I was, but it is going to be great fun, I think, being on this sharp learning curve. And I've got to sort of impart that [00:45:00] onto my new committee members. And as we speak, I don't have them all yet. Some of them are being sent sort of welcome packs tonight. And then there's a few more.

Still to come over the course of the week, by the time this goes out, I should have them all. I believe that we are looking at one returning member. Everyone else is either going to be new or won't have been here for a long time, depending on who gets on. In a sense, that makes it easier because we are all starting from the same base.

We're planning things like away days to help them not just understand the policy space, but also understand, you know, what does a select committee do? And if you're a brand new MP who's only ever known party politics and the cut and thrust and all of that, actually to wrap your head around our job is to be one team, is to seek consensus, is to put down the swords and pick up all the different things that are at our disposal that Parliament does really, really well, which actually encourages cross party working. And actually our job is to protect the integrity of the select committee system by protecting one [00:46:00] another. And by doing that we can make some quite pithy recommendations that are evidence based and hopefully change the policy space.

So I'm really looking forward to having them. Started to have sort of half hour coffees. What are their backgrounds? What are they interested in? We'll complete that process and we're very much hoping to have our very first meeting next week.

Mark D'Arcy: I noticed, for example, that you've got a public health doctor on the team, you've got a councillor who's been the policy lead on adult social care in that particular patch.

So there are people who are not complete novices in this area who can bring a bit of experience to the table.

Layla Moran: Absolutely. I'm, I'm so delighted already with who's been announced that we've got on. We've also got, you know, one returning member, I think, from the last committee. And I think they and I will be probably the only two that's ever served on a select committee full stop. So I think everyone's going to have their different interests, their different knowledge. And what we've got to do is to first of all, have a really nice meaty set of inquiries that we sink our teeth into. I think the [00:47:00] department's given us a lot already to start thinking about and how do we want to approach that as a committee.

But then I'm also keen that we make sure that, you know, these are all MPs at the end of the day. They are all accountable to their own constituents. And one of the foremost questions in my mind is how can I make it worth their while? How can I make it worth their constituents while that their MP is taking precious time out and rather than attending every Westminster Hall debate, talking about that particular part of the world, they're instead focused on this.

I think with health and social care, it's an easier ask of constituents. You know, why are you focusing on the health system is a very easy answer. But that said, I'm really keen to understand not just their interests and backgrounds, but also their constituencies, what drives them, what do they want to see changed, and then to make us as responsive a committee to the needs of the whole house as possible.

So I'm really looking forward to diving into some of their background, getting to learn from them. and uh, hopefully getting to a point of consensus because I think that's the best way to drive policy change.

Ruth Fox: Layla, as somebody who's [00:48:00] uh, appeared before the Liaison Committee of the House of Commons several times to talk about select committee effectiveness, everything you've said sounds great in terms of getting off to a good start.

Tell me, one of the dilemmas I think for MPs is that when it comes to their constituency responsibilities and health matters, obviously you can often get into quite a local fight about saving this service or saving that service. And when you're on a committee, you've kind of got to rise above that and look beyond your sort of constituency work and think about the bigger strategic national picture.

How do you think you can work with particularly new members who have not faced these pressures before to kind of support them through?

Layla Moran: So I think you start by first of all getting under the skin of the whole system and I dare say the NHS for an MP is a pretty opaque place. In the seven years I've been an MP I find it one of the hardest public bodies to hold directly accountable in in any way and you try and do it through ministers but actually they then say oh they all [00:49:00] these different quangos and bodies are independent of government and therefore we can't do much either and it can be deeply frustrating.

I've since had a number of meetings with sort of key stakeholders, one of whom shared their stakeholder map. It doesn't fit on A3, it needs to be printed on A2, where they've very kindly drawn sort of funding streams versus accountability versus, you know, all these different arrows. So I think the first thing we need to do is really get under the skin of all of that, because if we're going to affect any change, we need to do that.

And I think when we've done that, the MPs will actually for themselves better learn how to hold their local NHSs to account, their ICBs and ICPs and, you know, all these different acronyms that now matter a lot to us, but matter to our constituents all the time, all these bodies that make the decisions about what to commission.

And actually, we find it very difficult to engage with them as parliamentarians. So they'll be in the privileged position of having the people who make the decision in front of us in committee every week or so, and [00:50:00] it is normal that as part of the questioning, an MP might bring up as an exemplar something that is happening in their own patch and then to use that as a springboard on which to then drive further questioning because what we do in the scrutiny arm of what we do is to raise the voices of our constituents, but in a measured way, not in a sort of here I'm going to create a headline kind of a way, but the way I put it to my committee members is we really, really want to understand and hold to account not just the end product decision itself, but also the reasoning.

That went in behind how we got to this point, and we've got the space and summoning powers to get the right people in front of us with the right preparation to get those answers. So I think that local work can feed in very constructively with the bigger work. And I would very much hope from the perspective of my committee members that they can see the value of being able to question these bodies directly, many of whom, by the way, when I've asked as a lowly backbencher, they don't even give you a meeting, let alone a meeting with the senior people that [00:51:00] we'll have in front of us.

Mark D'Arcy: The Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, has launched this big exercise to start rethinking the way the NHS works with all these different missions about more community treatment, digitalization, prevention, rather than waiting for someone to fall ill. So it would seem fairly logical, even before your committee's really convened, to put out feelers and see whether he would come before you as soon as possible.

Have you done that? Have you reached out to the Department of Health and the ministers in it to see if they'll come? I can't imagine your members, even if they haven't been elected yet, would object to that.

Layla Moran: Oh, absolutely. Um, and certainly early doors, one of the things that we will want to feed into is that 10 year plan.

Although we've looked into, you know, what the department's planning to do in terms of engagement with the public, and we're pleasantly surprised that it does look quite extensive. So we want potentially to go a bit further and to ask for people's wider priorities. And that's one of the first inquiries I'm going to ask the committee to do, not least because it allows us to do some of that learning that I've just spoken about. You know, it's important that [00:52:00] we understand the system as a whole and also what are the priorities driving the public. So this is a good way of doing that. And then we could feed that into the 10 year plan. But, uh, in terms of the ministers, I mean, I see no reason why they wouldn't be delighted to come in front of us.

And there's already been a couple of exchanges between Wes Streeting and I in the House. He seems very amenable. I know him from years past. And this is the slightly odd relationship Liberal Democrats now have, is that we've spent the last, certainly for me, seven years, we were on the opposition side with the Labour backbenchers, who then became frontbenchers, who now are ministers in government.

So we know a lot of the people who are sitting in these positions relatively well through years past. I'd like to think we have a good working relationship. Wes Streeting and I, and it's something I'm very keen to continue. I'm very confident he'll come in front of us and offer himself up for questioning.

He's a good debater. He enjoys getting into the thick of it. I would very much hope that he'd be relishing the chance for us to be able to ask him those questions.

Ruth Fox: And what's your thinking, um, [00:53:00] Layla, about how the committee might tackle the very difficult issue of social care? Because that's something that obviously the, during the general election campaign is so identified with the Liberal Democrats and particularly after Ed Davey's very powerful interviews and broadcasts.

What's your thinking about how you might tackle that?

Layla Moran: It will surprise no one that that's one of the very first things I'm hoping the committee might look at. But the question then becomes, what do we look at that adds value? Because we've had the Dilnot inquiry, we've had I think two inquiries from previous select committees since.

It's basically saying we kind of know what to do and here is yet another report telling us how awful social care is and the impact it has on families up and down the country. And so one of the things I'm going to be asking my committee to look at, and I use my words advisedly because we haven't even had our first meeting yet, but to look at not just what are the different solutions to social [00:54:00] care, how bad is it now?

What needs to happen? But I wonder if turning that question on its head might help to expedite it because we know that they're planning not to tackle this for the next 12 months. We had confirmation of that from Stephen Kinnock, the social care minister, just this morning. So therefore, the question I wonder if it's worth asking is rather than what do we do and how much is it going to cost is, what is the cost of not doing anything, because we are assuming that doing nothing costs nothing, but that's actually just not true. We know anecdotally, certainly from within the NHS, you know, just the number of people who are, you know, delayed discharges costs a certain amount. I think the Health Foundation had estimated it was in the order of sort of a billion pounds of blockages further up and down the line in the NHS because we hadn't sorted out social care. But if you start adding in the wider cost to the economy, particularly if you include working age adults who aren't getting the packages that they need, that sort of health economics, I think, is very much [00:55:00] in the remit of the committee and adds just an extra layer to the urgency because it's not just the health and social care department that we need to be making this case to, it's also the Treasury. And the short answer to why haven't they tackled it now? Well, you know, clearly the Treasury is deciding to focus on other areas and it would be fantastic to do all those things that Wes Streeting has said he wants to do in his 10 year plan, but that's just a plan for the NHS.

It strikes me as a nonsense that you're not dealing with. with social care at the same time, the flow through of patients, both in and out of acute care and into the community. It doesn't make sense to tackle all those things without doing social care too. And the only answer I can come up with was why haven't they decided to do anything about it this year?

It must be a block somewhere. probably to do with the money. So I think that's a helpful thing that we might be able to do for the department is to look at that wider cost to the economy, but also more importantly, of course, those qualitative, those stories, the, the [00:56:00] wider impact it's having on the workforce and wider society.

Mark D'Arcy: There is though this issue which has been there for several years now that there is no money and pump priming the start of a much more comprehensive deal on adult social care would undoubtedly be incredibly expensive so you can see why the treasury would run a mile whatever the effects on those who need that care and don't get much of it at the moment and that's not going to change is it that that's that's the brick wall you're attempting to run into it.

Layla Moran: We are. And that's a, that's a great way of putting it, Mark, because that's kind of how it's felt, I think, for campaigners like Andrew Dilnot and others who have been running at this wall for a very long time. When I've been speaking to people who have been interested in this space for a long time, you know, Andrew Dilnot being one, I've spoken to Jeremy Hunt about it, you know, there's a few people who are long in the tooth in sort of having this, particular fight, I put it to them that this was the approach I wanted to take, and they kind of went, oh, interesting, no one's ever put it like that before.

So I do wonder if sometimes [00:57:00] saying the same thing in a different way, this is perhaps my teaching background comes into play, just because someone didn't understand it the first time around, try a different way of explaining it. I wonder if this is another string to the bow that we can add to the case for social care.

And actually what we want to try and do here is to create a sense of urgency. If we don't do something quickly, then it's just going to cost more money down the line. I'm very well aware the Treasury is working to a five year deadline, four years actually in reality, because they're going to be looking for what can they deliver in the next three to four years before the potential next election.

And what I want to do is to try and keep that in the back of my mind. We know how they work. We know how the system works. We need to be pragmatic with what are the pressures that people are using all the time. And we need to use those ourselves in order to make the case. It's all very well wringing our hands and saying this is terrible and we need eight billion pounds or nine billion pounds to fix it.

That's not going to fix it. It's not fixed it for the last decade at least. We need a different approach and that's what I'm trying to achieve with [00:58:00] it.

Mark D'Arcy: The other big policy challenge that's lurking in the background and will be surfacing in the not too distant future in the form of a private member's bill is assisted dying.

That's something the committee's taken a look at before, but now that there is an actual policy proposal on the table before parliament, is your committee going to weigh in, perhaps not in time for the second reading debate, but perhaps for when it comes back to the floor of the Commons for report, if it gets that far?

Layla Moran: So actually, Mark, I'm a great believer in not reinventing perfectly good wheels. And such great work was done by previous committees and already to the second reading debate and in the order paper and so on, we're intending to make sure that that report is tagged. It was a very extensive piece of work.

One of the biggest and certainly in terms of the weight of the evidence that came in. It was absolutely amazing. The committee went all over the world looking for comparators and looked at sort of the key issues as part of the debate. I think it's a great piece of work and I see some of my job in this debate is to give it the [00:59:00] proper hearing that it deserves because many of the questions that people have are answered in part in a very sort of non judgmental way. The report itself even calls itself assisted dying slash assisted suicide, recognising the two parts of the debate.

And it doesn't come to a conclusion as to whether you do it or not. All it does is it says, here are the big issues that are part of this debate. And we're going to look at these issues and actually refuse to come to a conclusion, which I think is, respectful in the tone that we hope that this debate can be had.

If there are then specific things that come out of the bill that weren't part of that original report, I'm keen that we as a committee revisit. But as I've said, I don't think we should be reinventing the wheel here just so that we sort of get in on the headline. I'm not sure that's really helpful this time.

There are places where the committee certainly wants to to do that, you know, when there are scandals in maternity care, for example, or who knows what might come up during this Parliament. Very often select committees will have ad [01:00:00] hoc hearings where they'll sort of do a short, sharp inquiry on the thing that's very topical.

This is an issue that I think needs to be taken slowly in a very considered and measured way. where there are gaps, we'll fill them. But actually, what I mainly want to focus on is making sure that very extensive report has as much light as possible.

Mark D'Arcy: In a previous committee life, you were on the Public Accounts Committee, and I dare say that that's been pretty helpful to you in starting to think about the the way that adult social care, for example, might feature in a sort of major government upheaval.

Are you going to be trying to work with other committees to tackle some of the big issues in front of you? Will public accounts, will treasury, will, I don't know, communities and local government perhaps get pulled in and involved in some of your inquiries?

Layla Moran: Absolutely. I mean, sitting on the public accounts committee was the best possible apprenticeship I could have ever asked for as a parliamentarian.

And as some of my colleagues have asked me, as a former member, would you recommend it? I have unhesitatingly said, go for it. It's absolutely brilliant. And yes, [01:01:00] is the short answer to your question. Things like a joint report or bringing two committees together, as for example, the health and social care and science and technology did for during COVID, that can be very cumbersome.

We've been sort of discouraged from, not doing it, but just encouraged to think about slightly more creative and less cumbersome ways of doing it because it can be quite difficult for the clerks to navigate. So instead, what you are encouraged to do a lot of is guesting, they call it. So any member of another committee can go on, any other committee if they are invited by the chair in that committee.

So let's say Department for Work and Pensions was doing something on, you know, long term sickness and wanted a member of the Health and Social Care Committee, they could invite one of us on. It could be the chair or it could be another member with a particular interest. There is a lot of appetite for that.

We've had a couple of meetings now already. of the new chairs. I'm already in touch with a few of them. I mean, the obvious ones [01:02:00] for health and social care are science and technology, but also department for work and pensions. And the last committee did an enormous report on prevention in which it had identified the importance of having good housing, for example, as a precursor for good health.

So there may well be other opportunities where we can start to sort of cross pollinate. And I get the impression that among the new chairs of the committees, there's a lot of appetite for that.

Mark D'Arcy: Layla Moran, thanks very much indeed for joining us on the pod today.

Layla Moran: Absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Ruth Fox: Thanks, Layla.

Mark D'Arcy: Well, Layla Moran. And Ruth, what did you make of that? What are the main political points you draw out of what you've just heard?

Ruth Fox: Well, Mark, I was quite struck by, she's thinking quite carefully, uh, about the strategic priorities for the committee and how they're going to operate. I mean, obviously this challenge that she faces.

So many new MPs who've not been on a select committee before, thinking about how they can operate and how they can be as effective as possible. I'm talking about all the right things that organizations like ourselves and the Institute for Government, the Constitution [01:03:00] Unit, have all sort of proposed in the past about how select committees can be as effective as possible.

Things like induction programs, things like way days to go away and sort of think strategically about what your priorities as a committee are, what you want to achieve, how you want to run your inquiries. So that all sounds really good. Um, if they can, uh, if they can deliver it.

Mark D'Arcy: And she's also been very strategic about political priorities as well.

I mean, obviously for the Lib Dems, it's been a very big issue to look at adult social care. Ed Davey, as you were saying there, uh, has had an awful lot to say on that subject from his own personal experiences. But they've got quite an interesting approach of, looking not just at how it could be done, but, but more almost now, about the costs of not doing it, about the costs of leaving the health and social care system bunged up with people who, for example, can't get out of hospital because there's no one to look after them if they go home and still need a bit of care.

And also she was very interestingly saying that she's not going to reopen the whole assisted dying issue. The committee's taken a look at that fairly [01:04:00] recently and she thinks that report stands. So unless something sort of different or new emerges from that debate, I think the health select committee is going to leave that report as its contribution to the debate and not reopen it, or as she put it, reinvent the wheel.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, and I think that's an interesting approach because that's not always been true of select committee chairs in the past, you know, committees want to to jump on the issue of the moment and grab the headlines and she's essentially saying no, no, you know, the committee did a good job on that. Nothing much has changed.

That committee work stands. And I think also, as you say, in terms of for thinking about social care that sort of, if you've, if you've been trying to address this question, this problem for, for years, and you see you keep making no progress, you've got to think about the framework of operation. You've got to, you know, turn the nature of the debate on its head and come at it from a different angle.

And it sounds like she will, of course, she's got to wait till her committee is fully, fully staffed up with the membership and they have their first meetings, but it certainly sounded interesting for the, for the weeks ahead.

Mark D'Arcy: And that's all from us pretty much for this week. [01:05:00] Next week, of course, there'll be the budget, so lots more parliamentary action for us to talk about when we're back next week.

See you then.

Ruth Fox: Looking forward to it, Mark. And remember, listeners, if you're enjoying the podcast, do please give us a review. Thanks very much. 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: 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, including our special Urgent [01:06:00] Questions editions dedicated to what you want to know about Parliament.

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Intro: 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.