With the Government still under pressure to set up an independent inquiry into child grooming gangs should Parliament have a role in setting up inquiries into state failures and national disasters? Currently, Ministers take crucial decisions about who should chair an inquiry and what its precise remit should be. But a House of Lords Committee last year proposed giving Parliament a greater say and adopting a more systematic approach to implementing inquiry recommendations.
Next week, Ministers will move the money resolution for the Assisted Dying Bill. This crucial procedural step will pave the way for the Bill’s next stage in a Public Bill Committee. Will Ministers face tough questions about how much they expect the proposed assisted dying system to cost during the 45-minute debate?
In other news, there’s been a spectacular promotion for former policy wonk and government adviser Torsten Bell, in the wake of the resignation of Treasury Minister Tulip Siddiq. Only elected last July, he’s just been made Pensions Minister, but will he be haunted by his many pronouncements as a talking head at Commons select committees and in media panel discussions?
Finally, is there still a place in the Commons for Masterpiece Theatre-style pyrotechnics? After Shadow-Chancellor Mel Stride’s attempt to shame Rachel Reeves with some Shakespearean rhetoric bombed in the chamber, Ruth and Mark reflect on whether parliamentary theatricals are now obsolete.
Hansard Society
House of Lords Statutory Inquiries Committee
Public inquiries: Enhancing public trust, HL Paper 9, 12 September 2024
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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.
Mark D'Arcy: And I'm Mark D'Arcy. Coming up this week.
Ruth Fox: Public inquiries. They're now a big part of the scrutiny of government. So should Parliament, not ministers, set them up and monitor their work?
Mark D'Arcy: You ring my bell, the rapid rise of policy wonk whizkid Torsten Bell, now Minister for Pensions.
Ruth Fox: And how much room is there in the modern commons for masterclass theatricals?
Mark D'Arcy: But first Ruth, I think before we start, we ought to do a quick community note as it were. We've had a few little technical hitches this week and so [00:01:00] what we're offering is going to be a shorter and possibly slightly less polished version of the pod than usual. But I do hope listeners will bear with us through it, and we hope to be back and firing on all cylinders in next week's edition.
But in the meantime, quite a lot of interesting things going on in Westminster for us to chat about.
Ruth Fox: There are. Yeah, so we talked last week, Mark, um, about the demands at Westminster for public inquiry into what was happening with the grooming gangs in towns across the UK and how politicised that has suddenly become on the back of Elon Musk's social media hits.
And, uh, in fact, as we said, this is not going to go away for Labour. It certainly died down a little bit because there's been a bit more focus this week on the state of the economy and Rachel Reeves' position, but it's not gone away. I mean, this is going to rumble on and on. The Home Secretary Yvette Cooper's um, just announced a series of local inquiries into grooming gangs and, and some Labour MPs, Rotherham's Sarah Champion for example, are saying that's what's needed.
But the question I think Mark is, is whether that will be enough to satisfy [00:02:00] critics elsewhere in Parliament, and indeed outside Parliament, and the media and so on. But it's also opened up this question of who sets the parameters for public inquiries. And a lot of MPs in the last few days have been getting interested in this question.
And of course, there are an awful lot of inquiries for them to get interested in. These things cost an awful lot of money. When tragedy happens, when there are scandals in various organs of the state, there's always calls for a public inquiry. But then shortly thereafter there are criticisms of the public inquiries for how much they cost, how long they go on for, and critically one of the things is what happens with the recommendations.
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In this fourth instalment of our special mini-podcast series, we take you inside the Public Bill Committee as it scrutinises the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill - a landmark proposal seeking to legalise assisted dying. The Committee is in full swing, debating amendments, and tensions are running high. We sit down with Sarah Olney MP, a key player in the discussions, to unpack the latest developments.
In this episode we dissect the fallout from Labour’s WhatsApp purge following the Andrew Gwynne affair and what it means for political communication at Westminster. We also explore the latest news from the House of Commons Modernisation Committee, discussing its focus on improving accessibility to Parliament, legislative scrutiny, and the debate over MPs holding second jobs.
The assisted dying bill (Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill) is now at the Committee stage, where a Public Bill Committee reviews the bill clause by clause. This briefing outlines the Committee’s role, how MPs propose changes to the bill and where these are published, how the Chair selects and groups amendments, and how these are debated and voted on.
The assisted dying bill is about to undergo detailed scrutiny by the Public Bill Committee - a group of 23 MPs tasked with reviewing the Bill’s text and proposing amendments to refine and improve it. But what exactly happens during this amendment process? Former House of Commons Clerk, Paul Evans CBE, breaks it down. Plus, we hear from Dr Ben Spencer MP, a former consultant psychiatrist turned parliamentarian, who has proposed dozens of amendments to the Bill.
Stay informed with updates and analysis on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill as it moves through Parliament. Learn about the debates, procedures, decisions, and key milestones shaping the assisted dying legislation.
