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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.

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: No action for seven months in government, now sound and fury in opposition. A withering Select Committee takedown of the Conservatives' response to systematic child abuse.

Mark D'Arcy: No handbrake turn as Hilary Benn declines to invoke emergency rules on the EU's single market in Northern Ireland.

Ruth Fox: And it's supposed to be the very model of a modern Armed Forces Commissioner. It's inspired by the system in the German parliament, but is our version all it's cracked up to be?

Mark D'Arcy: And Ruth, let's start [00:01:00] with a quick community note. People may be expecting to hear all about the assisted dying bill in this edition of the podcast. We've spun off a separate edition of Parliament Matters devoted entirely to events around the assisted dying legislation currently before Parliament, so all the analysis of what's being said and done, what's going on, what might happen in the future, will all be on that separate podcast, also out now, wherever you get your podcasts from.

Ruth Fox: That's right, and we're going to have this as a running series. over the coming weeks. So look out for that. And if you can, share it, forward it on for friends, family, colleagues who you think might be interested. Because this is genuinely, I think, Mark, a piece of legislation that people really are talking about in the wider public.

Mark D'Arcy: Absolutely. But Ruth, one of the big events this week in Parliament has been an absolutely stunning Select Committee hearing, the Home Affairs Committee talking to Alexis Jay who chaired the big public inquiry into systematic child abuse that we were discussing in last week's pod. This week she was in front of the Committee and she gave a [00:02:00] pretty damning verdict on the way the recommendations of her inquiry were handled by the previous Conservative government when they came out in 2022.

Essentially she said they did very little about it, to the point where she and colleagues eventually wrote a letter to The Times complaining that nothing had been done, at which point she got a telling off from a Government Special Advisor. So it was actually a pretty blistering takedown of the sound and fury that is now coming from the Conservatives in opposition, having done nothing about her inquiry recommendations when they were in government.

To be fair, they had a certain amount of excuse given the churn of government that was going on at the time. I mean, her recommendations were coming out at about the time that the Liz Truss government was imploded, which was not that long after the Boris Johnson government had imploded.

Ruth Fox: I think it came out, her report came out, the day Truss resigned, so it sort of got shrouded a little bit.

Mark D'Arcy: It hit in the interregnum, you might say, but, um, all the same, this is the kind of thing that you don't want [00:03:00] getting lost in the cloud of politics as usual. Politics as very unusual, I suppose you might say, going on at the time.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, nothing like getting the story straight from the horse's mouth, is there?

And the select committee got that. Sure of all, as you say, the sound and fury, the political fog that has surrounded this issue since Mr. Musk tweeted about it and set it all off. She was pretty blunt. I mean, she described the government's response at the time, so back in 2022, as inconsequential, unsubstantial, committed to nothing.

And she said, I've had lots of media requests in recent days to comment on this, to talk about it, and I haven't. But she did come to the select committee, and I think that's an important point about the role that select committees can play in moments like this, where the key player comes, gives evidence, very clear, very blunt, and sets something on the record, which everybody can then see. It's transparent, everybody can see the questions being asked, [00:04:00] see the responses, and it's on the record, it's recorded in Hansard, in contrast to all these sort of media briefings where you don't know who's talking to who.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, quiet, it's all muttered from behind hands or out of the corner of pursed lips.

And one of the things about the political culture we're now in is that if a charge comes from the other side, it's almost automatically discounted by the tribe that's under attack.

Ruth Fox: Yeah.

Mark D'Arcy: So if someone on the Labour side says that the last Conservative government made a terrible job of something, then it's automatically discounted because it's coming from a tainted opposition source.

If a Conservative says something, the Labour Party side will equally discount it. Oh, it's just another one of the evil Tories attacking us again, as is their won't and so on. So, it's very rare now that you get, if you like, an independent validator coming out and saying what they think happened. And this is pretty powerful, because this is the person a Conservative government appointed to chair a major public inquiry, who then had direct dealings with the [00:05:00] government of the day to try and get those inquiry recommendations implemented.

Now, no one is saying that an inquiry should automatically have everything it suggests implemented. There are no blank cheques in politics.

Ruth Fox: Yeah.

Mark D'Arcy: And certainly not in this kind of case. But there does need, it seems to me, to be some more robust mechanism for following up when you spend hundreds of millions of pounds on a vast public inquiry effort.

And then they're just sort of left to gather dust.

Ruth Fox: Until there's a row.

Mark D'Arcy: Until there's a row. Yeah. The issue comes back to haunt the next generation of politicians as it has now.

Ruth Fox: And that was one, I think, of Alexis Jay's underlying messages that please stop treating this issue as a political football.

Both sides, if you like, in this, this political debate, are not without some responsibility. The Conservatives for having failed to respond properly to the recommendations. And now the onus is on Labour to get its act together and ensure that action is taken and provide a response to the recommendations and a process for operationalizing, implementing what's [00:06:00] been suggested.

We're also of course, going to have now another inquiry into extremism into the Prevent strategy in the context of what's been revealed following the trial of the Southport killer. Again, another inquiry, another process that the Home Secretary's initiated, and the onus will be on ensuring that those recommendations don't go and sit on a shelf.

Mark D'Arcy: Effectively, the Government's going to its go to people for inquiries at the moment. So you've got Dame Louise Casey presiding over these local inquiries into localized cases of child sexual abuse and grooming. And David Anderson, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, who we've had on this podcast before, the former independent reviewer of anti terror legislation, is going to be taking a look at some of the issues around the Southport case.

So, again, you'll have a new set of recommendations, gathered doubtless at considerable expense, that will have to be fed into the process somehow and hopefully, hopefully, followed up. Now, you can argue that [00:07:00] maybe the relevant select committees, the Home Affairs Committee, maybe the Children and Families Committee, whatever it's now called, should be involved in following up and should pick up the baton on these issues, but I do wonder whether we need a much more formal process in Parliament, someone with a cattle prod to make the committees follow up or get a debate on the floor of the House, or find some way of making sure that these things just aren't screaming into the void.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, there's also a risk that with some committees, it could take over their work for a period.

And you look at the Home Affairs Committee, it could be doing nothing but look at inquiries for a period and how they're implemented. So we discussed at some length last week the case for a parliamentary, whether it's a joint committee or a single Commons or Lords committee, to essentially progress chase, ensure that there's follow up, that the recommendations are being looked at, that the Government ministers have to respond and there has to be an explanation.

If they're not going to follow up a recommendation, why? I think it's here where you'd look to perhaps the Modernisation Committee, the new [00:08:00] committee. It's going to have quite a wide remit established by the Leader of the House of Commons. It's going to look at parliamentary standards. It's going to look at the rules around second jobs and things, but it's also got a remit in relation to the working practices of the House and parliamentary procedures and structures. So they've accepted all evidence prior to Christmas about what people think it should focus on. It hasn't yet published its evidence, so looking out for that at the moment.

Mark D'Arcy: Keen to guess what the suggestions actually are.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, and you know, we've submitted evidence. Um, it won't surprise anybody that number one in our list is reform of delegated legislation. There are other things.

Mark D'Arcy: Go Ruth.

Ruth Fox: But one of the areas we do pick up is filling this, what we call the strategic gaps in scrutiny. And this is one of them.

Mark D'Arcy: And this is one of them.

And I wish

Ruth Fox: I'd actually, in light of what we've talked about in recent days, we probably should have put this a little bit higher up. But there is a case for the Modernization Committee to perhaps look at the reviewing the select committee structure and thinking about where it can fill those gaps and public inquiry follow up would be [00:09:00] one of them.

Mark D'Arcy: But going back to what Alexis Jay had to tell the Home Affairs Committee, first of all, it was fantastically powerful. And secondly, I think her appeal to stop using this as a political football. is something that really ought to be listened to in the House of Commons because I'm not sure that anything is served by having the two parties screaming at one another across the divide of the Commons Chamber about who's most culpable in child abuse cases.

For heaven's sake, it's more serious than that.

Ruth Fox: But interestingly at Prime Minister's Questions, Kemi Badenoch did not raise it, nor indeed the sex abuse case or the Southport case. Criticism from Reform UK and from Nigel Farage in particular for not doing so, as if she'd missed sort of an open goal. But in fact when you read Alexis Jay's evidence you can quite well understand why she might not have wanted to open up that

Mark D'Arcy: Well you can see what Sir Keir Starmer's comebacks might have been on that occasion.

It's also fair to say you know there'd been a full dress ministerial statement that week so it was perhaps just going over the same [00:10:00] ground again, repeating the same charges again, if she'd raised it at Prime Minister's Question Time as well. I think she was A, pretty prudent not to do it. And B, it's a perfectly reasonable thing to focus on the Education Bill, which is quite an important issue.

Ruth Fox: Yeah,

yeah. Well, Mark, should we leave it there and, um, perhaps come back in a couple of minutes, have a bit of a breather, come back and talk about some other areas of, uh, strategic scrutiny that needs to be undertaken, particularly in relation to the EU and what's been happening in Northern Ireland. So see you in a minute.

Mark D'Arcy: See you then.

And we're back. And Ruth, one of the issues that we were talking about just before the break was the strategic gaps in what Parliament scrutinises and how effectively it does it. And at the moment, the Commons is in the process of getting rid of the sifting committee that used to look at Brexit measures under the terms of the European Withdrawal Act.

It was one of the things MPs insisted be built in so that they could keep a track of vital Brexit related secondary legislation in a way that you doubtless approve of greatly. [00:11:00] That's going. Already gone is the old European Scrutiny Committee, which for what seemed like decades Sir Bill Cash presided over in Parliament.

That select committee was abolished at the start of this Parliament. So there's now no organ of Parliament that directly looks at Brexit related secondary legislation. Individual select committees can, if they like, decide to focus on particular items of legislation and the one that's most likely to do that, of course, is the Northern Ireland Select Committee because the single market still operates in Northern Ireland to keep the border open with the Republic of Ireland.

So there's a very complicated situation there, piled on top of which is the role that the Northern Ireland Assembly now has under what are called the Emergency Break Regulations where they can trigger scrutiny of single market legislation that they don't like the look of. So there's a very elaborate process there.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, so essentially, as you say, Northern Ireland is still in the EU single market for goods. The rest of the UK is not. [00:12:00] And as the EU updates its rule book, and indeed as the UK does, there is this significant risk that over time the operation of that border will become more complicated because we'll all be doing different things, different standards.

And the solution at one level is for the UK to align with EU rules that apply in Northern Ireland. Keep things simple. But from the Northern Ireland perspective, the unionist parties, they fear that that situation is being used to effectively subject the UK to EU rules by the backdoor. And under the Windsor Framework, if you remember back in the day, Rishi Sunak negotiated the Windsor Framework to try and resolve some of the problems in the post Brexit trading arrangements in Northern Ireland. And there was this much heralded, powerful, new democratic safeguard, which was essentially to give Stormont politicians, politicians in the Northern Ireland Assembly, a say before any amended EU rules come into effect in Northern Ireland. And under this democratic safeguard, if 30 members of the Northern [00:13:00] Ireland Assembly, uh, from at least two parties have concerns about an EU regulation, they can notify the British government of their wish that the emergency break on EU law is pulled. So effectively, they want to stop its application in Northern Ireland. Now, just before Christmas, 35, I think it was 35, 36 members of the assembly, all Unionists, pulled the brake on the application of the, now get this, the Chemical Classification Labeling and Packaging Regulation, which might sound quite anodyne, packaging regulation, but actually critical to trading arrangements and obviously movement of chemicals from country to country and the ability to import your chemicals.

Absolutely critical to so many areas of life. So really important regulations. So the Speaker in the Northern Ireland Assembly just before Christmas wrote to Hilary Benn, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and said the requisite number of members of my assembly have pulled the brake and you need to look at this and Hilary Benn has spent the interim doing so and he has concluded that in fact the [00:14:00] conditions for the break have not been met. So he's written back a very lengthy detailed letter to the assembly members and said so.

Mark D'Arcy: What would have happened if the break had been pulled? Does the assembly then get to veto those regulations? How's it work?

Ruth Fox: No, essentially you would end up in a situation where Hilary Benn would have to go to the UK EU Joint Committee that's been set up, or this sort of elaborate bureaucracy that's been set up to facilitate negotiations in areas where there is disagreement between us and the EU. The UK would have to put the case as to why they thought that these regulations were problematic.

The EU would have to consider whether they thought the UK's case was valid or not. If they did, you could try and negotiate a solution. If they didn't, they could reject it. And essentially, the UK would then have to decide what to do. I mean, the new laws wouldn't apply while the discussions were going on.

So there'd be a period of hiatus, if you like.

Mark D'Arcy: But essentially, we haven't got to that brink yet.

Ruth Fox: No, it's not been tested. So we don't exactly know what will play out. I mean, [00:15:00] the British government doesn't have to agree to adopt the law. The Northern Ireland Assembly could pass a motion to say we don't want this to apply, it needs cross community support because of the particular circumstances in Northern Ireland where cross community agreement is needed for so much.

This is what's known as an applicability motion. If no applicability motion is passed, there's no cross community support on this. And remember, the break was only pulled by unionist politicians. The UK government can agree that the law applies if there are exceptional circumstances or The law wouldn't create a new regulatory border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

If UK decided, actually, no, we're not going to apply this, we think Northern Ireland's right, this is a real problem for us, can't reach agreement with the EU, UK government can say we're not going to have this applied in Northern Ireland, but then it's open to the EU to take what are described as appropriate remedial measures.

Now, what form that would take, I guess, you know, a lot [00:16:00] would depend on the word appropriate. But what you would essentially end up in a situation is, you know, retaliatory measures potentially. And then the whole systems in negotiations and agreements start to unravel. So the circumstances in which I think the break is pulled and the UK agrees that a regulation is not going to apply in Northern Ireland, it's going to have to be a very, very high bar.

And Hilary Benn has decided this week that bar has not been reached.

Mark D'Arcy: Um, I suppose we now have to wait and see what reaction is provoked in the Northern Ireland Assembly and elsewhere as a result of that decision. And I don't know if this quite reaches the threshold of being prepared to collapse the institutions or anything like that, but

Ruth Fox: My impression is not.

Mark D'Arcy: You could see, I mean, some kind of response.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, the unionists are clearly very unhappy. I think that there are going to be instances of this on a probably a reasonably regular basis. But the challenge for them is if they collapse the institutions, they've got no say at all. They can't even have the row because if the institutions don't [00:17:00] exist in Northern Ireland, if the assembly collapses, then this whole Stormont break doesn't apply. So it would be entirely a matter for the UK and the EU, and the UK would be presumably content to not have to deal with these matters. So you can see a scenario in which the unionist politicians pick and choose the regulations most pertinent to their community. where they're most concerned about the democratic questions, whether or not this is upsetting the delicate balance, whether there's genuine risk to trade arrangements.

You can see the unionist parties choosing to pull this break a number of times, not too often that it becomes ridiculous, but enough, you know, selective opportunities to raise the debate and to put the pressure on the nationalists. communities and, and, and the Secretary of State.

Mark D'Arcy: Just to keep the issue alive, essentially, and make sure that it's not forgotten.

Ruth Fox: And, you know, we shouldn't dismiss this as, oh, well, you know, this is sort of just a partisan issue in Northern Ireland, nothing to see here. You know, there are legitimate questions about the [00:18:00] democratic status and nature of this agreement as it affects Northern Ireland. And there are important issues democratic issues to explore about what the British government's position is going to be in relation to EU rules and are indeed we effectively being held in by EU rules by the back door.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, this half in half out status of Northern Ireland is uncomfortable, beyond Northern Ireland.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. So this has been the first test of the arrangements. And the Secretary of State has decided that the conditions aren't there on this particular regulation. So it will continue to apply. But the Secretary of State has indicated, you know, it's a very lengthy, detailed, emollient letter.

I could almost hear Hilary Benn saying it.

Mark D'Arcy: Sonorous tone. Yeah.

Ruth Fox: And he's reaching out, expressing the fact that he understands the issues. He understands the concerns. You consult the communities and just, double check and test whether there is indeed going to be an issue for the industries and the affected bodies that have to deal with these chemical regulations.

So he wants to [00:19:00] test out going forward. He's not rejecting the idea that there are no problems with this. He's going to keep an eye on it, but it doesn't reach the test for entering into negotiations with the EU about it at this stage.

Mark D'Arcy: So let's take a break there Ruth and when we come back we've got a rather interesting issue that's not getting perhaps as much attention as it deserves at the moment.

There's new legislation to create an Armed Forces Commissioner whose job will be to oversee the welfare of service personnel in the army, the navy and the air force. It's based on an idea that has been in operation in Germany. It would replace an existing Armed Forces Ombudsman Office which hasn't been seen as a great success.

But is this new post going to be quite all it's cracked up to be? Back in a moment.

Ruth Fox: See you in a minute.

Well Mark we're back, and Armed Forces Commissioner Bill. With barely a ripple MPs this week have passed the Armed Forces Commissioner Bill and what this bill does is establish an independent Armed Forces Commissioner, an independent champion or advocate [00:20:00] for service personnel and their their families.

When he introduced the bill at second reading just before Christmas, the Secretary of State for Defence, John Healey, said that the commissioner will be a direct point of contact for serving personnel and their families. He'll be, he or she, will be able to raise concerns that impact on service lives and their ability to serve everything from kit to food, housing, medical care, study programmes, promotions, childcare, support for spouses in work, you name it, if it affects the welfare of service personnel, it'll be under the, uh, the remit of this Commissioner. The Commissioner's going to report to Parliament, not to Ministers. There'll be an annual report, pre appointment hearings by the Defence Select Committee.

The idea is to reinforce accountability to the House of Commons. So it's an interesting development.

Mark D'Arcy: The publicity around this is that this new Office is a lift from the arrangements that operate in Germany, where they have a very powerful Armed Forces Commissioner, and perhaps that's rooted in German [00:21:00] history, because this was a post that was created in the 1950s when Germany was just about being allowed to have armed forces again, and they didn't want to revert to bad totalitarian and militaristic habits and so there was very, very strong parliamentary oversight in Germany set up, in West Germany I should say, set up to make sure that that didn't happen and that this was very much under the thumb of the German parliament. This model that's being created in Britain isn't quite that.

Ruth Fox: No, I'd say this is the weaker end of the role. So I've been doing a little bit of research into the parliamentary commissioner for the armed forces in the Bundestag in Germany. Things you do when you're commuting back home after work.

Mark D'Arcy: Long train journeys must

Ruth Fox: just I didn't know anything about the role beforehand, but it's been absolutely fascinating.

As you say, parliamentary role, not a government role, parliamentary role created in the aftermath of the Second World War and this sort of need to have strong parliamentary [00:22:00] oversight of the armed forces there. This sort of idea that, soldiering is not a normal job, that it's a job that where hierarchy and the principle of being obedient to orders is a necessary part of the role, but in the context obviously of post war Germany, the fact that, you know, you need to anchor the armed forces in an ethos and an ethics framework where they're ultimately responsible for their own actions, that being obedient to the chain of command doesn't absolve you from personal responsibility for your actions.

So back in the 1950s, when the debate about reconstituting the German armed forces took place, there was even a proposal that the secretary of state for defense equivalent, their defense minister, should be subject to a parliamentary confidence vote to maintain their position. And there was huge discussions between the German political parties at that time.

And what emerged was rejection of that idea, that should be a matter for the government. Only the Chancellor's role would be subject to a confidence vote. But the compromise that was negotiated between the political parties was this idea of a Parliamentary Commissioner [00:23:00] for the Armed Forces.

Mark D'Arcy: And this Parliamentary Commissioner literally sits in the German Parliament.

Ruth Fox: Yep, she, it is a she at the moment. They've had 13 since the post was created in the late 1950s. They have a seat in the Bundestag chamber, up with the clerks, the equivalent parliamentary administration. But they can be called to participate in debates when their annual report is being discussed. And often are.

They can be directed by the Bundestag or the Defense Committee to undertake inquiries. I don't think the Bundestag's ever done it. The Defense Committee has asked them to look at things. But generally speaking, most of their inquiries are of their own initiative. They've got the powers to get papers from the German authorities.

They can undertake visits to armed forces bases. They can meet with service personnel and their families. Service personnel can contact them directly, petition them about their concerns. Apparently they get about two and a half thousand to four thousand cases. And that is something that John Healey, the defence, the defence has looked at.

Mark D'Arcy: Compare and contrast to the role that's being created [00:24:00] here and all right, to be sure that the new commissioner will have, for example, the power to enter military bases without notice, the power to see documents subject only to a veto by the defense secretary if it's something very sensitive.

Ruth Fox: National security.

Mark D'Arcy: A whole load of investigative powers.

But at the same time, they don't have anything like the kind of internal parliamentary status of the German equivalent. This is someone who is subject to a pre appointment hearing by the defense committee. Not a confirmation hearing. There is no veto. So the defense committee can call in the candidate who's been nominated for the post and question them.

And can indeed issue a report saying we don't think this person's up to it, if that's what they decide. But they don't have an outright veto and that person could then be appointed over their heads, even if they didn't like them very much.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, I mean as we've discussed previously on the podcast on this question of pre appointment hearings and their value, I mean, there's a political cost attached to the Secretary of State overruling the Select Committee, but it has happened.

So you can't rule it out. The Liberal Democrats did try and [00:25:00] amend the bill at report stage to build in a binding committee hearing so that if the committee concluded after taking evidence from the nominated person that actually they weren't up to it, they'd inform the Secretary of State of that. Secretary of State would have the option to come to the committee and set out his view about no, why he disagreed with them and he thought the appointment was appropriate before the committee then take a view.

And if they still said no, the Secretary of State would then have to accept that. It would be, you know, effectively a committee veto. But that was rejected, that amendment did not get through. So it is going to be non binding pre appointment hearing.

Mark D'Arcy: I think Governments in general are very reluctant to start conceding the principle that a select committee can veto big appointments because next it'll be industry regulators or members of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee or Governor of the BBC or whatever it is.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, and I think it's going to be interesting that the commissioner, whoever is appointed, it's going to be an interesting role, what kind of people will it attract? So in Germany, it's [00:26:00] been former military people, people with a political background. The predecessor commissioner to the one that's in post now was actually, I think, the chair of the Defence Select Committee at the time.

Interestingly, in the German Bundestag, they have a vote on the floor of the chamber. Any German citizen over the age of, I think it's 35, can put themselves forward to be a candidate. The parties, obviously there's negotiations between the parties about who the best candidate would be, but there's actually a vote.

Here it will be appointment by, as you say, the Secretary of State for Defence, formally appointed by the King on the recommendation of the Secretary of State. They're going to have an annual report to Parliament. They'll additionally be able to produce thematic reports. Secretary of State will have to lay the report before Parliament within 30 sitting days.

He can't get into editing it or suggesting that things are removed unless it's a matter of national security. So there's what's described as a national security scrub process. But other than that, the report will go from the Commissioner to Parliament. And then it will be, I guess, with the [00:27:00] Defence Select Committee to, it'll become a normal part of their parliamentary calendar of scrutiny to look at that.

And John Healey has given a very strong steer that he thinks then there should be an annual debate on that in the chamber, which will surface all sorts of issues.

Mark D'Arcy: Speaking of someone who spent an appreciable portion of their childhood in RAF married quarters, some of which were pretty grotty, I think, you know, armed forces accommodation, I imagine, is something that will come up quite a lot.

The standard of housing on bases has been an irritant for an awfully long time, but there are plenty of other subjects as well.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. And we've talked on the podcast before about the Defence Committee's own inquiry into service accommodation. The government's now committed more money to that. So there'll be a kind of monitoring role.

Are they meeting the requirements to improve accommodation? We know that there's serious issues about education, over training, about welfare services generally. There's a big test here. You know, we keep talking about the need to invest more in defence. Recruitment and retention of the armed [00:28:00] forces is difficult when morale is low.

You know, six in ten members of the armed forces in the annual study last year said that they felt their morale was low. So this commissioner is going to have an important role. And it's actually from the government's perspective, they're effectively appointing somebody who's going to be critiquing what they do.

And a lot of what they say is going to be negative by the nature of the role. And they're going to get a kicking annually in the media. I mean, you know, in the German press, it's a bit of an event and it highlights the inadequacies, the weaknesses, the press don't want to talk about the positives. There will be some, but that's not what gets traction.

So, you know, the government is doing something that isn't naturally in their interest. So I think they should get some credit for that. And then interestingly, it's going to have a much bigger budget than the current armed services ombudsman. It's budget varies about 1.8-2.2 million a year. What the government's proposing for this commissioner role is about four and a half to five, five and a half [00:29:00] million.

So it's a big increase.

Mark D'Arcy: A much more comprehensive operation by the sound of it. And previously the, the way that parliament got its teeth into these issues was on a slightly longer cycle with the five yearly Armed Forces Acts that Parliament's required to pass. And that's a system that replaced the, the previous one of annual army acts where every year. It was a legacy of the Civil War and, uh, James the Second and monarchical tyranny that Parliament wanted to make sure it had its thumb very firmly on the armed forces of the day in the, in the 17th century. And so every year they had to renew the funding for the armed forces and indeed the legal structure.

And that turned after the Second World War into a five yearly system. The architect was a chap called Colonel George Whig. He was a slightly shadowy figure in the days of Harold Wilson's leadership of the Labour Party and his premiership. And Colonel Whig was the person who devised the system of having five yearly acts.

And it did give an opportunity to look at issues. [00:30:00] give MPs the chance to raise, for example, problems with service accommodation and all sorts of other kind of domestic issues outside the disciplinary chain of command.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, in a sense, this solution, if you like, to the problem of how do you deal with the problems of welfare and of armed services personnel, it's been long running.

I mean, we've had lots of other select committee inquiries. We've had the, the defense select committee in 2021 looking at bullying and harassment of women in the armed forces, which found astonishingly 62 percent had experienced it. It's a pretty shocking report. There's been reports into bullying in the armed services.

So these kinds of things have been running for a while and there hasn't been a solution that has worked. And I think it goes back a little bit to the approach of we were talking about earlier about inquiries and implementing recommendations following up. But it's also about the powers to investigate and this is Labour's solution that whereas the previous Conservative government had said no, the [00:31:00] model of armed services federations, one for each of the armed forces was the model, there's going to be a veterans commissioner, they haven't yet appointed that. There's the army covenant. There's all these sort of mechanisms, but it's not sort of joined up, none of it's worked, the ombudsman hasn't worked. So this is a beefed up approach. It's got a history. You can see it, private members bills, back in previous parliament, um, brought in by the SNP, propose setting up something not dissimilar.

So Labour's taken the German model, adapted it. Interestingly, the Commissioner's going to have a role in improving public understanding of these welfare issues as well. So it'll be interesting to see what form that takes.

Mark D'Arcy: That could be quite important as well. But, uh, looking back to the fairly devastating report a few years ago by a sub committee of the Defence Select Committee.

It was chaired by Sarah Atherton, who's a former service personnel herself. She produced this absolutely devastating report on sexual harassment in the armed forces and that may be one of the things that the commissioner can really help on.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, I think it was in, I can't remember if it was the second reading [00:32:00] debate or the report stage debate this week, it was either the Secretary of State or the Veterans Minister, Luke Pollard, said that that report should be on everybody's bedside table for reading.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah.

Ruth Fox: It's pretty devastating.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, in fact, on the basis of that report, I think Sarah Atherton would be an extremely smart appointment for the job of commissioner.

I mean, she was very, very, very briefly a minister in the short lived Liz Truss administration.

Ruth Fox: A month, I think.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, I'm a bit surprised they didn't keep her in office, actually, when Rishi Sunak came in. But she was very briefly a minister, she's got the select committee experience, and of course, she is a services veteran.

Ruth Fox: She's out of Parliament now, so she'd be free to do it. She advertises her position as an armed forces and veterans campaigner. And in fact, I think she had. The role in the MOD, albeit very briefly, for service families and veterans. So it seems an obvious fit. I mean, it avoids the prospect of any appointment looking like it's in the government's pocket.

Very clearly, somebody who was a Conservative MP, but who's got a strong track record on this and, you know, knows some of the issues in quite some detail, [00:33:00] having done that report.

Mark D'Arcy: And it wouldn't be the first time they've used a Conservative to do that kind of a job in this government. So, John Healey, you heard it here first.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, but will she be available? That's the question.

Mark D'Arcy: That's the critical question. Only she can tell.

Ruth Fox: Well, Mark, I've had a couple of questions from listeners as well. Shall we dispose of those? So, uh, we've had a question from Matt asking about reasoned amendments, which we discussed in the podcast a couple of weeks ago.

And he said, the discussion about reasoned amendments got me thinking. Is it in order to table a reasoned amendment that approves of the bill overall but asks that the government thinks again about a measure that is or isn't in the bill that's presented at second reading? If not, would this be a good reform to inject a bit of nuance into second reading debates and focus the minds of governments and backbenchers on the issues with the bill as it heads into committee?

And then he says thanks. Big fan of the pod.

Mark D'Arcy: Oh, that's very kind. Thank you. Well, first of all, at the moment, a reasoned amendment is an amendment that says that this House declines to give this bill a second reading because, insert [00:34:00] reason here, you know, it's pants, whatever it is. So, it's basically saying why you don't want to go ahead with this bill.

Now, having an amendment, that said, this house supports this bill, but thinks it ought to have an extra bit in it, or to be different in some way, is actually a much more nuanced and interesting position, but I don't think it would be selected by, uh, Mr Speaker at the moment. Now what makes this a particularly interesting question for me is that I think that we're heading, at the moment, at any rate if the opinion polls are to be believed, for a much more multi polar politics.

Where you could have a coalition government and an opposition that's divided into a couple of parties that perhaps are within a few seats of each other in size. So one's the official opposition by three votes in the chamber or something like that. And at that point, parliamentary procedure really ought to adapt itself to respect the fact that there might be several different positions on a given issue.

At the moment, Parliament is structured around the idea that there's a yes no answer to every question, but I think you could get to a [00:35:00] point where you may need to have a second amendment that says yes, but. In some way, I quite like to see that happen.

Ruth Fox: Yes, I think that the complicating factor for me there is that second reading, it's either a yes you want it to go ahead or no you don't.

And if you conditional that on something that may or may not happen in the future, then there's a lack of clarity. I mean, in a sense, the raising of conditions or the raising of concerns is what you do in the debate. And that's the steer you are giving the members who will be appointed to the public bill committee to then consider in the context of that line by line scrutiny.

And they can bring in an amendment to add something if they want. They can bring in an amendment to remove something that they don't like. So I think, it's the next stage that deals with that for me. I would be concerned if you bring something in at the second reading vote that makes it unclear whether the House is or isn't rejecting it.

You kind of want a clear line in the sand.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, I mean I absolutely take that point [00:36:00] and saying whether a bill should or shouldn't go ahead is a pretty black and white question, but I just wonder whether it might actually be helpful in some senses, especially where you've got a multiply hung parliament and maybe you've got a divided opposition and a government with two parties with slightly different views.

That might provide a context in which it's actually quite useful to say that this house supports the Armed Forces Commissioner Bill, but would like an amendment brought forward to ensure that the Armed Forces Commissioner is directly appointed by a vote of this House, or something like that. And you could build that in there, and then if the government didn't come forward with amendments like that, then that might inform the way the parties then voted at later stages.

Ruth Fox: I wonder if you could have two rounds of voting at second reading, so you have the vote that says yes or no, do you support the second reading? Do you want it to go forward? If you do, then do you want to give the committee a steer? So, so it's very clear that you're accepting the bill to go forward, but then you're giving it a very gentle or not so gentle indicator, [00:37:00] yeah, that you want it to address this.

Now that does happen sometimes because the government can get the house to agree to instructions to a committee to look at something or not look at something. So there is a formal process for that. So I wonder if if that could be adjusted, amended in some way so that there was a role for not just something coming from the government but something coming from the the other parties.

Perhaps our clerks who are listening to this might have some thoughts and let us know.

Mark D'Arcy: But I think that Matt, the point here that I think you're getting to is that politics isn't going to be just a matter of yes or no. Unless things in public opinion change fairly dramatically, we could have a very complicated Parliament after the next general election, and maybe procedure has to adapt to meet that point.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. One to watch, one for also for the Modernisation Committee, I dare say. Absolutely. So, second question is from Michael Vidal, who says, why do we have topical questions to ministers?

Mark D'Arcy: For the excellent reason that [00:38:00] events move very rapidly sometimes, and it may be that you get to a question time for, say, the Home Office and there is some event that ministers really ought to have a chance to comment on, but since the questions have to be tabled in advance, none of the questions have actually touched on this issue.

Now, creative speakers and creative members of Parliament can often find a way to crowbar current events in, even if the, questions that are on the order paper don't directly refer to them. But I've sat through, you know, my Today in Parliament incarnation, many a question time where there's been some great event raging outside that is totally unreferred to in a question time when it really ought to have come up.

So I think it's, it's a very useful mechanism to allow Parliament to react to things that are in the news agenda now and make sure that it doesn't look like an irrelevant institution. And I think Parliament needs to be very, very careful that it's not so high band by its own rules, that it doesn't react to events as they unfold because everybody expects institutions to be able to do that in real time now.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, I think Michael, the clue is in your question, [00:39:00] topical. Basically what happens is the Commons will have, you know, if it's, I don't know, Home Affairs questions, MPs will have had to table their questions in advance. The first 30 minutes will be given over to those questions. And then what happens is you have 15 minutes at the end for topical questions.

And that means that the questioner doesn't have to give notice of what their question is going to be. So the secretary of state, the ministerial team have no idea what's going to come up. So that ensures, as you say, that the topical matters can be addressed, can be about anything in the minister's remit.

In the House of Lords, it's slightly different. So they have question time every day for 40 minutes. It's usually four questions. For about 10 minutes each. And one of those four questions is given over to topicality. And they're usually drawn in a ballot 24 to 48 hours beforehand. And that's how they do it.

Mark D'Arcy: And Lord's Question time can sometimes be a lot more informative than the Commons ones. Precisely for that reason, there's a lot more flexibility within to ask about almost anything.

Ruth Fox: And they're also slightly longer. So the discussion breathes a little [00:40:00] bit more.

Mark D'Arcy: There's a lot more to and fro.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. Well, Mark, with that, I think we'll have to draw it to a close for this week.

Mark D'Arcy: But just a reminder that there's a special dedicated edition of Parliament Matters, a kind of mini pod dealing with all issues relating to the assisted dying legislation currently before MPs. So that'll be with your podcast provider now, so take a look.

Ruth Fox: And with that, we'll see you next week.

Mark D'Arcy: See you then.

Bye bye.

Intro: Bye.

Parliament Matters is produced by the Hansard Society and supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. For more information, visit hansardsociety.org.uk or find us on social media at Hansard Society.