← Back to Parliament Matters episode page

This transcript is automatically generated. There are consequently minor errors and the text is not formatted according to our style guide. If you wish to reference or cite the transcript please first check against the audio version. Timestamps are provided for ease of reference.

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.

Ruth Fox: The bill to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales debuts in the House of Lords. We are joined by expert Lords watcher, Sir David Beamish, to analyse how peers received it, and what happens next.

Mark D'Arcy: And its chaos and churn at the top level of government as a wave of ministerial changes juts through Westminster.

Ruth Fox: But how will all this resound in Parliament and what might it mean for Keir Starmer?

Mark D'Arcy: Right, so here we are. The House of Lords has been getting its teeth into [00:01:00] the assisted dying bill, the Terminally Ill Adults End of Life Bill to give it its full title, which would legalise assisted dying in England and Wales. This is the second reading debate. Confusing really because it's the first actual debate they've had in it.

But that's parliamentary jargon for you. And their Lordships have a two day debate now scheduled because about 200 of them want to speak on this subject. The classic Lord syndrome of everything has been said, but not everybody has yet said it, I think.

And Ruth and I are joined today by Sir David Beamish, former clerk of the Parliaments, the Chief Clerk to the House of Lords. And before that, he was even secretary to the Chief Whip in the House of Lords as well. So someone who is an expert chamber watcher, someone with incredible experience of the workings of the upper house. So David, welcome to the pod, first of all. What have you made so far of the debate? Because there are all sorts of interesting tactical things going on here around various motions and amendments that have been put down.

But what's your general impression first of all, of the atmospherics?

Sir David Beamish: Well, I think it's one [00:02:00] of those days when the House of Lords is pretty much at its best. We had a previous debate when I was still a clerk in 2014 on a bill introduced by Lord Falconer of Thornton, who is handling this bill. Now, we spent a whole day on it and it was widely regarded as an excellent debate. It kept the subject on the table. I think people thought there was a lot of support for it though when the Commons voted a little while afterwards, there was a big majority against. So I think it's another one of those where I hope it will show that as a reflective second chamber, the House of Lords doesn't do a bad job.

Mark D'Arcy: Let's talk a little bit about the maneuverings, if you like, because the second reading motion that this bill will be read a second time has a number of amendments down to it, and some of them are quite techy amendments. There is a suggestion, for example, that there should be a special select committee set up and that would have to report by the end of the year, and only then could the committee proceedings on the bill start if the bill passed.

Sir David Beamish: Yeah, well the committees are one of the strengths of the House of [00:03:00] Lords. And in principle, this sounds like not a bad idea, that it needs more thorough investigation of some of the issues in a way you really can't do on the floor of the House. But as Lord Falconer said, in moving the second reading, that would slow things down and imperil the passage of the bill.

So that was something he felt that he couldn't support, and you could see why. And my guess would be that others would recognize that. Whatever the value of such a committee, it would look as if the House of Lords was trying to frustrate the progress of the bill. So I'd be quite surprised if that one was passed.

Mark D'Arcy: Could the select committee sit in parallel with the debates in the chamber, or could even one of the other Lords select committees simply start holding hearings on the subjects that this committee might look into and then feed in that way?

Sir David Beamish: Uh, yes and yes. But that's not what the motion proposes because it says that the committee stage shall not commence before a report has been received from a select committee appointed to consider certain aspects.

So it could happen that way, but not if the amendment was agreed to.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, I mean, earlier this week, several peers, including I think [00:04:00] Baroness Berger and Thangham Debbonaire, former MP, had suggested. That the bill should go to a select committee, the existing public services committee to be scrutinized. And interestingly, that is not what is proposed.

What Baroness Berger is suggesting is a dedicated select committee. Now, I wonder if one of the issues with that is if you send it to an existing select committee, you don't know what the makeup of the membership is in terms of the balance of those who are in favor and against assisted dying and that you want that kind of balance for a committee that looks at it. So that might have been what's driven Baroness Berger to this approach, but it will have the effect if it were to go through of, as David says, of delaying proceedings for the next stage. But there's nothing stopping one of the other select committees looking at it in parallel if they wanted to.

And of course, we've already got two select committee reports on the bill already now from the Delegated Powers Committee and the Constitution Committee.

Mark D'Arcy: And both of those reports are indeed quite critical. Those committees do weigh on the deliberations in the [00:05:00] Lords Chamber, don't they David?

I mean they very often have quite a lot of influence.

Sir David Beamish: Yes. Well over quite a long period, delegated powers has been something which the Lords have taken a bit of a lead on. And I think we first appointed a delegated power scrutiny committee in about 1992 and soon became quite influential.

And people, or shall I say, ministers, because they normally look at government bills, ignore their recommendations at their peril. And that committee's report has rather a lot of critical comments. And for a private member's bill, there's an awful lot of provision for ministers to decide on things with varying degrees of parliamentary scrutiny.

So there's a lot that's not on the face of the bill. And Lord Falconer, I think, accepted in his opening speech that amendments would have to be made to improve that.

Ruth Fox: And in fact the report, David, mirrors some of the things we talked about on our previous episode where we are saying that there virtually there's some defective drafting in the bill that needs to be ironed out, so there will have to be amendments to the bill if it does indeed go forward.

Sir David Beamish: I should have put in a word for the Hansard [00:06:00] Society's own publication that came well before the delegated powers committee report also drawing attention to some issues with the delegated powers in the Bill.

Mark D'Arcy: Where the Hansard Society leads.

Ruth Fox: I'm not sure the delegated powers committee would stand by that.

Mark D'Arcy: Probably wouldn't take that too well. But this is an issue that's been taken up in, in one of the kind of procedural amendments that's been put down by Lord Forsyth, the former Scottish secretary in the John Major years. He's put down an amendment essentially saying that more time is needed to allow the recommendations of the Delegated Powers Committee and the Constitution Committee about the bill to be considered and debated and for amendments to be put down that would rectify the problems that they've identified, and there's even an amendment to his amendment as well.

So, David, can you talk us through exactly what this is attempting to achieve here?

Sir David Beamish: Yes. I listened to Lord Forsyth's speech and he obviously supports the bill, but recognizes that it needs a lot of attention and therefore the amendment calls upon the government to ensure [00:07:00] sufficient time is available and to provide full support at ministerial and official level to the peer in charge of the bill for its remaining stages in the House of Lords.

So he's concerned about the need for close scrutiny, but wants to make sure that sufficient provision is made. The amendment to his amendment comes from Lord Carlile, a lawyer who is okay with the first bit, but is opposed to the bill and wants to leave out the bit about providing full support at ministerial and official level to the peer in charge.

His take on this is governments normally remain neutral on private members bills, and indeed that's what they're doing on this one. Technically, the members can choose how to vote and putting that bit in effectively encourages the government to be supportive of the bill. So he doesn't want that bit.

Mark D'Arcy: I suppose, in a way, Lord Forsyth's point here is that if this bill is going to become law, it's gotta be workable law and therefore the government drafting machine has to weigh in to make sure that changes to the bill are properly worded and [00:08:00] there aren't going to be terrible sort of legal snarl ups later as a result of, if you like, uh, inexpert drafting by amateurs because the government machine isn't involved.

Sir David Beamish: I understand that government assistance has already been provided during the Commons stages, but even so, it's apparent from the two critical reports on a delegated legislation that, because of amendments moved in the House, it's not a coherent whole and it hasn't got it all right. So that's the effect of the amendment. And as I said, I think even without it, I imagine that there'll be government lawyers anxious to ensure that it doesn't fail because of incompetence in relation to the drafting.

Ruth Fox: Well, David, you mentioned Lord Forsyth there and you said he was a supporter of the bill despite his concerns about the drafting.

I thought it was interesting listening to his speech that he'd actually been an opponent of assisted dying in the past, but he'd had a change of heart because of his own personal experience with his father.

Sir David Beamish: Yeah, and I think personal experience informs the views of quite a lot of members.

[00:09:00] There are those who talk about the pain, which some have suffered and so forth, which has brought some round to something, which long ago would've been unacceptable. And so I find it very hard to know where the balance is going to lie if it comes to a vote, as it doubtless will, though not at this stage.

Mark D'Arcy: And there've been some quite heavy hitters already in this debate. Not least the former Prime Minister Theresa May, who, newspaper headline, she was leading the opposition to the bill, I don't know if she's actually leading the opposition to the bill. There is, I think probably quite an organized lobby against the bill, but I'm not sure she's necessarily the leading figure in it.

She may be the biggest figure as an ex-Prime minister to have weighed in against it so far. But, she was making a point essentially about slippery slopes. If you start doing this, where will it lead?

Sir David Beamish: Yeah. This seems to be one of the issues. Will there be pressure on people to take part in assisted dying because they don't want to be a burden and that sort of thing?

Might it go on beyond those who are terminally ill and under the bill [00:10:00] they're supposed to be a maximum of six months to live. But that's a tricky one because even medics can't time these things very accurately. So there is definitely a slippery slope argument, but I think there are different versions of, or different reasons why people are unhappy about it. It's perhaps worth mentioning one very coherent group, the bishops, where the Bishop of London spoke about this at the General Synod in July, and is in effect leading on it from the point of view of the bishops. And I think you won't get any dissenters there from their view that this is effectively supporting suicide and not something they could countenance. And it's perhaps worth adding on that point that one theme that keeps coming up is the need for better palliative care arrangements, which would diminish the need for people to be put out of their suffering in this way.

Ruth Fox: And on that theme, there was quite a powerful argument made, I think, by Lord Stevens, Simon Stevens, former chief executive of the NHS, who made the point exactly, that without adequate palliative care, then there isn't [00:11:00] really a meaningful choice to be made between assisted dying or not.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, if you take assisted dying or a very painful death was the choice, when there might be a third option of proper palliative care.

Ruth Fox: And he was making the point that in other jurisdictions where they've introduced assisted dying, it's sort of been accompanied by sort of a plan of policy development, investment in palliative care.

And he said that there doesn't appear to be an equivalent offer here at this point, and of course that is an argument that Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, has made about why he's opposed to the bill. But obviously given, you know, given Simon Stevens' former position in the NHS, that's quite a strong argument.

Mark D'Arcy: And while the actual cost of running an assisted dying service is comparatively small set against the budget of the National Health Service, the cost of having a very large, new palliative care offer rolled comprehensively out across the country is much, much greater than that would be.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. The other thing Simon Stevens touched on was some of the reporting safeguards that have been put into the bill [00:12:00] to assess how it's working. And he basically rubbished several of them and said they weren't worth the paper they were written on. And the Secretary of State would be marking his or her own homework. So, so much for that.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah. And of course, backtracking to the Bishop of London, Sarah Mullally, she was of course former chief nursing officer, so she was able to speak with some authority on the value of palliative care and on the value of people living, if you'd like, in the shadow of a terminal diagnosis, still having some of the most valuable life experiences, that they could have. So there was a great deal of very intense and in a low key House of Lords sort of way very emotional debate around this. I suppose the interesting question now is, is anyone's opinion actually being swung by this? Watching the action in the chamber?

You could hear a lot of quite intense hear hears behind speakers on either side, but how much is that just their tribe cheering them on, if you like, I mean, David, what was your impression?

Sir David Beamish: Yes, it's hard to know. I'd guess that most of the 180 who are [00:13:00] speaking will have their minds fairly well made up, but there may be others who don't have a strong view one way or the other and are perhaps concerned about the safeguards.

And it may be that the later stages of the bill will help them make up their minds depending on whether the bill as it emerges from the committee and report stage has suitable provisions and in particular perhaps resolves the issue of an awful lot left to ministerial orders and regulations, which at the moment, nothing about what they might contain, and it's perhaps ironic you said Wes Streeting is against this bill, and if he remains the Secretary of State, it'll fall to him to do most of the implementation, which actually might take a time given how much delegated legislation is needed.

Mark D'Arcy: I mean, he's got four years to do it in, I suppose, four years, according to the terms of the bill.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. And it's those powers that make us twitch at the Hansard Society. And of course it is interesting that there's so much focus on this when, I mean, the House of Lords always gets its teeth into to delegated powers, but it's become a big theme in this debate [00:14:00] throughout both Commons and Lords.

And, you know, a lot of the issues that get, you know, not pushed under the carpet but passed over for government legislation might be one of the areas where it persuades peers to actually say no on this. It might let it go through for government legislation because, you know, the constitutional position.

But on this, it doesn't apply on a private member's bill that's not been in a government's manifesto, and this is too far. And it might fall on the sheer number of powers and the sheer amount of power that will be passed to ministers. Some peers may decide, actually that's quite an important deciding factor for them.

Sir David Beamish: That could happen. And those who are opposed in principle, that the Bishop of London made clear that if at the final stages of the bill in the Lords, no one else has tabled a motion to stop it in its tracks, she will. So I think there probably will be such a motion one way or another. And as you say, the issue around the delegated powers may be something that weighs with people and it's perhaps worth mentioning, [00:15:00] I mean for a private members' bill, this has got a terrific lot of delegated powers, including so-called Henry VIII powers, where you allow ministers through delegated legislation to amend primary legislation. We really need a pretty strong case for doing that, and some people may be uneasy about it.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, I should just say Mark that we will put the links to our report on delegated powers, but also the report of the Delegated Powers Committee and the Constitution Committee in the show notes.

So if you check the episode page on our website, you'll find those links there if you want to have a look at them.

Mark D'Arcy: Well worth a read. In the meantime, my impression is in the chamber that there are very few agnostics. There are people who are worried about the kind of technical issues around delegated legislation that you've mentioned, who might change their mind on whether to vote yes or no on this bill if sufficient amendments are put in by the Bills promoter, Lord Falconer. At the same time, there are plenty of people who are absolutely for it under pretty much any circumstances and plenty of people who just totally against it and will always vote against it. I [00:16:00] don't know if there are actual swing votes in there because I, well, I certainly haven't heard anyone say yet I'm still to be persuaded.

Sir David Beamish: It's hard to know and not on the whole, those who who want to speak are going to be those who've got a clear view that they want to express and those who haven't plainly, I mean, the list of speakers was over 200 at one stage, I think when they allocated a second day.

So members under the Lords rules need to be there at the beginning of the first day, and again, at the end of the second day, which may have brought the, uh, well, the list has come down by 20 or so, but there could be quite a few agonostic who want to hear the arguments, but as I say, we won't have heard from them yet.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, so this debate going from one day to two days may have brought a number of people's holiday plans to grief, but the dog that hasn't barked in all this is a motion to kill the bill now.

Sir David Beamish: That doesn't surprise me because although the theory is that second reading, you approve the principle of a bill, it's a long time since a bill has been killed at second reading.

The [00:17:00] practice has become that you let it go and try and improve it and see how it goes. I mean, there were exceptions. If you go back to, was it 1991, the War Crimes Bill, the Lords were perhaps being helpful in throwing it out because it enabled the government to use the Parliament Act procedure to speed up Royal Assent, but they plainly, most of them hated the content of the bill and threw it out. But I think nobody's doing it this time and I can see why. Because I think in terms of the perception of it, first of all there'd be shouts of constitutional monstrosity or whatever. And given that there are issues around the content or drafting of the bill, it's tactically, I'm sure it's wiser to have a go at that before trying to throw it out.

Mark D'Arcy: So you maximize your vote. If people who are worried about these questions around, for example, delegated legislation and giving too much power to ministers are not satisfied, you've got them as well as the complete opponents of the bill all lined up together to vote it down. Perhaps at third reading,

Sir David Beamish: I think you might hope to maximize your vote on the basis that yes, people who feel the bill could be [00:18:00] improved, at Second reading, they won't know whether it's going to be improved sufficiently to win them round. So yeah, that may be a factor.

Ruth Fox: And that constitutional question, David, I think weighs quite heavily because the last time that the House of Lords rejected a bill at second reading was I think 2007 Fraud Trials Bill.

The last time they rejected a private member's bill, interestingly, the year before 2006 was actually on an assisted dying bill. So quite a number of people have been saying, you know, that that example of 2006 throwing out the assisted dying of the terminally ill bill sets a precedent. But of course, the difference this time is that that bill started in the House of Lords, and the House of Commons, the elected house, had not yet considered it. This is different. The House of Commons has considered it, and it's voted both at second and third reading for it.

Sir David Beamish: And that is an important difference. There's no doubt that constitutionally, there is nothing to stop the Lords throwing out this bill. The so-called Salisbury convention relates to government bills that have been featured in the government's manifesto.

This isn't one of those. On the [00:19:00] other hand, those who support the bill would be able to present it as frustrating the will of the people and the House of Lords if it wants to survive in something like its present form needs to be careful how it uses its power, so it's not seemed to be anti-democratic. it'd be a very big step to throw out this bill that's got through the Commons with quite a big majority.

Mark D'Arcy: And I think there's an interesting side issue here for Lords reformers, which is just suppose that the bill was defeated and the margin of defeat was less than the number of bishops who had voted against it.

I mean, that would really throw into high relief the existence of the Bishops bench, the existence of a block of Church of England bishops voting in the House of Lords. And I think that they could find themselves very much targeted for the next sort of micro Lords reform. Let's get rid of the bishops.

Sir David Beamish: I think that would be quite interesting. There are plenty, plenty of people who can't see any place for a group of people there for sort of faith [00:20:00] reasons and B, why it's only one, not only one faith, the Christian faith, but one denomination, the Church of England, no representation from outside England on that side.

You know, it's a bit controversial. And indeed, I remember as long ago as 2000, the Royal Commission on House of Lords Reform, which Lord Wakeham chaired rather, gave up on that one and invited the Church of England to come up with some arrangements in relation to the Bishops, which in the event they didn't.

So we still have the current arrangement of 26 Archbishops and bishops of whom five are the most senior and the other 21 are there in terms of how long they've been a diocesan bishop. It's all quite curious. Incidentally, one significant change was that in 2015 when they first were appointing female bishops, they tweaked the rules so that if there was a vacancy and there was a female bishop available to fill it, she would jump the queue, which means we do already have better gender balance on the bishop's bench than we might have expected, which I think most people would see [00:21:00] as a significant improvement.

But even so, the whole question of Episcopal representation in the House of Lords is possibly hard to defend.

Mark D'Arcy: Sarah Mullally, the Bishop of London, as you said, had already promised that if no one else is going to put down an amendment to stop the bill at third reading, she would. And I suppose the thinking on the Bishop's bench must be that there's no point in us being here if we're too afraid to wield our votes on an issue of conscience like this.

Sir David Beamish: I'm sure that's right. Some bishops take more interest in what goes on in the House than others, but those who do can be quite influential and, yes, they, if they're to justify their place, they need to give a lead where they think one is called for.

Ruth Fox: So David, after today's debate, peers will reconvene next Friday. It was due to be recess for them, but they are in fact going to sit. What do you think will happen? We're clearly going to see some votes towards the end of the day on these motions. How will things play out? What should we look out for?

Sir David Beamish: Well, yes, there'll be no votes until the very end, so we'll get a winding up speech from a government minister, Baroness Merron, and then [00:22:00] Lord Falconer winds up as the mover of the second reading motion, but we then get on to the amendments. And the first one, well the current one, Lord Forsyth moved an amendment, but then Lord Carlile moved an amendment to that amendment. So the way these things work, that is what has to come first. So Lord Carlile doesn't want the bit of Forsyth's amendment that refers to providing full support at ministerial and official level from the government and I imagine he will press that to a vote, and I have no idea whether it'll be agreed to, and either way, we then take the amendment to which it's an amendment. My guess is that the Forsyth amendment might be carried, but again, those who are opposed to the bill in principle may feel this is giving it too much help.

But after that we have the second reading itself, which I don't expect to be pressed to a vote because it appears to be a general view that that should wait till later.

Ruth Fox: You don't expect the main motion to give the bill a second reading to be pressed to a [00:23:00] vote, to a division. Now normally at second reading actually, Lords rarely divide the House.

But how then do you know that there has been support for the bill? Will they take it on the voices?

Sir David Beamish: Uh, yes. I mean, the practice has become that it's expected if you want to oppose a bill at second reading, you put something on the order paper so people know that and nothing has been put down, and I don't expect it to be.

Mark D'Arcy: So the assumption is that, that someone just sits there and judges that the contents are louder than the not contents.

Sir David Beamish: Correct. But as I say, I don't think that'll be a problem because I'd be amazed if anyone much shouted not content when it comes to the second reading. And then immediately after that the Lord in charge of a bill moves that it be committed to a committee and there's a choice of committee of the whole house or so-called grand committee, which meets in a large committee room but has unlimited membership. Anyone can attend. Well, it'd be very rare for this, a private members bill, to go to a grand committee and I think they'd be outraged by some members if they tried. So it's going to a committee of the whole house.

Ruth Fox: And that means the chamber, essentially it will be committee [00:24:00] stage will be dealt with in the chamber.

Sir David Beamish: Precisely. But there's an amendment to that motion by Baroness Berger to say that that shan't start before a report has been received from a special select committee appointed for this purpose. So I'm sure she will want to press that to a vote. And I have no idea whether it'd be carried. My guess is not, because you need to be pretty opposed to it. And also there's perhaps a risk of being thought to be attempting to filibuster the bill, if you like, or spread it out rather than get on with the scrutiny.

Mark D'Arcy: Because it's one thing, isn't it, to defeat a bill in the clear light of day on a yes no vote at some stage. It's quite another to just talk it out.

And I think on a subject of this emotive nature, it would actually be quite dangerous to the House of Lords for them to just kill it procedurally.

Sir David Beamish: Indeed. And although talking things out has been relatively commonplace in the House of Commons, it's not the done thing in the House of Lords. So I think that's not the way things would go, and assuming it gets through, we already know [00:25:00] from the forthcoming business published by the government that they are planning to take the first of four days in committee on Friday the 24th of October. So it looks if they're planning to allocate four whole Fridays to it, and there are actually six sitting Fridays scheduled from the 24th of October until Christmas. So they have got time to do that.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. Well listeners, if you want to get those dates booked in your diary, they are in our latest briefing on the legislative process for this bill as it goes through the Lords. So again, you can look at that and download it via our show notes and book those dates in your diary.

Mark D'Arcy: Looking ahead. And on each of those occasions, we will of course be doing a special pod to report on developments.

Ruth Fox: So David, thanks so much for joining us to review events. We'll see what happens next week and whether things progress, as you say, it looks almost certain now that it will go through to the next stages.

So this discussion is going to run and run and we will get you back on the pod to interrogate it in future episodes.

Sir David Beamish: I look forward to it. Thank you.

Mark D'Arcy: Oh, thanks for joining us. [00:26:00]

Ruth Fox: While Mark and I take a quick break, here's an important community note. Word reaches me from the House of Commons Tea Room that many MPs who listen to this pod assume our work is bankrolled by Parliament or the government. If only that was true. We are in fact an independent charity in receipt of no public money at all. We occupy a unique role at Westminster as Parliament's critical friend. Championing parliamentary democracy by promoting public understanding of Parliament's work and how it can be a more effective institution.

And yes, we're often confused with Hansard the official record of debates. Our founder named the society in honor of Hansard back in the 1940s because he believed that opening Parliament's proceedings to the public's strengthens democracy by providing vital information about the state of the nation and supporting informed public debate about the policy choices that shape all our lives.

But our mission relies entirely on people like you, our listeners. So if you value what we do and you've been putting off donating or joining, especially if [00:27:00] you thought we were in receipt of public funding, please take a moment to support our work. It's what keeps us independent, credible, and able to shine a light on Parliament.

For everyone, head to hansardsociety.org.uk to donate or join the society. That's hansardsociety.org.uk. With your help, we can continue to explain and shine a light on how Parliament works and how it could be better.

Mark D'Arcy: And we're back and, and Ruth, the assisted dying bill's been dominating parliamentary business at the end of this week, but it's the coder almost to a very dramatic few days, in Parliament and in government. We've seen the resignation of the Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, both as DPM and as deputy leader of the Labour Party. And that's caused an awful lot of churn in both spheres. And of course then there's been the departure of Peter Mandelson, Lord Mandelson, his third resignation from a high government post, you might say, no longer Britain's Ambassador to Washington. No [00:28:00] longer Keir Starmer's resident Trump whisperer.

Ruth Fox: Yes, it's been quite a week. But credit to you, Mark. There were quite a number of other political podcasters who, we won't name them, but you can guess who basically said that, if Angela Rayner did go as Deputy Prime Minister, she wouldn't have to go as deputy leader of the Labour Party.

On the other hand, you said actually last week, no, you thought she would, because if you had to resign on a breach of the ministerial code and ethics issues from the Deputy Prime Ministership and lose ministerial office, then how could you stay as deputy leader of your party? And indeed, you were proven right.

Mark D'Arcy: Well, we were caught last week between Angela Rayner getting into trouble and actually resigning.

Ruth Fox: Awkward timing.

Mark D'Arcy: Rather awkward piece of timing and the quite substantial reshuffle at the top table of government that ensued. I think Keir Starmer had been digesting these changes for a while, but I think that they emerged a bit earlier than perhaps anyone expected because you might as well get it all done [00:29:00] in the wake of Angela Rayner's departure, I suppose, was the thought. But we've got now a very substantially different looking government, in some senses. There are different people in various top ministerial posts, but actually very few people have actually dropped out of government.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. From our perspective, in terms of the focus on Parliament, one of the people who has dropped out of government is an important figure. Partly because she's now going to be running for deputy leader of the Labour Party, but from our perspective, she is no longer leader of the house. Leaves ministerial office. Back on the back benches. And that's Lucy Powell. So she has departed government and, she'll now be running hell for leather in this campaign over the coming weeks to become deputy leader of their party.

Mark D'Arcy: And as leader of the house, she had set up a new incarnation of the Commons Modernization Committee to look at all sorts of changes in the way the House of Commons operates. I think a particular focus was on issues like accessibility.

Ruth Fox: Mm-hmm.

Mark D'Arcy: But there was also a thought that there might be wider procedural changes as well to smooth the way the commons works, [00:30:00] modernize it if you like.

And the modernization's a very loaded word, certainly in many quarters. People who reach for their revolver when they hear the word modernization and yearn for the good old days of the 18 hundreds. But

Ruth Fox: Oh good lord.

Mark D'Arcy: All the same. It's an interesting change because her replacement is Sir Alan Campbell, who's a veteran whip. Been Labour's Chief Whip for really quite a long time, and he's now been promoted in inverted commas to leader of the house.

But are you more powerful as Chief Whip or are you more powerful as leader of commerce?

Ruth Fox: Yeah, I'm not sure how it's seen these days, it's more of a sort of a sideways move really, isn't it? But I think in the pecking order and sort of proximity to Downing Street, I think people regard the Chief Whip's position as more powerful.

Mark D'Arcy: The Chief Whip attends cabinet. Sometimes the leader of the house is a full member of the cabinet, but actually in recent years, the post has been slightly downgraded and isn't necessarily for cabinet membership. So it's not entirely clear what status Sir Alan Campbell now has as leader of the house, but he's gone from [00:31:00] managing the individual MPs and questions of party discipline and getting out the votes in important legislative moments to the time tabling of legislation.

The leader of the house oversees the kind of assembly line of government bills and make sure they arrive in a good ordered progression so you don't have moments of famine where there's nothing going on, and then suddenly you're trying to stuff half a dozen pieces of heavyweight legislation through the system very quickly.

Ruth Fox: Also he does, of course, the weekly business questions. So in some ways he's the sort of the most prominent face of the government in Parliament after the Prime Minister doing PMQs each week. So, you know, get an hour's worth of sort of business questions each week. And he had his first outing this week, of course.

And it was a perfectly steady performance. But he did make a quite a good joke about the fact the last time he appeared at the dispatch box was before the iPad had emerged.

Mark D'Arcy: ANd everybody tittered. It was quite an amusing moment. because as you say, as as chief whip, you're barely just barely visible at the dispatch box.

You're often there sitting on the front bench, but you almost never get to speak except for, [00:32:00] potentially, and even then it's pretty rare, on some constituency matter. So he's kind of emerging, blinking in into the sunlight, and now able to say things in the chamber again, and he will face being questioned on pretty much anything.

The whole gamut of government business, business questions to the leader of the House on a Thursday morning are a kind of a mini Prime minister's Question time. In any other departmental questions, you have to ask about the business of a particular department. You can't ask the chancellor of the exchequer about foreign policy or the home secretary about schools. You have to stick to the departmental brief with business questions. You can just ask, will the leader organize a debate on insert name of subject here, and any subject can be raised. So they have, as you say, to be across the whole gamut of government business and the only other people who have.that kind of level of cross government oversight are probably the Chief Secretary to the Treasury who've seen on all the sort of key financial meetings with individual departments and the Prime Minister themselves.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, and that's why I think actually, despite the fact, I think its reputation has been downgraded over the years. That's [00:33:00] why I actually think within Cabinet, the Leader of the House role is as interesting a job as there is in government in many respects, because, you know, you do see right across the political landscape and you get access to a lot of papers that go to departmental heads and go to the Prime Minister and so on. And as I say, you spend a lot of time in Westminster with your colleagues. So if you are a parliamentary focused person, that can be a really quite a satisfying job. But if you've been chief whip, been expecting or hoping to stay as chief whip, and you've been chief whip for a very long time and you wanted to stay in the job, you might not be so thrilled. So the question I think is, is now, what will the attitude be that he takes towards modernization? Mm-hmm. So the modernization committee can't, I think, be scrapped because it's a manifesto commitment, but he can slow progress. It doesn't actually have to do anything. Yeah, yeah, I mean, and so the question is, where's the agenda now. With Lucy Powell, it was pretty clear that at [00:34:00] least in this sort of first session, as you say, she was focused on accessibility. She was doing a lot, I think for behind the scenes to help new MPs sort of resolve some of these kind of, you know, issues that just sort of get in the way of being an effective MP and make their lives more difficult. She was looking at, um, particularly for MPs with sort of access, special access needs, you know, MPs with disabilities and so on, making their access easier and better. And as I understand it, winning a lot of applause behind the scenes for that. And interestingly, I wonder how that plays into the Deputy Prime Minister's race because MP that has to get, you know, 80 odd nominations in quick time. It was a lot of people, a lot of backbenchers that she'll have been dealing with who will have, you know, really welcomed the kind of focus that she placed on them.

Mark D'Arcy: Well, those kind of pastoral roles can play very well with MPs. If you think back to the speaker election, which, uh, led to Sir Lindsay Hoyle taking the chair, one of the ways in which he scored and was a very effective contender, was that he'd been the liaison for MP security [00:35:00] in the previous parliament and a lot of MPs had bought their concerns about threatening letters, but whatever it was to him, and he had done stuff about that and that was rewarded.

YHis performance in that office was rewarded by him getting into the chair. He was the front runner in any event, but that certainly didn't hurt him. I suppose the flip side of this question is, of course, there's also a new chief whip now, and the new chief whip is Jonathan Reynolds who had been the business secretary.

And there is, I think, a bit of a mixed record for senior cabinet ministers who are translated into the role of Chief Whip. Thinking back to the Conservative years, for example, Michael Gove was made chief whip rather to a lot of people's surprise and didn't perhaps cover himself with glory. In the David Cameron years, you had Andrew Mitchell becoming chief whip again from a cabinet post and, uh, not ending awfully well for him.

So sometimes these things are sold as a heavy hitter is being bought in to manage the party more [00:36:00] effectively. Brackets. I wonder if this is a bit of a coded rebuke about Sir Alan Campbell not being able to get the votes for the social security cuts the government wanted to make. But at the same time, those heavy hitters often aren't particularly experienced in the magic world of the Whips' office and may have to kind of learn on the job.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. And what, you know, in terms of learning on the job, they've had some difficulties this week. I mean, the whips office's, not just that Johnny Reynolds is now in charge of the Whips' office, but there's also a number of new MPs, uh, newly minted last year at the general election have suddenly gone into the whips office. And we've seen the results this week where they've miscalculated, miscounted votes. I mean, on one they were over a hundred out. And if you watch the video of, in the chamber, you can see that the clerk sort of looking quizzically at the numbers and not sure that they're quite correct. He hands the paper over to the deputy speaker who also looks a bit quizzical and they read out the numbers and confirm the result, and then they've had to walk it back and indeed the speaker this week has made a statement in the [00:37:00] House basically explaining that there was a mistake and making clear that he's had a conversation with the chief whip.

Mark D'Arcy: Yes, with or without coffee, I wonder. But in any event, the new double act of Chief Whip, Jonathan Reynolds, and Leader of the House Sir Alan Campbell, will have doubtless a view on modernizing the House of Commons, and whether it extends beyond these issues of accessibility and so forth that Lucy Powell has been focusing on, which are of course important, but is there going to be any kind of institutional reform. Typically, Whips' offices tend to resist institutional reform that makes the business of delivering the votes and getting the government's business through more difficult.

Ruth Fox: Yes. And I think that's the big question, isn't it? The future direction of modernization, even under Lucy Powell, is not entirely clear. It's not clear exactly what it is that the government wants, what the vision is, but even less clear, I think, under a former chief whip who's not by nature a natural reformer, shall we say.

Mm-hmm. But, you know, he's seen, he's seen [00:38:00] parliamentary business from the other side of things in the Chief Whip's office. He may be a sort of a pragmatic character. One of the things he will be looking for is efficiency in the administration of the government's business. Are there ways in which it can be improved? We've got ideas for him in relation to delegated legislation.

Mark D'Arcy: But I suppose the issue here is that given the mare the government's in, this is probably not an easy moment to sell to ministers the idea of changes in the way the Commons works that might make their lives more difficult. So any idea of giving more powers to select committees or maybe creating a new select committee in the Commons to look at secondary legislation or something like that, I suspect would provoke a pretty sort of weary shrug of the shoulders and roll of the eyes.

Ruth Fox: Well, was ever thus, I mean, that's always the way, isn't it? Once they get into government. I think another issue that comes out of this reshuffle is, um, the churn and the impact on parliamentary business generally.

Mark D'Arcy: Pity the poor minister who suddenly has to be up in front of a select committee or a bill committee or a committee stage in the House [00:39:00] of Lords.

It's 16 hours since you've got the call from Sir Keir Starmer. You've been having to read through briefings all through the night for this appearance. And there you are in prime time in front of legislators who tear you limb from limb, because you haven't quite reasonably been able to totally master the detail of some incredibly complex piece of legislation that's just landed in your lap.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. I mean, it's uncomfortable for the legislative process, for public bill committees particularly. And in addition to ministers, we've also got appointments, parliamentary private secretaries, PPSs, now again. A few weeks ago, we talked on the pod mark about how we thought that the PPSs for the Prime Minister were somewhat underpowered and not really at the level needed compared to other prime ministers.

And in fact, there's been a clear out, one's been made a minister, one of the PPSs has gone and they've been replaced by three PPSs. So the prime minister's gone from two to three. And that interestingly, a feature of these appointments, some departments have got three [00:40:00] PPSs now. That's an extension of the payroll vote.

You know, if you're a PPS, you are expected to vote with the government. Yeah. If you don't vote with the government, you've gotta resign.

Mark D'Arcy: You are a member of the government. And so you tow the line.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. And that question of broadening the payroll vote to ever more members of the parliamentary party is again, tipping the balance in terms of the relationship between government and parliament.

Mark D'Arcy: And that's not nothing. When things are a bit fractious as they are at the moment.

Ruth Fox: But also look out for incoming changes now in the select committee corridor. Because you know, PPSs, you know ministers, new ministers, if they were on select committees, they're going to have to come off those, there's going to have to be new appointments made.

That's churn when they barely got going. I mean, these were only, only got going in late autumn of last year. They've barely found their feet. I think the feeling is that they haven't really quite made their mark in this Parliament yet.

Mark D'Arcy: Well, there was a very good piece in Private Eye in the last edition saying that the select committee system hasn't exactly covered itself in glory yet, and maybe that's to some extent understandable when most select [00:41:00] committees are dominated by newly elected Labour MPs who are still, as you say, finding their feet and don't necessarily want to make the lives of Labour ministers more difficult. It's easier to monster some quango or public official than it is to turn your fire on one of your own and possibly get the knock on the door in the night from the party whips afterwards.

There are reasons why these committees are perhaps on finding their feet. There might be a certain amount of fun to be had if the Foreign Affairs Committee under Emily Thornberry gets to investigate the demise of Lord Mandelson as ambassador to Washington, for example.

Ruth Fox: And she's, I think she's produced a, I think it's a letter or something that she'd sent to the foreign office urging that the committee be able to talk to him and talk to officials about the appointment. But of course, that's not a natural part of our system, the scrutiny of ambassadorial appointments.

Mark D'Arcy: But people are calling, uh, the opposition has been calling for the release of the documents. What was Keir Starmer told?

What did he know and when did he know about it? The classic investigation question.

Ruth Fox: But the FAC, the Foreign Affairs Committee, is one of those that's been under a bit of [00:42:00] a spotlight as to perhaps being a little bit

Mark D'Arcy: Quiet.

Ruth Fox: Quiet, yes. I mean, it's only produced. It's holding plenty of hearings. There's lots of inquiries going on and there's lots of hearings and evidence sessions and so on.

But it's only produced one report, in the period since it got going. So there's that again, sort of, an example of some challenges on the committee corridor and sort of getting all the MPs to take a consensual view on some of these issues.

Mark D'Arcy: Which takes us rather neatly on to the parliamentary reverberation.

So far as Sir Keir Starmer is concerned, it's amazing to say it really that a leader who delivered such a stalking majority just over a year ago could be in trouble. But I think it is because he keeps tripping over his own feet. The problems he's run into have very, very frequently been about his own personnel choices.

Starting with the appointment of Sue Gray as short-lived Downing Street chief of staff and continuing on from there. And Labour MPs I think are beginning to wander.

Ruth Fox: I think they're beginning to do a bit [00:43:00] more than one. Well, of course, as we record Mark, we're starting to see the emergence of a number of critics on the back benches among Labour MPs questioning Keir Starmer's judgment, questioning the appointment of Peter Mandelson, questioning the whole approach to the job that Keir has.

I mean, Clive Lewis has apparently done an interview suggesting that the prime minister's perhaps not up to the job. Of course, going to Peter Mandelson, one of the great unknowns, is what he will do now. I mean, he left his role at his firm that he founded, Global Partners. My understanding is that that was in the process of being sold, or at least his stake in it was.

And they've indicated this week that that will go ahead. So, you know, given the reputational damage he's incurred again, they're not going to have him back. So a big question, will he resume his seat in the House of Lords and perhaps give a speech about his dismissal?

Mark D'Arcy: Can't do it immediately though, can he?

Ruth Fox: No, he can't. If he wants to go back, my understanding is he has to give three months notice to the clerk of the parliaments working back from the date at which he wishes to [00:44:00] attend next time.

Mark D'Arcy: If indeed he was going to come back to the House of Lords and make a speech, he, you can imagine actually what he might say. You could argue that actually he saved hundreds of thousands of British jobs by ingratiating the UK with President Trump. He could point out that we didn't get hit with the kind of tariffs that the European Union did, and that UK defenses are so thread bear that we need United States military protection and if we don't have it, we're suddenly desperately vulnerable.

Ruth Fox: Well, the thing about Peter Mandelson is he's an incredibly effective political operator. He's never been dismissed for incompetence. He's been dismissed because of all these ethical issues around his sort of personal and business life. And of course he could be quite a formidable critic to have in the House of Lords.

He was pretty effective there when he was a minister in Gordon Brown's government.

Mark D'Arcy: He even had his own bespoke question time for a while when he was First Secretary of State, Gordon Brown's effective Deputy Prime Minister and you know, Gordon Brown bringing him back in the first place was an example of quite how indispensable he had proved to be to successful Labour [00:45:00] leaders, because they weren't exactly bosom buddies at one point.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, yeah. And of course he's got the kinds of skills that Keir lacks. So well the government's troubles in parliament are already mounting and phase two is looking a little wobbly. The mood in the tea rooms has been described as sulfurous.

There's a cabinet minister today out recognizing that the mood of Labour MPs is despondent. I mean, I think one of the things that protects him is in a sense, is there's no obvious successor, particularly now Angela Rayner has gone. But I was interested, Mark, what do you think? Obviously, the local elections next year is going to be a big indicator. A huge moment. And there's all this sort of speculation about the, you know, the prince over the water, Andy Burnham coming back to Westminster, you know, finishing his time as mayor of Greater Manchester and coming back to Parliament and possibly somebody that would launch a coup and takeover as some of the speculation that's going around.

Of course, he's gotta get a seat in Parliament, but.

Mark D'Arcy: And there are no safe seats at the moment, so a by election is a [00:46:00] risk.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. But there's a whole load of Ministers who've left office, there's PPS churn, there's obviously unhappiness in both houses, I think.

What things do you think to look out for in terms of disgruntled Labour MPs in Parliament not happy and sort of not towing the line, not necessarily outright voting against things, but what are the sort of, you know, as a journalist who sat in the press gallery, what would you kind of be looking out for?

Mark D'Arcy: Well, the symptoms of crumbling authority are where your applause lines don't get the reaction you hoped for in PMQs, for example. So, yeah, the hear hears are a bit muted or non-existent, or people just don't turn up to them. There isn't a three line whip for PMQs as such, although the whips would usually like to encourage people to be a good rowdy cheering section for their leader, but all the same.

If that fades away, if people start making critical speeches, if abstentions rise, if people say, well, I'm going to vote for these, but in speeches in the [00:47:00] House of Commons, there's all these little symptoms of crumbling authority. You'll start to see ministers perhaps testing the boundaries of what they can get away with.

Quite difficult, I would've thought at the moment for Sir Keir Starmer to sack anybody else for a while. If they've just been pushing the boundaries a little bit, you'll start seeing people on maneuvers. You'll start seeing defenses of the Prime Minister being a bit more nuanced, not just full throated, he's our leader. We must follow him. It'll be yeah, I see what you mean, but.

I'm trying to remember which leader it was, now. Someone was hailed as the best leader we've got. A Conservative leader in some earlier challenge, and that wasn't exactly a ringing endorsement. And so once you start getting people being a little bit lukewarm in their support of Sir Keir.

Now doubtless the party whips will be trying to drum up support and have enthusiastic hear hears at the next Prime Minister's Question time, which fortunately for Sir Keir isn't for quite a while now. Until after the conference season. But how things play out at party conference will be interesting as well. And there's also another category you mentioned, the ex ministers, [00:48:00] there are also, there never were ministers, there's quite a tranche of people, including Emily Thornberry, chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, who did the hard yards as shadow ministers in opposition, and didn't get through the pearly gates into actual ministerial office when Sir Keir Starmer named his government last July. And those are people who have even more resentment.

I remember talking to one shadow minister who hadn't been appointed and had seen the place that they had coveted being taken up by a newly elected MP who really were visibly very bitter. And those people won't have forgotten the snubs and may think that they might still have a chance under alternative leadership.

And those constituencies all have to be managed. Those egos all have to be massaged. Those grievances all have to be solved.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. Well, as you say, there's no PMQs next week, because the House of Commons is only sitting for two days, I think. And then they're away for the party conference recess. Three weeks and, uh,

Mark D'Arcy: And who knows what the world might look like by the time they come back.

Ruth Fox: So listeners, we too will be taking a [00:49:00] conference recess break, but we'll have some special episodes for you as ever, and next week we'll be just therefore covering the assisted dying bill, the crucial second reading votes in the House of Lords, and it will be me and somebody else.

Um, because you're sloping off on holiday,

Mark D'Arcy: I'm afraid the court is on the hop here by scheduling a second day for the second reading debate in the House of Lords.

And I already had holiday plans set in stone and I'd been in considerable trouble if I try to alter that.

Ruth Fox: I don't think Mrs. D'Arcy would let you off. So, yes, I will be back next week to talk about the Assisted Dying Bill. We will have an all star lineup, temporary, to be announced. But otherwise, yes, then we're back after the conference recess to pick up, Mark, and find out where Keir Starmer's, uh, political position has reached.

Mark D'Arcy: So see you then. I'll be off the provencal rose by then.

Ruth Fox: Okay. Before we go, Mark, I've got a quick favor to ask our listeners. If you're enjoying Parliament Matters, please do rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. It really helps others find the [00:50:00] show. And spread the word. Share it with family, friends, colleagues. There's nothing better than a personal recommendation and the bigger our audience, the more people will understand how Parliament really works. Finally, we'd love your feedback. Tap the listener survey link near the top of the episode show notes. And tell us what you think. Thanks for helping us grow the conversation about Parliament.

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

← Back to Parliament Matters episode page