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101 resolutions and a Finance Bill. How the Budget becomes law - Parliament Matters podcast, Episode 117

28 Nov 2025
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It’s Budget week, so we look at what happens after the Chancellor sits down and how the days announcements are converted into the Finance Bill. We speak to Lord Ricketts, Chair of the European Affairs Committee, about whether Parliament is prepared to scrutinise the “dynamic alignment” with EU laws that may emerge from the Government’s reset with Brussels. And we explore the latest twists in the assisted dying bill story, where a marathon battle is looming in the New Year after the Government allocated 10 additional Friday sittings for its scrutiny.

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In this episode, we unpick a Budget Day thrown off course by an early OBR leak that overshadowed Rachel Reeves’ statement, gave Kemi Badenoch an unexpected advantage, and left MPs scrolling their phones rather than watching the chamber. But once the drama fades, the hard legislative work begins. MPs must first approve 101 Ways and Means resolutions before the Finance Bill can be presented. We explain the crucial 30-sitting-day deadline for getting the Finance Bill through Second Reading, and we demystify why, in Westminster-speak, scheduling that debate for “tomorrow” almost never means it will take place the next day.

We then turn to the new House of Lords report looking at the reset of the UK–EU relationship. Lord Ricketts, Chair of the European Affairs Committee, joins us to explain how “dynamic alignment” on food standards, carbon pricing, youth mobility and even defence loans could pull the UK closer to EU rules. He warns that Parliament – especially the Commons – has neither a plan nor the structures, expertise or capacity to keep track of the steady stream of technical agreements likely to emerge, raising familiar questions about whether “taking back control” has empowered ministers far more than parliamentarians. We also discuss what happens when a Lords committee cannot reach a consensus on a report, and whether such divisions may become more common in an age of polarisation.

Finally, the Government Chief Whip has announced a further 10 ten Friday sittings for consideration of the assisted dying bill in the New Year. We look at what this reveals about government neutrality, the prospects for filibustering, and when this parliamentary Session is really likely to end. We also look at the proposed new Lords inquiries on national resilience, domestic abuse, vaccination and numeracy, and examine the justice reforms floated in Sir Brian Leveson’s review, including the contentious suggestion that the right to a jury trial could be abolished in some cases.

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Our guest

Lord Ricketts. ©

Lord Ricketts

Lord Ricketts

Peter Ricketts has chaired the House of Lords European Affairs Committee since 2023, having previously led the EU Security and Justice Sub-Committee from 2020 to 2021. He entered the Lords after retiring from the diplomatic service in 2016. A former UK National Security Adviser (2010–12), he went on to serve as Ambassador to France. Between 2006 and 2010 he was Head of the Diplomatic Service and Permanent Secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, following three years as the UK’s Permanent Representative to NATO. He is a Visiting Professor in the School of Security Studies at King’s College London and author of Hard Choices (2021), a study of how Britain should navigate a changing international order.

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Transcript

Please note, this transcript is automatically generated. There may consequently be minor errors and the text is not formatted according to our style guide. If you wish to reference or cite the transcript copy below, please first check against the audio version above.

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. And coming up this week,

Ruth Fox: Rachel Reeves survives her Budget ordeal. But what happens when the cheers of Labour MPs fade away?

Mark D'Arcy: It's a process, not an event, but is Parliament really across the government's attempt to reset relations with the EU?

Ruth Fox: And count them. 10 more days of debate are announced for the assisted dying bill.

Mark D'Arcy: But first Ruth. Budget Day. It's not just the biggest event of the week. It's one of the biggest events of the whole parliamentary calendar. The dramatic moment when the Chancellor [00:01:00] comes to Parliament and announces what they're gonna do with taxes, with spending, and usually an enormous swathe of policy announcements are kind of subsidiary to the main tax and spend announcements as well.

Gordon Brown was an absolute master of this. He would descend like Jove from his throne on Mount Olympus to the floor of the Commons to assert total command over the whole government. There would be little aside about my Right Honorable friend, the Secretary of State for Education, will be saying more about this later, making it clear just who the number one, at least on domestic policy, was in the Tony Blair years.

So Gordon Brown was awesome at it. George Osborne was quite an effective performer at it. Rachel Reeves, where would you put her in the kind of Richter scale of Chancellors? Full transcript →

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