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Intro: [00:00:00] You are listening to Parliament Matters, a Hansard Society production supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. Learn more at hansardsociety.org.uk/pm.

Ruth Fox: Welcome to Parliament Matters, the podcast about the institution at the heart of our democracy, Parliament itself. I'm Ruth Fox.

Mark D'Arcy: And I'm Mark D'Arcy. And coming up this week.

Ruth Fox: A preemptive strike as the Conservative leader nukes Robert Jenrick before he can defect to Reform UK. What does it tell us about the state of politics now?

Mark D'Arcy: Is the bill to legalise assisted dying doomed to fail in May, and will there be any way to revive it?

Ruth Fox: And the Backbench Business Committee's manifesto for reforming the way the House of Commons works. We talk to its chairman, Bob Blackman MP.

Mark D'Arcy: But [00:01:00] first, Ruth, every now and then Westminster generates a totally unexpected moment of pure political drama. Think Michael Gove throwing over Boris Johnson and deciding to run for Prime Minister and leadership of the Conservative Party in his own right. That was 10 years ago. Well, 10 years on Kemi Badenoch stunned Westminster by putting out a tweet, a video in which she announced that Robert Jenrick had been caught attempting to do a really damaging defection from the Conservative Party to Reform UK while still sitting in her shadow cabinet and plotting to do the maximum damage to the party.

He was not only sacked from the shadow cabinet, he had his Conservative Party whip suspended, and later on today he popped up at a press conference with Nigel Farage to announce that he was now joining Reform and he was advising people who were in old political parties that have failed Britain to do the same.

Ruth Fox: Yes, Mark, I mean, he's been sacked, as you say, from the shadow cabinet, stripped of the whip, had his party membership suspended. Most importantly, taken out of the WhatsApp group of [00:02:00] Conservative MPs.

Mark D'Arcy: You almost wonder whether they were ripping the buttons off his waistcoat at some point in some ceremony.

Ruth Fox: And Parliament wasted no time in updating its websites to inform everyone that he was now an independent MP. So, this all happened before he appeared at the press conference with Nigel Farage a few hours later, but yes, Kemi Badenoch got the boot in first.

Mark D'Arcy: Indeed. One of the things that was missed in Parliament because of all this fandango, was that Robert Jenrick was due to put down a presentation bill on the human rights of people in prisons.

And, that didn't happen in the end. It was rather dryly announced that because the member was absent, the bill would not be presented. And no one, I think, quite caught on that it was Robert Jenrick in the frame.

Ruth Fox: Yeah.

Mark D'Arcy: But anyway, it's a moment of extraordinary drama for the Conservative Party. The Conservatives are, and we'll hear this from one of our guests later on, saying it demonstrates the authoritative leadership of Kemi Badenoch.

It was certainly a highly effective preemptive strike. However, the plan was leaked from Robert Jenrick office. There's a kind of implication that maybe some critical [00:03:00] paperwork, a draft of his defection speech was left in a photocopier or left lying around somewhere or something. I suspect that there may be a little bit more to it than that.

It all rather smacks of someone in his immediate inner circle blowing the whistle on him to the party leadership, but all the same, however it happened, Kemi Badenoch didn't wait around for this to happen. She struck first and struck extremely effectively. So a lot of the impact of the defection was kind of absorbed by the fact that she got her retaliation in first.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, I mean she in her video she talked about the public being tired of political psychodrama. She was tired of it and, she was, you know, drawing, drawing a line. And clearly, you know, the sort of sense of betrayal and that he'd clearly been plotting behind the scenes with Nigel Farage for some time. Apparently the Conservative Party had an awayday last week, and obviously he will have been part of, as a member of the shadow cabinet, part of the strategy discussions and familiar with the plans of the Conservative Party. So [00:04:00] she struck first. Smack of firm leadership. But the question I guess is, is next, you know, will anybody follow him?

Mark D'Arcy: Well, that would be an interesting question. I mean, was Robert Jenrick planning to leave, not just as an individual, but perhaps as the head of a faction, you know, bring several Conservative MPs with him into the Reform benches? Because that would've made him a pretty major player in Reform, at least at his parliamentary level and possibly even established him as kind of the heir apparent to Nigel Farage.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. Where do you think, first of all, this leaves Kemi Badenoch, because we said at the beginning, this is, you know, big surprise, big drama, but in some ways not a surprise in that it had been rumored that he might be considering defecting. The timing is obviously a surprise. The way Kemi Badenoch approached it is very much a surprise. But where does this leave her now? Because, you know, she's been improving the situation and the polls have gone up a little bit. The party's position is a little bit better than it was. [00:05:00] Her performance at PMQs has been attracting quite a lot of plaudits. The feeling was maybe that, you know, any threat to her position after the local elections has perhaps dissipated.

Mark D'Arcy: Well, Robert Jenrick was certainly the most likely challenger if the Conservatives were to have had a terribly bad set of local and national elections in May, if they'd done very badly in London, if they'd been wiped out in Scotland, if they'd been badly damaged in Wales, et cetera, et cetera. Not to mention all the other local councils that were having elections. If those results were as bad as the polls had possibly suggested they would be, then the chances are that Kemi Badenoch might have been facing a leadership challenge, but her performances, as you say at Prime Minister's Questions have improved, she has now demonstrated, absolutely, undoubtedly an ability to put the ball in the back of a largely unguarded net.

If you couldn't hit the open goals that Keir Starmer keeps leaving, yeah, you certainly, you would be in trouble. She's been very efficient at hitting on the U-turns and the various embarrassments that the Starmer government has suffered in the last [00:06:00] six months or so. So undoubtedly she's better there.

And Robert Jenrick had seen himself as the leader in waiting, the obvious challenger. So maybe one of the motivations here, and this is purely my speculation, is that if he wasn't going to get the leadership of the Conservative Party, maybe it was time to make a lateral drum into Reform.

Trouble with that is that Reform has an undoubted leader who's not going anywhere anytime soon. So he would certainly have been playing second fiddle at least, possibly third or further down the orchestral hierarchy in Reform. And so, what's he doing? Is he just simply more simpatico to Reform? We are learning a lot from various social media posts. Tim Montgomery, the former editor of Conservative Home and now in Reform, has been tweeting that it's some months ago he was approached by Robert Jenrick about a possible defection. So maybe that points to a pattern of growing disaffection with the Conservative Party. Maybe Robert Jenrick was finding that the party leadership didn't like the way he was campaigning.

Ruth Fox: I thought it was interesting a post from Julian Smith, the [00:07:00] former Chief Whip who said that the party, and he didn't know about this, the party had tried over, you know, many years to try and manage the discontent within their ranks, no matter how disloyal some of the MPs were and that approach hadn't worked. And basically Kemi Badenoch with this approach has defined the terms and conditions of being part of the Conservative team going forward.

So everybody's on notice. And interestingly, when we had the Nadhim Zahawi defection to Reform, of course he's no longer a Conservative MP, but, you know, very senior member of the cabinet in his time in the last Parliament, indeed very briefly, Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Mark D'Arcy: I think for about three femto seconds before he changed his mind about Boris Johnson and called for him to go.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. But, he's defected to Reform and the Conservative Party seemed to waste no time in putting the boot into him as well. In terms of, you know, saying, well, he was not long ago trying to get a peerage out of us, and he became very clear he wasn't gonna get one. So the kind of [00:08:00] putting on notice that the Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, not gonna be quiet when these things happen, and actually she got on the front foot and she's put Nigel Farage kind of, and Reform, off their game a little bit today because they've got press conferences planned and their plans did not go quite as intended.

Mark D'Arcy: Well, indeed, it is for once a destabilization strategy hasn't worked. I mean, Nigel Farage rather grandly announced that he's been talking to lots of Conservative MPs.

That's what you always say when you're fishing for defections in another party. As you imply there's lots of people out there. There may or may not be, I don't know. It's also lifted the lid, I think on a bit of the venom that there is lurking beneath the surface of Conservative politics at the moment. I mean, Kemi Badenoch's statement herself, you know, that was more in anger than in sorrow.

I think you've gotta say, I was caught by a tweet by, a Conservative ex MP former minister Tim Loughton. Welcome decisive action by Kemi to a majority of longstanding, loyal Conservatives, sick of self-serving colleagues, desperate to reboard the gravy train. Jenrick was always way out of his [00:09:00] depth as cabinet minister. No amount of ozempic and social media consultants can detract from that.

I mean, ouch. So there was a certain amount of sort of venom and fury there, but there's also this picture of Nigel Farage fishing for Conservative defectors and trying to find more names to bolster his comparatively small parliamentary party and presumably trying to sign them roles to get a more sort of full spectrum parliamentary campaigning organization into place.

And Robert Jenrick probably after Farage himself, the second most effective performer Reform will have because he's a very experienced figure and he's shown to himself to be pretty adept at the social media game. So I suspect he'll be found a role.

In the meantime, of course, Kemi Badenoch has replaced him almost instantaneously with Nick Timothy, Theresa May's former Downing Street aid, who's now become a shadow Justice Secretary and to some extent on the strength of his performance in attacking the West Midlands constabulary over that [00:10:00] controversy about banning Israeli football fans.

Ruth Fox: Of course this isn't a risk-free defection for Nigel Farage himself. I mean, one of the critiques of Reform UK has been what happens if, God forbid, you know, Nigel Farage fell under a bus and, you know, had a health issue, heart attack or something, and was not, you know, either temporarily or permanently, was unable to continue in his role as leader, that Reform UK sort of didn't have strength in depth. You know, they hadn't got an array of MPs that, you know, could at all get anywhere near him in terms of, you know, media profile and ability to capture attention. I think in Robert Jenrick, they have got an alternative.

Of course we know it may be an alternative that Reform UK members are not very happy with because, one of the concerns is that these, all of these defections are turning the party into sort of Conservative light. But I mean, Robert Jenrick is a better political operator, better Commons performer, better sort of communicator, particularly on digital media [00:11:00] than pretty much any other MP Reform has got. Other than Nigel Farage. He may actually suck up some of the oxygen away from Nigel Farage, which may be a good thing or a bad thing depending upon where you stand.

Mark D'Arcy: It's never a comfortable position being the Crown prince or the heir apparent. And there's always a bit of weariness and tension there.

And, you know, looking at how Robert Jenrick had been operating inside the Conservative Party, I don't think necessarily there's going to be absolute trust on the behalf of Nigel Farage for a while, but he's hardly in a position to mount a leadership bid in Reform. He's in, and he just got through the door. So I don't think that's an immediate prospect. What is interesting though, as you and you touched on it, is what the Reform rank and file think of the wave of Conservative defectors they've been attracting. Do they want to look like a rest home for recovering Conservatives, or do they want to project themselves as something completely different?

They're often people who've been campaigning against, perhaps quite venomously, their local [00:12:00] Conservatives. The last thing some of them would be comfortable with was having to sort of adapt themselves to an incoming Conservative MP who they were trying to unseat, but a few months ago.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. Well of course we weren't planning to talk about this at all today, Mark.

This was not on our list of agenda items when we started the day. And listeners, this is a pretty much fast moving story. So by the time you're listening to this episode, there may be further news and things may have moved on a bit.

Mark D'Arcy: Further defectors. I mean, what's absolutely clear is that there is a phishing operation going on, although Nigel Farage has said at the Robert Jenrick press conference, no more Conservative defectors after the May election.

So if you're gonna jump ship, there's a fairly limited time in which to do it now. And that's a decision that people will have either have to make or forswear.

Ruth Fox: Well, we'll perhaps update on this story next week, no doubt. See if things have moved on. But in the meantime, shall we turn our attention Mark to the other side of the House and to the troubles on the government benches.

You wanted to talk about the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, which actually is probably better known by listeners as [00:13:00] the Hillsborough Law.

Mark D'Arcy: Yes. This is a measure which follows on from the Hillsborough Inquiry and a variety of other public scandals of one sort or another, which is going to require public officials to have a duty of candor in giving evidence to inquiries and investigations into what actually happened.

In other words, they can't obfuscate, they can't concoct lies, they can't be even economical with the truth. They just have to front up and say, what really happened? And that is a bill that carries an enormous political charge behind it because even, gosh, it must be 40 odd years on from the Hillsborough disaster.

Ruth Fox: April, 1989, it was.

Mark D'Arcy: Getting on for 40 years. That there is still a huge amount of emotional intensity behind that. Cause the fact that for years the victims of Hillsborough were blamed, the fact that people lied, the fact that evidence was to some extent doctored, was all eventually revealed by a public inquiry, but only after a [00:14:00] decades long campaign.

Ruth Fox: I should just explain perhaps Mark for international listeners and indeed for our younger listeners who won't remember Hillsborough, that Hillsborough is the football ground of Sheffield Wednesday in South Yorkshire, but actually it was hosting as a neutral venue, it was hosting the FA Cup, I think it was the semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. And basically what happened, there was overcrowding in the Leppings Lane end of the stadium, as a result of basically too many fans being let into the ground, and this of course was in the days before we had all seated stadiums. It was standing room. And 97 Liverpool supporters died, but they essentially had to wait until 2016 for fresh inquests, as you noted, to conclude that they'd been killed unlawfully as a result in effect of the failings of the police. And in the interim, of course, there were all these, you know, allegations made about the behavior of Liverpool fans by the police, by of [00:15:00] course, the Sun newspaper.

I mean, you can't buy the Sun famously, you can't buy the Sun in Merseyside as a result. And there've been a long running efforts to prosecute the police commander and other fellow police officers for basically lying to successive inquiries.

Mark D'Arcy: To cover up what amounted to very bad crowd control.

Ruth Fox: Yep. And failings of their sort of approach to policing the match. And of course, since then we've had not dissimilar questions asked in the northwest, the Manchester arena bombing. The Hillsborough campaigners have been pushing for this duty of candor law. The Hillsborough Law, but it's been backed by particularly the Manchester bombing arena families, this Ariana Grande concert a few years ago.

Mark D'Arcy: And that's where you get into the particular problem that's come with this bill now, which is that the government has become very concerned about its implications for the security service.

If you are going to require the spooks to have a duty of candor, when [00:16:00] they might feel that they need to keep certain things under wraps, then you've got a potentially a national security problem. And so the government has been attempting to, as it were, route evidence from people working for the secret services through their head of service.

So they could only give evidence to inquiry with the consent of the head of MI5, the head of MI6, whoever it might be. And, that is something that has really got the campaigners for Hillsborough Law very upset and very worried 'cause they see it as a very serious watering down.

Ruth Fox: And particularly linked to the Manchester arena public inquiry because it found that MI5, the security service, the domestic service, had not given an accurate picture of the key intel that it had on the suicide bomber in that case, who carried out the attack on the arena. And of course then 22 people died in that disaster.

Mark D'Arcy: But you can see the kind of concerns that the security service might have [00:17:00] about giving evidence that might reveal its intelligence gathering techniques.

And there are all sorts of difficulties here. But at the same time, if the people who are charged with protecting us are not able to be candid, then what's the point of having public inquiries? Because the whole process is thereby undermined. You can see how difficult this argument really is and what a knot has to be untied.

Then what's happening is that the bill is coming up for its report stage, its detailed consideration on the floor of the House of Commons next Monday, and there are amendments from both sides of this argument piling in to try and change the law in one direction or another.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. And apparently the government was meeting with the campaigners yesterday trying to find a way forward and a sort of agree a consensus approach.

But it sounds like according to the media reports that those talks have broken down, didn't go well, and the campaigners are not happy.

Mark D'Arcy: Didn't, yeah.

Ruth Fox: So I mean, we've got amendments from, some of the key amendments from Ian Byrne.

Mark D'Arcy: Who's the MP for Birkenhead. [00:18:00] And, as a Merseyside MP is of course extremely interested in the whole issue from the Hillsborough.

Ruth Fox: Well, he was actually at Hillsborough. And his father was injured, I think, in the crush. Quite seriously. So he's had a long, long running campaign involvement in this issue.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah. And he's responsible for a number of amendments. I mean, report stage is one of the bits of parliamentary proceeding that can be quite difficult to follow because there's a lot of intricacy in the way it works, but at the same time, it's a chance for any MP or group of MPs to try and influence the content of a particular law. And there are lots of people piling in on this issue. Ian Byrne's key amendments are amendments 21 through 24, and they're all about the issues around how they would notify an inquiry or an investigation about relevant information.

There's a package of amendments from him and a group of people broadly on the left of Parliament, amendments signed by a number of Lib Dems, by [00:19:00] Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Saltana.

Ruth Fox: Pardon?

Mark D'Arcy: A reasonably rare combination, at the moment. People like Clive Lewis and Stella Creasy on the Labour backbenches. Green MPs.

And I suppose the question then becomes, do these amendments get called? Are they selected for debate and that falls to Nus Ghani, I think as chairman and Ways and Means.

Ruth Fox: So she's gonna have some challenging decisions to make, but obviously they were to get called and then they were to go through, then they were passed by the house, then the government's got a challenge because if the security services are opposed to them, think that they're not workable. It's got a problem.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, absolutely. Although, of course it is worth noting that this is a bill that is nowhere near all the way through its parliamentary process. After a report stage, it has to go through third reading in the House of Commons, which is normally a sort of rubber stamping formality, but then it has to go into the House of Lords and the House of Lords provides an opportunity to either build on the Ian Byrne amendments if they happen to get passed, or [00:20:00] alternatively if they happen to get passed, repeal.

Ruth Fox: And the politics of this are interesting, aren't they? Because we talk about Ian Byrne and you know, the Liverpool MPs very invested in this. The Manchester MPs very invested in it. Of course, one of the big players, and one of the big people behind this legislation and getting it into the Labour manifesto is a certain Andy Burnham, mayor of Manchester.

Mark D'Arcy: Ah, yes, the king of the North. And Andy Burnham has quite a lot of skin in the game here because, way back in 2009 when he was sports minister, he actually spoke at a 20 year commemoration of the Hillsborough Disaster at a football stadium in Merseyside, and he found himself being heckled by people shouting justice for the 96.

And he was so influenced by that event that he went off and pressed the government to launch the inquiry that eventually got to the truth of the whole thing. And so that's an issue that Andy Burnham has strong ties to. And the political potency of this is both the importance of the law to people like the [00:21:00] Hillsborough campaigners for getting at the truth, but also the potential leadership implications within the Labour Party because this could come to be a quite symbolic clash between Andy Burnham and the Keir Starmer government.

Ruth Fox: And of course Keir Starmer, having been former Director of Public Prosecutions, I mean, he committed to this Hillsborough law a long time ago. He met the campaigners of the family members who died. And he was sort of personally invested in it himself.

It was in the Labour Party manifesto. And of course at the Labour Party conference last year, he was introduced at that conference by Margaret Aspinal, who is sort of the public face of the Hillsborough campaign. And she personally thanked him from the podium at, you know, his set piece speech for bringing forward this proposal against some opposition within government from, you know, the public authorities who are worried about the implications of it.

Mark D'Arcy: So this is a very high charged political moment. And it also raises the point actually as well, that, where on earth was the [00:22:00] consultation with the security services who were clearly going to have a view about this bill while the bill was being drafted. Why is all this suddenly happening when the bill's sort of halfway through Parliament?

It does seem a rather scrappy way to conduct business.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, and I think that goes to the sort of heart of, how is the government preparing its legislation and agreeing its policy proposals beforehand, before they get to Parliament and settling some of these really quite challenging, difficult issues.

I mean, whether there's been sort of more recent developments, I mean some of our legal listeners might know a bit more on the background to this, but whether there've been sort of more recent developments as a result of MI6 and MI5 have been criticized in courts for a lack of openness for covering up, for essentially lying to the courts recently.

So they've certainly not helped their own case, I would suggest. But whether some of those developments have affected things in recent months in terms of, you know, what now can go in the legislation. I don't know, but it is a bit messy.

Mark D'Arcy: Indeed. And another government bill that's in a bit of a mess at the moment is the [00:23:00] bill to enact the Chagos Islands deal, which strange things happened when this bill was before their Lordships last week.

Ruth Fox: Yes.

Odd proceedings in the House of Lords. So, it had its third reading earlier this week in the Lords, but as well as the third reading approval motion. There was also a regret motion to it. So to amend that the bill do now pass, that was amended to express regret about, you know, many reasons why it shouldn't pass.

But nonetheless,

Mark D'Arcy: We're passing it, but we don't really want to. But you've got us in a half Nelson kind of vibe.

Ruth Fox: And interestingly, that regret motion was passed by 201 votes to 169, which suggests that, they didn't get some Labour peers out to support it, but there was kind of an amusing moment where the main motion, as amended by the regret motion, was put to the House in the normal way. And what would typically happen is that you'd vote on the regret motion. And if that [00:24:00] passes, then the motion as amended, this is all getting very technical listeners, the motion as amended would be agreed without a division. Because you don't need to walk through the division lobbies for a second time to confirm what you've already agreed the first time.

However, initially shouts of not content, so no, outweighed those of content. So they were taking this on the voices. So it seems that both Labour and Tory peers seemed to think they needed to oppose the motion when in fact they didn't. So the question was put by the deputy speaker a second time, and it sounds like Labour peers realized the error and didn't shout, but Tory peers continued shouting not content. And some of the other non-affiliated peers and so on who opposed to the bill. So it was put a third time. Would you like to clarify your positions? The same thing happened and Lord Kennedy, at this point, the government chief whip stands up and expresses his confusion about what is going on. They are now going to vote against the motion that they [00:25:00] have just won on. He said, I do not understand that at all. So the deputy speaker had a fourth try, and at that point, the motion was agreed without a division. So pretty unusual to have to put the question four times in order for the peers to work out which side they're supposed to be voting on.

Because of course they already knew. And the deputy speaker knew what they wanted because they'd already had the division on the earlier motion.

Mark D'Arcy: A bit peculiar, a bit of a mess. I wonder if, just as we often talk in the Commons about there not being an awful lot of MPs who are fully familiar with the Commons procedures, 'cause there's been such a turnover and there's so many new peers in the House of Lords now that maybe they're a bit confused on their procedures as well.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. Possibly. But there was also some confusion I think put around by the campaigners who are opposed to this chagos deal suggesting that there was gonna be another motion to reject, so this regret, and if they won the regret, they could then have a reject motion. And that's not how it works. That's not the way. So I think that caused some confusion. The bill now, it got its third reading, so it will now come [00:26:00] back to the Commons because the peers amended the bill for key amendments, which the Commons will have to consider next week. It's worth just mentioning what these are Mark. They are quite important.

So the peers have said that the government should have to publish a statement setting out the total real term costs of payments to be made to Mauritius under this deal. And the methodology used to calculate the costs because of course, one of the complaints about this whole process is nobody's entirely clear about what this deal is gonna cost over the period of it, the length of the term. And the government has been, shall we say, quite slippery about what the numbers are. And this is interesting about what view the MPs will take on this because the peers are suggesting to the House of Commons that MPs should be required to approve estimated expenditure in relation to the treaty, that the House of Commons should also have to approve regular five year reviews, supplementary approval of any increase in [00:27:00] costs and a Commons vote to cease payments if Mauritius is judged to have breached the treaty.

Now, if the government says no, we don't want that, and tables an amendment to reject that MPs are being invited to vote against a proposal from the House of Lords that they, the elected House, should have more votes, more influence over this process going forward.

Mark D'Arcy: Well, it's a very effective piece of politics by opponents of the Chagos Treaty.

And it will maximize pain and embarrassment for the government and while the government is in the business of u-turns and scraping the barnacles from its hull as they keep putting it, removing bits of embarrassment that are just upsetting the public. I dunno, I wonder if this might be one of the things that they might decide in the cold light of day is probably easier just to ditch this whole deal. Now there'd be vast international embarrassment in ditching the whole deal. I'm not sure the government of Mauritius would be desperately impressed amongst others. [00:28:00] I don't know if Richard Hermer, Attorney General Lord Hermer, would be that impressed by it either since he seems to be been one of the major drivers behind this process.

But, it's just another fairly excruciating embarrassment for the Government. Then the Lords know how to put the pain on and if the government does throw out the amendments made in the Lords, the bill then has to go back to the Lords to see whether they're content and they can put their amendments back in, or at least a version of them back in, which might have to be slightly different to avoid the constitutional trap of double insistence where you ask the

Ruth Fox: Not quite there yet. But they're heading in that direction.

Mark D'Arcy: And, yeah I suppose it's entirely possible that their Lordships might be so against this bill that they keep on ping-ponging it back to the Commons for a very long time to come.

Normally peers give up their resistance after two or three attempts to persuade the Commons to change its mind on something even when they care quite a lot about it. Keep going with this one long enough and you eventually reach prorogation date and

Ruth Fox: Exactly, and there is quite [00:29:00] a lot of heated concern about this because of the cost implications and because of the lack of scrutiny in the Commons.

We've debated on this podcast ad nauseum, the lack of, you know, scrutiny of international agreements. And that's just two of the amendments we've talked about. I mean, there's two others, you know, Secretary of State should have to negotiate an amendment to the treaty so that payments to Mauritius cease should military use of the base become impossible.

I dunno what the scenario there would be, but, and it ties commencement of the Act's provisions. And I think this is gonna be a critical one, ties commencement of the Act's provisions to a referendum of the Chagos community. Of course the original inhabitants of the Diego Garcia and the Chagos Islands. About whether their rights to resettlement, consultation and participation in decision making have been adequately guaranteed in the treaty.

Well, I think we would know the answer to what that referendum would be, so I can't see the government agreeing to that. So yeah, they have got some tricky, tricky decisions ahead.

Mark D'Arcy: And watching all the fun is a certain perma-tan gentleman in Washington who might [00:30:00] yet decide to take a dislike to this treaty process.

So, there are other players too who might get on the phone to Sir Keir Starmer, and try and persuade him to change his mind and abandon this bill. I don't think the game's over yet.

Ruth Fox: And that would add to quite a long list of changing of minds. Well Mark, after all that, I think we should take a short break.

Before we do, I just wanted to say a huge thank you to all our listeners, particularly those of you who've joined us over the Christmas and New Year period. We've had some really wonderful feedback on our recent episodes. We're really grateful to everyone who listens, subscribes, rates, like, shares the podcast.

It's all helping us reach new audiences and grow the show. And, over the Christmas period, Mark, we were number two in Apple's government category for podcasts. Ahead of a lot of BBC shows. Now consider that we are a shoestring operation compared to all the other pods in that top 10. I was very pleased with that, but we can't be complacent.

There's still plenty of listeners out there who are not yet listening to us. So if you're just an occasional listener, do hit subscribe [00:31:00] now and make it official so you don't miss future episodes. You can find Parliament Matters for free on all the usual podcast platforms, Apples, Spotify, and others. You know, we're on YouTube, for example, and if you're a super fan or you're concerned about the state of our democracy and want to support what we do because like us, you think Parliament matters, then you can help by joining the society or perhaps by making a donation at hansardsociety.org.uk.

That's hansardsociety.org.uk. We've got some really interesting members only events coming up, so if you enjoy the podcast, you'll love those events. So hit subscribe, hansardsociety.org.uk to join or donate. See you in a minute.

Mark D'Arcy: And we are back. And one of the new features of the House of Commons in 2010 was the creation of the Backbench Business Committee.

It was supposed to allocate a block of debating time for causes espoused by backbenchers, not chosen by the government, or chosen by the opposition, or chosen by any of the other parties. [00:32:00] It was an innovation proposed by the Wright committee, the Reform of the Commons Committee, chaired by the former Labour MP, Tony Wright.

It's now 15 years since that committee set up shop, and it's made quite a difference to the working of the Commons. But just before Christmas, the Committee published a report setting out ways in which its work could be improved, new areas where it might have an influence, ways in which the procedures of the Commons could be tweaked, so that backbenchers got even more of a voice.

Well the committee's chaired by the Conservative MP, Bob Blackman, who in his spare time is Chair of the 1922 committee, the Conservative MPs' trade union, and we spoke to him about first of all the committee's report and its proposals and the difference that it had made over the years since its founding.

Bob Blackman: Well, obviously this was set up during the Wright reforms, as you know, prior to 2010 when I was actually elected to Parliament, the idea was to ensure that backbenchers got the chance to actually put debates in the Chamber and in Westminster Hall on subjects [00:33:00] they wanted, rather than as was the previous position that the government control the order paper. The government has no veto over what we choose to discuss.

So what we've done and evolved over the years is a process whereby colleagues apply for debates. And we have very, very strong rules on this. They've gotta be cross party. If colleagues want to debate for three hours in the main chamber, they've got to get 15 speakers on an even split between the government side and the opposition parties collectively, which then gives a balanced debate on particular issues.

If they want a 90 minute debate in Westminster Hall, they have to get eight speakers. Once again, an even split between government and opposition, which then allows us to have proper debates in Westminster Hall. Just general debates. There's never a vote there because you can't have a vote in Westminster Hall.

But they are important debates nevertheless, and they're used very effectively by colleagues in the chamber. The debates can have a divisible motion [00:34:00] or they can be a general debate where, you know, there's no decision at the end. And colleagues use these for different reasons.

One is a divisible motion. I can't remember the last time there was a vote on a backbench business motion probably goes back for more than probably 10 years. But equally, the general debates are quite important as well because they allow backbenchers to challenge the government and the government have to respond to the debates.

And it's a massive difference between, say, when the government has a debate on a general motion. So for example, on Wednesday night we had a debate on Ukraine, but it means the government opens and closes the debate. And so they get two bites of the cherry. Here they are responding to the debate, which is led by a backbencher.

And we've had enormous success, I think, over the years in the type of topics and topicality of the debates when often the order paper doesn't allow that otherwise.

Mark D'Arcy: And the point of this is that the backbench business committee can be a vehicle for raising subjects that either the governments [00:35:00] wouldn't of themselves raise or actively don't want to be raised.

And if you go back to the midst of history, the early years of the backbench business committee, there were a lot of brexiters on the first committee, and they spent a lot of time putting down very Brexit motions that were very inconvenient to David Cameron's coalition. Government really didn't like them.

And ultimately, perhaps the biggest thing the backbench business committee ever did was put down a motion calling for an EU referendum, which a large number of Conservative MPs then voted for.

Bob Blackman: Yes, indeed, and I was one of them. The reality is that, of course during that time, not every Conservative colleague was enamored by the coalition government.

And to be fair, not every Liberal Democrat was enamored by the coalition government. So there were frequent challenges and I think my colleagues on the year, well the first year, the committee was set up, often encouraged applicants to seek a visible motion, which would then lead often to a proper vote, if you like, at the end.

And the government often had to whip against [00:36:00] proposals they didn't like, but it died away on the basis of the government then chose to say, oh fine, you can have whatever motion you like, but actually it's not binding on the government, so we'll just grin and bear it. And so things have changed since that first year.

Ruth Fox: EU referendum, Bob, was just one of the motions that have had an impact. I mean, another was, and something else we're talking about, on this week's podcast is the release of the documents relating to the Hillsborough disaster, which obviously the Hillsborough law is currently live in the Commons. But, that was another example of where the backbench business committee was utilized as a way to get a discussion of the issues.

The criticism, I think of the committee would be perhaps that the big impact debates took place in that first 2010-2015 Parliament, but since then the debates have been perhaps a little bit more anodine. What would be your response to that?

Bob Blackman: Well, my response to that is there's a whole range of very important debates that have taken place over the last 15 years [00:37:00] at the behest of the backbench business committee.

They've also led to positive change. I mean, one of the things I'm very passionate about, as you probably know, is I'm an avid anti-smoker, and several of the debates that have started in Westminster Hall then gone to the Chamber have been via the backbench business committee, and we know that every single one of those debates, whether I led them or other colleagues led them, ended up with a change in the law on smoking.

And indeed, the current Tobacco and Vapes Bill that is going through and in the moment is in the House of Lords, that started as a backbench business debate in Westminster Hall and then moved on when both the previous government brought forward legislation, of course, the current government continued that legislation.

So a lot of these things start with these debates 'cause it's an opportunity for colleagues to change policy and government policy on matters. But possibly, you know, to embarrassing, I mean I've been using it for example, on changing the law on homelessness and we're try still trying to get the government to make the sensible moves on [00:38:00] combating homelessness.

But that means that we can impose the pressure on the government and they have to respond and it's on the record, you know, Hansard report then on the debate and also what the ministers had to say about things. And that's very important in the whole process. Some people may say, well, they're not as combative as they were before and confrontational.

I think there's a much stronger mood to say we wanna move along things on a cross party basis rather than a partisan basis from the backbenches. And often the government are reluctant to move, both front benches can be reluctant to move on things, whereas backbenches are far more willing to take on the challenge and try and move the government on.

Mark D'Arcy: One of the things in the report that your committee's produced to mark its 15th anniversary is that there's been a decline in the number of substantive motions. Motions which actually more than this house has considered a given subject, and ask the government to do something or call on ministers to do something or whatever.

That's quite an important change, and it's rather [00:39:00] lamented in the report. Would you like to see more motion saying the government should do X, or Ministers must think about Y?

Bob Blackman: Yeah, Mark, you've been at our proceedings at times. We are often encouraging applicants who come forward with a general debate to say, well, what do you want the government to do about this?

And if you want the government to do something about it, put a motion down. But what do you want the government to do? And often applicants will then say, well, oh, that's a good idea. We'll go away and do that. We've tried to educate colleagues on the backbenches who are applying for debates. And bear in mind, generally speaking, the committee doesn't sponsor debates. We facilitate colleagues getting debates, but we do occasionally take the lead on some of the issues that we care about passionately. But generally speaking, it's a case of encouraging people. But some people come in front of us and say, well, actually I just want a response from the government and then I may take it up, take this further if I don't get the response I want.

And that's fine. I would prefer more people to come forward with divisible motions, which are, may have, a clear intention and a [00:40:00] clear policy direction, but that's up to the individuals that apply. I mean, I'm a servant of the House, not trying to dictate to the House what should happen.

Ruth Fox: The committee has a bit of a supply and demand issue, doesn't it, Bob?

Because you have a certain amount of time that you can allocate each session that's set out in Standing Orders, but obviously the demand that comes from MPs can fluctuate. It's quite high at the moment. I mean, my understanding is that, that you've got quite long waits for debates to take place because, you haven't got enough time to allocate to them.

Is there a case for the committee perhaps playing more of a filtering role rather than just allocating time to debates which reach the guidance threshold?

Bob Blackman: Yeah, you're absolutely right. In terms of the supply side, we're certainly not short of debates. We've got enough applications at the moment to fill the Westminster Hall slots until we expect, I mean, we don't know when the end of this session's gonna be, but a lot of rumors, say the middle of May, we can fill up the Westminster Hall [00:41:00] slots now with all of the debates in the queue. Normally we're allocated Thursday afternoons for backbench business debates. We can fill all the slots that are likely to become available between now and the dissolution. So from that perspective, yes, we've got a lot of queues. Now what we do do is where we've got a time sensitive debate, so say, for example, a particular anniversary or a particular campaign or something like that, we'd always try and get the debate in that timeframe to try and suit the applicants equally, we have to be very, very careful. We are not there to stifle debate. It's not up to us to censor things. There will be applications come forward that members on the committee say, well, I totally disagree with that view. That's not our job. Our job is to facilitate the opportunity for colleagues to raise matters in the House. And in particular, one of the issues is for, which we always have to bear in mind, is that minority parties in this place don't always get [00:42:00] a lot much of a say so we have to make sure they've got an opportunity for their debates.

We may not agree with them, we may vote them down, but nevertheless, they've got the right to have their say.

Mark D'Arcy: Now your report makes quite a number of recommendations and suggestions about how the backbench business committee could operate in the future. One of the first ones is that maybe it shouldn't have its members elected at the beginning of every parliamentary session because the practical effect of that is there's often quite a long period when there isn't a backbench business committee and therefore they can't be Backbench debates.

Bob Blackman: I've raised this successively with the house. It's a nonsense that we're the only select committee where the chairman is elected after each session, the members of the committee are elected it after every session. And technically just taking what you've been been raising is that at the end of the parliamentary session, all the applications that were still in the queue ceased to be.

We've wiped the slate clean and start again. Equally, after the state opening of Parliament and the King's speech, there's often a [00:43:00] period of time when the government don't have legislation ready for second readings and take forward, and that's the time when they end up having to hold general debates, which should be, in my view, determined by the Backbench Business Committee rather than the government.

Now, if there's no committee and that there's a always a delay in reformatting the committee, if there's a delay, then I think that's unfair on backbenchers. I've been very keen on promoting this. I think it's the right thing to do. I think the leader, he's sympathetic, and we have to try and persuade him to the right way of thinking.

There's powers to change membership of the committee, et cetera. If people felt that I wasn't doing the right job there, there's ways of removing the chairman, you know, so you can do this rather than going through this rather elongated, unnecessary process.

Ruth Fox: Another one of the recommendations in the report, Bob, is to not confine Backbench debates to Thursdays and to have them scattered throughout the parliamentary [00:44:00] week. And in fact, going back in the, as Mark describes it, the midst of time to 2009 when the Reform of the House of Commons Select committee, better known as the Wright committee, which led to this idea and the setting up of the committee, it had explicitly warned against confining debates to Thursdays.

In your report, you've recommended against that, you say that the government should provide more time on, you know, other days of the week, Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays and so on. What's the thinking behind that and what kind of response, if any, have you had?

Bob Blackman: A combination of things. First is of course, just such an immediate example, the government gave us the first Monday back after we came back from the Christmas recess, and then we had two statements anandd three urgent questions. And so the debate actually got pushed off the order paper completely. So what I've said to the leader and I've made recommendations on this in the past is that if we're gonna be given time on other days, then we should get protected time.

In other words, [00:45:00] we should have a position whereby if the backbench business committee is given half a day, say three hours, then we should be given a three hour debate and not squeezed on to the end so that we might get an hour or something for the debate before the house rises. That would have to be done on the proviso I think that we would act responsibly and not put things on that were so controversial that everyone would want to come along and vote, because that would mean that MPs would be kept behind unnecessarily. But I do think that we should have debates on different days and it, and I've also said to the leader of the house, two things about this.

One is that it is unfair to have it just on Thursdays, as you quite rightly say, because everyone knows, oh, well the House breaks up on Wednesday afternoon and therefore Thursdays there's no votes. But if we have this on other days when the government business is light, and we had the experience of this, well, on the first week back, we're on the second day of business, the House roses about three o'clock in the afternoon.

When we could have had the [00:46:00] debate we'd had on the Monday on the Tuesday afternoon, but no one thought creatively about how this could be done. Now through what we call the usual channels, you'll know the whips and party business managers, they know how much debate is likely to be on government business and how many speakers they're gonna be, et cetera.

So we could allow time at the end of the day where government business is light to have these debates.

Ruth Fox: One of the other interesting features in this session compared to recent, previous ones was that, and it comes through in the report, the data that you've got is that there's far, far more statements being made by select committee chairs as well.

They had seven statements in the last full session and in this one so far, and I know it's a longer than a sort of usual 12 month session, but even allowing for that change, there's been 39 to date at the point at which you published your report the end of December. So anecdotally, that was my feeling that just looking at the order paper daily, that there has been a significant increase.

What accounts for that do you think?

Bob Blackman: Well, I think the [00:47:00] new select committees obviously are starting to generate reports and use the opportunity to actually report to the House and have a short debate. I mean, the way that it works is basically select committee chairmen will speak for up to 10 minutes and up to 10 minutes for questions which have to come obviously direct to them, not speeches.

We've encouraged select committees to take opportunity forward. We've also suggested, which in the report, at the moment, the rules are that they have to have that statement within five days, the publication of their committee report, which has had an effect of limiting certain committees from being able to use the time.

So we've suggested that that be doubled to 10 days. So give us more flexibility because obviously if we have a select committee statement that takes time outta the debate, debating time on the motions that or debates that have been allocated. So we will never have more than two select committee statements on a particular day.

Because they do take up 20 [00:48:00] minutes each, which bites into the time that's available..

Mark D'Arcy: One of the most eye-catching recommendations in the report is that the backbench business Committee should take a role in selecting private members bills to go forward. At the moment, it's literally a lottery, depends on who gets a chance to bring forward a bill and what bill they then choose to bring forward.

And, you are suggesting that maybe a decision ought to be made by the Backbench Business Committee on the basis of what's got the most interest, the biggest head of steam behind it.

Bob Blackman: Yeah. I used before, I think before 2019, I was the deputy chairman of the Procedure Committee and we did a lot of work on this, originally there. I've been successful, as you probably know, Mark, iin the private members bill ballot on two occasions. It is a lottery and unless you've got a very good idea of what you're going to put forward, you get drawn, and then you decide how you're going to use that opportunity.

For me, private members bills are vitally important and an opportunity for backbenchers to bring forward a change [00:49:00] in the law, which can be very significant. But I do think there needs to be a process of almost pre legislative scrutiny on some of these things. Because we know that what the government does, and it's all governments of all persuasions do this, is the members that are successful in the ballot get asked, well, would you take forward this piece of government legislation that we don't want our fingers on and we don't have time for, and your name will be ever associated with this.

I mean, that is not the way I think the private members bills should work.

Mark D'Arcy: It got ridiculous in the last session of the previous government, where practically all the bills were basically government bills and the whole process had been more or less taken over.

Bob Blackman: Yeah. And I think that's grossly unfair on those members that want to take these things on properly.

So from our perspective, what we suggested was that members should have a number of slots on Fridays, which are allocated to private members bills that have been through a process and tested and have been debated by the backbench business committee or whoever [00:50:00] to actually screen them and see if they were worthy of taking forward.

There's all sorts of ways of getting bills through this process. And I got a presentation built through in the last Parliament for London Zoo. It's an important change andd it was agreed cross party. There was no partisanship there. But the reality is that unless you're in the know, in these ways, you're not actually make these some changes.

So this is a way of saying, look, those members that have, may never be successful in the ballot, could argue for their bill, which might be a really important piece of work for a charity or set of charities to come through and be prioritized, and I think it'd be far better. My personal view is it's far better than relying on a ballot for that to happen because, I mean, I know colleagues in the House who've never been drawn in the ballot for 30 years. I've been very lucky. But, you know, I'd love to win the national lottery, and never have done, you know, anyway. The point is, is developing legislation [00:51:00] that is sound and sensible rather than, you know, just being given a bill and say, you take this through and we'll bless you for it.

Ruth Fox: As Director of the Hansard Society, you'd expect me to say this, wouldn't you? But I mean, one of the recommendations that struck me was you're actively in your report encouraging the Procedure Committee almost to come to you with proposals for debates on their reports about the running of the House and its rules to get the House's approval for changes that the committee has wanted.

And going back to the question, Mark, of private members bills, of course, you know that the Procedure Committee has looked at that topic quite a number of times and has really struggled to get a debate on it because the government wouldn't make time for a debate and wouldn't table motion for the changes that they'd proposed.

So, you know, you are suggesting an alternative way.

Bob Blackman: Well, I mean, you've hit the nail on the head here basically. The procedure committee or our committee can put forward recommendations for things but it's up to the government then to put forward the motion on [00:52:00] which these changes are made. There is an opportunity we can, if the procedure committee decided on particular things they wanted to see changed in standing orders or whatever, we can do that in backbench business time.

If the government are reluctant to table things that the procedure committee want to see changed, it should be for the House to decide. Not for the government to veto.

Mark D'Arcy: But the procedure committee's never come forward to do that, has it?

Bob Blackman: Well, it's never. It may be the procedure committee's not realized that it's got this opportunity.

So in our report, as you quite already say, we've said, look, there is this opportunity, the procedure committee, if they're being frustrated by the government, bear in mind that the chairman of the procedure committee is almost inevitably a member of the governing party, but is always looking at saying, well, what, how can the House improve?

But if the government say, well we were better reluctant about that because it comes back to one of the only reforms, the Wright reforms, have not been implemented is a business of the house committee. [00:53:00]

Where government has jealously guarded its opportunity to put stuff on the order paper and control the order paper.

I just think that where it comes to the business of the house, it should be a matter for the procedure committee to make recommendations for us to say, okay, we'll give up a bit of backbench business time in order to debate that so the House can make a decision.

Mark D'Arcy: Is there any indication from the government, has there been any nod or wink that they like some of these ideas or are prepared to even accept them even if they have to grit their teeth a bit?

Bob Blackman: I'm due to see the leader of the house shortly in terms of our regular meetings. I have to say the former leader of the house who is now the deputy leader of the Labour Party, and I got on very well. I get on very well with Lucy Powell.

Ruth Fox: So that's Lucy Powell. For our listeners benefit.

Bob Blackman: And Sir Alan is equally amenable. He's saying, look, well if there's ways we can do this, then we should facilitate these things. I think it's about steady reform rather than revolution.

Mark D'Arcy: Bob Blackman, thanks very much indeed for joining us on the pod. But before you go, [00:54:00] with your other hat on as chairman of the 1922 committee, the Conservative MPs shop steward, so to speak, I've gotta ask you about the developing Robert Jenrick affair.

One of your MPs has had the whip withdrawn, has been accused of plotting to join the Reform Party. What's your view on what's happened?

Bob Blackman: Well, I mean, obviously I have not seen the evidence that the leader has obviously obtained in order to make this decision, but it's very clear that it was very strong evidence.

I'm very sad to see Robert Jenrick go because he was a key player both in shadow cabinet, in the party, as you probably know, as I act as the returning officer for the leadership election as chairman of the 1922 committee, and I was very pleased that after the election that Rob was offered the opportunity to go into the shadow cabinet and indeed accepted that.

I've been very pleased that all the candidates for the leadership bar one for very good reasons has joined the shadow cabinet and is part of the [00:55:00] team. Kemi Badenoch is managing to rebuild the party after our most devastating election defeat in history. That's a tough job and it's up to us to make sure we row in behind her and support her.

Now, it appears that the evidence is irrefutable that Robert Jenrick was likely to defect and cause the maximum damage, as Kemi said to the parliamentary party and the shadow cabinet and the party at large. We cannot tolerate that. And you know, there has been the ex MPs departing to Reform. Well, that's up to them. They make their choice. What they need to understand is they may find that the grass is not greener on the other side of the hill, and they will not be let back if they're thinking that, oh, well, we'll go and dabble with this and maybe we'll drift back. That is not gonna be allowed to happen. We want people that are committed to the Conservative cause.

I can only speak from a personal perspective. You know, I've been a member of the Conservative Party now for probably more years than I care to think of. [00:56:00] If I say to you that Lord Forsyth, who's just been elected as speaker, and I probably joined the Federation of Conservative Students on more or less the same day, in different universities.

I have to say I regard myself as a loyal Conservative, and the thing that I hate above all else is treachery. And I'm afraid that treachery cannot be allowed to continue and the message has to go out to colleagues. Look, the Parliamentary Party in the Conservative Party is more united now than it probably ever has been.

We are all wanting to get rid of this rotten Labour government and get the Conservative Party back into power. What we don't need is people plotting to undermine that.

Mark D'Arcy: Well, I think as we were talking there, one of my colleagues was waving at me a photograph that's just appeared online of Nigel Farage and Robert Jenrick shaking hands at a Reform party press conference.

So I think the deal is now done.

Bob Blackman: Well, maybe, but in that case, he's been called out before he decided to commit an act of treachery, and well done Kemi, if [00:57:00] that's the case, because she's managed to spot it in advance.

And I think the other thing that is important here is she's acted decisively. She's shown strong leadership and what a contrast that is with the current Prime Minister. And it demonstrates that in Kemi we have someone who's got true integrity and is fit and proper to become the next Prime Minister.

Mark D'Arcy: Well, Bob Blackman, thanks very much again for joining us on the pod today.

Bob Blackman: Thanks, Bob.

Mark D'Arcy: And we are back and Ruth, there's been a lot going on with the assisted dying bill, which has been grinding at incredibly slow glacial pace through its committee stage in the House of Lords. And things are beginning to look a little bit desperate despite the fact that before Christmas 10 extra debating days were found for this bill. At this pace, they could debate on until 2028 and they still wouldn't be through the committee stage amendments. So something is gonna have to be done and Lord Falconer has been asking for extra time. There's been a motion passing, there [00:58:00] should be extra time that the whips have taken under advisement.

There's now talk that they might sit for a few extra hours on their sitting Fridays, go up to 6:30 in the evening. And frankly, all of that doesn't look as if it's gonna make that much difference to me.

Ruth Fox: No, I mean we've had, what, five sitting Fridays for committee stage so far? Few before Christmas, one last week.

We've got another one this week. And then as you say, more to follow, I mean, just to set this in context for listeners on those five sitting Fridays, this mammoth number of over a thousand amendments have been sorted, organized into 84 groups for debate and decision, and of that 84 groups across the five sitting Fridays, they've only debated 12.

And on the last day, I think there was a hope that, you know, the number would go up. You know, they'd been debating 1, 2, 3, 4 each day.

And it really didn't happen. And it got through two groups. Now, in those groups there were quite a lot of amendments that they got through. So you can't just look at the group numbers.

You also have a look at the number of amendments, but still you've got [00:59:00] through 12 of 84 groups, you are not gonna get through the rest, even though some of the later groups will be much more technical issues rather than matters of principle that they're debating now in the early parts of the bill, technical issues like commencement and territorial extent and things like that, you know, quite a lot of that will be done quite quickly.

But even allowing for that to happen at towards the end of the committee stage, there's no way they're getting through this in the time that's been allowed. And of course, that's why, you know, Lord Falconer recognizes this. That's why he put a motion to the House last week for more time. But they've had debates and discussions with usual channels, the business managers, the government whips, and they've come up with a proposal initially at least, that they're gonna debate, as you say, an extra few hours on Friday.

So rather than finishing at three, they'll finish at 5 30, 6 o'clock, but that's not gonna be enough.

Mark D'Arcy: Well, Ruth, I'm afraid I'm gonna have to use the F word. This is a filibuster. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and tastes good in orange sauce, it's a duck. If they're [01:00:00] going this slowly over this piece of legislation, I'm afraid it's a filibuster. There is no other way to describe what's going on here. It may be in order. It may be within the rules of the house, but what's happening here is that a relatively small number of peers are putting down lots and lots of amendments and debating them very, very slowly. And if they continue doing that, this bill will be lost.

Now they're so against this bill, that I don't think there is any change that could be made to it that would make it acceptable to them. And to that extent, I think that the amendments that are being put down are there as a delaying tactic, not as an attempt to improve the bill. They don't think this bill can be improved.

They're utterly against the principle it embodies. They want to stop it. For that reason, they are perfectly entitled to have that view and they're operating within the rules of the House. The problem that faces those who support the bill is that they have to persuade peers to somehow curtail debate.

And one of the few strengths that individual peers have that they can bring to an [01:01:00] issue they care passionately about is to be able to debate them at length. So a lot of peers, even if they agree with the assisted dying bill, might be very reluctant to change the rules.

Ruth Fox: Yes. And I think even in the debate last week on Lord Falconer's motion for extra time, even peers who have real doubts about this bill, notably Baroness Butler Sloss, former high court judge, very respected in the House. She was making the point that peers, she didn't use these words, these are mine, but droning on, at length, duplicating speeches made earlier that they don't need to, you know, you don't need to say the same thing twice. And urging peers to debate the issues more quickly, to speed up, to not duplicate and so on.

So she clearly thought that some of what was happening was, was not appropriate, even if you're opposed to the bill. I think a second hint is what's gonna happen this Friday. Friday the 16th of January, the next committee stage. So before the committee stage of the assisted dying bill [01:02:00] resumes, there is a second reading debate on a private member's bill called The Rare Cancers Bill.

Now 20 peers have indicated they want to speak in that second reading debate. And if you look down the list, lo and behold, there are quite a number of names on there who are significant opponents of the assisted dying bill, and amongst that group of peers, Mark, that you mentioned, small group of peers who are laying all the amendments to it, particularly Baroness Tanny Grey Thompson, Baroness Finlay of Llandaf, and Baroness Therese Coffey.

Now, they may have legitimate interest in this bill. Baroness Finlay of Llandaf, for example, is a professor of palliative care. So you can see that there will be some interest in that bill, but I suspect some of them are seeing an opportunity as well to take up a fair bit of time tomorrow in the debate so that it's not available for the assisted dying bill in tomorrow's proceedings.

Mark D'Arcy: So if their Lordships sit at 10 o'clock in the morning and then spend five hours debating this [01:03:00] bill, the time available for the assisted dying bill will be from about three in the afternoon. So you might get three and a half hours in before their extended hours kick in, and they all knock off at six 30.

So you won't get vast amounts of progress in that time, and it's a perfectly legitimate bill to make plenty of extensive speeches on. What you are seeing is the pressure to deal with other legislation as well. The assisted dying legislation is not the only bill in front of the House of Lords. There are plenty of others that need to be dealt with.

Ruth Fox: Yeah.

Mark D'Arcy: And so, the pressures that will start to kick in if business managers try to allocate any extra time that might become available to the assisted dying bill. You'll see there are plenty of competing concerns out there who want a bit of that precious time as well.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. But I just wanted to push back a little bit on your argument about if there's a filibuster.

So you may well be right, but two things I would counter with is that one, the opponents of the bill I think are getting increasingly frustrated that they're not getting answers to [01:04:00] the questions, I think quite legitimate questions, including on constitutional matters and financial matters, but just not getting the answers from the minister.

I mean, there was one of the ministerial responses last week was just, I mean, it was painful to watch. And the government's taking the view we're neutral. We not answering on these questions, but at some point, members need an answer to some of these questions about how it's gonna work and the public needs an answer.

Mark D'Arcy: I don't dispute that at all for a start. The government needs to be able to answer questions on how the bill would operate because they're ones who are gonna have to operate it. And secondly, you know, there's a lot of discontent about, the way that certain authorities are being quoted by supporters of the bill as seeming to support what they say.

And those authorities are then issuing press releases saying, no, we didn't quite say that. And no, we don't actually mean what they said we meant. So there, there's a lot of dispute about the evidence that's being sort of induced in favour of the bill.

So there's a lot going on. I think maybe part of the reason that there is, I'm sorry, I'm gonna say it again, a [01:05:00] filibuster going on here is that the opponents of the bill are very, very angry at the way that the supporters of the bill have acted.

Ruth Fox: Yeah.

Mark D'Arcy: And that, that I'm afraid is show business. But what I'm boiling down to here is that unless there is a complete change in attitude here, and suddenly everybody miraculously becomes cooperative and whizzes this bill through, in its remaining debating days, this bill is gonna run aground, when the parliamentary session ends, when parliament's prorogued sometime in the middle of May, and the bill will then fall.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. Well, Lord Falconer has acknowledged that, that my second point about why, you know, I think the opponents have got some legitimate concerns, is that he acknowledged in the debate last week that he needs to do better at engaging with peers about the issues and about their questions. But he's also tried an effort to suggest that they ought to focus their scrutiny on 10 key issues as opposed to every word of the bill. And try and deal with those matters, those key matters first. I don't think that's gonna go anywhere. I completely [01:06:00] accept that for many of the opponents of the bill, there's nothing that could be changed about this bill that's gonna bring it into the realms of acceptability for them.

You know, their position is clear. One thing to look out for next week, I think, there's a legislative consent motion in the Welsh Senedd for the bill, and of course, the Welsh Senedd voted, was it, late 2024 against assisted dying when they had a vote on it to themselves. And this is Westminster now will be legislating to apply this bill, this assisted dying model, in Wales.

So it'll be interesting to see how that debate goes because the question of how it applies in Wales and the devolution questions of the early constitutional discussions that were disputed.

Mark D'Arcy: This is one of the problems with the bill, the constitutional dividing lines, if you like, the Welsh government is in charge of the health service in Wales, and the health service in Wales would presumably be the organization that would have to provide assisted dying services if this bill went through.

But the bill itself is concerned with stopping assisted dying being a criminal [01:07:00] matter. So it's actually a criminal law bill from the point of view of the government in Westminster. And criminal law is not a devolved issue that the the Welsh government deals with at all. That's one of the problems here.

One of the crosscurrents, if you want a

tangled web. But the question that follows, if this bill does indeed run aground and run outta time in May is what happens next? There will be a prorogation of Parliament. Parliament will be suspended, and then a gleaming new parliamentary session will begin with His Majesty coming to Westminster and reading out a new King's Speech and a new legislative program, et cetera.

And will assisted dying be an issue that comes again? Then will there be an attempt to get another private member's bill through? Perhaps on exactly the same lines as the Kim Leadbeater bill that the Commons passed, it seems an age ago now, or will the government perhaps decide that it wants to legislate itself?

And you've been looking Ruth, at how, if it is a private member's bill, this could actually be [01:08:00] forced through using the ultimate sort of parliamentary joker, the Parliament Act to allow the proposers of the bill to get their way if they managed to get a bill through the Commons.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, I mean that is being talked about in sort of campaign circles of both the proponents and the opponents of the bill.

Is it gonna be Parliament Acted? Is it possible to use these procedures, the Parliament Act? There's nothing that precludes it being used for private members, bill. But I think it's more difficult for it to be done by a backbench sponsor.

Well, it never

Mark D'Arcy: has been done.

Ruth Fox: No. Than for the government. So you know that, that, I think a pertinent question is if the unelected house allows it to run a ground and the elected House having voted for it at both second and third reading, does the government take the view that from democratic principle perspective, they will pick it up on behalf of the Commons and force it through via the Parliament Act?

Or if not, if politically they don't want to do that, it would then be left to be done through the private members' bill [01:09:00] procedure and that would require another sponsor of the bill. Because I can't imagine Kim Leadbeater is gonna drop lucky twice and win top in the ballot. But oddly, it has happened.

Mark D'Arcy: It has happened.

Oddly enough, John McDonnell, who's, you know, Jeremy Corbyn's, shadow Chancellor, way back in the day, once came top in the private members bill ballot two years running.

Ruth Fox: Yeah.

Mark D'Arcy: And could hardly believe his bad luck.

Ruth Fox: So yeah, it could be Kim, but I doubt it. You'd need another sponsor, but you'd also need another sponsor who's very high in the ballot.

Mark D'Arcy: Ideally first.

Ruth Fox: Ideally first. So the question is, who comes first? You know, are they proponent or opponent of assisted dying? Are they willing to take this on? And of course they will have looked at what's happened to Kim and the volume of work and also the attacks that have been made and will probably ask, you know, do I really want to take this on or not? But they're gonna come under immense pressure. But if it is, Parliament Acted, it can't follow the [01:10:00] same process that we had this session.

Mark D'Arcy: Well, there's all sorts of complexities involved here. I mean, first of all, this is the Parliament Act requires that basically a year apart, the House of Commons passes the same bill in the same form.

There's a tiny bit of wriggle room. You know, you don't necessarily have to have the same commencement date for a bill that's passed a year later than the first version. But broadly speaking, it has to be pretty much exactly the same bill. The difficulty there is that actually the supporters of this bill now don't want the same bill because they've agreed to changes in it that they say make the bill better and that the government thinks would make the bill a lot more workable.

So there's a difficulty there that there's actually a whole sort of roster of changes that they would like to make to their bill. And, squaring that circle is actually possible within the confines of the Parliament Act, but it requires a fair display of parliamentary gymnastics.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, so what we would have to have is the bill, whether it's a [01:11:00] private member's bill or indeed if it were picked up as a government bill, the bill would have to be put in and sent to the Lords in identical form in two successive sessions.

And effectively what there is though is this sort of new provision for what's called suggested amendments. So essentially, although the Commons would have to give the bill a second reading and win that vote, it would have to agree not to have a committee and a report stage because it can't amend the bill.

Because it can't then send it back in in identical form. So there's no committee and report stage. It would have to give it a third reading. But there's also this suggested amendment stage, which is not a formal legislative procedure. It's not about amending the bill, it's about passing motions to set out what kinds of amendments the Commons would be happy to accept so that it's kind of giving the Lords a steer as to what kind of changes it would be willing to accept to avoid [01:12:00] invoking the Parliament Act.

And persuade the Lords to make those changes. Agree those changes. And then the bill can go through. What would have to happen is you'd have to have a business motion. The government or the sponsor of the bill, however it's done, would have to put a business motion down.

Mark D'Arcy: That would have to be voted on.

Ruth Fox: That would have to be voted on. That would be amendable. You'd have to have agreement. So you'd have to win a second reading vote. You'd have to win a business motion vote. You'd also have to have individual votes, I think on every one of the motions for the proposed changes the House of Commons was willing to accept. Those will be amendable. You'd also have to have a money motion because the money resolution that was passed on this bill now in the current session will expire at the end of the session, but you'd also need the money resolution to effectively cover what other proposed changes you in this package that you're sending to the laws you would be willing to accept.

Mark D'Arcy: And that's an awful lot of votes to be organized by someone other than the government whips office.

Ruth Fox: [01:13:00] Yes. So it's tricky. It's not impossible, but it's tricky. And I think the, you know, the other element in all of this is, is what does the government have to sign off? So I've been looking at Office of Parliamentary Council guidance as you do, and, it suggests that these proposed amendments that would be sent to the Lords would need to be effectively signed off also by the Parliamentary Business and Legislation Committee.

The government's got a duty to the statute book. So it can't have motions being agreed that it doesn't think, or its lawyers don't think are right or appropriate. So there would have to, you know, there was quite a body of work to be done there. And ultimately it's for the speaker to determine, it's his discretion whether the conditions for invoking the Parliament Acts have been met.

And again, that could be challenged. It can't be challenged in court. But you know, there could be a motion put down by the opposition to the bill to say, look, we don't think the conditions have been met.

Mark D'Arcy: It could get very messy indeed. But let's clarify. One point though, which is the point of having the threat of the Parliament Act is to say to the House of [01:14:00] Lords that if you don't play ball.

Ruth Fox: Yep.

Mark D'Arcy: You'll get this bill as it left the House of Commons last time. So something more or less identical to the bill that Kim Leadbeater got through the House of Commons and then presumably afterwards there'd have to be some kind of tidying up Act to knock it into the right shape. But either you play ball with us or we'll legislate over your head and deal with the consequences of that a bit later on is the effect of saying we are in a position now to invoke the Parliament Act.

The Parliament Act's the big stick and people kind of imagine that there's some gigantic ritual where the clocks in full regalia gather under a blasted oak and call down the powers of darkness to invoke the Parliament Act. Actually, it's rather more simple. The speaker certifies and probably announces to the Commons that he has certified that thiss bill now comes under the Parliament Act and is therefore sent off to the sovereign to be signed. But it's quite a legislative blunt instrument.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, there's then the question of how politically this all happens at the start of a new session. Because if the government's not gonna pick it up, then a backbencher's got to pick it up in the private members [01:15:00] bill ballot.

You've gotta think about, is the government on board enough to do this? There's no point me giving up my legislative opportunity if the government's not completely on board with using the Parliament Act if necessary to do this. So you need assurances about that. The King's Speech is gonna follow very quickly after the local elections, we assume.

Current assumptions. We don't know politically what's gonna happen with the head of the government, the Prime Minister, as a result of those local elections. We've all heard the speculation about whether his position is safe or whether there'll be attempts to unseat him. At least one of the players, possibly several of the players in any potential leadership election.

Shabana Mahmood and Wes Streeting are names that have been touted, are opponents of the bill. So there's a quite a lot of complex politics at one level. The problem we've got in the Lords is sort of conversely the other way. We know what the Commons thought very early on because they had a second reading vote, so everybody knew what the MP's [01:16:00] positions were, and I think that helped persuade the opponents of the bill that they couldn't play silly procedural games and we're seeing the opposite in the Lords.

Mark D'Arcy: Well, the only indication we've really got in the Lords at the moment is that peers supported this motion to find the bill more time.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. But they did that on the nod. They didn't go on the division. They did it on the nod.

Mark D'Arcy: And there were people who were against the bill, but who didn't want to see it talked out.

Ruth Fox: Yeah.

Mark D'Arcy: Supporting that. So it's not a very, very clear indicator. People have been saying that an awful lot more people have spoken against the bill than have spoken for it in the House of Lords, but that is just not a reliable indicator at all.

All that says is that people who are in favour of the bill are not necessarily making speeches in great numbers because they know that they'll just take up more time and is essentially abet the filibuster.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. And a number of peers have have told me personally that they support the bill, but they're not participating in the proceedings.

They're not speaking in the debate because all that's doing is taking up time. So I know the campaigners opposed to the bill are making a big deal of [01:17:00] this with press releases every week, and some of the journalists are obviously eating it up, but it's not a great indicator of anything much at all.

Other than that the opponents of the bill are turning up and speaking, but we didn't have a second reading division, so we don't know. How the land lies and whether there is a majority for this bill or not. And that's one of the problems, I think because it means that it, it's hard, it's easier for the opponents of the bill to keep pushing if it was known at second reading that there was a majority in the House for it.

I think some of this, you call it filibustering, I'm perhaps not quite there yet to call it that, but some of the procedural things that are going on might not be happening quite the same way.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah. Meanwhile though, there is a manoeuvre that could be completed in the House of Commons that could smooth the way for the bill a little bit.

Maybe it'll be Kim Leadbeater, maybe it'll be somebody else, perhaps go to the backbench business committee and secure a motion to be debated in backbench time saying that, this House believes that the Parliament Act should [01:18:00] be invoked on this bill and try and essentially smooth the way, open the door for the procedure that you've been talking about to be invoked.

And then all you are waiting for is the private member's bill ballot, and to see whether there is in the first seven or so MPs on that ballot, someone who's gonna have sufficient priority to get this bill through.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. Well, I know my colleague Matthew England here at the Society has been thinking about that.

You know, how do you deal with the politics, the political problems at the start of the new session and whether or not somebody in the private member's bill ballot is willing to go forward with it, or whether the government should pick it up or if the government doesn't pick it up, how involved they might be, or should be in facilitating things to ensure that the bill can proceed and that that is one idea.

You need a kind of a, a statement at the start of the new session to make clear that the will of the House of Commons has not changed. They still want the bill.

Mark D'Arcy: If indeed it hasn't changed.

Ruth Fox: If indeed it hasn't changed. And that's the question, isn't it? Because we know that the third reading majority was smaller than the second [01:19:00] reading.

Not entirely unexpected, but it was smaller. Has there been more slippage? Are MPs simply sick of this, it's politically toxic, they don't wanna deal with it?

Mark D'Arcy: Or are they possibly thinking, hang on a minute, if this law passes, the first assisted deaths will be happening in the immediate run up to the next general election in all probability.

And that could make it an election issue in just the way you don't want.

Ruth Fox: Or conversely on the timings, it might not, it might be happening shortly after and then it's still a live election issue. And I think Mark, you've been reading up on what happened in the historically in these cases.

Mark D'Arcy: Well, they have often been attempts to make controversial private members bills rebound.

On MPs who put them. So for example, Sidney Silverman, the veteran Labour MP who got the death penalty abolished, he put private members bill after private members bill to the Commons until eventually he got hanging in a carefully chosen word suspended for five years. He faced a pro hanging candidate in the 1966 general election after his private members bill had [01:20:00] gone through.

And that pro hanging candidate was the uncle of one of the victims of the Moors murderers. So that was an incredibly emotive candidacy. He survived that. I mean, David Steele, who got the abortion legislation through faced an anti-abortion candidate in 1970, which was his tightest electoral squeak during his long parliamentary career.

That candidate didn't get very many votes, got 200 votes, but David Steele only won that election by 500 votes, so that could have hurt him. I mean, his view is that actually what really hurt him in that election was his opposition to the South African rugby tour that was due. Maybe that wasn't the big issue for him at the time, but there are attempts to do this and you know, maybe Kim Leadbeater might face an anti assisted dying candidate at the next election.

Maybe an MP who decides to pick up her private members bill in the next session could face a similar sort of threat. And given the electoral mathematics at the moment, who knows how potent that kind of threat might be.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, so [01:21:00] there's a lot of politics around this, let alone the procedures as to whether or not it actually would proceed in the next session and whether somebody's gonna pick it up, whether it's the government or a backbencher.

But I think your point about getting a sort of a quick and early statement on the record about the position of the House one way or the other. So that everybody knows whether there are grounds for proceeding or not. Could be useful, a useful way to unlock this. And the backbench business committee would be a way of doing it.

Whether the Backbench business committee would accept it and table it to for consideration and choose to allocate time for that, we'd have to see, they pretty much agree to allocate time for requests for debates, if there's enough evidence of cross party support to debate them, whether or not they'd just be able to provide the time in, you know, very early on in the session would be interesting.

But if that was Kim Leadbeater or somebody else, you'd know whether the majority was still there.

Mark D'Arcy: Yes. You certainly know the lie of the land staying with the House of Lords. 'cause we've been talking [01:22:00] quite a lot about that Lordship's activities in this. There is of course a new bottom on the wool sack.

Ruth Fox: Well, I'm sure Lord Forsyth, the winner of the Lords Speaker election will be thrilled to, uh, know that. So, yes, Conservative peer, Michael Forsyth, top class political operator, I think he's regarded as, by all sides of the House. He won. So there were. 680 peers who voted and, Lord Forsyth got 383 of their Lordship's votes and Baroness Bull, the Crossbench peer who was running, she got 297, so pretty decent majority, 86, and he takes office formally, his bottom will be on the woolsack, Mark, I think Monday, the 2nd of February, I think it is.

Mark D'Arcy: Succeeding, Lord McFall, John McFall, Labour peer and, former Chair of the Commons Treasury Select Committee amongst other roles. And, he will be quite an interesting person to have involved in the governance of Parliament.

Parliament has [01:23:00] a structure 'cause it's got two houses. There's a Speaker, there's a Lord Speaker. They each have committees around them and they have to kind of come together to decide cross parliamentary issues. Although the Commons is usually expected to have more weight in those discussions than the House of Lords.

The House of Lords is still a player and one suspects that Lord Forsyth might emerge as quite an opinionated player. If you listen back to the podcast we did of the House of Lords hustings between the two candidates, one thing was pretty clear. Lord Forsyth was pretty dissatisfied with the way that the governance of the House of Lords and Westminster wider than the House of Lords actually works at the moment.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, I mean it's interesting that the big dividing line between these two candidates, either of whom would been very good at the the job, but a big dividing line was that he's a much more political character and there were concerns about whether he was too political. He clearly overcame that hurdle, and it was very clear from the hosts and from other separate [01:24:00] conversations I've had with peers since that they are very dissatisfied with, as you say, the governance of the house. They're very dissatisfied with questions about, for example, security, this famous door, the peers' entrance door and security around it that's been put in, that isn't working. That's cost a lot of money, but nobody seems entirely sure how much. Questions about what's gonna happen with the restoration and renewal of Parliament. We are expecting the report on that. I was gonna say imminently, but it's always imminent.

Mark D'Arcy: It's been imminent for about three years.

Ruth Fox: I'm told it may not be far away and they want somebody who's basically gonna stand up for the House of Lords, but also have a real vision about how the governance of the house can be improved.

Now, a lot of these themes have come up at previous Lord Speakers hustings, you know, the diagnosis is not exactly

Mark D'Arcy: Controversial or unexpected.

Ruth Fox: But what the prescription is, and particularly what Lord Forsyth's prescription will be, I think was a little [01:25:00] less clear at the hustings.

But clearly people think that him being a much more canny political operator might be able to unlock things that others haven't. And you know, I think one of the factors is that some of them are hoping that he might stand up a bit more to the House of Commons and to the House of Commons speaker on some of these issues. The difficulty the Lords has often got is that the House of Commons usually pays when on these bicameral matters. The Commons usually pays more of the bills. So it counts. I think it'd be interesting to see what he does with the role going forward.

Mark D'Arcy: Absolutely. I mean, there's so many different issues floating around the House of Lords in which the Lord Speaker will be a voice.

Norman Fowler, the former Conservative, former health secretary, who was Lord Speaker for quite a long time, was very influential, for example, in deliberations about the size of the house and how to winnow down the vast numbers of peers to something that seemed a bit more acceptable and comfortable.

Ruth Fox: Yeah.

Mark D'Arcy: And, so Lord Forsyth, given that Lord's Reform is in the air will be an important voice on that.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, [01:26:00] and I should probably just say in the interest of transparency, that just before Christmas, the chair of the Hansard Society, Baroness Taylor of Bolton, was actually named as the chair of the new select committee to look at the question that has been raised about future Lords reform, retirement and participation in the House.

Whether or not there should be a retirement age, should they be leaving at 80, whether there should be participation level requirements to continue in the House. She has been put in charge of chairing the committee that's looking at this hot potato. So she's got

Mark D'Arcy: Hot potato, it's glowing white hot.

Ruth Fox: Yes. And of course, depending upon what happens with the legislation, but the expectation is of course, that the hereditary peers will depart the House at the end of this session. So May time. And will Lord Forsyth want to express publicly any of his thoughts on these issues. And another interesting factor for the Lords is that not only are they gonna have a new Lord Speaker, they're gonna have a new clerk of the Parliament. The most senior clerk. Which is for the [01:27:00] first time a woman, Chloe Mawsom. So it'd be interesting again, to see whether she brings something different to the role. You know, she sat through, saw the hustings, she heard what's been said, and will be no doubt alert to the need to be thinking about Peter's concerns about governance.

Mark D'Arcy: Because there are governance concerns.

It is not completely clear, for example, that the clerk of the parliaments has to do what the Lord Speaker tells them. There isn't a direct line of command, if you like, and maybe that's one of the things that needs to get established. It's who's in charge of who. And who does what who tells them.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. No doubt. That'll all come out in the wash, and we hope to get Lord Forsyth on the podcast to talk about these issues. It would be fun in the coming weeks.

Mark D'Arcy: In the meantime, that I think is all that we've got time for today. So join us again next week. Bye-bye.

Outro: See you soon. Bye.

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. [01:28:00] ← Back to Parliament Matters episode page