• Is it a good idea to turn newly minted MPs straight into ministers in Keir Starmer's ministerial team?

• How can new MPs make an effective parliamentary career and avoid becoming court jesters?

• Who are the candidates for the upcoming election of deputy speakers?

• How will the allocation of select committee chairs be determined, and what is the significance of standing orders continuing from one parliament to the next without re-adoption?

• What happens to MPs who lose their seats in the general election, and how do they cope with the transition?

• What kind of support should be provided for MPs who lose their seats, and what improvements have been made in this area?

• What does the ritual of the state opening of Parliament mean, and is it time to move on from such traditions?

Hansard Society

• Back to Business: A guide to the start of the new Parliament (July 2024)

BBC Parliament

• Mark D'Arcy and Daniel Brittain practice the 'doffing' of caps undertaken by the Lords Commissioners at the election of the Speaker of the House of Commons and the prorogation of Parliament.

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

00:00:02:07 - 00:00:17:02 You're listening to Parliament Matters, a Hansard Society production, supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. Learn more at hansardsociety.org.uk. 00:00:17:04 - 00:00:36:15 Welcome to Parliament Matters, the podcast about the institution at the heart of our democracy, Parliament itself. I'm Ruth Fox and I'm Mark D'Arcy. Coming up this week, the cavalry will arrive. The fanfares will blare out. His Majesty will don his crown and take his throne in the House of Lords. But what does the ritual of state opening mean? 00:00:36:17 - 00:01:03:05 Is it maybe time to move on? Old stagers and complete newcomers. Keir Starmer's ministerial team contains some surprise names, but is it really a good idea to turn newly minted MPs straight into ministers? And the loneliness of the defeated MP. What happens to those cast out of Westminster by the voters? 00:01:03:07 - 00:01:23:23 Well, Ruth, it's not even a week on since the result of the general election crystallized, we saw the exit poll and realized that Keir Starmer was going to be the Prime Minister and Labour were going to form the next government. But it seems, though, that an awful lot has happened, even in the few days since everybody recovered from their Election Day hangovers. 00:01:24:03 - 00:01:46:12 Sir Keir Starmer has wasted no time in appointing a government that contains. As I said just now, a few surprises, really. There are some old stagers plucked back from whatever role they were performing before in public to lend a bit of experience to what is otherwise a pretty inexperienced ministerial team. People like Jacqui Smith, the former Home secretary who's been given a job in the Department for Education, for example. 00:01:46:17 - 00:02:07:02 There have been some outside figures, like Patrick Vallance, the former chief scientific adviser. He's now been made a minister and seems to have a brief in charge of policy around things like AI. There's a prisons expert in the shape of James Timpson. There are all kinds of new faces, some of whom were not there as part of Labour's frontbench team before. 00:02:07:08 - 00:02:26:06 But the biggest surprise of all is that counting five newly elected members of Parliament have gone straight in as ministers. And this is something that's incredibly rare, not least because it's almost always a good idea for an MP to be allowed to find their feet and learn how to function in Parliament before taking on responsibility as a minister of the Crown. 00:02:26:06 - 00:02:44:20 And Keir Starmer has gone straight past go. This time they're not collecting 200 pounds, they're collecting a ministerial red box instead. And a car. Yes. I mean, this is something obviously we talked about on the podcast last week when you were telling us the story about Harold Wilson, who'd done the same. He'd arrived in ministerial office in 1945.