Hansard Society

• Paul Evans, Hybrid Bills and Parliament: History, procedure and controversies, Hansard Society blog, 15 October 2023

• Ruth Fox and Matthew England, HS2 fiasco: What does it mean for Parliament?, Hansard Society blog, 15 October 2023

UK Parliament

• Planning and Infrastructure Bill and supporting documents, 13 March 2025

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

[00:00:16] Ruth Fox: Welcome to Parliament Matters, the podcast about the institution at the heart of our democracy, Parliament itself. I'm Ruth Fox.

[00:00:23] Mark D'Arcy: And I'm Mark D'Arcy.

[00:00:24] Coming up in this week's edition.

[00:00:26] Ruth Fox: Catastrophic meltdown or little local difficulty? Will Reform's internal rows derail them? And what are the parliamentary implications?

[00:00:34] Mark D'Arcy: Bad news for bats and greater crested newts and all kinds of other protected creatures. The government's just published its Planning and Infrastructure Bill. Will it mean less protection for them and maybe more work for MPs?

[00:00:47] Ruth Fox: And we've been looking ahead. There are plenty of clouds on the horizon for the government whips on everything from social security cuts to relations with the European Union.

[00:00:56] Mark D'Arcy: And Ruth, just before we get into what you described just now as Reform's possible catastrophic meltdown or maybe local difficulty, just a reminder that if you're listening to this podcast in the hope of hearing about the assisted dying bill that's going through Parliament at the moment, we've actually got a special dedicated podcast looking at all the nuances of that process, all the twists and turns in the current Public Bill Committee.

[00:01:19] So look out for that in your podcast feed. It'll be there very soon. And in the meantime, Ruth, what about Reform?

[00:01:28] All sorts of shenanigans, a vast bust up between Nigel Farage and Rupert Lowe, one of the new MPs elected for Reform in Great Yarmouth last July. This has led already to the suspension of Rupert Lowe.

[00:01:40] He's not just lost the Reform whip, he's been told, apparently, that there's no way back for him. He, in turn, has been tweeting out requests for Nigel Farage to meet him for dinner so that they can iron out their differences and restore harmony by the time they get to the port and cigars. It's an incredibly messy bust up. And I think what it goes to is the internal culture, a problem that small parties in Parliament tend to have, that they aren't configured to manage personal or policy differences or some other kind of issue in the way that the bigger parties are. I suppose it's a generic problem, especially when you're a relatively new start-up, as reform is.

[00:02:19] Ruth Fox: Yes and of course remember Reform until very recently was essentially primarily owned by Nigel Farage.

[00:02:25] Mark D'Arcy: It was the Reform party Limited.

[00:02:26] Ruth Fox: Yes, um, so they're changing their constitution, they're sort of democratising and reorganising, which in itself is obviously likely to lead to fallout.

[00:02:34] But yeah, they're very small, these differences therefore magnified. You've got Lee Anderson really the only one of the group with any parliamentary experience, but he's somebody who's been in three political parties, he's their Chief Whip, but not perhaps an individual whose sort of, uh, approach to political life is designed to, uh, to calm things down.

[00:02:54] Mark D'Arcy: He's not exactly Mr Consensus, is he?

[00:02:56] Ruth Fox: No. Rupert Lowe, I mean, he's a businessman, I think it's an interesting question about the way in which businessmen who become politicians, become parliamentarians, actually find parliamentary and political life quite challenging, because that sort of executive direction that they're used to, getting things done and done quickly, it's a very different life in Parliament. And he's got limited political experience. He had a short spell as a member of the European Parliament, but I mean, a very different context. And, you know my thoughts on that Parliament.