Indefensible? How Government told Parliament about the Strategic Defence Review

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Indefensible? How Government told Parliament about the Strategic Defence Review - Parliament Matters podcast, Episode 95

6 Jun 2025

In this episode, we explore why ministers keep bypassing Parliament to make major announcements to the media — and whether returning to the Despatch Box might help clarify their message. We unpack the Lords' uphill battle to protect creators’ rights in the Data Use and Access Bill, challenge claims that the Assisted Dying Bill lacks scrutiny, and examine early findings from a Speaker’s Conference on improving security for MPs, as threats and intimidation against politicians continue to rise.

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Another big Government announcement – and another row in the Commons row about why it wasn’t made to MPs first. We look at why ministers keep breaking their own Ministerial Code by choosing to make important announcements to the media instead of in the Chamber – and wonder whether, in a shifting media landscape, they might be less likely to muddle their message if they returned to delivering statements on major issues like their Strategic Defence Review from the Despatch Box.

The Lords vs the Tech Lords: the Data Use and Access Bill has become the focus of a prolonged tug-of-war between the House of Lords and the Commons. At the heart of the dispute is whether tech companies should be allowed to use content to train artificial intelligence systems without compensating the original creators. Peers in the Lords have repeatedly amended the bill to protect creators copyright by requiring payment and safeguards, only for the Government to reject those changes in the Commons. As the Lords look set to concede, Ruth and Mark explore what this clash reveals about the limits of the upper chamber’s influence — and the growing political weight of Big Tech.

Critics claim the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill hasn't had enough scrutiny. Armed with figures comparing the times spent debating other legislation, Ruth and Mark reject the claim that the Bill has been under-debated compared to other legislation. The problem, they argue, is that Westminster’s law-making processes are generally ineffective and badly in need of an upgrade.

A Speaker’s Conference is digging into how to improve security for MPs and candidates. Ninety six percent of MPs say they have personally experienced threatening behaviour during their time in office. But tackling political intimidation is anything but straightforward. Ruth and Mark unpack the Conference’s interim findings and recommendations — and explore where its spotlight will fall next.

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Resources

House Magazine, Ruth Fox and Matthew England, The assisted dying bill: Rushed and lacking scrutiny, or unfairly criticised?
Modernisation Committee, Access to the House of Commons and its Procedures, Ruth Fox, 10 June 2025
Speaker's Conference interim report on abuse and intimidation of MPs and election candidates

Transcript

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

[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.

[00:00:17] Ruth Fox: Welcome to Parliament Matters, the podcast about the institution at the heart of our democracy, Parliament itself. I'm Ruth Fox.

[00:00:24] Mark D'Arcy: And I'm Mark d'Arcy. Coming up this week,

[00:00:27] Ruth Fox: Indefensible? How the government told Parliament about its Strategic Defence Review

[00:00:32] Mark D'Arcy: The House of Lords versus the Tech Lords - a long running battle over AI and copyright goes into its fourth round this week.

[00:00:39] Ruth Fox: And 96% of MPs say they have personally experienced threatening behaviour since they began working as an MP.

[00:00:46] The Speaker's Conference asks what is to be done?

[00:00:57] Mark D'Arcy: What indeed, but we'll get onto that in just a moment. First of all, Ruth, let's talk about the somewhat chaotic launch of the government's big Strategic Defence Review. Ministers appeared to be live on all channels and indeed all radio programmes as well. Ministers were everywhere. Newspapers had been fully briefed, and then eventually the House of Commons got a chance to have a look at the contents of the Government's big rethink of the UK's defence priorities.

[00:01:22] And Mr. Speaker was not amused.

[00:01:24] Ruth Fox: He wasn't, he was pretty angry. So angry in fact that he called two Urgent Questions. One from the Shadow Leader of the House, Jesse Norman, on why were ministerial statements not being made to the House of Commons, and then another on future of the nuclear deterrent from the Chair of the Defence Committee in advance of the statement that was just about to be made by the Defence Secretary John Healey on ...

[00:01:46] Mark D'Arcy: Which one assumes would've covered that very point. But, uh, but it's, it is one of the few things the Speaker has to make life difficult for governments when they insist on, on doing this. And all Governments do insist, I'm afraid, on making their big announcements in ways that maximise their public impact. And they don't think that making those big announcements just in the House of Commons and then doing a publicity blitz after the event has anything like the same impact with public opinion, which is what they're trying to influence, especially when Governments are in a hard place as, yeah, as this one currently is.

[00:02:16] Ruth Fox: I think that there's some argument to that in terms of the communications and wanting to get out and through the newspaper. But the problem was clearly journalists over the weekend had had sight of it. There were stories trailed in the Sunday papers, which particularly annoyed the Speaker, and then it became clear that journalists had been effectively offered a sort of a lock in reading room to read the report, but some had already previously had it. There was then some suggestions that defence industry personnel, senior officials from defence contractors had had sight of it before MPs. That particularly annoyed the Speaker because he was concerned about things around market sensitivity and so on. And there is a principle at stake, and I think this is why it's possibly different for this announcement than it might be for some other announcements in that what we are talking about is not just any old policy, we're talking about A, the defence of the nation and B billions and billions and billions of pounds.

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