Parliament Matters

What role does Parliament play when the UK is involved in military action? In this week’s episode, we explore the evolving practice of parliamentary war powers, sparked by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s response to recent military developments in Iran and the Middle East, where defensive action was authorised before any Commons statement or vote.

We discuss the royal prerogative, the uncertain post-Iraq convention on parliamentary debate before offensive military action, and whether a meaningful distinction exists between defensive and offensive military action. We also examine new legislative attempts to codify Parliament’s role and the political and military realities that shape whether MPs get a say.

Plus, we discuss the long-running constitutional saga over hereditary peers, as the House of Lords prepares to consider Commons amendments to the Bill to oust the hereditaries at the end of this parliamentary Session. The Government has unexpectedly published a Ministerial Salaries (Amendment) Bill which would increase the number of paid ministers in the House of Lords. This may be linked to the amendment in the Hereditary Peers Bill originally proposed by the Conservative Peer, Lord True, that would prohibit future unpaid Ministers from being eligible for membership of the Upper House. It is possible that the ministerial salaries legislation is being synchronised to ease the passage of the Hereditary Peers Bill.

Along the way we also touch on MPs’ pay which is on track to top £100K by the end of the Parliament, staff funding tensions, defence estimates scrutiny, and what the Spring Statement tells us about the government’s economic direction.
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Parliament Matters is a Hansard Society production supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.

Presenters: Mark D’Arcy and Ruth Fox
Producer: Richard Townsend
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After the Greens’ triumph at the Gorton and Denton by-election we ponder the implications for Parliament. Could the result tempt more MPs to switch parties? Does this heap fresh pressure on the Prime Minister? Will party leaders need to rethink how they treat opponents whose backing they may need after the next election? And with the three largest parties in Parliament securing less than 30% per cent of the vote in the by-election between them, could it spark a move to introduce electoral reform?

As the controversy surrounding Peter Mandelson and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor rolls on, Conservative MP and former Security Minister Tom Tugendhat joins the podcast. He makes the case for a new parliamentary “super-committee” to investigate what went wrong, from the former Prince’s appointment as a trade envoy to Mandelson’s move to Washington, and to consider how better to protect the constitutional monarchy from future embarrassment.

Plus, Ruth and Mark can’t resist dissecting the extraordinary chain of events that saw Mr Speaker Hoyle and his Lords counterpart, Lord Forsyth, unexpectedly caught up in the arrest of Lord Mandelson.

And with the Chancellor’s Spring Statement due in the coming week, as well as a series of votes to authorise billions of pounds in public spending, a lot of senior MPs have serious concerns about where the money is going in a series of government departments. So will Ministers face tough questioning during the coming Estimates Day debates or will the money be quietly voted through? Watch this space.
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£ - Support the Hansard Society and this podcast by making a donation today.

Parliament Matters is a Hansard Society production supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.

Presenters: Mark D’Arcy and Ruth Fox
Producer: Richard Townsend

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why is Britain’s first female cabinet minister almost invisible in our political memory?

In this episode we are joined by historian and author Nan Sloane, whose new biography of Margaret Bondfield has just been published, to uncover the remarkable and largely forgotten story of this pioneering figure.

Bondfield – a working-class trade unionist – became the first woman to serve in the British Cabinet yet is rarely mentioned alongside figures such as Nancy Astor or Ellen Wilkinson.

She did not enter politics through the suffrage movement. Instead, she rose through the male-dominated trade union movement, often as the only woman in the room. Born into a large working-class family in Somerset, she left school at thirteen to work in shops where staff were legally treated as domestic servants and endured punishing conditions. Driven by a fierce commitment to social justice, she became a powerful organiser, accomplished public speaker and a leading national figure within the labour movement.

Elected to Parliament in 1923, she made history in 1929 when she was appointed Minister of Labour, becoming the first woman to serve in the Cabinet and the first female Privy Counsellor. But it was, as one colleague put it, the worst job in government. In the grip of a deep economic crisis, unemployment was soaring, the national insurance system was stretched to breaking point, and painful decisions had to be taken. By 1931 the crisis had split the Labour Party and brought down the Government. Bondfield lost her seat and never returned to Parliament.

Rather than being remembered as a trailblazer, her legacy was overshadowed by economic crisis and party division. Was she a pioneer, a pragmatist caught in impossible circumstances, or a woman judged more harshly than her male colleagues? In conversation with Nan Sloane, we explore Bondfield’s character, her relationships and international networks, and the political choices that shaped both her career and her reputation.

Nan Sloane, Margaret Bondfield: The life and times of Britain’s first Cabinet Minister (Bloomsbury Publishing)

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Parliament Matters is a Hansard Society production supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.

Presenters: Mark D’Arcy and Ruth Fox
Producer: Richard Townsend
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What happens when you lose the party whip? A conversation with Neil Duncan-Jordan MP

Labour MP Neil Duncan-Jordan joins us this week to reflect on his experience as one of the new intake’s most prominent rebels. He describes defying the whip over the means-testing of the Winter Fuel Allowance and proposed disability benefit cuts, the fallout from his suspension from the Parliamentary Labour Party, and the personal and political pressures that come with rebellion. He also discusses his relationship with the Whips and explains why he has twice called for Sir Keir Starmer to step down, most recently in the wake of the Mandelson affair.

In this week’s episode, we also assess Starmer’s increasingly fragile position following the Mandelson–Epstein controversy, examining the risk of further damaging disclosures about Mandelson’s contact with Ministers and the potential implications for the Government’s legislative programme. We untangle the constitutional confusion surrounding proposals to strip Peter Mandelson and other disgraced peers of their titles, exploring weaknesses in the House of Lords’ Code of Conduct, and the broader dangers of legislating in response to a single scandal.

Gordon Brown has called for sweeping “root and branch” standards reform – from a new anti-corruption commission to greater use of citizens’ juries on parliamentary standards and enhanced select committee scrutiny of ministerial and other public appointments. Ruth and Mark question whether such changes would genuinely rebuild public trust, pointing to nearly two decades of Hansard Society polling showing consistently low levels of trust in politicians and in the effectiveness of the political system. They also argue that the current focus on expelling disgraced Peers from the House of Lords misses a fundamental issue: the Prime Minister’s largely unchecked power to appoint them in the first place.

We return to the slow progress of the assisted dying bill in the House of Lords, where disagreement continues over whether the pace of debate reflects legitimate scrutiny or amounts to filibustering. Some MPs are calling for accelerated Lords reform in response – but would a wholly elected second chamber be more likely to block legislation rather than less?

Finally, we discuss two significant reports from the Procedure Committee: one recommending against the introduction of call lists for debates in the Commons Chamber, and another proposing changes to the way select committee chairs and deputy speakers are elected in the House of Commons.

🎓 Learn more using our resources for the issues mentioned in this episode.

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£ - Support the Hansard Society and this podcast by making a donation today.

Parliament Matters is a Hansard Society production supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.

Presenters: Mark D’Arcy and Ruth Fox
Producer: Richard Townsend
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It has been a bruising week for the Prime Minister after the House of Commons backed a Conservative “Humble Address” demanding documents on Sir Keir Starmer’s vetting of Lord Mandelson for the Washington Ambassadorship. We explain how the procedure works, what role the Intelligence and Security Committee may play in decisions on disclosure, and how legislation to strip a peerage could be introduced. Plus, the latest on the Restoration and Renewal of Parliament as yet another report lands with a new set of costings.
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🎓 Learn more using our resources for the issues mentioned in this episode.

❓ Send us your questions about Parliament:

✅ Subscribe to our newsletter.

📱 Follow us across social media @HansardSociety / @hansardsociety.bsky.social

£ - Support the Hansard Society and this podcast by making a donation today.

Parliament Matters is a Hansard Society production supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.

Presenters: Mark D’Arcy and Ruth Fox
Producer: Richard Townsend
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.