One year on: How is Parliament performing? - Parliament Matters podcast, Episode 100

News

One year on: How is Parliament performing? - Parliament Matters podcast, Episode 100

11 Jul 2025

In our 100th episode, we take stock of Parliament one year after the 2024 general election. With a fractured opposition, a dominant Labour government, and a House of Commons still governed by rules designed for a two-party system, how well is this new Parliament really functioning?

Please help us by completing our Listener Survey. It will only take a few minutes.

LISTEN

We examine the rise in political defections – is this the social media age at work, making it easier for MPs to leave their parties and harder for party leaders to keep control?

One year after the King’s Speech, we also explore how Keir Starmer’s government is echoing the habits of its predecessors – rushing through vague “skeleton bills” that grant ministers wide powers with little oversight. Meanwhile, MPs continue to be sidelined from properly scrutinising major international agreements, and Parliament still lacks a mechanism for keeping track of the UK’s evolving relationship with the EU.

This episode looks ahead at the challenges facing scrutiny and accountability as 10% budget cuts loom across the Commons. We reflect on the experiences of a new generation of MPs – many frustrated by outdated rules, creaking infrastructure, and a political culture badly in need of renewal.

Can the House of Commons modernise itself before crisis forces change? Plus: the assisted dying bill as a crash course in lawmaking for new MPs, and why Prime Minister’s Questions remains as theatrical – and infuriating – as ever.

← Back to Parliament Matters homepage

Listen on our YouTube channel (captioned)

Subscribe to our YouTube channel

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.

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 this week we are a hundred not out. This is the hundredth edition of this podcast.

Ruth Fox: So we thought we'd celebrate by looking back at the first year of this Parliament and of Keir Starmer's government.

Mark D'Arcy: And Ruth, the thing that really strikes me about the way this Parliament has had to work is the level of political fragmentation. This is not the traditional kind of bipolar Parliament where there's a government and then there's an opposition, and there are a few bit players scrambling around on the sidelines.

We have an absolutely [00:01:00] enormous government party in Labour, albeit elected on just a third of the vote and the quirk of the electoral system. There is something that's worth looking at. And then we have a unusually small Conservative opposition party, an unusually large third party in the Lib Dems, and then a collection of smaller parties whose numbers are going up and down like a yo-yo half the time with various sort of defections and movements between them.

You've got the Greens, you've got Reform, you've got the grouping around Jeremy Corbyn that may be about to coalesce into a sort of direct left wing challenger to the Labour Party. Then of course you've got the nationalist parties. There's the SNP and Plaid Cymru, and then you've got Northern Ireland parties as well.

So there's a galaxy of political alignments on the opposition benches, which is making the politics of this Parliament unusually complicated. Not least, of course, because this is all against the background of opinion polls, which show that Reform is now the lead party, even though it only has five [00:02:00] MPs in the chamber.

And that's just gone down to four.

Ruth Fox: Yes. I mean, that Reform is one of those parties that goes up and down as you say.

Mark D'Arcy: Reflecting their immigration policy. They didn't have a one in one out approach.

Full transcript →

Use the links below to subscribe to the Hansard Society's Parliament Matters podcast on your preferred app, or search for 'Parliament Matters' on whichever podcasting service you use. If you are unable to find our podcast, please email us here.

Apple

YouTube Podcasts

Spotify

More ways to subscribe

Parliament Matters homepage

Latest / Highlights

News / Parliament Matters Bulletin: What’s coming up in Parliament this week? 15-19 September 2025

Peers will vote on the assisted dying bill’s Second Reading, while MPs will question the new Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood MP and Lord Chancellor David Lammy MP. The Commons will debate the Employment Rights, English Devolution and Community Empowerment, and Sentencing Bills, as Peers examine the Planning and Infrastructure and Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bills. Committees will hear evidence on arms exports to Israel and the Online Safety Act. MPs will also debate an e-petition on SEND support and consider a Ten Minute Rule Bill on child poverty strategy, including removing the two-child limit for Universal Credit. The youngest minister in nearly two centuries will make his first appearance before a Select Committee. ❓ We value your thoughts. Please click here to let us know what you think of the Parliament Matters Bulletin in our reader survey.

News / Assisted dying bill - special series #16: The Bill makes its debut in the House of Lords - Parliament Matters podcast, Episode 106

As Peers embark on a marathon two-day Second Reading debate on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill – the measure that would legalise assisted dying in England and Wales – we are joined by former Clerk of the Parliaments, Sir David Beamish, to decode the drama. With more than two hundred members of the House of Lords lining up to speak, Sir David explains why, despite the intensity of the arguments, no one expects the Bill to be rejected at this stage. Instead, the real fight will come later, after Peers get into the clause-by-clause detail and see what defects can be remedied. Please help us by completing our Listener Survey. It will only take a few minutes.

Briefings / The assisted dying bill: A guide to the legislative process in the House of Lords

Having passed through the House of Commons, the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill - the Bill to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales - must now go through its legislative stages in the House of Lords. This guide explains the special procedures for legislation in the House of Lords, and for Private Members’ Bills in particular. It answers some frequently asked questions, including how Peers might block the Bill, and gives an explanation of each stage of the process, from Second to Third Reading.

Briefings / Delegated powers in the assisted dying bill: Issues for the attention of the House of Lords

Like many pieces of primary legislation, the assisted dying bill leaves much of the practical and policy detail to be worked out later by Ministers through regulations. After the Bill’s Second Reading in the House of Commons, we published a briefing which drew attention to two of its delegated powers. But since then the Bill has been heavily amended, prompting new questions: how have its delegated powers evolved, do these changes strengthen or weaken the approach to the delegation of ministerial power, and are further amendments needed and if so, why?

News / Is Parliament at the root of the country's problems? - Parliament Matters podcast, Episode 105

Does Parliament itself lie at the root of some of Britain’s political and economic difficulties? Lord Goodman argues that it does and so makes the case for urgent parliamentary reform. This week we also examine the implications of a Downing Street reshuffle that has created a “Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister,” raising new questions about accountability in the Commons. The discussion ranges from Angela Rayner’s uncertain position, Nigel Farage’s controversial US appearance, and the Greens’ leadership contest, to the growing use of artificial intelligence in parliamentary work. Please help us by completing our Listener Survey. It will only take a few minutes.