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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. Coming up this week.

Ruth Fox: What, if anything, can Parliament do about Prince Andrew?

Mark D'Arcy: Is PMQs unfair to Nigel Farage?

Ruth Fox: And 75 years after the bombed out Chamber of the House of Commons was restored, the tangled tale of what happened to the architect's model of the new look home for MPs, which is now back on display in Parliament.

Mark D'Arcy: But first Parliament normally tiptoes around the royals, but the [00:01:00] case of Prince Andrew seems to have overridden their normal discretion.

Ruth Fox: Fresh revelations in the last week about Prince Andrew's alleged links with convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, are changing the terms of engagement. There's a bill to strip him of his titles from the MP for York, Rachael Maskell.

There's talk of a Public Accounts Committee inquiry into the lease he has with the Crown Estate for his home at Royal Lodge and Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey used Prime Minister's Questions this week to suggest that the Prince himself should be summoned before a select committee to give evidence.

Mark D'Arcy: But how realistic is any of this? What can Parliament do about Prince Andrew? We turn to Dr. Craig Prescott of Royal Holloway University of London, who's an expert on the constitutional and political aspects of the Royal Family and who's currently writing a book about the modern monarchy. And I began by asking him about the traditional restrictions Parliament has on debating the actions of the royals.

Dr Craig Prescott: You can't just generally in a question, just go and ask about an individual member of the Royal Family, but [00:02:00] it's possible to table a substantive motion and discuss a particular aspect of the monarchy or, or the Royal Family as, as MPs can on any matter really.

Mark D'Arcy: But Mr. Speaker would take a fairly dim view of someone getting up and in the course of just a random parliamentary question, say having a go at the activities of Prince Andrew or any other member of the Royal Family without any kind of notice of it.

Dr Craig Prescott: Yes, and I think we saw this at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday when Ed Davey did raise the issue of Prince Andrew, but he did so in a generic way looking at the Crown Estate and, and the leases that are issued by the Crown Estate to members of the Royal family. So we all knew what he was getting at but he did not talk about Prince Andrew directly.

Mark D'Arcy: So, and one's kind of sense is that, that there would've been some prior consultation with the Speaker's office to get the wording right and make sure he didn't trip over the protocol.

Dr Craig Prescott: I suspect so. I suspect there was a bit of thought went into that beforehand. His [00:03:00] question was very carefully phrased, so he obviously thought about that.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, I mean, Craig, to quote Erskine May, it says that, uh, unless the discussion in the chamber is based upon a substantive motion, drawn in proper terms, as you said, reflections must not be cast in debate upon the conduct of the Sovereign, the heir to the throne, or other members of the Royal Family.

Questions are allowed, however, on matters such as the cost to public funds of royal events and royal palaces. So hence the questions about Royal Lodge.

Dr Craig Prescott: Uh, yes, that seems absolutely right and this goes to generally how politicians deal with the Royal Family. Which is very much a hands-off approach. That if they can help it they tend not to want to get into this territory. And we've seen this with the government today, that primarily they've said this is an issue for the Royal Family, for Buckingham Palace. It's nothing to do with us. And we know that's not quite true, but that's what they're trying to say to avoid getting involved with this as much as they can.

Mark D'Arcy: [00:04:00] Well, those are the rules of the road, as it were, in the chambers of the Commons and the Lords. But there's also the committee system, and for example, the Public Accounts Committee has taken the opportunity to delve into royal finances at least a little bit.

Dr Craig Prescott: Yes, absolutely. And that goes to the fact that the Royal Family, the monarchy, does receive public money. The Sovereign Grant Act 2011 spells out that a sum equivalent to a percentage of the profits from the Crown Estate go from the Treasury to Buckingham Palace, and so it's perfectly legitimate for the relevant committees to look into and scrutinise the royal finances. It's also the case the Crown Estate is again legitimate for committees to consider. The National Audit Office have done so as well, particularly in relation to leases that have been agreed with members of the Royal Family.

So where there's public money, there's always scrutiny, and the Royal Family is no different in that respect.

Ruth Fox: As I understand it, Mark, as we are recording, the Public [00:05:00] Accounts Committee is meeting to consider whether or not it should conduct an inquiry into this lease for Royal Lodge and what hold Prince Andrew has on, on the property, um, which he leases from the Crown Estates, but for a peppercorn rent.

It's become clear in the last few days, journalists have got hold of a, a, a copy of the lease through Freedom of Information, remarkably quickly apparently. And it's come to light that it's a peppercorn rent. But actually, I mean, I think some of the criticism of this in the, in the media has been a little bit unfair because when they talk about peppercorn rent, they leave out the fact that he had to pay something in the region of eight and a half million pounds up front for repair of Royal Lodge when he took on the lease.

And he's got ongoing obligations. Now the big question is, how is he going to pay for those now? But the lease is, is rather more complicated than perhaps the media have suggested.

Dr Craig Prescott: Uh, yes, I would agree. And I think you have to remember it is for 75 years, and as, as I understand it, he can only assign that lease to Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie.

So it, it's, it's not [00:06:00] as if it's like a typical lease that he could, if he wanted to sell on in the open market. And indeed, the Crown Estate when granting this lease to Prince Andrew in 2002 said that they couldn't do this on the open market because it's in the middle of the Great Windsor Park. The Crown Estate are obliged to keep the Great Windsor Park as a royal park for and for other people to use in the area and, and to maintain the character of Great Windsor Park. So they couldn't go onto the open market and say, lease it to a hotel company and turn Royal Lodge into a hotel or something. And so this was a way of getting Royal Lodge back into shape without it costing the taxpayer any money at the time. You know, I think aspects of this have been misunderstood.

Mark D'Arcy: Now, this is one of the ways in which Parliament can get involved in the Prince Andrew affair. There are several others. They can, for example, be a drive to remove his titles as Duke of York. I don't know if they [00:07:00] can remove the title of Prince, could they remove the title of Counsellor of State? There are a whole series of titles that Prince Andrew holds.

Uh, can Parliament get involved in trying to take those away? Or is it all a matter for the King?

Dr Craig Prescott: In principle Parliament can do anything, and that does include removing whatever titles have been granted to Prince Andrew or anyone else. In theory, the. Dukedom of York and his other Peerages - the Earldom of Inverness and the Northern Ireland title, Baron Killyleagh. You know, they have to be removed by an Act of Parliament. Similarly, his role as a Counsellor of State is under the Regency Acts 1937 to 1953, and so that can only be changed by another Act of Parliament amending that legislation.

Mark D'Arcy: What is a Counsellor of State?

Dr Craig Prescott: So Counsellor of State is a member of the Royal Family who steps in for the King if he's unavailable due to being overseas [00:08:00] or due to illness. Letters Patent are drawn up appointing Counsellors of State under the Act and they can deputise for the King on almost all matters. Although there are certain constitutional things that Counsellors of State cannot do.

Mark D'Arcy: Could Counsellors of State, for example, deputise for the King and give Royal Assent to legislation?

Dr Craig Prescott: Yes, they can. And there are examples of that happening. The Queen Mother and Princess Margaret did that in the sixties and seventies. You need two Counsellor of State to act. So essentially two Counsellors equal one King effectively. And the issue has been that of course we've had members of the royal family step back and not undertake public duties. And so when the King succeeded to the throne, the Counsellors of State would be Prince William; Prince Andrew, who by that point was not conducting public duties; Prince Harry, who by that point, was not conducting public duties; and Princess Beatrice [00:09:00] who never conducted public duties.

And given that you needed two to act, there was a problem there. And they resolved this by passing the Counsellor of State Act 2022, which by name added Princess Anne and Prince Edward to the pool of Counsellors of State to get around that problem. So Prince Harry and Prince Andrew were still, at least on paper Counsellors of State. But if they're ever needed, they wouldn't need to act. It would be two of Prince William, Prince Edward, and Princess Anne.

Mark D'Arcy: And that piece of legislation was quite carefully drawn so that, uh, it was made very difficult for parliamentarians to weigh into the various disputes around Prince Andrew and indeed Prince Harry.

Dr Craig Prescott: Yes. And this shows you how Parliament and the monarchy relate to each other, that the, the instigation for the legislation was, uh, a message being sent by the King via the government to say, this is something I want to do.

And then the Commons and the Lords responded with a Humble [00:10:00] Address saying, yes, we agree to this, and will provide such measures as may appear necessary or expedient for securing the purpose set out by His Majesty in his message. And then when the legislation was introduced into the House of Lords, Lord True said that the purpose behind this legislation is to do what the King asked for.

And so in a sense, limiting the purpose of the bill. This was also in the short title of the Act to say this is only adding to the pool of Counsellors of State.

Mark D'Arcy: And not subtracting.

Dr Craig Prescott: Absolutely. And so not being able to remove anyone as a Counsellor of State. So an amendment to remove Prince Andrew as a Counsellor of State, or Prince Harry, which might have been, what some people might have wanted at the time, could have been ruled out of the scope of the bill.

And so out of order. And so you can just say how all this is, is carefully controlled by the government and the Palace. And so this even [00:11:00] extends to when they timetable the legislation to me. Because the, in the Commons, it went through all its stages on a Thursday afternoon, which is when most MPs are returning to their constituency.

And so it's, it's hardly parliamentary prime time. That again, is a way in which they can just control and, and, and take some of the air out of this. If you are an MP, do you intervene on this arcane piece of legislation or do you go back to your constituency and do constituency work? And most will choose the latter.

Ruth Fox: This question about they were acting on what the King wanted. And of course, you know the King didn't want to take off members of the Royal Family, you know, his brother and his son from the list of Counsellors of State, but they clearly needed to add others. But there is now this broader question that Prince Andrew's behavior and conduct brings to light, and we should say, of course, he denies the allegations. But there are questions about how he's behaved. He's voluntarily relinquished use of his titles. But MPs have not focused much on the role [00:12:00] of, of, of him being a State Counsellor much in the discussions this week. But I do think they're quite important because as you say, it's unlikely that he would ever be called upon, but not impossible because he's still on the list.

And the power that comes with that is, you know, he can, a State Counsellor can dissolve Parliament on the instruction of the King. Queen Elizabeth, the Queen, Mother and Princess Margaret in 1974, they dissolved Parliament at the request of the Queen on the request of, uh, from, from the Prime Minister Edward Heath, because the Queen was away in, in New Zealand.

One of the few things they, they can't do is appoint the Prime Minister, but you know, they, they can sign treaties, they can, as you said, sign legislation. So, although he may never be called upon to act symbolically, he's still on the list to do so. And in terms of the titles and things that perhaps could be withdrawn, seems to me there's a, a big gap there in the discussion about, about the role of a State Counsellor.

But in terms of the other titles, HRH or his [00:13:00] princely title that doesn't require legislation, does it?

Dr Craig Prescott: My view is that it doesn't require legislation. These are granted via Letters Patent. Who is a Prince or a Princess and who is HRH is spelled out primarily under Letters Patent issued by George V in 1917.

Ruth Fox: And just for the benefit of our listeners, Craig, what is a Letters Patent?

Dr Craig Prescott: A Letters Patent you might describe as a legal instrument issued by the Crown expressing the Royal will. It's not legislation, it's not secondary legislation. And these are essentially, certain matters of the prerogative such as titles, can be issued via Letters Patent.

Mark D'Arcy: So when you're ennobled and sent off to the House of Lords, it's via Letters Patent.

Dr Craig Prescott: Yes. And some bits of legislation provide for things to be done via Letters Patent. It's just another sort of legal instrument that we have. It's a very special and unique type of legal instrument in some ways.

Ruth Fox: And presumably there's [00:14:00] precedent here because the Queen, the late Queen, removed the title of HRH from Princess Diana on her divorce.

So if the King was minded to remove the titles or was under pressure to do so, he could do that of his own volition?

Dr Craig Prescott: Uh, yes he could. It's interesting that in 1996 when Elizabeth II did that, it was, it was expressed in the general. So it was, if you were a former wife of a Prince, then you were no longer entitled to be called HRH.

And so clearly that applied to Diana, and we all know the situation. So it would be interesting to see whether he could do it in the specific, so to speak, and remove the title only from the Duke of York, or find some formula by which you can remove the title from him, HRH status and his princely status.

Ruth Fox: And then the Dukedom of York that would, as you said earlier, require legislation. And obviously there's quite a lot of pressure, not least from people in York who are not very happy that, that he has this title. And, the MP [00:15:00] for York, Rachael Maskell, has brought forward a presentation bill this week. In fact, she, she's brought it in a previous session, but she's, she's now refreshed it and tabled it for the House to remove the titles.

Again, there's precedent here as well isn't there, but you have to go back to the first World War.

Dr Craig Prescott: Yes, you go back to the Titles Deprivation Act 1917. This was enacted in the context of the First World War. There were effectively British princes holding other British titles, including a a Dukedom and HRH status, that sided with the Germans during World War One.

And eventually, Parliament thought, well, this is untenable. And so a process was enacted to allow those titles to be removed. Effectively a committee of the Privy Council was set up to investigate, and then there was a list of names presented to Parliament, and then the King eventually signed the necessary order to remove the titles from those four German nobles really. Three were [00:16:00] Princes. One was just a mere Viscount if my memory's right,

Mark D'Arcy: And that mechanism could, I suppose, be dusted off now and brought into use if they wanted to do that.

Dr Craig Prescott: It would require legislation to change the 1917 Act because that was enacted for those specific circumstances.

Ruth Fox: Well, that's what, Mark, Rachael Maskell's bill does.

I mean, essentially it, it's the same model Removal of Titles Bill, which would enable the King to remove any title either on his own initiative or following a recommendation of a Joint Committee of Parliament, so not a committee of the Privy Council, a joint Committee of Parliament, or at the request of the person who holds the title. Step forward, Andrew.

But it's a form of Private Bill. So, and presentation bills are very difficult to get on the statute book if the government is not in support of them. So it's a symbolic gesture at this point. As the MP for York, she may be hoping to garner and build support for it. And it would obviously be a vehicle if the pressure builds and the government and indeed the Palace decide actually it's necessary.

But at the moment, the prospects [00:17:00] of it becoming law, unless the government's position changes, seems seem quite remote.

Dr Craig Prescott: Yes, and and the other thing to mention when we are talking about peerages is that Prince Andrew can't disclaim his peerage under the Peerage Act 1963 because that's only if you succeed to a hereditary peerage rather than being the first holder of a hereditary peerage.

Mark D'Arcy: So he can't do the Tony Benn gambit, so to speak?

Dr Craig Prescott: No, he can't do that. Because that's outside the scope of that legislation.

Mark D'Arcy: And what about the succession? Prince Andrew is now some way down the pecking order for succeeding to the throne. But in circumstances where there'd been some kind of asteroid impact on a royal residence, wiping out everybody else, and he was the most senior surviving member of the Royal Family, he would still be King.

Dr Craig Prescott: Yes, he's still eighth in the line of succession and, and so if the worst happened and the other seven were no longer here, then he would be King. But to change that is perhaps the most difficult thing of all, because not only does it require legislation here in the uk, it [00:18:00] requires at least the approval and in some of the countries legislation, because the King is also the King of 14 other countries.

And so they would have to approve it at the very least, or legislation would need to be passed by their parliaments.

Mark D'Arcy: And no one's been barred from the line of succession since, I dunno, the old pretender King James II's son back in 1688 or whenever it was.

Dr Craig Prescott: Yes. Although you might technically say any sons or daughters that Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson ever had, would not have been in the line of succession.

So it was a removal of Edward VIII and any of his issue, although in the event they didn't have any children. And I think there's a lot of discussion about certain things being too difficult here and removing him from the line of succession is definitely in the too difficult box. I don't think that's something anyone wants to open.

But in a sense, removing his titles is easier. It does require a, perhaps a relatively short Act of Parliament.

Ruth Fox: I suppose from the the government's [00:19:00] perspective, the risk is that once you put your bill into, uh, the House. It can be amended and there is this sort of risk, I think that they are alert to, that an amendment might be able to widen the scope of the bill so that it doesn't apply to just Prince Andrew, but you might capture others.

So for example, I mean, I think Stephen Flynn, the, uh, the SMP MP has called on the, the government to take legislative steps to remove the Dukedom, but there's also been intimations that perhaps you might also consider removing peerages from people like Peter Mandelson, who of course has also been part of this, this terrible Epstein saga, and, uh, was sacked as the Ambassador to Washington just a few weeks ago.

That's one issue. The response from the Palace seems to be that they don't want Parliament to have to spend legislative time on this. That's nice and considerate and courteous. But I mean, in practical terms, they wouldn't have to spend much legislative time on this. It certainly wouldn't be a bother for the Commons at the moment. I think they could carve out the time quite easily. It might be slightly more pressured in, in, in the House of Lords, but that, that seems to [00:20:00] be the current position.

Dr Craig Prescott: Uh, yes. And if we go back to the Counsellor of State Act in 2022, this was a very short piece of legislation, but it took the House of Lords Second Reading 58 minutes; in Committee stage, 32 minutes the day after with no amendments, so no time on Report or Third Reading.

And in the Commons it was even shorter. They went through all its stages on that Thursday afternoon and it took about 40 minutes or so. So yes, there is an issue of parliamentary time, but it doesn't have to take that long. Although maybe, uh, legislation about Prince Andrew might be more controversial and more MPs might want to get involved. But the whips are there for a reason, aren't they?

Mark D'Arcy: And just as a final thought, really there, there is a more than a whiff of displacement activity about this, that this is, this is quite an easy issue for MPs to get exercised about and get a bit of profile on. And while the Epstein affair is very serious, and I'm not for a moment minimising the importance of [00:21:00] dealing properly with these questions, it does seem to me that a lot of people are finding this a pretty easy soapbox to climb on.

Dr Craig Prescott: Yes, perhaps it, it's something where clearly everyone has an opinion about Prince Andrew. You know, this is something which is very high profile. There's always intense media interest in anything to do with the monarchy, really. And particularly when there's a scandal as serious as this. And so inevitably, MPs want to have their time in the limelight as well on, on this issue.

And it's something that people tend to agree on, I think, that perhaps something needs to be done about Prince Andrew. You know, why not join that bandwagon in some ways.

Ruth Fox: I understand what you're saying, Mark, but I, I slightly disagree because I, I think there are some constitutional issues at stake here, but there's also a moral question about somebody who's in the line of succession, somebody who's got these titles, somebody who's a Counsellor of State.

But for me, what's led to a lot of this sort of, uproar [00:22:00] -reemerging again in, in, in the last couple of weeks is the fact that he appears through the emergence of these emails with Jeffrey Epstein, he appears to have lied on the Newsnight interview and subsequently, and that is one of the things that always gets people in public life.

If you lie to the public, if you lie to perhaps members of his own family, if you lie to the media, it will come back and bite you in the end.

Dr Craig Prescott: Yes, absolutely. And this seems to have been the straw that broke the camel's back, that there have been other controversies about Prince Andrew. You know, the issue with the Chinese spy, where he gets his money from, his business interest, his time as trade envoy.

You know, this seems to have just reached a crescendo where we've just reached a tipping point and there's a sense that something must be done about this. And there are those constitutional implications to all this that MPs need to consider. And there is a sense perhaps that the Palace are only going so far.

And there's a [00:23:00] disjuncture because maybe Parliament wants to go further. And that is really the tension and the government is effectively playing piggy in the middle between the two and is trying to find a, a way through this. And I think it, it's wait and see what the Palace do, wait and see how much of a head of steam this gets in Parliament.

Ruth Fox: I mean, one of the big questions that I've been asked by the media a lot this week is, if a select committee decides that they want to look at this and there's some intimations that they might, would he ever be called to give evidence? And if he was, if he declined, what would they then do? Would they summon him to appear?

I mean, there are big risks there as you know, Mark for, for select committees that, uh, you know, theoretically they, they, of course they can issue the, the summons for somebody to appear. But as we've seen through recent history, that's no guarantee that the person will appear. Some will under pressure like that, but others will not.

And, um, it risks showing that a select committee could be potentially a bit toothless in the end if he didn't appear.

Mark D'Arcy: I can call [00:24:00] spirits from the vastly deep, but will they come?

Dr Craig Prescott: Yes. Absolutely. It's, it's, goodness me, the thought of Prince Andrew before a select committee is mind blowing. Mind blowing, really?

It's, it's, you know, I suppose in a serious sense it would be only the King who is protected, that you would not imagine could be brought before a select committees as he's part of Parliament. But yes, I suppose in theory there's no specific protection for Prince Andrew, but the practice might be something else.

Ruth Fox: Well, one, one theory is of course, he's, he was a Peer, a hereditary Peer, and of course was, uh, one of the excluded hereditary peerages, one, when the House of Lords was reformed. Peers cannot be required to appear before select committees, but the question of whether an excluded, hereditary Peer can be required to appear before select committees has, as, as far as I'm aware, never actually been tested.

Dr Craig Prescott: Oh, that's very, very interesting. It's sort of like, I think people forget sometimes that the Dukedom of York and his other peerages are like ordinary peerages in that sense. And that peerage law [00:25:00] applies to Prince Andrew, like it does any other Peer.

Mark D'Arcy: Oh, that's quite a thicket there. That, uh, all parties are going to have to navigate their way through.

Craig Prescott. Thanks very much indeed for joining us on Parliament Matters.

Dr Craig Prescott: Thank you. It's good to join you

Ruth Fox: Well, Mark, that was really interesting, but, uh, quite heavy. So I think, it's tine for a break. Lets come back and talk about Nigel Farage and Prime Minister's Questions.

So we're back and, uh, his party may be topping the opinion polls, but Nigel Farage as leader of the joint, fifth largest party in the House of Commons, doesn't get much of a look in at debates and questions in the chamber even when the other parties are having a go at him. This week, he rather grumpily retreated to the public gallery to watch PMQs complaining that he is never given a right of reply to the attacks that are made on him.

So Mark, do you think he has a point?

Mark D'Arcy: Well, yes and no. Um, sorry, this is a classic Sir Humphrey answer here, but there has always been a tradition in, [00:26:00] particularly Prime Minister's Question time, of kind of drive by shootings on people who don't get an automatic right of reply. And it used to happen a lot to the Lib Dems.

It used to happen a lot to the SNP, and now it's happening to Nigel Farage. And part of me says, well suck it up. That's the way it is in the House of Commons. PMQs is structured around essentially a clash between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition with a third party getting a little bit of a word in edgeways, and then random backbenches asking questions, which may be to elicit information or which may be to goad the Prime Minister.

And in all of those, you know, as I say, Keir Starmer and indeed Kemi Badenoch have been taking an occasional jab at Nigel Farage, who, because he isn't on the list of questioners and most weeks doesn't have a guaranteed question as a party leader, doesn't get a chance to reply. And that showbiz, that's the way it is in the House of Commons. That's the way its rules work.

Another part of me says, well, you can take a bit of initiative. It would be possible for Nigel Farage or one of his [00:27:00] other MPs to, for example, raise a Point of Order at the end of Prime Minister's Question time. Lots of people pursue things that have been said in PMQs with a Point of Order after the event.

He could get up or Lee Anderson, his chief whip could get up, or Richard Tice, his deputy leader or whoever could get up and say "someone heroically took a pop at our leader when he wasn't able to reply and said X, Y, and Z about him. Mr. Speaker, is there a way in which I can set the record straight and correct the manifest inaccuracies in what they were saying so heroically when they knew that reply wasn't possible. And the Speaker would probably rumble slightly and say, well, I'm sure everyone will have heard what you said and that would've been that.

Ruth Fox: Hmm, I agree with that. I think in terms of strategy, a consistent policy of a Reform MP or Farage himself standing up and making points of order, first of all puts the pressure on the Speaker, but also is a very visible response to what's happening and the sort of the attacks that are being made.

Mark D'Arcy: And, and as a Today in Parliament veteran, I could also add that if we were covering Prime Minister's Question time and someone had said something nasty about Nigel [00:28:00] Farage and he hadn't been able to respond in the context of PMQs, but had said something shortly afterwards, we'd certainly have felt obliged to put it in there..

So the broadcasters, I think, would've had a response that they could then put next to it and people wouldn't really have been that bothered about the niceties of whether it was said in the context of question time, or just afterwards.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. 'cause I mean, this is not the same, and it's not a direct analogy, but I mean, if you remember the uproar when Diane Abbott was attacked at Prime Minister's Questions and didn't get a right of reply, and there was, you know, fairly considerable uproar about that and a lot of a dissatisfaction.

The problem here, and it's a, it's a product of the particular nature of where politics is at the moment, is that you've got a fragmentation of the electorate. You've got fragmentation of party representation, you've got more smaller parties represented in the House of Commons who are not getting a look in either to any great extent.

And from Nigel Farage's perspective, there's this disjuncture between riding high in the polls and getting an awful lot of press attention. But in the House of Commons Chamber being one of just a number of other [00:29:00] small party leaders who don't get the focus. I mean, he, he, you know, he tweeted on Wednesday as he headed off to the public gallery that, um, he's just a mere spectator at PMQs.

Well, I'm afraid that's what minor party leaders are in the chamber because the House operates and the procedures are built around essentially the two party system. Yeah. And we are not there anymore. Exactly. But there's been suggestions that, for example, he ought to get more questions because he is riding high in the polls.

But I mean, that's not a sustainable, basis for, for operating,

Mark D'Arcy: I'd be intrigued to see how that could operate. I mean, is the Speaker expected to give a kind of rolling average of the opinion polls, and while Reform are doing well, Nigel Farage got extra questions. But suppose the polls changed and it was Jeremy Corbyn doing very well, or if it was the Greens doing very well, would they somehow then move in and take over?

Otherwise privileging a party riding high in the polls now over parties which have the same number or more MPs is, is a recipe for lots of protests from all sorts of other people. I mean, the DUP have [00:30:00] the same number of MPs as Reform. They would presumably feel fairly miffed if Reform was privileged over them.

The Lib Dems with an awful lot more MPs than Reform would probably feel quite annoyed. Certainly the SNP would, there are whole groups of people who would feel that they were somehow being discriminated against if Nigel Farage was given some special deal because of the polling position of his party now.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, I mean this is kind of the reverse of Ed Davey's problem with the media, isn't it? Nigel Farage gets all the media coverage, soaks it up. You know, lots more coverage historically than his share in the polls in the past would've warranted, and certainly his seats in the House of Commons warrant.

You know, there's an argument now riding high in the polls, it's more justified. But in contrast, Ed Davey, lots of MPs, done incredibly well at a general election, but can barely get any media coverage at all.

Mark D'Arcy: Can only get covered when he puts on a clown suit, essentially.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's not a sustainable situation.

I mean, Theo Bertram, the, uh, former special advisor to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, now Director of the Social Market Foundation, has written a piece for House Magazine [00:31:00] suggesting exactly this, that he should get more questions because he's doing well in the polls. And actually, you know, Labour should want to do this because it, it's a way in which Farage can be put under the microscope and Reform can be put under the microscope and can be scrutinised.

But that's not the purpose of PMQs. And, you know, how would you determine, what is it, is it the average of polls that determines how many questions are allocated? Which polling companies are legitimate and which are not. Is it only polls that are signed up to the British Polling Council? What happens when you know the numbers subside?

The House of Commons procedures have to operate on the basis of the number of MPs represented in the House. There is an argument actually the, the Official Opposition, the Conservatives, have a disproportionate share of the rights in the chamber. But in practice, if that were adjusted to be more proportionate, it wouldn't actually be Nigel Farage that would be the beneficiary and Reform. It would be the Liberal Democrats.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, this is one of the problems and the, the whole system is structured essentially around two big [00:32:00] parties and a few bit players. And when it's no longer like that in politics and it isn't any longer like that in politics, I mean, the latest poll had four or five parties grouped between 15% and 25% shares of the vote.

That's a very, very difficult thing for Parliament to absorb. And I, and I think it highlights a longer term problem that unless the British political system kind of defaults back to factory settings, and there are two big parties again, after the next election, you're going to be trying to operate multi-party politics through a system devised for two party politics and it won't work and there will be uproar and all sorts of difficulties will emerge.

And people in Parliament I think need to be thinking about how to change the system. In one sense, I think Nigel Farage is right. He does get a bad deal, but there are parliamentary avenues he can pursue to correct things, as he will see it, that are said about him and to fight back. And maybe it's because most of his team are not very used to Parliament, not very adapted to it, apart from Lee Anderson, none have been MPs before. I suppose Danny Kruger the Conservative defector [00:33:00] recently joined them. Um, maybe they just haven't thought of this, but they do need to use the channels that are available to them and a bit of gorilla fighting through the machinery of Parliament would do them no harm at all.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, we started thinking about this after the, uh, the general election result came out. Our procedural guru, Mark, Mr. Paul Evans, former Clerk in the House of Commons, former principal clerk of select committees, he did a, a blog post for us that was well received, um, looking at, you know, the implications of the fragmentation of party politics on House procedures.

And the Official Opposition traditionally, historically would get something in the region of 70 to 74% of the back bench seats in the, in the House after a general election. In this Parliament, it's just 53%. And, and of course we've had a few defections, so it'll be slightly different now, but, you know, marginally, but you know, that's a big difference.

And, and for the Conservatives to be walking away with the lion's share of, of the rights doesn't seem entirely fair now. But how those opportunities would be reallocated amongst multiple [00:34:00] parties, I suspect Nigel Farage wouldn't be satisfied with that either in terms of what the outcome would be, because they'd be shared proportionately amongst parties that are either bigger in terms of the number of MPs they've got or are of similar size to his.

Mark D'Arcy: And I think it might be wise for the Conservatives to think a bit about this because if the current polls are to be believed, their Commons position after the next election could be rather weak and maybe they ought to be thinking in terms of how do we make sure smaller parties, of whom we may be one quite soon, continue to get a share of the procedural pie in Parliament.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, and I think one area where, um, possibly Nigel Farage does have a case is on the representation of Reform MPs on committees. You know, legislative committees, they don't get much of a look in either. And certainly compare it to, for example, the Green Party MPs, similar sized parliamentary party, their members have been represented on Delegated Legislation Committees, Public Bill Committees. Now, I don't know whether Reform MPs are offered these seats because there is, in the size of those [00:35:00] committees, there's capacity to absorb them. I don't know whether they are offered them and decline them because they've got other commitments, other jobs, or whether they're not being offered them at all.

We don't know. But that is certainly one area. And, you know, on select committees, they're not represented, whereas you have some representation from smaller parties. But this whole question about proportional allocation of seats is, is fraught.

Mark D'Arcy: And on the subject of select committees, one of the interesting pieces of background action in the House of Commons at the moment is a spate of elections by elections to places on select committees, which is a knock on consequence of the government reshuffle.

Quite a number of people with select committee seats have been catapulted into either the government proper as a minister, or more often as Parliamentary Private Secretaries. The unpaid parliamentary bag carriers, that's the first rung on the government ladder, that's created quite a few vacancies. Because if you are in the government, you shouldn't be sitting on a select committee normally. So vacancies are now arising and elections are going [00:36:00] on, and there's quite an interesting tale to tell Ruth.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, I mean I think it's 32 Labour seats on 17 select committees have become available. So there's a lot of churn.

And you think Mark, that select committees have really only been operating for, well, just less than a year now. Mm-hmm. Um, so that's a lot of change to absorb on each individual committee fairly soon after they've gotten going in this Parliament. Four committees, we think, Culture, Home Affairs, Treasury, and Women and Equalities have got three vacancies.

They have got to be filled. So these are Labour seats as a result of the reshuffle. So as a result of this, the Labour Party has been holding internal elections for membership of these committees. Jon Rentoul of the Independent, the journalist, was saying that he was hearing that seven committees had not had sufficient number of nominations so that essentially 12 MPs were elected to their places unopposed.

Wow. And three committees there are not enough people, Labour MPs, who've put themselves forward that [00:37:00] they would still have a vacancy. So that was Environment, Women and Equalities and Public Accounts, which is, you know...

Mark D'Arcy: Public Accounts is astonishing. Public Accounts is where in the days when the Whips controlled who went on committees, they would find people who were seen as ministerial timbre and put them on Public Accounts as a way of getting them to understand the dos and don'ts of being a minister.

Because you know, Public Accounts basically spends an awful lot of its time examining disasters and what went wrong with this program and why did so much public money get wasted on that. And so it's a great place to learn how to be a minister, particularly the do nots of being a minister. So for a, a seat on Public Accounts to be vacant is actually quite startling.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, I mean, we've only, got the story coming from Jon Rentoul but I mean, he's, he's got pretty good sources, so I'd be surprised if that is not true. But another interesting story about Public Accounts Committee is the Conservatives, who don't have many seats on committees have given up one of their seats on this plumb committee, Public Accounts to the independent former Reform MP, Rupert Lowe..

Mark D'Arcy: Rupert Lowe, who [00:38:00] of course spectacularly fell out with Nigel Farage quite early on in the days of Reform's parliamentary presence.

And I think the Conservatives seemed to be casting, covetous eyes on him. If they could win an MP who'd been elected as a Reform MP into the Conservative ranks, I think that would, at the very least, rather annoy Reform and would suggest that the Conservatives are still a sort of broad church of the right.

I think there might be some Conservative MPs who, who possibly gulp slightly at the thought of Rupert Lowe joining their ranks, but they're not really in a position to, uh, be too choosy at the moment.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. And there is a history of both main parties giving up seats, for example, to the smaller parties. So if you remember in, in previous parliaments, I think it was Caroline Lucas, as, as the Green Party, got a seat on relevant committees. I think it was Environmental Audit. that was given up by the Labour Party so that she had a voice on a, on a select committee. So we've always seen some of that. The Conservatives have also given up a seat on the Women and Equalities Committee to Rosie Duffield. Now they've given one up to Rupert Lowe.

They're not giving them up out of a sort of an abundance of [00:39:00] fairness to independent MPs.. They're giving them up because they think that those particular MPs will be a thorn in the side of the government and will create embarrassment. I understand the politics of this, but when you start tinkering with the arrangements and independent MPs are getting benefits arising from their status and of being a thorn in the side, whereas MPs of smaller parties are not, you start to, I think, to develop the prospect of problems in terms of fairness, in terms of the allocation of seats.

Mark D'Arcy: Well here's, here's a suggested rule change, uh, mainline this one straight to the Procedure Committee. I don't know if they've got any vacancies at the moment. How about if a party fails to fill its select committee seats, maybe you give 'em a couple of tries, but if they fail to fill their select committee seats, then those places can be opened up to some of the other parties.

I don't know quite how you would make that work, but I don't see why they should be left vacant if, uh, there aren't any takers from one particular party. And a committee should go around with a, a large hole in its membership because of that.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, well, the Procedure Committee's actually doing, uh, an [00:40:00] inquiry into elections in the House and looking at select committee elections. Because if you remember Cat Smith, the Labour MP who won the chairmanship of the Procedure Committee, she ran very distinctly last autumn on a ticket of stopping the huge amount of, of lobbying and production of leaflets and literature that was littering MPs offices.. So she vowed to stop it. There's an inquiry underway.

I think one of the issues with your proposal Mark is, is how would we know? Because, and this brings me to some evidence that was given yesterday to the Procedure Committee by a friend and colleague, um, Professor Meg Russell, Director of the Constitution Unit at University College London, who was special advisor to the Wright Committee at the end of the Gordon Brown years.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah. 2009 ish there, there, or thereabouts, which was reforming the select committee system amongst other things.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. And, and, um, she was being asked about, these elections, uh, by the Procedure Committee yesterday, and she made I think an important point that the election of members to select committees, which is [00:41:00] undertaken by each individual party, was supposed to be transparent and in accordance with a democratic system. But the reality is we don't know very much at all about how the political parties decide who should be the members for their select committee allocations. And as I say, we don't know who has been elected at this stage. We don't know which seats have been filled, which seats haven't. We don't know how many nominees there were. So it's not at all transparent. And interestingly, Meg said, uh, in her evidence yesterday that the plan the Wright Committee had when they, they proposed this system was that the system to be used by the partys should be kite marked by the Speaker. The check that this was an appropriate, transparent and democratic system.

Mark D'Arcy: Mr. Speaker's ring of confidence.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, that's never happened. So, um, it'd be interesting to see what the Procedure Committee makes of it.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, well there's certainly quite a number of issues accumulating about how the select committee systems composed.

And I think the big one is still the shares that the parties get in, in a multipolar era. And that's, [00:42:00] uh, certainly one to watch. One point to make about people being promoted into select committees by other parties is that that's easy enough to do when they don't see them as a threat.

Ruth Fox: Yes.

Mark D'Arcy: And these days I think that, uh, all the parties have to see all the other parties pretty much as a threat.

Yeah. And with that happy thought Ruth, uh, time to take another break.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. Let's come back and talk about, uh, well the bombing of the House of Commons Chamber

Mark D'Arcy: In 1941.

The Second World War came to Parliament in a very direct way in May, 1941 when a German bomb destroyed the Chamber of the House of Commons, which fortunately was empty at the time. There's a famous photograph of Winston Churchill inspecting the wreckage soon after. The Commons sat in the House of Lords until 1950 when it was able to return to a new and improved chamber.

The story behind those events is the subject of an exhibition in Parliament to mark the 75th anniversary of that return, and the centerpiece of it is an architect's model, built to demonstrate to [00:43:00] MPs what the new chamber would look like.

Ruth Fox: We've taken a particular interest because the model was given to us, the Hansard Society in 1951.

So to explore the story behind the rebuilding and the model, we spoke to Eloise Donnelly, curator of Parliament's historic furniture and decorative art.

Mark D'Arcy: Eloise, first of all, then how different is the Chamber we see today to the Chamber that would've been known by, I don't know, Gladstone and Disraeli and Asquith, and Balfour.

Dr Eloise Donnelly: I think the striking thing when looking at the new Chamber is how similar it is to the old Chamber. In 1941, the Chamber was completely destroyed, so it really was an opportunity for MPs to think afresh. But in the discussions that emerged when they were rebuilding, what really comes out is how many features they wanted to retain, and some of those are the most iconic aspects of the Chamber today.

Churchill was adamant that it should be in keeping with the original style of the Palace, so that's the [00:44:00] neo-gothic Victorian style of the original Chamber and appointed Giles Gilbert Scott as the architect, who came from a dynasty of gothic architects. So again, kind of retaining that sense of tradition and the sense of the gothic being part of English history and national identity.

Mark D'Arcy: I think his father designed St Pancras station, am I right?

Dr Eloise Donnelly: His grandfather designed St Pancras station and his father, George Gilbert Scott Jr., he set up Watson Co, a textile firm who incidentally did the textile for the canopy on the Speakers Chair. So there's some aspect of his father's work in the Chamber as well, but very much in that tradition of the gothic. He did marry it with a modernist mid-century feel. So you can see how there is still the pointed arches and crenellations, but they're much more pared back. You've got cleaner lines, simpler embellishments.

Mark D'Arcy: They called it "neon- gothic" at the time, didn't they?

Dr Eloise Donnelly: Exactly, exactly. Neon gothic, and you can see that. I think actually the light fittings kind of encapsulate that because you've got brand new fluorescent [00:45:00] tubing. Brand new technology and lighting, but incorporated into these neo-gothic fittings. So it really is a marriage between those, those two.

Ruth Fox: Giles Gilbert Scott's appointed in 1944 and he has only a short time, doesn't he, sort of six months to produce the architectural drawings that then go on display in the House of Commons for MPs to have a look at.

And uh, along with that, there's uh, an interesting model that was created to sort of bring to life his plans. And there's an interesting history around that.

Dr Eloise Donnelly: That's right. And the model is absolutely fascinating. And I think like a lot of architectural models, it is often associated with the architect as opposed to the model maker.

But as you say, Giles Gilbert Scott had to create the drawings and the designs very quickly, and these needed to be presented to MPs. So Giles Gilbert Scott worked with Thorpe Model Makers. This was a really established firm of model making, probably the, the first professional model making firm in London. They'd worked with Scott before, um, on Liverpool Cathedral, and they produced [00:46:00] a model of the new House of Commons Chamber, according to Scott's new design, which was then put on display for MPs to see and to comment on, and subsequently had this, uh, uh, a history that sets it apart actually from the rebuilding, which is really interesting.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. So after it's used to help MPs understand what the new Chamber is going to look like, it then gets incorporated later in the Festival of Britain exhibition in 1951, which is where the Hansard Society link comes in because we were involved with the parliamentary authorities at that time to set up that exhibition, which was actually held in Westminster Hall.

And, uh, as part of that exhibition, the, the model goes on display and thousands of people come to Westminster Hall to visit it apparently.

Dr Eloise Donnelly: The numbers are completely extraordinary, both coming to Westminster Hall and then when it goes on this touring exhibition, both in the United Kingdom to Blackpool and Preston, down to Battersea and even as far as South Africa.

And I think [00:47:00] it's really interesting to think about in terms of how important it is as an object in and of itself. I think people were coming to see it for the intricacy of the model making for the details, as well as for its relevance for the significant moment of the rebuilding of the House of Commons Chamber.

And also, as you say, to set it within that context of the Festival of Britain, this big celebration of Britain art, design, and craftsmanship. And it's really in that light, I think that it has such public appeal. And in addition to all of those places where it went on display in the archives, there are also records of numerous other institutions and societies who are requesting it to be on display for particular exhibitions and to learn more about it.

So it had a popularity that now seems surprising given its subsequent history, I think.

Mark D'Arcy: I mean it was partly I think the sort of celebration of democracy and democracy's victory over the dictatorships during the Second World War that [00:48:00] that made it take quite such a large place in, in the national psyche.

And uh, that was also marked in some of the differences in design. For example, there is a much larger press gallery reflecting, I suppose, the idea that they want, uh, the press to be taking a much closer look at the activities of Parliament.

Dr Eloise Donnelly: Absolutely. I think that's one of the striking features. As you say, MPs were adamant that the small size of the Chamber was to be retained because if there are only few MPs there, you have this conversational style of, of debate, almost like a gathering around a library table as they described it. But then when you have those key debates and the Chamber's absolutely packed up to the bar of the house, it gives such a sense of drama and urgency to debates and MPs were very keen to retain that. So rather than building out, they built up, as you said, and both the Press Gallery and the Visitors gallery, or what was termed the Strangers Gallery, were both enlarged with a view to making the work of the Chamber more accessible to the public.

Mark D'Arcy: And the model [00:49:00] itself is absolutely fascinating in all sorts of ways. If your back will stand it, you can kind of bend down and peer through the Member's entrance from the Member's lobby and see the famous view of the Speaker's Chair at the other end of this mini chamber. And the detail within is absolutely extraordinary as well.

I mean, the, the, the carving on the paneling, there's a little brass holder for the, the Commons mace.

Dr Eloise Donnelly: The detail is extraordinary. I think particularly looking at it today, and visitors who have come to the exhibition have really commented because, nowadays, with CAD designs the idea of, um, that being the only way in which you can see a design is, um, you know, something that people are really, um, interested in.

But the intricacy of the model is also surprising given that Thorpe's studio was evacuated because of the Blitz. And so we think that this, the model, was actually completed under the stairs in his house. And given the complexity of it, and as you say, some of the [00:50:00] intricacies of those carvings, it's really a, a feat of, uh, of craftsmanship.

Mark D'Arcy: I suppose the other thing that it embodies is those conscious decisions that were made not to change. When you talk about a Chamber very much in the style of the previous Chamber, you are, you are ruling out a continental style hemi cycle. You are ruling out a Chamber that has a seat for every MP. So you get the, the people sitting on the stairs between the banks of seats, you get crowding by the door, facing the Speaker.

You get all those things on moments of great occasion. And, um, this was part of the way MPs at the time thought their democracy should operate.

Dr Eloise Donnelly: Exactly. I think some of the ideas, for example, the way in which you had the two sides facing each other in this oblong shape, as Churchill said, that adversarial two party system was really consolidated in the fabric of the building, in the architecture and design.

And MPs overwhelmingly agreed with that. But it's interesting thinking about some of the people who did raise [00:51:00] objections such as Nancy Astor, for example. She was one of the few voices who said actually she felt that that oblong shape where MPs parties face each other, and it's very violent in terms of some of the, the discussions.

Mark D'Arcy: Noticeably comes from one of the few women MPs.

Dr Eloise Donnelly: Exactly. And she described it as being "almost like dogs on a leash". And as you say, the neo-gothic design of the 1840s was designed at a time when there were no female MPs. The, the aesthetic you've got the, the wood and the leather that comes from the gentleman's club or the smoking room, that kind of feel in terms of the upholstery and design reincorporated in the 1950 Chamber, and obviously in 1945 we have a change of government and different makeup of of MPs, and you wonder if there had been more female voices feeding into some of those debates, whether it would look slightly different or at least other suggestions may have been made.

Ruth Fox: And MPs [00:52:00] got very involved in the sort of detail, didn't they? Because there was rows over what the seating covers should be in the, in the Chamber. And MPs wanting leather and Gilbert Scott preferring perhaps another fabric and MPs insisting. And again, it sort of brings to life that idea of a sort of gentleman's club atmosphere.

But in this new Chamber, 1950, you know, the, the war has ended, but then there's some really big challenges aren't there because you're talking about rebuilding the Chamber with all the stonework and masonry and carving of wood, that's, that's required. And London is, has been blitzed and there are hundreds of thousands of people who don't have homes and need to be rehoused.

So there's quite a challenge there in terms of should you prioritise the work of rebuilding the Chamber versus rebuilding people's homes.

Dr Eloise Donnelly: Absolutely. I think that comes out in some of the comments and responses to Churchill's insistence that the Chamber should be built as quickly as possible and that the Commons MPs should return to their Chamber where as opposed [00:53:00] to in the Lord's Chamber where they had been sitting. And MPs do raise objections to the speed with which it is, is done aware of the optics, as you say, of a major public project that's costing, the estimate at that time was £700,000. But also the labour involved at a time, as you say, when people's homes were destroyed. And when initial press reports went out, I think 1947 there were protests about the use of labour and the cost of prioritising the Chamber. Churchill gave speeches talking about the Commons Chamber as the citadel of liberty and the idea that rebuilding it should be national priority.

But we see this concern with how the optics of the project were received by the public throughout the process of rebuilding. So at uh, one point they decide not to have paneling in all of the minister's offices, for example, [00:54:00] as a cost cutting measure. It didn't end up saving huge amounts of money, but the idea was they were putting out this, the statement about how they were trying to reduce costs in, in certain areas.

Mark D'Arcy: And what's striking when you walk through some of those bits of the Palace of Westminster to this day, you can see the stoneworks a bit cruder. You know, you can see the blocks of stone have been sawn rather than carved. That is, it's not as clean. And I suppose that was a sign of the cost cutting of the day and, and the rush to get it done quickly.

Dr Eloise Donnelly: The rush to get it done. And also the absence of labour because when the project was started, and obviously, um, the masonry needs to be the first, literally the building blocks for the project.

But stone masons were still in active service. Yeah, exactly. So they had to use retired masons and bring them back. They, um, had to use very young craftsmen and a young apprentice. It's amazing how young some of the people who carved really important aspects of the Chamber were at the time.

Ruth Fox: What [00:55:00] kind of age are we talking?

Dr Eloise Donnelly: For example, Michael Lashford-Spinks, who, um, worked on carving for the Speakers Chair, one of the most iconic features of the Commons Chamber, was 15 when he undertook that work as an apprentice and he didn't have a master craftsman's stamp at the time, because obviously he hadn't completed his apprenticeship.

So instead he wrote his initials on a betting slip and inserted it into one of the joints in the Speaker's Chair. So really it was just, it's incredible so young. But he went on to have a career doing numerous other carvings for other institutions and international work. And for many it was the beginning of their career and, and that's fascinating as well.

Ruth Fox: And there was some controversy as well because at some point POW - prisoner of war - labour was used.

Dr Eloise Donnelly: That's right. Again, with the absence of labour, the Ministry of Works was really striving to provide enough labour to deliver the 115,000 cubic feet of stone that was required. So [00:56:00] they used, initially they used one quarry, the Clipsham Quarry Company, which is in Rutland, but that wasn't able to produce the amount that they needed.

So they opened a second, Medwells. And in order to source the labour, they looked to the mobile labour unit, but also Polish refugees and German prisoners of war. The Clipsham Quarry Company initially agreed to this and then wrote and said that their masons there would not be happy working with German prisoners of war, and they would only be happy working with British stone masons. Medwells, they were happy with that arrangement and German prisoners of war and Polish refugees quarried stone from Medwells for the House of Commons Chamber. .

Ruth Fox: When eventually does the Chamber then reopen? So, you know, how long did this this work take

Dr Eloise Donnelly: The Chamber reopened on the 26 of October 1950, so almost exactly 75 years ago.

And I think, given that the foundation stone was laid on the 26 of May 1948, it's [00:57:00] astonishingly fast when we think about building projects that are undertaken today. And that gives some indication of how critical it was and how the Ministry of Works mobilised resources in order to deliver.

So for the reopening MPs queued from six o'clock that morning to reserve a space for the first sitting.

Obviously having voted for a small compact chamber, there not being enough seats for everyone, they had to queue from the crack of dawn. But King George VI also came, there was an address to both Houses in Westminster Hall at which he celebrated the craftsmanship, the materials used and also thanked the Lords for giving up their Chamber for the Commons during the war. And that was also attended by Speakers from Commonwealth countries because they had also provided materials or resources for some of the key objects in the Chamber. So they were present for that, that opening address.

Mark D'Arcy: And how have [00:58:00] MPs and you know, other denizens of the Palace of Westminster reacted to the exhibition?

What's the kind of comment been?

Dr Eloise Donnelly: We've had some really fantastic feedback. I think for one of the most familiar and iconic spaces in British public life, the architecture and design is so often in the background. It's never the aspect that's been talked about and yet as we've been talking about, has really shaped the way in which our political system has happened.

So, shining a spotlight on that, encouraging people to look up to some of those really intricate carvings at the top of the Chamber. And to think about the design and some of the craftsmanship that went into it. People have been really fascinated to learn more about it.

And I say particularly the architectural model has received, um, a lot of really positive comments. And it's just really a wonderful opportunity to bring it out on display. And following the exhibition, we're going to put it on display in the Education Centre where it can support [00:59:00] workshops with school children who are all thinking about the architecture and design of the, of the Chamber and how it, how it shapes debates.

So it's, it's really the, the start of bringing it out and making it more accessible and, uh, shining a spotlight on some of those aspects of the Chamber that we haven't been able to show before.

Ruth Fox: And that's great news because of course that's, you know, the kind of the purpose of it around the Festival of Britain when it was put on display and hundreds of thousands of people came to see it.

To give listeners an idea, I mean, the scale model, it's quite large, but it, it is sort of one quarter inch to a foot scale. So it's 1:48. So it is quite large, quite heavy. But, this exhibition is great because it's resolved a mystery at the heart of the Hansard Society for many years. Because after the Festival of Britain the, government and Parliament gave the model, this architectural model, to the Hansard Society to, put on display, exhibit around, around the country. But they didn't provide any money to do it. So in 19 [01:00:00] 51, there was an appeal, Mark, in the Times newspaper by the three main party leaders, Churchill Attlee and Clement Davies to raise funds to support it and for it to go on display.

Now, I've no idea how much money they raised through that. It's not, it's not clear yet from, from the archives. But we had it in our office on display in the 1950s, but then it disappears from view in the 1960s and, um, nobody has been clear for years what happened to it. It's mentioned in our archives. We thought it had gone to the Museum of London, but couldn't track it down there. And, uh, it's ended up actually, we think it could have gone to the British Museum, but it's ended up somehow, at some point, in the last sort of 30 years or so in Parliament's possession. It's been in storage, as it were. And, um, now it's, it's emerged, what, 20 odd years ago for the last exhibition about the Chamber rebuild.

And it's now on display in Portcullis House. And as you say, it's now going to go to the Education Centre.. So [01:01:00] it has resolved a mystery. I've been trying to track it down, Mark, through our archives as to what happened to this model, and we had no pictures of it, so I didn't know what it looked like and I didn't know how big it was.

I thought actually it was almost like a theater stage type model that was sort of collapsible. It's not, but it's, it's, it's a fantastic, piece of heritage and an opportunity for, for young people in the future to have a look at it.

Dr Eloise Donnelly: Absolutely. Um, I have a feeling that it, it may have undergone some conservation work, perhaps in, in preparation for the 'Parliament Past and Present' exhibition in 1951, because I think originally one of the sides folded down. Perhaps so MPs could get a better view of some of the details in there. But, yes, it's been a mystery in terms of what, what happened to it for several decades.

There are also some model MPs that sit in the, in the model.

Mark D'Arcy: Are they specific MPs. I mean, is there like a model Churchill or a model Attlee?

Dr Eloise Donnelly: Well, we think that these were possibly [01:02:00] made for the 1990 exhibition. Due to the dress. And also when we've been trying to match some of the figures with MPs at the time. And also in terms of the ratio of men and women. It suggests that they were a later edition. We know that at the time from archival photographs, that there was a model Speaker, a model doorkeeper, and a model mace.

But those were lost. We don't know what happened to those. We only have the ones that were made more recently.

Mark D'Arcy: Ah, maybe someone will open a drawer one day and find the missing bits. But Eloise Donnelly, thanks very much indeed for that fascinating exploration of a quite important bit of history of how our democracy is configured.

Thanks for joining us on Parliament Matters.

Dr Eloise Donnelly: Thank you.

Ruth Fox: Well, the exhibition and model is currently on display in Portcullis House on the parliamentary estate, but only for a few more days until Thursday 30 October. So if you happen to be in Portcullis House before the end of the month, do take a look. You can't miss it in the atrium.

Unfortunately, the exhibition is not open to the public, but [01:03:00] listeners can still explore it online. Parliament's created a digital version featuring information and images from the displays. And there's also a fascinating two minute Pathe news reel showing the model of the Chamber and some of the craftsmen at work. Definitely worth a watch. So listeners, if you want links to these resources, just scroll down in your podcast app to the end of the show notes, and click on the link where it says "learn more using our resources for the issues mentioned in this episode". Click there, it'll take you straight to the episode page on our website where you'll find the links to the online exhibition and the short film.

Mark D'Arcy: And we'll be back next week with another exciting episode. As we are recording this, we are waiting on the results of the Caerphilly by-election and the Labour Party deputy leadership race to events, which could have a big reverberation in Parliament. So here's a bit of speculation. Lucy Powell, who's outside the government, maybe she could follow the Green Party leader, Zach Polanski's lead and start her own podcast.

Ruth Fox: Oh god, no, Mark. No, there are [01:04:00] enough political podcasts, surely.

Mark D'Arcy: Fair point. And on that note, that's all we've got time for this week. Thanks for listening, and if you've enjoyed this episode, help us promote this political podcast.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, so please take a moment to rate and review the pod. It really helps others find us.

You can leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Give us a rating on Spotify. And if you think someone else would enjoy the show, send them the link and help us spread the word. See you next time.

Mark D'Arcy: Bye for now.

Outro: Parliament Matters is produced by the Hansard Society and supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. For more information, visit hansardsociety.org.uk/pm or find us on social media @Hansard Society.

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