Dynamic alignment

• House of Lords European Affairs Committee, Oral evidence transcript, Professor Catherine Barnard and Professor David Collins, 24 March 2026

• House of Lords European Affairs Committee, Oral evidence, Norwegian and Swiss Ambassadors to the UK, 14 April 2026

• Catherine Barnard, Cosying up to Europe will come at a cost, The Independent, 13 April 2026 (£)

The Ecclesiastical Committee

• Ecclesiastical Committee, Oral evidence transcript, National Church Governance Measure, 12 November 2025

• Madeleine Davies, Plans to reform Church of England structures ‘not expedient’ says Ecclesiastical Committee, Church Times, 20 March 2026

Appointment of the Armed Forces Commissioner

• House of Commons Defence Committee, Pre-appointment hearing transcript, Government’s preferred candidate for Armed Forces Commissioner, 25 March 2026

• Ministry of Defence, Press release, Independent champion for Armed Forces appointed as new team stands up, 5 April 2026

• Social media thread by Hansard Society Director, Ruth Fox, about the appointment process

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 coming up this week.

Ruth Fox: Giving up control. How much say will Parliament have on European regulations under the Government's reset with the EU?

Mark D'Arcy: Cardinal Wolsey powers.

How and why the state has just vetoed the church.

Ruth Fox: And with the world on fire, is it really a good idea for it to be impossible to recall Parliament for a fortnight before the King's Speech?

Mark D'Arcy: But first, Ruth, Brexit betrayal or pragmatic economics. We are told that one of the [00:01:00] most important bills in the forthcoming King's Speech will be the one to implement the Government's reset with the EU. Already the bill is being called a mechanism for reversing Brexit, because essentially it's about implementing EU regulations in the UK with minimal involvement by the UK Parliament.

So what will it do and how will it work?

Ruth Fox: We talked to Professor Catherine Barnard, Professor of European Law at the University of Cambridge, and a senior fellow at UK in a Changing Europe.

Catherine Barnard: At the moment, we are in the course of negotiations over three areas, plus youth mobility, and those three areas are SPS, which is sanitary and phytosanitary, which to you and me means animal health, plant health matters. Secondly, energy cooperation. And thirdly, emissions trading scheme. And those three areas will come with quite significant EU legislation, and there will be an obligation under the agreements, assuming we successfully negotiate them, that we will have [00:02:00] to dynamically align with the EU, which at the highest level means we've gotta keep up with the latest EU rules in those areas.

Mark D'Arcy: So essentially, we're agreeing to do whatever they tell us to do in these areas.

Catherine Barnard: It slightly depends on what sort of dynamic alignment we get. Now, I think you'll enjoy this, but in fact there are different types of dynamic alignment and effectively, it's a spectrum. At one end of the spectrum, it is pretty brutal, you see that in the Gibraltar agreement and there the UK has to accept all of the EU rules, and if we don't, there is a risk of termination of the agreement. You've also got the Windsor Framework, Northern Ireland protocol, and there, in respect to the 300 or so areas covered in the Windsor Framework, the UK has got to accept those rules. There is the Stormont Brake as a sort of get out of jail matter, but in reality we have to sign up to everything that the EU does in [00:03:00] that area. So those are the sort of hardcore dynamic alignment.

But if you look at the new Swiss agreements, which have just been negotiated, which the Swiss themselves are going to vote on this summer, there is dynamic alignment, but there's a joint committee between the EU and Switzerland and if it's considered to be a rule relevant to the Swiss agreements, then Swiss do have the option to say no. And it's already foreseen that if they do say no in a particular area, sanctions will be imposed, essentially tariffs.

And then perhaps surprisingly, the weakest end of the spectrum is the EEA agreement, European Economic Area agreement. That's the agreement between the EFTA states, Norway, Iceland, and Lichtenstein, and the EU. And there the EU says a particular measure is EEA relevant, it then goes to a joint committee, and then the joint committee have got to decide whether it will actually be become part of the EEA EFTA agreement. And that has been a [00:04:00] very slow process. There's things which have been sitting there for years because they haven't agreed it.

So the EU has learned from the EEA experience, which is why you see a much tougher approach in the more recent agreements, Windsor Framework, Gibraltar, and the Swiss agreements. It's likely we'll be somewhere closer to the Swiss model, but the bottom line is we will have to sign up to those rules and if we don't, there will be consequences.

Ruth Fox: And Catherine, we're a rather different size and scale of economy to Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, and so on. For example, our exports, you know, much broader range of exports to the EU. So you say we're likely to be nearer to the Swiss or the hard end of the spectrum, but do you think we will be required to follow one of those sort of models on the spectrum?

Or is there any possibility, do you think, of a bespoke agreement, to reflect the kind of the size and scale of our economy and also the sort of the developing geopolitical situation in which we and the EU [00:05:00] find ourselves.

Catherine Barnard: Well, there is an argument in favour that we might get something bespoke, and certainly the common understanding, which was the text published in May last year, indicated that we might be able to carve some opt-outs.

But I imagine the EU will not want to give us too many opt-outs because we are now essentially in the position of, to use the jargon demander. We're asking to sign up and we are in a weaker position now than we were when we were a member state. And so it's certainly the case that the common understanding required dynamic alignment without specifying which model, but did say that we would have decision shaping role, which is what the Swiss have and the EEA states have. But again, I think we shouldn't get too excited about decision shaping because what it means is that the Commission consults states with a decision shaping function.

But the moment you get into negotiations, to use the jargon you get into the [00:06:00] tunnel, then the UK will not be at the table.

Mark D'Arcy: So if you are designing a parliamentary system to scrutinise these agreements that the UK will be automatically signing up to, it's really just a system for kind of looking at the consequences of them. It's not a system that will have any influence upon them. Is there any way at all that the UK can get any traction over the substance of these rules and regulations that the EU Commission will be putting out in all these different areas?

Catherine Barnard: So the crucial thing is to know what's coming down the track to get in there at the very early stage when a proposal is merely a twinkle in the Commission's eye rather than some concrete proposal.

Because by that stage it's already pretty late. And where the Norwegians have really excelled is putting a lot of resource into that very early upstream function. And they spend a lot of time literally having coffee with and wining [00:07:00] and dining Commission officials and officials from other member states to find out what is coming down the track. Now, that requires a lot of resource, and lots of people say that the UK Embassy to Brussels needs more resource so that they are well aware of what's coming down the track.

And also, of course, officials in London need to know what's coming down the track. And there also needs to be some way that Parliament, not just Westminster, but also the Parliaments in the devolved administrations need to know what's coming, because particularly in the case of SPS matters, remember that's sanitary, phyto sanitary matters, these are areas which have an effect on the competence of the devolved administrations. And so they are entitled to have a say as well.

Mark D'Arcy: That's historically something that the UK just hasn't been that good at. I remember this, when we were a member state, people would always say we were never ahead of the game.

Catherine Barnard: No, that's right. And it's even more important now that we are ahead of the game [00:08:00] because when we were a member state, at least we were at the negotiating table and we could bump our fists on the table at that stage, but we won't be that in that position anymore. So we therefore absolutely need to know what's coming.

Ruth Fox: In terms of Parliament, I mean, I can imagine the Daily Mail will have a field day with a significant budget for the UK embassy to wine and dine officials in Brussels.

Mark D'Arcy: The foie gras budget's been expanded again.

Ruth Fox: But, so, we are gonna have to culturally get our heads around this, but in terms of Parliament as opposed to government, what kind of mechanisms do the Parliaments in Norway and Switzerland, for example, have that we could be learning about?

Because in Westminster, they've abolished the EU Scrutiny Committee that did all the sort of technical documentary study of regulations that were coming through. But this is a different scenario. This is much, much further upstream. You know, the UK Parliament has abolished the European Scrutiny Committee that looked at EU regulations coming through when we were a member state. That's gone. [00:09:00] We need to be thinking though, not about what the regulations are when they come through, but as you say, upstream influencing. So how do other parliaments do that?

Catherine Barnard: I'm not sure any system thinks they've got it right because this is a rather subtle process, and it's a subtle process largely done through diplomacy rather than through parliamentarians. And of course, as you say, there isn't a concrete text to discuss.

Now, I think the abolition of the European Scrutiny Committee in the Commons is a mistake or certainly will prove to be a mistake, and I think it will have to be reinvigorated at some level because some of the measures that will be coming through will be cross-cutting.

Now, I also accept that some of the SPS measures, sanitary, phyto sanitary measures may be considered by the committees on food, agriculture and so forth, but there will need to be coordination that needs to be done. And there also needs to be some sort of oversight from a more generalist body rather [00:10:00] than the specialist committees that exist at the moment.

Mark D'Arcy: So I suppose it's worth asking here what's, what's the trade off that the UK government is engaged in? Because this sounds like the opposite of taking back control. We'd be accepting regulations as they came across in emails, in effect, from the EU commission. So what advantage does the country gain in the government's mind for doing this?

Catherine Barnard: There's certainly a trade off and we will be rule takers. There's absolutely no doubt about that. But the trade off is that the government takes a view that by being closer, this is good, both economically and strategically, economically, that it will reduce some of the friction on the border and that will be good for our exports, but also for goods coming into the UK. And the Government hopes that ultimately it means that the prices of certain goods in the stores will be less.

So there's an economic argument, but I think there's also a strategic argument. The world has changed a lot since Brexit [00:11:00] has occurred. It's no longer the time or the place for having buccaneering free trader deals across the globe. In fact, we've got three big powers that are potentially very threatening to us, and it looks like we have far more in common with Europe than we do with the other big powers and we should get closer to them. That's the Government's argument. And in respect to take back control, something we've always known is that it is an exercise of control to decide to surrender some control to achieve other objectives like the economic and strategic objectives I've just outlined.

Ruth Fox: There's no doubt it is a democratic deficit. What's the response in places like Norway and Switzerland in terms of their Parliament and their publics to this? Do they sort of live with it as the price worth paying, as you say, for lower prices, less bureaucracy and so on.

Mark D'Arcy: Or do they rage against the machine?

Catherine Barnard: Yeah, certainly in Norway there is largely a [00:12:00] pragmatism that on balance it's better to be where they are than totally outside the orbit of the EU. Remember too that Norway is actually a very small country, population of 5 million, and the other thing that's worth thinking about that why Norway is so different to the UK is that it really only exports a few products. Gas, oil, very important, particularly at the moment, fish and also a certain number of alloys, so it doesn't feel quite so exposed in the same way that the UK did when it was a member state, taking rules, but also participating and making the rules in respect of things as broad as financial services, other types of services, as well as goods.

Ruth Fox: We're already dynamically aligning in some areas voluntarily. You and I, Catherine, over the last, sort of, for last year on the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill, Mark, you know, it's another niche piece of legislation which went under the radar of a lot of people in [00:13:00] Westminster. And that was a bill essentially to enable the UK to align voluntarily with EU rules on product regulation and marketing and so on. Again, to cut bureaucracy and and so on. But we weren't committing absolutely to align in these areas via an agreement with the EU. We sort of did it voluntarily through this legislation. So what's the benefits of reaching an agreement with the EU and signing up to this in perpetuity as opposed to voluntarily doing it through something like a Product Regulation Metrology Bill model, and having the option not to pursue those regulations, if we don't want to,

Catherine Barnard: The voluntary model, which underpins the Product Regulation and Metrology Act, helps our manufacturers, but it doesn't help with the paperwork because there'll still need to be paperwork to check and comply. Whereas once we've entered into an agreement for dynamic alignment, the paperwork will be [00:14:00] significantly reduced because we have formally bilaterally committed to aligning with EU rules.

Ruth Fox: So the idea being that the veterinary regulations and the plant health regulations either side of the border will be the same and therefore the EU is content to get rid of the paperwork, whereas on product regulation they're not.

Catherine Barnard: Exactly.

Ruth Fox: Yeah.

Mark D'Arcy: We are talking here about a bill that we haven't yet seen that will be in the King's Speech.

So mid-May, the text will emerge and we will be able to study exactly what the Government is proposing. But you can already start to imagine scenarios where you get some statutory instrument to implement some EU requirements so that we can have our dynamic alignment, and then there's a great rebellion against it. Why are we complying? Why are we truckling to this evil Brussels overregulation? And then you get a great parliamentary controversy. What would actually happen in that event if Parliament refused to go along with some statutory instrument to implement some piece of dynamic alignment? [00:15:00] What does the EU then do?

Catherine Barnard: It rather depends what's in the agreement. But in the case of Switzerland or the revised Swiss agreements, they expressly foresee that as a potential scenario and they prescribe what the sanctions will be, usually tariffs.

Mark D'Arcy: So you lose the free trade advantages you're seeking to gain, essentially.

If you were talking something about, say, an agricultural product.

Catherine Barnard: Exactly, yeah.

Mark D'Arcy: And is that specific to one particular area? Is it kind of ring fence too, us not complying with some regulation on cheese, so the cheese gets hit with a tariff? Or is it everything?

Catherine Barnard: It very much depends what the agreement prescribes.

It could be just on cheese, but it could more likely it will be right across the SPS agreement, but not across the energy agreement. But if there's a breach in respect to the energy agreement, the sanction will be posted in respect to the energy agreement.

Mark D'Arcy: So you can see why this would be quite a flashpoint potentially in Parliament, and you could imagine the Conservatives and Reform constantly trying to force votes on some of these issues, even if they [00:16:00] were quite low grade statutory instruments that would normally be approved on the nod.

Catherine Barnard: Yes, and indeed that happens in Norway as well. And one of the ironies is that the Norwegian government is broadly pro EU and indeed would like full EU membership, but it's a Norwegian government when there is a sticky matter that goes before the Norwegian Parliament that's essentially having to defend the rule taking nature of the rule and thus the democratic deficit.

Ruth Fox: So the Government ends up being quite unpopular on the issue, whereas the opposition parties can have free reign at pot shot.

Mark D'Arcy: They may not be able to win the votes, they may not have the troops in the chamber to do that. But, they have the issue.

And sometimes you want the grievance rather than the victory, don't you, I suppose?

Catherine Barnard: Exactly. And of course at the moment, the Government have got a large majority, but if it becomes a coalition government, it becomes much harder.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah. So I suppose what we are looking at here is the content of this bill, the system it proposes, the depth of the agreements that are [00:17:00] proposed and also the systems that perhaps are set up alongside that within Parliament to monitor what's going on.

And I suppose the key point I take away from this discussion so far, as you say, we've gotta get ahead of the game, we've gotta be knowing what's a gleam in the eye of the European Commission when it wants to regulate something and get in there and hope that they listen to us. Now, how much does that happen with Norway, with Iceland, with Switzerland, that, you know, the new cuckoo clock directive that you are proposing would be deadly to the cuckoo clock industry.

Can we get in ahead of that and just take this clause out that would be really unhelpful and doesn't really achieve much. Does the European Commission listen to that kind of argument? Or is it thinking we're the European Commission, we'll do what we want?

Catherine Barnard: Actually, the answer is mixed, and it slightly depends who you talk to.

The general view is that the Commission doesn't listen that carefully to what those countries say. However, if it's a highly technical matter, and Norway sends some of their really top people who are absolutely on top of the finer details, the Commission they say will listen [00:18:00] because they do appreciate expertise.

There is one concrete example in respect of Switzerland where a change was made, it was in a directive on weapons, which essentially said you can't carry weapons with you obviously subject to the very obvious exceptions for military and the police. But in Switzerland, they have military service and the young recruits are required to take their guns home with them.

And it looked like that was going to be ruled out by the directive. And there is a clause in the directive, a provision in the directive, which doesn't in any way reference Switzerland, but was introduced to cover that situation.

Ruth Fox: Interesting.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah. So, that is where presumably the UK Government's gonna have to put a lot more effort in.

And because we're a bigger economy, that's gonna have to be a much broader, more extensive effort than some of these other countries are having to make.

Catherine Barnard: Except that remember the agreements are only in quite limited areas at the moment. Whereas for those countries, [00:19:00] particularly for the EEA EFTA states, they're bound by the whole range of the single market.

We would just be bound by a very small area.

Mark D'Arcy: Which raises the point, I suppose, that when we look at the text of this bill, one of the questions is, how much power does it give to make future agreements in other areas beyond the ones we're talking about now? And we don't know the answer presumably to that at the moment.

Catherine Barnard: We don't. We know from the Prime Minister that he's looking at other areas, which, where we can explore closer cooperation. People talk about pharmaceuticals. And car industry perhaps.

But it is worth remembering that the three agreements that the UK is currently negotiating with the EU will also help to reduce the friction on the GB NI border. So that's the border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which has already been eased somewhat because of the Windsor Framework which Rishi Sunak negotiated. But nevertheless, the friction still exists. Other areas that Keir has talked about have less [00:20:00] impact on the GB NI border, and therefore the EU has got less interest in negotiating them.

It's a multi dimensional game of chess here.

Mark D'Arcy: I suppose the key issue in this bill is the implementation part of it. The government's ability to make secondary legislation so that it can implement directives that emanate from the EU Commission in the areas where we've accepted that we're gonna take their rules.

And those are often going to be in the form of so-called Henry VIII powers, powers for ministers to amend the law, amend primary legislation by making secondary legislation. Now that's needed, I suppose, because you don't necessarily want an all singing, all dancing parliamentary bill with second, third readings, et cetera, every time you need to do this, 'cause you presumably need to do it quite a lot, but it's still an area of enormous controversy.

Catherine Barnard: It is and it isn't. I think we've gotta keep this in perspective. When we joined the EU back in 1972, 1973, the European Communities Act contained a huge Henry VIII power, section 2(2), which [00:21:00] allowed the UK to implement Directives via Statutory Instruments.

And while some perhaps at the more nerdy end of the spectrum were worried about this, we'd never discussed Henry VIII powers for decades, really. When we left the EU, there were some major Acts of Parliament, most notably the European Union Withdrawal Act, which contained massive Henry VIII powers in order to deliver Brexit quickly.

And there were people who were raising deep concerns about the lack of democracy over the use of these Henry VII powers. But it was a Conservative government that willingly used Henry VIII powers to deliver on its objectives. And now it's a Labour government that's using Henry VIII powers as far as we can understand it, to deliver on its objectives, which is to have a reset.

Now the House of Lords Constitution Committee has expressed grave concerns about the widespread use of Henry VIII powers, but the fact is we've been doing it since 72 in [00:22:00] European matters, and therefore it comes as no great surprise.

Mark D'Arcy: Practically every bill that Parliament passes these days contains powers for ministers to make regulations on this, that, or the other.

So this isn't some euro specific problem. This is something that's quite general across the whole breadth of British lawmaking.

Catherine Barnard: Absolutely. And I mean, it's also worth noting that although we are talking about Henry VIII powers, so Henry VIII powers are contained in a bill, Act, which has gone through the democratic process and because of the doctrine of sovereignty of Parliament, we can repeal, or a later Parliament can repeal, that Act if they don't like it.

And we've seen that on steroids when the UK voted to leave the EU and we repealed the European Communities Act 1972.

Ruth Fox: It's also worth saying Mark and I have been banging on to journalists about this this week on social media, is that ironically, if it is a Henry VIII power, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and the Delegated Powers Committee in the House of Lords will pretty much insist on the scrutiny of the regulations that are [00:23:00] made under that power being subject to what's called the affirmative scrutiny procedure.

And as listeners will well know this is my favourite subject. And, as a consequence of that, there will have to be a debate and an approval vote in one or both Houses of Parliament. For a lot of the other regulations that might come through that are subject to the lower negative procedure, there will not need to be a debate and a vote.

So the Henry VIIIs is a double-edged sword. It's constitutionally difficult and important because it allows ministers by regulation to amend an Act of Parliament, albeit within the confines of a bill that Parliament has approved and has delegated that power to ministers. But on the other hand, there is still a debate and an approval vote on whether or not they're using the powers in an appropriate way.

But the reality is, unless and until the House of Commons puts in place proper scrutiny, procedures to scrutinise all of these regulations, regardless of which bill they come from, regardless of the [00:24:00] nature of the power, then a lot of this sort of debate is just performative theatre, by both politicians and journalists.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah.

Ruth Fox: Put the scrutiny procedures in place and give yourself some grip and some control over it, or simply keep on talking about it.

Mark D'Arcy: The other point is that the House of Commons, as Ruth kind of hinted there, hasn't exactly covered itself in glory over the years in the scrutiny of all these changes that are made through delegated legislation and I think ministers are probably perfectly happy that they haven't.

Catherine Barnard: I think it's really interesting that it's Conservative MPs who are throwing up their hands in horror that the use of these Henry VIII powers when when they were in government, that's exactly what they used.

Mark D'Arcy: All governments do it. All oppositions oppose it.

Catherine Barnard: That summed it up very nicely

Ruth Fox: And dare I ask Catherine just one final question.

What will be the role of the European Court in this, 'cause this will undoubtedly be raised by the Conservatives and Reform politicians as a concern. So what would be the role of the European Court?

Catherine Barnard: If there is a [00:25:00] dispute about how the UK has implemented one of the Directives under the SPS agreement, for example, and the Commission decides to start proceedings against us, the way it's likely to work, of course we don't know yet 'cause we haven't seen the text of the agreement, is that there is a process, stage one is usually a political stage, stage two is arbitration and that goes to an independent panel, but if the independent panel would like a ruling on the meaning of an EU law provision, then there can be a reference to the Court of Justice to ask what that EU provision means. The ECJ does not have the final say. It actually will be the arbitration panel that has the final say. So there is a role for the Court of Justice, and there is already a role for the Court of Justice under the Windsor Framework Agreement. There's a role for the Court of Justice under the Withdrawal Agreement, [00:26:00] which is the divorce text, but that role for the Court of Justice under the Withdrawal Agreement, also under the Swiss agreement, is to interpret the EU provision, not to have the final say on whether we've been in breach

Ruth Fox: And just finally, we haven't got the agreement as you say, but there is suggestions that the bill to enable that agreement in the future might come fairly soon after the King's Speech. I mean, I heard suggestions that it might come in this session towards the end, even before the King's Speech. It hasn't. It hasn't yet emerged, but there is a relationship there between the agreement and the bill.

What kind of problems could you foresee if the bill has to be scrutinised by parliamentarians before the agreement is published?

Catherine Barnard: Well, we've been here before. Do you remember the EU Future Relations Bill. Became an Act. And you might recall that it's a very odd looking piece of legislation, 'cause the first part of the act is very [00:27:00] detailed when they'd clearly seen the text of parts of the Trade and Corporation Agreement.

But they hadn't seen, the drafters hadn't seen, the other parts of the text. So they gave themselves some very wide powers at the end. Basically said anything else in the Trade and Corporation Agreement will become part of UK law too. And the parliamentarians waved that through in a day and a bit.

Ruth Fox: Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Catherine Barnard: So for all the talk about Parliament and parliamentary scrutiny, when it suits them as it did with the Future Relations Bill, then Act, they will knock it through in a day. And I think I was very struck, I remember that Christmas very vividly because I and a handful of other nerds spent our entire Christmas working our way through TCA, but a number of quite well-known MPs said very proudly that they hadn't even looked at the TCA, that they were prepared to just wave through the Future Relations Bill to get Brexit done. So I do have a degree of cynicism, yes, about how much scrutiny actually does get done in Parliament [00:28:00] and how much is just dog whistle and they just do what they're told.

Ruth Fox: I remember that Mark, that Christmas, New Year, we were told that as a result this bill had to go through incredibly quickly because they had needed statutory instruments for basically New Year's Day to implement the divorce.

Mark D'Arcy: I was there in those sittings, watching it from the press gallery.

Ruth Fox: And we had a rota here at the Hansard Society to monitor the emergence of these statutory instruments on that first day.

And they didn't publish any of them, so yes, I think we share your cynicism to a degree, catherine.

Mark D'Arcy: Happy memories are sitting up in the gallery, surreptitiously munching mince pies. Those were the days.

Well, Catherine, thanks very much indeed for that. We can see that this is going to keep us chattering here on Parliament Matters for many happy weeks of nerdy detail about secondary legislation in the next session of Parliament. So I'm sure we'll be talking to you again.

Catherine Barnard: And it's good that Ruth is absolutely on top of all the statutory instrument stuff. I mean that she has done a public service for us all.

Ruth Fox: Thank you, [00:29:00] Catherine. That's very, very generous.

Well after that particularly high fibre discussion, Mark, let's take a quick break, but stick around listeners, because when we're back, it's nerdathon time again. Why has Parliament's ecclesiastical committee said no to the Church of England's five-year effort to reform its internal governance? And listeners, while you wait a minute or so, there's something you can do to help us grow the podcast and tackle the tyranny of the tech bro algorithms. Can you rate and review the podcast, if you are using Apple or Spotify. Share it with your family and friends. And if you're enjoying it, why not post about the pod on social media so we can reach new listeners? See you in a minute.

Mark D'Arcy: See you in a minute.

We are back. And Ruth, something rather unusual happened in Westminster a few weeks back and it's taken us a while to really digest it. There's a body called Parliament's Ecclesiastical Committee. It dates back about a hundred [00:30:00] years to an Act of Parliament in 1919, and it's the body that processes changes to the law pertaining to the Church and these changes are usually things that emanate from the Church of England Synod and the sort of central organs of the established church in this country.

And they had a proposal to reshape their internal governance and create something called the Church of England National Services, which was going to be a charity that dispersed money, provided advice centrally, and did all sorts of other central tasks in the running of the Church. And it had sailed through the Synod, this proposal, but it was vetoed, or rather to be exactly technically correct, deemed to be non expedient by Parliament's ecclesiastical committee, which is a body of 15 MPs and 15 peers currently under the chairmanship of Baroness Butler Sloss, very senior ex judge.

So what's going on? Why has this happened? What's the politics behind it? Because it's very, very rare indeed, for this body to do anything other than rubber stamp the [00:31:00] proposals before it.

Ruth Fox: It is interesting, mark, because as you say, this seemed to sail through the Church of England bodies, and they've been looking at this, reviewing it for about five years. An awful lot of work has come to a juddering halt with this committee's decision. Obviously ecclesiastical matters, ecclesiastical measures, which is what this is, a form of delegated legislation. We talk about statutory instruments, listeners, a lot on the podcast, but when the Church of England is making law, they are ecclesiastical measures and it spent five years.

I was very struck that the committee when they considered this and they had the bishops in and they had some of the people who've been involved in the review, we had two very senior former MPs, Sir David Livington, the former Deputy Prime Minister, and Sir Robert Buckland, the former Attorney General who've been part of this review for the Church of England. And yet the committee said, hmm not happy with this.

Mark D'Arcy: And why was that? Well, one of the reasons was your particular pet bug bear delegated legislation, I suppose in this context, it's not so much Henry VIII powers as, I dunno, Cardinal Wolsey powers [00:32:00] or Archbishop Cranmer powers. It was a set of powers that would've been given to this Church of England National Services body that would've allowed it, for example, to rewrite its own constitution by secondary legislation.

And a key figure in all this seems to be the former Conservative now Reform MP Danny Kruger, who argued quite effectively in front of the Ecclesiastical Committee that this new body had been given a rather vague remit, the ability to set its own priorities, and then to mark its own homework and operate almost independently of anybody else. Other people could comment on what it was doing, but no one else had a veto.

So vast amounts of money would be under the control of this body, and it would be able to disperse them according to its own priorities, and nobody else had really much of a say in what it did, and he felt that that was too much independence for that body.

And he seemed to convince the committee. I mean, he has quite an interesting set of exchanges there with, for example, Robert Buckland, the former Lord Chancellor, who was saying, oh, for heaven's sake, I paraphrase, he didn't actually [00:33:00] use those phrases even in the context of the Ecclesiastical Committee, but he was saying that it was a complete exaggeration to say that this body could go off on its merry way and spend its money in any way it wanted. And that was a complete misinterpretation of what the proposals did.

But the committee didn't seem to accept that because they deemed the changes that were proposed to be inexpedient. And that means that they don't go forward, they don't get put before Parliament.

And the Church of England authorities will now eventually have to decide what they're going to do about it. At the moment, it seems they're not going to do anything at all. Those proposals are gone. That's it for the time being. And so, a series of hot potatoes now lie in the lap of the new archbishop Sarah Mullally.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, I mean, it is interesting because, this new body that was proposed to be set up, the Church of England National Services. Essentially it's a charity and a charity would always have, you know, within its articles if you like, the ability to amend its constitution subject to [00:34:00] whatever constitutional procedure was established by the charity at the time it was set up and essentially contained in this measure is a delegated power to enable the Church of England Central Services body as it was proposed to do just that.

But as you say, people like Danny Kruger were concerned that that was, you know, too broad. I mean, one, for example, the proposal was that the charity would have powers to adapt for ancillary charitable purposes, which could mean an awful lot of other things, could mean a whole host of things that the church could be doing, which might be outside its core remit at the time it was established. And certainly there is a concern that the Church Commissioners, which is the body that essentially controls the church finances, deals with the payment of the clergy, manages the historic endowments, the church commissioners, the finance would still stay with them, but the church commissioners would be required to pay the charity, this Church of England National Services body, [00:35:00] for what was described as the proper exercise of its functions.

And whilst there was some discretion about the overall amount of payment, there wasn't necessarily the discretion about how that charitable body could choose to use the money. So there's this question of accountability at the heart of it. And in total, I mean there's nine delegated powers in this church measure, this ecclesiastical measure, which certainly I think Lord Lisvane, the former Clerk of the House of Commons, and a former member of the Delegated Powers Committee in the House of Lords was particularly concerned about.

Mark D'Arcy: He had another striking phrase. He said that if these powers had been put in front of the Delegated Powers Committee, they would've gone into carnivore mode. So it would've sunk its teeth in quite considerably at the wide range of these powers. And so everybody's backed off now.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. And that's the extraordinary thing.

I mean, as I said at the beginning, you know, this has been worked on, a review of the governance of the Church of England, over five years, and essentially it's come to a jutting halt because, as I understand it now, that the committee has [00:36:00] essentially said no, we're not happy with this. The legislative committee of the Church of England or the General Synod could go back to the drawing board, amend the ecclesiastical measure and try again.

But apparently the authorities have said, well, the earliest we could reintroduce it would be February next year, apparently. And, that's a long time for all of this to be sitting in limbo, as it were. And their proposal is essentially, they're not going to reintroduce it.

Mark D'Arcy: And why do these things matter? Well, amongst other things is the issue of safeguarding, and the various clerical sexual abuse scandals that have been floating around for the last couple of years still weigh very heavily on the Church of England.

And one of the things Church of England National Services would've done is provided centralised advice on issues like that. The issue of safeguarding is being looked at by a Church of England internal inquiry at the moment. But the Church is under considerable pressure from the Charities Commission to move further and faster than it seems inclined to do. So again, another hot potato in the lap of the incoming [00:37:00] archbishop.

And there's also a matter of clerical conduct hearings. Should they by default be held in private. They've now been pressed so that they should be by default held in public with the provision to be able to go into private session if it was necessary for some reason to do so. So there's a bit of openness being injected in the system there, but there are a lot of issues around church governance in play at the moment.

And, the feeling is that it seems on the committee that these proposals actually complicated things, didn't provide enough accountability, and so they've been pushed to one side. So quite an interesting exercise in a usually quite dormant parliamentary body suddenly flexing its muscles.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. And essentially what's happened is 15 MPs, as you said, 15 peers, so 30 parliamentarians, have essentially stopped the reform of the governance of the Church of England, which the Church itself through its own procedures and its own bodies, the General Synod not least had essentially passed through, you know, as I understand it, with, with quite substantial margins of [00:38:00] support and 30 parliamentarians put their hands up and say no,, not happy with that.

Mark D'Arcy: That's what happens when you've got an established church.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. Brings to the fore, doesn't it? There are some really interesting debate about the relationship between Church and State and the role of Church accountability to Parliament. And unless frankly you're reading the Church Times, I don't think you've really come across.

Mark D'Arcy: The existing system dates back to an Act of Parliament in 1919 and there is some thought that maybe a century on it's time to update the parliamentary side of Church of England governance as well. And maybe it's time to have an actual full all singing, all dancing Church of England Select Committee in Parliament.

Just a thought. There are a few people out there who seem to like that as an idea, but I don't think it's got much play at the moment. And you imagine it's probably not top of the Government's priorities either. But wait and see.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, well it's a really interesting development, so, we'll see if anything further emerges, whether, that committee's one that we'll keep an eye on.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, it's just a thought that, I mean, 20 odd years of reporting [00:39:00] Parliament at the BBC, I barely noticed the Ecclesiastical Committee at any point. The one time I did notice it was I happen to be browsing a list of new select committee members and a Conservative MP called Patrick Mercer, who I knew a bit because he had once worked at the BBC, was appointed to this committee. I was slightly surprised. He's best known as a former Army officer and I mentioned this to him. He said, am I? Am I really on this committee? And it turned out that he was on this, on the basis that his father had been a bishop. But, he wasn't even aware, well, as he said to me, he wasn't even aware he was on it until I told him.

Ruth Fox: Yeah.

Mark D'Arcy: Wow.

Ruth Fox: Well, I think if you look down the list of MPs and peers when they do the list of interests at the beginning, that's quite interesting. Oh, I'm a trustee of so and so in relation to a church, or I'm doing fundraising for this cathedral, or I'm sitting on this particular church body. Or in some instances, you know, I'm married to a Church of England vicar. So it was quite interesting.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah. It's one of the roads less travelled in Parliament sshall we say. But watch this space.

Ruth Fox: But not on Parliament matters. [00:40:00]

Mark D'Arcy: Here we are again.

Ruth Fox: Right, Mark, I think we should take another quick break and then come back and talk about, well, I want to have a go at another bit of Parliamentary activity that's gone under the radar this Easter, which is the appointment of the Armed Forces Commissioner, and also talk about prorogation and whether or not it's a good idea for Parliament to basically take a break for the next couple of weeks in the run up to the King's Speech when well, frankly, the world is on fire.

Mark D'Arcy: Oh, I'm sure nothing much shall happen. Cross your fingers.

Ruth Fox: See you in a minute.

Mark D'Arcy: Bye.

And we are back. And Ruth, you've had rather a busy Easter break there. I was on Easter Monday scrolling as I do through my social media feeds. And suddenly there you were in quite a considerable and extended Twitter rant. I mean, you didn't, to your credit, post a picture of yourself as Our Lady or anything like that, but you were quite

Ruth Fox: un true social.

Mark D'Arcy: You were quite, well, you were quite exercised about the [00:41:00] appointment of an Armed Forces Commissioner. We've talked about this on the pod before, but there's going to be this new kind of Ombudsman figure for service personnel and the appointment is now made and it seems to have been a curiously perfunctory and rather rapid, possibly dangerously rapid process.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. What really astonished me was that, it was the timeline for the appointment. I mean, the Armed Forces Commissioner Bill was passed, what last September, got Royal Assent. And this, listeners, was promised in the Labour manifesto. The Government made a great deal of this at the time that Royal Assent was granted, there was this gonna be independent person modelled on the German Armed Forces Commissioner model, an independent commissioner accountable to Parliament, tasked with championing service personnel and their families and their, you know, needs and concerns and so on.

And I've been looking out for the appointment because it was all due to coming into force in April. So this month. And the [00:42:00] person who was going to be appointed was gonna be subject to a pre-appointment hearing by a select committee. As you know, we do our weekly Bulletin where we troll through what's happening in the week ahead in the order paper.

So I've had my eye out on select committees. When is the Defence Committee gonna get the appointment to get the person in front of them to discuss their suitability for the post and why they're the government's preferred candidate. And as of Easter, nothing had happened. There had been no announcement, which I thought was curious.

And I've seen that there's been some Parliamentary questions tabled by the opposition party about it, and frankly got non answers to it. And then all of a sudden I realised the government on Easter Sunday put out a press release saying that the Armed Forces Commissioner had been appointed. But you had to read down to the next to last paragraph of this 13 paragraph press release to discover that it was a temporary appointment for 12 months only, which sort of, you know, tipped me off that possibly this hadn't been quite the great success that the Government had perhaps hoped for. And it turned out that the Defence [00:43:00] Committee in the last days of Parliament, before Easter, had indeed had a pre-appointment hearing, but it had been arranged so quickly, it hadn't been listed at the time.

We'd done our Bulletin on the Sunday, when just a couple of days later they had to have the hearing. So we've missed it. And I did a bit of digging, and it turns out that the person who's been appointed, who I should say, you know, my critique here is nothing against her. She's a former RAF officer called Polly Miller Perkins CBE, has a very distinguished service record, but it turns out that she submitted her CV to the Ministry of Defence on the 3rd of March this year. She was interviewed online by the Defence Secretary John Healey 10 days later, on the 13th of March. The following day, she was offered the job, and then on the 25th of March, so nine days later, she appeared before the Commons Defence Select Committee for a pre-appointment hearing, and on the 1st of April, she assumed the legal duties of the commissioner.

Now, bearing in [00:44:00] mind that the Government had started the appointment process, the recruitment process for this post, in summer of last year and earlier this year had said that they've got five candidates being interviewed. Clearly that recruitment process did not throw up anybody who was suitable. So the question was, why was this person, in what was described as not a competitive recruitment process, why was this person approaching the MOD with her CV at the beginning of March and then by the end of the month had been appointed and was in post? And it turns out, and you have to read through the Defence Committee's select committee report and the various sort of papers that have been submitted around that, it turns out that she'd heard about the post through the Labour MP Calvin Bailey, who she'd worked with in the RAF 10 years ago, she'd not had any contact with him in the interim apparently, but he'd asked her why she hadn't applied for it. And, he said to her, I think they're having some difficulties finding somebody for the post, so why don't you submit your CV? So she did, [00:45:00] and within less than a month, she'd been interviewed, had a pre-appointment hearing and was in the job. So it's pretty extraordinary. And there's no,

Mark D'Arcy: It's how you normally do a big government appointment like this. I mean, it may not be quite as big as a major industry regulator or a Bank of England committee member, but it's still pretty significant to the lives of potentially thousands and thousands of service personnel.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. And I think if you're gonna do a pre-appointment hearing for somebody, the defence committee basically got a few days notice. ANd had to hold the hearing very, very quickly. So quickly that some of the members of the committee couldn't attend because they hadn't planned to be having that meeting. They'd had an earlier meeting that week that had been in the diary. This one wasn't.

So it wasn't a full committee hearing. They had not had the time to think about and reflect upon her CV and her answers to the questions. The hearing was shorter than it would normally be as a result. And she performed perfectly well in front of the committee. And indeed the committee have endorsed her appointment and said they're satisfied with it, that she's got the experience, the skillset, the commitment, and on [00:46:00] to do the role. But obviously it's only for a temporary 12 month period and it's not clear what the government is now going to do in terms of recruiting somebody on a full-time basis and whether there's gonna be a new competition opened up for the post.

Mark D'Arcy: Both sides testing the water.

And yeah, it may be that she simply stays in post and is confirmed there for a longer term. Or alternatively, are they going to say, one or the other of them, gonna say, this isn't working out, let's find someone else.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. But for me, and there's a sort of a broader question than about accountability to Parliament. This bill that got Royal Assent last September made a big deal about all of this. They'd launched what turned out to be a nine month recruitment process, which clearly failed in the sense of bringing forward a candidate that they thought was appointable.

The successive ministers have failed to really answer Written Parliamentary Questions from opposition MPs about it. They've stalled, they've stonewalled, they've not answered the question properly with any detail. You know, there were [00:47:00] questions from the Shadow Defence Secretary James Cartlidge. There were questions from the former military officer, Conservative MP Ben Obese Jecty, and they were just, they didn't get answers.

And even now it's still not clear what the government's plan is gonna be in terms of the future. There's no accountability about what happened to this recruitment process. So you might not want to go into details about individual candidates and why they weren't appropriate, but you might be able to flesh out some detail in the background of why you think the recruitment process didn't work and what are you gonna do next time to put it right.

Mark D'Arcy: But the first person who takes this job often sets the parameters for their successors. So it's very, very important to get it right and have someone who feels they've got authority. And I wonder if you've got someone in a, I dunno what you call it, temporary tenure, whether they will really feel they've got the freedom.

Ruth Fox: Yeah.

Mark D'Arcy: To set the rules and set the precedents that someone in this job really needs to set. So it's not ideal from any number of points of view.

Ruth Fox: No, absolutely. I mean, at the time she had the pre-appointment hearing in front of the [00:48:00] Defence Committee, she acknowledged she hadn't even yet got her contract.

So she was asked a question by the one of the members of the select committee about, are you a permanent appointment? Are you employed on a civil service contract by the Ministry of Defence, or because it's temporary, are you on a consultancy contract? Interestingly, her actual response was that she thought she was employed by Parliament, which is actually isn't true at all. She's accountable to Parliament. She's not employed by Parliament.

Mark D'Arcy: So inspectors are normally a sort of a Crown appointment, aren't they? Yeah. Rather than a straight civil service appointment. So they shouldn't be under the direct line of accountability to a Minister.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. She described herself as a direct appointment of Parliament.

Well, that's just not accurate. The other thing that was interesting is she was asked about the location of her office, and obviously things were, you know, getting up and running and, she obviously didn't perhaps know where her office was, but she wanted access to the MOD. She thought she should have free access to the MOD, but she wanted her office. She thought her office would be nearer Parliament. So that in itself is quite interesting. Where does she think she's gonna be based? And, [00:49:00] you know, does she imagine that she ought to be based in Parliament? That would raise a whole set of questions. I think she'd probably be disabused of that in the coming weeks.

But yeah, the plan initially if you go through the various correspondence between ministers and the defence committee about this back through last year. The plan was initially to have a pre-appointment hearing last November. So that didn't happen. So between November and essentially mid-April, there has then been this vacuum of information, at least in public about what's been going on.

And as you say, the idea was that you'd have somebody in post in the early, in the new year so that they could help to shape the development of the office and how it's gonna function and the setting up of systems. And yet there she was essentially getting appointed and into office within a matter of days when all of these powers are suddenly hers.

So it seemed to be a very unsatisfactory process on a number of fronts, but particularly the lack of ministerial candour [00:50:00] with the Defence Committee members and with other shadow opposition members about what was happening with the appointment. And you can see that in the answers, the stonewalling answers, to Parliament. Perfectly legitimate parliamentary questions to ask when Parliament has passed an Act at the government's behest to set this post up and there's a public appointment process going on. And resources are gonna be spent on this and directed to the office of the Armed Forces Commissioner.

Just a complete lack of accountability and because we're coming up to the end of the session, there isn't now gonna be defence questions until the other side of the King's Speech, so you'll be into May before there'll be an opportunity to learn more.

Mark D'Arcy: There may be a few other issues taking up the minds of defence specialists in the Commons by that point.

Ruth Fox: You'd think.

Mark D'Arcy: You'd think.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, and that's the problem. I think that's the challenge is that there's so much going on in terms of the defence debate that understandably other issues are being prioritised, but accountability does matter.

Mark D'Arcy: Well, Ruth, let's turn to another minor parliamentary mystery, which is what's happened to the Northern Ireland Troubles [00:51:00] Bill?

The government has been replacing the previous government's legislation on dealing with the legacy issues from the Northern Ireland Troubles with its own bill and that bill has mysteriously gone into limbo and we now have a new theory as to why that might be.

Ruth Fox: Yes. So we have some of the best listeners can get in touch and help us with information and intelligence, uh, that they pick up.

So listeners, if you remember on our last episode before Easter, we did some questions from listeners about a variety of things. But one in particular was, as you say, what had happened with the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill. It had its second reading, I think in November, and it's been stalled ever since.

And we were not sure, but we thought it was possibly that they just couldn't agree on how they were gonna handle this delicate legislation about the Troubles. But it turns out there may have been something else in the background here.

So one of our listeners, Rory Hipkin, thank you Rory for getting in touch. He suggested that the current legislation that was passed by the [00:52:00] last government in relation to the Northern Ireland troubles that this new government bill is gonna repeal has been challenged by way of judicial review in the Northern Ireland high court, and for a variety of reasons after it was enacted, you know, things about compatibility with the EU Withdrawal Agreement, for example, that case has apparently made its way to the UK Supreme Court, and there was an appeal in October of last year, but the judgement has not been published yet, so that is still awaited. So we can't be certain. But it doesn't seem unreasonable to think that actually the government may be awaiting the results of that Supreme Court judgement before moving to the next steps.

And you know, it may be as a result of that judgement, they have to make some changes to the legislation.

Mark D'Arcy: Well, you could imagine they might have to build in some of the Supreme Court's conclusions into the new legislation. And it would avoid a lot of trouble if they just waited until that happened.

Yeah. So yeah, I can see that as quite a compelling reason for holding fire for the time being.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. So the bill [00:53:00] will carry over into the next session, so there's no problems with the government on it, but interesting and thank you Rory, for that bit of intelligence. That was really helpful. And Mark, we got a mention in the House of Lords, we shouldn't let that go by, the podcast was mentioned by Baroness Sarah Ludford, the Lib Dem peer, in the debate on the Statement of Changes to the Immigration Rules this week.

Mark D'Arcy: Yes. I think she found our pod thoughts on that quite helpful, apparently. So, thank you Lady Ludford. We keep a nice, exhaustive list of all parliamentary references to this podcast for our own advertising purposes. So that's another one in the box.

And, as this parliamentary session draws peacefully to its close, Ruth, there is a bit of an issue and it's around the word peacefully. On current plans, parliament is due to prorogue or suspend itself in the week beginning the 28th of April. And after that, if it's prorogued, nothing can happen in Parliament under most circumstances until the next King's Speech, which will be on May the 13th, and that will be [00:54:00] slightly more than two weeks away.

And with the world on fire, with all sorts of crises in the Persian Gulf and all sorts of other issues going on, is that entirely wise? Should Parliament deny itself the ability to meet if there is some moment of crisis that deserves its attention in that two week period? Because it's highly possible that there might be.

Ruth Fox: Well, no I don't think it is wise.

And what happens is that, for prorogation, Buckingham Palace on the advice of the Privy Council, makes an announcement of a date range for prorogation.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah. This gives it a bit of flex so that they wait till they've got all the bills done. And that'll be between date one and date two.

And once all the work is done, bang, you can have your commission going in and prorogue Parliament.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. And this is the bookend to the state opening. So you know, it kind of mirrors, prorogation will mirror the state opening, black rod has to go to the House of Commons, summon the Commons, the MPs, into the Lord's Chamber, there's a Royal Commission, four or five senior members of the House of Lords, [00:55:00] doffing their caps, but the date range that has been chosen for this prorogation is 29th of April to the 6th of May. Now, bear in mind the King's Speech is the 13th, the following week. So it's up to the date before the Wednesday before the local elections.

Now, if they go to the 6th of May, then you've got a week without Parliament, which some would say still not ideal, but

Mark D'Arcy: It's not utterly unmanageable.

Ruth Fox: It's not utterly unmanageable. If you go 29th of April, you're talking about an extra week or so beyond that. Now I'm hearing suggestions that indeed the government would like and indeed some of the other parties would like to be done by the 29th of April.

Mark D'Arcy: And actually the forward Parliamentary business that was published a few hours before we started this recording doesn't have anything after the 29th of April. Now that doesn't preclude, you know, a bit more consideration of Lord's amendments if there's still ping-pong going on on some bill or other, but broadly speaking, it suggests the expectation is the 29th of April is the date.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. What does that mean [00:56:00] if once they prorogue, parliamentary business falls away, so things like parliamentary questions, for motions, for obviously bills have either got Royal Assent or they've been carried over, select committees, their inquiries can carry on into the next session, they'll resume where they left off, but you don't get publication of reports and so on, and they can't hold hearings. But the critical thing is that, they can't recall Parliament during that period of prorogation.

Mark D'Arcy: I think the only possible circumstances is the death of the Monarch, isn't it?

Ruth Fox: There's there's two.

So there's death of the Monarch and there's also, if they had to use regulations made under the Civil Contingencies Act, which has never happened.

Mark D'Arcy: Emergency situation, essentially.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. That is the nation's highest level national emergency legislation. So if a nuclear bomb lands, then you know, you'd need national emergency legislation perhaps, and that's what would be used.

And the powers are so considerable, essentially ministers can [00:57:00] do whatever they deem necessary to do. They can take over property, they can access funding, you know, there's a whole series of things. They require Parliament to renew them periodically and after a matter of days, so there's provision to recall Parliament for that.

But other than that, if there was some major development in the world that involved, you know, an attack on Britain or attack on British interests, attack on British allies, attack on our armed forces, whatever it might be, or indeed if it was an economic problem, something happens as a result of what's happening in the Middle East and there are economic difficulties or we suddenly haven't got access to some particular product or whatever, and that has an impact on the economy, Parliament can't be recalled in those circumstances, and that seems to me to be concerning. The government doesn't have to prorogue straight away. It could adjourn and then prorogue. Now that would mean that on whatever day they decide to prorogue, which could, you know, should be the [00:58:00] 6th of May, they'd have to get some MPs and peers back for that day to do it. But they don't need many of them.

Mark D'Arcy: Well, I suppose you can come up to, frankly, to May the 12th if you wanted to prorogue on May the 12th and have the state opening the next day.

Ruth Fox: Well, I don't think they can. Now they've issued the

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, now they've issued it, but they could done, in theory, they could have done, they could have had a provision. But I suppose if you think back to the halcyon days of a few weeks ago before we had all this madness going on in the world, maybe it seemed a perfectly normal way to go about things. And suddenly we're in an emergency situation. It doesn't seem to me that it's beyond the realms of possibility to change the arrangements even at a late date, even if it means reversing what had previously been announced so that you do have the ability for Parliament to sit if necessary.

It's not the absolutely central thing that a government may want, but I think Parliament ought to want it.

Ruth Fox: Yeah. And that and I think that's, you know, that's kind of the critical thing. But the politics of this, of course, they're looking at it in a different way from the government's perspective, you know, given the local elections, the concerns they've got about that, they're quite happy to have the MPs [00:59:00] away from Westminster.

The other political parties want to get out campaigning because they want to be focused on those local elections and trying to deliver a good result. So for different reasons, I think the politics are playing out in a way that, you know, not particularly addressing the concerns that you and I have got, but I think from the government's perspective, in terms of risk management here, I think really it would be better to adjourn until the 6th of May and then prorogue, but I gather, that's not the plan.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah. Strange but true. But there we are. That's the way it seems to work these days.

Ruth Fox: Indeed. Well, I think that's probably all we've got time for this week. You never know. There may be MPs listening who will perhaps have a think about whether or not proroguing on the 29th of April is a good idea.

We might come back with different news next week.

Mark D'Arcy: Who knows?

Ruth Fox: But we'll see you next week. And listeners, just as ever before you go, can we ask you to rate, review, and share the podcast so that we can help find more listeners?

Mark D'Arcy: Always helps to grow the pod. Till next week, [01:00:00] goodbye.

Ruth Fox: Bye. Mark

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 find us on social media at Hansard Society.