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00:00:02:07 - 00:00:16:09 You're listening to Parliament matters, a Hansard society production supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. Learn more at hansardsociety.org.uk/pm. 00:00:16:11 - 00:00:40:02 Welcome to Parliament Matters, the podcast about the institution at the heart of our democracy, Parliament itself. I'm Ruth Fox and I'm Mark D'Arcy. Coming up, the legislative sausage machine cranks into action and there are big new bills on planning and devolution to galvanize the economy. What will it be like for generation 2024 as the new MPs get down to work. And managing a mega majority? 00:00:40:08 - 00:00:52:00 What lessons can Labour learn from the Blair years? Parliamentary rebellions expert Phil Cowley weighs in. 00:00:52:02 - 00:01:15:11 But first, Ruth, we got to talk about the King's Speech. 36 bills, plus four draft bills. It's a big program. It's going to be a lot of work for the House of Commons and the House of Lords over the next few months, but it's not unprecedentedly big. No, I mean, it's at the higher end of the spectrum in recent years, but you can go back to 2005 after the election. 00:01:15:11 - 00:01:32:01 Then there were high number of bills, 40 odd, but it is a lot. It will be a hard grind over the course of the session. Interestingly, we don't know how long the session will be. The government hasn't said. Lucy Powell, the leader of the House of Commons, has intimated on some press appearances yesterday that it could be 18 months, possibly longer. 00:01:32:01 - 00:01:54:15 So we'll have to see. But there is a lot to get your teeth into. There's some big political bills which will come on to, but there's also, interestingly, quite a number of bills that the previous government didn't get through when it called the election. And the government's revisiting some of those. It's rebranding some of them. It'll no doubt amend some of them and bring them back in slightly different form, but essentially to achieve the same objectives. 00:01:54:15 - 00:02:14:17 So there's a kind of a legacy agenda. There's some housekeeping and some tidying up of some legal matters that they want to get through. And then the meatier big bills that will no doubt appear shortly. The central parts of the government's agenda are, I think, things like the English devolution Bill, which will give new powers, particularly to the big metro mayoralties, which are now almost all Labour. 00:02:14:17 - 00:02:34:01 So it'll be passing power down to a lot of people that the government approves of to wield that power. And a planning bill. Now, neither of those are in the immediate sort of tranche of bills that are being introduced this week into the House of Commons and the House of Lords, possibly because they are very techy, very complicated bills. 00:02:34:01 - 00:02:55:16 The bill on planning covers a notoriously difficult area that will have a lot of parliamentary draftpersons working flat out on it, pulling all nighters for the coming weeks to make sure that it is ready at a reasonably early stage, because this is a bill they want to get in place, because it's the instrument by which they hope to kick off a bit of a building boom and help galvanize the economy and infrastructure building. 00:02:55:20 - 00:03:10:18 Yeah, and they need that for the commitment to what was it, 1.5 million homes? I think they've committed to a very, very big commitment. There are an awful lot of people who flatly don't believe it's possible, simply because there aren't the people there to do the building. Yeah, well, that's one of the things, isn't it, that you have you got enough builders, literally. 00:03:10:20 - 00:03:34:12 Have you got enough bricks and enough plumbers and so forth. And of course, that then clashes with your immigration policy and how many people you want to bring into the country to fill those employment gaps. So yes, I'm going to want to get on with that fairly quickly, because I think that is going to be one that's both probably a big bill, a complex bill, and one that will galvanize a lot of stakeholders across, you know, local government, house building, planners and so on. 00:03:34:14 - 00:03:55:07 And the English devolution bill, I mean, obviously Labour has got the mayoralties now. There's no guarantee it will have them in 4 or 5 years time. Well, midterm elections, you know, midterm elections where maybe the government slumping a bit in the opinion polls, might suddenly see a lot of people from other parties taking over in some of those majorities and perhaps doing things the government is less keen on. 00:03:55:07 - 00:04:12:00 So watch that space because it is an area where if you're going to hand down powers, you can't always guarantee that those powers are going to be used by people you approve of. Yeah. And this, of course, is the bill that I've previously referenced on this podcast where shadow ministers were referring to it as the take back control bill. 00:04:12:00 - 00:04:31:11 So transferring power out of Westminster, devolving it to communities in areas like transport and energy and so on. And planning, of course. And interestingly, nine, ten months ago they were saying that this was the bill that they wanted out first, but this was setting the scene, the agenda for the new government. But it isn't one of the first bills. 00:04:31:11 - 00:04:57:08 I was away recording the day after the King's Speech. We've had three bills published and presented to Parliament today. The Budget Responsibility Bill, the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill and the Holocaust Memorial Bill. The Holocaust Memorial Bill is a hybrid bill which is essentially almost a planning matter. It's about making it possible to build a Holocaust memorial on the park immediately adjacent to Parliament, and that requires a change in the law. 00:04:57:10 - 00:05:21:15 And that's something that's been going through the parliamentary machinery for some time now. It is possible to just continue with bills of that kind across the general election and don't have to completely restart it. The Railways Bill. I'm almost uncertain about how necessary this actually is, because it is possible for the government to resume public control and public operation of railway franchises as and when they expire, so I'm not quite sure how viable this bill is. 00:05:21:21 - 00:05:52:11 And then we've got the Budget Responsibility Bill. Or you might call it the the Liz Truss Prevention Bill, which is designed to give the Office for Budget Responsibility beefier powers to hold up a majestic hand and say to a Chancellor, steady on your budget is possibly going to be dangerous to the economy. And Liz Truss, the former prime minister, of course, who lost her seat in the general election, is distinctly unamused by the fact that in the explanatory notes to the King's Speech, she is referenced in a very unfavorable way. 00:05:52:11 - 00:06:11:07 A number of times. She's actually written to the cabinet secretary, Simon Case, to complain about this. Now, whether Simon Case, whose clearly going to leave that office quite soon, actually has the authority to stop the government putting things in explanatory notes to a King's speech is another matter. They've actually, as I understand it last night, they've actually removed the references and republished the document. 00:06:11:07 - 00:06:28:01 So there's some acknowledgment that it shouldn't have been there. But it does raise the question about how on earth it ended up there in the first place, because that's not the kind of thing that should be in a document that's published and that's overseen by the civil service prior to publication, and that the government communication service somehow has fallen down. 00:06:28:01 - 00:06:53:24 So it's not a good kind of thing. Yeah. Not a good sign for a government that's talked a lot about restoring standards in public life and pointing out the sins of previous governments. And there's a big blot on its copybook within a few days of getting elected. Yeah. And so this budget responsibility bill, I mean, this is essentially, as you say, enforce the fiscal rules regarding spending, put them on the statute book, provide that statutory underpinning, strengthen the OBR's role. 00:06:53:24 - 00:07:18:10 I mean, I do have concerns about this. It does seem to be sort of raising the OBR some kind of level above the Treasury and the level of above government, a sort of economic guardian council on the Iranian model is what it's beginning to look like, and it seems a little bit uncomfortable. I'm not in favor of shackling the government, saying we're binding ourselves by law to these rules, and then quietly having to change them when they become inconvenient and start tripping over. 00:07:18:12 - 00:07:41:04 Yeah. And then the notes to The King's Speech say this bill will require any fiscal event involving significant tax and spending changes to have an independent forecast. Well, what happens in an emergency? We had emergency financial statements, significant tax and spend changes during the pandemic, not necessarily time for a forecast. So I do have reservations about that approach, but we'll see what's in the bill. 00:07:41:04 - 00:07:58:02 It's just been published. So, me and my colleagues will be looking forward to having a look at that and saying, most of all, are there any major delegated powers, Henry the Eighth powers in these bills? Because I've been promised that, the new government is going to take a fresh approach to delegated powers, and it's going to do things properly. 00:07:58:05 - 00:08:16:21 Well, the new attorney general, Richard Herman KC, is being inducted into the Lords now. And he'll be leading a debate on part of the King's Speech early next week. He has said the government isn't going to abuse processes in the way it accused previous governments of doing so. So the good chap approach to government is back in force now. 00:08:16:21 - 00:08:45:13 We'll see how long it lasts. Yes, we'll be checking the number of powers in the bills and how broad they are. But back to the legislation. So we've talked about planning. We've talked about English devolution. The other one, probably employment rights, is going to be quite a big one. Previous governments had promised an all singing, all dancing employment bill to update employment rights, particularly in the light of all these new developments there have been around zero hours contracts and the employment status of people who are in these positions. 00:08:45:15 - 00:09:04:18 And it never actually appeared. What did appear were kind of nuggets from it that were put through as private member's bills. So you had a kind of self-assembly employment bill going to take a little Ikea key and start sticking the bits together. And you got final bill. You've got something approaching the original bill, but with the difficult bits left out. 00:09:04:19 - 00:09:25:07 Now Labour is talking about dealing with the employment rights of people and zero hours contracts and outlawing fire and rehire and a number of other practices that have grown up. And this one's going to be quite a challenge to them, because on the one hand, there's all the rhetoric about growth, and that will meet concerns about the flexibility of the labour markets. 00:09:25:07 - 00:09:59:04 If you make it too much of a problem for employers to take on new staff. Well, I mean, I do think unintended consequences is going to be one of the things, too, as ever, with the legislative program to look out for. But I mean, just speaking personally, I know my family has to deal, engage a lot with social care carers for a close family member and, quite a number of the carers at the company are on zero hours contracts and they don't want to lose them because if they do, they'll be tied into a contract that will require them to travel anywhere in Hertfordshire on a particular day to provide care and, bearing 00:09:59:04 - 00:10:22:23 in mind the other aspects of social care is that they don't get the transport and other costs fully covered. So the travel time that they will spend traveling across a big county wouldn't be covered. They wouldn't be recompensed for it. So very few of the staff agreed to go on those contracts. They much prefer the zero hours. And so potentially that you're going to see some unintended consequences, depending upon how the government frames the legislation. 00:10:22:24 - 00:10:40:15 And with a whole load of new MPs going onto the committees that will study the detail of these bills, you wonder how effective they'll be in teasing out these kind of issues and possibly getting ministers to consider making changes as they go along. Yeah, well, I'll be advising the carers to take care along to their new Labour MP. 00:10:40:17 - 00:11:04:08 So yeah. So that's the employment rights. And interestingly on that one again Angela Rayner said something about this some months ago that this bill would be introduced in the first 100 days. And they've repeated that in the explanatory notes to the speech. They don't say 100 sitting days, they say 100 days. So if it hasn't appeared before Summer recess at the end of this month, then you can expect it to be appearing pretty quickly in the September/October sittings. 00:11:04:12 - 00:11:25:05 This may be one, though, where there is already a fairly substantial draft available that a Labour government can sort of take down off the shelf, dust off a bit shape to its purposes, and start putting through Parliament fairly rapidly. It's not as if these issues are pretty well known and intensively studied already, so perhaps it's in a more oven ready state and a lot of other legislation. 00:11:25:05 - 00:11:54:09 Yeah, I think that's something to appreciate about the legislative program, although ultimately it's the Office of Parliamentary Counsel, the official drafters that have to produce this legislation in some instances, we know that the Labour Party has had draft bills put together by their own legal advisers, you know, society for Labour lawyers and legal academics that they can call on to get some drafting done so that they can provide a sort of an indicator, an example to the civil servants of what they wanted once they arrived in government. 00:11:54:15 - 00:12:27:01 So and as I say, it makes it a little bit more oven ready and a little bit easier for them to make an immediate start. There's also a fairly substantial Culture Wars bill in here, which is the bill to outlaw conversion therapy, which is quite an interesting one, because that's something that, again, had been promised and was still kind of floating around in the background in Parliament, never quite came to the wicket, but it's quite an important piece of legislation which I think will possibly ignite kind of culture wars, arguments which will go across party lines as well as between them. 00:12:27:04 - 00:12:47:04 Yeah, engage all the political parties. They've all got sort of the differences within their ranks on this one. We got a little foretaste of the kind of tensions around this when Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, made a speech quite recently attacking the flying of the sort of gay rights flag about government departments, and that produced quite a backlash within the Conservative Party. 00:12:47:04 - 00:13:10:16 And this may foreshadow some of the issues that occur within the forthcoming Tory leadership race as well. Yeah. Well, we'll perhaps come on, you know, in a few minutes, Mark to the Tory leadership race and how you think it's shaping up. But another bill that took my eye because it engages the vexed question of how far, if at all, we realign with EU rules in terms of products and sort of the way we do things in the future 00:13:10:16 - 00:13:35:13 Post-Brexit is the Product Safety and Metrology Bill has in it a line that this will enable the government to align with European rules when it's in the national interest. And interesting. There's a line in there about asserting our sovereign right to do so. It's a sovereign choice, but it'd be interesting to see what comes of that. And another thing to keep an eye on, and I think in the coming weeks, is that the government will have to report on its progress in relation to any planned amendments 00:13:35:13 - 00:13:58:00 it's got to retained EU law. It's got a statutory reporting obligation in the coming weeks. So a combination of what's in that bill and what it's planning in reference to retained EU law will be interesting and in some future direction, interesting and important. And as we speak, Keir Starmer is tickling the tummies of other European leaders of the European political community. 00:13:58:01 - 00:14:30:18 Similarly, metaphorically, I hasten to add, it would make quite a photo op. But all the same, there is a feeling that he's getting a very warm reception from EU leaders, and it seems to suggest that the government is moving fast in its ambition to build a better and closer relationship with the EU, and that will be something that the remaining Uber Brexiteers in the Conservative contingent in Parliament, and perhaps also in the Reform contingent, will doubtless start shouting about pretty quickly. 00:14:30:18 - 00:14:49:23 Yeah, something else we should look at, Mark, is that across a number of these bills they're going to create quite a new number of bodies and roles that Parliament's going want to get its teeth into in terms of the functions, the purpose, the financing of them. We're going to have a new agency called Skills England. We're going to have a National Wealth Fund. 00:14:49:23 - 00:15:05:14 We're going to have Great British Energy, although nobody seems quite clear what Great British Energy is going to do. I think it's some kind of investment vehicle, but it's not actually going to be producing energy. We're going to have Great British Railways and an armed forces commissioner. Those are just a few that I took from the material that was produced yesterday. 00:15:05:14 - 00:15:26:16 But there may be more, but I think that's something to keep an eye on. Yeah, most definitely. I think it's become an increasing kind of irritant in Parliament, the profusion of regulators and supervisory bodies over the last few years that Parliament can't necessarily easily get its teeth into now. MPs want to be able to sort of speak on issues and don't want to be fobbed off. 00:15:26:16 - 00:15:54:10 Well, that's in front of the commissioner for this or the monitor for that. Yeah. And one example of that, of course, is some of the scandals that have taken place over recent years. I mean, just as we're talking the Lib Dem leader, Ed Davey, and the former, well, current minister and former Post Office minister Pat McFadden are up before the Post Office inquiry and the government's proposing in order to tackle past scandals and sort of this question of accountability to Parliament and to others, 00:15:54:12 - 00:16:13:21 they're proposing a Hillsborough law to provide a legal duty of candour on public servants in the future and public authorities. So, of course, the defense of generations of former Post Office ministers in the Post Office Horizon scandal is that we were effectively lied to by Post Office officials. So we'll have to see the timetable for that. 00:16:13:21 - 00:16:32:20 We'll have to see what that bill looks like. And then I mentioned earlier about regulators, another one is we are getting the football governance bill. Drum roll. We're going to have some kind of regulator for football. Thank goodness. Of course, this follows the inquiry that the former Conservative MP, now a former sports minister, Tracey Crouch, led in the last parliament. 00:16:32:20 - 00:16:53:13 This is one of the legacy bills that got lost at the dissolution of parliament for the election. So the government's picking that one up. And this is all part of just being able to sort of start feeding things through Parliament pretty much immediately and get actual rapid and welcome changes of the law in place before the bill. So the government wants a bit further down the road to fully prepare that. 00:16:53:16 - 00:17:15:13 The MPs have something to do with material is going through the system. So there's that side of it. And of course, we should always remember with The King's Speech, the one it lists a whole load of bills that the government plans to bring in. This doesn't actually bind the government. There's no obligation for these bills to appear. And it also doesn't limit the government in the sense that the government can bring in other stuff as well. 00:17:15:14 - 00:17:34:12 It ends up with this little qualifying thing. My Lords and members of the House of Commons. Further bills may be laid before you. So events, dear boy, events may lead to the need for further legislation. And we'll talk about this a bit later on. But the findings of the independent inquiry into the pandemic seem to suggest that some further legislation might come out of that as well. 00:17:34:14 - 00:17:52:13 Yeah, it's funny, isn't it? We spend all this time and focus on the events of yesterday, The King's Speech, so much attention paid to it. Actually, it doesn't bind the government in anything. They don't have to bring forward any of these bills if they decide against it. And they can add as many more as they want and as they can provide parliamentary time for in the session. 00:17:52:15 - 00:18:10:06 And of course, it will have to for, you know, inevitably finance bills and supply and appropriations bills to add to that number. Indeed. And the government will have to push through a supply an appropriations bill next week just to keep the funding for government departments going until it can make its own detailed plans at some point in the future. 00:18:10:08 - 00:18:37:13 But one thing also worth looking at if you go to the Commons order paper, amendments to the motion on the King's Speech, which welcomes the Royal address, are coming through and these are always very carefully phrased because, you know, you you welcomed the gracious speech from the sovereign, but then you regret that there's not something more in it usually, and it's just worth taking a look at some of the names signing this and some of the cross-party alliances that are beginning to appear. 00:18:37:18 - 00:18:55:01 So not everybody's got their amendment down yet. The Lib Dems, as the third party would normally have an amendment that would get debated at some stage, but their amendment isn't down yet, so we don't know what it will say. But there's an amendment from the Green Party which has attracted some signatures from Plaid Cymru and from some Labour left wingers. 00:18:55:07 - 00:19:18:18 There's amendments from Labour left wingers themselves, and a few names are starting to emerge here as people that the government whips will start keeping a wary eye on them, some of them not desperately surprising. For example, John McDonnell, Jeremy Corbyn's shadow chancellor. You may remember Zara Sultana, Mary Kelly Foy, Ian Lavery, who I think would all fall into the usual suspects category in the last Parliament. 00:19:18:20 - 00:19:42:08 There they are again, along with Nadia Whittome and Richard Burgon and Rebecca Long-Bailey, you know, candidate for the leadership back in the day. So they're a whole load of people that aren't a surprise. One perhaps is Rosie Duffield, the MP for Canterbury. Perhaps best known at the moment for taking a very strong position on trans issues. So just begin to see a group of people who the government whips will want to keep a weather eye on very nicely. 00:19:42:08 - 00:20:01:08 Teeing it up for our discussion with Phil Cowley shortly about, about potential rebellions within the Labour ranks. We'll see how that sort of coalition across the some of the smaller parties and the Labour left evolves. Will there be a sort of emerging alliance of the Greens and Plaid Cymru and some of the independents who are elected on a sort of Gaza issues ticket? 00:20:01:08 - 00:20:32:02 Jeremy Corbyn. Will they become a kind of loose grouping? Perhaps they can usually be expected to crop up, supporting the same things. Interestingly, I'm not sure whether the speaker will select any of these amendments. I mean, sometimes there is a Fourth Amendment selected from backbenchers if there's evidence of significant backbench support. But that's something, of course, that John Bercow did back in the day when the government didn't bring forward proposals for a referendum on our membership of the EU that caused a backbench amendment which didn't actually, in the end, go through. 00:20:32:02 - 00:21:03:02 But it provided an indicator of support, which led to David Cameron committing to it. Yeah, David Cameron deciding that he had to commit to the referendum and put us on the road to Brexit. So I suspect the speaker will not want to select a Fourth Amendment. But on the other hand, there is this sort of next question. As we know, you are seeing more smaller parties and, you know, greater proportionate share in terms of the share of the vote at the election, that he might feel that it's necessary to open up, to enable more backbench voices to be heard. 00:21:03:07 - 00:21:31:08 Yeah. In a multi-polar parliament, maybe it's time that the procedure reflected the idea that there are more than two viewpoints on any given issue, and I think that may be one of the running themes of the parliament that's just been elected. Yeah. Should we come to constitutional plans in the King's Speech? Oh, yes. Famously, when Tony Blair's government announced its proposal to exclude all the hereditary peers, there was an audible gasp across the chamber of the House of Lords back in 1997. 00:21:31:13 - 00:21:49:02 There wasn't quite so much of a gasp, because it can't come as very much of a surprise to their lordships when plans to exclude the remaining hereditary peers were confirmed in the King's Speech this time. But there they are. Yeah, I still wonder what it must be like to be the earl marshall and the Lord Great Chamberlain, as two of the hereditaries 00:21:49:02 - 00:22:06:19 that are sort of stood near the King as he reads out the speech announcing their abolition, although they may be the two that actually survive. If the government plans to abolish all the remaining 92 hereditaries, they may have to survive precisely because of their ceremonial role. So we'll have to see. But but that is very clearly set out. 00:22:06:19 - 00:22:28:21 The government intends to address the unfinished business of that first Blair government, and get rid of the remaining hereditary right to sit and vote in the House of Lords. It's worth a quick recap here, Ruth, on how we came to have this slightly odd position of 92 hereditary peers, and this was resulting from something called the Withdrawal Amendment, which was put by the former speaker of the Commons, Bernard Wetherell. 00:22:28:23 - 00:22:49:03 The idea was that if you abolish all the hereditary peers, then you'd have a position where the government of the day might be able to have a majority of peers appointed by it. And having 92 hereditary was seen as a sort of balancing element. It was also seen as a temporary balancing element, until some more satisfactory solution for the House of Lords was worked out. 00:22:49:03 - 00:23:17:15 Of course, it never was. So here we are 25 years. 20 and 25 years on, and there they all still are. And so that compromise is now being unpicked. The government is just slightly going to get rid of them, exclude them from the House. And that will of itself reduce at a stroke the makeup of a House of Lords to, you know, quite a useful extent, because it's such a large legislative chamber and Labour is bringing in lots of new peers of its own because it's appointing people to become ministers. 00:23:17:17 - 00:23:36:19 People like Jacqui Smith, the former home secretary who's been brought in as an education minister, for example, people like Sir Patrick Vallance has been brought in as a science minister. So the numbers are going up with one hand. So getting rid of 92 people, with the other hand, so to speak, is a useful balancing exercise. Except I don't think they'll end up getting rid of 90 or 92. 00:23:36:21 - 00:23:59:18 There'll be another compromise, I suspect, and you'll end up with some of them receiving life peerages, because they'll go round that 92 and think, who are the ones that actually provide some real value? I mean, Earl Kinnoull, who we spoke to just a few weeks ago about these issues, he's a hereditary peer, and there'll be people on supporting on both sides of the House who think, actually, it would be wrong to get rid of people who are adding real value. 00:23:59:20 - 00:24:22:24 So the lot of them are life peerage. I'm suspect that that will happen. But at the same time, always remember the government's position on this is constitutionally pretty strong. They announced they were going to do this in their manifesto. Yeah. So it's absolutely clear that the so-called Salisbury Convention, the rule that something that's been promised in the manifesto should not be opposed, gutted by the House of Lords, would apply to this measure. 00:24:23:02 - 00:24:38:12 Yeah. So they ought to be able to get it through. They might just decide to grease the wheels a bit along the way. But basically, if they insist on it, the House of Lords isn't going to like to stand on. Yeah, because the Labour benches in the House of Commons will roll in behind this. It'll be a very, very big majority in the end. 00:24:38:12 - 00:24:55:01 They might even quite like to have that fight. Yes. And just worth noting in terms of the hereditary peers, I mean, it's the Conservatives and the crossbenchers that are most affected. Labour only has two hereditary peers. I think two. Viscount Stamsgate. There's Lord Ponsonby, he's a minister who's been appointed a minister and he's justice minister, I think. 00:24:55:03 - 00:25:12:04 And I suspect he might be one of the ones against the kind of conversion process you're talking about, where he gets a life peerage to keep in mind. Yeah. And will they require them all to go straight away or will they say, no, you leave at the end of this Parliament? Yeah. There's all sorts of different areas where, you know, things can be sweetened slightly. 00:25:12:06 - 00:25:33:14 Yeah. But of course the other bits of, of Lords reform that we talked again about a few weeks ago with professor Meg Russell of the Constitution Unit, is this idea of a, an 80 years age cap on membership of the House of Lords. So the proposal in Labour's manifesto was that any peer who turned 80 within a parliament would cease to be a member at the end of that parliament. 00:25:33:14 - 00:25:56:10 So basically anybody turning 80 between now and whenever the next general election is would have to step down. But that has not appeared in this first King's speech, so we'll have to see whether it appears later. My understanding is that the government wants to consult and precisely because it wouldn't be implemented until the end of the parliament, there's no great rush. 00:25:56:10 - 00:26:18:14 So strategic pipeline decision for the legislation. There's plenty of time both to hone the policy down a bit, but also to make any compromises that might be needed to get it through. Yeah. So it probably shouldn't be taken as an abandonment of the policy that it's not in this first small group of bills that have been announced in the King's Speech, because as you say, there is plenty of time to come. 00:26:18:14 - 00:26:47:00 Yeah. And other things that are not there votes at 16 and automatic voter I.D., which was being trialed. So again, we will have to see whether they appear at a later date. But they're not in this King's speech. Well, Mark shall we leave it there on the King's Speech, have a short break and come back and perhaps talk about your thoughts on the Tory leadership election and, we get to look at what's, briefly, what's happening in Parliament next week. If you're enjoying the pod and think like Mark and I do that Parliament matters, 00:26:47:06 - 00:27:07:24 why not join the Hansard Society? This year we celebrate our 80th anniversary, and throughout the year we'll have a number of special events to mark this important milestone. For as little as a cup of coffee each month, you can join us and follow in the footsteps of our first members, Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee. And if you're enjoying the issues that we're talking about on the pod, you'll also be getting our special members only Despatch Box newsletter. 00:27:07:24 - 00:27:34:20 Each week, we bring together the best news and stories about parliaments here in the UK and around the world. You can join by going to hansardsociety.org.uk/membership. We're back. And Ruth, one of the big things that happens next week is the first real controversial vote of the new parliament. I mean, forget the King's speech and all the other sort of formal votes on the government's program, which crashed through quite happily. 00:27:34:22 - 00:28:00:11 This is the vote on the emergency program for prisoner release, because the prisons are dangerously crowded, and we've just got to get people out of there. Yes. So they've got a statutory instrument that they're going to have to approve, where the government is proposing to automatically release some prisoners on license at the 40% mark in their sentence, rather than the current 50%, in order, as you say, to free up prison places. 00:28:00:11 - 00:28:24:01 And of course, this was something that was ticking away in the background for months. It was apparently very problematic during the general election campaign, where civil servants were worried that there was going to be a crisis during the election. How would they respond to it? It's one of the early decisions that the Ministry of Justice, the new Secretary of State, Shabana Mahmood, has made to tackle it, and they're going to reduce the amount of time that prisoners will spend in prison. 00:28:24:03 - 00:28:43:06 They'll be able to release them early and it excludes people who have committed violent offenses, sexual offenses. So there are some exclusions from it, but obviously it will affect a lot of prisoners and will come into play, assuming Parliament approves it next week, in September. Yeah. So this will be debates both in the House of Commons and in the House of Lords on these regulations. 00:28:43:06 - 00:29:00:03 Statutory instruments call them what you will. This will be the first time for a lot of MPs that they've ever seen one of these issues. They may never have heard of them before, but these are sort of small amendments to the law that don't require the full dress legislative process around a bill. So there's no second reading, debate and report stage any of that. 00:29:00:03 - 00:29:23:23 It's a one off vote in each House. And once that's approved, it takes on the force of law. Yeah. So it'll be a 90 minute debate unless the government extends that time. And be interesting to see what the reaction on the opposition benches is, because we are already seeing some Conservative politicians coming out and being very critical of the government for this, although the government's argument is, well, look, you've left us with this hot potato because you failed to tackle the prison places crisis. 00:29:24:00 - 00:29:44:18 But of course, you know, also on the opposition side, failing to mention that they passed a number of orders to enable more prisoners to be released early. But one of the things it does highlight is that this is quite an important policy decision in men's political and media and public interest in its immense consequences, depending on the individuals are released. 00:29:44:18 - 00:30:04:18 If you get it wrong, real consequences, it puts pressure on, you know, the probation service in terms of managing this out in the community once these prisoners are released. But of course, it's being done by statutory instrument. When we go back to this debate, we keep having this perfunctory process, as you say, 90 minute debates in the in the Commons, and then it's done. 00:30:04:20 - 00:30:22:06 So it's hardly time for a sort of massive deliberative process about is this the exactly the right answer? And of course, there's no ability to amend these things. You can't say, steady on. How about only having prisoners released on 45% of their sentence or something like that. They can't tweak it in any way. So it's a straight yes or no vote. 00:30:22:07 - 00:30:42:02 Yeah. So I go back to, you know, Hansard Society proposals would give MPs, who get frustrated about this, and if they're annoyed next week that they can't do this kind of thing, can't amend it, can't change things, our proposals would enable them to have more, more impact on this kind of legislation in the future. And this is the first instance of a kind of political syndrome. 00:30:42:02 - 00:31:11:12 We're going to be seeing quite a lot of in the coming months, which is the it's all your fault we're having to do this moment that the government's going to have on any number of questions, where it will point the finger at the conservatives and say they left this mess and we've got to do something about it, there'll be a kind of stereotyped set of debates where these kind of accusations and counter accusations are exchanged, and that will be one of the ways that the incoming Labour administration tries to blame uncomfortable things it's having to do on its predecessors. 00:31:11:14 - 00:31:37:16 And that also is playing into the Tory leadership contest. Of course. Yeah. So there's quite a number of prominent conservatives have already taken to social media to denounce this. James Cleverly, the former Home Secretary, now shadow home secretary, has had a go. Tom Tugendhat, who seems almost certain to be one of the contenders for the Tory leadership in their upcoming leadership election when we finally get a timetable for that, has been out there as well, and I'm sure some of the others will weigh in pretty quickly. 00:31:37:18 - 00:31:58:21 And where we get this attempt by the Labour government to pin responsibility for its actions on the faults of their predecessors, as this is where former conservative ministers are going to have to start punching back if they can. Yeah. For example, their former Home Office minister, Tom Tugendhat, was, although his brief was much more on the security side of things than the crime and punishment side of things. 00:31:58:23 - 00:32:16:23 But this will be also a chance for them to show what they can do to the depleted band of conservative MPs who are going to have to choose their next leader and will want someone who can cut a dash. Yeah, and we don't know what the timetable yet. So the 1922 committee that will oversee this and the Conservative Party board are sort of in place now. 00:32:16:23 - 00:32:39:12 So there as I understand, it's still debating what that timetable might look like. It's not going to run terribly long, probably run through to party conference in October, possibly a little bit beyond. But it'll be interesting to see how it shakes out in terms of, you know, is it multiple candidates go forwards and try their hand, or are they going to try and shake it out at an early stage? 00:32:39:13 - 00:33:01:14 Because the normal process is that at first, the initial set of elections is amongst the MPs, who winnow it down to two candidates who go out in front of the membership. So you almost got a sense of kind of two parallel primary elections going on here. One to choose the candidate from a one nation wing of the Conservative Party, and one to choose the candidate of the right, and the field on the right is actually quite crowded. 00:33:01:14 - 00:33:17:19 The field on the center or the one nation side is a bit less so, but there will be a lot of people who want to crowd in. And will there be anybody who feels that they can straddle both camps? I mean, the name of Robert Jenrick is quoted to me as someone who may have that power and ability, but who knows? 00:33:17:21 - 00:33:44:01 And in the meantime, Reform are carrying on a running commentary about how if the conservatives choose someone who they regard as a Tory wet to lead them, that will be a payday for full reform. Lee Anderson, who's now the Reform chief whip, has taken to social media to gloat at the prospect of Tom Tugendhat being Tory leader. Yes, and of course, the Tory leadership is just one election that the MPs and possibly the new MPs are having to grapple with. 00:33:44:01 - 00:34:16:07 Also going to have elections for the deputy speaker, there will be elections to select committees coming up. And each of the parties has got their own internal party elections for various parliamentary and policy committees. So there's a lot of attention being paid to the to the new members to try and get their support and their votes. There aren't too many newcomers in the conservative ranks, but particularly for the Lib Dems and Labour, with vast numbers of complete newcomers to Westminster amongst their ranks, they're going to have to get to know a remarkable number of people fairly quickly and then start making choices about them. 00:34:16:12 - 00:34:42:04 Who's the right person to chair the Treasury committee? Who's the right person to be on the parliamentary Labour Party, the 1922 Committee, whatever. So there will be all sorts of decisions to be made, and they won't necessarily have a very clear idea of the people that choosing between no. And this is actually it's an interesting stage. We've had sort of, you know, the new MPs being in Parliament for seven, ten days, and they've got another couple of weeks to go before recess. 00:34:42:06 - 00:35:00:13 this is the point where the exhilaration starts to wear off and the exhaustion may start to set in. And in the coming weeks, they're going to have their first big experience of real parliamentary activity. They're going to have to see, as we talked about the vote on the regulations, which amounts to the release of prisoners early, a big decision. 00:35:00:15 - 00:35:19:19 They're going to have to vote on billions of pounds of public expenditure, most of which they won't have much information on them. I really understand, and it's at this stage of their parliamentary careers where they start to feel a bit overwhelmed, and they think that they're perhaps the only one that's struggling. Everybody else looks like they're fine. The reality is almost none of them will be fine. 00:35:19:22 - 00:35:50:19 Yeah, the adrenalin will be wearing off. Essentially, they'll have powered through six weeks of a general election campaign. The sheer joy of winning will push them through another few days in Westminster, and then it all starts to flag a bit. Yeah. And then you suddenly find the grind takes over the decisions being thrown at you. Don't start with a little boring stuff about, having to appoint people to your parliamentary office and set up all kinds of systems, you'll be finding flats to live in if you're from a constituency far away from Westminster and all this kind of thing. 00:35:50:19 - 00:36:16:11 A family will be adapting. Yeah. If you've got a family, to, you know, being there, all sorts of stuff like that comes and piles in on them. And there is a kind of a a smile of despond that MPs go through at this point. The Hansard Society has done work on this. Yeah. I mean, after the 2010 election, when we had that big turnover, we did research in that first few months and quite a number of the MPs said basically the three month mark, they were ready to throw it in. 00:36:16:16 - 00:36:32:01 I just couldn't wait to stop. For some of them. I think genuine mental health concerns, you know, there was depression set in. They felt that they just couldn't get a handle on what they were supposed to be doing. And quite a number of them said, you know, I just can't wait to stop. I can't wait for Christmas. You know, I just need a break. 00:36:32:06 - 00:36:50:07 Now, interestingly, because recess is coming quite early in their parliamentary careers, because of the timing of general election in July, they are going to get a bit of a break. So it might help that process. But on the other hand, it could just delay it to the autumn. It's an established and unfortunate fact that a number of marriages don't survive. 00:36:50:12 - 00:37:14:19 For example, relationships can collapse. Things can become very, very difficult on a personal level for a lot of new MPs. And it takes a while to adapt to the strange world of Westminster. It's not just, you know, wacky procedural stuff and strange, unfamiliar rules. It's adapting your personal life to a very particular and incredibly high pressure job that never really stops because it's all very well saying, yeah, I can't wait to get back to the constituency. 00:37:14:19 - 00:37:38:02 When you get back to the constituency, there are events you have to attend, fetes, you have to open delegations, you have to meet surgeries to conduct all the rest of it. And in the meantime, this Parliament is going to be working on a five day, not a four day legislating week. Parliament will be sitting automatically on Fridays for quite a while to come, just to get this government's program going so that there isn't really isn't much respite for the newcomers. They signed up for it. 00:37:38:04 - 00:37:57:00 They campaigned very hard to be the person doing this. But I sometimes wonder in the sort of long, cold nights once the parliamentary work is stopped, if some of them are beginning to wonder to themselves whether the game is worth the candle. Yeah, and of course, we know from previous recent parliaments that quite, quite a high dropout rate after their first parliament and certainly in recent parliaments. 00:37:57:00 - 00:38:21:11 I hate to say it, but the divorce rate in the first two years for MPs is actually quite high. And I think that's going to be a challenge for the parliamentary whips, how they help the newcomers manage this process, the really important pastoral care element here, it's not just a lay party, you know, discipline is not going to be its biggest problem in its chances of losing legislation because of major rebellions are slim. 00:38:21:16 - 00:38:42:04 So it's not going to be so focused on the disciplinary side. But I think the pastoral care side to support the MPs and keep them going is going to be critical. Yeah, they can't afford to let people sink or swim on their own, which is basically what used to happen in previous parliaments. I think there's got to be much more of a kind of H.R function where they are looking after their flock much more intensively, and that's across all parties. 00:38:42:05 - 00:39:07:11 Yeah, a lot of people are going to have a horrible fish out of water feeling and may need a bit of handholding. Yeah. And that's probably a good point to break Mark for a moment and come back and talk to Professor Philip Cowley, who's the expert on parliamentary rebellions, and can tell us about what lessons can be learned from the Blair years when we last had such a really big majority, and what kind of lessons the parliamentary whips might be thinking about as they think about managing their flock. 00:39:07:13 - 00:39:29:16 I'm really looking forward to this conversation. See you in a minute. And we're back. And we're joined now by Professor Philip Cowley of Queen Mary University of London, who's been studying parliamentary rebellions since the dawn of the Blair years. And that was, of course, the last time a Labour government came in after a long period in the wilderness, but with an absolutely massive Commons majority. 00:39:29:21 - 00:39:49:18 And there are lessons to be learned and parallels to be drawn, and I suppose distinctions to be made as well. So, Phil, looking at the parliamentary landscape thrown up by the general election, does it remind you a lot of the early period of Blair? Yes, I think so. I mean, there are some differences that will probably come on too, but I think the similarities are pretty stark. 00:39:49:20 - 00:40:13:23 I mean, in absolute terms, the majority is marginally smaller than Blair's, although as the House then was slightly bigger. So proportionally it's almost exact the same. And whilst there are some issues with big majorities, it is much more comfortable to have a large majority company, large majority in this case than to have a small majority or no majority. 00:40:14:00 - 00:40:45:17 The other similarity. So I think it's not just the size of the majority. It's also that you have an awful lot of new MPs. You have those MPs coming in after a long period in opposition, maybe not quite as obviously elected on Starmer's coattails as they were on Blair's. I don't think he quite has the sort of election winning magic that Tony Blair did. There a lot of Labour MPs who knew in 97 they were only there because of Tony Blair, I suspect, as quite a lot of Labour MPs, I think they're mostly there because of Rishi Sunak rather than because of Keir Starmer. 00:40:45:17 - 00:41:07:03 So I think there is a there is a difference there, but still very large majority, lots of inexperienced MPs with that self-discipline that comes from a long period in opposition. And I think that self discipline is as important, if not more important than the discipline of the whips. There was a feeling in the early Blair years. I mean, they referred to a lot of Labour backbenchers as the bleep sheep. 00:41:07:03 - 00:41:27:23 They were controlled by their pages and would robotically do whatever they were told. That doesn't seem to be quite the same atmospherically in these early days of the new parliament. But you do think that having come back from the wilderness so dramatically and so rapidly, these Labour MPs will almost give Keir Starmer semi-divine status for a while? Let's see what happens with this lot. 00:41:27:23 - 00:41:50:15 But it was in that first term that the Blair MPs became known as sheep. It was never really very accurate as a description of their behavior. They were more rebellious than they appeared on the surface. There were quite a lot of, albeit fairly small, rebellions in that first Parliament that you can find 133 of them who voted against the whip between 1997 and 2001. 00:41:50:15 - 00:42:12:08 So they weren't all utterly loyal. And even those that had misgivings. Often the reason they were not rebelling was because either they just thought for the good of the party I keep quiet or and this is the bit that often gets missed, the government was willing to meet with them, give them concessions, and trade in the way that good party management does. 00:42:12:10 - 00:42:29:08 Is there a sense that the problem with rebellions is not so much those who vote on their principles and go to bed that night with a clear conscience and sweep the sweep of the joust? It's the ones who have to have their arms twisted behind them, or really feel they're voting against their instincts, who resent the living daylights out of it forever. 00:42:29:08 - 00:42:53:13 Afterwards, those are the people who perhaps become more problematic. Well, I think I mean, to the whip, they're all problems. But but they're different types of problems. The thing with the people who are ambivalent about something is if they can be persuaded that there is a good argument for sticking with a position, even if it's a position that inherently they don't necessarily agree with, they might be willing to do it. 00:42:53:15 - 00:43:13:03 The problem comes when they're sort of bullied into doing it, and at that point they can't be. They hate themselves because that's not what they went into politics to do, but also they dislike the people that forced them into that position. And so that's why it's important. If you are a government and you've got an unpopular measure to get through that, you keep the lines of communication open from the start. 00:43:13:05 - 00:43:31:21 You explain to backbenchers, look, this is why we're doing what we're doing. You maybe brief them about what it is you might be doing in the future. And I think that's going to be important when we come to this upcoming vote as well, so that they've got something they can go back to their constituency party or their constituents and explain the reason they voted the way they did. 00:43:32:02 - 00:43:48:24 Nobody likes to be in the position. And you get this a lot these days because of social media, where one MP in a patch is being praised to the skies as if they're the only one with a conscience because they voted in a certain way, while the MP who stayed loyal to the party is being criticized and being accused of being a spineless robot. 00:43:49:05 - 00:44:05:20 And that MP can get resentful about that. Now, you mentioned an upcoming vote there. Now, one of the difficult issues in the early Blair years is when the opposition forced to vote on benefits for lone parents and a lot of Labour MPs had to be sort of marched into the lobby to support a government line, which they weren't very comfortable with. 00:44:05:22 - 00:44:23:14 The parallel this time is on the issue of the two child limit for Social Security payments. There is talk of getting a vote at the end of the King's Speech debate on this issue, which may or may not happen depending on whether an opposition party tries to force a vote on that and the speaker selects any amendment that they put down. 00:44:23:16 - 00:44:41:13 But at some point, someone is going to push that to a vote somewhere. Surely. And this is an area where there are close parallels. Labour MPs being forced perhaps to vote on a government line that they're not comfortable with. Yeah. So the lone parent rebellion in 97, 98 session, you somehow see this in print as the first rebellion. 00:44:41:13 - 00:45:04:23 The Blair government says, if you want to be really pedantic, it wasn't the first major rebellion the Blair government faced in the division lobbies. And it saw 47 Labour MPs vote against the whip and about 20 something abstained, many of them very unhappily. And as we were just discussing, even worse were many of the ones who went through the division lobbies in support of the government, hating the fact that they were doing so. 00:45:05:03 - 00:45:23:19 It didn't come anywhere close to defeating the government. This is why it's such a good parallel with, I think, with today, because I suspect that that will be true if there is a vote at some stage on a two child limit. It didn't come close, but it created a lot of resentment on the backbenches. And actually people in government realized they couldn't just force things through. 00:45:24:00 - 00:45:43:02 As a really interesting aspect of this is that very early on, someone in the whips office just had the really clever idea that what they would do every time there was a rebellion or similar is they would tell local constituency parties that their MP had rebelled, and then the local constituency party would tell the rebellious MP off and say, don't ever do that again. 00:45:43:02 - 00:46:02:20 That was very naughty. And actually it had to completely the opposite effect because the local constituency parties would cheer to the rafters those who had gone through the division of these against this measure and gave hell to the MPs who'd be so solidly loyal. Completely counterproductive. I think something very similar will happen if this comes to a vote in this session. 00:46:02:22 - 00:46:31:18 They won't lose it unless something goes absolutely, catastrophically wrong. But it will cause unhappiness and they will learn lessons from that unhappiness. If, though I had to put money on it, my suspicion is that slightly more MPs from now might rebel than did back in 1997. I think that both because rebellion has become more common amongst MPs in general, and therefore I think this lot are probably seeing some of that behavior. 00:46:31:20 - 00:46:50:10 And also, I think although this is a valid judgment, I think this position is harder for them to defend than the lone parent policy was in 1997. And therefore I think maybe they will be slightly more rebelling, but even that will depend on how the government handle it. In 97, it was kind of tough. This was in the manifesto. 00:46:50:10 - 00:47:16:06 You're going to do what you're told. My suspicion, based on what I've already seen, is that the government are basically briefing that we will change this in time, but we can't change it now. And that at least gives an MP a position that is defensible with their party and their constituents. I think one of the things Phil, we saw before the general election was that Keir Starmer and the Labour Party were quite ruthless in weeding out very late on some candidates that they didn't want to get through into Parliament. 00:47:16:08 - 00:47:36:20 But of course, in this Parliament, one of the differences to the Blair years is that you've got more smaller parties, and obviously some of them are more left wing than some of the Starmerites and rebellion could come from different directions. What do you think might happen there? The first point is about kind of selection, which I think is really important. 00:47:36:20 - 00:47:56:14 I do think the Starmer policy was more effective than the Blair years. I think the size of the Blair majority took the Blair government by surprise. There were a lot of MPs very surprised to be at Westminster and a lot of whips, very surprised to see them there. And there's a famous quote which we think came from someone fairly close to Blair. 00:47:56:16 - 00:48:11:06 The majority had brought in what they described as lots of flotsam and jetsam into Parliament. I know that's their own MPs they're talking about, and that was true, that in a couple of cases, there were people who would never have got anywhere near a safe seat, but were elected for what was assumed to be an unwinnable seat. And then came into Parliament. 00:48:11:08 - 00:48:30:07 I'm not sure that's quite as true this time. I think they had a better intelligence on what the size of the majority could be, and they were a bit more ruthless about weeding out people. So I think that's probably going to be less of a problem. What I think you are absolutely spot on, though, is the parliamentary landscape outside of the Labour Party looks very different. 00:48:30:13 - 00:48:56:17 You know, if you go back to 1997, you had the Conservative Party reduced to what was then its lowest level since 1906, and you had a sort of resurgent Liberal Democrats who most of the time, anyway, voted with Labour. Initially, you've now got Jeremy Corbyn, another group of independents, you've got the Greens, you've got reform. All in different ways targeting Labour at the next election, all raising different types of issues, not just all from the left either. 00:48:56:17 - 00:49:13:12 I mean, I think, you know, I think the Reform MPs on a couple of occasions could prove just as difficult for a small number of Labour MPs than the other parties. Well, and I think that will make the parliamentary landscape harder to control. I mean, it is, for example, one reason why I think there will be a vote on this two child limit. 00:49:13:17 - 00:49:31:12 It will come from somewhere, and it may be that it comes from Jeremy Corbyn, or it comes from one of the other independent MPs or the Greens. It will come from somewhere. So I think the parliamentary landscape is slightly harder for the government. I also think, and again, this I think this is a slight difference between now and then. 00:49:31:14 - 00:49:58:11 There will be a decent number of Labour MPs who were elected this time, who will be a bit worried about what the Green Party is doing in their patch, or what an independent challenger could do in their patch, certainly in certain parts of the country, or who worry about reform. And that, again, it wasn't true in 1997, if you were a Labour MP elected in 97, on the whole, you were kind of worried about the Conservatives and or the Lib Dems, and that was it in England and Wales. 00:49:58:13 - 00:50:22:20 So that electoral pressure, I think, is going to be that it won't affect all of them, but it will affect a decent number. It will mean that there are more localized pressures on Labour MPs this time than I think there were going back to the late 90s. I'm picking up on that when a lot of Labour MPs started to be elected in commuter belt seats around London, someone tweeted, well, that's the end of planning reform then. 00:50:22:20 - 00:50:50:14 Now the government has made a very big thing about trying to drive more housebuilding, changing the planning rules to make development easier. And at the same time, Labour has now got a lot of MPs who will find that boiling up as a very toxic issue within their own constituency. So is this an area where the Labour leadership will just be cynical and say, well, we may have to sacrifice some of these people in order to get our policy through and get the economy moving, or will they act as a brake on the government's ambitions for housebuilding and planning reform? 00:50:50:16 - 00:51:06:09 My suspicion is that they will try to at least pretend they're a brake on the government's house building program, and probably not a very effective one, but they'll at least make that effort. I have to in some cases, you know, some of the seats they've won, they're going to really struggle if they just try and pretend they can ignore the votes, that'll be it. 00:51:06:15 - 00:51:28:10 And first rule of being an MP is reelection is all. You know, you can't do very much if you don't get reelected. So I'm sure that for a decent number of MPs elected for the first time in and around the commuter belt in London, this will be a particularly tricky issue. I doubt it will have that big an effect on the government's overall direction, but it's definitely going to be an issue. 00:51:28:12 - 00:51:48:06 Do you get a sense that there will be a bit of licensed dissent, that the whips will say, okay, we understand why in this particular constituency you might have to take a different line on housebuilding or on Gaza or on some infrastructure issue. Okay, we'll kind of look the other way, or we can organize for you to have a convenient dental appointment when the vote comes up. 00:51:48:08 - 00:52:09:23 The convenient dental appointment things interesting because of course, back in the day, 30, 40 years ago, it was pretty convenient sometimes just to be absent. Oh dear. What a shame. I had a very important fight. I had to go to that day and I wasn't in parliament for the vote. Voting records are now weaponised by opposition parties and when they weren't then, then partly because they're available online, they're much easier for people to check. 00:52:09:23 - 00:52:32:13 So they're convenient. Abstention either individually or as a party I think it's no longer as effective as it used to be. Licensed to abstain or to vote against has been used before. I can think of several cases where there were very tricky local issues. MPs were told that we understand exactly what's going on here. You can rebel, you can tell you voters that you rebelled on this and we won't hold it against you. 00:52:32:13 - 00:52:48:15 You can do that. But it's very tricky and it's very tricky, partly because of the message it sends to other MPs who then say, well, hang on, I want license to rebel, then why am I being told I can't rebel? Why am I being told my career is over when you allowed Joe to rebel over something in his or her constituency? 00:52:48:17 - 00:53:10:22 So it may well be done. But it's a very, very difficult issue. One of the things you mentioned earlier, Phil, is that for those that don't rebel and toe the leadership line, but really don't in the heart of hearts agree with it, and would have preferred really to have rebelled, it impacts on their sense of self-respect. They hate having to do it. How do the whips 00:53:10:22 - 00:53:34:15 manage that. How do they manage the sort of the ambitions and the expectations of this parliamentary intake in the Labour Party? Because when you look down the the lists of these new MPs are some very, very high quality candidates. They're going to have ambitions. They're not going to want to sit on the backbenches. They've already seen in these early days that a small number of them have already been elevated to ministerial office. 00:53:34:17 - 00:53:53:20 We know that some have lost out who have done the hard yards in opposition, and they've not got the positions that they perhaps hoped for. How do you manage all that? Well, I did when I saw those immediate promotions straight from the backbenches to government, I did something that is very bright. I'm not necessarily convinced it's great for the MPs involved. 00:53:53:22 - 00:54:25:16 No, either, because there will be, you know, let's say I think six of them. So there's 644 of them and people wanting them to fail the first time they get up at the despatch box. But I don't think it's very good for parliamentary party management either. I mean, if you've done, as you say, the hard yards in opposition and you were then passed over when you enter government, I think that's pretty tough to then be passed over for someone who's just come in, I think is even tougher. 00:54:25:18 - 00:54:43:05 And I would have given this, you know, six months before making these sort of changes myself. Maybe Keir Starmer is sort of full steam ahead and so on, but full steam ahead is what hit the iceberg. So you do need to be a bit careful with that sort of tactic. The broader issue, though, is about this balance, and I think it's a real problem. 00:54:43:07 - 00:54:57:18 You've got all of these new MPs, many of whom, you're right, are very talented people. They're not necessarily going to want to sit on the back benches while they all say they can all say they're very happy just serving the party. However, I'm being, you know, a good constituency member and so on. But no one actually believes that. 00:54:57:18 - 00:55:13:23 I mean, yeah, dozens, hundreds of them want to be in government. And that's not an ignoble ambition. Right? So other people are gonna have to make way for them. And even when some of them do start going into government, some of the others who think they're very talented are about to discover they're not they're not seen as quite a talented as they think they are, as they stay on the backbenches for even longer. 00:55:14:00 - 00:55:33:01 And both of those things build up discontent. And that means that when you are then asked to vote in a way that maybe you're not entirely happy with, but you would be willing to do for the party after being say, well, bugger this, and you vote with Jeremy Corbyn and some other rebel MPs because you're no longer prepared to give the party the benefit of the doubt, because the party doesn't seem to be giving you the benefit of the doubt. 00:55:33:03 - 00:55:57:03 Do you think that the Labour government will take a look at its majority and think it doesn't really have to worry too much about parliamentary management, that it doesn't need to worry about discontented MPs rumbling away on the backbenches. They can safely ignore all this stuff and just carry on as it says full steam ahead. Yeah, and certainly Tony Blair had an element of that to begin with, which was he's never really had sort of Parliament person. 00:55:57:03 - 00:56:15:07 He never really understood Parliament and not just Keir Starmer. Well I well I wonder whether Keir Starmer so so one of the things that I keep coming back to in my discussion of Keir Starmer in all sorts of ways, is the very accelerated career that Keir Starmer had from entering Parliament to becoming a frontbencher and then becoming leader and now becoming prime minister. 00:56:15:07 - 00:56:38:22 I mean quite incredible by postwar standards. It means, I think, that he doesn't have a huge amount of parliamentary experience. He doesn't have any real experience, any experience of being in government, certainly not what backbench colleagues who are passed over might feel like, because he never been passed over. But right. There's a story about Robert Redford once being told in some role, you know, pretend the girl said no to you. 00:56:38:22 - 00:56:58:24 And he looked puzzled because no girl had ever said no to Robert Redford. And Keir Starmer is the sort of political equivalent, right? I mean, his father might have been a toolmaker, but once he got into Parliament, I mean, my God, it was a gilded career. And I wonder whether he understands some of his colleagues or understands parliament as an institution. 00:56:59:01 - 00:57:21:24 if they take the view full speed ahead, who cares? We'll win the votes. It doesn't matter. I think that is probably okay for most of this Parliament. It will not be okay should they get back into power after the next election, even if, as Blair did in 2001, he gets back in with the same majority, which Blair essentially did in 2001. 00:57:22:01 - 00:57:45:21 Soon as they got reelected in 2001, Labour MPs started to cause Tony Blair much more trouble. The size of the majority remained broadly the same, but the behavior changed completely because these people have now gone back into government. And when the self-discipline had gone and it became even more of a problem after the third term, the discontent that you build up over time eventually becomes too much and ends up as it did with with that effectively bringing him down. 00:57:46:01 - 00:58:00:24 But even on a more day to day basis, by the middle of the second Parliament, Blair is having to do deals left, right and center to avoid defeat. And by the third Parliament, they've been defeated on bits of legislation. Yeah, and I suppose there's also that just a sense that Parliament has become a much more rebellious place. 00:58:00:24 - 00:58:26:04 You know, the legacy of the Iraq war, the legacy of Brexit, has just meant that the idea of organized rebellion and little group circles coalescing with an unofficial whip operating on WhatsApp and whatever, has just meant that there's a lot more of it about. Yes, it's a postwar trend picking up in the 60s into the 70s and becoming much more effective as a institution as a result. 00:58:26:06 - 00:58:51:16 But particularly in this century, whether it's the Blair years, Brown years, the problems Cameron had, all the Brexit problems, the only prime minister not defeated since Edward Heath as a result of their own backbenchers rebelling is Liz Truss because she wasn't there long enough. But even she had a really good go. I mean, if you remember the thing, the thing that almost brought her, almost the very last thing in the Truss was a vote, which in the end they had to. 00:58:51:18 - 00:59:09:07 Was it a vote of confidence, was it not? I mean, it was absolute carnage. So even Liz Truss in under two months almost managed to be defeated. Everyone else since Heath inclusive has been defeated at least once as a result of their own MPs voting against them in the division lobbies. And if he's there for any length of time, I'm sure that will be true of Keir Starmer. 00:59:09:09 - 00:59:39:04 Fact for the new Prime Minister to ponder. Phil Cowley, thanks very much indeed for joining us on the pod. Thanks, Phil. Brilliant. Well Ruth, always bracing to talk to the great Phil Cowley. What are your thoughts on that? Well, one thing that occurred to me as Phil was talking was that actually one of the differences between this Parliament and the first Blair Parliament is that there are many more avenues, routes for backbenchers and for potential rebels to emerge as a result of procedural changes. 00:59:39:04 - 01:00:07:05 So back in the Blair years, you didn't have select committee elections, for example, for members and select committees and chairs. You didn't have urgent questions in the same way. You didn't have backbench business debates. And all these are tools in the backbenchers toolbox that are now available to them, and that it will take the new MPs a bit of time to learn how to use them, and how to mix and match their tools as they campaign for whatever it is that they want to pursue. 01:00:07:07 - 01:00:26:04 But there are more opportunities, more routes for them to, to make their case. Well, it's absolutely true. I mean, the Brexiteers in the David Cameron years very quickly spotted the potential for the Backbench Business Committee in particular, to provide a forum for them to press for what turned into the Brexit referendum term. And they use it fairly ruthlessly. 01:00:26:04 - 01:01:02:24 Indeed, they got several of their number onto what had seemed like a pretty obscure functional committee to organize backbench business. And I don't think that, like whips at the time had spotted what trouble could be caused from that vantage point, and they caused the government quite a lot of difficulty. And I think the whips will be alert to the membership of that committee, if indeed it is reconstituted now, but it will be an avenue that some of the smaller parties can particularly use if they can provide evidence of cross-party support, they can pick off a few Labour, a few green, a few plied, perhaps for some of the Northern Ireland parties, the independents, it'll be 01:01:02:24 - 01:01:25:22 harder for the backbench business committee no matter what. Its membership just keeps saying no to debate requests from those groups. So it will provide an opportunity. And certainly backbench business debates in the last parliament or two have not perhaps risen to the level of hopes and expectations that the architects of the backbench business system had for it. So it will be interesting to see whether there's a resurgence in this one. 01:01:26:02 - 01:01:52:12 Yeah, well, it's certainly an avenue there that they can use if they choose to pick it up and run with it. Watch out for the government, though, possibly just attempting to clip the wings of the Backbench Business Committee a bit. One thing that they could do, if they want more debating time for government bills, at least in the first part of this Parliament, is to stop having backbench debates in the full chamber, relegate it to to Westminster Hall, where you can have any motion you like, but it doesn't get voted on in the end. 01:01:52:14 - 01:02:10:17 And that strikes me as a possibility to watch out for. I mean, I think it's part of the session orders, the rules the Parliament votes on at the start of every session to have a backbench business committee with a certain amount of debating time at its command, and those orders might be perhaps dropped or changed or amended in some way. 01:02:10:20 - 01:02:44:08 Yeah, something that's happened, Mark, just while we've been recording today, hot off the press, is that the Covid inquiry, Baroness Hallett who is the chair, she's published the first report of the first tranche of the inquiry today. And there's some interesting nuggets on parliamentary scrutiny. Yeah, this was an issue we looked at with Adam Wagner, who was one of the members of the commission that was set up to look at the use of emergency powers during the pandemic and the way they operated and the level of scrutiny those powers got when we were all being ordered to stay in our homes and stuff like that. 01:02:44:10 - 01:03:00:19 So it's a pretty interesting area for people looking at the way laws are made in an emergency. And Baroness Hallett's report has quite a lot to say about Parliament having to do a better job in future, because, she said, it's not a question of if there'll be another pandemic. She says it's bound to happen sooner or later. 01:03:00:21 - 01:03:25:21 Yeah. So this first report looks at some of the preparedness for the pandemic, and she has this wonderful line that I think we'll put on the society website. One of the most effective forms of public scrutiny is parliamentary scrutiny. And essentially, she's making the case that, in order to help solve the problems of what she describes as inadequate action on the part of not just the UK government, but also the devolved governments. 01:03:25:23 - 01:03:47:09 There should be more regular accountability to Parliament for their pandemic and resilience planning. And she suggested that at least once every three years, there should be a report that has to be presented to Parliament on the approach to civil emergency preparedness. So she describes it. And that should look at the risk. It should look at the costs. It should look at the deadlines. 01:03:47:09 - 01:04:04:22 And there should be a timetable for implementation. And action. And Parliament should be able to look at that and hold the government to account. And you can imagine that that will mean MPs will get a chance to have a debate on the subject and get up in the chamber and say, more should be done about this or we need action on that. 01:04:04:24 - 01:04:31:05 But also the select committees could get involved. You can imagine the health committee, for example, saying, look, this report clearly highlights problems about the way our hospitals would work in a pandemic, and we need to do something about it. So you could imagine the Home Affairs Committee saying that policing powers needed to be looked at or whatever it was, but there are all sorts of avenues that Parliament could use to get involved in this, to make sure that preparedness is better than it was in 2020. 01:04:31:05 - 01:04:55:11 Yeah. And Ruth, just before we go too on for another little segment of breaking news, rather reinforcing some of the points that Phil Cowley was making in our discussion just now. The government's announced five new ministerial appointments and a surprise package. Yes, small. Three new MPs have got jobs. Hamish Falconer has been appointed to the Foreign and Commonwealth and Development Office. 01:04:55:11 - 01:05:11:04 FCDO as it is now. And of course Hamish was one of the names that Michael Crick was highlighting a couple of weeks ago on the pod as a name to look out for as one of Labour stars of the future. A former Foreign Office official and of course, son of the former Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer of Thoroton. 01:05:11:04 - 01:05:36:00 Tony Blair's former flatmate. Yeah. Then, Martin McCluskey has been appointed as a whip, as has Kate Dearden. So that is interesting. Two new MPs who barely know their way around Westminster. Appointed as whips to manage the MPs. You have to wonder whether they've decided to appoint two whips from the new intake so that there's some relationship with these many, many new MPs. 01:05:36:02 - 01:05:58:00 That's an extraordinarily rapid promotion and you can imagine the grinding of teeth going on from some of the old stages who feel that they can actually find their way around the building and who will feel they've been really passed over here. But it's quite a learning curve, I think, to be catapulted into the whips office when you barely know the procedures, you never sat through legislation, you don't know about the procedures and processes. 01:05:58:02 - 01:06:13:23 I don't that either of them have even made a maiden speech yet. And you can't, of course, make a speech as a whip. So that is an interesting development. Their maiden hood may be preserved for a while. And the other point about is that the first lesson of whipping is you have to be in the place you're required to be in on time. 01:06:13:23 - 01:06:31:23 So if you're trying to find some obscure committee room on the upper committee corridor where you've never been before and you get a bit lost, you may find that, your colleagues have gone witless into some bill committee or something like that. And that way madness lies. A couple of more familiar names pop up in this list of five new appointments as well. 01:06:32:00 - 01:06:53:02 Yes. So, Mary Creagh, who is a returning MP, she lost her seat a previous election, but she's been an MP for some, some years before. Actually, she won in 2005 and lost in 2019. And now she's back again. And she's been appointed to Defra as a junior minister. So she's familiar with the ways of Westminster. She's not been out that long. 01:06:53:04 - 01:07:12:06 And then the other is in the House of Lords, Baroness Chapman of Darlington, who is a former MP. But so she lost her seat in again, I think in 2019. And, she was elevated to the Lords where she was just before the election. She was a Treasury shadow spokesperson, but she's now been moved to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office as well. 01:07:12:06 - 01:07:31:10 So two new ministers in that department. And I hope the green eyed monster of jealousy isn't roving too aggressively around the green carpets of the Commons section of the Palace of Westminster right now, but I bet it is. Well, we've that's five new appointments today, and we thought they were done. Clearly not. So we'll have to se whether there are any more after we finished. 01:07:31:12 - 01:07:44:08 Tune in for future pods. So I think we'll leave it there, Mark. And, see you next week. See you then. Bye. Bye. 01:07:44:10 - 01:08:02:08 Well, that's all from us for this week's episode of Parliament Matters. 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