Labour's welfare meltdown - Parliament Matters podcast, Episode 99

News

Labour's welfare meltdown - Parliament Matters podcast, Episode 99

4 Jul 2025

It’s been a bruising week for the Government, as a Labour backbench revolt forced ministers to gut their own welfare reforms live in the House of Commons. We explore why Sir Keir Starmer appears to have such a poor grip on parliamentary management. Plus, House of Lords reform expert Professor Meg Russell explains why the hereditary peers bill may be a once-in-a-generation chance to tackle deeper issues — like curbing prime ministerial patronage and reducing the bloated size of the upper chamber. And in Dorking, faith and politics collide over assisted dying.

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

LISTEN

Has the Government’s complacency in managing Parliament finally caught up with it? It’s been a difficult week for Ministers, as a backbench Labour revolt forced a dramatic U-turn on plans to cut billions from Personal Independence Payments. With Rachel Reeves’ financial strategy in tatters, questions are mounting about Keir Starmer’s authority — and whether weak parliamentary management is to blame. We explore how it all went wrong, what it reveals about No.10’s approach to Parliament, and what needs to change to stop further unravelling.

Is the Government missing its last chance at real House of Lords reform? As Ministers push ahead with plans to remove the remaining hereditary Peers from the House of Lords, new polling from the Constitution Unit at UCL suggests the public wants more ambitious change. Professor Meg Russell joins us to warn that the current legislation could be a once-in-a-generation opportunity to enact deeper reforms — including curbing the Prime Minister’s power to appoint new Peers and reducing the overall size of the House of Lords.

Plus, church and state collide over assisted dying in Dorking. Liberal Democrat MP Chris Coghlan has been barred from receiving communion at his local Catholic church due to his support for Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. Is this an unacceptable case of religious interference in politics, or simply the inevitable fallout when faith and legislation collide? Ruth and Mark explore the implications and ponder the precedents from both Britain and the United States.

Finally, we tackle listeners’ questions on why primary legislation was needed to implement the Government’s welfare reforms, inquorate votes in the House of Lords, the ability of Peers to amend the assisted dying bill and the mysterious books beside the Mace.

← Back to Parliament Matters homepage

Listen on our YouTube channel (captioned)

Subscribe to our YouTube channel

Our guest

Professor Meg Russell

Meg Russell is Director of the Constitution Unit and Professor of British and Comparative Politics at University College London (UCL). Having previously worked at the House of Commons and the Labour Party, she joined the UCL Constitution Unit in 1998. Her work since then has particularly focused on the UK Parliament. From 2001 to 2003 she served as a special adviser to the then Leader of the House of Commons, Robin Cook. She has also advised the House of Lords Appointments Commission, the Wright Committee on Reform of the House of Commons, the Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, and the Lord Speaker’s Committee on the Size of the House of Lords. She has been Academic Secretary of the Study of Parliament Group and a member of the editorial board of the academic journal Political Quarterly and the Hansard Society’s journal, Parliamentary Affairs. She was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2020, and in 2021 was named Political Communicator of the Year by the Political Studies Association. She is author of numerous works, including Legislation at Westminster in 2017 and The Parliamentary Battle over Brexit in 2023.

Resources

Constitution Unit, UCL

Public wants House of Lords reform to go further: to limit appointments and the size of the chamber
Meg Russell, 10 reasons why the hereditary peers bill should be amended to constrain Prime Ministerial patronage and the size of the House of Lords, 1 July 2025

Transcript

Please note, this transcript is automatically generated. There may consequently be minor errors and the text is not formatted according to our style guide. If you wish to reference or cite the transcript copy below, please first check against the audio version above.

Intro: [00:00:00] You are listening to Parliament Matters, a Hansard Society production supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. Learn more at hansardsociety.org.uk/pm.

Ruth Fox: Welcome to Parliament Matters, the podcast about the institution at the heart of our democracy, Parliament itself. I'm Ruth Fox.

Mark D'Arcy: And I'm Mark D'Arcy. Coming up this week,

Ruth Fox: The Chancellor cries on the front bench after Labour MPs wreck her financial strategy.

Mark D'Arcy: The public wants wider Lords reform on the government's plan to get rid of hereditary peers.

We talk to Lord's expert, Meg Russell,

Ruth Fox: And religion collides with politics as an MP is denied holy communion because of his vote for the assisted dying bill.

Mark D'Arcy: But first, Ruth, let's talk about Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, and more particularly about the collapse this [00:01:00] week of her financial strategy. The Chancellor was seen shedding tears during Prime Minister's Questions seated next to Keir Starmer, and whatever was behind that set the markets a tremble that the possibility that she might be removed.

But what was really going on, the really big news about this week was not whatever was going on with Rachel Reeves' life, and we were assured that this is a personal matter that wasn't to do with politics. The real big news was the way that Labour MPs basically blew a multi-billion pound hole in her financial calculations.

The savings that she had hoped to get out of personal independence payments and social security cuts were more or less sunk in the Commons. And now she has a real problem.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, well, dare I say it, Mark, we saw live this week that Parliament matters. Ouch. And you know, MPs are not lobby fodder. And big rebellion, even when the government filleted its own proposals on the [00:02:00] floor of the House of Commons as was happening, during the debate itself.

Full transcript →

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

Apple

YouTube Podcasts

Spotify

More ways to subscribe

Parliament Matters homepage

Latest / Highlights

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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