Can Parliament Take back Control?

Two retired politicians on what's wrong with Parliament and how to make it work better

The sense that our politics isn’t working might be familiar to readers of this blog. If you heard my recent podcast episode you’ll know that I had James O’Brien discussing his book “How they Broke Britain”, which gets to the heart of this difficulty, particularly in the analysis of the toxic relationship between the media and right-wing politics. But one area that James and I didn’t touch on is our parliament. Britain’s parliament, sometimes self-importantly calling itself the Mother of Parliaments, isn’t working properly. Its members aren’t scrutinising legislation properly, its regulations and procedures are largely broken and it contributes to a wider sense of cynicism around our politics. Two seasoned parliamentarians, Nick Harvey and Paul Tyler, have focused in on the way parliament currently works and how it should work and have produced a short, easily readable book which contains a set of clear proposals, around elections, parliamentary procedure, reform of the upper house and standards in public life. Although it’s just about parliament, this book could be titled How to Fix Britain, because if its recommendations where followed, our national life would be improved immeasurably. It’s actually called Can Parliament Take Back Control ? And comes with strong endorsements from the Institute for Government, the Constitution Unit at University College London and the Former Clerk of the House of Commons, Lord Lisvane.

I was lucky to be able to speak to Paul and Nick and draw on their combined several decades of political experience to hear their recommendations for how things could be better.