So an additional thing that would be useful is to amend the RMFI guidance so names of people on secondments are included there - the decreased visibility of these is the major regression of this change to me.
And some coverage of this bsky.app/profile/pipp...
And I guess my follow-up question is, if we're currently are doing weird-workarounds with whips and not paying Lords ministers, and the change would pay more Lords ministers - what stops just continuing to do that and having even more you're not paying again?
In which I discover that politicians really love using Alice in Wonderland as an example. Also top marks to Ed Miliband for getting the Moomins into Hansard.
Rules around question disclosure is on my mind at the moment, because you can absolutely find where people have failed to tick the box when they should have done. But also some massive conflicts that are just allowed by the merits of having ticked the box bsky.app/profile/alex...
There's a whole range of things where the most you can actually catch people breaking the rules is on a technicality, because the actually bad stuff is 100% allowed.
Entrench and support devolution The key goal of Labour’s Commission on the UK’s future was creating a second chamber that can entrench devolution with a veto on legislation affecting devolution. This does that and more. As proposed in the Electoral Reform Society’s Unfinished Business report, devolution and nations/regions can be inherent in the structure (e.g. LcMPs can be elected from party lists by nation/region). But the real benefit for devolution is not that the lists are by region, but that the system can work without formal coalitions in the outer chamber. Splitting legislative power among more parties enhances a political constitution with more barriers to affecting constitutional statutes. Constitutional change would at the least no longer be a one party matter. This kind of hard backstop is vital for soft power approaches to protecting constitutional norms to succeed.5 This does not inherently create a lock around constitutional questions, but makes change harder, and encourages new mechanisms for a more consensus-driven approach to constitutional change.
More on what semi-parliamentary approaches would look like in the UK alexparsons.co.uk/blog/posts/s...
This is obviously good in itself, but also illustrates how the senate in a semi-parliamentary system can act as a constitutional safeguard www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
🗳️ 📆 The Scottish Parliament, the Senedd Cymru and 136 English councils (5,013 councillors and six mayors) are holding elections on 7 May.
👇 Get all the details from our latest blog. 👇
democracyclub.org.uk/blog/2026/03...
Get annoyed about this because you see some MPs who very dutifully make declarations when the conflict isn't financial (as far as I can tell) - but then you get people with financial conflicts who do not tick the box - pretty much the only way it's possible to break the rules.
Anyway, we have a report about declarations of interests and written questions working its way towards publication - so watch this space.
of the relevant Ministers and Shadow Ministers. It is also common for other Parliamentarians from various political parties to be in attendance a
Everyone else is also bad at this (and they are!) is not, in itself, a defence against the burden of ticking a box.
I am satisfied that all six Questions needed a declaration of interests because it might reasonably have been thought that the interests influenced your words or actions as a Member. I accept that you were acting in your role as Shadow Minister for Sport and this was the reason for your Questions.22 However, the test of relevance is not 15 an exclusive test (i.e. there is no need for the relevant interests to be the sole influencer on a Member’s words or actions) nor is it a test of consequences (i.e. there is no need for the relevant interests to have actually influenced a Member’s words or actions). It is simply a neutral test that allows other Members and members
And the longer dialogue with the Parliamentary Commissioner, where this is a useful statement that the test is perception, not proved influence www.parliament.uk/globalassets...
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I would like to apologise to the House for failing to declare an interest when tabling three written parliamentary questions to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, two written parliamentary questions to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and one written parliamentary question to the Treasury. When I tabled the questions, I inadvertently failed to declare relevant interests: the receipt of hospitality from the Jockey Club and from Ascot Racecourse, and a charity donation from the Betting & Gaming Council. This was in breach of the rules, and I apologise to the House for this inadvertent error.
Louie French's rectification of not declaring interests alongside written questions www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=...
Aside: I think if you can fully prevent the vote happening, the approach works a bit. I think once the vote is happening through, abstaining is rarely a strong political choice.
Yeah, it was intended to send a signal about where the leadership was, and that is definitely what happened.
However, the reasoned amendment is certainly useful in highlighting what the opposition viewed the significant points of difference to be - which helps inform (alongside other things) the description.
In practice it doesn't matter what you say - a reasoned amendment *is* a vote against the bill.
When this happens for the voting summaries we include the reasoned amendment as a scoring vote, and the agreement as an informative vote - because we try to be conservative when we score agreements.
Few reasons for this pattern:
- Avoiding voting entirely against a bill with some principles you agree with/try to frame opposition as being related to specific points
- avoiding a second long division
The combination of those two shows the difficult of interpreting decisions without a vote as unanimous consent - the bill was opposed!
When that fails, the second reading was then passed by agreement/without opposition (we extract these kinds of decisions alongside votes to sync up to motions) votes.theyworkforyou.com/decisions/ag...
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add: “That this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Representation of the People Bill because reducing the voting age from 18 to 16 is inconsistent with and contradictory to other aspects of the Government’s position on ages of majority and citizenship; automatic voter registration will lead to less accurate electoral registers and open the door to fraud; the Bill has been drafted without proper engagement with political parties; the Rycroft review into foreign financial interference in UK politics has yet to report; it does not include effective measures to tackle foreign interference from China and other hostile actors; and it believes that it would be preferable to proceed with a new Bill in the next Session of Parliament, following the report of the Rycroft review and proper consultation with political parties.”
A reasoned amendment is a vote that would kill the bill if it passed - but articulates the opposition's reasons for wanting to do so votes.theyworkforyou.com/decisions/di...
2 Mar – Second Reading: Representation of the People Bill ✅ 2 Mar – Representation of the People Bill: Reasoned Amendment ❌
So here's a pattern you see sometimes on second reading/stage (principles of the bill), where an opposition party will oppose using a reasoned amendment, but then not oppose the actual votes votes.theyworkforyou.com/decisions/co...
Re last RT: making the ombudsman a good tool for systematic investigation (with good links to casework, but not an MP filter) - would be a good idea www.mysociety.org/2024/12/04/t...
The EIC has today launched its first review, exploring the role of public sector ombudsman schemes in identifying wider systemic failures.
We are seeking input into our review via the link below.
eic.independent-commission.uk/ombudsman-re...
Text “transport and the environment.” Illustration of rainbow colored road.
Representation of the People Bill-
Gov commits to repeal entirely the power to set a Strategy & Policy Statement for the Electoral Commission.
To re-do an old thread from the other place: if you had £13m(20k * 650) to improve how MPs work - how many times could you spend that before increasing the base pay is a good idea?
POTSIWID: The purpose of the ministerial code is press releases clearing people of breaking the code.
