This year’s general election saw 335 new MPs elected to the House of Commons. Parliament has thus seen a large number of so-called ‘maiden speeches’, with many more still to come. In this post, Tom Fleming discusses maiden speeches’ potential benefits and downsides, and whether parliament could use its limited time more effectively. 

As parliament returns for its September sitting, we can expect to hear plenty more ‘maiden speeches’: the first speech by each newly-elected MP. These were very prominent in the short July sitting after the general election, given that over half of all MPs are new to the House. This blogpost explores the benefits and downsides of these speeches, and asks whether – and how – limited parliamentary time could be used more effectively. 

What are maiden speeches? 

An MP’s first speech in the House of Commons after they are elected is generally known as a maiden speech. As set out in the MPs’ Guide to Procedure, such speeches are supposed to be relatively brief and uncontroversial, and relevant to the subject under debate. It is also conventional for MPs to talk about their constituency, and to pay tribute to its previous MP. These speeches are usually given some priority in debates, and other MPs may not intervene during them. MPs have traditionally not spoken in the Commons chamber in any way (such as asking questions) until after their maiden speech, but – as with the content of the speech – they are free to disregard this convention. 

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The House of Commons has voted to establish a new Modernisation Committee. Tom Fleming and Hannah Kelly explore the opportunities and challenges facing this new committee, drawing on their recent Constitution Unit report on past approaches to delivering House of Commons reform.

Last week MPs voted to establish a new select committee, the Modernisation Committee, ‘to consider reforms to House of Commons procedures, standards, and working practices’. This proposal was brought forward by the Leader of the House, Lucy Powell, and was promised in the Labour manifesto.

The name implies similarity with the previous Modernisation Committee, which was appointed under the last Labour government between 1997 and 2010, and which we analysed in our recent Constitution Unit report, Delivering House of Commons Reform: What Works?. This blogpost therefore draws on that research to evaluate the opportunities and potential pitfalls facing the new committee.

A new Modernisation Committee

The committee will have 14 members – nine Labour MPs, three Conservatives, and two Liberal Democrats – to be nominated via a future motion from the Leader of the House. It will include the Leader of the House herself (who expects to chair the committee) and the Conservatives’ Shadow Leader, Chris Philp. Though Powell wasn’t explicit in last week’s debate about how other members of the committee would be selected, Philp indicated that they would be chosen by their parties’ whips.

The committee’s composition will therefore be unusual in two ways. First, House of Commons select committees usually only include backbench MPs. Second, since 2010 the members of most select committees have been chosen by their fellow MPs via intra-party elections, not by party whips.

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The main party manifestos have now been published, allowing exploration and comparison of their constitutional proposals. In this second post in a series on the manifestos, Meg Russell looks at the parties’ commitments on parliamentary reform. What are they promising, and what are the prospects for these proposed changes? 

Yesterday on this blog, Lisa James reviewed the constitutional proposals presented by the political parties in their 2024 general election manifestos. Unsurprisingly, parliamentary reform is a key area that appears in several of them. Most parties include aspirations to reform the House of Lords, and some make other commitments on the House of Commons, or the overall power of parliament. This second post in the Constitution Unit’s manifesto series reviews these proposals, reflecting on their origins, merits, and prospects for implementation. It starts with the power of parliament as a whole, before moving to the Commons, and then the Lords. 

The power of parliament 

It is primarily the Liberal Democrats that give space to parliament’s overall place in the constitution – an area subject to significant recent controversy. The Brexit referendum of 2016 led to fierce clashes in parliament, and unusually high-profile arguments about both parliamentary procedure and the limits of the government’s prerogative power. Brexit also raised new questions about parliament’s powers over policy matters that returned to the UK following its exit from the European Union. 

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How can House of Commons reform be delivered in the next parliament? A new Constitution Unit report explores past approaches to developing and delivering changes to the Commons’ procedures, and the implications for current advocates of reform. Tom Fleming and Hannah Kelly summarise the report’s findings and conclusions. 

Background 

House of Commons reform is likely to be on the political agenda in the next parliament. Recent years have seen a growing number of books and reports highlighting problems with how the Commons works, and arguing that at least part of the solution lies in reforming its internal procedures. These reform proposals come against a backdrop of deep public dissatisfaction with parliament that suggests a need for MPs to explore ways of enhancing their collective reputation. The election of a new parliament on 4 July may therefore open a window of opportunity for Commons reform. 

Given this context, there has been surprisingly little recent discussion of how such reforms might actually be delivered. This matters, because a number of different institutional vehicles can be used for developing and drafting proposals for procedural change. Moreover, past experience suggests that how the reform process is organised matters for the outcomes of that process. Politicians with an agenda for Commons reform should therefore be giving serious thought to the mechanisms for delivering that agenda. 

Goals of the report 

Our new report therefore provides an evidence-based assessment of four different previous approaches to developing and delivering proposals for Commons reform: 

• Government initiative. Reform can come directly from government proposals, drawn up under the authority of ministers. Those ministers might respond to suggestions from elsewhere, and informally consult relevant MPs or select committees. But under this approach, the initiative for developing and bringing forward reform proposals lies wholly with the government. 
• Permanent backbench select committee. Proposals can instead be developed by a permanent select committee of backbench MPs with an ongoing remit to investigate procedural questions. The primary past and current case of this approach, and the one we study in our report, is the House of Commons Procedure Committee, which has existed in more or less its current form since 1997. 
• Temporary backbench select committee. The Commons can also appoint a backbench select committee with a temporary remit to report on a particular area or areas of procedure. We study the most recent such committee: the 2009–10 Select Committee on Reform of the House of Commons, better known as the ‘Wright Committee’ after its chair, the Labour MP Tony Wright. 
• Government-chaired select committee. The final approach is something of a hybrid: appointing a select committee to review Commons procedures, but having it be chaired by a government minister. The key template for this is the Modernisation Committee which existed from 1997 to 2010 under the last Labour government. This committee combined backbench MPs with frontbench spokespeople from the three largest parties, and was chaired by the Leader of the House. Having a cabinet minister chair the committee was unusual, and sometimes controversial, given that Commons select committees usually only include backbench MPs. 

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The extent and proper level of the Westminster parliament’s power has long been disputed. So what impressions do UK newspaper readers receive on this question? Meg Russell and Lisa James summarise a new study showing that the dominant right-leaning newspapers, in particular, often present negative messages about parliament: depicting it as either too weak or too strong. 

Parliament sits at the heart of the UK constitution. But, despite valuable communication and outreach programmes by the parliamentary authorities, the public’s understanding of this central institution is likely to be heavily influenced by its presentation in the media.  

We have recently published an article, ‘Representation of the UK Parliament’s Power in the National Media: Too Weak, or Too Strong?’, investigating how parliament is portrayed in UK newspapers. It explores, in particular, how the print media depicts parliamentary strength. The actual level of parliament’s power has long been a debate among academics: is it a mere rubber stamp, dominated by the executive, or a more influential shaper of policy? Some scholars have charted the well-established but dubious ‘parliamentary decline thesis’. Others have suggested parliament is more powerful than often assumed, that procedural and political changes have led to a ‘new assertiveness’, or even that the institution may have become ‘too powerful’. But what messages do the public receive from the media about such questions? Our article is the first to explore this directly. It also explores how these messages changed in the turbulent years following the June 2016 Brexit referendum, when the government faced increasing challenges in the House of Commons. 

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