Author: psaparliaments

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News

September 2024 Newsletter

Hello, everyone! The newsletter is finally here and we have lots of news for you.

  1. Our PSA Parliaments Annual Conference: Call for papers closing soon!
  2. PSA Annual Conference 2025: Call for papers
  3. Opportunity: UKRI policy internship with POST
  4. UCL Constitution Unit event: Prospects for the House of Commons Modernisation Committee
  5. New open access book: Liber Amicorum: Making Europe Happen
  6. Recent Publications and Resources
  7. On the Blog
  8. Overview of Parliaments Map

If you have any notices/messages you would like us to circulate to our group, please let us know.

Best wishes,

Caroline, Diana, Ruxandra, Jack and Lauren

1. Our PSA Parliaments Annual Conference: Call for papers closing soon!

We are very excited that the Senedd will host our annual conference on 21-22 November in Cardiff.

This is our preliminary timetable:

Thursday, 21 November 2024

  • Daytime: Early-career workshop (Time and venue will be confirmed soon)
  • 6–8 pm: Drinks reception in the Senedd foyer

Friday, 22 November 2024

  • 9 am–4 pm: Conference in the Pierhead Building

The calls for papers for the conference and pre-conference early-career workshop are now open, and the deadline is 16 September. We welcome papers on all aspects of parliaments and legislatures around the world and from different disciplines! In light of the Senedd’s 25th anniversary, we are also keen to receive submissions that focus on the devolved parliaments. 

For the main conference, we also encourage papers by researchers working in parliaments and collaborations between practitioners and academics. Please note that we will ask you to write a blog piece for our blog after the conference. The form to propose a paper for the main conference is available here.

If you are a PhD student, postdoctoral researcher or an early-career academic not in a permanent position, please consider applying for our early-career workshop where you get the opportunity to receive more in-depth feedback on a draft paper. You can find the form here.

More details and updates on our website.

2. PSA Annual Conference 2025: Call for papers

The 75th PSA Annual Conference, “What Next?”, convened by the University of Birmingham and Aston University, will take place from 14-16 April 2025. Abstracts should be submitted to the Ex-Ordo website by 18 October. Detailed instructions can be found here.

If you would like to present in one of our panels, please select our Specialist Group’s name in the ‘Topics’ section, when submitting your abstract.

For our PSA Parliaments panels, we are open to papers on any aspect of parliamentary and legislative studies. We particularly encourage papers on the UK Parliament, the 2024 General Election as a critical juncture for the UK Parliament, 25 years of devolved parliaments, comparative parliamentary studies, representation, scrutiny and accountability.

More information can be found on our website.

3. Opportunity: UKRI Policy Internship with UK Parliament POST

The UK Parliament POST has restructured its individual Fellowship schemes and substituted them with an overarching opportunity called the Policy Internships Scheme. The scheme provides the opportunity for doctoral students funded by the research councils of UKRI to work for three months in a policy organisation.

This scheme is open to doctoral students funded by the Research Councils of UK Research and Innovation (AHRC, BBSRC, ESRC, EPSRC, MRC, NERC and STFC). Internships will take place during 2024 and students must be able to start their internship before the end of their funded period of study.

More information, including on how to apply, is available on POST’s website. Applications are open until 2 October 2024, 4:00 pm.

4. UCL Constitution Unit event: Prospects for the House of Commons Modernisation Committee

The UCL Constitution Unit is hosting a free, online event on 13 September at 1 pm about the prospects for the House of Commons Modernisation Committee.

As the Committee gets up and running this autumn, it faces a number of important questions. How should it approach its work, what issues might it address and what lessons can it learn from past efforts to reform the Commons?

Greg Power (former special adviser to two Leaders of the House of Commons), Dr Sue Griffiths (former Clerk to the House of Commons Modernisation Committee) and Dr Tom Fleming (Lecturer in British and Comparative Politics at UCL), with Prof Meg Russell (Director of the Constitution Unit) as chair, will discuss these questions and more.

Register here.

5. New open access book: Liber Amicorum: Making Europe Happen

Klaus Welle was Secretary-General of the European Parliament from March 2009 to December 2022. In this set of essays in Klaus’s honour, published to mark his 60th birthday, friends and former colleagues in the EU institutions write about the impact he made on the Brussels scene, and notably on the development of the European Parliament, during his tenure at the administrative helm of the Union’s only directly-elected institution.

You can access this open pdf book here.

6. Recent Publications and Resources

Publications

New resources

  • The Institute for Government has made publicly available its Ministers Database, which holds information about all government ministers since 1979 – who served as a minister, in which roles, and their dates in office. The database might be a useful resource for academics and other researchers interested in exploring ministerial churn, gender balance and plenty of other topics. There is also a webinar recording explaining what information the database holds and answering some questions about how to use it.

If you would like your published research to be featured in this section, please email Caroline with details.

7. On the Blog

We would love to have more contributions ib our blog. If you have an idea for a blog on some aspect of parliamentary study, please get in touch with our communications officer Jack.

Here is a previous blog entry that we thought interesting and relevant in the context of a new parliament:

8. Overview of Parliaments Map

We do not have any new contributions for our Overview of Parliaments Map this month but we are really looking forward for more. Our last entry was:

For anybody who wishes to cover any of the countries not yet covered in our map, contact our communications officer Jack.

Categories
Events News

#PSA25: Call for Papers

The 75th PSA Annual Conference, “What Next?”, co-convened by the University of Birmingham and Aston University, will take place from 14–16 April 2025. The call for papers has opened!

Call for Papers

After careful deliberation, the PSA team have agreed a more streamlined approach to the call for papers, and panels formation for PSA25, which means we are doing things a little differently this year! As opposed to submitting your abstracts directly to our Specialist Group, please log-in to Ex-Ordo via this link and upload your abstract which you intend for review by our Specialist Group by 18 October.

If you don’t already have an Ex-Ordo account, you can create one via the link above. 

  • Once you are logged into the PSA25 Ex Ordo website, click the ‘Dashboard’ link in the top bar. On the dashboard home page, you will see a card that says, ‘SUBMIT ABSTRACT’ and a button labelled ‘Submit Your Abstract Now’ which will take you to the My Submission Portal. 
  • In the My Submission portal, you will find an easy step-by-step process to follow and successfully submit your abstract.
  • When submitting your abstract, please select our Specialist Group’s name in the ‘Topics’ section, which will identify us as the intended recipient and ensure your abstract is sent to us by the PSA team. 

Please note that where there is more than one author per paper, you should also ensure that the ‘Lead Author’ includes the details of the co-authors.

For our Specialist Group panels, we are open to any papers on national, sub-national and supra-national parliaments and legislatures. We particularly encourage papers on the UK Parliament, the 2024 General Election as a critical juncture for the UK Parliament, 25 years of devolved parliaments, comparative parliamentary studies, representation, scrutiny and accountability.

What happens next?

#PSA25 timeline

Please note that you will find out about the status of your abstract in November.

As this is a different approach to submitting your abstract to us, the PSA team has created these step-by-step guidelines to help. If you have any queries regarding this, please don’t hesitate to contact the PSA team via email.

We hope to see many of you in Birmingham next year!

Categories
Events News

Annual Conference 2024: Call for Papers

Save the Date

We are very excited to share that our conference will be held 21-22 November 2024 in Cardiff, Wales.

25 years ago, the Senedd Cymru was first created as the National Assembly for Wales as part of the devolution process. The red-brick Pierhead Building of 1897 in Cardiff Bay is now at the doorstep of the modern glass-fronted Senedd building and has served as the Senedd’s visitor and education centre since 2010. We are very grateful to be able to hold our Annual Conference in this setting, especially since we have such fond memories from our 2019 conference at the Senedd.

After positive feedback from last year, we will again organise a workshop for early-career researchers on Thursday, 21 November 2024. Our traditional pre-conference drinks reception will be on Thursday evening. The venues for the workshop and drinks reception will be confirmed soon.

Calls for Papers

Main conference (22 November)

We invite you to propose papers featuring original research on any parliaments or legislatures around the world. In light of the Senedd’s anniversary, we are keen to receive submissions that focus on the devolved parliaments. We also encourage papers by researchers working in parliaments and collaborations between practitioners and academics.

The deadline for proposing abstracts is 16 September 2024. Please fill in this form. Please note that if accepted, we will ask you to submit a blog post to be published on our blog in the aftermath of the conference.

ECR workshop (21 November)

If you are a PhD student, postdoctoral researcher or an early-career academic not in a permanent position, please consider applying for our pre-conference early-career workshop where you get the opportunity to receive in-depth feedback on a draft paper. We welcome papers on any aspect of parliamentary and legislative studies that you seek to get published. (If you are collaborating with senior colleagues, you should be the main author of the paper.)

The deadline for the workshop proposals is also 16 September 2024, and the application form can be found here. If accepted, we will ask you to share your paper with the other participants and expert discussants two weeks before the event.

If you would like to volunteer to act as a discussant, please let Caroline know. We would be very grateful.

Further details can be found here.

We hope to see you in the Welsh capital in November!

Categories
News

July 2024 Newsletter

Hello, everyone! We are a bit late with the newsletter this month, but all for good reasons! A lot of us will have been busy following the 4th of July General Election and will still be busy with post-election analysis. Our next newsletter will be out on the 2nd of September. Meanwhile, we have lots of news for you this month.

  1. Our Annual Conference: Save the Date!
  2. Our Annual Conference: Call for Papers!
  3. PSA Parliaments Undergraduate Essay Competition: Last call
  4. 25th Anniversary of the Devolved Legislatures in Scotland and Wales
  5. General Election Insights
  6. Recent Publications
  7. Recently on the Blog
  8. Overview of Parliaments Map

If you have any notices/messages you would like us to circulate to our group, please let us know.

Best wishes,

Caroline, Diana, Ruxandra, Jack and Lauren

1. Our Annual Conference: Save the Date!

We are very excited to share that we have a date and location for our Annual Conference. The conference will be held 21-22 November 2024 in Cardiff, Wales.

25 years ago, the Senedd Cymru was first created as the National Assembly for Wales as part of the devolution process. The red-brick Pierhead Building of 1897 in Cardiff Bay is now at the doorstep of the modern glass-fronted Senedd building and has served as the Senedd’s visitor and education centre since 2010. We are very grateful to be able to hold our Annual Conference in this setting, especially since we have such fond memories from our 2019 conference at the Senedd.

After positive feedback from last year, we will again organise a workshop for early-career researchers on Thursday, 21 November 2024. Our traditional pre-conference drinks reception will be on Thursday evening. The venues for the workshop and drinks reception will be confirmed soon.

Further details and the call for papers can be found on our website.

2. Our Annual Conference: Call for Papers!

Main conference (22 November) – We invite you to propose papers featuring original research on any parliaments or legislatures around the world. In light of the Senedd’s anniversary, we are keen to receive submissions that focus on the devolved parliaments. We also encourage papers by researchers working in parliaments and collaborations between practitioners and academics.

The deadline for proposing abstracts is 16 September 2024. Please fill in this form. Please note that if accepted, we will ask you to submit a blog post to be published on our blog in the aftermath of the conference.

ECR workshop (21 November) – If you are a PhD student, postdoctoral researcher or an early-career academic not in a permanent position, please consider applying for our pre-conference early-career workshop where you get the opportunity to receive in-depth feedback on a draft paper. We welcome papers on any aspect of parliamentary and legislative studies that you seek to get published. (If you are collaborating with senior colleagues, you should be the main author of the paper.)

The deadline for the workshop proposals is also 16 September 2024, and the application form can be found here. If accepted, we will ask you to share your paper with the other participants and expert discussants two weeks before the event.

If you would like to volunteer to act as a discussant, please let Caroline know. We would be very grateful.

Further details and the call for papers can be found on our website.

We hope to see you in the Welsh capital in November!

3. PSA Parliaments Undergraduate Essay Competition: Last call

The deadline for our undergraduate essay competition is approaching fast. If you are teaching at a UK university and have marked an excellent piece of work by a student, please consider nominating them.

The deadline is 12 July at 5pm BST. You can find all the details here.

4. The 25th Anniversary of the Devolved Legislatures in Scotland and Wales

The Festival of Politics (Monday 19 August to Friday 23 August 2024)

The Scottish Parliament’s Festival of Politics (In partnership with Scotland’s Futures Forum) is happening in August, with a five-day programme of over 30 events, in the home of Scottish politics at Holyrood. More info

25 years of Welsh law-making

To mark the Senedd’s 25th anniversary, Senedd Research has published a special series on 25 years of Welsh law-making. Welsh law-making is still young and has adapted to its changing context, whether initiated from within Wales or externally. The series looks at how the legislative process in the Senedd has changed, the role external bodies and events have played in its evolution and considers the impact of Senedd reforms.

5. General Election Insights

PSA website General Election resources

The PSA has set up a special section on their website to feature resources about the General Election. There is also information about how you can contribute and share your insights. Please see here.

Call for contributions on the PSA Parliaments blog

Over the next few months we are welcoming timely contributions discussing the implications of the General Election for the UK Parliament and the devolved legislatures so please get in touch with our communications officer, Jack.

6. Recent Publications

If you would like your published research to be featured in this section, please email Caroline with details.

7. Recently on the Blog

If you have an idea for a blog on some aspect of parliamentary study, please get in touch with our new communications officer, Jack.

8. Overview of Parliaments Map

We have one new contribution to our Overview of Parliaments Map:

For anybody who wishes to cover any of the countries not yet covered in our map, contact our communications officer Jack.

Categories
Blog

Parliaments need to ensure democratic accountability for public debt

By Franklin De Vrieze.

On the occasion of the International Day of Parliamentarism (30 June), this article highlights the challenging task for many parliaments around the globe in ensuring accountability for the rapidly increasing public debt of their nation. It analyses questions of debt transparency, legislative and oversight practices on public debt and the challenge of executive dominance.

Today’s debt crisis

The world is facing a new debt crisis. Twenty-five of the poorest countries spend more on debt repayments than on education, health, and social policy combined. Sixty percent of low- and middle-income countries are highly debt vulnerable. In its latest International Debt Report, the World Bank revealed the sharpest rise in global borrowing costs in four decades.

The origins of this dire situation are both historical and more recent. They include global power dynamics, international and regional barriers to trade and infrastructure development, national political histories and governance decisions around economic development, and the policies of multi-lateral lending institutions and the role of credit agencies. More recently, public debt of many countries has exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the environmental and climate emergency – and their economic and financial impacts – as well as sometimes dubious national borrowing decisions.

Breaking out of the current debt crisis and avoiding future ones will require a fundamental shift in oversight and accountability for the way that governments borrow and manage debt. In this context, there is increasing recognition of the unique roles for parliament in the governance of public debt.

Why parliaments need to get involved

In its submission to the UK House of Common’s International Development Committee’s inquiry, Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) suggested that there are six incentives as to why parliaments can play a more active role with regards to public debt: 1) It serves as a catalyst for greater debt transparency. 2) It helps to establish and implement a stronger legal framework on public debt management. 3) It strengthens oversight over government policies and spending. 4) It protects the national interest in emergency contexts and highlights the gendered effects of public debt. 5) It unearths the risks of State-Owned Enterprises becoming a major cause of debt accumulation and debt crises. 6) It contributes to delivering the requirements of successful Nature-for-Debt swaps, hence contributing to action on climate change mitigation and adaptation, and to climate change finance accountability.

Parliaments, as representatives of people’s interests, as well as lawmakers and agents of accountability, are critical fiscal policy institutions responsible for approving the annual budget and overseeing the government’s execution of its approved programme. Meanwhile, debt managers are responsible for ensuring the government’s financing needs are met at the lowest cost over the medium-to-long term, consistent with an acceptable level of risk, and other objectives such as supporting domestic debt market development.

How parliaments can get involved

How can parliaments play a meaningful role in public debt oversight?

Firstly, setting a legal framework for public debt management ensures that parliament provides strategic direction to borrowing decisions and clearly specifies the roles and responsibilities for the institutions involved in debt management. While most countries in the world have a financial administration act, public debt can also be regulated by more specific legislation.

Secondly, the budget cycle provides the main structure for financial decision-making in parliament, and there are opportunities to scrutinize public debt and public debt management throughout the four stages of the budget cycle: formulation, approval, execution and audit/oversight.

Thirdly, parliaments can incorporate debt management into their regular law-making and budgeting responsibilities in various ways, such as: reviewing and endorsing the Debt Management Strategy and monitoring ongoing implementation; reviewing and ratifying external loan and guarantee agreements in a timely manner; drawing on debt management compliance/ performance audit reports prepared by the Supreme Audit Institution to check the effectiveness of regulatory and systems arrangements; maintaining one or more permanent parliamentary oversight committees with overall responsibility for budget and debt management scrutiny.

Worldwide, parliaments fulfil their debt management roles to varying extents, as MPs often struggle to understand the availability and completeness of debt statistics and other debt management documents. Hence, some parliaments decided to create a dedicated Committee on public debt, bringing together those MPs with strongest knowledge and interest in the topic, as is the case in Kenya and Nigeria. Many parliaments lack staff with the specializedknowledge and skills to support stronger oversight of public debt. Hence, some parliaments have established a Parliamentary Budget Office (for instance in Kenya and Sierra Leone), which provides members with specialized analysis on fiscal and budget issues, including issues of public debt.

Transparency as precondition for parliamentary debt oversight

Transparency is one of the major anchors of debt sustainability, ensuring that all stakeholders, including policymakers, creditors and investors, can take optimal decisions on a country’s debt obligations, based on fully disclosed, reliable and timely information. The issue of debt transparency became more prominent following the discovery of hidden debts in some debtor countries (for instance in Mozambique). It’s the main preconditions for parliamentary involvement in public debt oversight.

There are clear advantages to greater debt transparency as it gives credibility to government policies and helps ensure debt and fiscal sustainability. It supports democratic systems and reduces the opportunity for corruption. However, some national governments might not be ready to provide timely, comprehensive, accurate, accessible, and intelligible debt data, policies and operations to their national parliament or the public at large. Parliament often only gets partial access to the relevant data, thus limiting their ability to exercise oversight on public debt.

Executive dominance

In addition, oversight of public debt largely depends on oversight of the political choices underpinning the proposed investment projects which are funded by new loans. However, parliamentary oversight of these political choices often faces the challenge of executive dominance. In some countries, it means that, for instance, the President might request MPs to adopt proposals, vote for proposed investment projects, or increase the debt ceiling while the MPs know that this is not a sound policy. I learned that, in those circumstances, MPs may sometimes feel that they have no choice but to approve requests by the executive, as their position in parliament or within their party – and in extremely worrying cases their personal security and the safety of their family – can depend on it.

This means that debt transparency is not sufficient. Based on a political economy analysis, there is need for a corruption and patronage lens to fiscal and debt policy. When the national budget is inflated by imprudent projects requiring large loans, it is indebting the country for generations to come. In these circumstances, public debt can be called “budgeted corruption”.

Civil society

Therefore, in addition to more rigorous oversight by parliaments, civil society also needs a more robust role. CSOs and academics, with expertise in fiscal and debt policies, can play a complementary monitoring role, reinforcing parliamentary scrutiny. The role of the Institute for Public Finance in Kenya is a commendable example.

Unsustainable and opaque debt is a democratic deficit. It undermines the social contract which underpins a democratic system of governance. That is why Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) advocates for debt transparency, more rigorous debt accountability to parliaments and robust civil society monitoring.

About the author

Franklin De Vrieze is the Head of Practice Accountability at Westminster Foundation for Democracy.

Categories
Blog

Petitions and Petitioning in Europe and North America

By Henry Miller.

Over the last decade, parliaments across the world have adopted e-petition systems to promote citizen engagement with legislatures. While made possible by the internet and twenty-first century technology, the contemporary e-petition can also be understood as the latest version of an ancient political practice: the petition. As this blog will illustrate, petitions and petitioning have long been a popular way for people to engage with parliamentary institutions, both before and after the advent of modern democracy.

This blog summarises key findings from a major new edited book, Petitions and Petitioning in Europe and North America: From the Late Medieval Period to the Present published by Oxford University Press for the British Academy. Originating from an AHRC Network, the book brings together historians, political scientists, legal scholars, and sociologists to examine petitions and petitioning, that is the practices related to the drafting, signing, presentation and reception of petitions.

As the book shows, petitions have been ubiquitous across a many different geographical, chronological, and political contexts, including modern democracies and authoritarian regimes. The book is organised into three sections that: 1) define petitions with greater conceptual clarity than before; 2) examine changes and continuities in petitioning over long periods of time; and 3) offer case studies of why and when petitions have mattered in particular political contexts, ranging from late medieval England to the early Soviet Union. This blog will summarise findings in three areas that will be of particular interest to scholars of parliamentary studies.

First, a key theme of the book is the relationship between petitions and the evolution of parliamentary institutions. In his chapter, Gwilym Dodd shows that petitions were an important method for collectively asserting parliamentary authority against royal power in late medieval England. During the ‘age of revolutions’ (1789-1871) in Europe and North America, mass, collective petitioning on public issues, often based on newly codified rights to petition, was increasingly directed to legislatures. The value of petitions to parliaments was double-edged in an age of limited suffrage. Parliaments, including the UK House of Commons, used petitions to claim a degree of popular consent in the absence of democratic elections. Yet at the same time, petitioners invoking ideas of popular sovereignty frequently challenged parliamentary authority by claiming to represent a broader people than the limited electorate.

In the twentieth century, as Richard Huzzey and Henry Miller show, there was a shift away from petitioning legislatures to a broader range of authorities, including international bodies like the United Nations. Petitioning remained a ubiquitous form of political participation, but because petitions to non-parliamentary authorities (such as Number 10 Downing Street) were rarely recorded, its continued popularity remained largely invisible to scholars. This historical perspective allows us to see that one important implication of the growth of legislative e-petitions systems, documented by Cristina Leston-Bandeira in her chapter, is that it restores parliaments as the principal authorities for receiving petitions from citizens.

Second, petitions have been an important mechanism for representation across the centuries. As a series of studies have shown, petitions have enabled the ‘voice of the voteless’ to be heard in legislatures from groups lacking formal political rights, including Native Americans, women before universal suffrage, and colonised peoples in the British empire.  In their study of the US Congress over two centuries, Maggie Blackhawk and Daniel Carpenter persuasively argue that petitioning has been an important form of representation that exists independently of electoral and party politics. Examining Dutch petitions over three centuries, Maartje Janse et al, demonstrate that petitioning has been a significant practice for making representative claims to authority by individual citizens and groups. In his survey of petitions in colonial Jamaica during the era of slavery, the late Aaron Graham shows that petitioning was one of the few tools available to groups including Free People of Colour and Jewish subjects to  claim rights from a legislature dominated by slave-owners. Marta Gravela and Ismini Pells show that petitions were an important mechanism for claiming citizenship and welfare, respectively, from the state.

Third, the book reveals the essential duality of petitions and petitioning as both formal and informal political practices that is vital for understanding their ubiquity, longevity, and flexibility. While often studied in formal, institutional, official settings, notably parliaments, petitions have always taken informal, unofficial forms as well and have been directly to a range of authorities. As chapters by Mark Knights, Joris Oddens, and others show, there has been an enormous variety of petitions and related subscriptional (or name-signing) practices, including supplications, covenants, declarations, and gravamina to name but a few. In the nineteenth-century UK, petitions to the House of Commons were the most popular genre of petitioning, but these existed alongside addresses to the monarch, memorials to government, and requisitions and other petitions directed to every type of local authority.

Petitions have never been isolated from other forms of political participation. Indeed, in particular contexts they have underpinned and made possible other forms of collective action. While petitions today are often regarded by sociologists as a conventional form of collective action compared to more direct forms of protest, a historical perspective shows that petitioning has often been linked with revolts, rebellions, and revolutions. Petitioning has often been a fluid political practice that could mutate into other forms, including mass demonstrations or strikes, while the correlation between petitions and the formation of political organisation such as political parties or single-issue associations is well-established. Modern forms of participation and engagement have evolved from petitioning. The institutionalised forms of referendums and initiatives in Switzerland, Andreas Würgler shows, developed from a long tradition of petitioning. The practice of letter-writing to MPs and political leaders, which expanded dramatically in the twentieth-century, was an outgrowth of petitioning as Huzzey and Miller suggest.

The shape-shifting quality of petitions is one of the many reasons why they have been a widespread practice since the late medieval period, and a key means for interacting with parliamentary and representative institutions, even if now, they largely take digital form.  

About the authors

Dr. Henry Miller is Vice Chancellor’s Fellow in the Department of Humanities, Northumbria University.

Categories
News

June 2024 Newsletter

Hello, everyone! We  hope you all enjoyed the late May Bank holiday and that you are as excited as we are about the forthcoming General Election! We have plenty of updates for you this month!

  1. New Book: Reimagining Parliament
  2. PSA Parliaments Undergraduate Essay Competition
  3. Events
  4. Job Opportunities
  5. Call for Papers
  6. Recent Publications
  7. Recently on the Blog
  8. Overview of Parliaments Map

If you have any notices/messages you would like us to circulate to our group, please let us know.

Best wishes,

Caroline, Diana, Ruxandra, Jack and Lauren

1. New Book: Reimagining Parliament

David Judge and Cristina Leston-Bandeira have edited a book which does exactly what the title says: Reimagining Parliament. As luck would have it, it was officially published on the day the next general election was announced. This is the ideal literature to distract you from the latest election coverage and rethink the future of the UK parliament.

The main objective of the book is to discuss how the guiding principles of openness, engagement/connectedness, accessibility, inclusion, equality, fairness, responsiveness, and accountability can be reimagined in terms of space, connectivity, and interaction. See our blog for a teaser.

In addition to Cristina and David, the book includes contributions by our friends and colleagues Alexandra Meakin, Emma Crewe, Didier Caluwaerts, Daan Vermassen, Hannah White, Ben Yong, Lucinda Maer, and Paul Evans.

The book has been published by Bristol University Press and is available in paperback, hardback and as an e-book. See here.

2. PSA Parliaments Undergraduate Essay Competition

We are seeking nominations for our Undergraduate Essay Competition. If you are teaching undergraduates in the UK, please consider nominating a student for their excellent written work on any topic related to parliaments and legislatures. In addition to academic recognition, the winning student will get a £100 prize and the runner-up a £50 prize.

The submission deadline is 12 July. For more details, check our website or feel free to contact Caroline.

3. Events

The UCL Constitution Unit vitual panel on: Priorities for new MPs’ induction in the next parliament

The UCL Constitution Unit is hosting a virtual panel on “Priorities for New MPs’ Induction in the Next Parliament”. The experts are Ruth Fox (Director of the Hansard Society), Hannah White (Director of the Institute for Government), Daniel Greenberg (Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards) and Alistair Burt (former Conservative MP), and Meg Russell (Director of the Constitution Unit) will be chairing. The event takes place on 5 June, 1:00-2:15pm. You can sign up here.

The UCL Constitution Unit Conference: New Constitutional priorities for the Next Government 24- 25 June 2024

This two-day conference will bring together a range of senior speakers, including parliamentarians, academics and commentators, to discuss the constitutional priorities for the next government. For more information, see here.

4. Job Opportunities

The University of Edinburgh is offering a three-year fully funded PhD scholarship to work on “Patterns, Practices and Interpretations of Knowledge Use in Parliaments”. The position sits within the Studying Parliaments and the Role of Knowledge (SPARK) led by Marc Geddes. The application deadline is 6 June. More information can be found here.

5. Call for Papers

Parliamentary Affairs call for papers: Special section on the state of British politics in 2024/5

This call for papers, from the editors of Parliamentary Affairs, is for a special section of the journal on the state of British politics in 2024/5. The deadline for proposal submissions is 30 September 2023, with first drafts due at the end of January 2024. 

For more information see here. 

WFD and AFRODAD call for papers and experts on the role of African parliaments in public debt oversight

The Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) and the African Forum and Network for Debt and Development (AFRODAD) intend to examine the role of African parliaments in public debt oversight. The intention is to  compile a research publication featuring 8 to 10 peer-reviewed articles, each authored by different contributors who will submit full papers after abstract review. The paper abstract deadline is 10 June 2024

For more details and a timeline please see here or contact: Franklin De Vrieze (WFD) or Shem Joshua Otieno (AFRODAD).

6. Recent Publications

If you would like your published research to be featured in this section, please email Caroline with details.

7. Recently on the Blog

If you have an idea for a blog on some aspect of parliamentary study, please get in touch with our new communications officer, Jack.

8. Overview of Parliaments Map

We have one new contribution to our Overview of Parliaments Map:

For anybody who wishes to cover any of the countries not yet covered in our map, contact our communications officer Jack.

Categories
Blog

Reimagining the UK Parliament

By David Judge and Cristina Leston-Bandeira.

Few institutions – whether economic, social, or political – have escaped calls in recent years for reimagining. In its literal sense reimagining is ‘the action or an act of imagining something again’(OED); or, stated more pithily, it means to ‘think seriously about starting over’. A reimagining of parliament, therefore, needs to explore and trouble (in the sense of challenging and disrupting) current imaginings of what parliament is and does. This is what we set out to do in our new book Reimagining Parliament.

Stages of Reimagining

A ‘stages approach’ was adopted to reimagining. The first stage was to identify what was to be reimagined. Obviously, in our case the specific focus is the UK parliament. It is not about the genus of ‘parliament’, or of the general concept of ‘parliament’. Instead, it is about the Westminster parliament firmly located within a ‘Westminster system’ of government. This is the present (what currently exists). This provides the starting point for reimagining (what does not yet exist).

The second stage of reimagining was to identify who is doing the reimagining. The selection criteria for ‘reimagineers’ was that they should collectively combine the practical, professional experience of those who have worked in Westminster and the academic, research experience of those who have analysed parliament from a range of disciplines; and that they should be willing to step outside their professional and academic comfort zones to be provoked into thinking afresh about how they might reimagine parliament. Our ‘reimagineers’ were: Didier Caluwaerts, Emma Crewe, Paul Evans, David Judge, Cristina Leston-Bandeira, Lucinda Maer, Alexandra Meakin, Dann Vermassen, Hannah White, and Ben Yong.

A third stage was the ‘how’ of reimagining. A ‘headshift’, in the sense of ‘a break with conventional thinking’, was required. To break with the orthodoxies of institutional perspectives, contributors were asked to identify foundational principles with which to drive the modelling ab initio of various dimensions of parliamentary activity; to explain why the identified principles are deemed to be foundational, and why they matter. Two broad categories of principles emerged from this identification process. In the first category are principles broadly reflective of basic political tenets currently underpinning notions of liberal democracy in the UK: these include openness; engagement/connectedness; accessibility; inclusion; equality; fairness; responsiveness; and accountability. Principles in the second category are associated more with institutional and organisational norms and practices: these include wellness; ethical propriety; sustainability; organisational flexibility; and effective institutional governance.

The outcomes of reimagining

Notions of space, connectivity and interaction help in defining the positioning and distinctiveness of parliament at the centre of UK politics. ‘Space’ focuses attention upon location, architectural space and purpose, and the symbols, performances and rituals of parliament. ‘Connectivity’ is concerned with the dynamics of representation, the identities of those to be brought together in parliament, and how citizens are included and engaged in parliamentary processes. ‘Interaction’ is multi-directional, both outward looking to inter-institutional connections and highly politicised processes of effecting government responsibility and accountability; and inward looking to intra-institutional modes of administration and regulation, demarcated by parliamentary procedures and processes of self-governance.

Within these encompassing frames – of parliamentary space, connectivity, and interaction – the impact of how first category foundational principles may impact reimagining can be seen below.

Openness, engagement/connectedness, and accessibility

Space: These principles are used to guide rethinking: first, in the architectural sense of designing more open-plan spaces within which parliamentarians and staff could meet and work; and of an opening-up of the dark recesses of the parliamentary estate to allow in more natural light and ventilation. Second, in the sense of parliament being open to the public and infusing the principle of public access into the architectural design and necessary security structures and working regimes at Westminster. A fundamental question behind such reimagining is: what would the building look like if the public’s access to democracy was the primary purpose for the design?

Connectivity: The principles of openness and accessibility also underpin a reimagining of the engagement networks, mechanisms and processes of parliament to inform its information, education, communication, consultation and participation activities. In part this prioritisation of openness reflects growing citizen expectations of more openness within parliamentary democracies across the world. Whilst the principles of openness and accessibility provide keystones for engagement activities, their interconnectedness with other principles – of relatability, relevance, continuity, and sustainability – is also vital to reimagining public engagement.

Interaction: When applied to parliamentary scrutiny the principles of openness; engagement/connectedness; and accessibility provide for: greater openness and accessibility in the sense of the ability to obtain information from government and citizens and the capacity to receive (and publish) information in a more open way – through reimagining the technologies, the language, and the choreography of scrutiny. A reimagining of connectedness would include greater deliberative innovation into the scrutiny process; alongside a rethinking of partnership working both within Westminster and between legislatures in the UK; as well as enhanced networking with other monitoring and regulatory bodies. In turn, the principle of engagement can be used to rethink the relationship between parliamentarians and scrutiny processes.

When applied to parliamentary procedure, a reimagining based on the above principles, would aim to encourage participation, deliberation, and make procedure more accessible to parliamentarians and citizens. To this end, it should be transparent both in the sense of being ‘open’ about the rules governing parliamentary behaviour and how they are applied, as well as being presented in language which is natural, plain and transparent. Enhanced openness, in conjunction with other identified ‘second category’ principles, envisages procedure to be more ‘relatable’ inasmuch as it must be recognisably human; ‘relevant’ insofar as it must focus attention on what is important; and provide ‘continuity’ to the extent that procedure must be predictable without being unchanging.

Inclusion, equality, fairness, and responsiveness

These principles provide tensile threads running through most aspects of reimagining parliament.

Space: the principles of inclusion and equality are of central importance in re-envisioning parliamentary architectural space and transforming parliamentary rhythms, rituals and symbols. Such reimagining would have at its heart securing greater equality and inclusion in relation to currently under-represented or un-represented groups in parliament. These principles would be inhered by symbolic recognition of the achievements of minority groups; provide challenges to prevailing ‘hierarchies of value’; and made manifest in redesigns of parliamentary space, parliamentary communication and messaging strategies, and the adoption of neutral (non-exclusionary) parliamentary language.

Connectivity: A rethinking of parliamentary engagement imbued with the principle of inclusion aims to produce a parliament that is more welcoming, more relatable, and more relevant both to current generations and to future generations of parliamentarians and citizens. The principle of inclusion also signifies a necessary representation of diverse bodies, abilities, voices, opinions, backgrounds, races, ethnicities, genders, and identities in parliamentary activities. Securing greater equality and inclusiveness in the representative process requires affirmative action, including compensatory measures, to challenge the structural and attitudinal barriers which perpetuate representational inequalities. The inclusion of more, and more diverse, voices in the deliberation of public policies through such institutional actions and measures, alongside the situating of parliament as a key nodal point in intricate networks of electoral and non-electoral representation, are essential elements of reimagining parliamentary representation. The principle of fairness also intersects with the discussion of representational equality, not least in the maxim that formal political equality is secured through free and fair elections. In turn, securing fairness opens up considerations of a more proportional electoral system and greater alignment of the activities of representatives to the preferences of the represented through the institutionalisation of an encompassing system of responsiveness.

Interaction: Inclusion – and the promotion of diversity – serves as a guiding principle for reimagining the patterns of social interactions, working routines, and ‘people policies’ at Westminster. A reimagined parliament would conceptualise itself as an exemplar of best workplace practice and culture, rather than an exception to the rules shaping other workplaces. Moreover, a reimagined parliament would uphold the principle of fairness, and the closely aligned principle of non-discrimination, to guarantee the general right of workers be treated fairly and not to be discriminated against. When reimagining parliamentary governance, a parliamentary administration which is both responsive and responsible is to be a touchstone of good governance. These principles, when operationalised, would provide greater transparency of governance arrangements; and ensure that those making key administrative decisions are clearly identifiable and known to be responsible and accountable for those decisions.

When it comes to reimagining parliamentary scrutiny, what makes it unique, and distinct from other forms of scrutiny of executive actions, is that it engages the notion of democratic accountability. The media, regulatory bodies, charities and academics may all play valuable scrutiny roles, but they lack this central democratic function. For parliamentary scrutiny to be effective, it needs to engage parliamentarians. Being engaging, efficient, connected, informed, and accessible can all be seen as part of good scrutiny, but good scrutiny should feed back into good government. Equally, if procedure is essential to conferring legitimacy upon the processes and outputs of parliament then the way decisions are reached must be seen to be fair (and, so far as possible, be enduring because they are fair).

Further serious thinking

Whilst the specific focus of Reimagining Parliament is ‘thinking seriously about starting over’ – in conceptualising parliamentary space, connectivity and interaction in Westminster – it also serves to prompt questions about the necessity of further serious thinking about reimagining the broader institutions and processes of parliamentary democracy and parliamentary government in the UK. Calls for broader reimagining are particularly salient at a time when: parliament is widely and roundly criticised (see, for example, Ian Dunt, Hannah White, and Alison Young); significant proportions of the UK population have little trust in Parliament; and many citizens believe that politicians at Westminster do not understand their lives.

About the authors

David Judge is Emeritus Professor of Politics in the Department of Government and Public Policy at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.

Cristina Leston-Bandeira is Professor of Politics in the School of Politics and International Studies at the University of Leeds.

Categories
News

May 2024 Newsletter

Hello, everyone! We are two days late from our usual schedule, but we hope you all enjoyed the first May Bank holiday! We have plenty of updates for you this month!

  1. PSA (Parliaments) News
  2. Urgent Questions with Sean Haughey
  3. Undergraduate Essay Competition
  4. Opportunities
  5. Special Issue: Call for Articles
  6. Recent Publications
  7. Recently on the Blog
  8. Overview of Parliaments Map

If you have any notices/messages you would like us to circulate to our group, please let us know.

Best wishes,

Caroline, Diana, Ruxandra, Jack and Lauren

1. PSA (Parliaments) News

Welcome to Lauren Martin

We are delighted that Lauren Martin is joining our team as our new Treasurer and Membership Officer. Lauren is a PhD student at the University of Sheffield. Her research focuses on the use of the House of Commons e-petition system as a way for citizens to engage with Parliament and explores how they are featured in both individuals’ and organisations’ campaigning activities.

Call for and to Members 

If you have colleagues who are interested in parliaments, consider recommending them to join our specialist group! We are open to members who study legislatures from anywhere around the world, with any theoretical or methodological approaches, from an academic or from a practitioner perspective. Even if parliaments are just a small part of your broader research agenda (for example you are using parliamentary debates to try out a new text analysis technique), we want to hear from you and learn more about your work!

If you supervise or work with PhD students or Early Career Researchers, please forward our details to them, and we’ll be happy to chat if they have any questions. We hold regular events where they can get feedback on papers, like the ECR workshop we held at the LSE in November 2023, and we are keen to plan more ECR events (such as workshops and methods training) in the future.

If you are not a member of the Political Studies Association, consider joining in order to benefit from the full range of PSA events.

Worrying developments at the University of Lincoln and other universities

We are all aware that the UK higher education sector has come under significant financial pressure. More than 50 universities have already opened voluntary severance schemes or announced compulsory redundancies. (The UCU branch at Queen Mary University of London has compiled an overview here.) We also know that the social sciences, arts and humanities tend to be particularly vulnerable to budget cuts.

The PSA, BISA and UACES have recently issued a joint letter regarding the redundancies faced by the Department of Politics & International Relations at Goldsmiths. The University of Huddersfield just announced that around 12% of staff are at risk and at least 12 courses (including sociology) will be axed. Unfortunately, these are just some of the examples highlighting the precarious state of many universities.

As representatives of the community of academics in the subfield of parliamentary studies, we are also very concerned about the news we hear from the University of Lincoln, where one in ten academic staff is facing redundancy. The university is known for excellent parliamentary research and teaching (see e.g. the Lincoln Parliamentary Research Centre), and we stand in solidarity with our colleagues who are affected.

Help Shape the PSA 2025+ Strategy

The PSA’s Trustees want to devise a new strategy to ensure the PSA is clear on its direction and role, and is sustainably resourced, from 2025 to best serve our community in the future. More information can be found here. You can share your thoughts HERE! For further questions please email: strategy@psa.ac.uk

2. Urgent Questions with Sean Haughey

Our outgoing Co-Convenor Sean left us a special present and answered our Urgent Questions. Whether you want to read about an Irishman in Seoul, join in the dream of being a farmer with dogs (many dogs) or need a restaurant recommendation for Wales, you should read Sean’s answers here.

3. Undergraduate Essay Competition

It is that time of the year again! The call for our 2024 undergraduate essay competition has officially opened.

If you are teaching undergraduates in the UK, we are asking you to nominate a student for their excellent written piece on parliaments and legislatures. It is a fantastic opportunity for them to get recognition for their work and even win prize money. More details can be found here.

4. Opportunities

Full-Time and Permanent Job Opportunity at University of Edinburgh 

The School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh is looking for a Lecturer in (British) Politics. Applicants with expertise in any area of Scottish, British or UK politics (i.e., research on political behaviour and elections/parties; parliaments and other political institutions; and representation and participation) are welcome. This post is open ended, available from September 2024. You can find the job advert here. The deadline for applications is 14 May 2024.

Lectureship in Politics and Gender at Queen Mary University

Queen Mary University of London is seeking a permanent Lecturer in Politics and Gender at the School of Politics and International Relations. The closing date for applications is 26th May 2024. Find more information here.

Commons Library website

The House of Commons Library provides politically impartial research, analysis, statistics and information to help MPs to scrutinise legislation, prepare for debates, develop policies and support their constituents. They want to hear more about how you use the Library website and would be very interested to have a 30-40 minute call with you to discuss your views. Please contact Ed Knight (knightec@parliament.uk) if you would like to participate and we will organise a call.

5. Special Issue: Call for Articles

Please note the following Call for Articles for a special issue of the International Journal of Parliamentary Studies, “Political impartiality in a parliamentary context” (to be published in 2025) edited by Ben Yong (Durham) and Christoph Konrath (Austrian Parliament).

There is a growing interest in the administration of parliaments, and the work of parliamentary officials. This special issue aims to examine a core aspect of parliamentary administration: political impartiality. 

We invite applications with titles, abstracts (maximum 300 words) and short CVs, which should be sent by 31 August 2024 to benjamin.y.yong@durham.ac.uk. Selected candidates will then have to send their articles by 31 March 2025. More details can be found here.

6. Recent Publications

If you would like your published research to be featured in this section, please email Caroline with details.

7. Recently on the Blog

If you have an idea for a blog on some aspect of parliamentary study, please get in touch with our new communications officer, Jack.

8. Overview of Parliaments Map

We have one new contribution to our Overview of Parliaments Map:

For anybody who wishes to cover any of the countries not yet covered in our map, contact our communications officer Jack.

Categories
Urgent Questions

Dr Sean Haughey

SEAN HAUGHEY

Sean Haughey is a Senior Lecturer in Politics and Irish Studies at the University of Liverpool. He is the author of The Northern Ireland Assembly: Reputations and Realities (2023, Routledge). He is the outgoing Co-Convenor of PSA Parliaments.

Please tell us a little bit about how you entered academia and your academic career

After working as an ESL Teacher in South Korea for a few years, I somehow managed to land a gig at a university in Busan, teaching politics and public speaking. The only requirement for the job was an MA in Politics and some teaching experience, so I was in. I enjoyed the teaching but I enjoyed the perks even more – two months off in winter and three months off in summer, on full pay, with no research obligations, no administration duties or leadership roles, nothing. And, on account of my basic Korean language skills, I was also spared a lot of university bureaucracy. What’s not to love? So, I thought ‘what do I need to do to land a gig like this back home?’. That led me to apply for ESRC funding to do a PhD at the University of Liverpool (where I studied as an undergrad) under the supervision of Professor Jon Tonge (who taught me there). I secured the funding, started the PhD in 2015, and quickly learned that real-life academia is a far cry from my halcyon days in Busan. But by this stage I was in my mid-late 20s and needed to make a go of something. And, to be fair, I did enjoy doing research (then on legislative behaviour in the Northern Ireland Assembly, where I’d worked as an intern as part of my MA in Legislative Studies and Practice from QUB). 

I’ve been at Liverpool ever since. Post-PhD, I was employed on a god-awful temporary contract for six months before securing a permanent Lectureship at the Institute of Irish Studies in 2019. I was promoted to Senior Lecturer earlier this year. It’s not a bad gig, even if the perks are fewer than I anticipated circa 2014.

Which five books/articles (written by someone else) have been most important to you in your academic career?

Hanna Pitkin’s The Concept of Representation (1967) – the first academic text I read, cover to cover, of my own volition. Imagine being able to write like that.

Consociational Theory: McGarry and O’Leary and the Northern Ireland conflict (edited by R. Taylor, 2009) – still the best text on consociational power-sharing in Northern Ireland, bringing together advocates, critics, and agnostics.

Rick Wilford’s 2010 article in Parliamentary Affairs, ‘Northern Ireland: The Politics of Constraint’. Sparked my interest in the NI Assembly. 

Rick Wilford’s 2015 article in Parliamentary Affairs, ‘Two Cheers for Consociational Democracy? Reforming the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive’. Sparked my interest in institutional reform.

Representing the People: A Survey Among Members of Statewide and Substate Parliaments edited by Kris Deschouwer and Sam Depauw (2014). Methodologically useful for my PhD and genuinely an interesting read.

Which people have been most influential and important to you in your academic career?

The late, great Professor Rick Wilford of QUB. He had an incredibly sharp intellect and a brilliant, dry wit. His enthusiasm for legislative studies got me interested in parliaments and played a large part in my choice of PhD proposal. When I graduated from Queen’s, Rick advised me to think about applying for a PhD but I was Korea-bound and didn’t take the idea seriously. But his vote of confidence meant a lot to me and clearly, at some level, the notion stuck in the back of my mind.

Professor Jon Tonge, who taught me during my undergrad at Liverpool, supervised my PhD, and is an antidote to a lot of the cynicism in contemporary academia (and I say that as one getting increasingly cynical). Lots of sage Tonge advice over the years, including: to remember that whilst research is important, we wouldn’t be here without the students; don’t write an email in anger/haste; and don’t Tweet drunk.

Which of your own pieces of research are you most proud of?

I’m not sure I would say proud per se but I was delighted to finish and part ways with my monograph, The Northern Ireland Assembly: Reputations and Realities. The Assembly is up and down like a fiddler’s elbow, so it can be quite a stressful subject to write about.

What has been your greatest achievement in academia?

I think ‘making it’ in academia – i.e. securing a permanent post – is a pretty big deal in itself because the job market is so competitive. It was also pretty cool to appear before a House of Commons Select Committee – that was a real ‘am I actually here?’ moment.

What has been your greatest disappointment in academia?

The rapid pace of neoliberalisation across the sector. It’s increasingly about the money, the managers, the metrics, and ‘the business’. I live in hope that the pendulum will swing back in the other direction eventually but that could be wishful thinking.

What is the first or most important thing you tell your students about parliaments?

Re the NI Assembly, that its poor reputation is not fully deserved. Re parliaments in general, that they are much more interesting than governments (and, of course, that they are not the same thing as governments).

Where were you born, where did you grow up, and where do you live now?

I was born in Belfast and lived there until I left for university at Liverpool. I had a brief stint back in Belfast for my MA, then five years in South Korea, before returning to Liverpool, where I currently reside.

What was your first job?

A kitchen porter/pot scrubber in a restaurant.

What was the toughest job you ever had?

A three-way toss-up. Either a supervisor at a summer camp in California (a lot of fun but pretty much on the clock 24/7; sleepless nights with homesick, ill, bed-wetting kids etc.), a labourer on a construction site (in the rain, there is not a more miserable job), or a precariously employed academic (thankfully I only had a short stint of this but I was grossly overworked and seriously underpaid).

What would your ideal job be, if not an academic?

If I won the lottery, I’d buy a farm and learn how to herd sheep with border collies.

What are your hobbies?

Not to perpetuate Irish stereotypes, but one of my favourite things to do is to sit in a good pub with friends talking about everything and nothing. To keep off the beer belly (ish), I run three to four times a week, which is a great stress-buster. I’m fascinated by the American Supreme Court and listen to oral arguments (or audiobooks about the court) quite a lot. Love Korean food but have yet to master the art of cooking it.

What are your favourite books?

Dahl’s Danny, the Champion of the World – first book I borrowed from a library, and probably the first novel I read without being asked to by a teacher. Became a regular library-goer after that, so I probably owe a lot to that book.

Recent favourites include Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien and Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart.

What is your favourite piece of music?

My university anthem was/is ‘Not Nineteen Forever’ by The Courteeners. Brings me right back to Friday nights at Le Bateau on Duke Street.

What is your favourite artwork?

This.

What is your favourite film?

My all-time favourite is The Goonies. Such a classic and still makes me laugh, especially when Chunk gets locked in the freezer with the stiff.

What is your favourite building?

I don’t think I have one. I enjoyed visiting the temples in Kyoto, Japan – but they clearly didn’t impress me that much otherwise I’d remember their names.

What is your favourite TV show?

Schitt’s Creek is a masterpiece and remains my go-to for background comedy when I’m cooking or tidying up. Moira Rose is a hero. I find Alan Carr hilarious, so I’ll watch anything with him in it.

What is your favourite holiday destination?

Kilkenny, Ireland (a long street of picturesque Irish pubs); Seoul, South Korea (fun nightlife and amazing cuisine); Boracay, The Philippines (outstandingly beautiful and the most relaxing place I’ve ever visited)

What is your favourite sport?

Does pub golf count?

What is your favourite restaurant?

My new favourite restaurant is The White Eagle in Anglesey. Exquisite sea food and stunning views of the Welsh countryside.

Hybrid proceedings in Parliament: yes please or no thanks?

Yes please.

Appointed or elected upper chamber?

Perhaps a mix of both, with election gradually replacing appointment.

Restoration or Renewal?

Both.

Cat or Dog?

Dogs. All the dogs.

Trains, planes or automobiles?

Trains when they’re on time, planes when the destination is sunny.

Fish and chips or Curry?

Fish, chips & curry sauce on the side, surely?!

Scones: Cornish or Devonshire method?

As an Irishman, this means nothing to me. Having googled it, surely it is easier to put jam on cream rather than vice-versa?

And, finally, a question asked by 6-year old Viveka: What is your favourite school memory?

Any time a dog got into the playground. Joy. Mayhem.