By Cristina Leston-Bandeira, Alexandra Meakin and Louise Thompson. The following blog post is about Exploring Parliament, which was published by Oxford University Press in April 2025 and will be launched at the Institute for Government on 15 May 2025. You can sign up to watch online here. Over the last three years we have been working with a fantastic team of 38 academics and 35 parliamentary practitioners to create the second edition of the Exploring Parliament…
By Stephen Holden Bates. The Scottish Parliament’s Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee (SPPA) is currently running an inquiry on committee effectiveness with a number of usual (and sometimes unusual) suspects appearing to give evidence. One theme of the inquiry is the structure of committees with SPPA already agreeing that “as a minimum, there should be no single sex committees”. Below I offer a snapshot view of the gendered membership patterns found in the Scottish…
By Calixte Bloquet and Danny Schindler. After the collapse of the “traffic light” coalition and the dissolution of the Bundestag, Germany is gearing up for new elections on February 23rd, 2025. Happening in an incredibly fragile international and national context, the German elections are likely to be of vital importance. Yet, as with every election, the outcome is uncertain, as many topics collide in the campaign, and many voters are still undecided. One of the…
By Franklin De Vrieze. As well as debating and adopting new legislation aimed at establishing a sustainable legal framework for the governance of AI, parliaments are also exploring and experimenting with the application of AI in their own operations. New AI guidelines by Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) can inform their efforts. According to the 2024 AI Index Report by Stanford University, the global legislative landscape has seen a significant increase in AI-related laws over…
By Cristina Leston-Bandeira and Louise Thompson. This blog is based on a paper presented by the authors to the Annual Conference of the PSA Parliaments group in November 2024 at the Senedd Cymru in Cardiff. Photo credit: UK Parliament / Jessica Taylor: https://ukparliament.shorthandstories.com/cet-westminster-hall-debates/index.html On 30 November 1999 Labour MP Phyllis Starkey made history, being the first MP to introduce a debate in Westminster Hall, the new parallel debating chamber for the House of Commons. Agreed to…
