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Celebrating 40 Years of Departmental Select Committees: two-day conference in June

Rebecca McKee and Tom Caygill report back from the House of Commons and the Study of Parliament Group conference marking 40 years of departmental select committees.

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Consensus and Division(s) in Departmental Select Committees

Stephen Holden Bates (University of Birmingham), Mark Goodwin (Coventry University), Steve McKay (University of Lincoln) and Wang Leung Ting (LSE), consider the extent to which Commons select committees are based on consensus, in part 2 of their trilogy of blogs drawing on sessional return data. 

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Debating the Effectiveness of House of Commons Departmental Select Committees in Informing the House

Stephen Holden Bates (University of Birmingham), Mark Goodwin (Coventry University), Steve McKay (University of Lincoln) and Wang Leung Ting (LSE) discuss the impact of departmental select committee work on business in the House of Commons chamber.

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Representing Women, Women Representing: A Corpus Analysis of Backbench Questions during Prime Minister’s Questions, 1979-2010

Stephen Holden Bates (University of Birmingham) and Alison Sealey (Lancaster University) explore the relationship between changes in the proportion of female MPs in the House of Commons and changes in the frequency of representative claims about women specifically and constituency matters more broadly at PMQs.

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Spies in Parliament: not as unusual as you might think

Following reports that Rory Stewart, a former contender for the Conservative leadership was once a member of the Secret Intelligence Service, Andrew Defty of ParliLinc, discusses the history of spies in Parliament.

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When will the government respond to the Intelligence and Security Committee’s report on UK lethal drone strikes in Syria?

It is two years since the Intelligence and Security Committee published its report into UK lethal drone strikes in Syria. Despite a commitment to ‘respond substantively to any report by the ISC within 60 days’ the government has yet to produce a detailed reply to this report. Andrew Defty examines the government’s record in responding to ISC reports and the changing nature of its commitment to doing so. This blog was originally posted on Democratic Audit and is reposted with permission. 

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The Good Parliament Report, Brexit politics, and the Institutionalisation of a Diversity Sensitive Commons

Professor Sarah Childs discusses the implications of the parliamentary politics of Brexit, and prospects for future reforms at Westminster. 

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A leaky roof and a democratic crisis within – what better time to get serious about redesigning Westminster?

Alexandra Anderson and Alexandra Meakin discuss the flood in the Commons and the need for public engagement with the Restoration and Renewal of the Palace of Westminster, in a blog originally posted on The Conversation

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Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar: (mis)connecting Brexit and the Expenses Scandal

The link between the Expenses Scandal and Brexit suggested by a new BBC documentary is not so convincing, writes Nick Dickinson, but the desire to connect the two reveals a lot about the tendency of sophisticated political observers to refuse to take certain events at face value.

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Airey Neave: working for science in parliament

This week marks forty years since Conservative MP Airey Neave was killed as he left the Palace of Westminster. Emmeline Ledgerwood explores his little-known work to promote science in Parliament.