Posts tagged with ‘ Parliamentary reform ’

First he in effect called for a “devolution max” offer to be made to Scotland, and then for a straight “in or out” referendum to be held upon it.  By “devolution max”, Major includes full fiscal responsibility and pretty well all law making powers, except in respect of defence and foreign policy. He clearly...

John Bercow has been very active in his year and a half as Speaker of the Commons in leading a debate on strengthening the House – though his efforts have got much less public and media attention than the controversies he has become embroiled in with some, mainly Conservative, MPs.

On 13 Jan, Professor Margaret Wilson spoke at the Institute on New Zealand’s experience of proportional representation and the impact on the diversity of their parliament, joined by Trevor Phillips, Baroness Parminter and Lord Adonis.

Everyone agrees the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) needs not only to be independent, but also be seen to be independent of government. Otherwise it fails the credibility test. The Treasury Select Committee has therefore concluded the only way of giving it that degree of independence is to make it a non-Ministerial department.

IPSA has had the most controversial first few months of any public body since, say, the Child Support Agency. So Sir Ian Kennedy, its chairman, was inevitably on the defensive when he spoke at the Institute for Government about IPSA’s record and prospects.

Michael Heseltine famously entitled his report on the regeneration of the inner cities, “it took a riot”, after the week long disturbances in Liverpool in 1981. Similarly, Vanessa Nicholls could have called her report on the running of the House of Commons, “it took a scandal”.