How to follow what's going on in parliament
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Presentation slides from an NCVO webinar which took place on 15 August 2017. View webinar recording: https://youtu.be/1wLERfjz1rw
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How to follow what's going on in parliament
- 1. HOW TO FOLLOW WHAT’S GOING ON IN PARLIAMENT AUGUST 2017 Chris Walker Senior External Relations Officer NCVO
- 2. AIMS By the end of the presentation you will: • have been introduced to 9 main ways of following parliamentary business • have received tips and advice on how to stay on top of a changing agenda • have been introduced to some free websites/resources to help you do your job more effectively.
- 3. 1. MAIN PARLIAMENTARY BUSINESS • Every week the government announces the next week’s business in parliament • Consists of legislative processes and various debate • Oral questions are also in the business, but follow a set timetable
- 4. 1. MAIN PARLIAMENTARY BUSINESS • Updated on Thursdays – watch business statement or look at on website • Appears on the parliamentary calendar http://calendar.parliament.uk/
- 6. 2. ORAL QUESTIONS • Five week timetable for questions • Remember to look out for tabling deadlines • Tabled questions are listed at: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmf utoral/futoral.htm • Question timetable: http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commo ns-table-office/Oral-questions-rota.pdf
- 9. 3. WRITTEN ANSWERS/STATEMENTS • Written answers – government responses to questions by MPs and peers • Written statements – by government departments on policy changes etc • Available at http://www.parliament.uk/business/publicatio ns/written-questions-answers- statements/written-questions-answers/
- 11. 4. BILLS • Bills for this session are at: http://services.parliament.uk/bills/ • Bill pages contain the text of the bill, amendments and any other associated documents. • They also have links to debates at all stages (sometimes easier to find on this page than through other sources)
- 12. BILL DOCUMENTS
- 13. BREXIT AND SECONDARY LEGISLATION • One of the big impacts of Brexit will be the requirement for a significant increase in the amount of secondary legislation • Secondary legislation is much harder to scrutinise – goes through parliament in the form of statutory instruments
- 14. 5. STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS • Current list is available at https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cms ilist/cmsilist.htm • BUT difficult to monitor effectively • Important to work closely with contacts in departments
- 15. 6. SELECT COMMITTEES • Select committees allow for scrutiny of government and wider policy • Each committee has a page on the website http://www.parliament.uk/business/committe es/committees-a-z/
- 17. 7. HOUSE OF LORDS WHIPS • More detailed information on Lords business is available at the Lords whips website: http://www.lordswhips.org.uk/ • Includes list of speakers, more details of business, briefings on bills
- 18. 7. HOUSE OF LORDS WHIPS
- 19. 8. WATCHING PARLIAMENT • All debates and committees are streamed live at http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Commons • Searchable archive going back to 2007
- 22. 9. RECESS DATES • Recess dates available at http://www.parliament.uk/about/faqs/house- of-commons-faqs/business-faq-page/recess- dates/
- 23. OTHER RESOURCES
- 24. TWITTER • For updates on proceedings, a number of parliamentary reporters eg BBC, PA, @ParlyApp • Committees now tend to be on Twitter as well and look to promote evidence gathering through tweets
- 25. MONITORING • TheyWorkForYou allows you to set up alerts for when a word is used in parliament • Polimonitor allows you to set up alerts when a politician tweets a word or phrase • You can sign up for email alerts for new briefings at http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/
- 26. UPCOMING TRAINING/EVENTS • Campaigning conference – 7 Sept 2017 • Certificate in campaigning – Oct 2017 – Mar 2018 • Influencing select committees – 10 Nov 2017 • Influencing parliament – 12 Mar 2018 https://www.ncvo.org.uk/training-and- events/events-listing
Editor's Notes
- I’m going to go through the main ways of keeping on top of business – some of these will be familiar, but I wanted to be comprehensive for those who don’t work with the parliamentary website etc on a day to day basis
- Note that when you’re watching, others will get called in on questions. Speaker should follow a government MP with an opposition MP and vice versa. But questions on the same subject are normally taken together.
- Difference between QT and tabling deadline Green Ts = the session has topical questions If you know the tabling deadline you’ll know when to get in touch with MPs about tabling questions.
- Individual bill pages don’t appear like this, but want to take you through some of the sub-headings. Something I find useful, especially if you’re coming to a bill later on is the tracked changes versions of bills – which include amendments as changes rather than just publishing the new text, so less work in understanding the changes. Explanatory notes also have a section – can often be very useful in interpreting what a bill does. Amendment papers are generally the thing that you will look at most when a bill is going through – they are updated daily when at least one amendment has been tabled.
- Brexit, and the Repeal Bill, means there will be a lot more statutory instruments coming through that charities will need to be aware of. Today’s webinar isn’t the place for me to get too bogged down in the detail of statutory instruments and the procedures in place for them, but I do want to quickly flag how you can be aware of them. In short, it’s not easy. There are paid services to track these which are very good, but also because of the work required to put them together, very expensive, so will be challenging for many charities.
- And when Parliament TV was redesigned, they also added a searchable archive – the search terms are limited to the title of proceedings though, so won’t catch all the times your organisation or issue is mentioned. But if you know the debate you’re looking for, you can now find and watch it – this applies to committees too, so you can go back to December 2007 if you need to look back at a historic debate and want a bit of context around the transcript, but that might just be the sort of thing I do.
- Recess dates are an important thing to be able to get hold of quickly. I try to put them in my diary, so that I don’t suggest to MPs that we do things in parliament when they’re not around, but useful to be able to check. Remember as well to check Lords dates, which are sometimes slightly different.
- Finally I want to talk a little bit about monitoring. I’m conscious that not all charities can afford parliamentary monitoring, though I think it’s a good investment if you can. But I wanted to highlight a couple of free services that while not doing the full job, can help you with the basics.