The Politics of Parliamentary Reform

Parliament is at the heart of democracy—it’s where voters are represented, laws are debated, and key decisions are made. But who really controls what gets discussed and how time is allocated? In the UK, that power lies overwhelmingly with the government, leaving most MPs with little say over what they debate. That seems odd—after all, parliament is supposed to be sovereign. So why does it allow the government, a supposedly subordinate body, to set its agenda? To unravel this, Prof Alan Renwick is joined by Dr Tom Fleming , Lecturer in British and Comparative Politics at UCL and a member of the UCL Constitution Unit . Mentioned in this episode: Fleming, Thomas G., Simon Hix and Radoslaw Zubek. 2024. “ The Origins of Centralized Agenda Control at Westminster: Consensus or Controversy?” Legislative Studies Quarterly The controversial origins of centralised agenda control at Westminster. Constitution Unit Blog Links: Website: Mailing list: Blog: constitution-unit.com

You can listen to The Politics of Parliamentary Reform online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

The Politics of Parliamentary Reform is an episode from The Constitution Unit by The Constitution Unit.

This episode is 00:34:32 long.

This episode was published on Feb 6, 2025.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from The Constitution Unit when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.