And here's the costed proposals for Restoration and Renewal. Two options recommended: full decant and EMI+. Full decant will be cheaper and quicker - staying in the Palace during the works will means it takes up to 61 years and costs up to £18.7bn. Full link committees.parliament.uk/publications...

Those instruments include Writs to the relevant escheators as well as a Mandate to the Knights, Freeholders, and other tenants of the Archbishopric of Canterbury commanding them to obey her as their Archbishop and Lord (note: these examples relate to the See of Bath & Wells). 2/2

www.flickr.com/photos/ukhou... Sent from my Woolsack

How is the Government really doing on its legislative programme as the Session heads toward its expected May end? 📊📜 We run the scorecard on bills passed, bills stalled, and why so little legislation has been published for pre-legislative scrutiny. 🎧 Listen and subscribe: buff.ly/KrbpTW4

🧵 🗳️ Parliament Matters Bulletin | Westminster Look Ahead What’s coming up in Parliament this week? Here’s what we’re watching across Westminster — from major legislation to high-profile committee evidence. 👇

NEWS: Judge Biery has ordered the release of 5-year-old Liam Ramos. A thunderous rebuke against ICE’s violent campaign in Minnesota. Read the order below. Link: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

NEW: Can the #AssistedDying bill be forced through Parliament using the Parliament Act? With the Lords facing nearly 1,200 amendments and time running out, Lord Falconer has raised the stakes. 🎧 Our new episode of Parliament Matters explores how it could work. buff.ly/ldf3eFZ

This reminds me that my civil service pension documentation uses the domain civilservice-pensions.gov.uk - which no longer exists. I did try and get GOV.UK to make a redirect but they said no. My favourite bit of the website is the code may take minutes to arrive, but will time out in minutes

I've written a piece for the @econ-observatory.bsky.social on the history of GDS. Notably, why you need change both top down and bottom up incentives if you're aiming to help a large, federated organisation adopt radical change.

I serve on a devolved legislature where I got stopped doing something by Henry VIII

🚨 Use of the word “archaic” for literally any bit of parliamentary procedure klaxon 🚨

Out of the 2159 Jews who lived in my Zayde's village before the war, 20 survived. The Germans, with assistance from Lithuanian police, shot 2000 people in two days. The rest were sent to ghettos, or hid in the forest. My Zayde hid, and I get to be here today. I can't forget, I hope you won't either.

Auschwitz was at the end of a process. We must remember that it did not start from gas chambers. This hatred gradually developed: from ideas, words, stereotypes & prejudice through legal exclusion, dehumanization & escalating violence... to systematic and industrial murder. Auschwitz took time.

If you've ever wondered why it's become so very hard to get things done in Britain I suggest you read this (which has a much wider application than the civil service, which is the focus of @ukcivilservant.bsky.social ) open.substack.com/pub/ukcivils...

Today's officials' (and others') inability to write short focussed documents has serious damaging consequences:- ukcivilservant.substack.com/p/document-l...

This is a really interesting thread on the ability of LLMs to assess facts in order to identify and answer legal issues. The overall result is in line with my own trials - good at issue spotting, not so good at actually advising on the issues.

Yesterday, I posted the text of a Royal Letter summoning a peer to a Coronation, but the Monarch could also dispense with a peer's attendance. For more information, check out the CBAI record: cbaionline.org/corpus/items...

A bill is described as 'fast-tracked' or 'expedited' when its Second and Third Readings in the House of Commons take place on the same day. A special Allocation of Time motion is required to push the Bill through all its stages on a constrained timetable.

Imagining Prince Albert on the lash

Why I love Canadian Hansard: Sen. Firth: I withdraw calling the gov leader a "contemptible slob" Sen. Corbin: Do you also withdraw the French version - « Quel plouc méprisable vous faites, monsieur » ?

For the first time the Scottish Info Commissioner @foi.scot has launched legal action against a public authority - the Scottish Government - for failing to comply with an FOI decision. www.foi.scot/statement-sc...

Me: Absolutely ridiculous that this is how we handle MPs resigning in 2026 Also me: Explaining these weird quirks of parliament keeps me in a job

A favourite moment of mine in an MP’s office was when someone who had sent a mass-mail email as part of a campaign wrote back to complain that our reply ‘was obviously a stock response’. Er, yeah, were we somehow supposed to write different replies to each of the 100 or so identical emails?

Yes. My team tag obviously individually written policy emails as “individual response”, allocate to me in our CRM and I reply to them myself. It’s 5-10 a week. (Obvs I see all the other responses to mass campaigns and may tweak, but I don’t originate them)

Transparency of remedial discretion in judicial review administrativecourtblog.wordpress.com/2026/01/23/t...

Caught a nice moment of light earlier today

🎙️ NEW: With defections to Reform UK mounting, we ask whether MPs who switch parties should be forced to face a by-election? Plus: Social media ban for under 16s & Chagos bill update 🎧 Listen 👉 buff.ly/FKwAMP8

Today MPs will debate a special kind of Statutory Instrument known as a Remedial Order, in relation to the Northern Ireland Troubles. What is a Remedial Order, and what unique parliamentary procedure does it face? 🧵

It's #PMQs at Westminster. But is being Prime Minister now an impossible job? Historian @robertsaunders.bsky.social of the @mileendinstitute.bsky.social explores why PMs burn out so fast, broken leadership pipelines, and why leaders should trust voters more. 🎧 Listen: buff.ly/bhvHQf6

Could just agree to sell Greenland and then employ our local solicitor to do the paperwork and searches...then say the chain fell through after 6 months or so.

Had an intriguing editorial discussion recently: how did people in the past talk about 'minutes' when they didn't have watches or standardised times? How does that affect your thinking? Come down an Elizabethan/Jacobean rabbit hole with me. 1/

🗓️ On this day, 17 January, in 1977, Commons' tributes were paid to Anthony Eden. 🗣️ They included a speech by Ted Heath (sadly, for many reasons, Harold Macmillan was not in Parliament). 🙏🏻 Margaret Thatcher thanked Jim Callaghan for flying Eden home. 🧵 1/

Is there any Secretary of State for Education in the last fifty years who hasn’t given a speech declaring that *they* (yes they!) will finally resolve the status gap between academic and vocational education? howtorunacountry.substack.com/p/what-if-yo...

The ‘Father of the House’, Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot, died #OnThisDay 1890. During 60 years as MP for Glamorgan, he was said to have spoken only once in the Commons, to ask someone to close a window! But was this true? Find out here: victoriancommons.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/c...

Exciting news guys. Our Procedure Browsable Space (TM) now comes with a legislation lookup URL. Simply plug in the legislation.gov.uk URI of an Act and you'll get taken post haste to a list of instruments currently before Parliament enabled by that Act api.parliament.uk/procedure-br...

In 1943, a Foreign Office report sets out the overwhelming circumstantial evidence that the Katyń massacre was a Soviet crime. And then reflects on why that truth was not to be told. Being reluctant to call out notional allies is not a new phenomenon.

enthusiasm / enthuse #etymology #wordorigins #language

I love how "I am currently being electrocuted" the US 240V 20A socket's face is

Holy hell, what an obituary

I’m concerned the government may be trying to nobble a court it doesn’t like. Here are a few thoughts on the proposed reorganisation of immigration appeals, in addition to Colin’s very useful thread below. 1/ (All screenshots in this thread from the letter posted by Colin.)

Remember that for insurance purposes this is an act of war which happened in 1942... www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/ce...

"So you've got your poisons, your staged accidents, and your Instruments of Abdication. That last one pairs well with a nice Act of Parliament."

Seven Select Committee Chairs have written jointly to the Prime Minister calling for an explicit ban on cryptocurrency donations in the forthcoming Elections Bill. This is not an argument about digital assets. It is an argument about democratic integrity.

Congratulations to Lord Forsyth on his election as the next Lord Speaker. We were honoured to host the election hustings, where he set out to Peers why he wanted the role. You can listen to the hustings exclusively on our Parliament Matters podcast. 🎧 buff.ly/qg9T5pF

The first time I met Rogers, I didn't know who he was. I asked him what he did for a living and he said he was a caretaker. I have always loved that.

Good morning. There was an ancient Greek named Hyperbolus, who got in trouble for hyperbole, but nobody would've said that because the word hyperbole is a 15th century creation that has nothing to do with him. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbo...

After deciding to give Lord Irvine of Lairg the sack, No. 10 debated what to do with him afterward. One option was to make him a senior judge of the European Court of Justice ("Derry could learn French between now and October"). Another was to let him sit as a Law Lord. 1/2

First page of a Commission for the custody of the Great Seal from 1979. Unlike subsequent examples, it entrusts the Great Seal to specific individuals rather than the holders of certain offices. It's also largely handwritten even though it's unlikely to have been displayed. 1/2

🧵Sky News has a piece running today about a big increase in written parliamentary questions. @samcoatessky.bsky.social says a senior government source has suggested MPs may be using AI to submit written questions to ministers. news.sky.com/story/number...