The Hansard Society

A search of this blog will reveal that the Hansard Society gets a lot of mentions. It’s one of the most important groups encouraging involvement in and discussion of Parliamentary Government. There is a journal “”Parliamentary Affairs”, which has some excellent scholarly articles – and frequent seminars and meetings. These are held across the UK, but the ones at Westminster (usually in Portcullis House) are open to the public, and worth attending. As it is within the Parliamentary Estate - and the Society enjoys a high level of support from across the political spectrum - it attracts top speakers and fellow attenders. The annual audit of Political Engagement is both scholarly – and of tremendous use to those involved in British politics (especially at the grassroots level)


Anyone interested in the work of the Westminster Parliament (as a student; an academic; a political activist or a citizen), and now the regional Parliaments/Assemblies in the UK, should seriously consider joining the Hansard Society. They have an excellent website – which can be accessed at http://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/

I'll be attending next weeks AGM - and hope that over the coming months many more people will support and join.

Portcullis House

I'm spending much of the day in Portcullis House - the most recently built part of the Parliamentary Estate. It is a fine building - which led to some controversy, as its costs, originally estimated at £165m in 1992 - turned out to be £235m. A report into the cost overruns was never published. When she opened it, the Queen commented that "the building complemented and contrasted with the Palace of Westminster" - a judgement that I would agree with.

Portcullis House has a number of offices for MPs as well as a series of rooms used for committee meetings. These are a vast improvement on the cramped offices and acoustically challenged committee rooms in the Palace itself (though a cramped room in the Palace is more sought after by MPs - on the same grounds that the nearer an office is to the Oval Office in the West Wing, the more prestigious it is - howver small it may be)

The parliamentary website has a series of pages on the history; architecture and energy saving characteristics of Portcullis House, which is accessible here.