UK Parliament

About the Adviser

I am passionate about the UK Parliament, its history and influence on our lives today. Over the years, I have had the privilege of working with a huge number of MPs and Peers. The very first MP I met was when I was 13 years old, in an orthopaedic hospital for children, when he came to congratulate me on starting a record request radio programme for patients and their relatives!

To celebrate 2026 Women's History Month ... "Why is Britain’s first female cabinet minister almost invisible in our political memory?"

Margaret Bondfield – a working-class trade unionist – became the first woman to serve in the British Cabinet yet is rarely mentioned alongside figures such as Nancy Astor or Ellen Wilkinson.

Margaret did not enter politics through the suffrage movement. Instead, she rose through the male-dominated trade union movement, often as the only woman in the room. Born into a large working-class family in Somerset, she left school at thirteen to work in shops where staff were legally treated as domestic servants and endured punishing conditions.

Driven by a fierce commitment to social justice, she became a powerful organiser, accomplished public speaker and a leading national figure within the labour movement.

Elected to Parliament in 1923, she made history in 1929 when she was appointed Minister of Labour, becoming the first woman to serve in the Cabinet and the first female Privy Counsellor.

But it was, as one colleague put it, the worst job in government. In the grip of a deep economic crisis, unemployment was soaring, the national insurance system was stretched to breaking point, and painful decisions had to be taken.

By 1931 the crisis had split the Labour Party and brought down the Government. Bondfield lost her seat and never returned to Parliament.

Rather than being remembered as a trailblazer, her legacy was overshadowed by economic crisis and party division. Was she a pioneer, a pragmatist caught in impossible circumstances, or a woman judged more harshly than her male colleagues?

In conversation with Nan Sloane, the Harsard Society explores Bondfield’s character, her relationships and international networks, and the political choices that shaped both her career and her reputation.

What it is really like to be an MP in 2026? How unusual is the life of a politician? How does power work in parliament? And how can MPs try to have an impact from government or the opposition benches?

For this special 2026 International Women's Day episode of Inside Briefing from the Institute for Government, three MPs – Conservative Karen Bradley, Labour's Beccy Cooper, and Ellie Chowns of the Green Party – head to the IfG podcast studio (link below) to explore the challenges, surprises and perhaps frustrations of life in parliament as one of the 263 female MPs sitting in Westminster today (as a point of comparison there were just 27 female MPs in 1975 when International Women's Day was first recognised by the UN).

The IfG podcast features:

Dame Karen Bradley MP – Conservative MP for Staffordshire Moorlands since 2010, a former secretary of state for Northern Ireland and at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, and the current chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee.
Dr Ellie Chowns MP – has been the Green MP for North Herefordshire since 2024 and is the Green Party group leader in Westminster and their spokesperson on six different ministerial portfolios.
Dr Beccy Cooper MP – has been the Labour MP for Worthing West since 2024 and sits on the Health and Social Care Committee.

International women's day special: the inside story of life as an MP

Exploring how local councils and charities can work together more effectively.

All Party Parlimentary Group meeting Dec25.pdf (142.63 KB)

'This is the least extreme weather youwill experience in (the rest of) your lifetime.'

National Emergency Briefing Nov25.pdf (100.72 KB)

u3a highlighted in the House of Commons

Thanks to Chair Hazel and her members at Arnold u3a, Michael Payne MP (Gedling constituency in Nottinghamshire) highlighted the work of u3a and explored, with the Leader of the House (Sir Alan Campbell MP), whether a debate would be appropriate.

Click here to watch the video

Background

Both Parliament and Government have important powers and each play a part in making the laws of the United Kingdom. Parliament represents our interests and makes sure that they are taken into account by the Government. Government is in charge of managing the country and deciding how taxes are spent.

The UK Parliament is made up of three parts – the House of Commons, the House of Lords and the Monarch (King or Queen). The Government refers to the Prime Minister, the Cabinet and their junior Ministers.

The Palace of Westminster is synonymous with UK Parliament and has become a symbol of democracy around the world.

The Palace of Westminster has changed dramatically over the course of nearly a thousand years of history. Transformed from a royal residence to the home of a modern democracy.

The site in and around the present-day Houses of Parliament has been a location for ecclesiastical buildings, kingship and power since at least the Middle Ages. Indeed, its history could reach even further back as legend holds that a Roman temple to Apollo once stood here, but that it was destroyed by an earthquake.

One of the most recognised buildings in the world, the Palace of Westminster owes its stunning Gothic architecture to the 19th-century architect Sir Charles Barry. Now Grade I listed, and part of an UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Palace contains a fascinating mixture of both ancient and modern buildings, and houses an iconic collection of furnishings, archives and works of art.

Photo credit : Harry Shum

Subject advice