House of Lords Podcast: Women in Parliament, equality online, famous faces and tackling fraud

First up, we hear from Baroness Morgan about the new Lords committee investigating how we tackle digital fraud, how you can get involved in the committee’s work and what former minister Lord Agnew of Oulton told the committee about the government’s work on fraud.

‘This was chosen as the topic because of the scale of fraud. It now accounts of 42% of all crime against individuals and it's the most commonly experienced crime in England and Wales.’
Baroness Morgan of Cotes

We also discuss Baroness Morgan’s change to the Domestic Abuse Bill to tackle revenge porn, plus what she thinks of the upcoming Online Safety Bill and equality online. We also find out whether it is MPs or members of the Lords who ask the toughest questions to ministers.

‘Sadly, I think there is a lot more to be done. I think that our online spaces are still too unfriendly to lots of people, but women included… I still hear too much, 'if you don't like it, then don't participate', well, we don't tell women, we shouldn't tell women not to participate in our public offline spaces so why would we expect women not to participate online?’
Baroness Morgan of Cotes

Next up, we speak to the Leader of the Opposition in the Lords, Baroness Smith of Basildon. She talks about what has changed for women in Parliament since she was elected in 1997 and what she thinks still needs to change for representation.

‘The sad thing was how often the press liked talking about what we wore, and if we wore certain kind of nail varnish… There was a lot of interest in that, and some of it wasn't healthy. We were always referred to as the women MPs… Nobody ever uses that awful term now, you're just an MP. And I think that's one of the shifts. No one thinks being a female MP is unusual.’
Baroness Smith of Basildon

We also discuss what the role of Leader of the Opposition involves, why it’s good to be a bit nervous and discuss some of the famous faces who have visited the Lords, from Harry Styles to Robert Redford and Bradley Whitford.

‘I don't think you ever lose the nerves. And I think the day you are never nervous about doing anything is the day you've lost your edge… when there's a really important debate on, statements on the big political issues of the day, there's a nervousness for me, and that's that sort of anticipation that I've got to get this right, people are relying on me.’
Baroness Smith of Basildon  

Transcript

Amy:
Welcome to the House of Lords Podcast.

Matt:
This month I speak to Baroness Morgan of Cotes about the new digital fraud committee that she is chairing, plus who asks the harder questions – MPs or members of the Lords?

Amy:
And I speak to Baroness Smith of Basildon about her role as the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords and we hear about some of the famous guests that have come visiting.

Matt:
Welcome to our March episode. We’re getting close to the end of this Session of Parliament now and there’s a lot taking place in the House of Lords.

Amy:
Yep, that’s one of the things that I discuss with Baroness Smith later actually. Very busy at the moment, there are a lot of long sittings. Have there ever been as many bills going through the Lords at once?

Matt:
Probably wise of me so say ‘probably.’ I think there’s a few things on this – it’s towards the end of the session, so there tend to be later sittings towards the end of sessions because the government wants to get all of its legislation through. Bills will fall at the end of the session unless there is a carry-over motion to enable Parliament to pick them up again without starting all over again in the new Session. To get bills through, sometimes the government will remove parts of a bill to get less contentious parts through. Members have been speaking a lot in the chamber recently about the number of late sittings and how late they have gone recently. There’s been quite a few that have gone past midnight for example. For balance, some will argue that the government is expecting too much of Parliament, it’s trying to push too much through on its agenda. Others will say peers are not showing enough restraint in the length of speeches and numbers of amendments and that’s why the House is having to sit so long and so late. It’s probably fair to say that the government would argue, because of Brexit and COVID, there’s a lot of legislation that’s been put on pause and it wants to get things done.

Matt:
It’s also been a busy time for committees as several start their inquiries into topics like Adult Social Care, the Family Act and digital fraud. I recently spoke to Baroness Morgan of Cotes about the new committee looking at Fraud, and here’s what she had to say.

Baroness Morgan:

Hi, I'm Nicky, Baroness Morgan of Cotes and I'm currently the chair of the House of Lords Select Committee on the Fraud Act 2006 and Digital Fraud.

Matt:

Nicky, thank you for joining us today. As you say, you are the chair of the new Fraud Act 2006 and Digital Fraud Committee. Why has the committee been set up now?

Baroness Morgan:

Well, as you know, the House of Lords sets up a couple of ad hoc committees each year and I think that this was chosen as the topic because of the scale of fraud. It now accounts for 42% of all crimes against individuals and it's the most commonly experienced crime in England and Wales. Obviously, the 2006 Act is now quite a long time ago and I think it's right that we should be examining whether it's out of date given that so much fraud is now internet-enabled and cyber-enabled so we're going to do post-legislative scrutiny on that as well.

Baroness Morgan:

I know it's also one of those areas that is just attracting more and more attention, both because of potential fraud in government COVID loan schemes, but also obviously the scale of fraud being perpetrated against individuals who are bank customers. We've all had those text messages that say you've got a Royal Mail parcel to collect or you've got an HMRC refund and you know in your heart of hearts that's not true but I think probably lots of people listening will have either thought twice or even potentially have clicked on that link and then discovered that they've been scammed.

Matt:

You've had four sessions so far, hearing from experts and representatives from industry. What themes have emerged?

Baroness Morgan:

Well, I think the really interesting thing has been the growth in what's called ‘authorised fraud’ and that means basically, sadly, it's because we, as citizens, have not asked ourselves those questions about whether we should click on the link and the fraudsters apply very clever behavioural techniques and nudges, they'll often perhaps make a phone call when we're at our busiest during the day, or they'll send out lots of messages for example, or manage to spoof somebody else's identity. There's this growth of, for example, 'mum and dad fraud' on WhatsApp where you'll get a message from someone who sounds a bit like your child or somebody saying 'Look, I've run out of money, can you transfer this' for example. So that's the authorised nature of fraud, which is coming through in the evidence we've heard so far.

Baroness Morgan:

I think also this apparent permissive culture. So fraud has perhaps not been taken as seriously as other types of crime for quite a long time. Both in terms of, if government schemes are put in place, a sort of fraud allowance is made, but also the other theme that's coming through is, is there sufficient police attention and resource and capability? You know, this is a national security issue so is it right that fraud is often dealt with by individual police forces? And then I think the last thing is the need for a whole system response. The internet companies need to be involved, the telecoms companies, obviously the government, the police, the National Crime Agency so we're testing whether in fact there is that whole system response being put in place and is it working?

Matt:

One of the witnesses you had, I think to start with was Lord Agnew who hit headlines with this very issue for resigning at the dispatch box. What kind of things did he tell the committee?

Baroness Morgan:

So he was saying, for example, that in the business department pre-COVID, there were only two people who were experienced in dealing with fraud, for example, and he just could not get Treasury officials and Cabinet Office officials to work together, both when they were designing the schemes to think about how they might be fraudulently used, but also when they obviously realised that there was an issue in making sure that tackling that fraud was really important. Now I think Lord Agnew, I mean, that was probably one of the most memorable resignations that the House of Lords has seen so we were very grateful to him for his evidence, I know he's given evidence to a number of other committees as well. So I think this is a moment whereby actually probably both Houses of Parliament are going to be saying to the government, the police and others, ‘this is such an important issue, it is ruining people's lives.’ It has to be given appropriate national attention.

Matt:

And because of that, the effect on all of us, there's an opportunity for people to submit information to the committee, the call for evidence is open at the time of recording and people need to respond by the 22nd of April 2022. Who do you want to hear from? Are there particular sectors or individuals?

Baroness Morgan:

Well, we'd like to hear from everybody. We'd particularly like to hear from those who have sadly been defrauded, so victims or those who support victims and we're going to do some outreach activity as well. We'd like to meet victims and ask them if they want to share their experiences and I think that's the other thing - fraud is often one of those areas that people feel slightly embarrassed about admitting that it's happened, but we really, really want to hear the different ways that perhaps people have fallen foul of these fraudsters. We are really interested in hearing about the different channels that fraud is perpetuated through, particularly the internet and telecoms companies, for example.

Baroness Morgan:

Organisations that have perhaps been able to combat this. We want to hear from people who understand about behavioural techniques, for example, that can be used to encourage all of us to be more sceptical about the messages that we receive so we are going to hear from everyone, we're going to obviously be talking to regulators, we're going to be talking to the police themselves and the companies involved. Ultimately we want to recommend some real practical steps that are going to make a difference so if people have got thoughts on this, you can find out more on our Twitter page, which is @HLFraudActCom and the House of Lords website too.

Matt:

Speaking of social media, and you mentioned some examples of the kind of messages we've all received and fraudulent advertising, the government has announced platforms will have a duty of care to protect users from fraud. How do you feel about the newly published Online Safety Bill, which at the time of recording, it came out yesterday. I see you've welcomed the Bill, but have also welcomed the opportunity to scrutinise it.

Baroness Morgan:

Yes, I think there's going to be lots to say about the Bill and I haven't been in the House of Lords that long but I get the sense that their lordships are going to really enjoy scrutinising it and thinking about how it works and it'll, I think, start life in the House of Commons first. I think the steps taken to recognise that fraud is obviously harmful and that the tech companies, as you say, have that duty to remove fraudulent content and to stick to their terms and conditions when they say that they're not going to let fraudsters onto their platforms.

Baroness Morgan:

Online advertising is going to be an area that we're going to be looking at. Paid-for online advertising is now going to be caught, I think that's a big step forward and we've seen, for example, recently Google, even before the Bill was published has started only carrying adverts from companies that are regulated and authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. So I think we're going to see that behavioural change coming through hopefully amongst the tech platforms but as I said, fraud obviously goes a lot wider so I'm pretty sure that's why hearing from those who have been caught up in this is so important so we can make sure we can test the bill as we're scrutinising it.

Matt:

On a slightly different topic, this month is Women's History Month and yesterday in the Lords we had a debate on International Women's Day. In your previous ministerial life, you were of course Minister for Women and Equalities amongst other things. Last year you put forward an amendment to the Domestic Abuse Bill that made it illegal to threaten to release intimate images of someone online and the Online Safety Bill will also make cyberflashing an offence. Is the UK on the right track for gender equality online? Is there more to be done?

Baroness Morgan:

Sadly, I think there is a lot more to be done. I think that our online spaces are still too unfriendly to lots of people, but women included. I was very pleased to get that amendment through the Domestic Abuse Bill and I really welcome that cyberflashing has become an offence but, too often, there's still far too much vicious internet trolling, particularly of women. Often I think Black women or other ethnic minorities will find that they are particularly targeted and so I think changing the culture, making the tech platforms responsible for the content of what is online and encouraging safety. I still hear too much, 'if you don't like it, then don't participate', well, we don't tell women, we shouldn't tell women not to participate in our public offline spaces so why would we expect women not to participate online? So I'm afraid, the UK is talking about this, we are on the right track, but we definitely have more to do.

Matt:

And finally, as one of the few members who have answered questions as a Secretary of State in both Houses, as I'm sure you know, it's quite unusual to be a Secretary of State in the Lords. I think you made your maiden speech did you not, from-

Baroness Morgan:

I did.

Matt:

The despatch box answering questions.

Baroness Morgan:

Yep.

Matt:

So my question is who asks the harder questions? Is it peers or MPs?

Baroness Morgan:

I love this question. So yes, I don't know actually how many people have answered questions from the despatch box of both Houses. I feel very fortunate and privileged to have done so. Their lordships definitely ask the harder questions and they are, well they're often experts in their subject and of course the other thing about the House of Lords is you can't rely on the political knockabout that you can in the House of Commons, but that will go down very, very badly amongst their lordships, so yes, I was always absolutely on my toes and quite glad I wasn't a Secretary of State for too long in the House of Lords because I think, as I say, the experts were most definitely there and circling.

Matt:

Nicky, Baroness Morgan. Thank you for joining us.

Baroness Morgan:

Thank you for the invitation. Pleasure to be joining you.

Amy:
And next up here’s my interview with Baroness Smith of Basildon where we talk all sorts of things, women in Parliament, what a typical day as Leader of the Opposition in the Lords looks like and, surprisingly Harry Styles. And I apologise in advance for how excited I got in that section! Here she is.

Baroness Smith:

Hello, I'm Angela Smith also known as Baroness Smith of Basildon and I'm Labour's leader in the House of Lords.

Amy:

Angela, thank you for joining me on the podcast today. Firstly, could you tell us a little bit about your role as Leader of the Opposition in the Lords?

Baroness Smith:

How long have you got? It's a pretty varied role. I was thinking about this earlier because probably the most important part is being the political lead for the Labour party, with our Labour peers here in the House of Lords. But that involves a number of things. One is managing the business with our Chief Whip and there's also the management role of the House. I'm on the House of Lords Commission, which is all the sort of tedious stuff that nobody really wants to look at, but has to be done, we have to go through. And then also I'm a member of the Shadow Cabinet. So it's the lead for the Labour peers in the Lords. It's the Labour face of the Labour party here in this end of the building.

Amy:

What does a typical week look like for Leader of the Opposition in the Lords?

Baroness Smith:

Probably quite crazy to most people. My mum usually in the morning will say, 'Have a nice day. Have you got any meetings today?' And I think, yeah, one or two. So I tend to get into the office around 8am, 8.30am, I like an early start. The hope is there's a little bit of quiet time first thing to get some paperwork done, go through some emails. I'll be in the chamber. I'll have meetings during the morning, conversations, phone calls, talking to the staff and people getting briefed up for what's happening during the day. If I'm involved in legislation, I’m making sure my notes are ready. I go in for questions most days, particularly now the pandemic's less aggressive, they can get more of us in the chamber. Today, I had a question, for example, not every day I will, but quite often. So every week I'll be speaking in the chamber. At some point, it might be a statement in which case we'll have to wait until the Prime Minister sits down before we've got a copy of the statement so we know how to respond to that.

Baroness Smith:

There will be meetings to do with the administration of the House of Lords. So I've had two meetings today because there's a House of Lords Commission meeting next week. There's a joint commission meeting on Thursday. So we'll be talking through the agenda and the issues on that. Every day is so varied. I think the thing that's hard at the moment is with the legislation we've got, it's how late things are going.

Baroness Smith:

So some of the fun things I feel I'm missing out on because it was quite nice - occasionally, friends would pop in for a drink early evening and you'd say hello to them, have something to eat and then you'd go back to work. Now, none of that's happening. So it's just slogging through often to the early hours of the morning and it gets pretty hard to get a taxi after midnight.

Baroness Smith:

The day is varied, I'm never bored. I normally look at the clock about five o'clock-ish and think, where has the day gone? And I've still got X, Y to do. And you can see from my notebook, I'm a great list maker. Every day I start with a list of what I have to do.

Amy:

So it just gets longer and longer as the day goes on?

Baroness Smith:

It gets longer and longer, unless things are ticked off. It's a bit frustrating. But the fascination of this job is working with great people. I like my colleagues a lot. My Labour group of peers are fantastic. We have a great Chief Whip and we work together very closely and we have a pretty good staff team. I think they're probably the most experienced staff team in Parliament and the workload they have is pretty heavy as well. So I think it's that teamwork that makes it worthwhile.

Amy:

You were of course an MP before joining the House of Lords, you were elected in the 1997 general election, which was seen as groundbreaking at the time because the number of women elected doubled to 120 compared to the 1992 election, how do you think life has changed for women in Parliament over the last 25 years?

Baroness Smith:

I think in 1997, there were a number of changes that made a difference to Parliament as a whole. I was working here before then and I saw a really distinct shift from pre '97 to after '97. Part of that was the number of women that were elected. You're right, it was groundbreaking and that famous photograph with all of us, there was a hundred Labour women that were there.

Baroness Smith:

But it was also because there was such a change in seats, it became a much younger Parliament as well. And it was a Labour Parliament, which tended to be a little bit more informal than many of the older Conservatives that had left. So I think there was a huge cultural change in 1997 at Westminster, which was welcomed by most, it was a bit difficult for others. But I think having more women around was part of that. The sad thing was how often the press liked talking about what we wore, and if we wore certain kind of nail varnish. And I remember, it's embarrassing now, I had my hair cut by Nicky Clarke on Richard and Judy because it was all 'these new Labour women, what are they like?' Getting a haircut by Nicky Clarke wasn't a high price to pay for it. But there was a lot of interest in that.

Baroness Smith:

And some of it wasn't healthy. We were always referred to as ‘the women MPs.’ And I remember very early on, having worked here for a number of years and worked around the building, there was a room downstairs opposite roughly where the hairdressers is now that said 'MPs only.' So I get elected, I want to find out what's behind that door. So I stroll down to this room and I go in and there's cubicles on one side, then some showers and another room with baths or something. And I walked in and this man in uniform came running out. "No, you can't come in here. You can't come in here." He said, "It's MPs only." I am a MP. He said, "No, you are a lady MP." Nobody ever uses that awful term now, you're just an MP. And I think that's one of the shifts. No one thinks being a female MP is unusual.

Amy:

And your counterpart in the government is also a woman, Baroness Evans of Bowes Park. However, fewer than a third of members in the Lords are women. It's just over a third of MPs. Do you think there's still more that needs to be done on representation in Parliament?

Baroness Smith:

I think there's a lot to be done in lots of ways. Gender is part of it. I also think class is another part. It's all very well having more women MPs, all from nice middle-class backgrounds, it's not going to change very much. You also have to look at what part of the country people come from for that geographical mix and have different accents around the place, LGBT, members of the BAME community. There's a whole range of issues where Parliament isn't as representative as it should be.

Baroness Smith:

Now, that doesn't mean that as a white woman, I can't represent a Black man. We represent interests in the country as a whole, but I think Parliament has to reflect the country as a whole. And if, as a whole, we fail to do that, I think we lose respect in the country. So there's a lot more to be done. We've made some progress. I have to say in the Labour group, five out of the last six leaders of the Labour group in the Lords have been women, which is quite a remarkable achievement I think for Labour Lords and they elect their leaders. But yeah, there's a lot more to be done and we've just never let up on this. Never let up to try and make a difference and make Parliament better represent the country as a whole.

Amy:

And how do you think we can do that? How can we actually make progress?

Baroness Smith:

Partly it's down to political parties making those choices. When I was elected, it was an all-woman shortlist. And I think a lot of us weren't entirely comfortable with an all-woman shortlist, but we've had all-male shortlists for years and nobody was complaining about them. We had to say, how do we make a difference? And we decided that in half of our key marginal seats, the candidate would be a woman. And that really just made a cultural shift in politics as a whole. So you have to do things that make a difference, something seismic, something determined. If you really want to make a change, you can.

Amy:

And you recently spoke about members wanting to see good legislation coming out of Parliament, but there are a lot of current bills that are overly complex. Does that, sort of, shared issue make it easier to work cross-party on legislation?

Baroness Smith:

It does for some people, not others. That sounds a bit odd, but what we haven't seen from the government is any willingness to sort of slim this down. I have to say in all the years I've been in Westminster, the Commons and now in the Lords, I have never known such a crammed parliamentary timetable.

Baroness Smith:

Across parties, people are complaining. I left here last night gone midnight, one o'clock on several occasions now, two o'clock in the morning. You're not making the best legislation when you sit at that time and government seems unwilling to recognise that the amount of work they've got to get through in what could be just four weeks before the House prorogues and leads into the next session of Parliament, is far too much. We can't physically do it unless you say, 'Oh, we sit earlier and we sit late.' Now, there's a reason that the times of Parliament are as they are, because you want to get the best of people and have the best debates.

Baroness Smith:

And as you saw with the police bill, when the government tried to introduce at the very last minute, a whole raft of new clauses that had never been debated or considered in the House of Commons, overwhelmingly peers backed removing them. And it wasn't just our peers turning out with support, Liberal Democrats were there as well. There were crossbenchers there. It was also Tories going home because they were so unhappy.

Amy:

A key role of the House of Lords is of course scrutinising legislation, asking the government often to think again. I wondered if there are any changes to laws that you've been a part of that you are particularly proud of.

Baroness Smith:

Gosh, where do you start? There was, I think it was something about the Canadian Parliament. It was 'the second chamber is the chamber of sober second thought.' And we're trying to do that to the government to say, hang on a minute, you can't get everything right first time, every time, just take a step back and think again. So perhaps some of the things I think as a House and as a Labour group we're most proud of is when the government's taken a step back and we can sit and look at things again. That's not happening so much now.

Baroness Smith:

So when we win something, it's because we've put so much effort around the house. So I suppose at the moment the policing bill, I think was a great example of things we did. What we're seeing on the Nationality and Borders Bill, are some real common-sense amendments that could make a difference. Let's see what the government looks at. You're going to see things come up in the Elections Bill. If I go back to my time in the Commons, I was the first of the '97 intake of MPs to get my own piece of legislation on the statute books, the Waste Minimisation Bill, which seems a really modest piece of legislation now, but was groundbreaking at this time.

Baroness Smith:

It was talking about waste and minimisation rather than just recycling what we can, that wasn't happening so much then. So it was quite forward-looking, and I sat on the minimum wage committee. So I think through my time in Parliament, I think the legislation I've been involved with, but in the Lords, I think we're trying just to rub those raw edges and take the worst aspects of legislation away, to try and make it a bit more palatable or just try to make it a bit more credible. So it's hard, I could give you a list of about a hundred different moments we've got over the last few years.

Amy:

Do you think the Lords gets the recognition it deserves for shaping legislation, improving legislation that ultimately ends up on the statute book?

Baroness Smith:

No, but I think every politician would say that. When I look back, the sort of detailed work that we do is pretty impressive. And I can say that cross-party and trying to be impartial if that's possible. But I think the public isn’t really aware of it, the public think of the House of Lords, they think of people in fancy red gowns and... well, what they think is ermine, in my case would always be fake fur anyway - never wear fur robes - which I've worn about eight times in the years I've been here. So that's the image they have, of dozy old blokes, it's that kind of thing, but it's quite a lazy role for journalists. I was doing a seminar recently with the Institute for Government and somebody who was also a part of it said, 'If you look at all the big legislation that's coming through, it's really complex, terrible legislation, the disadvantages, working people, et cetera.' She said, 'It's against our beliefs but we find the House of Lords is much more sympathetic and listens to us and works with us.'

Baroness Smith:

And I thought ‘that's really interesting.’ And I said, 'We're not doing anything different, it's what we've been doing for years.' And what we have found, and at Labour Party Conference, we have a little gathering and we do a special reception for voluntary groups, NGOs, campaigning organisations. And when I first started those about seven years ago, we get a handful of people turn up who were quite interested. They are packed to the gills now. And I've had complaints, we haven't done it for the last couple of years because of the pandemic and we've had complaints - 'when are you doing this again?' And they meet our front bench, they meet our backbenchers, they talk to us about policy and issues. So the people who work with us, I think appreciate our work. But I think for some of the press, it's much easier to characterize some of the things we do rather than give a full account.

Amy:

Talking about the sort of media representation of the Lords, do you think there's more to do on reform and the issues that we have?

Baroness Smith:

There's always more to do with reform. I think Parliament as a whole, we can look at all kinds of ways to reform Parliament. Some of the arcane language makes us look a bit odd and people don't understand that. There's sometimes a good reason for it, sometimes there's not. People always look to the House of Lords first of all and say, 'Oh, we've got to elect the House of Lords.' I'd rather look as a whole and say, 'What do you want Parliament to do? What's the role of the first primary elected chamber? And what do you want a second chamber to do?' And I think decide what you want it to do. My own view is it should be a scrutinising chamber as it is now.

Baroness Smith:

And then how do you put people in it? What's the best way to achieve that? And if you were to elect the House, what are the implications for change in the Commons that you would have? You'd have two elected houses. All those are possible, but you need to work it out. So I never really like those sort of kneejerk things. 'Oh, if you do this, everything will be different.' Parliament hangs together as a whole. When the government decided and announced it was going to move the House of Lords to York. I think they're quite serious about it. They really believe you can separate the two Houses of Parliament. They don't see the interaction between the two and yet a lot of the work we do, we work so closely with the MPs that we need to do that.

Baroness Smith:

And indeed MPs come down and watch our proceedings. You can see behind you, a picture there, when we had the debates on Brexit, I'm speaking there at the dispatch box and sitting on one of the steps by the Throne is Theresa May staring at me and people said she was there to intimidate me. I don't think she was actually, I think she genuinely wanted to know what was going on. But if she was trying, she failed, because I'm not easily intimidated. But there is an interest between the two Houses and we have to operate as a Parliament together.

Amy:

A lot of members will focus on a particular interest area, a particular cause, is it harder for you to do that as Leader of the Opposition? Do you have to, sort of strangely, put politics aside sometimes, put your own personal views aside?

Baroness Smith:

I think my personal views are so tied up with the role I do. I've never had any conflict of interest there or felt any problem. There are still certain causes that have been close to my heart for many, many years that people know I have an interest in and you can't try and persuade me otherwise. And that never changes. But you do have to take an overall view of so many different parts of legislation. So I've discovered an interest in areas perhaps I didn't get involved in before that I'm getting more involved and I had to get more involved in. I didn't do much on foreign policy when I was in the House of Commons. I do far more on foreign policy now that I'm Leader because I would do the statements that the Prime Minister does in the House of Commons.

Baroness Smith:

So you expand your interests. So rather than pulling back from things you believe in, you just expand the work you've got to do and you just, sort of, hope to keep on top of it. So you have to read far more varied counts of different issues and briefings. It's really interesting.

Amy:

So you joined in 1997, so you must have had equal time now in the governing party and opposition probably. If I'm doing my maths right, it is probably about equal. I just wondered how life changed during that switch over?

Baroness Smith:

They're two very different roles. I think the transition from government to opposition, it's quite a tough one. There's the famous story of the cabinet minister who I shan't name. And the joke was always that he saw the car outside, he got outside his house, got into the car, sat down and then realized there wasn't a driver in front. So I suppose there are things that some people would miss. I think the biggest thing for me from being in government to opposition is you can't make a difference. It's all very well, you can have good debates and you can have a knockabout and you can have political attacks and engage.

Baroness Smith:

But at the end of the day, the only way to do something is to be in government. And to be involved in the levers of power. And I think the last few years in this country has been the most challenging political time in my lifetime, I think we've had a very badly handled Brexit, and we've had the pandemic, we have war in Ukraine now and what the implications are for Europe and relations in Europe and between countries looking forward. And that's challenging for even the most competent of governments, which you wouldn't be surprised to think, I don't think we've got the most competent of governments. But if you are serious about your beliefs and wanting to represent and be part of the government of your country, you want to have a say in those things. So I think one of the difficult things being opposition, you haven't put your hands on those levers of powers. You can't affect the kind of change you want. And that's why I think politicians put so much store on winning an election.

Baroness Smith:

It's not just sort of a personal thing. Oh yes, we can win like you would in a football match, it's because you really believe that's where you can make a difference.

Amy:

I mean, it must be such a sort of a frustrating part of your role that you are so close to it and so, sort of, far away at the same time.

Baroness Smith:

Sometimes that is a frustration because you think 'we'd do that better'. So that gets very frustrating. But it's also, I think for a lot of people, we've got a lot of people now who won't remember the Labour government and they're growing up and they've grown up under Conservative governments and that's quite a challenge for any political party that's been out of power for a long time to say, look, we can do this better, this is what we believe in. And I think political parties do go through cycles of how they argue their case and how they make their pitch to people. I think the first thing is honesty. I think it was Harold Wilson who used to say, 'say what you mean and mean what you say.' And it sounds a bit spin doctor-ish in some ways, which I think Harold wouldn't have known what a spin doctor was. But it isn't, it's true. You should have that honesty in politics and be very serious about what your beliefs are and how you can put them into practice.

Amy:

On a lighter note, do you have a favourite moment from your time in Parliament so far, either the Commons or the Lords?

Baroness Smith:

I suppose one of them I would have to say was when Theresa May came to watch me. And I hope that was helpful to her. I also think some of the great speeches over time, there are some people you always wanted to hear. And I remember curiously being in the gallery and watching Neil Kinnock making an amazing speech. And I've seen him in the House doing this. Probably personally for me is making maiden speeches in both because your first reaction is, ‘oh my gosh, what am I doing here? How did I get to be here?’ And you stand up with your heart in your mouth for that first moment and then you get into the swing of things. So I think-

Amy:

Did you still have that nervousness in the Lords?

Baroness Smith:

I did, how embarrassing. I shouldn't really admit it probably. Yeah I did. And I use an Oscar Wilde quote. People don't often realise I'm a bit of an Oscar Wilde fan. And when I was Northern Ireland minister, I was able to put the plaque up on his school, which nobody had ever done before, which was extraordinary. But the Lady Basildon thing comes from an Oscar Wilde play, An Ideal Husband, there's a character called Lady Basildon. So on Twitter, I'm Lady Basildon - Baroness Smith of Basildon. And having to explain that to a House of Lords where some people thought I was completely mad and others thought 'this might be a bit interesting'. But yeah, I don't think you ever lose the nerves. And I think the day you are never nervous about doing anything is the day you've lost your edge.

Baroness Smith:

So I've always got a little bit of nerves, not for questions and things, but when there's a really important debate on, statements on the big political issues of the day, there's a nervousness for me, and that's that sort of anticipation that I've got to get this right, people are relying on me. So yeah, you never completely lose that unless you're really cocky. And one of the lighter moments here is, politicians like real celebrities, we're all a bit star-struck because there's been a stream of people here. But in this office, Harry Styles has been in this office.

Amy:

No!

Baroness Smith:

And so the odd thing about that, he came in to say hello. He was working with Robert Winston's son and he came to say hello. He had a little chat and off he went. And the word went around the building that Harry Styles had been in my office-

Amy:

But it didn't get to me!

Baroness Smith:

And then he was in the chamber in questions. And my local radio station phoned and said, 'Angela, you've had Harry Styles in your office!' - 'How did you hear?' And somebody put it on Twitter. And it was going crazy on Twitter. I did an interview with the radio station. What was he like? He was a very nice young man. And he was doing that film about the Second World War at the time.

So he spoke about that and they asked me about it on the radio. And what was really odd was how Harry Styles fans love Twitter and people saying nice things about him. And I saw during the course of the next 24 hours, my Twitter account absolutely jammed with retweets about Harry Styles. And I saw it travel around the world. First of all, it was the UK, then it went to Spain, it went to Europe, then it was South America. And I just saw these retweets of Harry Styles fans on my Twitter account and jammed it up completely. So that was quite fun.

Baroness Smith:

I have to say my favourite ever though is Robert Redford, when I met Robert Redford. And I was really embarrassed, my staff said to me, 'Who's Robert Redford?' For ladies of a certain age, he's quite a heartthrob. And he was having dinner with David Putnam. And so I just stood next to David until he introduced me to Robert Redford. And I was with Jan Royall, who's my predecessor as Leader. And David said, 'Bob' - calling Robert Redford 'Bob'. 'Bob, I'd like you to meet my bosses. This is Jan and Angela.' And he held my hand and he said, 'I wish I had bosses like this,' which I inwardly cringed, but still blushed.

Amy:

Brilliant.

Baroness Smith:

The other person who's been in my office was Josh Lyman from The West Wing. I sat at my desk, I have a photograph with me and Bradley Whitford at my desk. Frank Skinner came in. All the famous people end up in my office.

Amy:

We'll come down here.

Baroness Smith:

I suppose it had to make up for it because when I was Gordon Brown's PPS. I think someone like David Beckham had been in and they said, 'Oh Angela, we forgot to tell you, David Beckham was in.' I said, 'Don't worry. But if George Clooney turns up, you have to give me a call.' And they said, 'Okay, we will do, we promise. Even at a weekend?' I said, 'Even at a weekend, George Clooney turns up and you have to give me a call and I'll be in.' So I get in on Monday morning and they say, 'Angela, we weren’t sure whether to call you or not.' Why? 'George Clooney was here.' I said, 'Yeah, yeah,' and he really was, and they didn't call me. So I got Robert Redford but not George Clooney.

Amy:

Angela, thank you so much for joining me today.

Baroness Smith:

It's been a pleasure.

Matt:
That’s it for this month’s episode of the Podcast, join us next month for more from the UK Parliament’s second chamber.