Managing the business of the House of Commons

The critical importance of managing the business of the House of Commons is not widely understood. Should Labour win the coming general election, this vital role would likely fall to the current Shadow Leader of the House, Lucy Powell. So, this week Lucy Powell, clearly relishing the prospect, led a wide-ranging Industry Forum roundtable on how she would approach this challenge. An incoming reformist government would clearly have a lot of work to do in rapidly turning policies into draft bills and then legislation. In addition, there are major challenges for big cross-departmental projects or missions which are currently not well managed by the Cabinet Office. It is important to restore standards in public life and restore controls on the executive exercised by, for example, the select committees. Large issues such as House of Lords reform will also need to be considered. Bearing in mind the current poor fiscal situation all changes will need to be accomplished without the luxury of generous budgets. The business audience at the roundtable could fully appreciate these constraints; the potential bonus for Lucy Powell and Labour is that they also indicated that clear and consistent plans and policies would be valuable to business and could be the key to unlocking private investment in the UK. This meeting was hosted by Workday a leading provider of cloud based financial and personnel management services.