Westminster Watch

As the nation readies itself to vote on Europe, Mark Hatcher considers the diminishing trust in the political class and steadying influence of the select committee

I am writing this column six days before the EU referendum – such is the publisher’s immutable deadline. 

Is the business of government grinding to a halt as we face up to a spate of elections and the EU referendum and is legislation being pushed through without sufficient scrutiny? asks Mark Hatcher

With the imminent election on 5 May of the Mayor of London and members of the London Assembly, local government elections in England, elections to the National Assembly for Wales and voting for Police and Crime Commissioners in England and Wales, the political classes are gorging on a feast of campaigning and political activity. 

Mark Hatcher looks at the latest court closure announcement and Labour’s access to justice commission

Spare a thought for civil servants who are toiling away even harder to make up for headcount reductions in Government departments. 

Mark Hatcher examines the issues facing those in Westminster at the start of the new year

Few MPs returning to Westminster after the Christmas recess will have been able to predict how the last year would have ended: a majority Conservative Government, an Opposition that is in disarray in the parliamentary party with a frontbench openly at odds with its leader, the decimation of the Liberal Democrats in the Commons, 54 seats occupied by Scottish Nationalists, the collapse of Labour in Scotland with just one seat north of the border at Westminster and one held by the Conservatives and four million votes for UKIP at last May’s election.