This episode was originally broadcast as a live webinar on 15 March 2021.
Moderated by:
Professor Matthew Flinders – Professor of Politics and Founding Director of the Sir Bernard Crick Centre for the Public Understanding of Politics at the University of Sheffield. In addition to writing and presenting a number of documentaries for BBC Radio 4, he is also Vice Chair of the Political Studies Association of the United Kingdom.
On the panel:
Charlotte Carew Pole – Director of Daughters’ Rights, Director of Women2Win. Charlotte founded the Daughters’ Rights campaign in 2016 to end male primogeniture. The practise exists solely for hereditary titles but the consequences are far reaching, for example the 92 seats in the House of Lords that are reserved for hereditary peers – who are and only ever will be men. There should be no place in society where it’s acceptable to treat daughters differently from sons, least of all within the walls of Parliament. Charlotte is also Director of Women2Win, founded by Theresa May in 2005 to increase the number of female Conservative MPs in the Commons.
Rt. Hon. Baroness Frances D’Souza – Life peer. Baroness D’Souza was appointed a Life Peer in 2004, was elected Convenor of the Cross Benches 2007-2011, and served as Lord Speaker from 2011 – 2016. Prior to this, she lectured at the London School of Economics, Morley College, and the City Lit Institute, and from 1977 to 1983 she was a senior lecturer at Oxford Brookes University. Baroness D’Souza founded and directed the International Disaster Institute, based in London, and from 1978-1984 she was Editor of ‘Disasters’, the senior journal in the field of disaster risk reduction. She has worked as an independent consultant for UNDP, UNICEF, the Ford Foundation, Operation Hunger (South Africa), FAO, Save the Children and the UK Overseas Development Administration. From 1989 to 1998 she directed the free speech organisation Article 19, and she went on to direct Redress, the anti-torture organisation. Baroness D’Souza has DPhil in biological anthropology from the University of Oxford, and was a Ford Foundation Fellow at the Wellcome Institute of Reproductive Physiology.
Lord Timothy Kirkhope of Harrogate – Lawyer, Life peer. Lord Kirkhope was elevated to the peerage by David Cameron in his resignation honours list in the Autumn of 2016. He was a Conservative Member of the European Parliament for Yorkshire & the Humber from 1999-2016, having previously served as MP for Leeds North East 1987-97 and as a Government Whip and Home Office Minister in that period. Lord Kirkhope continues to take an active interest in Yorkshire regional affairs, and since July 2019 has acted as the co-chair of the “One Yorkshire” devolution APPG at Westminster. He serves on the House of Lords EU select sub-committee on Justice and Home Affairs, continuing his interests as a lawyer in this important field of policy.
Professor Meg Russell FBA – Director of the Constitution Unit at University College London. Professor Russell is a well-known academic expert and commentator on the House of Lords, and the UK parliament in general. Her books include Reforming the House of Lords: Lessons from Overseas (2000), The Contemporary House of Lords: Westminster Bicameralism Revived (2013) and Legislation at Westminster (2017). She has served as a specialist adviser to the Royal Commission on the Reform of the House of Lords, the House of Lords Appointments Commission, and the Lord Speaker’s Committee on the Size of the House of Lords.