Emily Nicholson
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Welcome everyone and thank you for joining this Mishcon Academy Session part of a series of online events, videos and podcasts looking at the biggest issues facing society today. Just to introduce myself, I’m Emily Nicholson, a Partner at Mishcon and I will be hosting today’s event. Before I introduce Penny, there are some housekeeping points to mention. If you’re online you’ve joined this session automatically on mute and without video. If you have a question you can use the Q&A function located at the bottom of your screen and I will pick this up. If you have any technical issues during the event, please feel free to let us know via the chat and one of the Mishcon team will help you. If you are in the room, just raise your hand. So I am absolutely delighted to be here today with Penny. Penny was Conservative MP for 14 years, holding a dazzling array of fascinating roles in Government, culminating in carry the Sword of State at the Coronation as Lord President of the Council. Having narrowly lost her seat at the last election by a few hundred votes, it is widely acknowledged that she would have been a strong leadership contender had she been in Parliament with Kemi recently calling her a titan of the Conservative Party. Among her many achievements in Parliament including being the first woman Defence Minister as well as Minister for Armed Forces and Equalities Minister, Penny famously had the honour to be able to confirm to the House when then Prime Minister, Liz Truss that she was hiding under her desk. Welcome Penny, thank you for joining us.
Penny Mordaunt
Thank you for having me.
Emily Nicholson
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Um, so Penny as I said, you were MP for 14 years err, twice with your hat in the ring for leadership um, you had a front row seat to such a turbulent and extraordinary period in um, in our politics. Um, and then one day you’re in Government in the cut and thrust of everything and involved in everything and then the next day that’s it, there’s a General Election and you don’t have a job anymore. That must be such a massive and almost traumatic transition in life. How do you deal with that kind of massive change?
Penny Mordaunt
So on election day the result was not the worst part of my day because in the morning um, any of you that know about electioneering, you go and deliver leaflets very early reminding everyone to vote and then what generally happens is your team go to the local café, have a big cooked breakfast and then you’re back out getting the vote out. Um, and my team didn’t, I didn’t join my team for breakfast because I was at the vets.
Emily Nicholson
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Oh no.
Penny Mordaunt
With my, one of my cats and the vet was telling me to put them to sleep. So that’s how my election day started. I resisted the vet’s advice and the cat is fine and still going strong so it had a happy ending. So I was already quite emotionally drained by the end but um, I, I knew, although I’d polled my seat at the start of the campaign, I was 5% ahead which would have given me about 3,000 majority, I knew in Portsmouth after the D-Day episode er, where the Prime Minister came back early from D-Day um, and my constituents did not feel represented at that event that I wasn’t going to recover from that. So I already kind of knew that it was er, I was unlikely to retain what, what has been a swing seat. It’s usually the colour of Government. If I had retained it it would have been the first time in its history that it wouldn’t have been the colour of Government um, so I was fairly kind of well-adjusted to what happened, was able to make a coherent speech on the night. But actually afterwards you don’t just down tools, you have a huge amount to do. You’ve got a whole team that has lost their job as well and they need to find work. You’ve got a massive hand over job to the, to your successor to do. You’ve got to shut your office down and all that takes actually several months. Um, so I, I just went straight back into that um, kept busy, started thinking about what I should do next and I actually haven’t taken a day off since I lost my seat um, and I think that’s the best way to deal with it and er, you know keep calm, carry on and er, and keep busy.
Emily Nicholson
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Um, great well you’ve certainly managed that. Um, you, and that is shown by the number um, an array of cabinet roles you held in Parliament er, including being the first woman Defence Minister under May, Minister for Armed Forces under Cameron, Equalities Minister and finally, Leader of the House and Lord President of Council under Rishi Sunak. Um, however you also had not one, but two stalkers during your time as an MP um, both of which required engagement with the Police and when we were chatting earlier you said, ‘it’s okay I’ve only needed to go to Court twice’. Um, but it’s sort of staggering that you would need to go to Court at all. Is there, is this the price that you pay for being a woman in politics?
Penny Mordaunt
So when I talk about these sorts of issues I always caveat this with, I’m planning on tunnelling back in you know, the, the downsides to the job are far outweighed by the, the up sides. It’s the most amazing job and I encourage women in particular who, who feel that they want to, to do that to, to go for it and I feel much better protected now than I did when I was, I was starting out. I think over my whole career I’ve had um, just shy of about 800 threats um, most of them are very easily dealt with and I’ve never really felt um, overtly concerned about, about my personal safety. But I was very conscious of the steps that I needed to take to, to look after myself um and perhaps more importantly my, my team, my staff. I didn’t have an office on the High Street. I did to start with but then I, I put us in a business park behind a cordon and you just need to you know, not mess around with these things so you can actually go and do your job. Um, I had a case very early on in my Parliamentary career which um, which er, eventually ended up being a criminal case and er, um, and I’ve got a live case at the moment but most things are nipped in the bud and dealt with um, very, very swiftly and it’s, it is I am afraid part of the job. If you are in any public life er, that’s what happens to you. And actually it’s not about necessarily people hating you or disagreeing with you. The current case is someone really loves me you know, they don’t really hate me um, you just er, it’s just, it’s just part of um, part of public life unfortunately.
Emily Nicholson
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
And is that um, I mean it’s obviously often peculiarly towards women, that kind of attention but being a woman in politics or generally given you were there for 14 years, so that’s quite a period of time. Do you, did you feel as a woman you were um, valued, able to do your best job? Was it a supportive and encouraging environment? Were you able to do your best there?
Penny Mordaunt
So it, it varies from, from place to place and er, and job to job really but I think what’s important is to, is to know why you’re there er, know what you have to contribute and, and to I think have a successful career in politics, you’ve got to know what it is you’re trying to get done. Um, if you get there and you haven’t really figured that out er, life is miserable because the only sort of happiness you get is if someone gives you a junior ministerial job or you know, that’s, that’s no way to, to be happy in politics um, it’s getting stuff done, it’s making a difference. Er, that’s what’s important and I think that although there’s a push back against you know, people, people worrying about whether you’ve got a representative organisation or you know, in Parliament’s case um, House of Commons. I think those things are really important um, I used to, I do this exercise sometimes when I go and talk to people and I ask, I won’t do it now and embarrass people, but I ask, I pick on a chap in the audience and I get them to take the things out of their pockets, their mobile phone, their wallet and keys is generally what is secreted about a, a chap and then I ask the ladies in the room to look in their handbags. I ask them if they’ve got keys, phone, wallet and anything else in their handbags and the average number of items in a woman’s handbag is 75. I did this at a Wrens Event, sort of Wrens Association Event at the weekend and one lady in her evening bag had a swimming costume. I asked her if she was going to miss the ferry home, she’d got plans. Um, another lady had a can of WD40 you know, I mean we lit… and the reason why we do that is because we are anticipating every single flaming thing that could happen that day, what our kids need, what our you know, grandkids need, what er, you know er, what our colleagues need, what might happen this evening, another event you’ve got to go to you know, everything. Um, we bring a particular mind set um, but fella’s have a lot to offer as well, particular traits but we, we think differently about situations. Um, we’re vital you know for anticipating and having the imagination for what could happen and particularly in the complex world we’re living in, where situational fluency is everything, that attitude and mind set is invaluable. So it’s really important that women are represented in every forum but particularly the House of Commons.
Emily Nicholson
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Um, well I am delighted to hear that. Um, that actually leads us really nicely on to, because I want to talk to you a little bit about defence because you were the first woman Defence Secretary um, and it’s kind of extraordinary when we managed to have two female Prime Ministers that still it took until 2019 to have a female Defence Secretary. Um, given your particular background and just for the room, Penny is a Naval Reservist, your father was a Paratrooper um, did you, did I read somewhere that you think you were named after HMS Penelope?
Penny Mordaunt
I, yes which was the first Leander-class frigate to be able to do a complete about face within her own length. So I always joke this is perfect qualification for being a politician.
Emily Nicholson
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Um, so did the defence role come quite naturally to you because um, Defence Secretary was not your first defence role, you were also Armed Forces before that?
Penny Mordaunt
Yes I think when you get, when you get into Parliament you, you have to be a jack of all trades. You’re dealing with you know, just a huge variety of issues that you constituents bring you, you need to go and talk about but you, I think you want to really also focus on a few things that you can get deep knowledge about. So I’d been on the Defence Select Committee um, represented obviously the Home of the Surface Fleet and so, so defence was a natural thing for me to, to focus on and concentrate on and um, I, David Cameron made me Armed Forces Minister at a time when it was the height of what was known as Op Shader, so that’s Iraq and Syria. Um, my Secretary of State at the time had four holidays that year so he literally delegated the whole of operations and force generation to me um, and I, I did that for um, about fifteen months and probably the busiest time for, for our operations that those being in the last 20 years. So um, I learnt a huge amount, worked with some amazing people and it was great when I eventually became Secretary of State even though it was for a brief period of time. I knew what I wanted to do and er, could hit the ground running and had that rapport and trust with er, the senior military there.
Emily Nicholson
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Yeah, I bet they were delighted to have someone who knew their way round a Leander. Um, so we discussed on our prep call there is a defence review coming up but I wondered what your view is from the defence perspective given that we’re in a very unstable world of global politics and we, defence-wise we may not be able to rely on the US in a way maybe we had before. What’s your view on our current defence situation and where we need to go?
Penny Mordaunt
So, situations change but what is critical is that you have the architecture in Whitehall to be able to understand what is happening and why and respond to it and there are always defence reviews and there are um, you know, always deep dives into particular areas of national security. But you have to have the drum beat in Whitehall to be continually reviewing these things. You won’t get excellence in any area unless it’s a habit, unless you are continually doing that and Whitehall generally does that really badly. It’s got a piece of work, it does it, then it forgets about it. It stops exercising and having you know, practice Cobra meetings because there’s always something more important to do. So I think the first thing is you’ve got to get more on the, on the front foot in Whitehall, whether that’s your domestic civil contingencies or it’s defence. Er, I think under Boris Johnson for example, the National Security Council which usually met every week just stopped meeting and so you can’t give ministers the awareness they need um, if you don’t give them any information products, if you’re not continually making sure people are thinking about things they need to really think about. So that’s the first thing. Um, the second thing is we have got to spend more on defence. NATO's own ambitions um, would require us to spend about 20 billion more a year on defence which is you know, nearly a, nearly a third extra and so for Government you, you, you’ve got to accept that fact and you then have to trim other areas. You, you, right now we need to focus on what only Government can do and we’ve got to find other ways of making other stuff happen um, I think we’re at a real, real crossroads at the moment um, a lot of analysts are saying that if we don’t start to have the capabilities and the force generation to, to stand up credible deterrents then um, we are going to be faced with a much worse situation in fairly short order um, and potentially a conflict that we will be involved in directly. So, we’re in, we’re in um, a real, a real turning point I think or our country and so every, every moment I get I am saying that and er, and encouraging people to make those investments and also to, to put through the additional reforms that we need on procurement and all of those other things. And then the final thing is about our own domestic resilience er, we, we’ve just got to take a whole of society approach to that. Um, we, we just stood down I think, literally a week ago there was an announcement by the, the NHS that it was disbanding its volunteers. Um, we stood up during Covid about 750,000 people who were first responders or doing various things to help, bolster social care. They’ve just disbanded that operation and at a time when you know, the health service is under great pressure, um and er, and you, you want to be making sure that you’ve got, if something god forbid, you know, like a pandemic happened again or er, you know you’ve got a, a cyberattack that takes out our ability to communicate with each other, you want those local networks, you want local people who want to take responsibility and help to be, to be able to contacted, to be able to help and the public want to help. They, some of them I can tell you having manned vaccination car parks, some of them love it you know. Um, it would be a popular thing to do but we’ve just stood that down. That’s, that’s wrong, we need to give people the tools they need to help if god forbid that the worst happens.
Emily Nicholson
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Yeah um, I mean that’s yeah, it’s quite scary but quite a lot about the world, it’s quite scary right now so let’s hope that the defence review is um, is forceful enough. We live in hope. Um, now you can’t speak to Penny Mordaunt without talking about the coronation. Um, your coronation, it nearly was um, so your role was kind of, or became iconic really um and it really threw a modern light on something that’s incredibly traditional and like quite dour in some respects. Um, and not least because you were the first woman to carry and present the Sword of Offering which is a fantastic name um, we must get one of those. Um, so you obviously had a huge reaction from it and indeed overnight I think became a favourite to succeed Rishi Sunak as leader of the Conservative Party. Um, how did the Royal Family take your role and um, or their role in your coronation, your role in their coronation?
Penny Mordaunt
Well funny you should say that because I, I had a lovely letter from a member of the Royal Family a few days after the er, the coronation, a very lovely letter thanking me for my role and the efforts that I’d taken but it started, ‘how kind of the King and Queen to come to your event this afternoon’ um but er, you know it was a huge honour to do it and er, knew, occasionally you’re, you’re presented with those sorts of amazing opportunities and I mean for women there’s no advice at all about what you should wear. In fact nobody asked me until the dress rehearsal and the Earl Marshall said, ‘have you got something to wear to this?’. Whereas if you’re a chap you know, it’s the Privy Council court dress. But I got a sense that the King um, and I heard his sort of ambitions for the coronation because as Lord President you have a private meeting with him before every er, Privy Council meeting and he wanted I think rightly, er he wanted the full monty coronation robes, he wanted all of that but he wanted it to be a modern service and he clearly had chosen people to present a regalia to him who were representative of er, of the nation and I do think that, because it wasn’t a full gone conclusion that the whole of my role would have been in there. I didn’t actually know it would be until two weeks before the event when we started rehearsing and I think one of the reasons it was kept in was because I was a woman and he wanted a, he wanted women to be seen in the, in the ceremony. So, um, so I knew what I wore was going to be very important and I had to fit in with my female cabinet colleagues so I couldn’t wear some outlandish rig you know, I had to, it had to be a day dress and a hat. I was standing next to the clergy with all their amazing robes on and I also was with the Military as well so I needed something that didn’t look totally out of place in all of those settings and had some great people help me produce this amazing er, amazing dress and er head piece which is now with Christies and is going to, because I can only wear it again if I go to a fancy dress party as myself um, and so they are, they are finding a home for it um and we’re going to do some great things with the proceeds so.
Emily Nicholson
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Cool well that, that’s fantastic and the outfit, I don’t really like talking to women about what they wear but um, it was spectacular. Um, and er, that, did that experience then, because I know you’ve just written a book which is coming out in the autumn and did that experience lead into the book? Was that where this…?
Penny Mordaunt
Yes, and the, that whole er, eighteen months really um, I mean the spark for it was really the Accession Council because I was, I was a Junior Trade Minister on Monday, on Tuesday I was promoted into the Lord President role, on Wednesday we tried to have a Privy Council with Her Late Majesty um, to swear in the new Government, the Truss Administration um, we, we started it, we didn’t manage to finish it and for me that was testament to her devotion to duty that, I was thinking about my nan right before she died, the last thing I’d be asking her to do was hold a business meeting but she was, she was trying to do that um, and then the following day she passed away and then on the Friday I googled Accession Council and was delivering it on the, on the Saturday and I was so worried, not, well I was obviously worried about messing up dramatically but we had identified the moment we lost the Monarch as a moment of great peril for the nation. It wasn’t a foregone conclusion that the public were going to accept a new monarch and if something had gone wrong you could quite easily see how things could escalate and get out of hand and um, and so I was really concerned about that and after I’d done the Accession Council I came outside into to St James’s Palace yard to watch the Proclamation the King had just commanded be delivered that set across that amazing wave of proclamations round the country and then the Guards did three cheers to the King and after that I heard over the Palace wall, thousands of people um, all right the way down to Trafalgar Square and across the park, cheering the new King and at that moment I knew everything was going to be alright. And of course it was, it was amazing that all the amazing events that surrounded um, Her Late Majesty lying in state, the funeral, the tributes, Guards of Honour from tractors and ponies um, the marmalade sandwiches in part, I mean it was amazing. And it struck me that it was the, what carried us through that point and again, against the backdrop of the Truss Administration you know, total political anarchy going on, was the ceremony um, it was those tasks er that allowed the whole nation to become involved, er that saw that transition to a new monarch um, that took into account the needs of every part of the country and that really struck a chord with me. And I started thinking about the ceremonies that we have you know, in Parliament, in, with the Monarchy um, with Law, with the Military but actually right the way through to cheese rolling and um, shin kicking and mad stuff that goes on in pubs and churches all over the land and um, and it, it made me think why, why we particularly do this as a nation. Our uncodified constitution is only held together by all the ceremonies and the process and the habit um, our laws, many of them are based on those habits. And so I have written this book called ‘Pomp and Circumstance – Why Britain’s Traditions Matter’ and the first half of it is, is answering that question and telling us how we can actually modernise as a nation, we just have to do it in a particular way and there is a wonderful um, 1944 film called ‘This Happy Breed’, and the central character in there, Frank Gibbon says um, ‘we’re not like other nations, we’ve got our own way of doing things. We may be a bit slow and we may be a bit dull but it suits us alright and it always will. Radical reform we don’t like, we like continual pursuit of excellence’. And so if you look at like House of Lords Reform you know, nothing ever happens because no one likes to throw everything up in the air um, so that’s what, that’s what the book is about and the back half of it is on every single day of the year it will tell you what is happening everywhere in Britain er, from you know Trooping the Colour to um, Flounder Squelching.
Emily Nicholson
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Excellent. Well I didn’t know we had that many but I am delighted that we do and we will look forward to the book when it comes out. Um, just on the, quickly before we get to some audience questions, but I quickly want to ask you on the question of radical reform um, obviously we’ve just had a poll out that um now has put Reform um ahead of Labour and the Conservatives astoundingly in fourth place so um, I know that you’re keen to get back into politics and indeed we’re keen to see you back in politics but what, what Conservative Party will you be getting back to? I mean what is going on here?
Penny Mordaunt
So I think that um, although politicians like to make this about themselves, I, I think that culture precedes politics. That what you are seeing with the rise of Reform is not about um, you know, the charisma of Nigel Forage or an amazing er, coherent policy platform that has all the answers, of course it’s not. Um, it’s a response to I think a massive cultural change in the country and what the public recognises that, that Parliament, Whitehall, the mutuality that binds us, markets are not delivering for them. We, there’s so much effort and energy in Whitehall um, you know I mean so much legislation, so many white papers reports, all these sorts of things um, it’s wasted energy and the public they are not necessarily you know, huge political animals, less than 2% of the population are members of any political party so they don’t really care whether the cat is red or blue or turquoise or yellow or a combination of those. They, they you know, they just want things to work. They just want er, the cat to catch some mice. So um, and when things don’t work you know, or it takes an age or you can’t respond to things or people see terrible injustices happening and er, the impression that nothing is actually happening in Whitehall um, people don’t want to stand for that um, they, they, they want consumer rights protected. They want er, people who are gaming the system to be dealt with, er they want some value for the taxes they are paying. They’d like their healthcare delivered in a way that actually suits their lives and if you’re not delivering any of those things and you don’t see any hope on the horizon for how that can be delivered under these existing systems, you are then willing to just throw everything up in the air and er, and, and take a punt on something completely different. So for any political party to er, to really start to gain traction with the public again they have to have a proposition that addresses those particular concerns um and they have to be able to demonstrate how this is going to radically change. The good news is we have huge opportunities to do that um, AI being one of them. Um, so politicians need to learn more about these things. They need to understand what the possibilities are and they need to set out a hopeful, optimistic vision that gives people confidence in their nation again. Um, and er, you know, give us our mojo back to, to coin a phrase. Um, and I think Reform will run out of puff because I think they won’t be able to do those things in a way that is going to gain credibility and retain credibility with people um, but my party can’t rely on that. We have, we have to re-imagine how this all works and that’s a hell of a job but we’ve got to do it and if we’re not up for doing it, we should retire.
Emily Nicholson
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Um, well let’s not everyone retire and leave Reform to it so I feel like they need some um, some, someone asking some questions of them. So, and speaking of questions, do we have time for questions? Plenty of time, okay. Don’t be shy. This lady here.
Audience
Okay so hi, lovely to meet you. We have met in the past. I, also like you, stood as a candidate in the last election as a member for the Conservative Party um, I’m Suzanne Pearson um, what you’ve said of course resonates with me. Um, I was a long-term ex-pat so defence for example is very important and the different eyes that we need around the world to understand what’s happening um, what I liked very much is that you touched upon um, incentivising inspiring people in terms of what are we going to do? What are we going to stand for? And particularly, so if we look at defence, getting the public behind us to understand why we do need to increase you know, spending on defence, arbitraging against other things which we know and there are many, many other things you know, really difficult for people to appreciate and to want to let go of. So I just wondered what your ideas were in terms of how you take that forward?
Penny Mordaunt
Yes, so I mean the first step is you have to convince people that this is the right thing to do. For me, it is completely compelling, if we don’t start to make these investments um, we are going to be in a worse situation um, financially but also having to pay in blood as well as treasure in, in short order. So, so, but once you accept that um, you, you have to present the choices to the, to the public about where you are going to be spending their money and I think part of that is to, is to demonstrate to them what it will bring back into the economy. The Treasury measures every pound that you put into the defence sector as you get you know, a pound back. It’s actually three pounds for every pound you invest. Our Armed Forces are the biggest escalator of talent in this country. They are the largest education organisation that we, we have in this nation. Um, I think you can make those cases too but for me the killer argument is, is always about having a deterrent. The, there is a wonderful graph called the Tarent Curve which is named after a submariner which shows you on the international stage the best return you get for tax payers money from your diplomacy er, to er, through to development, to pre-empting situations, through to um, you know, Armed Forces that provide deterrents and then your actual intervention. And unsurprisingly, when you’re actually involved in the hot War, that’s the worst return on tax payer’s money. It actually doesn’t come out of the defence budget, it comes directly out of the Treasury. So as whatever you can do well upstream to prevent that situation happening, that is money well spent and um, and at the moment we er, we do not have what is required to provide that credible deterrent er, to defer for example, future Russian aggression. Um, it’s, that’s absolutely critical and I think there are ways of explaining that to the public, that this is about saving so much more that would otherwise er, be at stake um, we have continually been involved in operations and er, very dangerous conflict situations but obviously we are, we’re coming to the end of generations that will have had to er, you know, serve in a World War and so we don’t have that example. What we have to have is the imagination that it could happen again. Thank you for your question.
Emily Nicholson
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
We don’t even need that much imagination at the moment given where we are, the world is at War in two different places and…
Penny Mordaunt
Exactly and er, you, you don’t, I think people, because of processes we’ve established in Parliament think that you have a choice in certain, you will always have a choice whether you do something or not, whether you defend yourself or not or whether you intervene in a situation or not. There will be scenarios where you will not have a choice, you will have to do this and er, and I think we just need to remind people um, that, that is, that is a possibility.
Emily Nicholson
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Yep.
Jan, Mishcon de Reya
Penny we have a couple of questions online if that’s okay. Um, so the first one comes from Siobhan Walsh, so she says, ‘hi Penny, many thanks for your time today. It’s been fascinating and I wish the human aspect of politics was seen more. That aside, you were in a Government which had it felt daily sleaze issues. I feel that MPs are poorly paid and work huge hours. How did it feel as a decent MP to see that around you’?
Penny Mordaunt
So I, I think that actually things like pay um are less of an issue er, than it, than it is about giving people with a huge variety of backgrounds coming into Parliament the tools they need to be the best they can be. Er, as Ministers you are not given any information products you know, in your businesses and your clients in their respective businesses, they will, they will be given financial information daily, they will be given er, you know some er, tools to help them on situations. You don’t get any of that as a Minister. Those tools do not exist. Um, you er, when I was Leader of the Commons er, and obviously a Government Minister I set up two new initiatives. One for the Commons and one for Ministerial life. I set up the first HR support for Ministers. When you move from Ministries as I did you know almost every year when you’re on a kind of trajectory as a, as a Minister. Every single new department you go to you have to fill out your bank details, you have to tell them your name and you know, all the stuff. There’s no central HR, well there is now but there wasn’t in Whitehall. There’s no personal development for Ministers. During Grenfell the poor guy who was chairing the Cobra meeting responding to the Grenfell incident as it unfolded, had never been in a Cobra meeting in their lives before. What possible hope do, you know chance do we give people. So you’ve got to get serious about professional development for Ministers and giving them the situational tools that they need, the training they need to do their job well. So that is there in place and on the Commons side, I have now established a system where um, as soon as you come into Parliament er, you can really start to think about your development and you can also start to think about what, what might lie beyond Parliament when you know, so you can continue a useful career. And you can gain qualifications alongside what you’re doing in Parliament, whether it’s board qualifications or whether it’s an MBA or whether it’s you know, a um public policy or the Royal College of Defence Studies, you can do that alongside um, I just think that’s so important that that’s more important than pay um, and what you end up with is people who are exhausted, broken er, sometimes financially broken um but certainly er, personally broken; their marriages will have broken up and all, all of that. And you come out the other end of this with, with nothing to show for it er, and I think we’ve just got to change the mind-set on that and will have braver politicians and we’ll have people at the end of their Parliamentary career who aren’t terrified of the life outside and all want to get into the House of Lords which is you know, not a good situation. Um, that would just be so much better. So er, there’s much more that we can do to, to build on those things that I established and I think we’ve just got to try and er, intervene and support people before they end up in, in crisis situations. With regard to a lot of the, the sleaze, I mean I am amazed people found the time to get up to half of the stuff that they did. It was you know, I don’t understand that but you know you want to be picking people coming into Parliament to be candidates who are robust um, you know, have integrity um and you know, are capable people because if you’re not a capable person you can’t help other people and that’s what we’re all there supposed to be doing.
Jan, Mishcon de Reya
Siobhan I hope that answers your question and I just want to say that I think the people at Mishcon are really lucky to have such a great development team in the Academy.
Penny Mordaunt
You are. You are. If you’d like to pop to the Commons and give them some advice.
Emily Nicholson
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Nicely done Jan, very nicely done.
Audience
Um, members of the Labour Party are alleged to be struggling with supporting the policy, whether it be welfare, Reform, cutting the winter fuel allowance. In your career, either as a back bencher, as a Minister, did you ever disagree with policy but have to stand there in public supporting something you didn’t agree with and how did you manage that?
Penny Mordaunt
So I, well first of all I think that you, if you’re, you have to present a kind of credible package to the public so if you’re just squeamish about certain cuts um, you’ve got to, you’ve got to really think to yourself about what the alternative is. You’ve got to try and present your Government with solutions er, as opposed to pursuing a course of action that you think is not smart. But I actually managed to find ways of changing policy or um, actually I have been on the naughty step a few times um and, and rebelled. So chose to, I didn’t do it every five minutes but I, on the Lords Reforms that were proposed under the Coalition Government which I thought would have trashed Parliament, they would have ended the primacy of the Commerce Chamber. I was one of the lead rebels on that and we defeated the Coalition Government – it was the largest rebellion since the Second World War and I think we were right to do so.
Audience
Rory Stewart in his book said he was threatened that if he went through the, the lobby against er, Lords reform that that was it for him by George Osborne according to his book. Did anyone come back to you on this?
Penny Mordaunt
Diverting briefly to answer that secondary question. Yes and on the night of the vote there were, there were um, three escalatory measures so first of all they get um, your normal Whip to come and say, ‘you do realise your careers over if you do this?’ and I said, ‘thank you very much but I think it’s very important, thanks for the advice’. Then they got um the nicest, cuddly Whip who never said anything bad to come and put their arm round you and say, ‘I’m really worried about you Penny, I don’t think this is a good idea um you know’ er and that failed and then they bring out the Cabinet, the big guns. So I got a Cabinet member – I shall not name them because I’m not allowed to say – and um, they came up to me and they said um, I was in the Chamber and they said, ‘I need to speak to you’. Beckoned me out, we went into the voting lobby, closed the door behind him and he said um, ‘your mind is made up is it? You um, you’re going to, you’re going to destroy your whole parliamentary future for this?’ and I said, ‘I’m, I’m hoping that’s not going to be the case but yeah this is a constitutional car crash and I’m going to, I’m going to vote with my conscience. I’m very sorry but I’m going to do that and I told everyone I am going to do that’ and he said, ‘good on you’ and then left. So um, er so er, so you sometimes, at moments like that, that was a really serious moment. You’ve got to, you’ve got to stick with your principles. There were other things that um, I managed to change and actually as leader of the Commons where I really earnt my money was stopping stuff happening. So I um, dealt with many, many pieces of secondary legislation er, every single month and some of them were insane um, I remember this one that was trying to deal with the back log on um, driving tests er by making it harder for people to pass their driving test. This was deemed to be a brilliant solution so um, I killed off, I mean that’s why I really earnt my money I, I killed off a lot of crazy stuff and, and so and then you get sort of lots of appeals and sometimes the Ministers will come and see you and you’ll, you’ll… some I actually took to Cabinet because I thought they were so crazy. Um, but that’s what you’re there to do um so I would say that you look at my voting record, I’ve been loyal but I’ve always, I’ve always found ways of trying to get um, you know, sensible things to happen. There are, there are lots of things, I mean the last er you know, the last legislative programme that was put together you know, I have a lot of respect for Rishi but um, you know would that have been my leg… no it wouldn’t, it wouldn’t have been my legislative programme um and er, and I thought was also you know, politically wrong as well. We kind of stamped on the fault lines of the party for legislation that we didn’t even put through at the end of the session so you know, um but you know, you, you, you have to work as a team but where, when, when it really matters your job is to do what you think is right.
Emily Nicholson
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
And so do you, because Rory, the gentleman mentioned Rory Stewart’s book and in that book he said, there’s two main, well two of his main points were, one, you don’t get the capable people as the previous question in to Parliament because it is such an archaic system and you have to be involved in the party from when you were 14 all the way up until when you’re 29 and then you finally get put in to campaign for a seat that you might actually win. Um and the other thing he says is, once you’re in, you can’t do anything because every time you try and make a decision based on something that you know about um, or have er a sort of moral obligation towards, you get sat on by your party. So you, but you would say that that may be was his experience but not your experience…
Penny Mordaunt
Correct.
Emily Nicholson
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
…with politics? Recollections may vary.
Penny Mordaunt
Yeah I mean you, you ultimately this is all about working with other people. So I’ll give you a couple of quick examples. When I was at the Department for Work and Pensions, I wanted to do some things which were way out of the comfort zone of um, er of some of my officials, I wanted us rather than try and come up with answers and then spend um, you know, years trying to implement them particularly a lot of things that would er, er help on the disabilities agenda. I wanted to post problems at 9.00am and get smart tech people to have solved them by lunchtime and um, we, we did this on a, on a number of fronts very successfully but getting it going was really difficult because the, the civil servants who were directly involved in that were worried about their own reputations so you have to kind of take people with the, you have to spend time on internal coms to, to make the argument and to get them there. Or things that seemed to be impossible to do, if you, if you share the problem and you say to you know, the entire building, ‘I’m trying to do this, I’d welcome your ideas’. Do floor walks, walk round the department and you know, sure enough on floor 3 in the Department for Work and Pensions, I found a chap who had spent the last five years in his lunch hour thinking about exactly the same problem and I met him, pulled out his top drawer and said, ‘I’ve done this Minister’. He didn’t, he didn’t have to go through his boss or anything like that to get to me, because I eyeballed him. That’s how you find the people that have the ideas and um, the creativity and the technical knowhow to get you to do things and do them at speed. Um, ditto with your, your parliamentary colleagues um, understanding the pressures that they are under. So er, yeah there’s a lot of things that I didn’t manage to do but there are a lot of things that I did manage to do and one of the last ones I was really proud of was that I got the Government to admit liability and be prepared to pay compensation for the infected blood er, victims um you know, and I could only do that by persuading good civil servants and my fellow Ministers, including those of the Treasury that, that was the right thing to do. You can get things done.
Emily Nicholson
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Good, well maybe we’ll have Rory back to see…
Penny Mordaunt
Yeah.
Emily Nicholson
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
…compare notes.
Jan, Mishcon de Reya
We have another question on line. Adele Hodgson wants to know how do you think the Conservative Party can revive its position of the opposition.
Penny Mordaunt
So, I think that for some time the public will not want to hear from us um, we, we failed them um, I mean I said this on my, on my election night speech you know, you can’t talk about the future and possibilities and give people hope if people are frightened and they were frightened. They were frightened about cost of living, they were frightened about accessing healthcare er and that fear what it does is steal the future. So you, we need to recognise that, we need to recognise the turmoil of five Prime Ministers in six years er, you know going back to what I said about stability, reliability, certainty. That runs through the core of our nation, it’s in everything that we do. If your Government is not behaving like that, good luck. So there will be a period where even if Kemi is knocking it out the park you know, the public won’t want to engage with us. What we have to do is really get back to the fundamentals of service, what we’re here to do. That requires us to listen, it requires us to really think deeply about not just how we tweak a service but how we really reform this so it’s meeting the, the expectations and hopes of, of the public and in this day and age that’s going to require us to focus on fewer things um, allow others to, to take over certain things and to really give some responsibility back to the public who will welcome that level of responsibility and we’ve got to give people fundamentally some, some pride in the capabilities of, of this nation. We, we have so much to offer I, I wrote a book in 2021 called ‘Greater’ and it looked at how we actually do as a nation. We, on every indices we interviewed through sort of play your cards right fashioned, a hundred movers and shakers around the world and it, it is all about the things that you know, were holding us back actually reaching our full potential. People want our country to do so well. They are proud of it but they kind of feel we let ourselves down at the um, you know at the final fence. Um, and we, and we just need to show people that we are capable as a nation. There were amazing people in this country doing incredible things, it’s all still possible but we have to put that programme together to give people the, the confidence in that. That’s a lot of work and it will take time. What I think is vital is that we give Kemi the time to do that and if there’s another leadership contest or agitation to have one, we will be demonstrating solely that we have learnt nothing whatsoever from the last few years.
Emily Nicholson
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
And is she um, because I mean given this recent poll, given the knocking the Conservatives got and their council elections. Is she going to be given that time because there’s already murmurings and the Conservatives are…
Penny Mordaunt
I, I think, I think she will.
Emily Nicholson
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
…cut throat with their…
Penny Mordaunt
I think she will but if, if there is that then we, we will show that we have learnt nothing and we’ll be in a worse situation you know, I think her instincts are right, she understands the, the volume of work that’s required to do this. She understands what good look should look like and er, we just need to give her the time um, and the resource and the support to er, to do it. It’s a team effort, it’s not just all about her, it’s about the Parliamentary Party but also er, you know our, our citizens and our supporters round the country um, but that’s what we’ve got to do.
Emily Nicholson
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
And is that why um, you think the recent poll has got the Conservatives in fourth? Is it a reflection of the country still not wanting to see or hear from the Conservatives.
Penny Mordaunt
I think, I think that is, that is the case um I think it is going to take time er to earn the right to be heard.
Jan, Mishcon de Reya
We’ve got time for one more question, is there anyone in the room that has a question?
Audience
Hi, with the benefit of hindsight, do you think Brexit was a good idea?
Penny Mordaunt
I’m afraid I do. Um, but only if we stay the course. The, there were lots of reasons why people voted the way they did um, the, the budget having to be a so called rule taker you know, many, many reasons but fundamentally it was about leaving er the, the orbit of er, er an institution that approached regulation in a particular way and those, those are the choices now. This is, sometimes this is framed in the media as you have to choose between Europe or the US you know, blocks of nations. That’s not what this is about. It’s an approach to how we regulate which doesn’t sound very interesting or you know, dynamic. That is what it is about. So um, I was, I was always persuaded that actually that was, that was the optimum that we would er, that the EU would put in place frictions on trade for example or cut off access to particular things to protect the integrity and the benefits of being part of the Union but that would change over time and then we would be in a position to be able to have deeper trading relationships with other parts of the world. The worst place to be is if you are having chosen to be outside of that system of regulation, you don’t make use of it and you, you start to eat away at the opportunities that you have so that you end up being hoovered back into that regulatory orbit. Um, the, the sweet spot for us is if we manage to get a federal deal with the US and we continue our state level economic agreements with the US which is where all the regulation lies, massive opportunities for legal services for example. Um and we retain an independent trade policy and regulatory autonomy. What is happening now I’m afraid is the worst of all possible worlds because you, you have not got the benefits of membership and you don’t, we, we’re losing the benefits which I think outweigh the benefits of, of membership of being outside that regulatory block so some of the legislation that was passed in the last Parliament that, that open up those opportunities for us now are not going to be possible because we’re starting to um, we’re starting to commit to following particular regulations in the, in the EU. That’s, that’s kind of like the worst of all possible worlds. Pick, pick a trajectory and stick with it whichever one that is um. None of this is um, you know, it’s reversible but I just think that’s a, that’s a waste of time and er I had always hoped that we, we would be able to kind of set out a vision on things like trade which has massive possibilities to alleviate poverty all over the world that we could be an absolute leading light in, in forums like the, the WTA for, for doing that um and I’ve never bought the argument that defence or security cooperation is only a good thing if it comes with more fish. It’s a crazy position. So I am a bit disappointed about our current um, Government’s plans for that um but er, we’ll see, we’ll see where we are. But our business community is amazing and um, they’ll get through it.
Audience
I hope so.
Penny Mordaunt
Yeah.
Emily Nicholson
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Great well, Penny thank you so much this has been absolutely fascinating to hear from you and thank you all for coming and for listening online.
[Applause]