The Budget: is the democratic deficit as bad as the financial deficit?

It’s Budget week and the Chancellor has announced his plans for taxation and provided a fresh economic forecast. But how does Parliament get to grips – indeed does it get to grips - with the nation’s finances? We talk to Baroness Morgan of Cotes, a Conservative Peer who has been both a Treasury Minister and a scrutineer on the Treasury Committee. Henry Midgley of Durham University – who has worked at both the House of Commons and the National Audit Office – also joins us to discuss how MPs could improve scrutiny of taxation and public spending.

There have been more dreadful polls for the Conservatives, some of them projecting a catastrophic result for the party. So, what would the House of Commons look like if the Conservatives got just 20% of the vote at the next general election? Mark and Ruth have some fun speculating on the implications of a lopsided House of Commons in which the opposition parties muster barely 100 seats between them.

Paul Scully MP has joined the band of senior Conservative MPs planning to leave at the election. He directed some choice words about the future of his party towards his colleagues and reflected on the brutality of politics and the toll it takes on politicians and their families.

The Government lost 10 votes on amendments to the Rwanda Bill at Report Stage in the House of Lords this week. What does the scale of the votes tell us about the future of this Bill? And why are Labour’s tactics on the Bill now in the spotlight?

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Producer: Richard Townsend

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