Roskill Lecture 2024: Harriet Harman on 'The Changing Culture in British Politics’

The 2024 Roskill Lecture, titled 'The Changing Culture in British Politics’, will delivered by Harriet Harman.

Over the four decades that Harriet Harman has been in Westminster there have been hugely significant and important changes, but there remains a need to modernise the House.

In this twentieth Roskill Memorial lecture, the Mother of the House will set out the agenda for the new government for modernising Parliament.

The Roskill lecture will take place in the Wolfson Lecture Theatre at 5:30pm and will be followed by a drinks reception. The event is free and open to all.  

Harriet Harman KC MP is Mother of the House of Commons, the UK’s longest serving woman MP. She has represented the diverse inner-city constituency of Camberwell and Peckham since 1982.

Joining a House of Commons which was 97 per cent male, she had three children while in Parliament and has been politics’ most prominent champion for women’s rights.

Harriet was the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 2007-2015 and was the Shadow Deputy Prime Minister in 2010-2015. She has twice served as Interim Leader of the Labour Party in 2010 and 2015. She was the first woman Labour politician to answer Prime Minister’s Questions.

In 2023 Harriet chaired the House of Commons Privileges Committee inquiry which found that the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson misled Parliament.

Harriet is currently Chair of Parliament’s Committee on Standards and Chair of The Fawcett Society, the UK’s leading charity campaigning for women’s rights.

Image ©UK Parliament, Jessica Taylor