House of Lords Podcast: Lord Speaker's Corner

The tables are turned as outgoing Lord Speaker Lord McFall of Alcluith is the guest on his own podcast.

As Lord McFall of Alcluith prepares to step down after nearly five years as Lord Speaker, he speaks to fellow Scottish peer and broadcaster Baroness (Ayesha) Hazarika.

This episode looks back at Lord McFall’s extraordinary personal journey into politics, and his nearly 40 years at Westminster as an MP, minister and peer, culminating in his election as the fourth Lord Speaker.

Lord McFall shares his views on populism in politics, as well as on the crucial role of the House of Lords in enhancing legislation through scrutiny and debate and holding government to account.

Lord McFall says it is strange to be on the other side of the microphone as he reflects on a childhood shaped by his working-class upbringing in Dumbarton, leaving school at 15 with no formal qualifications, and a family that valued community over status.

“It was pretty negative when I was 15 or 16, not knowing where I was going and as you rightly say, the first job was in the parks department, weeding,” he tells Baroness Hazarika. “I never thought I would become an MP.”

He recalls, as chairman of the powerful Commons Treasury Select Committee for nine years, calling financiers to account for the global banking and financial crisis of 2008; as a new Northern Ireland Minister just two days into the role, experiencing at first-hand the impact of the Omagh bomb atrocity which killed 29 people and unborn twins; and his firm belief that the House of Lords serves and assists democracy and is critical to making “good law”.

Listen now to find out more.

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Michael Gove, Lord Gove, is the latest guest on Lord Speaker’s Corner as he discusses the fragmentation of British politics, breaking up the Treasury, Brexit and The Celebrity Traitors.

Lord Gove speaks to Lord McFall of Alcluith about why two-party politics no longer works, suggesting “We have to ask ourselves ‘why has this happened?’, and not ‘how can we put Humpty Dumpty back together again?’”.

He also suggests breaking up the Treasury, proposing “The argument … has a great deal of merit. You'd have spending control in the Cabinet Office … and an Economics Ministry dedicated to making sure government policy was oriented towards growth, innovation.”

In this wide-ranging interview, Lord Gove also discusses fallings out with Conservative Prime Ministers, the benefits of Brexit, why he doesn’t believe in referendums and that fewer people should be going to prison.

Finally, on whether he would accept a role in a political version of The Celebrity Traitors, he tells Lord McFall that “I’d like Claudia Winkleman’s role”.

Listen now to find out more.

See more from the series https://www.parliament.uk/business/lords/house-of-lords-podcast/
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Defence, security, Russia and China are on the agenda in the latest Lord Speaker’s Corner. Former Nato Secretary General, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, and former First Sea Lord, Lord West of Spithead, speak to Lord McFall of Alcluith.

In this episode, Lord Robertson, who was also Defence Secretary from 1997 to 1999, warns that the UK is “under-prepared and under attack”. He also discusses Russian-organised sabotage in Europe, explaining “They can’t do it themselves. So they are now contracting out, a good capitalist principle, to organised crime. Our undersea cables, which carry 99% of all the data we use, are vulnerable and they're watching them and, in some cases, attacking them.”

Lord West, the UK’s first Security Minister from 2007 to 2010, reflects on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying “It’s quite difficult to see how one’s going to get out of this [conflict] because one doesn’t want a full war between Nato and Russia. They [Russia] would lose it. And the danger with them losing it is – would they then make that stupid mistake of going nuclear?”

Both also share their thoughts and experience of dealing with China. Lord West discusses his experience commanding a battle group as he dealt with a challenging Chinese navy during the handover of Hong Kong: “out at sea it was very different from the pictures coming from Hong Kong. The Chinese Navy were trying to ram our ships. They were opening missile doors.”

Lord Robertson suggests a careful approach, saying “We've got to engage with China, but recognise that it is going to be the future challenge - militarily, commercially and diplomatically - and therefore be very, very cautious about what we do... I think it's probably better to call the Chinese a problem rather than a threat at the present moment.”

Lord West also discusses his experience in the nuclear chain of command on 9/11, sharing “I remember getting a phone call from our nuclear firing cell, the guys who finally - when all the codes go - press the buttons, and they said, unbelievably, on my red phone [linking to the UK deterrent]: ‘Sir... the Americans are starting to move to immediate readiness for nuclear weapon release in all three systems.’ That’s strategic air, intercontinental ballistic missiles and subsurface ...’What do you want me to do?’”

See more from the series https://www.parliament.uk/business/lords/house-of-lords-podcast/


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Former head of MI5 Baroness Manningham-Buller joins Lord Speaker’s Corner to discuss the relationship between MI5 and MI6, reading upside down, meeting Vladimir Putin and whether Russia is at war with the West.

Eliza Manningham-Buller, Baroness Manningham-Buller, served in MI5 for 34 years, becoming Director General in 2002 before retiring in 2007. She spoke to Lord McFall of Alcluith on 22 July 2025 about her career, including how she joined MI5, her family connection with espionage and leading the Service in the aftermath of the July 7 bombings:
“I had learnt something from the military called ‘battle rhythm’, and I expected us to be flat out for some time on this, our role being to help the police in understanding this crime, this atrocity, this horror, and therefore I wanted people to come into work fresh.”

She also dispels a common misconception of the relationship between MI5 and MI6:
“The ‘Le Carré' view that the two organisations are constantly at each other's throats is entirely fictional. We both help each other, as we do with GCHQ. It's a close-knit community. The other very important partner for MI5 is the police.”

Baroness Manningham-Buller later explains she thinks it might be right to agree with foreign policy expert Dr Fiona Hill’s assertion that Russia is already at war with the UK and the West:
“Since the invasion of Ukraine, and the various things I read that the Russians have been doing here, sabotage, intelligence collection, attacking people, and so on… Fiona Hill may be right in saying we're already at war with Russia. It's a different sort of war, but the hostility, the cyber-attacks, the physical attacks, intelligence work is extensive.”

She also shares her experience of meeting the Russian President 20 years ago following the G8 meeting in Gleneagles:
“We all hoped that the past history of Russia wouldn't prevail, and, at the end of the Soviet Union, we would have a potential partner, and that was one of the reasons why Putin was with us for the G8 in 2005… I met him when he came back to London. But actually we were wrong in that, because Russia is extremely hostile to the West and we've seen it in all sorts of ways… I didn't anticipate that within a year, he'd be ordering the murder on London streets of [Russian dissident Alexander] Litvinenko.”

Listen to the full episode to find out more.

See more from the series https://www.parliament.uk/business/lords/house-of-lords-podcast/
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Entrepreneur Martha Lane Fox, Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho, is the latest guest on Lord Speaker’s Corner as she sounds the alarm over the deepening gender divide in tech.

Martha Lane Fox is Chancellor of The Open University, and President of the British Chambers of Commerce. In 1998 she co-founded Europe’s largest travel and leisure website, lastminute.com. From 2009-2013, she helped create the Government Digital Service and, in 2013, she joined the House of Lords as a Crossbench member.

Baroness Lane-Fox is a long-time advocate for women in technology, telling the Lord Speaker she had “seen no change in the relationship between the sector and women, or in numbers of women” in over 30 years.

She also gives a stark warning about entrenched sexism in the global tech sector, recounting how a CEO of a large company told her directly “We’re done with women” at a prominent US business event earlier this year.

Baroness Lane-Fox discusses the challenges of investment in the UK, explaining “we have a default in this country … (of) seeing the barriers to things as opposed to the opportunities.”

She also shares her opinion that the UK has an issue with scaling businesses, stating “We have the top three universities out of the top 10 in the world. We have amazing scientists, we have incredible inventors. But what we have is a stunning scaling gap, and experience gap … Only 10% of UK businesses even trade internationally. We are not very good at becoming big global businesses. So we need to keep having a push at the risk culture.”

Finally, Baroness Lane-Fox shares her take on regulating tech, smartphones for young people and even what her go-to karaoke song is. Find out more by watching or listening now.

See more from the series https://www.parliament.uk/business/lords/house-of-lords-podcast/
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