Professor Leston-Bandeira and IPEN cited in UK Parliament’s Modernisation Committee report
Written evidence submitted to the Modernisation Committee of the UK House of Commons by Professor Leston-Bandeira and the IPEN has been cited in the committee’s report, published at the end of 2025.
The Modernisation Committee inquiry
The Modernisation Committee is a cross-party committee of MPs set up in 2024 that considers reforms to House of Commons procedures, standards, and working practices. Their recent report follows a significant inquiry into access to the House of Commons and makes a series of recommendations calling for improvements to the institution’s physical environment, procedures, practices, and communications.
The International Parliament Engagement Network (IPEN) invited its members to contribute their views to help shape the IPEN’s submission of written evidence provided to the Committee in 2025.
This submission was collated on behalf of members by IPEN’s Chair and Deputy Chairs: Professor Cristina Leston-Bandeira (University of Leeds), Dr Elise Uberoi (UK House of Commons Library) and Dr Sarah Moulds (Adelaide University). It focused on public engagement and drew on IPEN members’ extensive knowledge and experience of what makes public engagement work.
Alongside this, Professor Leston-Bandeira also submitted individual written evidence and was invited to give oral evidence to the Committee in June 2025, later providing supplementary written contributions. Her evidence emphasised the need for Parliament to strengthen its engagement approach and to be more pro-active in engaging seldom-heard groups of people.
Evidence cited in the report
The Modernisation Committee’s report Access to the House of Commons and its Procedures was published on 11 December 2025, and cites how IPEN sets out the value of public engagement:
Better public engagement can help to build people’s trust in their representatives, and can contribute to better scrutiny. This can in turn improve legislative standards and avoid costly unintended consequences that can flow from enacting legislation that has not been carefully considered from a range of different perspectives.
Professor Leston Bandeira is cited as arguing that “Parliament communicates well within the Westminster bubble, it needs to better communicate beyond this bubble”. The report continues:
She suggests that the House of Commons should focus on making the public feel like the work it does is important and relates to their own lives, and that it should increase efforts to engage with groups who are less likely to proactively get involved.
The Committee report concludes with a number of recommendations, including around communication and parliamentary engagement, and recognises ‘the potential of engaging with groups which are less well represented in Parliamentary engagement’, in line with Professor Leston-Bandeira’s research on breaking barriers to engagement with parliaments.
The International Parliament Engagement Network (IPEN) was co-founded by Professor Cristina Leston-Bandeira in 2020 in partnership with the UK House of Commons service. It is an international network that brings together over 400 members from around the world for knowledge exchange on parliament and public engagement. Its members are parliamentary officials, academics or civil society representatives, who have an interest in parliament and public engagement.
