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 by the International Parliament Engagement Network (IPEN) has been cited in the committee’s report, published at the end of 2025.

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.

Professor Cristina Leston-Bandeira

The Modernisation Committee inquiry

Access to the House of Commons and its Procedures 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 cross-party committee of MPs was set up in 2024 to consider reforms to House of Commons procedures, standards and working practices. The committee gathered views from the wider parliamentary community and external stakeholders.

IPEN members were invited to contribute views to shape IPEN’s submission of written evidence to the Committee, through a call in its November 2024 newsletter.

The 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).

IPEN’s evidence provided in 2025 focused on public engagement and drew on our members’ extensive knowledge and experience of what makes public engagement work.

Further to this, Professor Leston-Bandeira also submitted written evidence on an individual basis and was invited to give oral evidence in June 2025, which was followed by supplementary written evidence. This evidence focused on 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 Thursday 11 December 2025.

The report 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.