Public Law students visit to Parliament and the Supreme Court

Public Law students outside Parliament.

On Monday 27 March, Law lecturers Sara Birch and Lucy Jones travelled to London with 18 of their first-year Public Law students to visit Parliament and the Supreme Court.

We had been invited to go on guided tours of the House of Commons and the House of Lords by Lord Bassam (a Brighton resident) who is currently the Deputy Speaker in the House of Lords. Lord Bassam also holds the positions of Shadow Chief Whip and Deputy Chairman of Committees and addition to personally showing us around the House of Lords, he also answered our many questions in a private meeting in one of the Committee rooms. It was a wonderful opportunity for the students to see and hear about the workings or Parliament first-hand and to be able to question Lord Bassam personally on past and current issues of parliamentary debate – such as, for example, whether the House of Lords should be reformed.

In the afternoon we took part in a tour of the Supreme Court. Led by an expert guide, we viewed the various court rooms and heard about recent high-profile cases that had been heard at the Supreme Court including the case of R (on the application of Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. We also had the opportunity to sit in on the court proceedings taking place on the day and to see the Justices of the Supreme Court carrying out their work.

Sara Birch, Lecturer in Law: “We are very grateful to Lord Bassam and his staff members for their hospitality and engagement with us and we hope to repeat the tour at least once for law students at the university in the next academic year.”