Political party conference roundup

With political party season over, here’s what we got up to…

The IET attended three political party conferences this autumn – Labour in Liverpool, Liberal Democrats in Brighton, and Conservative in Birmingham.

With so many new MPs since last year, our activity focused on meeting with as many as possible to set out how we can provide independent, evidence-led guidance to support their work scrutinising and developing policy. It also allowed us to get a sense of the values and direction that the parties will be offering over the coming parliament. 

We held productive meetings with Ministers, Shadow Secretaries of State and a wide range of backbench MPs, including Chairs of Select Committees and members of influential backbench All Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs).

Attending panel discussions and other events also gave us a great chance to hear from a range of Ministers, Shadow Ministers and influential industry voices across a range of policy areas. These discussions provide great insight and an opportunity to join the conversation on the key issues and debates that will shape the next parliament.  

Impact and follow-up

These conferences were a vital opportunity to engage with the conversations happening around the future direction of all parties, providing valuable insights into how and who we should engage with to support good scrutiny of government policy and promote the campaigns and issues we care about – from education reform to technology regulation. 

There is now a big task ahead of following up the exciting conversations with detailed plans and action. This will involve engaging parliamentarians across a range of IET ‘products’ – from delivering our policy expertise to influence policy-making and support our campaigns to securing engagement with our schools’ programmes and diversity initiatives – we’ve promised to extend invitations to MPs’ local FIRST LEGO League events, our Young Woman Engineer of the Year Awards and make introductions to our experts on specific policy areas. 

By having a presence at the conferences, we have made sure that parliamentarians recognise us as both a provider of independent, expert evidence to inform policy-making and an active partner to the government in harnessing the potential of the engineering and technology sector to achieve its missions.