Hello and welcome to The Rundown, a podcast from Politics Home.

I'm Alan Tollust, and this week we've got something a little different for you.

On Monday, Paul Home and our colleagues at the House magazine hosted a special event in the House of Lords,

looking at the role of standards in Parliament, the Civil Service and Public Life. The discussion featured three of the ethics regulators

who are key arbiters on standards. Baroness Giesler-Steuart, the First Civil Service Commissioner,

Daniel Greenberg, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, and Doug Chalmers, recently appointed

chair of the Committee on Standards of Public Life.

So what you're about to hear are the best bits from that talk, moderated by me,

looking at four key areas, trust in public officials,

a balance around punishing those who fall short, the challenges around enforcement,

and also how to drive public engagement in upholding those standards.

The first area for discussion is looking at the state of trust between the public and the political class, which is at all-time low, ahead of an election that could be particularly fraught.

The issue of standards has never been more important.

So how much of the distrust has been driven by a historical lack of standards, or does

making the enforcement of standards more transparent engage the standards, or does making the enforcement standards

more transparent engage the public, or could it risk turning them further away? So over to you, Giesler.

I might start, and if I may, in the first bit. I think, and thank you very much for the introduction.

Thank you for setting us up on this sort of conversation. I think the heart of this whole conversation this evening is about how to help people do the

right thing for the people that they serve.

So on behalf of public interest, but also on the flip side, and your first question talks

that is how those being served gain in trust that those who are put in that position are

doing so on their sort of behalf. Now in this country, you touched on the principles earlier on,

...