The History of Parliament is a registered charity and we are governed by a board of trustees who delegate the day-to-day responsibility of running the trust to the Director and senior management team.
Our Board
The board of trustees are normally, but not necessarily, members of either House of Parliament, and appointments are appointed by a majority of Trustees. The Chairman of Committees in the House of Lords, the Chairman of Ways and Means in the House of Commons, the Clerk of the Parliaments in the House of Lords) and the Clerk Assistant of the House of Commons, all serve ex officio. The Secretary to the Trustees is appointed from the Clerk’s department of the House of Commons.
Our current board members are:
Philip Norton, Baron Norton of Louth, is Chairman of the Trust, a position he has held since 2020. Lord Norton is one of the country’s leading political experts, whose interests range across British parliamentary and constitutional history. He is professor of Government at the University of Hull, and Director for the Centre of Legislative Studies. He has authored and edited over 30 books.
Dame Clare Morarity is the Trust’s treasurer and chairs the finance committee. She is CEO of Citizens Advice, and was formerly a civil servant, who served as permanent secretary of the Department for Exiting the European Union and the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. She has a longstanding interest in diversity, organisational culture, and leadership.
Nus Ghani is Chairman of Ways and Means and sits on the board as an ex-officio Trustee. Nus has been a Conservative MP since 2015, and has served as Minister for various Government departments, including as Minister of State for Europe and Minister of State for Industry and Economic Security. In 2024, she was appointed Senior Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons. Nus was the first female MP to represent the constituency of Weald, the first female Muslim to speak from the dispatch box, and is the first ethnic minority to serve as Chairman of Ways and Means.
Lord Lexden was appointed a Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords in 2017 and is an ex-offico Trustee. Lord Lexden studied history at Cambridge and Edinburgh, and worked as an academic historian at Queen’s University, Belfast. He is the official historian of the Conservative party and has published numerous books and articles on a wide range of political history. He is an advocate of the importance of historical education in secondary schools and higher education. He is a regular contributor across print media, and is a book reviewer for Parliament’s House Magazine.
Sarah Davies is an ex-offico Trustee. In 2019, she was appointed as Clerk Assistant and is currently managing director of the Chamber and Participation Team. She is the first woman to be appointed as permanent Clerk Assistant. Sarah has worked in the House Service since 1993 and is a serving Table Clerk. She has worked in all three procedural offices – as Clerk of Private Members’ Bills, Clerk of Bill Programming, and as Deputy Head of the Table Office.
Patrick Vollmer is an ex-offico Trustee. In 2015, he was appointed Director of Library Services and Librarian in the House of Lords. He studied law, and holds a LLB and LLM. Prior to joining Parliament, he worked in legal publishing. He is a committee member for the European Centre for Parliamentary Research and Documentation. His professional interests include organisational culture, innovation and publishing.
David Clark, Baron Clark of Windermere, is a Labour Party politician, who was created a life peer in 2001. He served as MP for Colne Valley between 1970 and 1974, and MP for South Shields between 1979 and 2001. For fourteen years, he was elected to the Shadow Cabinet while the Labour Party was in opposition, and served as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in Tony Blair’s 1997 Government, masterminding the Freedom of Information Act. He is a visiting professor at the University of Huddersfield and Director of Carlisle Football Club.
Gordon Marsden served as Chair of the Trust between 2016 and 2020. He was Labour MP for Blackpool South from 1997-2019, and served as shadow Minister for Higher, Further Education and Skills, 2015-2019. Gordon read History at New College, Oxford (1st class Honours) and did postgraduate study at the Warburg Institute and as a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard. Prior to entering Parliament, he was Public Affairs Adviser to English Heritage and Editor of History Today for 12 years. He was also an Associate Lecturer at the Open University for 19 years, and holds an Honorary Doctorate awarded by the Open University.
Pam Cox was elected as the Labour MP for Colchester in 2024, and is the first woman to win that seat. Prior to her election, she was Professor of Social History and Sociology at the University of Essex, and has published on the topics of justice, welfare, gender and work. In that capacity, she was a policy consultant, working with government, local authority and voluntary sector organisations. Her research has regularly featured in the media, and she has presented television documentary series on the histories of shopworkers and servants. Pam is an elected member of the Justice Select Committee and of the executive committee of the British Group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
Mark D’Arcy joined the board of Trustees in 2024. Mark has spent over twenty years reporting on Parliament, mainly for the BBC. He was the BBC Parliament Correspondent for many years, and hosted Today in Parliament between 2002 and 2023. He has a long-standing interest in parliamentary and political history, and he co-presents the Parliament Matters podcast produced by the Hansard Society.
Dianne Hayter, Baroness Hayter, is a Labour Party politician, who was created a life peer in 2010. She served as shadow Deputy Leader of the Lords between 2017 and 2021. Prior to entering the Lords, Dianne had an extensive career as a senior leader, including serving as General Secretary for the Fabian Society between 1976 and 1982, and as Chief Executive for the European Parliamentary Labour Party between 1990 and 1996. She completed doctoral study at the University of London, and has published extensively on the history of the Labour Party.
Wendy Chamberlain joined the board of Trustees in 2025. She has been the MP for North East Fife since her election in 2019. After serving for twelve years as a police officer, Wendy went on to work in military resettlement, further education and latterly for a global drinks manufacturer. Wendy is the Chief Whip for the Liberal Democrats and is the first woman to hold that position. She has been the deputy leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats since 2021.
Chris Evans joined the board of Trustees in 2026. He has been the Labour MP for Caerphilly since 2024 and was MP for Islwyn between 2010 and 2024. Before being elected to Parliament, he worked as a bookmaker, in a bank, and as a trade union official. He then went on to work a parliamentary researcher to Don Touhig, the then-Islwyn MP. In opposition he served as Shadow Minister for defence procurement, social security, and digital economy and technology. He is also Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Groups on Archives and History, Writers, and Customer Service. Chris has written 3 books, including biographies on Freddie Mills and Don Revie, as well as his latest book ‘Football Battalions – the elite footballers who fought in the Great War’, which won a Westminster Book Award
Dr Adam Evans is the Trust’s Secretary. He is a Clerk in the House of Commons, and has previously published on aspects of British constitutional history – principally on devolution.
Our Governance
The History of Parliament was established by a declaration of Trust made in 1940 . The Trust operates under this document, subject to subsequent variations in March 1956, January 1967, October 1971, July 1996 and July 2023. The History of Parliament is a registered charity (registration number 1202089). Since 1951 it has received public funding, originally from the Treasury. It is now funded principally through two sets of Grant-in-Aid provided by the House of Commons and the House of Lords, currently in the proportion 67:33. The Grant-in-Aid is provided subject to the approval of the House of Commons Commission (for the Commons) and the House of Lords House Committee (for the Lords). A Financial Memorandum, agreed in 1995 and regularly updated, governs the financial and administrative arrangements for the activities of the Trust and its relationship with the House of Commons Commission, and accountability for the Grant-in-Aid.
The Trustees normally meet at least four times a year to receive reports from the Treasurer and Secretary, to review the activities of the Editorial Board (see below) and the Trust, to fulfil their obligations in connection with applications for grant-in-aid and to agree a report to the Commission.
Our Editorial Board
Our Editorial Board is appointed by the Trustees, who advise them and the Director on the academic quality, policy and practice of the Trust’s work. The Editorial Board is responsible for ensuring the intellectual rigour and scholarly standards of the Trust’s research. The board is chaired by Professor Jane Winters, School of Advance Study, University of London.
Its current membership is:
Dr Paul Cavill, University of Cambridge
Professor Kenneth Fincham, University of Kent
Dr Perry Gauci, Lincoln College, Oxford
Professor Helen Parr, University of Keele
Professor Gordon Pentland, Monash University, Australia
Professor Laura Stewart, University of York
Emmajane Avery, The National Archives
The History is a research partner of the Institute of Historical Research (www.history.ac.uk) and the School of Advanced Study (www.sas.ac.uk), University of London.