the House of Commons understanding

Unit 2.2.2

In the 2019 General Election the House of Commons comprised 650 MPs. Each MP represents a constituency. The number of MPs in the commons does change, depending on …

the different boundaries. The number of MPs in the commons is determined by the Boundary Commission, on the request of Parliament

Sinn Fein are an abstentionist party. This means they don’t take their seats in the House Commons. This, and the position of speaker and deputy speakers who don’t vote in divisions, mean that there is a difference between a simple majority and a working majority. As there are 650 seats in Parliament …

a party needs to win over 326 seats for a simple majority. However, as the speakers and three deputies don’t vote alongside Sinn Fein, this impacts the majority needed to win a division. This means that in the 2019 elections, and likely in the next election, the government needs only 320 MPs for a working majority.

The size of the majority won during a General Election are not guaranteed throughout a parliament.

The resignation, death or removal of an MP through the withdrawal of the whip can significantly reduce a majority. For example, since the 2019 GE the conservative majority of 80 has been reduced because They lost the seat of North Shropshire to the Lib Dems in a by-election Christian Wakeford crossed the floor to join Labour and Rob Roberts had the whip withdrawn due to misconduct.

One long-standing criticism of the House of Commons is that it does not adequately represent the make-up of Britain as a whole. This criticism remains in place, however, it does appear to be improving …

The 2019 election marked the first time a major party had had more female than male MPs as the Labour Party had 51% female MPs. Arguments do exist on both sides as to whether or not the descriptive representation of the commons matters:

in 2024, women have made up 33.8% of the commons, and 9.6% of the commons have been from ethnic minorities, 54% from comprehensive schools, 7% LGBT and 0.76% diabled. since 2017 …

the number of women in the commons has increased 5.76%, for ethnic minorities 25%, however has decreased 37.5% for disabled MPs

a representative commons matters because it will be better able to empathise with the issues facing the electorate and specific communtiies. it may give minorities more faith in parliament and critically …

It is dangerous for democracy if parliament is dominated by a certain demographic. If certain groups are excluded, they feel cut off from the political process. When certain groups are excluded there are fewer discussions around the issues that affect them. 

It can be argued that representation in the commons matter as some constituents will always be represented by people who are unlike them. This doesn’t mean that their MPs cannot empathise, but good MPs should be able to represent their constituents all of the time, regardless of their ethnicity, religion or gender.

Women and other social groups are not homogenous. Citing that there are too few women in Parliament, for example, is vague and potentially insulting. Women represent extremely diverse views and it is impossible to group them simply as a minority.  It would be unfair to positively discriminate in favour of minorities, which would inevitably mean that high quality candidates are overlooked because they are in the majority.

MPs have no set job description. The job is what they choose to make of it. However, there are four key roles that you may expect an MP to fulfil:

representing their constituents, supporting their party, scrutinising or playing a role in government and creating and debating laws

MPs are paid £81,932 a year. They also receive an allowance to cover the expenses of running an office. They also receive expenses to account for the fact that in their job they must be in two places at different times. A guardian survey in 2013 found that …

MPs worked an average of 69 hours a week. This compared to 57.3 hours for a secondary school headteacher.

there are 4 different types of MPs …

the speaker (of which there are 4, 3 deputy speakers and a speaker of the house), government minsiters, her majesty’s loyal opposition members and backbenchers

The speaker gives up his party status when he becomes speaker. The same is also expected of the deputy speakers. Speaker of the house of commons - Lindsay Hoyle-  was formerly Labour and deputy speakers Eleanor Laing and Nigel Evans abandoned their Conservative position. this is because of …

The Denison rule. One of the potential jobs of the speaker is to settle a tied vote in the house of commons. As a result of his stance of impartiality within the house, if a vote is tied the speaker will always vote as far as possible in line with the status quo. the speaker would vote against a vote of no confidence in the government. The last time that the speaker voted in a division was in April 2019 when a vote on Brexit timetabling motion was tied by 310 to 310

The speaker of the house of commons is the presiding officer of the commons. They decide who speaks in debates and are in charge of maintaining order in the house of commons. The speaker is also responsible for …

the administration of the house of commons. For example, the speaker can recall the house of commons during a national emergency. This last happened in August 2021 to discuss the situation in afghanistan.

The speaker also continues to sit as an MP and continues to represent his own constituents. However, they give up their party status when they are chosen to be the speaker. The speaker is chosen by their fellow MPs. When the speaker is chosen …

they are ceremoniously dragged to the speakers’ chair by another MP - symbolic of the fact that they didn’t want the role but we're willing to serve the house. 

Members of Parliament may also be part of the government. As such, because of the Fusion of Powers, they continue to sit in the HoC. The government currently has 116 ministers, 82% of whom are in the commons.

The fact that government ministers also sit in the Commons and can vote in divisions lead to what is known as the Payroll vote. As a result of the convention of collective responsibility, ministers are expected to vote with the government. This means there are a number of votes that the government can almost always rely on in any division.

The opposition is made up of the Shadow Cabinet of the party that won the second most seats in the general election. Leading up to the 2024 eleection…

Keir Starmer had 32 individuals in his shadow cabinet

MPs without another ‘official’ role are backbenchers. They are called this because …

they hold no role in the government or the opposition or the administration in the house of commons. They traditionally sit further back in the house of commons, hence their name. They may also have positions on select committees.

 MPs almost always rely heavily on their political party to get elected to Parliament. MPS are thus largely beholden to their party for their position. In return for their help in getting elected, political parties expect loyalty in return. MPs are expected to …

“toe the party line” and vote in the way their party leader insists. If MPs don’t do this they may have the party whip withdrawn, meaning they no longer sit as an MP for their political party. They may also be deselected, meaning they cannot represent the party at the next general election

Examples of independent MPs include Peter Law, elected in 2005, who had been a labour party member but resigned in protest of the introduction of all-women shortlists. his victory was remarkable for an indpendent, with an over 9000 vote majority. However, examples of MPs from Minor parties include …

George Galloway, elected as the Respect Party, candidate for Bradford West in a 2012 by-election and Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless for UKIP in 2015

In 2019 Boris Johnson removed the whip from 21 of his MPs after they voted with the Labour party to take control of the parliamentary agenda over Brexit. Those removed included …

former chancellor  philip hammond, party Grandee Ken Clarke and the grandson of churchill, nicholas soames.

In January 2022, Anne Marie Morris had the whip withdrawn after being …

the only Conservative to vote for a Labour motion to cut VAT on energy bills.

In 2020, former labour leader jeremy corbyn had the whip  withdrawn by Keir Starmer after he said …

 that antisemitism in the labour party was not as bad as it had been portrayed and that its portrayal was part of a political attack. 

Examples of MP deselction includes Sam Tarry for Labour in 2022, Anne Machintosh for the Conservatives in 2014 after losing a vote of no confidence in her local party and …

Tim Yeo in 2014, also by his local constituency conservatives for not spending enough time focusing on constituency issues.

MPs generally rarely rebel against their own party because…

The whips have enormous power. If an MP wants to advance their career in Parliament, they will not want to upset the whips, MPs understand that party unity is very important. MPs know that rebelling can reduce the appearance of a unified party and in turn harm their own electoral prospects and MPs are likely to share the broad ideological position with their party and therefore willing to compromise on some of their own beliefs to stay loyal.

As of 1st May 2023, there are 319 MPs who have never rebelled since the December 2019 GE. However, it should be noted, this includes …

 government ministers and opposition ministers who are bound by the convention of collective responsibility. For example, Conservative MP Jerome Mayhew has never rebelled since 2019 and Labour MP Cat Smith has only rebelled twice since 2015. This siad, many backbench MPs rebel often such as David Davis, who has rebelled 66 of 531 times (12.4%) and Christopher Chope, who has rebelled in 8.9% of all divisions. 

In 2005 an amendment to New Labours Terrorism Bill planned to allow the police to detain terror suspects without charge for up to 90 days.

This was defeated by 322-291 after 49 Labour MPs rebelled. In 2012, an amendment that would call for a real terms cut in the EU budget was passed by 307 to 294 after 53 conservative MPs rebelled.

Sometimes an MP will abstain from a voter rather than rebel. As an abstaining MP, they will not show in either the Aye or Noe column. Abstaining can be seen as a soft rebelion, as while they don’t vote with their party, they don’t vote with the opposition either. However, voting against their party can be seen as a hard rebellion.

An MP will often abstain rather than vote against their party because they want to send a clear message to their party leaders without actually pushing the party towards a defeat.

Not all votes are whipped votes. Occasionally votes will be Free Votes. These are votes on which the whips agree not to tell their MPs how to vote. These votes are rare and are usually on issues that might be considered to be moral rather than political judgements. Examples of free votes in the commons are …

the 2015 assisted dying bill to legalise euthanasia in the UK under certain circumstances which was defeated by 330 to 118  and the 2013 same sex marriage bill, passed by 400 to 175.

MPs regularly hold constituency surgeries and attend constituency meetings about the issues that affecgt their constituents. MPs often deal with issues on behalf of their constituents, representing their interests to government departments. However, a golden rule is that MPs by convention, only deal with their own constituents. MPs also represent everyone in their constituency, regardless of …

the political allegiance of their constituencies. One of the problems with the Fusion of Powers is that Government ministers may not become effective constituency MPs. Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt, for example, are constituency MPs. As their government roles took all their time they leave most constituency matters to their constituency agent, meaning that not all citizens in the UK are receiving equal attention from an elected MP. Despite this, it’s very rare for a government minister to lose their seat at a GE. in the 1997 GE five conservative government ministers lost their seat, including Michael Poerillo, the secretary of state for defense.

John McDonell, the MP for Hayes and Harington has been a consistent critic of the proposed expansion of Heathrow Airport because of the negative implications it would have on his constituency. Prior to 2010, this put him in direct opposition to the policy of his own government. Ken Clarke voted against triggering Article 50 in 2017 as a result of the fact that his constituency, Rushcliffe, voted …

57.6% to remain, despite a whipped vote by the conservatives and the clear indication that he would be on the losing side.

Although MPs represent their individual constituents, they also work for the entire nation. They debate and vote on laws that might not significantly affect their constituents. MPs may also sit on or chair Select Committees.

There can be a conflict between the national interest and local interest. One of the things that MPs have to try to do is make a judgement in these circumstances

In June 2016 52% of voters chose to leave the EU, however it is estimated that 418 constituencies out of 650 had a majority in favour of remaining. This means when considering the Brexit result and triggering Article 50 many MPs …

 had to vote against the wishes of their constituents. But only 114 MPs voted against the article 50 bill.

MPs might have their own interests and preferences. They might also introduce their own attempts to change the law, called Private Member Bills. Sometimes, however, MPs can …

act on behalf of special interest groups. MPs are consistently lobbied by people who want their views represented in Parliament

In 2013 the Marriage Act was passed by Parliament by 359 to 154. This legalised gay marriage in the UK and gave it equal status under the law to heterosexual marriage

This bill was vigorously opposed by Sir Gerald Howarth, the then MP for Aldershot, who made clear that he was opposed to this bill on moral grounds.

The official opposition is an important part of the UK political process. The opposition has three main roles: 

scrutinising and opposing the government, supporting the government when necessary and providing an alternative.

As the name suggests, the key role of the opposition is to oppose the government. ways it might do this include …

voting against government proposals, putting amendments on government legislation, putting questions to ministers at question time, submitting urgent questions and putting forwards its own legislation.

In 2019, Labour opposed restrictions on …

protesting in the Peace, Crime and Sentencing bill as well as changes in the Nationality and Borders Bill that puts greater restrictions on asylum seekers. 

The opposition is given a number of tools through which tos support its scrutinising function. These include:

salaried members, 17 days in each parliamentary session to use as they please, short money as funding, receiving £19,401 for every seat, £38.75 for every 200 votes in an election, £213,133 for travel expenses and an additional £903,907 for running their office. In total, for 2022-23, Labour received £6.9 million in short money, as the lords receive in cranborne money.

despite the main aim of the opposition being to oppose the government, there are times when it is expected to work with government, known as bipartisanship. for example …

in 2003, the iraq war resolution was passed by 412 to 149 in a bipartisan vote, in 2010 an agreement to loan £2.35 billion to ireland was supported by all but 2 Labour MPs and in 2022 during the russia ukraine crisis, Labour supported in full time sanctions taking place agains the putin regime.

current shadown ministers are …

Chris Philip as shadow home secretary, Priti Patel as shadow foreign secretary and Mel stride as shadow chancellor

the opposition is expected to provide an alternative to the government. the existence of the shadow government allows the electorate to consider the alternatives to the current government and …

consider what an alternative government may look.  In terms of policy, the differences normally become most stark during a general election campaign when the electorate are asked to make a clear judgement on the policies of the government and opposition.

 In recent general elections key differences have been that the Conservatives promised no rises in income tax, national insurance or VAT in 2019 whereas Labour promised …

a new 50% income tax rate on income over £125,000.

 in 2007 the Conservative party in opposition announced in their party conference that they were going to reform inheritance tax. At the Queen’s speech in 2007, Gordon Brown’s government announced the same plan. David Cameron asked Gordon Brown at the queen speech debate …

“can the PM look me in the eye and say that you were planning to reform inheritance tax before our party conference” and accused Labour of stealing the policy.

There are some clear strengths of the role of the Opposition in providing scrutiny, including the media presence of the opposition, particularly through their leader, allowing them to bring great attention to issues, such as …

There are some clear strengths of the role of the Opposition in providing scrutiny:

An effective shadown government can show itself to be a …

“government in waiting” - an example of this is blairs shadow cabinet between 1994 and 1997.

The opposition have often just lost an election and are disunited and trying to find their feet again. They can often be blamed for what went before as a deflection from scrutiny. A good example occurred with this and economic issues under Ed Milliband.

During the period of austerity between 2010 and 2015 Ed Miliband as leader of the opposition and Ed Balls as chancellor of the exchequer could not escape the line of attack that they were responsible for the financial mess the conservatives argued that they were left of. 

Opposition debates are often attended just by the party in opposition with the government just abstaining from any vote.

The last time a government lost a contested opposition day vote was in 2009 and before that it was 1978. 

A government with a large majority can largely ignore the opposition. When Blair had a majority of 179 in 1997 he faced William Hague as leader of the opposition. Hague was …

undoubtedly capable and a hugely impressive house of commons operator. However, the arithmetic of the house of commons severely limited the scrutiny he could offer. 

Political parties are an important part of the way that the House of Commons operates. In Britain, the nature of politics practiced is adversarial politics. This means that …

the government is directly opposed by the opposition. Whips are members of the political parties who are responsible for enforcing party discipline.

The importance of the government chief whip is perhaps shown by the house he is given …

Number 9 Downing Street

Examples of the use of ‘three line whips’ include in October 2011 a motion in the commons demanding for a referendum on UK membership of the EU. David Cameron ordered a three line whip for his MPs to oppose this motion. Despite this …

81 conservative MPs voted against the government - thereby ignoring David Cameron’s instructions. Similarly, in 2014 Ed Miliband ordered a three-line whip for his MP to recognise the statehood of Palestine.

The ultimate sanction by a political party towards an MP is to ‘have the whip withdrawn’. This means that the MP in question no longer sits in the House of Commons as a representative of the party in question.

In 1994, eight conservative MPs had the whip withdrawn by John Major’s chief whip for voting against the Maastricht treaty which saw the reformation of the EEC as the EU. In 2003, George Galloway had his whip withdrawn for his vehement criticism of the Labour Party’s position on Iraq.

Traditionally, backbench MPs have been considered quite weak in Parliament. There are a number of reasons for this …

demands of party loyalty and the threats of heavy whipping over divisions, the lack of free votes in the commons, the lack of time for backbench business (currently 35 days), the poor facilities and the time burden of committee membership

A survey by the Hansard society of the 227 new MPs after the 2010 election suggested they were working an average of 69 hours a week. A poll suggested they spent more time on their constituency business than any other matter and spent …

63% of their time in Westminster compared to 37% in their hope constituency. Parliament’s schedule each day runs to 10PM, which is particularly bad for family-life.

Despite the reliance they have on their parties, this also works two ways. Political Parties need their backbenchers onside to keep their majority or form an effective opposition to the Government. 

Powerful bodies within the political parties allows backbenchers to have an impact on their parties, such as the parliamentary labour party. Also, the backbench business committee was set up in june 2010 to coordinate backbenchers in organising debates in parliament one day a week, allowing more issues to be discussed.

he establishment of an elected backbench business committee in 2010 removed the scheduling of backbench business from government control. The Wright report also recommended the establishment of a house business committee, made up of the elected members of the backbench business committee together with …

frontbench representatives nominated by the party leaders, which would assume responsibility for the House’s weekly agenda. This has not yet been implemented. Despite this, the backbench committee has given backbench MPs much more significant control over what happens within the house of commons. 

Parliamentary privilege allows any member of Parliament, either from the Commons and the Lords, to speak freely whilst exercising their role within Parliament. This means that …

they cannot be sued for slander or libel and cannot be prosecuted for contempt of court breaching the Official Secrets Act.

Before the Glorious Revolution of 1688 the rights of Members of Parliament to exercise their role without fear of prosecution by the Crown were not clear. There were a number of famous occasions whereby the Crown tried to intimidate MPs. By far the most famous example was …

when Charles I entered the house of commons to arrest 5 members of parliament on 4th January 1642. When the Glorious Revolution occurred Britain essentially became a constitutional monarchy

Parliamentary privilege is checked by the committee on privileges.

 This is headed by Labour MP Kevin Barron and can suspend a member for abusing their rights to parliamentary privilege.

The Zircon affair began when in 1985 BBC Scotland produced a television documentary series called secret society. As part of this the programme was going to reveal details about a spy satellite that the Government had not disclosed to the Public Account Committee, which was …

meant to be able to have financial oversight over the Government. GCHQ, one of Britain’s spy agencies tried to stop the BCC from airing the programme, when they refused, special branch raided the offices of BBC scotland. With the help of MPs, the producer of the programme arranged for a showing in the House of Commons. Despite this being a breach of the Official Secrets Act, the MPs who watched it were exercising Parliamentary Privilege in doing so. This was a catalyst for the issue becoming public knowledge and it was extremely embarrassing to the Government.

In 2011 a Premier League footballer was reported to be having an affair by major news outlets. However, the footballer in question had taken out an injunction at the High Court. This meant that no-one, including the newspapers, were able to reveal their identity of the footballer in question. The problem with injunctions in modern society is that social media allows information to be shared  to millions of people at the touch of a button -in essence making them unfeasible.

Everyone on social media knew the identity of the footballer in question, however, ridiculously, it could not be published in the newspapers. The Liberal Democrat MP, John Hemming, recognised the nonsensical nature of this situation and used his right of Parliamentary privilege to highlight that the footballer in question was in fact Manchester United play Ryan Giggs. Although he had breached an injunction, Hemming could not be punished because of Parliamentary privilege. Although he was reprimanded by the speaker, Hemming had effectively made his point. 

Parliamentary privilege helps to underpin the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. Without parliamentary privilege …

MPs would not be able to fully represent their constituents’ interests and MPs would not be able to scrutinise the government without fear of falling foul of legislation, such as the official secrets act. As such, it is an essential element of a modern democracy.

Scrutiny of the executive is one of the key roles of the legislature. However, Britain is a parliamentary democracy rather than a presidential system. This means that the government is formed from the legislature

It is not separate from it. The fusion of powers (rather than the separation of powers that exists for example in the USA) means that the legislature is almost always dominated by the Executive. This can lead to problems with holding the executive to account for its actions. 

PMQs on Wednesday afternoon is one of the only times that the chamber of the house is packed full by MPs in an ordinary week. Except for special ministerial statements or important divisions, it is also the only time that Parliament is shown live on television (except BBC parliament).

 This itself gives an indication of the importance of PMQs. The key part of Prime Minister's Questions is the verbal battle between the PM and the leader of the opposition. It is clear that some members of the House of Commons are better suited to this battle than others.

 in 2007 Gordon Brown had taken over from Tony Blair as PM. at the time (prior to the fixed term parliaments act) PMs could call a snap election whenever they wanted

With Labour ahead in the polls it was widely expected that he would call an election, but didn’t. Cameron jumped on this opportunity to portray the PM as weak and indecisive. 

In 2007 the Lib Dem leader Vince Cable produced a characterisation of Gordon Brown going from ‘Stalin to Mr Bean’ that had the house of commons roaring with laughter. Similarly, following Boris Johnsons apology for …

attending a potentially unlawful gathering in Downing Street during COVID-19, Keir Starmer utterly dominated Boris Johnson during PMQs.

One of the important aspects of PMQs is that any backbench can potentially ask the PM a question. They can apply via a ballot to ensure they are able to ask a question or can try to ‘catch the speaker’s eye’ by bobbing up and down.

Asking a question of the PM is a big deal for backbenchers as it sends a strong signal to their constituents that they are standing up for their interests in parliament. Often backbench questions are orchestrated by the party whips. On the PMs side, they are engineered to give the PM questions that they can answer easily or questions that reinforce a key message.

a key criticism of PMQs is that it is ‘punch and judy’ politics, where …

 MPs try to score political points on each other rather than focusing on scrutinising or explaining government.

 a key role of parliament is to provide security of the executive. PMQs allows the PM to be held directly accountable to MPs. There are no limits on what can be asked at PMQs and …

the PM has to be able to account for their government’s policy over a broad image of issues. The PM has to account not just for national policy, but for how it might be affecting people's lives on a constituency level.

The PM has to be able to account for all of their policies and the actions of their government. To do this they rely on government ministers to keep them fully briefed on what is happening within the government.

1. Ministers and civil servants  need to be conscious that any of their decisions might be questioned in the public forum of PMQs. As such, it is an important mechanism for allowing the PM to have not just the ability but the reason to involve themselves in as much of the government as possible. 

 PMQs prevents the government from becoming complacent. They cannot rely on their current policies and must look to progress

If they don’t, they will be consistently shown up in PMQs by the opposition

PMQs is a chance to show that you have the support of your party. The strength of the cheering for you and the heckling of your opponent is a clear indication of the morale of the party. After PMQs …

MPs will be challenged by ‘The Lobby’ (the term for Parliaments journalists) and their strength which they support their leader will be taken as a clear indicator of how much support they have

PMQs each week is essentially an audition for the job of PM. The current PM is auditioning to keep their job, while the Leader is aiming to show the PM is not up to the task and that they would be better suited to it. This is particularly important for the leader of the opposition …

the PM has plenty of opportunities to play the part of spokesman and advertise themselves to the electorate. The leader of the opposition does not have the same platform, making strong performances at PMQs an important driver in people's perceptions of their ability.

On each sitting day apart from Fridays a government department answers questions in the house of commons. MPs can table questions in advance and ask a follow-up question. In addition, MPs can ask an unlimited number of written questions to ministers

These questions and the response are published by Hansard and are now available on the internet. Some of the strengths of daily question time are:

Any opposition or Backbench MP can request that the speaker grant an Urgent question. If the request is granted, the speaker can require a responsible minister to attend the house of commons to answer questions from members of parliament

The decisions as to whether to grant an urgent question is entirely at the discretion of the speaker of the house of commons, although they may take advice on the issue from the commons clerks. If an urgent question is granted, the speaker can require a member of government to answer questions immediately in the house of commons. Not only will the minister have to answer questions from the proposer of the urgent question, they will also have to field supplementary questions from other interested MPs.

During the 2007-08 parliamentary session under Speaker Martin just four urgent questions were asked, equivalent to just 0.02 per sitting day. In contrast, under Speaker Bercow …

MPs asked 307 urgent questions during the 2017-19 session, almost 0.88 per sitting day. In this time ministers spent a total of 196 hours fielding urgent questions. Lindsay Hoyle has kept up this impressive record after taking over as speaker and has granted 0.6 urgent questions per day

In April 2023, Labour MP Clive Betts tabled an urgent question over the issue of voters not having Photo ID ahead of the upcoming election. The requirement for photo ID had come as a result of the controversial Elections Act 2022.

In the same month, Liberal Democrat MP Wendy Chamberlain asked the government to give a statement regarding the seeing failure of the PM to meet his pledges on transparency regarding ministerial interest and conflicts of interest. 

The provision of urgent questions and their recent proliferation, transfers significant power of scrutiny to the opposition and to backbench MPs. importantly …

urgent questions are mechanisms to ensure ministers make important public statements to the commons before to the media, urgent questions ensure a government minister can only be held directly accountable if an urgent issue arise, increasing parliaments ability to carry out scrutiny and they give power to backbenchers over issues of importance, and brings a different angle to what matters in the political agenda

limits of urgent questions include that they are …

entirely at the discretion of the speaker, the speaker cannot force ministers to respond, and often more junior ministers will be sent to respond if an issue would be damaging to the government instead of the PM.

Just like under urgent questions an MP can apply for an emergency debate under standing order 24 and is often called a ‘standing order 24’ debate. Under this mechanism the speaker can …

allow an MP to apply for an emergency debate. To do this, an MP will make a three-minute speech to the speaker after which the speaker will decide whether or not to submit the application to the house. If he does, MPs will vote on whether a debate should take place. This means that often emergency debates are on issues of cross-party support, unlike UQs.

Such emergency debates are not binding on the government, meaning they cannot be forced to act upon them. In addition, they are traditionally not amendable, meaning that only the original motion can be discussed and voted on.  Examples of emergency debates include …

In January 2023 a debate took place on the decision of the government to issue a section 35 notice under the scotland act 1998. This was the first time the notice had ever been issued and was done in response to the passing of the Gender Recognition Act by the Scottish Parliament. In June 2021 an emergency debate took place over the amount that Britain was giving in international aid which had dropped below 0.7% GDP. This debate was requested by Conservative backbencher Andrew Mitchell. 

one of the most controversial moments of John Bercow's speakership came when he allowed an emergency debate to be amended so that it was a ‘substantive motion’ - meaning something that could be binding on the government

This was a break from convention and ultimately allowed MPs to take over the parliamentary order paper. They used this control to pass the Benn Act that would prevent Parliament from leaving the EU with No-Deal. 

Emergency questions are less significant than Urgent questions as they must be agreed by the house before being debated. However ,their growth still allows more …

scrutiny that existed before they became prominent. It does mean that if a majority of MPs wanted something debated they can force that to happen. Unlike the motion that John Bercow controversially allowed in September 2019, such debates are not binding.

Select committees were established in 1979 and have become an important mechanism of parliamentary scrutiny in the UK. there are two types of select committees: Departmental and Non-Departmental select committees.

. Select committees have grown in power since the Wright Reforms of 2009 which changed the way members and chairs of select committees were elected by secret ballot of the whole house, whilst members are elected within party groups by secret ballot

Select committees are made up of 11 backbench MPs

the composition is in proportion to the party balance in the commons. 

select committees can  can investigate issues in much more depth than possible in the chamber of the house of commons. They produce detailed reports for consideration by the government. However they …

 cannot force the government to adopt a motion and many of their reports are largely ignored. For example, in 2021 the work and pensions select committee wrote a detailed report on universal credit highlighting a number of flaws with its role. The government made very little change to universal credit in this report.

select committees work across party lines and often in a bipartisan manner. This gives select committees more legitimacy than the partisan politics that normally take place in the chamber. however …

Whilst they are more bipartisan than the chamber, committees are still made up in proportion to the size of the parties in the house.

select committees are increasingly becoming involved in pre-legislative scrutiny to help develop bills before they get to the house of commons. For example …

 the digital, culture, media and sport select committee have published a detailed report on the government's draft online safety bill. In this, for example, they recommended the creation of a specific offence of cyberflashing. The government responded by confirming the provision.

select committees have no power to force (subpoena) witnesses to attend. Witnesses also don’t give evidence under oath as they do in the US congress. For example, Mark Zuckerberg refused to appear in front of the culture, media and sports committee to discuss facebook's role in elections, despite …

 appearing in front of a US committee. Another example is that of Mike Ashley, the owner of sports direct and Newcastle football club. He continually refused to appear in front of the business committee for almost two years before relenting. 

select committees can get input from beyond politics to help inform them and allow MPs to move from being generalists to being specialists through their work on a committee. For example, Mike Ashley on the business select committee and Yvette Cooper who was chair of the home affairs select committee as home secretary. however, committees are not …

very well resourced. Whereas governments ministers have an army of advisors and researchers, committee budgets do not match this.

Since the Wright reforms of 2010, select committees are now independent due to the way they are selected. Moreover, the commons liaison committee is …

headed by the chairs of other select committees and questions the OM directly up to 3 times a year. These sessions are much more intense for the PM than other question times and can lead to more detailed scrutiny. 

 Debates are usually organised by the government and the leader of the house of commons is in charge of the business of the house. There's a number of strengths of debates in scrutinising the executive, including that MPs can …

propose debate about any issues and a wide variety of issues is discussed and adjournment debates held each days are a popular way for MPs to discuss something they are passionate about

Any E-Petition that reaches 100,000 public signatures may now be chosen by the petitions committee for debate in parliament. This gives the public a greater link over what is being debated and emergency debates …

 have been used a lot more since 2010. As speaker, John Bercow was keen to allow more emergency debates than previous speakers.

Whilst debates allow MPs to voice their opinion more, any division may still be whipped and motions from …

 such debates are not binding, despite in 2019 John Bercow controversially ruling that they could be. 

One of the more complex areas is when it comes to military intervention. Since 2003, it has increasingly become the convention in parliament that PMs hold a debate and division when contemplating military action. This is even though constitutionally they don’t have to because it is …

one of their royal prerogative powers. However, this is only a convention and does not have to be followed. For example, Theresa May didn’t when launching military action was taken on the regime of President Assad in Syria. This has led to criticisms from Jeremy Corbyn who called for the passing of a war powers act.