Case Studies - UK Government

Reform of the House of Lords

* Current Issues: an unelected legislature isn’t democratic or easily held to account, governments could abuse the life-time peerage, too many peers are unactive or semi-active, the chamber is too large
* Proposed Reforms: **1) All-appointed** = people with specific expertise, political make-up could be manipulated to balance out the Commons, peers would be independent-minded **2) All-elected** = entirely democratic, if elected by PR it would prevent too much govt power, smaller/independent parties would gain representation in the Lords

Preservation of Individual Ministerial Responsibility

Priti Patel (2017)

* Patel had attended meetings with Israeli politicians without Foreign Office approval
* This breached the Ministerial Code of Conduct
* Patel was originally allowed to stay in post until it emerged that she had done this several times
* She resigned

Erosion of Individual Ministerial Responsibility

Gavin Williamson (2020)

* Williamson was the Secretary for Education and created a method to calculate grades after exams were cancelled due to COVID
* The algorithm was a massive failure
* Instead of resigning, Williamson blamed the Head of Ofqual for the failure
* The Head of Ofqual ended up resigning, whilst Williamson remained in post

EU Policy

Immigration Policy

* The EU enforces freedom of movement
* The UK has always resisted this policy
* This policy has seen a rise in immigrants from Eastern European countries e.g. Poland
* However, this policy also allowed many UK nationals to settle overseas