Parliament

Role of Parliament

Role of Parliament

- to scrutinise the government
- to debate
- to be sovereign and uphold democracy
- to make legislation
- to represent the British public

House of Commons

• comprises 650 MPs elected at least every 5 years

• the dominant house due to democratic legitimacy and Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949

• by convention holds the PM (the leader of the largest party in the House) and the executive

• scrutinises govt and holds open debate
  proposes, debates and ratifies new legislation

House of Lords

• April 2024 - 786 sitting peers (life and hereditary peers, bishops)

• no single party majority

• unelected chamber with role being largely advisory

• can not block proposed bills by the Commons (only delay some non-money bills)

• can only really ask HofCs to 'think again' about legisation by scrutinising it on a greater level than the Commons, who lack the time needed, and provide proposals for modifications that the Commons does not have to accept

the prime minister

• most important person in the HofCs

• nearly always holds a majority, so can command and control most business and outcomes of the HofCs (govt dominates legislature)

• by convention and royal prorogative, can prorogue parliament and call an early election

speaker

administer the rules of the House of Commons and organises who speaks and for how long
voted in by fellow MPs
need to renounce any party allegiance to ensure impartiality
able to suspend MPs

Leader of the House of Commons

essentially the government's business manager
job is to see that from the executive's perspective the Commons runs smoothly, and that bills are properly timetabled

whips

• in charge of party discipline and ensuring MPs stay loyal and vote the way their leaders dictate

• issue a weekly set of instructions on how their party's MPs should votes known as the whip

• the whip can be withdrawn from a MP - suspending them from that party (e.g. Diane Abbott had the Labour whip suspended by the party's Chief Whip after 'hateful antisemitic' remarks suggesting Jews do not face racism in April 2023)

• use both threats and gentle persuasion

frontbenchers

members of the governing party who are also ministers in the govt
OR opposition MPs who are shadow ministers
sit in the front benches of Parliament

backbenchers

ordinary MPs who are not (shadow) ministers
can be independent or alligned to a party

how does the legislative process work?

1. First Reading (the formal introduction or reading of the bill's title by the relevant minister, no debate or vote)
2. Second Reading (the main debate on the principles of the bill - govt defeats at this stage are very rare, last time = 1986)
3. Committee Stage (sent to a PBC which members consider the bill line by line, often suggesting amendments and sometimes calling expert witness to help debate)
4. Report Stage (any amendments agreed in the committee stage are considered by the Commons and accepted, rejected, or changed)
5. Third Reading (final debate on amended version of the bill)

6. The House of Lords Stage (above process repeated in the Lords, any Lords amendments only become part of the bill if the Commons agree)

white paper

Government document setting out the detailed plans and proposals for legislation

green paper

Government document setting out the issues and options for legislation. A discussion document

Public Bill Committee

A committee responsible for the detailed consideration of a bill
each committee lasts the lifetime of the bill it is considering
member are appointed by party whips
BUT 2015 Audit Report found that 63% of all MPs appointed to bill committees between 2000 and 2010 brought some form of relevant experience and expertise - 87% of amendments accepted by the govt came from these specialised MPs
only 0.5% of non-govt amendments in committee succeeded (2000-2010)

'parliamentary ping-pong'

bill going back and forth between HOC and HOL
Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 was considered 5 times by Lords and 4 times by Commons within a 30 hour period until a compromise was reached
if an agreement is not reached, the Commons can invoke the Parliament Act making their version of the bill law within a year (ussed on the Hunting Act 2004)

EVEL and the legislative process

after the 1st reading, the speaker decides whether or not a bill or a clause is valid for EVEL, if it is, given a speaker's cetificate.
after the report stage, the speaker can decide to refer the bill to the Legislative Grand Committee if it was amended
the bill must then be reconsidered by the whole house
if the LGC withholds consent, the bill fails or the relevant clauses are removed

Brexit and the legislative process

1. The first Act - the EU (Withdrawal) Bill was intoduced in June 2017 and passed in June 2018 with an ammendment that gave Parliament a legal guarantee of a vote on the final Brexit deal.
2. EU (Withdrawal) Act 2019 was passed within a few days of April 2019 (the original deadline for Brexit) and only just passed its 3rd reading by 1 vote, required May to request an extension.
3. EU (Withdrawal) (No2) Act 2019 - required another extension
4. Deal with the EU was finally passed on 23 January with only 11 days scrutiny.

Secondary legislation

law created by ministers (or other bodies) under powers given to them by an Act of Parliament, used to fill in the details of Acts
around 3100 are passed annually and scrutinised by the Joint Committee on SIs (role is to ensure that legislation is legal and not ultra vires)

Ballot bills

A type of private members' bill - the names of 20 MPs are drawn at the start of each parliamentary year, and given priority to timetable their bill
best chance of becoming law
only 4 were passed during the 2017-2019 parliamentary sessions
only stand a chance of becoming law if uncontroversial and government-backed

Ten Minute Rule Bill

A process whereby Backbench MPs are given 10 minutes to introduce a bill for consideration. Chances to do this are limited and very few Ten Minute Rule Bills become law.
It is largely seen as a chance to publicise an issue that Backbenchers care about.

Presentation Bill

An MP formally presents a private members bill to the House of Commons during a Friday sitting, only after all ballot bills on the order paper have been presented
smallest chance of success

What type of legislative is Parliament best described as?

a policy-influencing legislature
govt expected to take the lead on devising policy and even though there are PMBs, these are often only successful when the government supports the proposed legislation

Success of PMBs

some key legislation such as the Abortion Act and abolition of capital punishment began as PMBs
filibusters are where MPs make lengthy speeches to use up available debate time and prevent a vote - only way to prevent this is by bringing about the end of a debate with a closing motion (that is hard to do because it requires the support of 100 MPs and attendance is poor on Fridays)
unsuccessful PMBs gains greater attention for issues
e.g. Conservative govt successfully blocked a series of PMBs concerning the rights of disabled people but sustained pressure led the Government to introduce its own bill (Disability Discrimination Act 1995)

Scrutiny of the Executive

checking that the government is carrying out its functions properly, parliament does this in a number of ways:
- MPs and peers can ask questions, both written and oral, of government ministers (best-known e.g. is PMQs)
- debates in both chambers allow MPs and peers to air their views about government actions and policies
- departmental select committees investigate actions by civil servants and ministers in each govt department
- bills go through various stages in parliament
- parliament has the final say on all new legislation
- a vote of no confidence can bring down a govt

PMQs are effective...

- high profile and widely publicised
- forces PM to address key issues of the day - direct scrutiny
- offers chance for the leader of the opposition to stake a claim on the premiership by delivering a 'better' performance (e.g. 'I lead my party, he follows his' 'weak, weak, weak' Blair)
- keeps PM on toes and directly accountable to parliament
- can expose weaknesses of PMs and ministers (e.g. 'The PM is not under a desk' - Penny Mordaunt on Liz Truss)

PMQs are not effective...

- gives a highly misleading and distorted image of parliament's work and how government is scrutinised
- 'Punch and Judy' politics and petty point-speaking
- Hansard Society found PMQs made only 12% of the public feel proud of Parliament (67% felt it was too much party political point-scoring)
- MPs from the ruling party use it to ask 'patsy questions' that only intend to show the government in a positive light

parliamentary debate advantages

- allow free expression of views and opinions about issues of the day
- are televised so the public can watch and be informed, improving the accessibility and transparency of parliament
- opportunity to change how MPs and peers might vote

parliamentary debate disadvantages

- most debates are set-piece occassions; MPs usually adopt the 'party line'. Many use their speeches to improve their party leadership and further their own career prospects
- few minds and votes are changed by words spoken in the chamber, most MPs vote usually along party lines

select committees advantages

- are less partisan and confrontational than debates and questions in the main chamber
- often chaired by MPs from the opposition parties
- can call witnesses both from government and outside Westminster to give evidence
- government must respond to reports within 60 days
- reports are often hard-hitting and influential e.g. May 2018 Health Select Committee recommended a number of measures to reduce child obesity, within a month, the govt announced further measures such as stopping the sale of sweets and fatty snacks at supermarket checkouts

select committees disadvantages

- governing party always have a majority on each committee
- consensus between parties is not always reached, leading to majority and minority reports along party lines
- witnesses can be evasive and elusive
- governments can and do ignore the findings in select committee reports e.g. Feb 2018, the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee recommended against the appointment of Baroness Stowell as head of the Charity Commission, but Matt Hancock, culture sec, went ahead and appointed her regardless

Scrutiny of draft legislation and voting of the final bill advantages...

- enables bills to be properly checked, amended and discussed
- parliament can reject a final bill

Scrutiny of draft legislation and voting of the final bill disadvantages...

- strong party loyalty and discipline mean a government bill stands little chance of failing
- the governing party has a majority on PBCs, so any changes to bill will be minor

vote of no confidence

- the 'nuclear option' which can bring down a government
- very unlikely to succeed e.g. despite Boris Johnson's failing cabinet, he won the 2022 vote of no confidence with a majority of 29

Parliament performs its representation role well...

- all parts of the UK are represented geographically though 650 constituencies that are roughly equally sized and drawn up independent of party bias by the Boundary Commission
- a wide range of parties are represented in the Commons
- the Commons is becoming increasingly more diverse, record 220 women elected in 2019 and a total 6% of MPs identify as LGBTQ+ - 2% of the general population identify this way
- MPs have a range of wider interests and specialist policy areas that they represent informally and speak about in debates and committees

Parliament performs its representation role not well at all...

- not all constituencies are in fact equal in population size, nearly 6 times more voters in the most populous constituency compared with the least populous
- FPTP favours the two largest parties and regionally concentrated parties and severly under-represents other parties
- women remain significantly under-represented, over 50% of population is female but only 34% of MPs
- MPs increasingly come from backgrounds that are unrepresentative of the country as a whole, Sutton Trust report found that 29% of MPs were privately educated, compared with only 7% of the population overall

Burkean theory

argues that elected officials are purely representative of their voters, once elected, they are entirely free to act in the interests of their electors if they see fit

delegate theory

elected officials have an obligation to do what their constituents want them to do, purely a 'mouthpiece'

mandate theory

suggests that MPs are primarily in their position to represent and carry out their party's policies and manifesto

backbenchers' role

- 100% of govt bills passed in 2014-15, but only 6% PMBs
- govt controls timetable, only 7 govt-backed bills failed 1997-2010
BUT purpose of PMBs not to legislate but to raise awareness?
2018 Christopher Chope objected to bill that would outlaw 'upskirting' and bill was blocked, a govt-backed bill was later introduced and easily passed (PMBs influence!!!)
Abortion Acts and abolition of capitol punishment a PMB orginally
267 select committee reports 2017-19, but limited power as only recommendations (govt accepts around 40% of suggestions)
use of pre-legislative scrutiny is inconsistent (only 2 accepted recommendations 2014-2015 but 14 in 2012-2013)

backbench rebellion

35% Rebellions under coalition
May's Brexit deal defeated 3 times (1st deal defeated with an unprecedented 432-202 votes)
Kwasi Kwateng and Liz Truss forced to u-turn on policy of abolishing top rate of income tax after faced with a mass rebellion, both later forced to resign

The executive dominates parliament..

- party whipping and discipline ensures govt-backed bills usually pass easily and largely unamended in major ways
- most days of parliament is controlled by the govt
- PMBs require govt-support to pass
- govts can ignore and do ignore select committee recomendations
- most MPs follow party line in debate speeches
- PBC membership tightly controlled by the whip
- much of question time is simply political point-scoring

The executive does not dominate parliament...

- in times of minority or coalition govts, govts can and are defeated in parliament
- 20 opposition days which allow other parties to set the agenda (parliament seized control during Brexit)
- individual MPs can pass legislation as PMBs
- select committees are increasingly high profile and independent (chairs now elected by secret ballot)
- MPs can asks qus of the PM and ministers during QT