Parliament

Key words 

Each member of parliament represents the interests of his or her constituency. 

Frontbench and backbench MPS. 

MPs, who have been invited by the PM to join the government as senior members,junior members or permanent private secretaries are all bound by collective ministerial responsibility.

They present and publicly support government policy from the frontbench. Main opposition party will also have its own shadow frontbench to scrutinise the government. 

Party whips   

All parties have this to maintain party discipline. MPs are elected on a party manifesto. Also represent the interests of their constituencies, they should act according to their judgement. Without this tier control of the party will break down. Important in the house of commons. 

The speaker of house of commons

Role is impartial, does not engage in political debate. Esure parliament functions run effectively. Speakers arrange meetings with leaders of political parties ensuring procedure runs smoothly. 

The leader of the official oppositions  

Role is to ensure that all policies or the government are thoroughly scrutinised, while convincing the public that they are the better government in waiting. Since 1970 they have been able to claim short money from public funds to finance the opposition’s office and parliamentary business. They have the right to ask 6 questions during prime minister question time. This is important as it allows pressure on the PM. 

Composition of House Of Lords 

Authority is less than the house of commons, because it is an appointed chamber and cannot claim democratic legitimacy. 

Parliament Act 1911 took the power away by removing its right to veto legislation passed by the house of commons. In 1958, th eLife Peerages Act was passed, which gave PMS the authority to nominate life peers to the HOL, given in their title based on public service given to the nation. In 1999 Tony Blair took 750 hereditary peers out HOL. however he compromised to 92. Now it is a mixture of elected, hereditary peers and bishops of the Church of England. 

The main functions of the House Of Commons 

Legitimation 

Purpose of Parliament was to legitimise the decisions of the monarch. Parliamentary bills require the consent of the House Of Commons before enacted. Since the Parliamentary act 1911, HOC has had the right to approve the budget. The Commons debates the budget proposals  over 4 days and then scrutinises the government's resulting Financial Bill in a committee of the Whole House and a Public Bill committee.

Legislation

HOC process of turning parliamentary bills into laws. During each parliament the government will introduce a number of public Bills into HOC. 2 reading in the HOC before the Bill Committee stage. After examination will be suggested. Then reaches the report stage when it will be voted upon.after 3rd reading will be sent to HOL where a similar process is done. 

Critics of HOC, has too much process:

If the government has a large parliamentary majority they can rely on the MPs to vote for the bill, making the debates  and votes essentially a formality. 

Composition of the Bill Committee has been criticised. The membership will be proportionate to the party strength in HOC giving a government majority. 

Whips influence the selection of Public Bill committee members and will be instructed to vote according to the whip on proposed amendments to the bill. 

Scrutiny: 

• Public Bill Committees proposed legislation and offered amendments to the wording of Bills.

The Public Accounts Committee ensures that government expenditure is as effective as possible and holds. ‘government and its civil servants to account for the delivery of public services’ 

Public Bill Committees are often criticised for being too politically partisan. The whip selects MPs who sit on the committee and they will be expected to support the party line. Lees room for potential debate. Like select committees, can also take oral and written evidence from experts and relevant parties.

Select Committees:

• Select committees monitor the performance of the major departments of state. Select committees have also been set up to investigate specific policy commitments. 

Debate 

• Can shape events especially if a government is defeated or if on a topic chosen by the backbenchers Business committee (control topic of debate 1 day a week since 2010). Played a major role during BREXIT, when backbenchers took an unprecedented level of control. 

Providing ministers: 

All government ministers must sit in the house of commons or lords. Almost all in common, the PM has the power of patronage. (whips play a role in making recommendations). 

Representing the Electorate: 

Mps are elected by their constituents and must consider their views if they want to get re-elected. Many owe their seat to their party badge and so will follow the partisan line. The delegate model is not typically adopted in the UK but on occasion it can become an issue. HOC has become more representative of society: race and sexual orientation, women are still unrepresented. 

Main functions of the House of Lords: 

Salisbury convention: since lords cannot claim democratic legitimacy, the sails c established the principle stating  that they cannot stop legislation that was contained in the governing party’s manifesto. If they  go against them, they go against the will of the people. The lords can still propose amendments but shouldn't wreck the bill. 

Lords vote on legislation but do not have the same power to block it that the Commons does. If HOL rejects the bill then the commons can force it through a year later. Lords also cannot block bills that come from the governing party's manifesto or any finance bills. Whips in lords are less important than Whips in HOC. votes take place following the speaker calling ‘clear the bar’, Lords divide into the ’content’ and ‘Not content’ Lobbies.

Questions to ministers - normally to junior ministers whose job is to oversee the passage of bills through the lords. 

Committees: there are committees that are topic based (constitution, science and technology) rather than department based. 

debates : often of high quality as the lords contain operations in many fields but unlikely to have much of an impact as the power of the lords is so limited. 

The House of Lords provides ministers e.g Boris Johnson promised Nicky Morgan when she stood down from HOC that she will be secretary of state. 

How well do the houses in parliament fulfil their roles?

Commons: there are significant issues with their roles, the party system limits the strength of scrutiny and the common can simply see tribal politics. Cabinet ministers often don't have significant experience in their  areas of control.  The Brexit crisis can however be seen as a renaissance in the power of parliament - even if it was due to being a minority government. 

Lords: Highly limited by Parliament Acts and fact it is unreleased but can offer expert opinion and raise public awareness of concerns over government action. Reform is needed. 

Overall : most legislation is soundly written and can be enacted successfully. Rare examples of badly constructed legislation include the Dangerous Dog  Act of 1991. 

The comparative powers of the house of commons and house of lords.

Table of comparison: 

Debates about the relative power of the 2 houses: 

• Clearly the common had more power and without major reform to the lords this will remain the case. 

• There have been various election results that have cast concerns over the legitimacy of various governments in recent elections that Lords should act as more of a check, especially as the commons ability  is limited by party politics.  

• 2010 coalition government 

• 2017- minority government 

Is the Lords becoming more important?

• Since 1999 the Lords has had greater legitimacy with the removal of most hereditary peers, meaning the composition of some that have gained their service their position. 

• The Lords has therefore been emboldened in challenging the governments, as a last resort the commons can still use the parliament Act to push bills, though, notably equalising the age of consent for gay people in 2000. 

• The changes in 1999 removed the conservative majority in the Lords 

• Under the conservative government 1979-97 there were on average just over 13 defeats a year of the government in the Lords. Whilst labour 1997-2010 suffered on average 40 year, the coalition 2010-2015 .

Legislative Process: 

Types of Bill: 

• Government/public bill- bill forward by the government, make up the bulk of legislation that passed in Parliament. 

• Private bill- organisations (e.g company or local authority) can petition parliament to change the law on something that affects them e.g 2013 London Local authorities and transport for London Act. 

• Hybrid Bill- mixture of the 2 above - impact on general public but specific groups in particular e.g. HS2 Bills. 

Types of Bill: 

• Private Member Bill- introduced by backbenchers MPs and impact on the whole population. HOC and HOL can introduce this together. Under ballot, the ten minute rule, and presentation. 

• Ballot- A ballot is held at the beginning of each parliament in which MPs can put forward proposals for a Private Member’s Bill. 20 bills enter the ballot and the top are usually debated. 

• Ten Minute Rule- MPs can put forward their proposals for a bill in a speech of 10 mins, but this is much less likely to be successful. 

• Presentation- An Mp formally presses Private Members Bill to the HOC. 
  

  Process of Legislation: 

  First Reading:

  Normally in the Commons-formal presentation of the title of the bill to the house by a minister- no discussion. 

  Second Reading:

  Debate on the principle of the bill. The minister explains and justifies, the shadow minister and backbenchers respond and ask questions. If contested a vote is taken (government almost always wins)

  Committee stage:

  Bills will be considered by HOC bill committee, in HOC each public bill will have its own committee to set up to scrutinise in detail. Highly significant bills (EU/finance bills) are scrutinised by hole house. 

  Report stage:

  Amendments suggested in committee are considered by the Whole House. Further amendments can be proposed by those who were not the committee there voted on. 
  

  Third reading/Transfer:

  Amended bill will be further debated before being transferred to the other house, where it will go through the same stages. No votes allowed on this stage. 
  

  Royal assessment:

  Once a bill has passed both chambers it will receive the royal assent. Should HOL refuse to support a bill it can still become law by the government invoking the parliament act 1911 and 1949.
  

The interaction between the common and the lords during the legislative process, including the Salisbury convention.

• The lords can initiate bills but is rare

• The lords can not initiate or block finance bills

• The Salisbury convention means that the lords should not block any bill based on a pledge in a government’s manifesto. 

• The Lord's amendment to a bill can be rejected by the commons. 

• The Lords can delay (1 year) but not block a bill, its job is to scrutinise legislation. 

Secondary Legislation: 

• Acts of parliament are primary legislation 

• Secondary legislation (delegated legislation) is law made by ministers, who issue statutory instruments . 

• They are scrutinised by the Statutory instruments committee. 

• Secondary legislation is used in many areas including tax, education, health, and immigration. 

The Role and significance of backbenchers in both houses, including the importance of parliamentary privilege.

• Parliamentary privilege- within parliament MPs have complete freedom of speech and are protected from libel laws, eg lib dem Mp named Ryan Giggs as having benign the person protected by a gagging order on the press about an affair in 2011.

• Backbench MPs are those that do not hold government or shadow cabinet positions. Often considered lobby fodder whose primary role was to vote in support of their party leadership. The promise of office may keep them in line. Backbenchers in the HOL are often retired politicians or more likely experts in their own field and are more likely independant and less concerned about potential prospects. There are also a great number of crossbenchers in the Lords. 

Significance of backbenchers depend on parliamentary arithmetic; 

Backbenchers rebellion: 35% of division of the 2010-2015 parliament up from 28% 2005-10. Johnson lost 100% of the votes early in his time as PM and indeed ended up suspending the conservative whip from 21 MPs. 

‘Urgent questions’ have been asked more frequently especially over the issues of Brexit, but the average had been increasing before this.  Was about 0.2 per sitting day in 2013/2014, then just under 0.5 in 2015/16 then just under 0.9 in 2017/19. 

A few 10- min rule speeches actually lead to law changes. Also committee are proportional to distribution of seats and so government tends to get its way even in committee. 

Power of patronage, party loyalty and the whips office keep most backbenchers in-line most of the time. Since the 2019 location the bog conservative majority has weakened the position of rebels, though there has been opposition to some government COVID measures. 

The Backbenchers Business committee, set in 2010 created to give backbenchers more say in the agenda in parliament. Members are elected by their party group. 

Backbenchers business committee chooses topic debate for 35 days in each parliamentary session. Some are chosen from e-petitions with 100,000 more signatures. The committee also promotes proposals with cross -party support for debate.

Impact debated- on the positive side: enables debates that government would have otherwise avoided; has led to changes e.g reducing fuel duty; it has engaged with the public 9e petitions) 

The role and significance of the opposition: 

If the government has a strong majority then there is little the opposition can do in terms of stopping government bills. 

Opposition leaders and shadow cabinet members can attack the government both inside and outside parliament (through the media). 

They are called on to oppose the government proposals such as responding to the queen’s speech and the government Budget. 

20 data are given to the opposition parties to set subjects for debate (17 given to the leader of the main opposition leader)- all normally face government amendments to cancel out the motions . 

Opposition receive ‘short money’ to provide funding for the necessary support for opposition offices so they can hold the necessary for opposition offices so they can hold the government account. This was reduced in 2015 as part of austerity. 

Prime Minister Questions

• PMQS, every wednesday midday lasting 30 mins. In theory they offer a great opportunity for opposition to hold the PM to account over events of the day. 

• Corbyn and May were both considered to be poor performers. Starmer brings skills as a prosecutor but parliament is not a law court and Johnson normally gives viral videos especially  in COVID with the video links. 

• Backbenchers often act like a football crowd cheering their sides, hecking the others. 

• Leader of opposition get 6 questions 

• Leader of 3rd party gets 2 questions 

• All in the three genuine scrutiny but rather political point scoring. 

Purpose and nature of ministerial question time 

• The questioning of ministers about their departments/ policy areas tend to be more effective than PMQs with more detailed probing. Ministers get notification of oral questions which means they can prepare detailed answers with support from civil servants. 

• Most questions are however written - 35,000 in 2015/16 compared to 3,600 oral questions. These written questions are often seeking information from ministers.