ETVT Parliament represents effectively Flashcards
Descripitve representation is not effective
Descriptive representation in the commons remains very low.
Women still make up on 29% of the commons, compared to 51% of the population.
Ethnic minority groups make up only 6% of parliament versus 13% of the UK population.
Similarly, 1/3 of MPs attended feepaying schools, compared with 7% of the population and 90% attended university, much higher than the national average.
26% of Parliament attended Oxford or Cambridge, versus just 1% of the population.
430 MPs are men and around 6% of the lords come from a minority ethnic background.
Descriptive representation is effective
This idea emphasises the importance’s of a representative body reflecting peoples social characteristics and the groups they belong to.
In 2019 the most diverse parliament ever was elected, with 220 women, 65 ethnic minority and 45 LGBTQ+ MPs selected.
1/10 MPs were now of ethnic minority background, oppose to 1/40 10 years prior.
AWS shortlists meant that in 2019 for the first time in history the labour party returned more women MPS than men, 51%.
Representation of consituents is effective
The UK is divided into 533 constituencies, meaning that each member of parliament has around 73,000 constituent members they are in charge off. This allows for very good representation of constituents through the delegate model.
‘Delegate model’ means that MPs are essentially ‘messengers’ of their constituents, the delegate conveys the views of others. This is effectively done in the current FPTP system used to elect MPs to parliament.
Social media can be a effective way for constituents to express their concerns directly to their MP, they contact them on twitter and encourage them to act as delegates, this occurred with gay marriage legislation in 2013, air strikes in Syria in 2016 when a campaign on twitter led to many PMs reconsidering their vote.
Backbench Business committee in 2010 helped MPs raise local concerns, the Committee meets weekly on Tuesday to hear from backbench MPs who would like to put forward particular issues for debate.
Representation of consituents is NOT effective
The lords is a unelected body, this means that they are not accountable to any of the electorate and therefore are not required to follow the delegate model and represent the views of ANY of the electorate.
For this reasons the Lords are very poor at representing the electorates causes and campaigns, this weakens the democratic responsiveness of parliament.
Furthermore, MPs in the commons cannot be bound to represent the views of their constituents through the delegate model, we saw this take place in the BREXIT referendum.
In 2017 MPs voted 498 in favour of a bill that would allow ministers to begin formal negotiations to leave the EU, 120 of the MPs that backed the Bill represented constituencies that voted to remain and a further 9 who voted against the bill represented constituents who wanted to leave the EU. Indirect democracy does not work If MPs chosen to represent the beliefs and views of the electorate don’t do so effectively.
Representation of third parties is effective
You could argue that from 1974 onwards the two-party dominance of parliament has broken down, with the vote share of the two main parties slipping to 74% in 1974.
FPTP has not always given the governing party a majority, in 2010 the conservatives only won 306 seats, falling short of a majority, this forced them into coalition with the Lib Dems, they won a total of 57 seats in parliament.
Furthermore the SNP has become more important in recent years, representing the views of Scottish nationalists, for example in the 2015 election the SNP won 56 seats and in 2019 they won 48 seats.
Finally in the 1951 general election 4 parties sat in the commons and only 11 run, whereas in the 2015 election 13 parties sat in the commons and 68 ran candidates, this clearly shows a huge increase of small party representation, meaning the commons effectively carries out its role of representation.
Representation of third parties is not effective
Small parties in parliament provide representation of minority groups and beliefs within society.
Every single government formed since 1945 has been led by either the conservative or the labour party, in this case FPTP favours the two main parties and doesn’t allow for effective representation of minority views.
There is very poor representation of small parties in FPTP, for example in 2015 UKIP won 12.6% of the vote but failed to win a seat, this is because they couldn’t gain enough support in a single constituency area. They finished second in 120 areas.
The electorate who has voted for UKIP have not got their votes represented in the commons, this is poor representation.
