paragraph 1: select committees

Question 1

1) firstly, the most significant way that parliament scrutinises the executive is…

Answer 1

through their work on select committees

Question 2

2) select committees…

Answer 2

usually consist of 11 members with a chair elected by the rest of the House

their role is to scrutinise departments of government and examine details of expenditure, administration and policy

Question 3

3) committees provide effective scrutiny because…

Answer 3

they focus heavily on improving the work of government by questioning ministers and forcing them to explain their actions

thus being crucial in holding the executive to account because without select committees, the executive could escape accountability seeing as general elections are held every 5 years under the Fixed Term Parliament Act

Question 4

4) furthermore, they are far less party political…

Answer 4

as they work across all parties and and are centred on improving the work of the executive rather than acting for their own gain

Question 5

5) since the 2010 Wright reforms…

Answer 5

chairs are elected by the whole House instead of being appointed by party whips

in other words, they are more legitimate and less restricted by party whips which allows them to act more effectively in scrutinising the executive in great depth and detail

Question 6

6) they can also devote weeks to debating and investigating an issue…

Answer 6

for example, in 2018, the International Development Committee have been responsible for scrutinising and examining Oxfam in depth that would not have been achieved in regular parliamentary debates as they cannot dedicate this much time to an issue

just goes to show how effective select committees are

Question 7

1) however, the government usually holds a majority in these committees…

Answer 7

due the electoral system of FPTP (unit 1 link) that tends to produce a strong government with a clear majority

Question 8

2) the existence of this majority…

Answer 8

can restrict the committees effectiveness because MPs and peers belonging to the governing party are expected to support their party instead of criticising it

making it difficult to properly scrutinise the government

Question 9

3) similarly, select committees hold no enforcement powers…

Answer 9

this means that they cannot compel the government to follow their recommendations or force them to take any action at all

Question 10

4) while its true that…

Answer 10

40% of committee recommendations are accepted, these rarely involve major changes to policy

which raises the question of the effectiveness of parliamentary scrutiny via select committees

Question 11

5) but despite their limitations…

Answer 11

select committees still play a very important role in holding the executive to account

which demonstrates that they are an effective means of scrutiny as such scrutiny could not be done at the same level anywhere else