Parliament Flashcards
Examples of successful House of Lords scrutiny
Lord Griffith on free school meals 2021
Hunting act 2004 delayed for a year caused public unrest
Rejected sunaks ruwanda bill 2024
5 times HOL
Examples of failure of lords to effectively scrutinise legislation examples
Hunting act 2004 evebtuallt passed after speaker of the house envoked parliament acts ( what part ) pushed it thru.
Gov bills often take priority and reflect legislative agenda standing order 14 they have precedence
Examples of expert life peers appointments
2016 shami chakrabati 2”16
Lord bird of the bug issue 2015
Shaun Bailey 2022
Example is corrupt nominations
Cash for honours up to 2007/8 eg. 2004 Drayton paid 500000 in sox weeks after 6 weeks of being appointed to lords by Blair and further 500k in December of that year also his company recieved valuable Gov contract.
Cash for peerage . Johnson offering peerage to donors who donate 3milion.
Example of independence in the lords
Life peers act 1958 made life peers
House of Lords peers are appointed by an independent body ( House of Lords appointment commission) scrutinising nominations
Peers can act independently
Examples of peers not being independent
Electoral reform society found Of the 252 Conservative Peers who voted at least once, 78% never voted against the government last year. Only three of those Peers voted for the government under 90% of the time
Life peers appointed by pms often 2 main parties
Example of parliamentary scrutiny
PMQs
Example of Lord scrutiny
Piblic bill committees and other select committee
FIND EXAMPEMS OLS
Lords rejected ruwanda bill 5 times
Parliament poorly scrutinises
Only cons and dup voted ruwanda bill passed to the lords
Syria intervention by may
Hunting act 2004 passed after parliaments act envoked
Examples of parliamentary legislation being effective
10min rule bills where MPs propose bills to raise awareness even if rarely adopted directly eg in the 1990s Gov shutdown many bills regarding rights of disabled ppl eg civil rights disabled persons bill proposed by backbenchers but oressure lef to descrimination act 1995
Examples of pm ignoring backbenchers dominating leg
Private mmeber bills introduced by backbencher MPs are nit properly considered.
1950-60: 126 became law
2010-17: 46 did
Significant ones include the murder abolition act 1965 and the abortion act 1967 but inky 1 priv member bill committee easy to filibuster only pass w endorsement eg. Upskriting bill passed after mays endorsements
Still ignore a lot of backbencher criticism from
2000-10 : 88 not gov ammnednets adopted out of 17000 sigested includingnconservative MP criticism of the special care bill despite her expertise as she was a former doctor.
Example of how parliament was representative
Different types eg. burkean rep delegate rep and descriptive rep and party model
2017 EU notification of withdrawal act government gave power to begin leaivng the EU 52 labour peers voted against it defying a 3 line party whip as 1/3rd of laboyr mps represented a ‘remain’ constituency. Argued they were acting as delegate representatives.
In 2010 MPs claimed 59% of their work was in their constituency.
Examples against palrikanet representative
Fail to descriptively represent the people as 8% of house of commons is BME 14% if society is and house of lords even less representative 6.4% BME. 1.1% lords bame.
65 BAME MPS 10% 14% bame but improving since first black mp in 1987 for Labour Tottenham Grant.
8% MPs lgbtq over repped only 2.2 society
Svergae age of HOC is midde ages but in lords its 60+. In the lords in 2017 there were more lords over 90 than under 40.
Assisted dying bill 2015 polls supported ut 82% but MPs defeated it by large majirty. 330-118
But increased lot since first black mo 1987 for Tottenham Labour grant,
Example of palirmant ideologically representating
mays government ‘ cabinet of rivals ‘ baring ideological representation
Johnson and gove V steward and hammond leave and remainers
Due to FPTP smaller parties stifled
2015 cons 36.9% votes 50% seats where’s ukip 3rd most vote share 12% a seat whereas SNP4.7% vote red most seats
176 crossbencgpeers wide range of professions rep wide ideas
Labour MPs voting against 2017 withdrawl denied 3 line whip 52 acting as delegate
122 MPs voted against all together
Doesn’t ideologically rep examples
76% of votes share and majority of seats are the w main parties and due to strong whips and Cmr very little ideological range , no significant red parties. Strong gov.
2022 javid resigned as he could not agree w Johnson showing whips and Cmr to disincentivise ideological range however gov had majority in these committees and often uses position to strengthen own ammnendemnts rather than listening to opposition.
Parliament geographically reps for and against
Also unlike the us many national parties sit in commons
SNP 43/59 parliament seats
Dup 8 seats
4 Lib Dem
Scotland voted remain 62% to 38% Parliament still triggered article 50 leaving the eu and passed 2017 withdrawl of the eu act.
N Ireland voted remain 56 to 44.
Both not repped 2021 Scottish elections snp pledge second referendum and won 64 of the 129 seats in Scottish parliament. Showing strong incentive to leave for Scotland inproperly repped in Westminster.
