parliament.

Question 1

The origins and development of the UK
Parliament

Answer 1

The origins of the British Parliament can be traced far back into medieval history.
King Henry III (1216–72) did not want to share power, provoking conflict with the
nobility led by Simon de Montfort. Eventually, Henry was captured at the battles of Lewes in 1264 and Simon de Montfort summoned representatives of the nobility and senior churchmen, together with two knights from each county and two
burgesses from leading towns, to meet at Westminster Hall in 1265. By broadening
the membership beyond the nobility, the de Montfort Parliament is often considered
the first English Parliament.

Key events in the development of the UK Parliament

• The de Montfort Parliament 1265 The decision of the nobleman Simon de
  Montfort to summon commoners as well
  as nobles and churchmen to Westminster
  Hall in 1265 to discuss reforms is generally
  seen as the first recognisable parliament.
• Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 The 1911 Act established the principle that the House
  of Lords, as an unelected body, could only delay, not veto, legislation that the House of
  Commons had passed. In 1949 the Lords’ delaying power was reduced to 1 year.
• Extension of the franchise — 1832, 1867, 1884, 1918, 1928 and 1969 These parliamentary reform acts gradually extended the franchise until in 1928 the principle of universal franchise was established when the vote was given to
  everyone over the age of 21. In 1969 the voting age was reduced to 18
• House of Lords Act 1999 All but 92 hereditary peers were removed from the House of Lords. As a result, most members of the Lords are life peers, which has made
  the House of Lords more assertive in its dealings with the House of Commons.

During the seventeenth century both Houses of Parliament increasingly asserted
their authority against the Crown and in 1689, following the Glorious Revolution,
William III accepted the Bill of Rights, which established the principle of parliamentary supremacy. As the franchise was extended during the nineteenth century, the legitimacy of the elected House of Commons grew at the expense of the unelected House of Lords. The supremacy of the Commons over the Lords was not achieved until the early twentieth century, however, when the attempt by the House of Lords to veto the ‘People’s Budget’ led to the Parliament Act 1911. This abolished the Lords’ right of veto over legislation that had passed the Commons. In future the Lords would only be able to delay legislation for 2 years. In 1949, another Parliament Act reduced this to just 1 year.

Although British democracy has evolved over many centuries, this has occurred
without the codification of the British constitution and so there is no authority
greater than that of the British Parliament. Parliament is the nation’s supreme law-
making body and the judiciary cannot strike down an Act of Parliament because of
the principle of parliamentary sovereignty.
The UK has a parliamentary, rather than a presidential, form of government. This
means that the voters elect the House of Commons and the executive is then selected from its membership together with some members appointed from the House of Lords. In this way, the executive and the legislature are fused and the executive cannot claim its own authority. Instead, its power derives from the support of the
House of Commons and if that support is withdrawn through the loss of a vote of
confidence, then the government must resign.

Question 2

The composition of the House of Commons - Frontbench and backbench MPs

Answer 2

MPs can be divided into frontbench and backbench MPs. MPs who have been
invited by the prime minister to join the government as senior ministers, junior
ministers or permanent private secretaries are all bound by the principle of collective
ministerial responsibility. This means that they present, and must publicly support,
government policy from the front benches. The main opposition party has its own
shadow frontbench team, whose members scrutinise their government counterparts.
Like the government front bench, they are also required to support their party’s
leadership.

Question 3

The composition of the House of Commons - Party whips

Answer 3

All the main political parties appoint whips to maintain party discipline. MPs are
elected on a party manifesto. However, they also represent the interests of their
constituencies and, as Edmund Burke explained in the eighteenth century, should
also act according to their ‘judgement’. The parliamentary leadership needs to
tightly control its MPs, otherwise their control of the party could break down.
The Whips’ Office is thus an essential part of the House of Commons.

Whips encourage and sometimes possibly even cajole their MPs to support the party line. They also report back any
potential large-scale rebellions that might encourage the party leadership to modify its position to avoid defeat. On especially important issues, a three-line whip is issued, which requires MPs to attend a vote (division) and to vote as demanded by the leadership. If MPs refuse, they may
have the party whip withdrawn from them, which means they lose their membership of the parliamentary party.

In September 2019, 21 Conservative MPs, including high- profile former ministers such as Kenneth Clarke, Philip Hammond and Rory Stewart, had the party whip withdrawn for supporting the House of Commons taking control of EU withdrawal negotiations.

Whips may also resort to more underhand approaches. Some, like the political commentator Philip Cowley, have claimed that Conservative whips used to keep a ‘black book’ containing details of the private lives of party representatives to use as leverage.

2 Whips have been accused of both bullying and blackmail. Jack Straw recalled being thrown against a wall by Labour whip Walter Harrison following his election in 1979.3

More recently, William Wragg accused whips of threatening to withdraw investments from the constituencies of fellow Conservative MPs seeking to oust Boris Johnson as party leader in January 2022.4

Question 4

The composition of the House of Commons - The speaker of the House of Commons

Answer 4

There is one MP whose role it is to be impartial. This is the speaker of the House
of Commons, who does not engage in political debate. Their role is to ensure that
Parliament functions as effectively as possible. The speaker arranges parliamentary business with the leaders of the main political parties, ensures that proper procedure is followed and presides over debates in the House of Commons. The speaker also has a disciplinary function and if MPs are deliberately disobedient, abusive, or accuse another MP of lying, they can be suspended. In 2022, then leader of the Scottish National Party at Westminster, Ian Blackford, was suspended by the speaker for claiming that the prime minister, Boris Johnson, had been ‘wilfully misleading Parliament over lockdown parties held at Downing Street. Since the election of John Bercow in 2009, the speaker has been elected by a secret
ballot of all MPs. Once elected, they are then ceremonially dragged to the Speaker’s
Chair and at the beginning of each new Parliament must seek re-election, although
this is usually just a formality.

Question 5

The composition of the House of Commons - The leader of the official opposition

Answer 5

The role of the leader of the official opposition is to ensure that the government is thoroughly scrutinised, while convincing the public that the official opposition is an
alternative government in waiting. The opposition since the 1970s has been able to
claim Short money from public funds to finance the leader of the opposition’s office
and help with parliamentary business. The leader of the opposition is also given the
right to ask six questions at Prime Minister’s Question Time. This enables the leader
of the opposition to put high-profile pressure on the prime minister by highlighting any failures of policy and offering their own political solutions. The leader of the opposition also selects a shadow cabinet, whose task it is to hold the government accountable and persuade the electorate that they could be trusted in government.

Question 6

The main functions of the House
of Commons - legislation

Answer 6

The House of Commons must agree to enact a bill if it is to become law. If it decides
not to vote for legislation, then it will fail to pass. A bill is formally presented to
Parliament at its first reading. MPs then have their first opportunity to debate the
main principles of a bill at its second reading. Following its second reading, a bill
is scrutinised in detail by MPs on a Public Bill Committee. The bill is further
debated at its report stage and at its third reading, before being sent to the House of
Lords where the same process takes place. Once all the appropriate stages have been
successfully gone through, a bill receives royal assent and becomes law.
The various stages at which a bill is scrutinised before it becomes law should mean that the House of Commons legislative function works well. However, critics note
that:

l Public Bill Committees vote on party lines and always have a government
majority, which may impact on the objectivity when offering amendments to a
bill.

l On many bills, MPs are also expected to vote the way the whips tell them to,
limiting genuine engagement with the potential strengths and weaknesses of a bill.

l Many changes to the law are now made by secondary/delegated legislation using
statutory instruments (known sometimes as Henry VIII clauses) rather than by
enacting primary legislation. By using statutory instruments the executive can
thereby sidestep House of Commons’ scrutiny.

Question 7

The main functions of the House
of Commons - providing ministers

Answer 7

n the British parliamentary system, the legislature and the executive are fused —
the legislature provides the executive. There is a convention that the major office
holders in government are members of the House of Commons because this chamber
possesses democratic legitimacy.

An advantage of the parliamentary system is that MPs can prove their abilities in the
legislature and so can persuade the executive of their fitness for government office.

When the young Conservative MP Iain Macleod impressed Winston Churchill in
parliamentary debate, Churchill demanded that he be in government. When the
chief whip told him, ‘He’s too young to be eligible’, Churchill responded, ‘He’s too
eligible to be too young.’
However, the way in which Parliament provides the front benches for the
government and opposition does significantly restrict choice. As many as one in
three members of the governing party may be given a ministerial role. Critics also
note that the prime minister selecting the government from their backbenchers
gives them significant patronage power. This is likely to encourage conformity
and reduce debate as backbenchers support the government in the expectation of political advancement.

Question 8

scrutiny and debate - the backbench business committee.

Answer 8

The Backbench Business Committee was established in 2010 and provides backbench MPs with 35 days a year in which they can control parliamentary business. MPs can ask to raise any issue with the committee, which is an opportunity to generate debate on areas that might otherwise be neglected by government. In 2021–22, some of the debates the committee arranged included the Black History Month, gender-specific religious persecution and on St Patrick’s Day 2022, the role of the Irish in Britain.

Question 9

scrutiny and debate - Emergency debates

Answer 9

Under House of Commons standing order 24, an MP may request an emergency
debate. If the speaker allows, an MP has three minutes to make the case in the
chamber for an emergency debate. If the speaker allows it, the House of Commons
can decide whether the emergency debate will take place. On 3 September 2019,
Oliver Letwin’s case for an emergency debate on the House of Commons blocking
a no deal Brexit was approved by the then speaker John Bercow. When it passed
(328–301) this enabled the Commons to successfully demand that the government
extend its Brexit negotiations by a margin of 329–300.

Question 10

scrutiny and debate - Adjournment debates

Answer 10

Adjournment debates take place at the end of each day’s sitting. MPs can apply to
the speaker to ask a minister a question. When the MP has asked their question
and the minister has responded, other MPs may ask questions if the minister and
backbencher agree. Adjournment debates are limited to 30 minutes and are rarely
attended by many MPs, but they can raise issues of significant public interest. For
example, in 2020, Neil Parish MP’s adjournment debate called on the BBC to
protect regional news programmes.

Question 11

Representation in parliment.

Answer 11

MPs should work hard to ensure that
the interests of their constituents are raised in the House of Commons. However,
the representative role of MPs has been criticised on the grounds that the House of
Commons is not sufficiently reflective of the social configuration of the UK today
since it is too influenced by privately educated, white middle-class males. Despite this, the membership of the House of Commons that was elected in 2019 was the most socially representative in parliamentary history, with the highest number of female MPs (34%), the highest proportion of BAME MPs (10%) and the highest number of LGBTQ+ MPs (7%).

Critics, however, note that 80% of these MPs have had a business or professional
career so the working class is significantly under-represented. 66% of MPs are
still male and 27% of MPs were privately educated when nationally this is just
6%.

However, it may be simplistic to argue that the background of an MP necessarily
informs their approach to politics. The leading private school, Westminster School,
has produced politicians as radically different as Tony Benn and Sir Nick Clegg,

and Clement Attlee (Labour prime minister, 1945–51) and Tony Blair (Labour prime
minister, 1997–2007) were both privately educated.

The parliaments that legalised
same-sex acts (1967) and legislated in favour of same-sex marriage (2013) were
primarily composed of straight men.

A more persuasive criticism is that the way of electing the House of Commons by
FPTP means that the political opinion of the electorate is not fairly represented.

Question 12

Legitimation in parliament

Answer 12

Parliament was established to provide the consent that would legitimise the decisions
of the monarch. Although the Crown has now been replaced by a democratically
elected government, legitimation remains Parliament’s main constitutional function.
Thus, parliamentary bills require the consent of the House of Commons before they can be enacted.

Since the Parliament Act 1911, the House of Commons has the exclusive right to approve the Budget.

A convention has also developed whereby the House of Commons should be
consulted over committing British forces to military action.

Traditionally the prime minister has had the right to do this through the exercise of the royal prerogative. However, since the Iraq War in 2003, prime ministers have allowed Parliament to debate large-scale military commitments on the principle that the representatives of the nation should legitimise such important decisions in the life of the nation.

How well the House of Commons fulfils its legitimising role is controversial. This
is because the UK does not have a codified constitution determining exactly what
powers the House of Commons has in relation to the government. For example,
in 2018, Theresa May decided to join US-led assaults on the Syrian government
without consulting the House of Commons. This provoked an angry response from
the then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who called it a ‘flagrant disregard’ of the
legitimising rights of Parliament.
However, attempts by Theresa May’s government to begin the process by which
the UK would enter negotiations to exit the European Union without consulting
the House of Commons failed. In the Gina Miller case (2017), the Supreme Court
declared the prime minister could not legally do this through the royal prerogative. Instead, ‘the UK’s constitutional arrangements require such changes to be clearly authorised by Parliament.

Question 13

The composition of the House of Lords.

Answer 13

Although the House of Lords is referred to as ‘the Upper Chamber’, its
authority is considerably less than that of the House of Commons. As a primarily
appointed chamber it cannot claim the democratic legitimacy that the House of
Commons can.

Throughout most of its history the House of Lords was primarily composed of
peers, whose claim to membership was based on their possession of a hereditary
noble title, as well as a much smaller number of bishops representing the Church of England. These two groups comprised the ‘lords temporal’ and the ‘lords spiritual’.
However, the expansion of the franchise during the nineteenth century meant
that the influence of the House of Lords declined as the authority of the House of
Commons increased. The Parliament Act 1911 further diminished the power of
the House of Lords by removing its right to veto legislation passed by the House of
Commons.
In 1958, the Life Peerages Act gave the prime minister the authority to nominate
life peers to the House of Lords. Life peers do not pass on their title, and their
appointment to the Lords is based on their public service. This opening up of the
membership of the House of Lords to people who had distinguished themselves
in the service of their country gave the upper house a new sort of professional
legitimacy.

In 1999, the Labour government of Tony Blair removed the right of the 750 hereditary peers to continue sitting in the
upper chamber. However, to avoid a confrontation with the Lords, Blair agreed to a compromise, whereby 92 hereditary
peers could be elected to the Lords by the hereditary peerage. The number remains fixed at 92 and is continually refreshed
by the hereditary peers choosing new peers from among the peerage. The party allegiance must also remain as it was in 1997 so there will always be 42 Conservatives, 28 Crossbenchers, 3
Liberal Democrats, 2 Labour and 17 non-affiliated hereditary peers. As a result of these reforms the House of Lords is now
composed of a mixture of life peers, elected hereditary peers and bishops of the Church of England. Life peers are by far the most numerous and are nominated to the Crown by the prime minister, on the advice of Downing Street’s Main Honours Committee and the opposition parties. The politically neutral House of Lords Appointments Commission (HOLAC) also appoints several crossbenchers and scrutinises political appointments, although it has no right of veto.

In 2022, there were almost 800 members of the House of Lords. Of these, 26
were bishops of the Church of England (including the Archbishops of Canterbury
and York), 92 were hereditary peers and the remainder were life peers. Given that
life peers should be appointed because of their service to the nation, the House of
Lords is much less influenced by party politics than the House of Commons. Life
peers can choose to take the whip of a political party, but a significant number sit as
crossbenchers (Table 6.2).

Table 6.2 The composition of
the House of Lords, 2022

conservative - 257
labour - 168
crossbench - 184
lib dem - 84
bishops of the church of negland - 26

A government that has been in office for a long period of time can appoint a
considerable number of life peers to the House of Lords. There is also a convention
that the government should make nominations to the Lords roughly based on
the political configuration of the House of Commons. During his 10 years as
prime minister (1997–2007), Tony Blair recommended 374 appointments to the
House of Lords. Since he won such commanding majorities in the House of
Commons (1997, 2001), the majority of these were Labour (162) or crossbench
(96) appointments.

As in the House of Commons, the government and the opposition have their own
frontbenchers in the House of Lords. The Lords is presided over by the lord speaker,
who, in the same way as the speaker of the House of Commons, manages the
chamber and advises on procedure. In 2021, Lord McFall of Alcluith was elected
lord speaker. Since the House of Lords primarily focuses its expertise on scrutinising and revising legislation, its debates are considerably more courteous than those in the House of Commons.

Question 14

Buying influence?

Answer 14

The way in which the prime minister can recommend peerages has long been controversial. The First World War music hall refrain:
‘Lloyd George knew my father
Father knew Lloyd George’
satirises the way in which David Lloyd George (1916–22) abused this right. More recent prime
ministers have been similarly criticised.

• When he unexpectedly resigned as prime minister in 1976, Harold Wilson was widely
  mocked for his ‘lavender list’ of appointments to the House of Lords, which included his close friend, the businessman Joseph Kagan, whose company had invented the Gannex coat that Wilson liked to wear.
• On his resignation in 2016, David Cameron was accused of similar political cronyism, appointing 13 Conservative peers, 2 crossbenchers and just 1 Labour peer to the House of Lords. Among the newly appointed peers were Cameron’s chief of staff, Ed Llewellyn, the head of his Policy Unit, Camilla Cavendish, and his head of operations at Downing Street, Liz Sugg.
• Boris Johnson was also criticised for the peerages he recommended. HOLAC refused
  to endorse peerages for Peter Cruddas, a leading donor to the Conservative Party, and expressed security concerns over a life peerage for Evgeny Lebedev, the owner of the Evening Standard and a close friend of Johnson. On both occasions the prime minister ignored HOLAC’s advice.

Question 15

The main functions of the House of Lords - legislation

Answer 15

Although legislation may be introduced into the House of Lords, especially if it is
non-controversial, most bills begin in the House of Commons and then proceed
to the Lords. As a non-elected chamber, the House of Lords is unable to stop bills
that have passed the House of Commons from becoming law. However, the Lords
plays an important role in the legislative process. When a bill leaves the House
of Commons it is sent to the House of Lords, where it is examined in detail in
the chamber of the House of Lords. Here any member of the House of Lords can
propose an amendment, and given the expertise of the Lords these amendments
are often highly important in refining the content of a bill. Therefore, the primary
purpose of the Lords is as a revising chamber.

The Commons does not have to accept the advice of the Lords and the Lords can
only delay legislation for a year. However, their advice is often very valuable and
the amendments that they make can often be accepted by the House of Commons
as improving the quality of a bill. Since members of the Lords can sit for life, and
a significant number of them are crossbenchers, they are also less influenced by the dictates of the whips and so can address the merits and demerits of legislation with a more open mind. The way in which the two chambers negotiate over
proposed amendments to legislation before it receives royal assent is often referred
to as ‘parliamentary ping-pong’. This can be a highly productive form of political
engagement.

However, because of the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949, the government can still
pass legislation over the objections of the House of Lords. In 2000, for example, the
Sexual Offences (Amendment) bill, which reduced the legal age for gay sex from 18
to 16, easily passed the House of Commons but was rejected by the House of Lords.
The government quickly invoked the 1949 Parliament Act to give the bill royal
assent, effectively bypassing the Lords.
Heavy defeats in the House of Lords may persuade the government to reconsider
whether to modify or even continue with legislation. This is especially the case
if legislation has passed the House of Commons with only a small majority and is
clearly controversial.

• In 2008, clauses in the Counter-Terrorism Bill to enable terror suspects to be held
  for 42 days without charge were decisively defeated in the Lords by 191 votes.
  Since these proposals had passed the Commons by only nine votes, Gordon
  Brown decided to drop them from the bill.
• In 2015, George Osborne’s plan to cut tax credits was defeated in the House of
  Lords. In a significant show of bipartisanship, the Lords accused the government of introducing a significant financial measure through a statutory instrument to reduce parliamentary scrutiny. The resulting outcry was so great that Osborne dropped his proposals to reduce tax credits.
• The House of Lords’ criticism that the Internal Market Bill (2020) did not
  sufficiently recognise the authority of the devolved governments to determine
  goods and services policy led to the government conceding that some regulatory differences could be accepted within a ‘common framework’.
  However, if the government is fully committed to a policy and possesses a sizeable House of Commons majority, then it will be much less prepared to accept
  Lords’ amendments.

l Following Boris Johnson’s 80-seat election victory in 2019, in January 2020 the House of Commons decisively rejected all five of the House of Lords’ amendments to the EU (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill. One of these was the Dubs amendment, which would have ensured that unaccompanied child
refugees would still be able to join relatives in the UK after Brexit.

l According to Baroness Hayter, these rejections of the Lords’ amendments demonstrated an arrogant and unwelcome disregard for the informed contributions which the House of Lords makes to political decision making: ‘Legislation is meant to be a dual responsibility. Let’s hope this is a one off and that normal service will shortly resume.’

Question 16

The main functions of the House of Lords - scrutiny : House of Lords sessional committees and special enquiry
(ad hoc) committees

Answer 16

The House of Lords scrutinises the work of government in oral questions to ministers
and through committees. As a result of the expertise of its members, the committee
work of the House of Lords is especially highly regarded. Instead of monitoring
specific departments, committees concentrate on major social and political issues making recommendations to the government.

• Sessional committees deal with a particular issue and last from one parliamentary session to the next.
• Special enquiry (ad hoc) committees also investigate a specific issue but are set up
  for a specific time period.
• A particularly significant House of Lords sessional committee is the Secondary
  Legislation Scrutiny Committee. The House of Commons has limited time to
  examine secondary legislation, so the House of Lords Secondary Legislation
  Scrutiny Committee plays a valuable role in highlighting when statutory instruments are so badly worded or poorly drawn up that they may not achieve their purpose. In 2022, a statutory instrument was used to reduce from 3 months to 4 weeks the time when claimants may limit their job search to the same occupation and pay level as their former occupation. The committee was highly critical of what it regarded as rushed measures.
• The sessional House of Lords committee on the environment and climate change
  has held government accountable for not achieving its carbon reduction targets.
  It also launched an inquiry into how the public can contribute to resolving the
  challenge of climate change: ‘We know achieving our environmental goals will
  require not just innovation and technology but something far more personal –
  changing our behaviours’ (Baroness Parminter, chair of the Lords committee on
  the environment and climate change).
• In 2020, a House of Lords special enquiry into the negative economic and social
  consequences of gambling reported its findings and advice based on extensive
  consultation.

Question 17

‘Governing from the shadows’

Answer 17

Secondary legislation provides the government with a useful way of avoiding parliamentary scrutiny. Although the House of Commons must vote on primary legislation, changes to the detail of existing Acts of Parliament can be delegated to government ministers and civil servants through statutory instruments (SIs, also known as Henry VIII clauses). Critics have accused governments of increasingly using statutory instruments to introduce
significant changes to the law without them being given the same scrutiny as a primary Act of Parliament. In 2020, for example, 1618 statutory instruments were passed and just 29 Acts of Parliament. This is why the veteran Labour MP Angela Eagle has accused recent Conservative governments of ‘governing from the shadows’. Although many statutory instruments are highly technical and so non-controversial, others
develop policy and so critics argue that they should have been enacted as primary legislation, thus enabling full parliamentary scrutiny. For example, statutory instruments were often used to develop the government’s strategy to the Covid-19 pandemic, including lockdown measures. The speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, made a statement in the
House which was highly critical of how the government was excessively deploying statutory instruments: ‘The way in which the government have exercised their powers to make secondary legislation during this crisis has been totally unsatisfactory.’

Question 18

The main functions of the House of Lords - scrutiny : Joint House of Lords and House of Commons committees.

Answer 18

There are also a small number of joint committees of the House of Commons and
the House of Lords.
Three of them are permanent and meet regularly:
l Human Rights
l National Security Strategy
l Statutory Instruments

A strength of these committees is that they can consult widely and their membership
reflects the accumulated experience of both Houses of Parliament.

In 2022, for
example, members of the National Security Committee included: Tony Blair’s former
defence secretary, Lord Reid; the former cabinet secretary, Lord Butler; the former
chief of the general staff, Lord Dannatt; together with Tobias Ellwood, chair of the
House of Commons Defence Select Committee and Tom Tugendhat, chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. Their questions, reports and recommendations
are therefore very highly regarded.
Other joint committees can be established to deal with a specific issue. These
include the Joint Committee on the Draft Online Safety Bill. As the government
prepared legislation to make ‘the UK the safest place in the world to be online’,
a joint committee was established to provide wide-ranging and detailed analysis
of the issues involved. According to its chair, Damian
Collins MP, the committee’s purpose was to ‘stress test
its most critical clauses’ and in its report in December
2021 it made 127 recommendations for enhanced
online security for the public.

’ Unfortunately for the government, Julian Lewis is not alone in thinking that it was ‘improper’ for party whips to try to control the outcome of the election for chair of the ISC – the joint Commons and Lords committee that scrutinises the work of the intelligence agencies. Current and ex-Conservative MPs have criticised the government’s attempt to install former minister Chris Grayling in the prestigious role. The incident is unlikely to have smoothed already-fractious relations between the government and its backbenches.

Unfortunately for Lewis, a former member of the ISC and former chair of the Defence Committee, he is now also a former Conservative MP, having had the whip removed for having had the temerity to nominate and vote for himself, and be supported by the four opposition members of the nine-member committee. Never mind that the legislation underpinning the ISC – the Justice and Security Act 2013 – specifies that the committee elects its own chair from among its members.

The government’s claim that it was not trying to influence the outcome of the election is not credible. On the contrary, it appears that it was so keen to see Grayling in the chair it nominated just Conservative members who had vowed to support him to be members of the committee. It also abandoned the past convention that no party should have a majority on the committee, ditching a proposed crossbench peer in favour of a Tory.’ + secondary legislation.

Question 19

Legitimation, representation,
providing government and debate.

Answer 19

The Lords does not have a representative role in a democratic sense, although the ancient tradition that the Lords represents the spiritual as well as the temporal
realm is acknowledged by the presence of the bishops of the Church of England. Since legislation can be enacted without its consent it also cannot also claim a
legitimising role

However, the Lords plays an important role in scrutinising legislation. Its committees
also provide the government with valuable information and advice and members of
the House of Lords can serve as government ministers. In addition, the wisdom and experience of the House of Lords means that the questions for government and their less politically toxic chamber debates can raise vital issues of public concern.

Question 20

The comparative powers of the House of
Commons and the House of Lords - The powers of the House of Commons

Answer 20

The House of Commons has the sole right to defeat a bill. It also possesses the
exclusive right to dismiss the government if it loses a vote of confidence.
In 1979, for example, the Labour government of James Callaghan had managed to
survive for 3 years as a minority administration. However, on 28 March that year
the government lost a vote of confidence by 310–311 votes. Callaghan immediately
asked the Queen to dissolve Parliament, telling the House of Commons, ‘Mr
Speaker, now that the House of Commons has declared itself, we shall take our case
to the country.’

Question 21

The comparative powers of the House of
Commons and the House of Lords - The powers of the House of Lords

Answer 21

As long ago as 1867 Walter Bagehot, in The English Constitution, contrasted the
‘efficient’ part of government, which was the House of Commons, with the merely
‘dignified’, which was the House of Lords.
However, the House of Lords also has advantages over the House of Commons.
Since members of the Lords do not have the same constituency duties as MPs, they
can devote more of their time to scrutiny. As they are not elected or bound by a
party’s manifesto, they are more able to act independently. The large number of
crossbenchers also makes it more difficult for a government to dominate the House
of Lords.

Three examples of specialist experience in the House of Lords

Lord Norton of Louth
Philip Norton was appointed Professor of
Politics at Hull University in 1986. A
brilliant expert on Parliament and the
constitution, Lord Norton still teaches
undergraduates, regularly speaks at
schools and contributes to Politics Review.
His constitutional insights greatly inform
political debate in the House of Lords. His
personal blog, ‘The Norton View’, provides
a constantly updated mine of vital
information on how Parliament works

Baroness Black of Strome
Lord Darroch of Kew
Sue Black was appointed to the
House of Lords in 2021. As an
anatomist and forensic anthropologist,
she has played a leading role in
many criminal trials and war crimes
investigations including Kosovo and
Sierra Leone. She is president of St
John’s College, Oxford. In 2020, she
published the hugely popular, Written
in Bone: Hidden Stories in What We
Leave Behind

Lord Darroch of Kew
Kim Darroch was a member of the
diplomatic service for 40 years, rising to
national security adviser (2012–15) and
British ambassador to the United States
(2016–19). In 2019, Darroch resigned
from this position when secret memos
sent to the prime minister critical of
the Trump administration went public.
On his return from Washington, he wrote
Collateral Damage: Britain, America and
Europe in the Age of Trump (2020)

Although prime ministerial
appointments to the House of
Lords have been accused of
cronyism, the vast majority
of appointments
are non-
controversial.
Table
6.3
profiles
three
distinguished members of the
House of Lords.
The House of Lords also offers
a unique opportunity for
former members of the House
of Commons to continue in
public service and use their
accumulated political experience
to inform political debate and
advise government.

• Kenneth Clarke was a
  Conservative MP from 1970
  to 2019. He served in cabinet under Margaret Thatcher, John Major and David
  Cameron. A pro-European, he lost the Conservative whip in 2019 for seeking
  to delay Brexit. Raised to the peerage in 2020, he brings to the House of Lords
  a wealth of experience as well as considerable independent judgement.
• A former Labour MP, Alf Dubs, entered the House of Lords as Baron Dubs in
  1994. In 1939, as a Jewish child, he escaped Prague on a Kindertransport. He has
  often spoken about the plight of child refugees and in February 2022, in the early
  stages of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, tweeted, ‘We cannot publicly say we’re
  doing everything to help Ukraine but then turn our backs on those fleeing.’
  A summary of the functions and powers of the House of Commons and the House
  of Lords is given in Table 6.4.

Table 6.4 A comparison of the relative functions and powers of the House of Commons and the
House of Lords

house of commons

• Represents the nation and is
  accountable to it in a general election
• Can dismiss the government in a vote of
  confidence
• Must agree to the Budget
• Legitimises important decisions such
  as the dissolution of Parliament and, by
  convention, the commitment of the UK to
  major military operations
• The executive requires the consent of
  the House of Commons for legislation to
  be enacted
• Scrutinises legislation in parliamentary
  debate and Public Bill Committees
• House of Commons select committees
  monitor the work of government
  departments

house of lords

• Can delay legislation for one
  parliamentary session but cannot veto
  it. According to the Salisbury Convention, if
  proposed legislation has been included
  in the winning party’s electoral manifesto
  the Lords will not oppose it
• Since the Parliament Acts 1911 and
  1949 do not extend to statutory
  instruments, the Lords, theoretically,
  maintains a veto over them
• The Lords’ main work is as a revising
  chamber: offering amendments to
  legislation and scrutinising the work
  of government through committees,
  ministerial questions and parliamentary
  debate
• If the House of Commons voted to
  extend the life of a parliament beyond
  5 years, the House of Lords could
  constitutionally reject this proposal. This
  provides a way in which the Lords can
  protect civil liberties in the UK

Question 22

key term : sailsbury convention

Answer 22

Salisbury Convention
Since the Lords cannot
claim democratic
legitimacy, the Salisbury
Convention established
the principle in 1945 that
the Lords will not seek to
stop legislation that was
contained in the governing
party’s manifesto. To do
so would be to oppose the
democratically expressed
will of the public in a
general election. The
Lords can still propose
amendments, but these
should not be designed to
wreck the bill.

Question 23

Debate
The House of Lords fulfils an important parliamentary role

Answer 23

yes

The expertise of peers means that the amendments
they make to legislation can significantly improve it.
for example, in 2020, the house of lords send back the united kingdom internal market bill with reccomdations for amendments to it, wich the house of commons agreed to. this shows how the expertise of the lords is held in greta value.

no

in 2019, in January 2020 the House of Commons
decisively rejected all five of the House of Lords’ amendments to the EU (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill. One of these was the Dubs amendment, which would have ensured that unaccompanied child refugees would still be able to join relatives in the UK after Brexit.

yes

altough lods do not have the ability to veto bills due toe parliment act 1911, they can still veto a bill for up to 1 year wich in some cases may lead to the extinction of the bill.
this was the case when parliment tried to introduce a rwana bill, in wich any immigrant illegally trying to seek refuge would be imddeiatly deported to rwanda. the lods were furoius at this disregard for human rights and delayed the bill up to the time where the nect general election was coming with up to 7 cases of defeat in the house of lords. the bill was never passed.

no

In 2000, for example, the
Sexual Offences (Amendment) bill, which reduced the legal age for gay sex from 18
to 16, easily passed the House of Commons but was rejected by the House of Lords.
The government quickly invoked the 1949 Parliament Act to give the bill royal
assent, effectively bypassing the Lords.

yes

If the government dominates the House of Commons
with a very large parliamentary majority (Blair, 1997
and 2001), then the House of Lords provides an
important source of independent opposition.

they were defeated in the house of lords many times. an exmaple of this would be the racial and religous hatred bill wich lost to a total of -149 votes. the aim of the bill was to restrict the grounds on wich incitement of racial or religous hatred could be applied.

howver, if the goverment in party has a huge majoirty in first place, bills are not likely to be rejected by parliment, tony blair is a key example of this. in his ten yera reign his goverment lost a total of 4 bills, in the span of one year after the general election in 2005. since the lords do not have the poeer to veto as laid out in the parliment act 1911, and only hav the right to delay for one year due to the further act of 1949. the house of lords could not do much if the goverment decided to overull amendments they propose and go further with thier bills. this is shown by the fact that tony blair introduced 26,849 new laws over his reign.

Question 24

How Parliament interacts with the executive - The role and significance of backbenchers in both houses

Answer 24

Backbenchers in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords are protected by parliamentary privilege.

This principle dates back to the Bill of Rights in 1689, which states, ‘the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament’.

As a result, parliamentarians are free to raise any issue they wish in Westminster without fear of being prosecuted in the courts for libel or defamation of character.
The main roles of backbench MPs are to represent the interests of their constituents,
scrutinise the work of government, consider the merits of legislation, legitimise
certain government decisions such as committing British troops to military action,
and raise issues that they regard as significant.

• How much influence backbenchers wield depends on the size of the government’s
  parliamentary majority. Tony Blair won landslide parliamentary majorities in the
  1997 and 2001 general elections and could survive even very large rebellions by
  his backbenchers. In 2003, for example, 84 Labour MPs voted against involvement
  in the Iraq War, but Blair still won the parliamentary vote. However, Labour’s
  majority dipped to 66 in the 2005 general election and Blair subsequently failed
  to introduce 90-day detention for terrorist suspects when 49 Labour MPs voted
  against the government.
• If a government has a very small or non-existent parliamentary majority,
  backbenchers will be at their most influential as the whips, on both sides, will
  need to make concessions to secure their support. Having lost her parliamentary
  majority in the 2017 general election, Theresa May had to ‘manage’ rather than
  ‘lead’ Brexit to create as much cross-party support for her strategy as possible.
  Ultimately, she failed, and it was only when Boris Johnson won an 80-seat
  House of Commons majority in December 2019 that he was able to enact the
  EU withdrawal agree

Question 25

How Parliament interacts with the executive - The legislative process

Answer 25

The legislative function of Westminster is the process through which parliamentary
bills become law (Table 6.5). During each Parliament the government will introduce
a number of Public Bills into the House of Commons. At its first reading a bill’s title is introduced and a date is given for its second reading. There is no debate or a vote at this stage. At its second reading a bill is debated and a vote taken. A bill could be defeated at this stage. The bill then goes to a Public
Bill Committee where it is examined in detail and amendments may be added to
it. The bill then reaches the report stage where the changes made by the Public Bill
Committee are either accepted or rejected. Further amendments may be added by
MPs who were not members of the Public Bill Committee. The bill then reaches
its third reading when it is further debated and a vote is taken. A bill is unlikely to
be defeated on its third reading. The bill is then sent to the House of Lords where it
goes through a similar process. As a primarily revising chamber the House of Lords may make significant amendments to a bill. At this stage the bill may therefore
pass back and forth between the two houses in a process known as parliamentary ‘ping-pong’ as the House of Commons decides whether to accept or reject Lords’

amendments. Once both houses agree, the bill receives royal assent and so becomes
a parliamentary statute. If a bill was introduced first into the House of Lords, it then moves to the House of Commons. The process remains the same (Table 6.5).
Government bills

Table 6.5 The passage of a bill through Parliament

Bill beginning in the House of Commons

House of Commons
First reading
Second reading
Public Bill Committee
Report stage
Third reading
The bill then moves to the House of Lords
and the same process of debate, scrutiny
and vote is carried out

House of Lords
First reading
Second reading
Public Bill Committee (usually the whole
chamber of the House of Lords)
Report stage
Third reading
Parliamentary ‘ping-pong’
Royal assent

Bill beginning in the House of Lords
House of Lords
First reading
Second reading
Public Bill Committee (usually the whole
chamber of the House of Lords)
Report stage
Third reading
The bill then moves to the House of
Commons and the same process of debate,
scrutiny and vote is carried out

House of Commons
First reading
Second reading
Public Bill Committee
Report stage
Third reading
Parliamentary ‘ping-pong’
Royal assent

Question 26

How Parliament interacts with the executive - goverment bills.

Answer 26

Most bills debated by Parliament will have been introduced by the government.
These bills have a strong chance of being enacted because the government will be
able to give the bill sufficient time to be debated. The government can also rely on
the whips to encourage support for the bill in the House of Commons. Furthermore,
if the proposed legislation was in the government’s election manifesto, the House
of Lords, according to the Salisbury Convention, will not seek to obstruct it with
‘wrecking amendments’.
The progress of a bill through Parliament should involve a great deal of intense
scrutiny. The principles of a bill will be thoroughly debated at its second reading
and a particular strength of Public Bill Committees is that they can take advice from relevant experts and interested parties. However, critics of the House of Commons’ legislative function argue that the government has too much power over the process.

• If the government has a large parliamentary majority, it will usually be able to rely on the loyalty of its MPs to vote for the bill, thus making the debates and
  votes essentially a formality.
• The membership of Public Bill Committees is proportionate to party strength in
  the House of Commons, so this always give the government a majority.
• Whips also influence the selection of Public Bill Committee members, who are
  instructed to vote according to the whip on proposed amendments to the bill.
• MPs who are too critical of their government’s bills are unlikely to advance their careers — a good reason for them just to accept the proposed legislation.

The way in which MPs are expected to follow the dictates of their whips in both
parliamentary and committee votes can thus result in a lack of scrutiny and badly
thought-through legislation. Labour backbenchers elected during Blair’s landslide victories in 1997 and 2001 were often criticised for their lack of independent
judgement and for too readily supporting government policy without adequately
scrutinising it. However, MPs can show a great deal of independence and prove to be much more unruly than their whips would like.

For example, although the Johnson government succeeded in its legislative plans to introduce Covid passports in England in 2021, 99 Conservative backbenchers voted against the proposals, forcing the government to rely on the support of the Labour Party for success.

Table 6.6 demonstrates several occasions when MPs were much more than just
‘lobby fodder’. The scale and effectiveness of backbench rebellions during the 2019
minority Johnson administration are particularly striking. Not only did Johnson
not have a parliamentary majority, he also faced determined and tightly disciplined
opposition from pro-EU Conservative MPs, making him highly vulnerable. In
June 2022, when 41% of Conservative MPs refused to back Johnson in a vote of
confidence, his authority was fatally damaged.

Table 6.6 Notable government defeats in the House of Commons

Shops Bill 1986 -
The Shops Bill was defeated on its second reading when 72 Conservative MPs, keen to maintain tradition, voted against plans
to deregulate Sunday trading. Despite Margaret Thatcher’s 140- seat majority, her government lost the vote 282–296

Terrorism Act 2006
In 2005, 49 Labour MPs were unconvinced by the Blair government’s proposals that terrorist suspects should be held in
custody for 90 days without charge. As a result, the government was defeated 291 votes to 322 and the legislation was enacted
without this provision

Reform of Sunday
Trading Laws 2016

Plans by the Cameron government to allow large shops to extend their opening hours in England and Wales were defeated 286–
317 when 27 Conservative MPs rebelled against the government

EU Withdrawal
Agreement 2018

In January 2019, Theresa May’s government was defeated by 432 votes to 202 on the Brexit deal it was offering Parliament.
This crushing defeat of her government’s central policy by 230 votes was the biggest any British government has ever suffered.
In March 2019 a modified deal was once again defeated by the House of Commons, by 391–242. A third attempt in March was
defeated, by 344–286

Critics might suggest that these rebellions unacceptably slow down the government’s legislative programme. indeed, the Victorian prime minister Benjamin Disraeli
is alleged to have rebuked rebellious backbenchers with the words, ‘Damn your principles, stick to your party.’ However, the willingness of backbenchers to question and even reject government bills can be more convincingly seen as evidence that backbenchers take their legislative functions very seriously.

Question 27

How Parliament interacts with the executive - Private Members’ Bills

Answer 27

Members of both the House of Commons and the House of Lords can also introduce Private Members’ Bills. MPs can introduce Private Members’ Bills under the 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 Members’ Bill. Twenty bills enter the ballot and
  the top seven are usually debated. Most Private Members’ Bills are introduced by
  this method.
• Ten-Minute Rule MPs can put forward their proposals for a bill in a speech of
  ten minutes, but this is much less likely to be successful.
• Presentation An MP formally presents a Private Members’ Bill to the House of
  Commons. In the House of Lords, Private Members’ Bills are selected at a ballot at the start of a new Parliament. The fact that so few Private Members’ Bills become law has been used to demonstrate the lack of influence of backbenchers. Most Private Members’ Bills originate in the House of Commons. Limited time is given to debate them on a Friday and there may not even be enough present for a division (vote), which is necessary if the bill is to progress. Since there is so little time available, hostile MPs can also talk out a bill (known as filibustering). The impact of Private Members’ Bills can therefore be more to do with raising the profile of a particular issue rather than actually changing the law.
  In 2018, for example, Peter Kyle’s Representation of the People (Young People’s Enfranchisement) Bill, which proposed reducing the age to vote in parliamentary and other elections to 16, was not given enough time by the government to proceed. Nevertheless, the bill has ensured that the issue retains a high parliamentary and public profile.

However, if a Private Members’ Bill has cross-party support and the government
looks favourably upon it, it does have a chance of becoming law. In 2021 Andrew
Rosindell’s Animals (Penalty Notices) Bill proposed financial fines of up to £5,000
for animal abuse. Given that it had the full support of the government, it quickly
made its way through Parliament.

Question 28

The filibuster

Answer 28

In 2016 John Nicholson MP introduced the Sexual Offences (Pardons Etc.) Bill. Known as the Turing Bill, after the brilliant
mathematician Alan Turing, who may have committed suicide after being prosecuted for same-sex acts, the bill would have
pardoned living and dead men for same-sex historic sexual offences. When the then justice minister Sam Gyimah spoke at length during the debate, Nicholson desperately tweeted, ‘It seems
that the Minister plans to talk the #Turing out. If he keeps talking until 14.30 the bill dies. I’ll keep you posted. It’s 14.10.’
This alleged filibuster led to the bill’s failure through lack of time.

Question 29

Scrutiny - Select committees

Answer 29

In 1979, House of Commons select committees were introduced to monitor
the performance of the major departments of state. The departmental select
committees are:

l Business, Energy and Industrial
Strategy
l Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
l Defence
l Education
l Environment, Food and Rural
Affairs
l Foreign Affairs
l Health and Social Care
l Home Affairs
l International Development
l International Trade
l Justice
l Levelling Up, Housing and
Communities
l Northern Ireland Affairs
l Science and Technology
l Scottish Affairs
l Transport
l Treasury
l Welsh Affairs
l Work and Pensions

Select committees can also cut across departmental lines, such as the highly influential Public Accounts Committee (PAC), the Women and Equalities Committee and the Committee on the Future Relationship with the European Union.
Unlike Public Bill committees, select committees are non-partisan, which means
that MPs from all parties are expected to work together on them towards a shared
conclusion. Such political impartiality, so rare in the House of Commons, means that
their reports carry great political weight. Their criticisms are designed to improve
future performance rather than win political advantage. Each political party votes
on the membership, rather than it being chosen by the whips, ensuring that the
MPs who serve on select committees are highly regarded backbenchers. In addition,
the chairs of select committees are elected by MPs as a whole, ensuring cross-party
support. Chairs also receive a significant financial bonus, giving them the same
sort of salary as a junior minister. These factors combine to make chairing a select
committee an attractive prospect and provide the leadership of select committees
with a strong mandate directly from the legislature with which to confront powerful
departments of state. Many experienced backbenchers now chair select committees,
so increasing the influence they wield.

• In 2020, Jeremy Hunt was elected chair of the Health Select Committee. As
  a former health secretary, he was well placed to lead investigations into the
  performance of his former department. In 2021, the Health and Social Care
  Committee and the Science and Technology Committee together reported on
  the Covid-19 pandemic. They strongly criticised the government for its initially
  slow response to the pandemic, calling it ‘one of the most important public health
  failures the UK has ever experienced’. However, the report also acknowledged
  that the vaccination programme had been highly successful. Overall, the
  committees concluded, ‘The UK has combined some big achievements with some big mistakes. It is vital to learn from both.’ This demonstrates the constructive
  way in which select committees try to inform political decision making.
• Tobias Ellwood was elected chair of the Defence Select Committee in 2020. As
  a former soldier and defence minister his chairmanship of the committee carries
  considerable weight. In July 2021, the committee’s report on the most effective
  way of combatting Russia’s long-term strategic goals perceptively noted, ‘It is
  imperative that the UK government work with Ukraine, allies and NATO to
  promote peaceful resolutions between Russia and Ukraine. The West’s greatest
  defence is unity. Divided, Russia will reap the rewards.’
• Tom Tugendhat was chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee from 2017
  to 2022, prior to being appointed Minister of State for Security. In 2021, the
  committee presented a powerful condemnation of the Chinese government’s
  atrocities against the Uyghur Muslims and other minority groups. In its report,
  the committee urged that the Foreign Office acknowledge that ‘crimes against
  humanity’ and ‘genocide’ are occurring. According to Tugendhat, ‘This report
  moves the conversation forward, away from the question of whether crimes are
  taking place and on to what the UK should do to end them.’

The Public Accounts Committee is generally regarded as the most important of
all the House of Commons select committees. It investigates the expenditure of
all government departments, ensuring that public money is not wasted. Given the
massive cost of responding to the Covid-19 pandemic, its reports on how effectively
the government has spent taxpayers’ money have been particularly important. Its
2021 report on the £22 billion cost of ‘track and trace’ was notably critical of
the government, urging a much more cost-effective approach in future health
emergencies, ‘British taxpayers cannot be treated by government like an ATM
machine. We need to see a clear plan and costs better controlled.’
A strength of select committees is that they can consult widely with ministers,
civil servants and experts, and can send for ‘persons, papers and records’ to help
them with their investigations. They can compel attendance from members of the
public and because of parliamentary privilege, MPs can ask the most difficult
questions without fear of prosecution. Therefore, even though the reports that select
committees issue are not binding, because they are non-partisan and can summon
expert witnesses, they can have a significant impact on government decision making.

In 2015, the Health Select Committee recommended that a 20% tax on sugary
drinks be enacted to cut childhood obesity. Although the Cameron government
had consistently been against this, in 2016 the chancellor of the exchequer, George
Osborne, introduced a sugar drink tax. However, we need to remember how few
researchers MPs employ, how many demands there are on MPs’ time and the fact that, unlike barristers, MPs are not trained in forensic cross-examination. Consequently, this puts select committees at a significant disadvantage when scrutinising the work of government departments employing many civil servants and government lawyers.

Question 30

key term - parlimentary priveledge

Answer 30

A principle that protects
MPs and peers from being
sued for libel or slander,
so ensuring that they have
freedom of speech within
the Palace of Westminster.
It also includes the right
of Parliament to exclusive
cognisance, which means
it controls its own internal
affairs without outside
interference.

Question 31

scutiny - ministerial questions

Answer 31

As the executive sits within the legislature it can be regularly questioned, in both
chambers, and held accountable for government policy. In the House of Commons,
from Monday to Thursday an hour of parliamentary business time is set aside for
oral questions to ministers. In the House of Lords, half an hour is devoted to oral
ministerial questions on the same days, although questions are directed to the
government rather than to a specific department. Ministers must also respond to
written questions within a week if they are asked in the Commons, and within 2
weeks if they are asked in the Lords. According to the Ministerial Code of Conduct,
‘Ministers should be as open as possible with Parliament and the public, refusing to
provide information only when disclosure would not be in the public interest.’ Oral
and written questions and responses are made publicly available.
Ministerial questions are thus an important way of ensuring that ministers do not
neglect their responsibility to the House of Commons. For example, during the
early stages of the Russia-Ukraine war, the Foreign Office had to respond to several
questions from MPs over whether the UK’s response was having its desired effect.

Question 32

scrutiny - prime ministers questions

Answer 32

The prime minister is expected to attend the House of Commons every Wednesday
between noon and 12:30 p.m. to respond to questions from the chamber. This
provides an important opportunity for the prime minister to be held accountable
for government policy. On these occasions, the leader of the opposition can ask
six questions, so it is important for both the prime minister and the leader of the
opposition that they present themselves as effectively as possible. The leader of the
next biggest party is given two questions to ask and then MPs have an opportunity
to ask their own questions.

In 2015, Sir Gerald Kaufman MP, who was first elected an MP in 1970, said that
Prime Minister’s Question Time (PMQT) had become ‘an exchange of pointless
and useless declamations’. The governing party’s MPs can also deliberately ask the
sorts of questions that enable the prime minister to take the credit for government
successes. However, supporters of PMQT respond that it provides the opportunity
for Parliament to interrogate the prime minister on a weekly basis in a way that is
alien to presidential systems in which the executive is much less regularly accountable
to the legislature.

PMQT can also provide a powerful spotlight on the record of the
prime minister, as well as enabling the prime minister to expose any inadequacies
in the opposition. Critics of PMQT claim that its raucous nature discourages genuine debate and that, backed by hundreds of cheering MPs, prime ministers are adept at avoiding answering the question. Instead, they use the theatrical nature of the proceedings to make popular counterclaims and assertions, making PMQT more of an excuse for electioneering than an effective way of scrutinising government policy.

However, in early 2022, it might be claimed that the relevance and importance
of PMQT was demonstrated by the leader of the Labour Party, Sir Keir Starmer,
using it to forensically examine the extent of Boris Johnson’s culpability for illegal
lockdown parties at Downing Street and then the government’s response to the
Russian invasion of Ukraine. Both issues were of enormous public concern and
PMQT meant that the prime minister had to regularly respond to issues of enormous
public concern.

Question 33

scrutiny - the liason commitees

Answer 33

The Liaison Committee represents the chairs of all the select committees and twice
yearly questions the prime minister. It is significantly less confrontational than
PMQT and its form of steady examination allows greater opportunities for extended
discussion.

Prime ministers are thus much less able to divert questions than during
PMQT. When Boris Johnson cancelled his appearance before the committee in
2019, the then chair Sarah Wollaston issued the following stern rebuke: ‘Our role
as select committee chairs is to ask you detailed questions on behalf of the public
and we planned to do so on Brexit, climate change, health and social care. It is
unacceptable that you are refusing to be held to account.’

In 2020, the government appointed its own candidate, Sir Bernard Jenkin, as chair
of the Liaison Committee rather than allowing the heads of the select committees
to choose the chair as they had done since 2010. Despite this, there is no evidence
that its role has been diminished. In 2022, for example, Jenkin clearly explained
to the prime minister that it was unacceptable for him not to completely detail the government’s climate change strategy so that the committee could address its effectiveness. The day after the resignations of Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid from his government, Johnson endured a bruising encounter with the Liaison Committee that further demonstrated his declining authority. In an exchange that raised exceptionally important constitutional issues, Sir Bernard Jenkin succeeded in getting the prime minister to accept that he would not be justified in seeking a general election if he had lost the support of the parliamentary conservative party.

Question 34

scrutiny - opposition days.

Answer 34

During each parliamentary session, 20 days are set aside to debate subjects chosen
by the opposition. Naturally these will be over issues which the opposition parties
believe the government should try to justify itself. It is rare for an opposition day motion to pass, although in 2009 a Liberal Democrat motion on the Brown
government’s failure to provide Gurkha veterans with UK residency rights passed
by 267/246. In 2019, a Labour opposition day motion urging the government to
declare ‘an environment and climate emergency’ was also supported by the House of Commons, although ultimately not endorsed by the government. Opposition
days are therefore most important in pressurising the government on areas where it is most vulnerable.

Question 35

Representation

Answer 35

MPs are accountable to their constituents in regular general elections, which
ensures a very close relationship between them. This does not mean that MPs must
do exactly as most of their constituents want, however. This would make them
simply delegates. Instead, MPs should balance the interests of their constituents
with the demands of the party whips and the dictates of their own conscience.
Edmund Burke provided the classic trusteeship interpretation of the role of MPs
in 1774 when he told his constituents in Bristol, ‘Your representative owes you,
not his industry only but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if
he sacrifices it to your opinion.’
The conflicting loyalties posed by Brexit have raised interesting questions about the
Burkean model of trusteeship. For example, some pro-EU MPs decided to switch
to supporting Brexit given the strength of support for EU withdrawal among their
constituents. Others continued to try to delay or stop Brexit despite going against
the wishes of their constituents.

What is less controversial is that MPs are expected to thoroughly engage with local
issues involving their constituents, both individually and collectively, to ensure that
they are acknowledged at Westminster.

Therefore, a highly important part of an MP’s workload is to spend time in their
constituency, discussing constituents’ concerns in regular surgeries and becoming
thoroughly involved in the life of the community. By doing this they contribute
to one of the great functions of Parliament, which is to provide citizens with the
right of ‘redress of grievance’. Tony Benn, who served as an MP for 50 years,
called constituency work the hardest but also most satisfying part of his job: ‘In my
constituency, everyone I met was my employer.’ Tragically, the assassinations of
the MPs Jo Cox (2016) and David Amess (2021) both took place while they were
attending a constituency surgery.

Question 36

Debate
The influence of backbench MPs at Westminster has increased in recent years

Answer 36

yes

The Liaison Committee (chairs of all select committees) regularly holds the prime minister to account for policy
development and implementation.
since the first laison commitee in 2002 when tony blair broke the long standing tradition of prime ministers refusing to give evidence to parlimentary commitees.

• his last appearance in July, for example, Rishi Sunak faced questions on Boris Johnson’s appearance before the Privileges Committee, the government’s Rwanda asylum plan, and the cost of living crisis.

no

mps can refuse to turn up to laison commitees, with no legal consequences. for example in 2019, boris johnson cancelled the commitee for more than once, claiming he had to ‘focus on delivering brexit’. this shows how backbench influence has nothing to rely on.

yes

MPs have an increasingly important legitimising role.
Since the Iraq War in 2003 the House of Commons
has voted on whether to support large-scale military
expeditions overseas.
in 2003, when tony blair wanted to enagge in miliatry opertaion against iraq on the claims that saddam hussien was a threat to the uks national security, in order to use his royal prerogative he made parliment vote for thier approval, wich was approved by a vote of 412 to 149 votes.

no

once again, prime ministers have the power to discard mps roles as they wish. in 2018, therersa may decided to launch attacks against syria allied with america and farnce. she did so without consulting parliment on the matter and used the royal prerogative. this shows how mps do not have signifacnt power again.

yes
As a result of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011,
the House of Commons has to approve any early general election proposls, meaning that backbenchers hold the signifacnt power of voting against or for teh chnaging of goverment. this happened in 2017 when theresa may wanted to call a general elction, and in 2019 when boris johnson called a general elction, both had to seek the approval fo teh house of commons first, without thier approval, an election would ahve been iimpossable as even a prime minister can not bypass legislation.

no

in 2022, johnson, who had previusly fallen victim to the fixed term parliment act of 2011, where he had failed many times to call a general election as parliment did not agree with him, decided to scrap the legislation complety, introudcing the The Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022, Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that repealed the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 and reinstated the prior constitutional situation, by reviving the power of the monarch to dissolve and summon parliament. since the powers of the monarch are held by the prime minister as the uk is a constutional monarchy, the prime minister now holds the power to call a snap elcection tacfully once again, proving how the power of backbenchers is dependent on the prime minister.