How effective are backbench MP’s?
How effective are backbench MP’s?
Backbench MP’s are members of Parliament that are not in either the cabinet or the shadow cabinet. Backbench MP’s may be seen to be effective in some ways in the British Political system because they can do things such as scrutinise the government and hold them into account through numerous ways. Their role in Parliament in Westminster ensures that there may be democratic legitimacy of UK government and gives them a right and authority to exercise political power and may possibly increase the representation, overall, through Parliament. However, there is a growing fear that there is now ‘executive dictatorship’ in the UK and because of this, backbench MP’s have little power in calling the government into account due to the party system, which ensures that MP’s are dictated by the whips system, reducing the effectiveness that MP’s can then call people into account. Therefore, there are both reasons for and against that would suggest MP’s are or are not effective as seen.
Firstly, backbench MP’s are key in calling the government of today to account, making them answerable for their actions and policies. This is achieved through questions to the Prime Minister and questions to other ministers as well as other forms of scrutiny such as debates and all of these methods are effective because they raise public awareness for issues and may possibly increase the media pressure on the government, causing them to act. Through Prime Ministers Questions, for example, which takes place weakly for half an hour, backbench MP’s from both the governing party and the opposition are able to scrutinise the weekly actions of the government. Backbench MP’s also use this system to increase the representation function of Parliament through raising specific issues of their constituents from each of the many constituencies that there are in the UK. This ensures that there is geographical representation of Parliament and calls the government to account, as an inability to ensure these causes embarrassment to both the PM and the executive as a whole. The strongest form of scrutiny is the use of select committees which provide very detailed analysis of things that the government is doing or issues that need to be eradicated on a whole range of problems. An example of the good use of select committees is the use by Tom Watson who has brought up a whole load of issues including the phone hacking scandal and other allegations against a late peer.
However, many argue that questions to ministers from backbench MP’s do not allow them to carry out effectively their function of calling the executive to account within the legislature. This is because things like PMQ’s only take place weekly, therefore backbench MP’s are unlikely to be able to fully scrutinize government actions within only half an hour. Also, PM’s regularly use this televised event to ‘political point score’ as opposed to explaining their actions fully, often evading important question. This is seen recently when a question was asked to David Cameron 6 times and each time, it came back with an answer for a different question. It could also be argued that MP’s do not use enough force when questioning ministers and therefore are not held under sufficient pressure to explain their actions, reducing the legitimacy and authority of the government. The government does not also have to actually act on behalf of the scrutiny against them which means that there may be very good points made, however the government does not have to do anything about it.
It is also said that backbench MP’s are highly effective in scrutinising government legislation, identifying errors within it and suggesting improvements, improving the quality of executive legislation in the UK. This is specifically relevant due to the reforms of the Wright’s committee under Brown, in which departmental select committees were reformed in order for backbench MP’s to select the chairperson of select committees as opposed to appointment by party whips. This ensures that Backbench MP’s gained more power to effectively carry out scrutiny of government actions and legislation. These departmental select committees have found many errors in government actions in the past and allow backbench MP’s to shadow and check individual government departments. Legislation, mentioned earlier, is often scrutinised by backbench MP’s through the cure of Public Bill Committees, which identify weaknesses in the legislation. The work on legislative committees helps to provide better legislation as well as taking part in debates again, causing the legislation made to be more effective.
Again, however, many agree that MP’s involvements in Public Bill committees is limited, as most proposed legislation is presented to the legislature, practically complete, by the executive. This results in backbench MP’s making little amendments to bills, with a record of only 1% of these amendments to legislation being successful. This suggests that MP’s are not effective in scrutinising proposed legislation. The MP’s will be bound by the whip system and so will not vote against their parties wishes because it could be bad for them and so are unlikely to have major influence. Backbench MP’s are also ineffective through departments such as select committees, which are often denied information from the executive and lack credibility, rarely with the issues and problems being discussed in Parliament.
Finally, MP’s must be effective in the way that they represent us. Backbench MP’s may be seen to be effective because, although it may not be to scale, they do represent the spectrum and range of political parties that there are. This is shown by much more smaller parties being a lot more recognised and listened to such as the Green Party and UKIP. Even though they do not have much influence, they still have a say in what is being discussed now and so the representation function is increased. The MP’s also representatively show the views of the people within their constituencies, just by them being voted into where they are because they are voted in when they are representing the views of their constituents. They may also do work and talk to their constituents and discuss the issues that they have and may bring these issues and problems up in Parliament. Basically, they represent the various sections of the community and their political views with there being some very effective examples such as Caroline Lucas who is the sole member of the green party in the Commons and is now getting their voices heard, as mentioned, rather than all the much larger parties.
Again, there are lots of points to suggest that MP’s do not effectively represent the people of the nation. MP’s, even though they are supposed to, might actually do very little work with the people in their constituencies and so may not be representing the views of everybody so that they are not doing what they are supposed to. Also, even though, more parties are actually being placed in Parliament, the ratio of votes to seat is very different to the actual demographic situation of Parliament. The First Past the Post system is unrepresentative with the actual wishes of the public with it just relying on the geographical situation in each of the constituencies. This is shown by the fact that the SNP have about 56 seats from only 4.7% of the vote yet the Lib Dems have only 8 seats in the commons from 7.9% of the votes. It really relies on the geographical location of where all the votes are. The whips system again stifles the representation view because if people really want to vote for one thing but they are forced to vote in party line, then it is going to change the decision that is made with not everyone’s clear views being expressed. Something that really needs to change about Parliament is the fact that they are not at all representative of the national geographic of the nation and the numbers in society that there are. It is often stated that backbench MP’s do not allow Parliament to act representatively on behalf of the nation with only 22% of MP’s being women which is terrible compared to society where it is 50/50 in gender. As well as this, only about 4% of MP’s are a minority and 90% of MP’s are in the top two social classes of Britain and 35% of them were privately educated, despite only 7% of the population of Britain attending fee paying schools. Therefore, the predominantly middle class arrangement of backbench MP’s suggests that they are not effective at carrying out a representative function in Parliament.
All of these factors however, will be changed by a few circumstances. These are things such as the size of the majority that the government has, how unified the parties are and finally what impact the Lords have on society. These will affect all the points above because, firstly, if the government has a very large size in majority in the Commons then they will have full rule of the decisions. If a government has a large majority, the effectiveness of Parliament is weakened as it needs substantial number of the governing parties backbench MP’s to rebel in order to defeat the government. This is shown by examples such as the Blair government in 97 because as a result of large majorities, the Blair government suffered no defeats in the House of Commons in the first two terms. This meant that Tony Blair could have basically all of the policies that he wanted implemented because there was no real opposition against him that would mean the representative function is decreased as well as the scrutiny function because there is no real opposition that can cause damage as well as lots of people’s views not being listened to. Part unity also makes Parliament less effective because it is maintained through the whipping system which meant that the whips could have responsibility over the MP’s responsibility, promotion prospects and ideological unity. If people are forced to do things then they are rubbing out their views and so representation is compromised. Finally the Lords; the Lords is not controlled by the government in the same way the Commons is and so they are not going to have any whipping system which they must align to. Peers argue that they have recently had an increased duty to check the government of the day because they have weakened the commons by such large majorities. Although the Commons was ruled by Blair, the government was defeated by the Lords on 353 occasions during its first two terms compared to not being defeated at all in the Commons. This increases all functions of Parliament; however, the government can strengthen their hold on the Commons by creating substantial amounts of new peers which threatens to give the government majority control of the Lords by implementing Lords of their party.
To conclude then, backbench MP’s may be seen to be effective in some ways however on the whole, due to majority usually existing within the UK executive and a clear lack of representation, it seems that backbench MP’s are not very effective within the British political system. However, with pretty recent reforms from the coalition, they are becoming more effective. This can be viewed through the ‘House Business Committee’ which began in 2013 from the coalition, in which backbench MP’s will have further control over the system in the Commons. It is also more apparent the powers of Backbench MP’s are growing under the coalition, in which the party system appears neater and party whips a little less powerful, shown in the recent statement of a conservative backbench MP who stated David Cameron was a ‘posh boy’ who doesn’t know the price of milk.’ This shows that MP’s are becoming a little more effective however they are still compromised in their functions of scrutiny where they can’t force a decision, legislation, where they are whipped in line to agree with the legislation proposed and particularly representation where full society is not fully shown