Parliament

Key terms:

Party whip - An official in a political party whose primary purpose is to ensure party discipline in a legislature Conservative Chief whip is Sir George Young and Lib Dem Chief whip is Alistair Carmichael

Functions of Parliament in general:

-Legislate (pass laws)
-Primary legislate (Parliament pass laws)
-Represent views of ALL citizens
-Deliberation, discuss issues
-“Re-dress of grievances” singular issues for people
-Scrutiny of the executive
-Give government legitimacy
-Recruitment of ministers

Three parts of Parliament:

-Commons
-Lords
-Queen in Parliament (Royal assent, since 1707 Queen is not allowed in the Commons)

House of Commons:

-Most powerful of the two houses
-Appointed, first past the post
-Made up of 650 MPs, each elected in one of 650 constituencies throughout the UK
-Almost all MPs are elected as members of a political party

Functions:

* Representation: MPs represent constituents and may represent interests such as trade unions, or particular professions. Almost all MPs represent political parties, and usually vote according to their party (the whipping system) (The Burkean nation) * Scrutiny of the Executive: Scrutinised through things like Standing committees, select committees, opposition, combustion, PMQ’s and House of Lords * The House of Commons currently has 659 MPs sitting in it and the Commons is seen as a cradle of democracy where even a government with a huge parliamentary majority can see that majority dwindle if party members vote against the government Recent tuition fees * Scrutinise government bills and vote on them - therefore having a vital input in to how laws are made in this country

House of Lords:

* Scrutinising Government actions and ensuring that they are acting the public interest. This takes place through the House of Lords EU Select Committee * Holding Government accountable * Part of the legislative process; passing and amending Nick Clegg’s HOL reform bill in 2012 was not passed * HOL holds experts in their field to deliberate relevant issues of the day Alan Sugar or Lord Coe

House of Lords reform:

-Parliament act 1911 - Removed the ability of the House of Lords to veto money bills, with any other bills, the House of Commons was given powers to overrule the Lords' veto after 3 sessions

-Parliament act 1949 stated that it only took 2 sessions to overrule Lords. This made Commons far superior to Lords

-Started under the premiership of Tony Blair, whereby his government wanted to remove inherited positions

-This being when a member of the Lords died, his/her position would stay in the family and be passed onto whomever wanted it.

-Blair's government wanted to remove this system and successfully managed to take away most inherited positions.

-The current Coalition government were also working on House of Lords reform and wanted to change the House from what it is now to a wholly elected or partially elected second chamber -These efforts though were abandoned in August 2012, with the bill withdrawn from the House of Commons in September 2012 because of opposition within the Conservative Party.

-Salisbury Convention (1945–1951) - An unwritten constitutional convention that as the Commons is the elected chamber, it therefore has a mandate to pass anything in manifesto without Lords Veto

-Life peerage act 1958, peers could vote in HOL but wouldn’t be hereditary
-Peerage act 1963,

-Nick Clegg proposed a House of Lords reform act 2012 which was a fully elected second chamber but was declined and scrutinised by the opposing party (Conservative party)

Is Parliament effective?

Scrutiny: * Scrutiny isn’t effective because of Government majority * Mps rarely oppose their own party so overall in practise it’s not effective
Positive
* Ministers are required to answer written and spoken questions * Select committees are able to highlight real issues or problems
Negative
* In practise select committees are poor as they mainly contain members of the elected party and are less likely to openly criticise Government policy * Secrecy in Government means much information is unavailable making scrutiny less effective (e.g. the recent investigations into intelligence regarding Iraq, many documents were classified and many officials were not permitted to be questioned

Law making: * Parliament itself is weak as a law making body * Most bills are Government bills not from individual Mps (govt dominates) * Parliament has limited ability to reject/amend govt bills. e.g. Select/Standing Committees in practise are packed full of MPs loyal to Government.
Positive:
* All legislation has to pass through HOL and HOC * The Lords are able to suggest amendments and delay bills - such as the recent Hunting Bill which has been delayed for a year by the House of Lords
Negative:
* Because of the majority in the Commons, in practice the HOL scrutiny of bills is not very effective * Lords doesn’t have as much power as Commons e.g. Can’t scrutinise or amend monetary bills.

Representation:

* Parliament is not a cross-section of society e.g. electorate 50% female but HOC only 10% female. * First past the past means winner takes all * HOL is unrepresentative because it reinforces the fact that most of its members are part of the elected party therefore not scrutinising fully
Positive:
* The members chosen are effective in terms of representing their constituents * Many Lords represent the views of many pressure groups
Negative:
* The electoral system doesn’t provide a result proportionate to the votes cast * Women (1 in 4 Mps) are underrepresented * Even if it was representative Parliament would be constricted by Executive control and party discipline, so this role is relatively ineffective

Redress of grievance (right to complain)

Problems facing Parliament when doing its job

* Collective responsibility Estelle Morris resigned in 2002 as she thought her handling of her policy wasn’t good enough.
David Laws who was chief secretary was forced to resign
-Although this is the case, some still try to keep their jobs like Michael Gove who was heavily criticised due to the misuse of social networking but didn’t resign
Robin Cook (Iraq) * Lack of time * Culture of secrecy in Government * Executive Dominance * Electoral system * Membership of the Lords * Party organisation