Government is, in theory, accountable to Parliament, however it is difficult for this to be the case when government makes up a large part of Parliament. So when examining how effective Parliament is at controlling the power of the executive, all of the below has to be considered.

The role of select committees and departmental select committees are very important in the control of government’s power. These committees scrutinize government policy, as well as raising public awareness of it, in great detail. The line of questioning is very different, and considerably more in depth, than if the queries were raised in the House of Commons; this is because evidence is gathered in advance and the committees demand answers with substance, opposed to filibustering or rhetoric. Evidence has shown that 40% of committee recommendations to government has then been applied to policy. However, it is not so much that the recommendations are a control of the executive, but the fear the committees induce in the government; the government knows that, if they make a policy that is not in the public’s interest, they will be exposed. That being said, in a legal sense, select committees have no control or power over government, which could be argued makes them ‘watchdogs without teeth’. The committees are also, in part, made up of MPs belonging to the governing party and may not want to scrutinize their party as it may be damaging to their career prospects.

The House of Lords cannot block government policy, however the upper chamber can delay it by one year, which means that, if government want to pass it, it has to be voted for again in the House of Commons. Of the 528 occasions the Lords defeated the House of Commons between 1997-2010 (this in itself shows the House of Lords to be a useful check on government) 40% of the policies were not re-debated the next year. Although this high number of government defeats over this time period may have been the result of the fact that, until recently, the Upper Chamber was dominated by the Conservatives and there was a Labour government. It is, though, a limitation of the House of Lords that it has not veto powers and is only able to delay the executive opposed to controlling it.

In our current government (a Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition) it is difficult for the executive to dominate Parliament as there is no majority, this means that the governing party as to get MPs from their coalition partners or the opposition to also vote in favour of proposed legislation. This reduces the influence of the party whips as there has to be cross party consensus. This gives Parliament a great deal of control over government power as even a small group of MPs can prevent the will of the executive. This, though, is uncommon as government normally holds a large majority in Parliament (this is largely due to the electoral system used in the UK’s general elections). In fact the previous hung Parliament was in 1974. It becomes easy for the executive to dominate Parliament when it has a majority because there is a fusion of powers within it, when the government has a majority it makes up the majority of the Parliament, which can lead to what is effectively an elected dictatorship. An example of this would be Tony Blair’s Labour government, who had such a large mandate that they passed an unprecedented amount of constitutional reform (such as the Human Rights Act 1998, and the creation of a Scottish and Welsh assembly respectively) with relative ease.

The House of Commons can give a vote of ‘no confidence’ if there is a government that the Lower Chamber believes not to be fit for purpose, this happened to James Callaghan’s government in 1979 following ‘the winter of discontent’. It is rare, though, for this to happen as it requires a general election (should the vote of no confidence be successful) and MPs are often reluctant to risk their seats. Also, as there is often a majority held by government, it would require an MPs to vote their own party out (this is very unlikely). Callaghan’s government was one seat short of a majority (only because of the resignation of John Stonehouse) and, incidentally, the vote of no confidence passed by one vote. So this power held by Parliament to vote out government, should there be a majority, is unlikely to be an effectual check of executive power.

While Parliament has several procedures and some constitutional powers, Parliament’s effectiveness in controlling the power of the executive is dictated, not so much by the size of the majority, but by the presence of a majority itself to the extent that the executive could remove those safe guards completely. As the UK uses an electoral system which by its nature creates majority governments, Parliament, while offering in depth scrutiny, does little, if anything, to control the power of the executive.