The House of Commons Modernisation Committee is considering potential reforms to Commons procedures, standards and working practices, and recently ran a consultation exercise to establish its priorities. In this post, Dr Daniel Gover analyses flaws with the procedures for private members’ bills and opposition days, and makes the case for reform.
Continue reading
Last week’s opposition day debate in the House of Commons about Gaza and Israel was overshadowed by a bitter procedural row over the Speaker’s selection of amendments. But the rules governing opposition days – and their role in allowing these arguments – are not straightforward. Tom Fleming discusses the procedural background and implications.
The background
Last week saw a House of Commons debate about a ceasefire in Gaza and Israel overshadowed by a bad-tempered row about the Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, selecting an amendment from the Labour Party.
This debate came on an ‘opposition day’. There are 20 such days in each parliamentary session, when MPs can debate motions put forward by opposition parties rather than by the government. Of these, 17 are allocated to the largest opposition party in the Commons (currently Labour), and three to the next-largest, which is currently the Scottish National Party (SNP). Last Wednesday’s debate was on an SNP motion calling for ‘an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Israel’.
Usually when the House debates motions, MPs can propose amendments to them in advance, and the Speaker selects which of those amendments will be debated. MPs then vote on the selected amendments before voting on the final motion (incorporating any successful amendments).
If this usual practice were followed on opposition days, it could mean opposition parties’ proposals regularly not getting voted on. This is because any government amendment is highly likely to pass, after which MPs would only be able to vote on the amended motion, not the original proposal. In acknowledgement of this, government amendments on opposition days are voted on after the main motion. In contrast, any non-government amendment selected would be voted on before the main motion. But it is a long-established convention that when a government amendment has been selected, no further amendments are chosen.
Continue readingThis is the first edition of this briefing. It has since been updated. Read the most up-to-date version and other briefings on the Constitution Unit’s website.
Parliamentary scrutiny is at the heart of UK politics. In this post, Meg Russell and Lisa James examine the four key methods of parliamentary scrutiny, and offer proposals on how to strengthen it, calling for better behaviour by government and strong engagement from backbenchers.
Background
Parliament lies at the heart of UK politics. The legislature is a core institution in any democracy, but is particularly important in the UK, due to our tradition of ‘parliamentary sovereignty’. The government is dependent on the confidence of the House of Commons, which can potentially remove it from office. Parliamentary consent is required for primary legislation, and parliament is a particularly central and important body in holding ministers to account day-to-day.
This makes scrutiny – the detailed examination of policy proposals, actions and plans – one of the essential roles of parliament. Other functions include representation, and serving as a space for national debate – which in turn feed into parliament’s scrutiny function.
This briefing summarises why parliamentary scrutiny matters, what different kinds of parliamentary scrutiny exist at Westminster, some recent concerns about the decline of scrutiny, and ways in which it can be protected and strengthened.
Why does parliamentary scrutiny matter?
The government is responsible for much day-to-day decision-making, in terms of national policy formulation and implementation. But the government itself is not directly elected, and depends for its survival on the continued confidence of the House of Commons. This makes parliament one of the central checks and balances in the constitution – arguably the most central one of all. To provide government accountability, one of the core functions of parliament is scrutiny.
Continue reading
Various high-profile tensions between parliament and government – including over Brexit and COVID-19 – have focused on what the House of Commons can discuss and when. In a major new report published today, Meg Russell and Daniel Gover highlight the problems that result from the government’s default control over the Commons agenda, and make proposals for reform. They argue that the fundamental principle guiding House of Commons functioning should be majority decision-making, not government control.
The last few years have been turbulent ones in the House of Commons. First over Brexit, then over COVID-19, tensions between government and parliament have sometimes run exceptionally high. This was perhaps predictable during 2017-19 under minority government, but has remained the case subsequently despite Boris Johnson’s 80-seat Commons majority.
A common theme throughout this period – as highlighted in a major new report, published today – has been frustration about the extent to which the government decides what MPs can discuss and when. Brexit saw headlines about MPs ‘seizing control’ of the Commons agenda (some suggesting that this marked the ‘end of politics as we know it’), followed by worldwide media attention on the government’s attempt to prorogue parliament (ultimately overturned by the Supreme Court). During the COVID-19 pandemic, complaints have focused on parliament’s limited opportunities to scrutinise ‘lockdown’ restrictions, and ministers’ resistance to MPs’ ability to participate in the Commons virtually. On all of these matters, MPs have struggled to secure debates on their own priorities at key moments – despite the Commons’ status as the senior chamber in a supposedly ‘sovereign’ parliament. Even when lacking a Commons majority, ministers have generally been able to exercise agenda control.
Controversies about government control of the House of Commons are nothing new. At one level, they are part of a tussle for dominance that dates back centuries. In more recent times, they were a key focus of the Select Committee on the Reform of the House of Commons (generally referred to as the ‘Wright Committee’) which reported in 2009. It recognised ‘a feeling that the House of Commons, as a representative and democratic institution, needs to wrest control back over its own decisions’, and made a series of recommendations to achieve this. Some – including the election of select committee members and chairs, and establishment of the Backbench Business Committee – were implemented. But others were not. The failure to resolve these issues helped fuel the tensions of recent years.
Continue reading
Parliamentary scrutiny is essential to checking and legitimising government decisions. But the coronavirus crisis, during which government has been granted unprecedented powers, creates obvious challenges for parliament. Ruth Fox and Meg Russell argue that parliamentary change during the crisis must follow three core principles: first, parliament should go virtual insofar as possible; second, it should adapt its procedures accordingly, prioritising the most critical business; third, decisions about these changes should be open and consultative — to avoid the risk of a government power grab — should be strictly time-limited, and be kept under regular review.
Parliament has an essential role as the guardian of our democracy. But the coronavirus pandemic poses a huge and unprecedented challenge: how can parliamentarians conduct their core constitutional duties of holding the government to account, assenting to finance, passing legislation, and representing their constituents, when we are all required to adopt rigorous social distancing and, wherever possible, work from home?
At a time when the government has been granted emergency powers of a kind unparalleled in peacetime, and ministers are taking rapid decisions that could shape our economy and society for a generation, democratic oversight is vital. Adversarial party politics take a back seat in a time of national crisis, but parliament’s collective responsibility to hold the executive to account remains. Hence the many calls – from both within and without parliament – for a ‘virtual’ legislature to ensure adequate scrutiny of the government’s decisions, and to maintain other essential time-sensitive work, while complying with public health requirements.
As yet, however, there has been little detailed debate about how a ‘virtual parliament’ should operate. Parliament cannot work as normal, so what broad issues must it address in deciding how to work differently?
This post identifies and argues for three core principles:
In the UK, the government already has much greater control of the way parliament – particularly the House of Commons – operates than in many other countries. Any crisis arrangements must ensure fair representation for all members and parties; and the crisis and parliament’s response to it should not become a pretext to shift power further towards the executive and party managers. Continue reading