Tag Archives: parliamentary questions

How much control should there be over how MPs do their job?

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In the second of a two-part series, former senior House of Commons official David Natzler discusses whether MPs should be subject to a minimum attendance requirement, and their role as constituency caseworkers. He concludes that an objective measure of individual MPs’ constituency activity and work, and some agreed minimum standards, would be useful, but that the right of MPs to determine for themselves how to do their job should be preserved.

In the first blog in this series, I set out the background to the recent resignation of Nadine Dorries and suggested that it raised some general issues of importance. In that post, I discussed the process of appointing MPs to the House of Lords, and on the process of resignation, suggesting that sitting members of the Commons should not be eligible for peerages, and that the process of resignation should be brought in line with prevailing norms, involving a simple letter of resignation to the Speaker or Clerk of the Commons. In this post I look at the issue of MPs’ attendance and at the performance of their constituency role.

Attendance

There was criticism of Nadine Dorries for not having spoken in the Commons chamber for around a year, since 7 July 2022 when she answered questions in the Commons as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. She was also criticised for not tabling a written question since 20 December 2017 (although between July 2019 and September 2022, she was a minister, and therefore not able to table questions) and for not having voted since 26 April 2023.

MPs are not formally obliged to attend the House of Commons. Those such as Sinn Féin MPs who decline to take the oath or affirmation of allegiance after their election may indeed never do so during their time as MPs. As Erskine May puts it: ‘On ordinary occasions, the attendance of Members in Parliament is not enforced by either House’.

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Is confrontational questioning bad for parliaments and democratic politics?

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Parliamentary procedures such as Prime Minister’s Questions in the UK or Question Time in Australia are often criticised for their contentious style of debate. Ruxandra Serban compares questioning procedures in the UK, Australia, Canada and Ireland, and discusses whether a confrontational style has negative consequences for parliaments and for democratic politics.

Parliamentary questions are a well-known feature of politics, and procedures such as Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) in the UK, Question Period in Canada, and Question Time in Australia are at the centre of public perceptions of parliament. These procedures receive more attention than their European equivalents, which are considered less ‘interesting’ than the theatrical antics of PMQs. But they are also criticised for being too combative, with the implication that the confrontational dialogue seen during PMQs or Question Time is detrimental to parliament and for politics more broadly. Recently, the new Leader of the House in Canada also promised to change the adversarial character of Question Period. But how confrontational are these procedures, and why? Does confrontational questioning have negative implications for parliament and for democratic politics? And, importantly, what can be done about it?

How confrontational are different questioning procedures?

PMQs in the UK is notoriously conflictual, with numerous studies documenting face-threatening strategies, incivility, and personal attacks in questions and answers. But how does confrontational language at PMQs compare with similar procedures in other parliaments? To investigate this, I looked at four similar parliaments, during four comparable premierships: Enda Kenny in Ireland (2011-16), David Cameron in the UK (2010-15), Julia Gillard in Australia (2010-13), and Stephen Harper in Canada (2006-8). Taken in pairs, the four premierships are of a similar duration, with both Cameron and Kenny having a term of about five years, and Gillard and Harper of about two. All four led similar types of government: coalition governments in the UK and Ireland, and minority governments in Australia and Canada.

I sampled a set of 30 questioning sessions for each case-study, amounting to 3,212 parliamentary questions. Each question was labelled based on whether or not it included a conflictual remark, understood as explicit instances of an MP criticising the government, a political party, policy, or the Prime Minister.

During the periods analysed, the Canadian Question Period was the most confrontational, with 75% of questions including a conflictual remark. The Australian Question Time came second, with 44%, and the UK’s PMQs third, with 40%. Oral Questions to the Taoiseach was much less conflictual, with only 13% of questions including a critical comment. Although some of these patterns may be related to the context of each premiership, my new research shows similar findings apply to the Trudeau premiership, during which around 80% of questions to the Prime Minister included a conflictual remark. Ongoing conversations about excessively contentious questioning in Canada, Australia and the UK suggest that things have definitely not improved over time.

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How the recent government restructure will affect parliamentary scrutiny

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One of the features of government restructures is that it poses an administrative challenge for parliament, which then has to decide how to maintain proper scrutiny of the new machinery of government. Long-serving Commons official David Natzler explains how changes such as those made at the start of the month will affect parliament and poses possible solutions to some of the potential logistical problems.

On 7 February Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the creation of four new government departments. Responsibility for energy and the policy of ‘net zero’ was transferred from the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to a new Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ). The remaining parts of BEIS were merged with the existing Department for International Trade (DIT) to create a Department for Business and Trade (DBT). And a new Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) was founded, comprised of the existing Government Office for Science, together with the digital responsibilities hitherto in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). DCMS reverts to its original 1992 responsibilities, when it was created as the Department of National Heritage.

Parliament plays no role in this process, unlike in some other countries, including Canada. It is an accepted part of the prerogative powers of the Prime Minister to create and wind up departments of state, constrained only by the statutory limit on the numbers of those paid as Cabinet ministers. No primary legislation is required: Transfer of Functions Orders will presumably be laid in due course, but these are subject only to the negative procedure and are tabled after they take legal effect. The costs of such reorganisations, expertly analysed in 2019 by the Institute for Government, could in principle be challenged under parliamentary processes for approval of expenditure, but that is not easy to envisage in practical terms. These latest changes seem to enjoy a large measure of cross-party support. But that does not diminish the case for greater parliamentary involvement in changes in the structure of government. It surely cannot be right that the Prime Minister has almost untrammelled power to determine how the UK is governed.

The changes have consequences for parliament, and for House of Commons select committees in particular. Such reorganisations are far from uncommon. In the era since the launch of departmental select committees in 1979 there have been several such changes. Some have involved little more than a change of nameplate, such as the replacement of the Department of Social Security by the Department of Work and Pensions. In other cases – most recently in the preservation of the International Development Committee despite the merger of the Department for International Development with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office – the Commons decided not to reflect a strict departmental structure in its committees.

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Coronavirus and the hybrid parliament: how the government moved the Commons backwards on remote participation

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Image Credit: Return of the House of Commons rehearsal (CC BY 3.0) by UK Parliament

sir_david_natzler.smiling.cropped.3840x1920.jpgIn recent weeks, the government has taken the Commons from an acceptable hybrid system to the current confused regime of limited virtual participation and proxy voting. As David Natzler has outlined in previous posts, during the coronavirus lockdown the Commons moved with surprising speed and unity to create a hybrid parliament in which MPs could participate remotely, with the same speaking and voting rights as members present in the chamber. Here David outlines how the Commons moved so fast and so far backwards on virtual involvement for MPs. 

In this blog I intend to summarise the confusing developments in the past three weeks in the regime for doing parliamentary business in the House of Commons, and to analyse some of the reasons for the almost daily change of regime and the emergence of a new temporary hybrid regime. 

The first regime of virtual participation: 21 April to 20 May

On 21 and 22 April, on its return from the Easter recess, the House agreed to several government motions which established a temporary regime allowing for virtual participation by members in hybrid scrutiny and substantive proceedings, and for remote voting, to endure until 12 May. The regime was founded on a resolution of general principles also agreed on 21 April, including a requirement for parity of treatment between members participating virtually and those participating in person. Virtual select committee proceedings had already been established under a separate and longer-lasting order. On 12 May the House agreed to extend the debating and voting regimes until 20 May. 

Non-renewal of the regime

This regime operated successfully for the best part of a month, until the House rose on 20 May for the Whitsun recess, at which point the detailed operative Orders agreed on 21 and 22 April, but not the resolution setting out the founding principles, lapsed. It became known on 11 and 12 May through the government strategy statement and remarks by the Leader of the House, Jacob Rees-Mogg, that the government had no intention of renewing the regime of virtual participation, on the grounds that it was time for parliament to ‘get back to business’. But the government offered no opportunity over the next few days, before the House rose on 20 May, for the Commons to give its positive assent for letting the regime lapse. Continue reading →

How has the House of Lords adapted to the coronavirus crisis?

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beamish.jpg (1)Since the passage of the Coronavirus Act 2020 and the UK ‘lockdown’, there has been much debate on this blog and elsewhere about how the House of Commons should function during a period of ‘shielding’ and ‘social distancing’. Little attention has been paid, by contrast, to the procedures and practices adopted by the House of Lords. As David Beamish explains, the Commons has tried to return to ‘normality’, whereas the Lords has embraced hybrid proceedings and remote voting in a way that may leave it irrevocably altered.

On 9 March the House of Commons Commission and House of Lords Commission issued a short joint statement following a meeting ‘to discuss Parliament’s response to Coronavirus’. On 11 March the World Health Organization declared a pandemic, and on 13 March the Speakers of the two Houses, Lindsay Hoyle and Lord (Norman) Fowler, sent a joint letter to all members about restrictions on parliamentary travel and visitors to the parliamentary estate in order to reduce the risk of infection from COVID-19. They sent another joint letter on 17 March, announcing more stringent restrictions on access to the estate. Since then, however, the approaches taken by the two Houses have diverged significantly. The Commons initially introduced hybrid proceedings in April, while the Lords introduced a mix of virtual-only and physical-only proceedings, subsequently moving to a hybrid model only this month – just as the Commons ended its own hybrid arrangements. David Natzler’s blog post of 13 May set out what the House of Commons had done to enable MPs to operate remotely, and the dismantling of those arrangements has since caused significant controversy. This post looks at what has been happening in the House of Lords, which has attracted far less public attention. As things stand, the Lords seems to have now instituted the very kinds of proceedings that many MPs are pressing to see reinstated.

The Lord Speaker works from home

On 19 March the 82-year-old Lord Speaker made a personal statement, announcing that he would ‘withdraw from the House for the time being’, and that he would be ‘working from home’ – with his Woolsack duties to be carried out by his deputies.

The average age of the Speaker and his 23 deputies was at that point 76, with only four aged under 70. So it was unsurprising that on 23 March the House agreed to a motion that ‘until 21 July 2020, and notwithstanding the normal practice of the House, any member of the House may perform the duties of a Deputy Chairman without further motion’. Five additional members took on this role, and on 21 April were formally appointed, at once reducing the average age of the panel by over three years.

Initial restrictions on business in the chamber

On Thursday 25 March, before the House adjourned for an extended Easter recess (which had been due to start at the close of business on 1 April), it agreed to a business motion restricting until 21 May (the start of the Whitsun recess) the kinds of business which could be taken: there would be no Private Members’ Bills, balloted debates or Questions for Short Debate. In moving this motion the Leader of the House (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) announced that for the first three weeks after the return of the House on 21 April it would sit only on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. On Tuesdays it would meet at 1pm (instead of 2.30pm) and on Wednesdays at 11am (instead of 3pm); Thursday sittings would begin at 11am as usual. She also announced ‘that a working group of senior officials from both Houses and the Parliamentary Digital Service has been set up to develop effective remote collaboration and videoconferencing’.

When the House returned at 1pm on Tuesday 21 April, the scene in the chamber was strikingly different from normal, with only about a dozen ‘socially distanced’ members physically present. The first business was the introduction of two new life peers, Lord Grimstone of Boscobel and Lord Greenhalgh, who had quietly been appointed ministers in March. They did not wear robes and did not have the usual two supporters. Continue reading →