Month: July 2016

News

Essay competition 2016 – result

Post author By psaparliaments
Post date July 14, 2016

This spring, the Parliaments and Legislatures SG held the first essay competition open to all undergraduate students. This essay competition was open, where students were asked to write about a parliament, legislature, or a specific matter concerning legislative studies.

The members of the judging panel were Michael Rush (Exeter), Lynn Gardner (House of Commons) and Richard Whitaker (Leicester). They judged the essays on four criteria (originality, rigour, strength of analysis and quality of presentation/style). The essays were anonymised and so the panel did not know which university each essay represented.

We are very pleased to announce that the winning essay was by UCL University student Sam Holcroft (nominated by Meg Russell), for the essay on “How much control should political parties have over their members in parliament? And how much do they have in practice?”. Sam will receive a prize of £150. You can read his essay here.

The runner-up was Matthew Robinson (Surrey University, nominated by Louise Thompson) for an essay on “Does the Liaison Committee scrutinise the Prime Minister more effectively than MPs at Prime Minister’s Question Time?”. You can read his essay here.

Thank you to all that took part in the competition. We very much hope to continue the competition in future years to help promote our knowledge of parliaments and legislatures and encourage people to learn more about them.

Tags essay competition, Liaison Committee, political parties, UK Parliament

Blog

Parliamentary Select Committees: Are elected chairs the key to their success?

Post author By psaparliaments
Post date July 5, 2016

By Mark Goodwin, Stephen Bates and Steve McKay

In the past two months, two of Britain’s richest men have been forced by Parliament to admit to, and apologise for, serious failings in their business practices that could end up costing them millions in compensation. Sports Direct owner Mike Ashley admitted to the Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee that, despite being Britain’s 22nd richest person with an estimated fortune of £3.5bn, he had not been paying staff in the company’s main warehouse the minimum wage. A few weeks later, the same committee witnessed what many saw as a bizarre performance from another British billionaire, Sir Philip Green, as his failings in the sale of British Home Stores were exposed in between complaints about excessive staring from the committee members. These are just the latest in a string of high profile inquiries by parliamentary select committees over the past six years that have also seen Rupert Murdoch attacked with a custard pie, Michael Gove alleging a ‘Trot conspiracy’ in English schools and a vice president of Google being informed that “you do evil”.

Tags committee chairs, executive-legislative relations, House of Commons, leadership, Mike Ashley, parliamentary scrutiny, select committees, Sir Philip Green

Blog

Do MPs need more support in understanding and writing legislation?

Post author By psaparliaments
Post date July 1, 2016

By Louise Thompson

The scrutiny of legislation is key to the role of MPs. It sounds relatively simple – asking lots of questions about what the government is planning to do and probing elements of bills to make sure that they will work properly, but the task facing them is a formidable one. Not only is the quantity of legislation increasing (particularly from delegated legislation), but the parliamentary timetable is busier than ever. Bills are also becoming much more complex, using terminology which can be tricky to understand. The language used facilitates the interpretation and implementation of the legislation. It is not written with Members of Parliament or the general public in mind. Yet, as this weekend’s discussions about whether the Scotland Act 2016 means that the Scottish Parliament can veto the UK’s decision to leave the EU show, the precise wording of legislation is important.

Tags expertise, MPs, public law, representation, role theory, scientific advice