Author: psaparliaments

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Exposing the hidden wiring of the Parliament

By Ben Yong (Durham University)

‘Who runs the House?’ While most people were watching the Johnson government stumble from one crisis to another in early December 2021, peers in the House of Lords repeatedly asked this question in a rare debate on House governance. How the House of Lords (and Parliament as a whole) is run and the arrangements underpinning that may seem mundane, but ‘mundane’ issues can tell us something about the UK’s constitutional arrangements which are lost in theoretical frameworks such as political and legal constitutionalism, or separation of powers theories which focus on relationships between the branches of government.  

The Lords debate was in part prompted by a House of Lords External Management Review (‘EMR’), published in early 2021, which looked at how the House of Lords is governed and services and support administered. The EMR concluded, amongst other matters, that the accountability arrangements for the administration of the Lords were far from clear. Ultimately, the EMR recommended that the House of Lords Commission needed to be put on a statutory basis; there needed to be a clear statement of the governance arrangements; and a Chief Operating Officer should be appointed.

The debate highlighted that peers’ knowledge of the EMR and the general principles of House governance in the Lords was spotty. Indeed, some peers expressed surprise that the Leader of the House did not, in fact, lead the House (a misconception also common among MPs). Lord Davies’ comment summed up the view of many who attended the debate: ‘The governance of the House is … a mystery to me.’ Other contributions were evidence of Yong’s Law: the longer a debate on House governance continues, the greater the possibility that someone will mention catering, and its cost. Significantly, several Peers expressed fears about the imposition of bureaucratic structures upon a House which had traditionally seen itself as self-regulating.

Anyone with a knowledge of previous reviews of Lords governance would be unsurprised by this, or the EMR’s conclusions and recommendations (for a more in-depth discussion of House governance, see Ben Yong, ‘The Governance of Parliament’ in Alex Horne and Gavin Drewry (eds), Parliament and the Law (2nd edn Hart 2018) 75). Indeed, weak House governance and the confusion of parliamentarians has been a persistent issue in both the Commons and the Lords. 

So what are the governance arrangements of the Houses and why does it matter? Each House has an administrative organisation responsible for providing infrastructure and support for parliamentarians so that they can carry out their constitutional functions. This administration sustains and strengthens the House as an institution. The governance arrangements set out who is in control of the administration; and provide a line of accountability for the provision of that administration. 

One part of the governance arrangements is led by members; the other by officials. In the House of Lords, for instance, on the member side, there is the House of Lords Commission, responsible for political and strategic direction for House administration. The Commission is chaired by the Lord Speaker, and consists of (amongst others) the Leaders of the three parties, the Crossbenchers Convenor and the chairs of certain domestic Committees. Below the Commission are a number of domestic committees which scrutinise the internal working of the House (as opposed to select committees, which scrutinise the work of the executive), and support the Commission. On the official side, there is the Management Board, led by the Clerk of the Parliaments, which is responsible for implementation of Commission policies and day-to-day administration.  

Together these groups work to support peers in their work and maintain the institution. But there are problems. A key one is that the Lords House Commission is structured to be insulated against executive interference: it is cross-party in nature, and there is no government majority. Moreover, the Commission usually meets monthly and membership turnover is uneven (in the Commons, it is less than two years for most members). The result of all these factors is that political will is often lacking, or slow to crystalise. The Commission decides by consensus, if it decides at all. And even where the Commission does agree upon a course of action, it may still require agreement from the House itself. In such a political vacuum, the official-led Administration often cleaves to the status quo. 

There is also a lack of clarity about who is in charge, and therefore, who is accountable. In the debate, peers were quite confused about this. But they are right to be. There are multiple actors with claims to represent institutional interests. Even the titles of key actors suggest conflicting jurisdictional claims: there is a Lord Speaker and a Leader of the House—who is leading or speaking for the House? There is the House of Lords Commission, but as already noted, it is not the most strategic of actors. Nor is it the most visible: meetings are held in private with limited minutes often taking several weeks, if not months, to be published. It has no statutory basis. By contrast, the Clerk of Parliaments does have a statutory basis as Corporate Officer of the House (the Parliamentary Corporate Bodies Act 1992); and in practice is responsible for the day-to-day administration. But as the EMR noted, it is not clear how the Clerk is accountable to the Commission, or indeed, anyone. It is unsurprising there is confusion about who does what in the Lords.

The House of Commons has similar problems. One disgruntled former Clerk of the House gave his book on the House of Commons a harsh subtitle: ‘The Story of an Institution unable to put its own House in order’ (Barnett Cocks Mid-Victorian Masterpiece (1977)). In 2014, an ad hoc committee led by Jack Straw published a review (‘the Straw Review’) on House governance in the Commons. It was the first MP-led review of House governance in over 40 years. The Straw Review found a haphazard set of governance arrangements which lacked clarity; and a Commission which failed to provide adequate direction. 

In a way, the dilemma of governance is the problem of legislatures in condensed form: how can a group of nominally equal members collectively act together when they do not owe each other formal allegiance? With legislation, this problem is usually resolved through party majorities. But where the issue concerns not party, but rather what the institution needs, it is not easy to secure agreement. That is because firstly, it is difficult to turn parliamentarians’ minds to the institution; and secondly, there can be reasonable disagreement about what the institution does need. Without party and a clear set of governance arrangements, inertia and inaction become the obvious default. 

And so the Houses of Parliament are often slow to act on matters outside legislation, because of limited political will and a lack of clarity about who is responsible for what. The 2009 Expenses Scandal was caused in part by a failure of Commons governance to get a grip on the issue. Bullying and harassment of staff by parliamentarians in both the Commons and Lords were also failures of governance. And then there is the ongoing saga of the multibillion Restoration and Renewal (‘R&R’) project of the Palace of Westminster. The Palace is crumbling, and has been for well over a decade. This is in spite of a Joint Committee recommending a full decant from the Palace and sponsor and delivery bodies set up by statute. The Houses continue to dither and delay on timing (on R&R, see the untiring and ongoing work of Dr Alexandra Meakin).

So what? Why should we care? For one thing, the Commissions are primarily responsible for their respective House budgets—which together amounted to just under a billion pounds in 2020-1. This is not small money (although dwarfed by the budgets of the large Whitehall departments: the Home Office budget, for instance, was £16 billion in 2020-1). The governance arrangements can determine what resources are given to parliamentarians and committees. The Houses’ budgets matter, therefore, because they shape the capacity of Parliament to carry out its functions (Colin Lee and I discuss this in a chapter in the forthcoming third edition of Parliament and the Law). 

But more importantly, one reason for executive dominance over the legislature is that Parliament finds it difficult to act coherently: it is hobbled by a lack of clear leadership. Mainstream public lawyers have focused so much on the courts and issues like the location of sovereignty or legislative intent that they neglect the concrete institutional particularities of Parliament. This is not about political versus legal constitutionalism, and prioritising the ‘political’ over the ‘legal’. Rather, this is about recognising that there is more to each branch than its relationship with the others; that each branch has its own internal issues which may impede its effective functioning. Failures of governance can impact on the institution’s performance and ultimately, its legitimacy. ‘Mundane’ issues such as House governance and administration may be ‘constitutional’ matters as much as parliamentary sovereignty or legislative intent. 

My thanks to Arabella Lang, Alexandra Meakin and Patrick O’Brien for their comments on an earlier draft.

Dr Ben Yong, Associate Professor of Public Law and Human Rights, Durham Law School

This post was originally published on the UK Constitutional Law Association’s Blog. Thank you to the editors and Dr Ben Yong for allowing us to cross-post.

You can view the original post here: https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/2022/01/10/ben-young-exposing-the-hidden-wiring-of-the-parliament/

The suggested citation: B. Young, ‘Exposing the hidden wiring of the Parliament’, U.K. Const. L. Blog (10th January 2022) (available at https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/))

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“Tread carefully” – the UK Parliament as a human rights “defender” within the Northern Ireland devolution framework.


Leah Rea examines the role of the UK Parliament in ensuring compliance with the UK’s obligations under international human rights law within the context of devolution, in the absence of legislative intervention from successive UK Governments to address inaction by the Northern Ireland Executive.

Human rights discourse occupies a prominent role in Northern Ireland’s politics, with the issue of rectifying state non-action of protection of human rights arguably as old as the province itself. As evidenced by both historic and contemporary legislative records, the progression of human rights standards in Northern Ireland has always been problematic. The example of the 1960s civil rights movement illustrates both the historic propensity for the politicisation of human rights in the region, and the difficulty of securing legislative change in i) the absence of progression at devolved level, and ii) the absence of intervention by the UK Government, particularly when the Government evades international obligations. In recent years, the discussion has been framed within the context of devolution, focusing on where does legislative competency reside, and specifically, at what political juncture can legislative intervention be sought from the UK Parliament to rectify human rights issues in Northern Ireland? As we wait on the Northern Ireland Office (‘NIO’) to implement the pledge made by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to introduce the draft Irish language legislationpublished in conjunction with The New Decade, New Approach Agreement 2020, it is worth recalling the UK Parliament’s role as a human rights “defender” vis-á-vis the operation of the Sewel Convention in the context of Northern Ireland’s abortion law between 2018-2019.

Using parliamentary procedure to highlight human rights

Following an early election in March 2017, agreement to form the Northern Ireland Executive could not be reached and subsequently the devolved institutions did not function in Northern Ireland until January 2020. During this time, there were key developments in the recognition of the human rights violations arising from the then law governing abortion in Northern Ireland. In light of these, parliamentary procedure was utilised within the House of Commons to raise the particular matter of human rights in relation to abortion law in Northern Ireland, the UK Government’s corresponding non-compliance with international human rights law, and the need for legislative intervention in the absence of the devolved institutions.

Emergency Debate and navigating Sewel

Following the referendum result to repeal the Eighth Amendment to the Irish Constitution, the constitutional prohibition on accessing abortion, grassroots movements in Northern Ireland called for urgent legal reform to address widening geographical disparity in abortion access and human rights. With the Abortion Act 1967 limited in territorial application to Great Britain, the then legal framework in Northern Ireland comprised of sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861: abortion was only legal to protect the mother’s life, or cases where her mental and/or physical health was seriously at risk, and could not be accessed in cases of Fatal Fetal Abnormality (FFA), rape and incest. 

The development invoked fresh political impetus: Labour backbencher Stella Creasy MP utilised Standing Orders (No 24) to bring an emergency debate to the House of Commons on 5 June 2018 for the House to consider its role in repealing sections 58 and 59 of the 1861 Act. Creasy aimed to bring the operational impact of the 1861 Act to the attention of the House – and commence the argument that in the absence of a sitting Assembly, it was the responsibility of the UK Government under international human rights law to legislate to address human rights violations in Northern Ireland. 

In the context of Northern Ireland, Creasy referenced the findings of the UN CEDAW Committee inquiry that women and girls had been subjected to “grave and systemic violations of rights”. Conscious there were concerns regarding undermining the constitutional arrangements of devolution, Creasy emphasised the 1861 Act continued to operate across the UK, so Parliament was required to act to remedy the issue on a UK-wide basis. However, she noted the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement 1998 provided for the UK Government “to legislate as necessary” to ensure the UK’s “international obligations” are met in respect of Northern Ireland. Conversely, the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland upheld the Sewel Convention, stating as abortion was a devolved matter it “would not be appropriate for Westminster” to intervene. Ultimately, the House resolved its affirmation of the motion – and its role as a human rights “defender”.

The Urgent Question and a change in tactics

Shortly after the emergency debate, on 7 June 2018, the UK Supreme Court delivered its judgment in the judicial review brought by the NIHRC against the Department of Justice under the Human Rights Act 1998 on the basis the existing law violated Articles 3, 8 and 14 ECHR of women and girls by criminalising abortion access for FFA, rape and incest. A majority of the Court determined the law was incompatible with Art 8 ECHR in respect of not providing access to women and girls in these circumstances. Responding to the judgment, Creasy availed of procedure to ask an urgent question. In this instance, Creasy directly challenged the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland on the Government’s position of the incompatibility of the 1861 Act with human rights, further urging for the Government to progress the draft Domestic Abuse Bill and adopt it as a vehicle to repeal sections 58 and 59 on a UK-wide basis. She called upon the House, with “its responsibility” under the 1998 Agreement to uphold human rights in Northern Ireland, to “do our job” and call for legislative action. Again, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland invoked the Sewel convention, asserting the matter was within the legislative competence of the devolved institutions and so the responsibility of Northern Ireland politicians alone, and would not commit to recognising the UK Government’s obligations under international law.

Westminster intervenes: the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill

Political negotiations continued in Northern Ireland throughout 2019, and by June 2019 the period outlined within s1 of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Act 2018 for Executive formation had expired. To enable the continuation of negotiations, the Secretary of State introduced The Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill to extend the available timeframe. Illustrating the UK Government’s need for the Bill to come into effect promptly, the Bill was subjected to a fast-track process. Whilst this process usually restricts Parliament’s ability to scrutinise Government Bills, in this instance the accelerated schedule proved feasible for tricky amendments to challenge the Government to uphold its international obligations. Creasy availed of the situation, tabling an amendment (New Clause 10) which obligated the Secretary of State, in the event of continued absence of devolved government in Northern Ireland, to implement the 2018 recommendations of the UN CEDAW Committee. This marked a significant change in Creasy’s tactics: here now was an attempt for direct legislative action from Westminster to rectify human rights issues in Northern Ireland. The Sewel Convention notwithstanding, the amendment was accepted by the Speaker’s Office for consideration.

Proposing her amendment at Committee stage, Creasy acknowledged the House must “tread carefully” in relation to achieving a balance between respecting the devolution arrangement and upholding human rights standards, but affirmed the role of Parliament as a human rights “defender”, emphasising the obligations of the House in accordance with the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement as regards safeguarding human rights in Northern Ireland. She submitted the UK Parliament had failed to adhere to its obligations and had a responsibility to intervene in the continued absence of devolved government. 

Responding for the Government, Minister for the NIO, John Penrose stated devolved issues should be the responsibility of the devolved institutions; Parliament should “tread carefully” within the devolved context. The pattern of affirming Sewel then ceased, as the Minister acknowledged the prolonged absence of devolved government in Northern Ireland, and “the result” of which was the list of human rights related amendments. The Minister further noted amendments on issues of conscience, such as the Creasy amendment, were “traditionally free votes” and confirmed the Government would not “break that important principle”. In the absence of a whipping operation Creasy’s amendment was approved by a parliamentary landslide of 332 votes to 99. The Bill as amended was subsequently carried at Third Reading and came into force on 9 July 2018. 

Whither Sewel?

It is interesting to chart the developments in this case study as regards navigating the Sewel Convention. Creasy initially sought to uphold Sewel: her original proposal was for the May Government to repeal the relevant sections of the1861 Act via the draft Domestic Abuse Bill and on a UK-wide basis, using the situation of human rights concerns in Northern Ireland as grounds for the necessity of this. However, following the judgment of the Supreme Court just two days later, Creasy emphasised the House’s particular role under the 1998 Agreement as regards human rights in Northern Ireland and urged for the May Government to directly intervene in light of the political vacuum in Northern Ireland. Her successful amendment to the 2019 Act therefore marked a turning point for the Sewel Convention, suggesting that in the event of a human rights violation in the devolved administrations, the UK institutions may intervene on the grounds of their role as final guarantors of human rights obligations in international law. Can we now interpret “will not normally legislate” in the context of upholding international human rights? Equally, we must consider that the requirement of consent under Sewel was a determining factor: in the absence of the devolved institutions, consent could not be acquired.

Moreover, the case study appears to suggest in the situation of a conflict between the convention of free votes upon conscience issues and the Sewel convention affirming devolved legislative competencies, the former takes precedence. Could the role of the UK Parliament as a human rights “defender” depend on individual Parliamentarians according to their own conscience? Or, was relying on the conscience convention an exercise in political expedience for the May Government to navigate the situation Creasy had created with her significant amendment in a tight timeframe? As the NIO recently introduced the The Abortion (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2021 – which empower the Secretary of State to issue direction to comply with the 2018 UN CEDAW Committee recommendations in Northern Ireland – in light of ongoing failure of the Northern Ireland Executive to fully commission abortion services, and so continuing with Westminster intervention in Northern Ireland, the situation on a contentious issue remains complex. The problem of human rights progression in Northern Ireland goes on.

Leah is a PhD Researcher at the Transitional Justice Institute at Ulster University. Her research focuses on examining the relationship between constitutional conventions established by devolution settlements, and the progression (or hindrance) of human rights standards in Northern Ireland. This blog post is based on a paper delivered at the PSA Parliaments Conference 2021.

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December 2021 Newsletter

We hope that you are keeping safe and well. We have some updates for you:

  1. PSA Annual International Conference 2022
  2. PSA Parliaments 2021 Conference: Parliament at a Critical Juncture
  3. Winners announced of our Undergraduate Essay Competition!
  4. New Overview of the Australian Parliament Published
  5. PSA Parliaments Working Papers Series
  6. Call for Applications: Leverhulme PhD studentships at the University of East Anglia
  7. Call for Papers: Recovering Europe’s Parliamentary Culture, 1500-1700: Concepts, Methods, Approaches
  8. Other Events: Study of Parliament Group Annual Conference
  9. Recent Publications that have Caught Our Eye
  10. Recently on the Blog

If you have any notices/messages you would like us to circulate to the group, please let us know.

1. PSA Annual International Conference 2022

Registration has opened for the 2022 PSA Annual Conference being held in York and digitally in April 2022 (early bird prices end on 24 January 2022). Full details of the conference and how to register can be found on the PSA22 website.

As announced last month, we are running five panels, plus a round-table event Exploring Parliament: Looking to the Future. The themes of our panels are:

  • Parliamentary powers, prerogatives, and public engagement
  • How MPs use old and new media and how old and new media affects MPs
  • How to be a parliamentarian: how do Members participate?
  • Comparative and inter-parliamentary analysis
  • How to be a parliamentarian? Representation and roles

Whether in person or online, we hope to see you there!

2. PSA Parliaments 2021 Conference: Parliament at a Critical Juncture

Our annual conference, which was held online last month, was a roaring success, even if we do say so ourselves!

We had an excellent line-up of panels on the themes of:

  1. Representatives and representation;
  2. Accountability and transparency in Parliaments;
  3. Power(lessness), practices and conventions.

If you missed it, you can catch up on all the papers on our YouTube channel.

The five papers on the first panel are already available and the others will be added in the next couple of weeks.

3. Winners of our Undergraduate Essay Competition Announced!

We are delighted to announce the winner and runner-up of the 2021 PSA Parliaments undergraduate essay competition!

The winner, Callum Murphy who studied at Queen Mary University of London, won £100 for his essay on how Parliament engaged with the Universal Credit policy.

The runner-up, Dana Ali who also studied at Queen Mary University of London, won £50 for her essay on parliamentary scrutiny of air quality.

Congratulations to Callum and Dana! And many thanks to Alice Lilly from the Institute for Government for judging the competition.

You can read the prize-winning essays here.

4. New Overview of the Australian Parliament Published

Many thanks to Thomas Dray for writing an overview of the Australian Parliament.

If you would like to write an overview of one of the parliaments or legislatures not yet covered on our maps, then please get in touch with Chris.

5. PSA Parliaments Working Papers Series

We are very excited to announce that we are now accepting expressions of interest to contribute to our recently-launched working paper series, which publishes working papers across the sub-discipline of parliamentary and legislative studies.

You can read our first two working papers here and here.

If you are interested in publishing a working paper, please consult our submission guidelines.

6. Call for Applications: Leverhulme PhD studentships at the University of East Anglia

The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia, UK, is seeking applications for PhD studentships in the Leverhulme Trust’s ‘Critical Decade for Climate Change’ doctoral training programme.

Three of the studentships are focused on the role of parliaments and politicians in climate policy making and implementation:

  1. Climate mitigation through the decision of courts: a critical evaluation
  2. How are publics’ climate change attitudes and behaviours influenced by politicians?
  3. Delivering net zero requires local political action: what will the role of local politicians be in the critical decade?

The studentships start in October 2022 with each scholarship covering: tuition fees (for both home and international students); a maintenance stipend (£15,285 per year in 2022/23); and a generous research and training support grant of up to £8,000 over the course of the 4 year PhD programme.

More information about all the individual projects and the doctoral training programme, can be found here.

7. Call for Papers: Recovering Europe’s Parliamentary Culture, 1500-1700: Concepts, Methods, Approaches

This interdisciplinary international conference will explore the culture of early modern Europe’s political assemblies, and ask how it was expressed in language, writing, images, institutions, and symbolic practices.

It will be held at Jagiellonian University, Krakow, 22-24 June 2022, and is partly supported by The Europaeum.

Deadline for proposals is 31 January 2022. More details about the conference can be found here.

8. Other Events: Study of Parliament Group Annual Conference

The Study of Parliament Group will hold their annual conference at Oxford and online on 7-8 January 2022.

The deadline for booking is Friday 10 December. You must be an SPG member to attend. More details from their website.

9. Recent Publications that have Caught Our Eye

Nokwazi Makanya has published an article entitled Progress with Parliamentary ‘Power over the Purse’: The Case of South Africa in Parliamentary Affairs.

Diana Stirbu has written a report for the Welsh Senedd on committee effectiveness: Power, Influence and Impact of Senedd Committees: Developing a framework for measuring committees’ effectiveness

Netina Tan and Cassandra Preece have published an article entitled Ethnic Quotas, Political Representation and Equity in Asia Pacific in Representation.

Tom Loughran and Sean Haughey have published a report on public opinion and power-sharing in Northern Ireland.

A special issue of The Journal of Legislative Studies on administering representative democracy has been published.

And, finally, new issues of Representation and Legislative Studies Quarterly have also been published.

If you would like your published research to be featured in this section, please email Stephen with details.

10. Recently on the Blog

We have recently published two great blogs:

If you have an idea for a blog on some aspect of parliamentary study, please get in touch with our communications officer, Chris.

Categories
News

November 2021 Newsletter

We hope that you are keeping safe and well. We have some updates for you:

  1. PSA Parliaments 2021 Conference: Parliament at a Critical Juncture
  2. PSA Annual International Conference 2022
  3. New Working Paper on Bibliometric Analysis of Parliamentary Studies Journals
  4. PSA Parliaments at Questions of Accountability Conference
  5. New Project: Recovering Europe’s Parliamentary Culture, 1500-1700
  6. Other Events: EUGenDem Workshop on Research Findings
  7. Recent Publications that have Caught Our Eye
  8. Recently on the Blog

If you have any notices/messages you would like us to circulate to the group, please let us know.

1. PSA Parliaments 2021 Conference

It is nearly time for our online annual conference on Friday 12th November 2021 but there is still time to sign up!

We have an excellent line-up of panels on the themes of:

  1. Representatives and representation;
  2. Accountability and transparency in Parliaments;
  3. Power(lessness), practices and conventions.

In addition to the panels, we will be announcing the results of our 2021 undergraduate essay prize!

To register (for free) and for full details of the conference and each of the panels, please see here.

2. PSA Annual International Conference 2022

We are delighted to confirm our panels for the Political Studies Association annual conference (PSA22), taking place in York and digitally in April 2022. We have five excellent panels, plus a round-table event Exploring Parliament: Looking to the Future. The themes of our panels are:

  • Parliamentary powers, prerogatives, and public engagement
  • How MPs use old and new media and how old and new media affects MPs
  • How to be a parliamentarian: how do Members participate?
  • Comparative and inter-parliamentary analysis
  • How to be a parliamentarian? Representation and roles

Full details of each of the panels can be found here.

Registration will open on 15 November, with early bird prices ending on 24 January 2022. The details of registration fees can be found on the PSA22 website.

Thank you to everyone who submitted a paper proposal – we were very impressed with the high standard and look forward to seeing you in York!

3. New Working Paper on Bibliometric Analysis of Parliamentary Studies Journals

To accompany our recent survey of the sub-discipline, the PSA Parliaments team, led by Caroline Bhattacharya, has produced a bibliometric analysis of three parliamentary studies journals: Legislative Studies Quarterly, The Journal of Legislative Studies and Parliamentary Affairs.

Covering the last 25 years, we present findings on authorship and citation patterns, as well as the topics of articles and key publications.

You can read the working paper (and find out whether you and/or your favourite scholars make the most-cited and key publications lists) here.

4. PSA Parliaments at Questions of Accountability Conference

PSA Parliaments are hosting a panel on parliamentary committees and accountability at the Questions of Accountability conference, co-organised by our very own, Chris Monaghan.

The panel is at 10am on Tuesday 2nd November. Full details of the panel and the conference can be found here. You can sign up (for free) here.

5. New Project: Recovering Europe’s Parliamentary Culture, 1500-1700

A team led by Professor Paulina Kewes at the University of Oxford has launched a new project, Recovering Europe’s Parliamentary Culture, 1500-1700. As part of the project, the team are hosting a blog series on their theme – but ranging more widely in methodology and period coverage – in collaboration with the History of Parliament Trust.

You can follow the project on Twitter here.

6. Other Events: EUGenDem Workshop on Research Findings

Our good friends at EUGenDem are holding an online workshop on 19th November 2021 at 10:00-12:00 EET (9:00-11:00 CET) to present research findings from their project Gender, party politics, and democracy in Europe: Studying European Parliament’s political groups.

Full details of the workshop and how to sign up can be found here.

7. Recent Publications that have Caught Our Eye

Sarah Dingler and Lena Ramstetter have a FirstView article in Government & Opposition entitled When Does She Rebel? How Gender Affects Deviating Legislative Behaviour

Andrés Dockendorff, Ricardo Gamboa and Marcel Aubry have published a research note in Representation entitled Substantive Representation of Women’s Interests: Chile, 1990–2020

If you would like your published research to be featured in this section, please email Stephen with details.

8. Recently on the Blog

We have recently published one great blog:

If you have an idea for a blog on some aspect of parliamentary study, please get in touch with our communications officer, Chris.

Categories
Blog

The Owen Patterson Scandal: Standards, Trust and Democratic Norms

By Chris Monaghan, Caroline Bhattacharya and Alexandra Meakin

NB The views expressed in this blog post do not reflect the view of PSA Parliaments

The resignation of Owen Paterson as Member of Parliament for North Shropshire, following revelations that he had been paid half a million pounds to lobby ministers has highlighted  what may be an uncomfortable truth, that many MPs supplement their parliamentary salary with taking on second or indeed third jobs. The extent of this practice has been forced into the open, with newspaper reports highlighting that the former Attorney-General Sir Geoffrey Cox had spent substantial time undertaking paid work (earning £700,000) for the British Virgin Islands. 

The focus on this blog will be the Paterson scandal. The blog will outline the events that gave rise to the controversial attempt by the government to protect Paterson from sanction, and in doing so revealed the problems with regulating the conduct of Members of Parliament and holding them to account for engaging in lobbying. The blog will then place the scandal within a broader context. 

Factual background

In response to the revelation in The Guardian that Paterson had been paid £500,000 to lobby ministers, an investigation was commenced by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, Kathryn Stone, who found that Paterson had  breached the rules relating to paid advocacy, declaration of interests, and the use of parliamentary facilities. Her findings were considered by the House of Commons Standards Committee—comprising four Conservative MPs, two Labour MPs, one Scottish National Party MP and seven lay members—who concluded:

“This is an egregious case of paid advocacy. Previous instances have led to suspensions of 18 days, 30 days and six months. Each of Mr Paterson’s several instances of paid advocacy would merit a suspension of several days, but the fact that he has repeatedly failed to perceive his conflict of interest and used his privileged position as a Member of Parliament to secure benefits for two companies for whom he was a paid consultant, is even more concerning. He has brought the House into disrepute. We therefore recommend that Mr Paterson be suspended from the service of the House for 30 sitting days”.

It is customary for the recommendations of the Standards Committee to be approved by MPs without a vote. Ahead of the vote on the suspension of Paterson, however, the former Leader of the House of Commons, Dame Andrea Leadsom, tabled an amendment, signed by 59 MPs, to the motion, declining to endorse the suspension until and if by a specially-formed select committee reviewed the “clearly flawed” standards system for MPs. The Government enforced a three-line whip on the vote and Dame Andrea’s amendment was passed by 250 to 232 Members of Parliament, with only two non-Conservative MPs voting in favour (one of whom was Rob Roberts MP, who had been elected as a Conservative prior to losing the Whip when he was suspended for a separate breach of standards rules). (It is important to note, however, that from the Conservative backbenches, 98 MPs did not vote and thirteen voted against the government). 

Any celebrations for ministers were short-lived, however, as the Government was forced into a U-turn almost immediately when the opposition parties made clear that they would not serve on the proposed new select committee. Just hours after the Leader of the Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg, pledged to work on a “cross-party basis to achieve improvements in our system for future cases”, Paterson resigned as a Member of Parliament, triggering a by-election for December 2021. The Government’s initial approach was heavily criticised and it was seen by opponents and many commentators as shielding one of its own supporters and undermining the accountability of members for breaches of parliamentary rules. Ministers have acknowledged the Government’s mistake and described the U-Turn as the ‘grown-up thing’ to do (Nadhim Zahawi MP, BBC News). The Government has formally asked the Commons to rescind the motion establishing the new Committee, and Paterson’s resignation has meant that he will avoid any suspension. 

Analysis 

Paterson has resigned, the government has apologised and conceded its mistake. However, this does not negate the sense of double standards and the concern that the Johnson administration is further tarred with the taint of corruption. It has further reignited debate over the number of Members of Parliament who have second jobs. While MPs are barred from acting as “a paid advocate in any proceeding of the House”, there is no universal restriction on second jobs.  Just under a third of all Members of Parliament have additional income to their official parliamentary salary, and although this does not just affect one party (the Leader of the Official Opposition, Sir Keir Starmer reportedly received £70,000 for legal advice from private companies), the party with the highest proportion of MPs with second jobs is the Conservative Party (It should be noted that neither Sir Geoffrey Cox nor Sir Keir Starmer are accused of engaging in lobbying on behalf of their clients). A study by Weschle shows that Conservative MPs with a second job ask more parliamentary questions, and that these questions are targeted at larger ministries with more procurement spending and often concern internal policies (such as the state or planning of projects). 

There have been some defences of outside interests: Cabinet Office Minister Steve Barclay argued that there is “value in MPs having a continued connection with the world outside of politics”. Legal commentator Joshua Rozenberg has defended Sir Geoffrey Cox, partly due to the need to attract practicing lawyers to serve both in Parliament and as law officers—the ministerial roles of attorney general, solicitor general and advocate general for Scotland. Such arguments have often caused past efforts to bar MPs from holding certain outside interests to fail to gather sufficient support (e.g. the Private Members’ Bills tabled by Peter Bradley in 2002 and Martin Salter in 2007 and the Committee on Standards in Public Life’s recommendations in 2018). Following the Paterson scandal, however, Sir Keir Starmer’s intention to table a motion to ban MPs from paid consultancies or directorships may prove more successful.

The broader decline of trust in parliamentarians and Parliament itself is a matter of concern. New polling by the Committee on Standards of Public Life found that 44% of people rated the standards of conduct of MPs as quite or very low, compared to only 20% taking a positive view, and noted the progressively lower scores reported since 2002. The Hansard Society’s latest Audit of Political Engagement found that 72% of the public believe that our system of parliamentary government needs ‘quite a lot’ or ‘a great deal’ of improvement. 

In their book How democracies die: What history tells us about our future, Levitsky and Ziblatt remind us that “[d]emocratic backsliding today begins at the ballot box” (p. 5). In other words, nowadays it is more often elected governments than men with arms who seek to undermine democracy, and often “democracies erode slowly, in barely visible steps” (p. 3). Democracy is safeguarded by institutions such as parliament and written laws and rules upheld by independent courts, but, Levitsky and Ziblatt argue, at least as important are unwritten democratic norms:

Norms are […] shared codes of conduct that become common knowledge within a particular community or society – accepted, respected, and enforced by its members. Because they are unwritten, they are often hard to see, especially when they’re functioning well. […] Like oxygen or clean water, a norm’s importance is quickly revealed by its absence. When norms are strong, violations trigger expressions of disapproval, ranging from head-shaking and ridicule to public criticism and outright ostracism. And politicians who violate them can expect to pay a price. (p. 102)

When applying these arguments to the parliamentary setting, we can make a strong case that parliament as a democratic institution and the norms that underpin parliamentary democracy need to be defended first and foremost from within. And this task does not fall merely on the shoulders of the Speaker of the House of Commons as the highest representative of parliament and ‘conductor’ of parliamentary proceedings, but is a responsibility that should be shared by all parliamentary actors.

The main problem was not Owen Paterson. (There will always be some bad apples among the bunch.) The key issue was that the government – with the help of their Commons majority and key parliamentary figures such as the current and former Leaders of the House – (a) denied the legitimacy of the outcome of the parliamentary procedure to investigate and sanction MPs’ rule-breaching behaviour and (b) proposed to overhaul the institutional system for evaluating parliamentary standards, also retrospectively for the Paterson case.

Lord Evans, Chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, said on 4 November:

[I]t cannot be right to propose that the standards system in the House of Commons should be reviewed by a Select Committee chaired by a member of the ruling party, and with a majority of members from that same party. This extraordinary proposal is deeply at odds with the best traditions of British democracy. The political system in this country […] is a common good that we have all inherited from our forebears and that we all have a responsibility to preserve and to improve.

The two important norms at play here are the acceptance of outcomes of democratic processes (in this case the standards inquiry system) and what Levitsky and Ziblatt call ‘institutional forbearance’, that is the exercise of self-restraint and acting not only in the letters of the law but also in its spirit. The government’s actions in parliament undermined both these values. By imposing a three-line whip on its MPs, the government did not only interfere in what is generally seen as parliamentary business but also signalled that defiance would be considered a serious breach of party loyalty with potential consequences. (Angela Richardson, who abstained, lost her job as a Parliamentary private secretary – before being reappointed after the government’s U-turn.)

High levels of party unity are a key feature of a well-functioning parliamentary system. But a parliamentary party group cannot always be perfectly cohesive in their viewpoints, and when divergence emerges, party leaders usually have an array of institutional tools at their disposal to impose discipline. During every MP’s time in office, occasions will arise when their constituency interests and/or personal views and convictions will stand at odds with the official party line. Those are the moments when an MP needs to decide whether to stay silent for the sake of party loyalty or publicly communicate and act on their dissent, in full awareness that a roll-call vote stays in the historical records. When the issue at stake is not a specific policy but essential democratic norms and procedures, the option to stay silent is a particularly serious one, as MPs fail to fulfil their role as guardians of parliamentary democracy.

On 3 November, 248 Conservative MPs voted in favour of the Leadsom amendment, 13 voted against and a few more abstained and publicly voiced their objection such as the ‘Father of the House’, Sir Peter Bottomley. The government’s U-turn indicates that the broad public outrage and presumably conversations among members of the Conservative Party behind closed doors (and sometimes apparently in semi-public view) have succeeded in safeguarding parliamentary democracy in this instance. But this was not the first time and is unlikely to be the last time that the Johnson government seeks to tighten the executive grip on parliament, and that Conservative MPs must decide when the defence of the role of parliament, democratic norms and ethical principles is more important than party-political goals and personal ambitions.

This post was originally published on the Political Studies Association Blog.

Categories
Blog

Using the past to help us to understand the future of the Palace of Westminster

Ahead of next Tuesday’s Virtual IHR Parliaments, Politics and People seminar, we hear from Dr Alexandra Meakinof the University of Leeds. On 9 November 2021, between 5.15 p.m. and 6.30 p.m., she will be responding to your questions about her pre-circulated paper on ‘Using the past to help us understand the future of the Palace of Westminster’.

The Palace of Westminster is in a state of advanced disrepair, and faces what was described by a Joint Committee of MPs and Peers in 2016 as ‘an impending crisis which we cannot reasonably ignore’. While a major refurbishment project—Restoration and Renewal (R&R)—was approved in 2018, the future of the Palace remains uncertain, as concerns mount among some MPs about the cost and the prospect of temporarily moving out to allow the work to take place.

The risk of a catastrophic fire, flood or failure of the essential services within the Palace has developed over many decades, as vital maintenance was neglected and the infrastructure serving the building went far past its expected lifespan. Indeed, some of the mechanical and electrical plant dates back to the building’s establishment in the mid-19th century, as a replacement for the old Palace, destroyed by fire in 1834.

The 1834 fire, as discussed previously on this blog, occurred after multiple unheeded warnings about the state of the building, a situation worryingly similar to today. It is not the only lesson from history, however, which may be relevant for current discussions. This blog posits that through historical analysis we can identify five recurrent themes that help to explain policymaking decisions relating to the Palace as a legislative building (figure 1, below).

Figure 1: Explaining policy decisions

A confused governance system has been evident in Westminster for centuries, manifested through divided patronage between the King and Prime Minister in the appointment of architects to work on the Palace in the 18th century and delays to the rebuilding after the 1834 fire caused by contradictory instructions from ministers, MPs and Peers—an issue still present today. In addition, the emotional attachment parliamentarians feel about their workplace—for example in the form of a connection to their predecessors, transmitted through the very fabric of the Palace—influences the decisions they make about its future.

This is linked to the third recurrent theme: a clear unwillingness to make radical changes to the Palace. When disaster has occurred, there has been a tendency to recreate the past: either in the exact replica of the previous Commons chamber in the 1940s (described by one MP in 1945 as taking ‘nostalgia to the stage of absurdity’), or in Barry’s design for the new Palace after the 1834 fire. These decisions then become precedent to be followed faithfully in future, a form of path dependency that explains the reluctance to move out of the Palace, the fourth theme. Finally, historical analysis shows that you cannot explain decisions about the Palace of Westminster purely by considering what was happening within the building. The intrinsically political nature of the legislature means that wider political events have influenced the policies chosen for the building.

The Elizabeth Tower covered in scaffolding, 2019; image: Ethan Doyle White, CC via Wikimedia Commons

Looking to history helps to explain how R&R became necessary but it can also explain why its future remains unclear. While the Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Act 2019 legislated for an independent governance structure, the future of the R&R project continues to be subject to the views of the House of Commons Commission. A number of MPs remain opposed to leaving the Palace of Westminster even temporarily, demonstrating the same attachment to the building as has been witnessed for generations. There have been repeated efforts to scale back the scope of programme, in a further sign of the tendencies towards conservatism and to reflect the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic. A key lesson from the historical analysis is that major work to the Palace of Westminster has tended to occur only when unavoidable: despite the approval of R&R, it may be that history repeats itself and the ‘impending crisis’ warned of in 2016 occurs.

The threat of a crisis is one major reason why the future of the Palace of Westminster matters. The risk to the Palace is not just about the potential loss of an emblem of national identity, but also the very real dangers faced by the people working in or visiting Parliament. Former Leader of the Commons, Andrea Leadsom, has warned that ‘it is only by sheer luck that no one has been injured or killed’ to date. But the future of the building also matters for the health of our democracy. Legislative buildings are not just symbols of the institution, but their architecture, design and décor affect how people—parliamentarians, staff and visitors—behave within. Through the necessary work to fix the pipes and stonework, the UK Parliament has an opportunity to think about how it can build a legislative building fit for the 21st century, shaped by the public and designed to facilitate their engagement with democracy. Taking this opportunity before crisis occurs would demonstrate that MPs and Peers really have learnt from the past.

To find out more, Alexandra’s full-length paper ‘Using the past to help us understand the future of the Palace of Westminster’ is available here.

This blog was originally posted on The History of Parliament Website and is reposted with permission.

Categories
Events

PSA Parliaments at #PSA22

We are delighted to confirm our panels for the Political Studies Association annual conference (PSA22), taking place in York and digitally in April 2022. We have five excellent panels, plus a round-table event Exploring Parliament: Looking to the Future. Full details of the timings and rooms can be found here.

How to be a parliamentarian? Representation and roles

  • David C.W. Parker, Jeffrey L. Lazarus (Montana State University-Bozeman, Georgia State University): Bringing the Bacon Back to Bassetlaw: Distributive Politics and the UK Parliament
  • Caroline Bhattacharya, Stephen Holden Bates, Stephen McKay (University of Helsinki, University of Birmingham, University of Lincoln): Backbench MPs’ roles, 1979-2019: a latent class analysis
  • Luai Allarakia (University of Richmond): Dimensions of Conflict in the Absence of Programmatic Parties: The Case of Kuwait’s National Assembly
  • Omomayowa Olawale Abati (Stellenbosch University): Is Lowering the Minimum Age of Candidacy Enough? The Politics of Youth Representation in Nigeria’s Lower National Legislature

Exploring Parliament: Looking to the Future

  • Farrah Bhatti (Principal Clerk of Select Committees, House of Commons)
  • Simon Burton (Clerk of the Parliaments, House of Lords)
  • Sarah Childs (Royal Holloway, University of London)
  • Jack Sheldon (Cambridge University)

How to be a parliamentarian: how do Members participate?

  • Donald Keya Manyala, Benson Inzofu Mwale (Parliament of Kenya): Participation of Minority Legislators in Legislative Business at the National Assembly of Kenya
  • Alia Middleton, Louise Thompson (University of Surrey, University of Manchester): The awkward squad? The parliamentary lives of former Prime Ministers
  • Wang Leung Ting (London School of Economics and Political Science): Can you hear me? An analysis on how virtual proceeding affected the content and influence of legislative speeches
  • Joel Martinsson (Linnaeus University / Swedish Parliament): Access Granted, Access Denied: When and why Swedish parliamentarians submit motions on behalf of special interest organizations

How MPs use old and new media and how old and new media affects MPs

  • James Weinberg (University of Sheffield): “I’ve had to teach myself to laugh at people calling me a liar and ugly and fat and all the rest of it. And try to remember it’s not really about me, even the death threats.” Feelings of distrust, emotional labour and mental health in political office
  • Tevfik Murat Yildirim, Gunnar Thesen (University of Stavanger, Norway): The Media Coverage and Public Visibility of Members of Parliament in the UK
  • Sebastian Ludwicki-Ziegler (University of Stirling): Parliamentarians’ Communication Strategies: The Choice between being in Control and outsourcing Control to Parliamentary Assistants

Parliamentary powers, prerogatives, and public engagement

  • Felix Wiebrecht (The Chinese University of Hong Kong): (Mis)Using Parliament: Why Do Legislatures Become Stronger in Authoritarian Regimes?
  • James Strong (Queen Mary University of London): Did the UK War Powers Convention fundamentally change the House of Commons’ influence over the use of force?
  • Temitayo Odeyemi, Cristina Leston-Bandeira, Alexander Beresford (University of Leeds): From space invasion, to value mediation, and everything in-between: Situating non-state actors and Nigeria’s national-subnational legislative public engagement
  • Alexandra Meakin (University of Leeds): Rebuilding the People’s Parliament – public engagement and the Restoration and Renewal of the Palace of Westminster

Comparative and inter-parliamentary analysis

  • Margaret Arnott (University of the West of Scotland): Constitutional Governance and Common Frameworks: Interparliamentary Relations in the Devolved UK
  • André Vella (University of Birmingham): Parliamentary Privilege in Commonwealth Legislatures
  • Franklin De Vrieze (Westminster Foundation for Democracy): Measuring the oversight role of parliaments in public debt management
  • Sebastian Ludwicki-Ziegler, Mark Shephard (University of Stirling, University of Strathclyde): Hostile or Consensual?: A Comparative Study of Personal Attacks and Positive Self-Reference in Exchanges between the Conservatives and SNP in PMQs and FMQs

Details of how to register can be found on the PSA22 website.

Thank you to everyone who submitted a paper proposal – we were very impressed with the high standard and look forward to seeing you in York!

Categories
News

October 2021 Newsletter

We hope that you are keeping safe and well. We have some updates for you:

  1. PSA Parliaments 2021 Conference
  2. PSA Annual International Conference 2022
  3. Call for Papers: Parliamentary Studies is for Everybody Workshop
  4. New Overview of the Austrian Parliament
  5. Welcome to our new Communications Officer, Chris Monaghan!
  6. Call for Posters for Study of Parliament Group Oxford Weekend
  7. Recent Publications that have Caught Our Eye
  8. Recently on the Blog

If you have any notices/messages you would like us to circulate to the group, please let us know.

1. PSA Parliaments 2021 Conference

We are delighted to announce an excellent line-up of panels and papers for our 2021 Annual Conference, Parliament at a Critical Juncture.

The conference this year is a one-day virtual event on Friday 12th November 2021.

We have three panels on the themes of:

  1. Representatives and representation;
  2. Accountability and transparency in Parliaments;
  3. Power(lessness), practices and conventions.

To register (for free) and for full details of the conference and each of the panels, please see here.

2. PSA Annual International Conference 2022

We are delighted to launch our call for papers for the PSA Parliaments panels within the 2022 PSA Annual Conference (#PSA22). The conference is currently planned to be a blend of a physical and digital event taking place online and in York, between 10-13th April 2022 with the theme: “Politics from the Margins”. Full details of the conference, including the current plans for digital-only attendees can be found here.

If you would like to present a paper or organise a panel under the auspices of the PSA Parliaments group, then please submit the relevant form(s), which can be found on our website, to Alexandra and Stephen by Monday 4th October.

We welcome papers from PhD students through to professors and we are fully committed to avoiding manels. We are also seeking to increase the proportion of papers on our panels from people from an ethnic minority background so please get in touch with Alexandra or Stephen if you come from an ethnic minority background and would like to discuss how your research could be highlighted on our panels.

3. Call for Papers: Parliamentary Studies is for Everybody Workshop

Inspired by the recent textbook, Political Science is for Everybody, the Parliaments, Race, Migration & Intersectionality, and Women & Politics specialist groups of the UK Political Studies Association are organising a workshop entitled Parliamentary Studies is for Everybody.

The aim of the workshop is to explore parliaments (and legislatures) at the intersections: how different groups of people engage with, access, navigate and experience parliaments; how parliaments and particular parliamentary institutions might be biased towards certain groups; and how this context might influence parliamentary activity, legislative outcomes and the broader policy-making process.

The workshop will be held via Zoom on Friday 28 January 2022.Full details, including how to submit an abstract, can be found here.

We welcome applications from PhD students to professors, and we do not have any preference in terms of theory and method, or on which parliament(s) and/or legislature(s) you study. We particularly welcome applications from people who are from underrepresented groups in political science and academia more broadly.

4. New Overview of the Austrian Parliament

A new overview of the Austrian Parliament has been added to our map.

Many thanks to Christoph Clar for writing an excellent addition to our collection.

If you would like to write an overview of a parliament or legislature not yet covered on our maps (it is to our collective shame that there is not yet an overview of the UK Parliament), then please get in contact with Stephen or Alexandra.

5. Welcome to our new Communications Officer, Chris Monaghan!

We are really pleased that Chris Monaghan has joined us as our Communications Officer.

Chris is a Principal Lecturer in Law at the University of Worcester. He has a keen interest in constitutional law, accountability and legal history, and his current research projects include the Chagos litigation and impeachment as an accountability mechanism.

Chris is the co-editor of the Routledge Frontiers in the Study of Accountability book series, and is currently organising the Questions of Accountability conference.

His twitter handle is @Chris_JMonaghan.

6. Call for Posters for Study of Parliament Group Oxford Weekend

There will be a new poster session at the SPG’s Oxford Weekend on the 7-8th January 2022 which is open to all members of the SPG, including PhD students, early career researchers and officials. Please consider submitting a poster to display findings from current research projects, to disseminate information about new projects, or to put forward case studies of best practice.

If you’d like to take part in the session, please email Louise Thompson with the following information: Poster Title; Author/(s); Affiliation/(s); Short Summary (150 words) of what the poster will cover.

The deadline for submissions of interest is Friday 8th October 2021. Final posters and short videos would need to be completed by Monday 6th December 2021. Support will be given with the printing and display of posters.

Some financial support (up to £100) towards attending the conference is available for PhDs / ECRs who present a poster. For further details contact Richard Kelly. If you are not a member of the SPG but are interested in joining, please get in touch with Louise.

7. Recent Publications that have Caught Our Eye

The South Africa-based Parliamentary Monitoring Group has published a report by Rebecca Sibanda on Assessing the Effectiveness of Written Questions and Replies as an Oversight Mechanism in the South African Parliament.

Rainbow Murray has published It’s a rich man’s world: How class and glass ceilings intersect for UK parliamentary candidates in International Political Science Review.

Fotios Fitsilis has published a research note in the Journal of Legislative Studies entitled Artificial Intelligence (AI) in parliaments – preliminary analysis of the Eduskunta experiment.

Rod Rhodes, Matthew Flinders, Adrian Vatter and David Judge have written a response to Meg Russell and Ruxandra Serban’s recent article on the Westminster Model in Government and Opposition: Stretched but not snapped: A response to Russell & Serban on Retiring the ‘Westminster Model.

John Connolly, Matthew Flinders and David Judge have published Reviewing the review: a three-dimensional approach to analysing the 2017–2020 review of the House of Lords investigative and scrutiny committees in the Journal of Legislative Studies, available on early view.

And, finally, new issues of Legislative Studies Quarterly, Parliamentary Affairs and the Journal of Legislative Studies have been published.

If you would like your published research to be featured in this section, please email Stephen with details.

8. Recently on the Blog

We have recently published one great blog:

If you have an idea for a blog on some aspect of parliamentary study, please get in touch with our communications officer, Chris.

Categories
Blog

Parliaments are watching to make sure climate legislation has an impact

How have parliaments responded to the Paris Agreement during the past five years? In which way are parliaments making sure that climate legislation does have an impact? These were some of the questions guiding the new report “Parliaments and the Paris Agreement”, published by Westminster Foundation for Democracy, ParlAmericas, INTER PARES, and GLOBE International. Based on this report, we put forward five golden rules for conducting climate-proof Post-Legislative Scrutiny.

By Rafael Jimenez Aybar and Franklin De Vrieze.

With only a few of weeks until the start of COP-26 in Glasgow, the role of parliaments in advancing international climate commitments deserves a spotlight. Parliament’s critical role in the development, implementation, and monitoring of their country’s climate objectives is often underestimated. 

The recent report “Parliaments and the Paris Agreement” shows that, to date, action on climate by parliaments has gone beyond adopting climate policies and legislation. The report also notes how parliaments focus on implementation and impact, thus contributing to promoting environmental democracy by upholding the environmental rule of law. 

While legislation is of critical importance to achieve national climate commitments, it is equally vital to ensure that the legislation is implemented and has the intended outcomes. This process is often referred to as Post-legislative Scrutiny (PLS) or ex-post impact assessment of legislation. 

PLS can help identify implementation shortcomings, areas of improvement and good practices. While PLS can provide oversight of the implementation gap, the gap between ambitions legislated for and those delivered, PLS can also provide a window for increasing legislative ambitions in line with what the science demands. 

PLS can be applied to climate-specific legislation as well as to general legislation which is not specifically environment- or climate-focused. In case of the latter, one speaks of a climate and environmental “lens” over PLS. 

Based on the new report, we outline five golden rules for conducting climate-proof PLS. The five golden rules capture the do’s and don’ts for parliaments willing to engage on PLS of environment and climate legislation and PLS of general legislation with an environment and climate lens.

1. Make the work of parliament climate-proof. Climate-proof PLS is not the job of the Environmental Committee only. All committees need to be engaged. This means that parliaments need to organise their internal processes to ensure that environmental oversight spans the entirety of its work, including through inter-committee communication and environmental and climate mainstreaming in committees’ work. This requires that all MPs and staff have been informed of the national targets related to mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and the strategy on adaptation.

For instance, the Scottish Parliament applies its sustainable development Impact Assessment Tool to all its legislation. It helps parliamentarians moving beyond simply asking ‘what is the economic cost or benefit of this law’ to asking, ‘what is the carbon cost?’. The UK Parliament Environmental Audit Committee has a cross-government mandate to consider the extent to which government departments and public bodies contribute to environmental protection and sustainable development.

2. Make all PLS inquiries climate-inclusive. For PLS of general legislation, it is important that environmental impact is explicitly included in the PLS guidance, calls for evidence, and questions used in data collection. The PLS report needs to include a section on findings and recommendations relevant to the environment and climate; going beyond findings and recommendations related to the thematic remit of that law. This is similar to the approach that says that any legislative impact report must have a section relevant to gender equality.

An example is the Indonesian Parliament which has started PLS of the ‘Law on Job Creation’ with specific attention to the risks of driving environmental degradation.

3. Employ environmental treaties as entry-point for environmental PLS. Parliaments have a key role in ratifying international environmental and climate treaties. PLS can provide a window of analysis to check on the government’s commitments and adherence to such treaties as reflected in the national law. Furthermore, delivery against international treaties takes place at national, regional, and sub-regional level. Parliaments are critical to ensure that this happens.

4. Look at the role of implementing agencies of legislation. Each law designates an institution, department or ministry for its implementation. In many countries, the piecemeal development of environmental legislation risks regulatory overlap. Through PLS, MPs can review the role of implementing agencies of environmental laws, in order to consider whether compliance and enforcement regimes exist, and what is their effectiveness, legality, and coherence.

For example, the National Assembly of Nigeria is currently assessing the Environmental Impact Assessment Act and the Act on the National Agency for the Great Green Wall.

5. Review the legislative targets. It is important that legislative targets for climate and environment are adequate, timely and achievable. Setting targets alone does not in itself improve environmental outcomes. PLS of climate and environment legislation should therefore focus its assessment not only on targets, but also performance against those targets – asking if the targets and actions to meet them are doing enough.

For example, the Canadian Parliament enacted a review clause in the Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act to ensure a parliamentary review after 5 years of it coming into force with the aim to sharpen the targets.

Rafael Jimenez Aybar is Environmental Democracy Adviser and Franklin De Vrieze is Senior Governance Adviser at Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD).

Categories
Blog

Parliaments or Legislatures, or perhaps Assemblies? Names, origins and meanings

Cristina Leston-Bandeira, University of Leeds

@estrangeirada

For parliamentary geeks out there, this is a recurrent discussion: parliament or legislature? Which term is the ‘right’ term to use? Which one reflects the true nature of the institution that embodies the representative and legislative branch in a political system. I suggest we should relax more about the exact term and instead acknowledge their differing origins and meanings, whilst recognising the diversity of terms out there – assemblies, councils etc. After all, words are imbued with our own culture and history – why should it be any different with the word used to refer to this institution?

A while ago I started working on a textbook about comparative legislatures – unfortunately, life was a bit too mad at the time and I couldn’t bring it to fruition (maybe a retirement project?). But, as part of Chapter 1, I actually completed some research on the names and history of development of legislatures (or is it parliaments?). Here are some notes from that research. 

The institution supporting the representative and legislative branch of governance has been known by different names across the world and over time. This is often associated with local culture and language, but can also indicate a focus on a particular function to the detriment of others. The terms ‘legislature’ and ‘parliament’ are the most commonly used generic terms and are regularly used inter-changeably – they have, however, different origins and refer to different functions. In short, legislature is North American originally and refers to the function of making law. Parliament has European origin and refers to the function of debating.

The term ‘legislature’ tends to be more ordinarily used in Anglo-Saxon environments and/or countries with a strong American influence. The development of this term is closely associated with the expansion of the nascent American colonial legislatures. As their expansion in a context of independence was closely associated to the right of making law, the label of “legislature” – to legislate, to make ‘legis’(law) – became the natural appellation of these institutions. It is therefore a term linked to American influence, but also to an understanding of this institution as a legislation-making body. 

The term ‘parliament’ however is more common in Europe and in environments with a strong European influence. The term comes from the French verb ‘parler’ – to speak, to discuss. It refers therefore to a different dimension of this institution: as an arena for debate. As we see below, the medieval parliaments were mainly gatherings for discussion, and the term parliament is associated with these. This term can be dated back to medieval times in Europe, being therefore the most well-established nomenclature for this institution.

Other common names include Assembly (often National Assembly and associated with the need to reaffirm the national sovereignty of the people), Congress (usually encompassing a lower and an upper chamber), Chamber (Chamber of Representatives, Chamber of Deputies, etc, encompassing an explicit reference to the primacy of the role played by the Plenum chamber), Council, House and Senate (a popular name for upper chambers). But many parliaments also have their own country specific names, such as Althingi (Iceland), Bundestag (Germany), Diet (Japan), Majlis (Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries), Sabha (India) and Sejm (Poland). And some of these names refer instead to the idea of ‘gatherings’, ‘coming together’, or even ‘events’, which speak to other types of functions performed by these institutions but are also a nod to the way they developed from ad-hoc gatherings to permanent institutions.

Legislatures are not a new feature of our societies, they have existed for many centuries. What is specific to the modern parliament is its complexity of membership and of roles performed, and the way it is integrated nationally in the governance fabric of our societies. It is difficult to date exactly when the first parliaments existed, as this is closely related to how one defines a legislature plus the linkage of the institution with its place (are legislatures that have changed location and/or building, the same legislature, for example?). Besides this, the development of legislatures is often conflated with the development of democracy and/or representative government. Although related, they are not necessarily the same. There are plenty of examples of legislatures, still today, that have little resemblance to democracy or representative government. 

The definition of a parliament, in its basic form, can be summed up as a group of people meeting together at the same time and location (even if digital) to discuss matters that affect the collective of a community. This may simply constitute a discussion and not lead to an effective decision or a vote. Some identify the medieval legislatures as the first ones, other point to the Greek assemblies (with associated myths: the Icelandic Althingi, the Isle of Man Tynwald, England for Westminster, etc.). The first legislatures were mainly forums for discussion, whereby people would meet to discuss key issues of the day. The abiding power of these forums to make decisions or to simply consult and discuss varied considerably, across the ages and contexts. 

Whilst the ancient Athenian Agora is the most well-known early assembly-like institution, this was by no means an exceptional institution. Other assemblies existed already at the time across ancient Greece. Most operated as public spaces for discussion, open to whoever wish to join the debate. Some assemblies had deliberative powers and decisions would be voted upon, though the power to vote would be limited to male citizens who attended the respective meeting. There is also evidence of much earlier presence of assemblies in the Indian sub-continent, in the Vedic age, meaning circa 3000-1000 BC, which exercised considerable influence. The Roman era also includes many types of early institutional expressions of a legislature in the form of councils, assemblies and, of course, the well-known Senate, which was particularly powerful during the Roman Republic. These legislatures varied very considerably in composition, participation, role and powers across the different Roman regimes. Some involved direct democracy participation, some had legislative powers, some were simple forums for discussion of local issues. A common characteristic of all of these different types of legislatures is their transient nature and, in most cases, lack of national remit.

It is from the medieval legislatures, though, that we can identify a clearer path of development towards the institution of the modern parliament. Many authors date the creation of the first parliaments in the 13 century and place it in England, with the De Monfort Parliament in 1265, seen as the first expression of a national legislature. But this development is progressive, representing the culmination of the expansion of smaller scale assemblies. It is also a process present elsewhere in Europe. The first parliaments were born out of a need of Monarchs to negotiate with the members of their aristocracy, and of increasingly larger territories under their ruling. As territories under one Monarch became larger and the need for taxation became a more complex task, the need to negotiate terms with local Barons and other aristocracy representatives became all the more pressing. As the context and environment of those negotiations became more formal and regular, the beginnings of the notion of a parliament started to materialise.

In his detailed comparative analysis of medieval parliaments in Europe, Marongiu shows that the predecessors of the modern parliament – curia, courts, concilia, estates – were developed firstly as occasional public relations reunions, which were “summoned by sovereigns whenever it seemed opportune to ask [secular and ecclesiastical dignitaries] counsel or opinion” (Marongiu, 1968: 45). As these reunions became more regular and larger, their relevance and formality expanded eventually leading to the new parlamentums. The first parliaments were therefore about communication and public relations. But as parliaments became institutionalised and part of a national governance chain, their focus shifted to the relationship with the executive and to the function of legislating.

I’m European, so parliament feels like the most natural word to use. My first language was French (parlement), my second language Portuguese (parlamento) and my third one is English (parliament). So parliament it is; that doesn’t mean I don’t use the term legislatures and I’m perfectly relaxed about using the term, as my recent article with David Judge shows; I’d probably rarely use the term ‘legislators’, but understand where North American colleagues come from when they do. So rather than worrying about what is the right term (whilst ignoring the many other terms that exist, such as Assemblies), it may simply be best to accept both. Or indeed adapt and create new words, as Brazilians have done: by adapting the American legislature word and meaning, they created ‘the legislative’ as a noun – o legislativo – which does not exist in European Portuguese as a noun. Ultimately words simply reflect their history and culture, there is no right or wrong, it’s about what each means, the same with parliament (or is it legislature?).

If you want to find out more about it all, I really recommend the following:

Loewenberg, G. and Patterson, S. (1979), Comparing Legislatures, University Press of America.

Marongiu, A. (1968), Medieval Parliaments – a comparative study, Eyre and Spottiswoode.