Author: psaparliaments

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Changes in UK executive-legislative relations: A Congressionalising House of Commons, 1997-2015

By Kento Ohara.

Literature on the changing nature of the UK constitution in recent years abounds. Although there is a widespread perception that the UK constitution has been undergoing some significant change recently, there is little consensus to date on how to conceptualise this change. In addressing this challenge and placing the UK’s recent constitutional developments in a comparative context, my project focuses on executive-legislative relations in the UK as the underlying dimension in the country’s recent constitutional evolution. This focus flows from the fact that the sovereignty of crown-in-parliament has been widely identified as the core of the UK constitution. To repeat the well-rehearsed phrase of the late English constitutional thinker Walter Bagehot, it is the ‘close union, the nearly complete fusion of the executive and legislative powers’ that is the ‘efficient secret’ of the (English) constitution (2009, p. 11). Notable recent developments within the UK’s sovereign parliament (especially the House of Commons) and its relationship with the executive branch include: major shake-ups in the Commons’ select committee system (Fisher 2015; Russell 2011), increasing number of rebellions within parliamentary parties (Cowley & Stuart 2012; 2014) and new legislation on the prime minister’s dissolution power (Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011; Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022). The role perception of MPs and their career patterns, amid the rise of ‘career politicians’ in UK politics, have also been said to be going through some transformation, influencing attitudinal changes on part of these politicians to a certain extent (Fisher 2015; Heuwieser 2018).

How then can we conceptualise these changes in UK executive-legislative relations, and how can we measure such changes empirically? My project seeks to address these questions by turning to the classic works of Polsby (1975, ch. 4) and Wilson (1885) on Anglo-American comparison of legislatures. Drawing on these influential studies on comparative legislatures, my project proposes the concept of ‘Congressionalisation’ of the UK House of Commons. It is argued that both institutionally and behaviourally, UK executive-legislative relations are incrementally becoming more similar to those observed between the US executive and congress.

Traditionally, the UK’s executive-dominated parliamentary system has been contrasted with the US presidential system, where Congress dominates the legislative process. Whereas in the UK the parliamentary majority, controlled by the executive, is vested with extensive agenda control and legislative power in its fusion-of-power model of government, under the US’s division-of-power constitution, the executive and legislative branches retain a much more significant degree of power to constrain each other in the legislative process (not to mention the heftier role of the judicial branch) (Bagehot 2009; Lijphart 1992; Wilson 1885).[i] This arrangement has created what the US political scientist Richard E Neustadt called a system where ‘separated institutions shar[e] power’ (1960, p. 39). This Anglo-American difference has long been noted by American and British constitutional thinkers, perhaps most notably by the future American president Woodrow Wilson, who decried the American system as a ‘congressional government’ (1885).

It was Polsby who picked up on these earlier observations on the different levels of policy-making influence legislatures have in Western democracies, and conceptualised the Westminster parliament as the ideal-type of an ‘arena’ legislature, in contrast to the ‘transformative’ Congress in the US (1975, pp. 278ff). In short, an arena legislature exercises very limited policy-making powers, whereas a transformative legislature enjoys a vital role in shaping policies. Following Wilson’s and other earlier observations, Polsby attributed this difference in policy-making influence of the UK and US legislatures primarily to the strength of their committees. Whilst the UK featured ad hoc standing committees to scrutinise bills, congressional committees yielded significant and effective policy influence. Indeed, some ‘mega-seat’ committees, such as the House Rules Committee, have acted as gateways for bills thereby exercising considerable agenda control, a power that is usually reserved for government ministers in the UK.

Polsby also proposed some preliminary hypotheses as to why some legislatures enjoyed larger policy-making influence than others. According to Polsby, it was the ‘character of parliamentary parties’ (emphasis added) that was related to the extent to which a legislature was ‘arena’ or ‘transformative’: the more coalitional, decentralised and flexible the parties, the more transformative the legislature.[ii] Among these characteristics, the first dimension (the extent to which parties are coalitional) related to the electoral parties, and the third dimension (flexibility) to the legislative parties, whilst the second dimension (the extent to which parties are decentralised) concerned both electoral and legislative parties. Hence, with respect to the internal working of legislatures, Polsby’s argument on the difference between the UK parliament and the US congress can be summarised into the following three key aspects:

  1. Committee strength: the US congress features stronger committees in terms of policy influence than the UK parliament.
  2. Agenda control: the US congress features a more decentralised, coalitional agenda control over its business than the UK parliament.
  3. Legislative parties: the US congress features parties that are more decentralised in terms of the distribution of legislative posts and more flexible (less party-disciplined) in terms of intra-legislative voting than the UK parliament.

My project argues that the UK parliament is indeed incrementally growing similar to this classic understanding of the US congress on these three dimensions, and seeks to corroborate the Congressionalisation argument by empirically measuring recent changes in these three aspects.

Existing studies do point to some recent developments in Westminster with regard to these three aspects. For example, studies have shown that with reforms to both public bill committees (legislative committees, formerly known as standing committees) and select committees (executive oversight committees), parliament is in a better position to scrutinise the government effectively (Levy 2009; Benton & Russell 2013). Especially in the case of select committees, these institutional innovations seem to have strengthened Parliament’s policy-making influence (Russell & Benton 2011; Lynch & Whitaker 2019). Although the UK government still retains unrivalled agenda control (a pledge made by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition to establish a House Business Committee in the House of Commons went unfulfilled), there now exists the Backbench Business Committee, which determines the topics to be debated during backbench business, giving parliamentarians more control over their own time (Matthews 2015). Distribution of legislative posts, such as select committee chairs and membership, has also become more decentralised, taking patronage away from the party whips (Fisher 2015; Russell 2011).

It is also important to note the behavioural changes on part of both MPs and the executive as well. Party cohesion in the House of Commons has waned in recent years with rebellions and government defeats becoming increasingly more common (Cowley & Stuart 2012; 2014). The preventive, as opposed to reactive, influence of Parliament has also manifested in the government’s approach to the legislative process, with the government’s Guide to making legislation explicitly advising ministers to anticipate potential dissent in Parliament (Cabinet Office 2022, pp. 159-160; see also Russell & Cowley 2016; Russell et al 2016). This is more akin to what we are used to see in the US context, where the executive branch is required to anticipate and bargain with congressional actors to achieve policy goals (e.g. Mayhew 1974, p. 107).

My project seeks to further this comparison of the British and American legislatures, especially on the flexibility dimension of legislative parties. I am devising new measures on divisions, i.e. intra-legislative voting, and on parliamentary speeches, that will allow me to trace behavioural changes of parliamentarians over time, especially in relation to Anthony King’s ‘modes’ of executive-legislative relations (1976). This will make a novel contribution to the literature on UK parliamentary reform and cross-national comparison of legislatures, as well as documenting the logic of Westminster’s evolution over recent years.

[i] Takayasu’s recent contribution highlights the changing roles of the judiciary and the House of Lords in the UK constitution as well, which he denotes as ‘Madisonianisation’(2018, in Japanese). My project focuses on the UK’s narrower executive-legislative relations.

[ii] Later studies have also confirmed that in parliamentary systems, having a coalition government is correlated with stronger parliamentary power to scrutinise the executive (Martin & Vanberg 2011; André et al 2016).

About the author

Kento Ohara is an MPhil student reading Politics (Comparative Government) at the University of Oxford. He is primarily interested in legislatures in parliamentary democracies, mainly in the UK, Germany and Japan, and how their internal procedures change over time.

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Blog

Petition platforms must reach beyond the usual suspects

By Cristina Leston-Bandeira and Blagovesta Tacheva.

Petitions are a popular avenue for participating in politics, with a recent study finding that signing a petition is the dominant form of political engagement. Thanks to new parliamentary processes introduced in recent years, petitioning parliament has also become an effective way for the public to raise issues of concern to policymakers.

However, as illustrated in the figure below, current petitioners are overwhelmingly from already politically engaged groups, typically an older white public with high socio-economic status – the so-called “usual suspects”. Rather than expanding opportunities for democratic engagement, there is a risk that petitions to parliament are simply amplifying the voices of those who “already shout the loudest”.

Source: Research Retold

This problem is compounded by a lack of research on how people from disengaged groups perceive engagement and petitioning. In a new study, we addressed this issue by asking people from seldom-heard groups, such as those from a low socio-economic or ethnic minority background, for their perceptions about petitioning. Our aim was to identify the barriers and enablers to engagement faced by groups beyond the usual suspects.

To do so, we organised focus groups with petitioners and non-petitioners, including people from seldom-heard groups. This was supplemented by interviews with parliamentary officials and representatives from community organisations. This research allowed us to identify six core findings.

1. Deep mistrust

Unsurprisingly, our research unveiled deep mistrust of politics – as illustrated in the figure below, which shows participants’ views when asked what politics would be if it were an animal.

Source: Nifty Fox

There was a particularly acute disconnect from the political system among seldom-heard groups. Although everyone who took part in the research identified core issues they felt strongly about, they did not see these issues as being related to politics.

Participants held such negative perceptions that positive experiences with politicians did not alter these perceptions. This affected participants’ willingness to engage in politics and petitioning. As a result, they did not view politics as a route for addressing core issues affecting them. Participants felt politics was not for them, despite expressing interest in it.

Our research showed that engagement with politics or political processes, such as petitioning, needs to be communicated through issues (examples, case studies, stories) as much as possible. This is what enables a connection between politics and citizens. We also found evidence that the deep well of distrust keeps people away from opportunities such as petitions.

2. A lack of awareness

Seldom-heard groups had limited knowledge or awareness of petitioning in general, including through platforms such as change.org. Very few were aware that they can petition their parliament. Those participants aware of petitioning were usually those who reported higher levels of political engagement overall. However, even the politically engaged non-petitioners were mostly unaware of petitions to their parliament, only knowing of websites such as change.org.

3. Obstacles to engagement

Seldom-heard groups are often affected by intersecting inequalities. These inequalities can exacerbate each other, making it extremely difficult for people within these groups to engage in politics. As illustrated in the figure below, seldom-heard groups can be affected by illiteracy, language barriers, low IT literacy, a lack of IT equipment, disability, poverty and isolation. These barriers can preclude them from engaging in formal politics.

Our research also identified specific barriers to political engagement and petitioning, such as limited knowledge about politics. This was a recurring theme throughout our research, with participants lacking basic knowledge about politics and the UK political system, such as an understanding of what parliament does and how it differs from the government

.Source: Research Retold

This was combined with a lack of key campaigning skills, as well as a lack of confidence, which can make the process of petitioning feel intimidating. These findings show why parliaments need to be more proactive in the way they disseminate and explain their petition systems if they wish to reach beyond the usual suspects.

4. Community organisations as mediators

Our research also showed the importance of community organisations working with seldom-heard groups as mediators when it comes to facilitating access. Community organisations have often built long-term relationships with these communities, they have direct access to them, they have a good understanding of their circumstances and challenges, and they have gained their trust. They could therefore play a role in helping to raise awareness of petitioning among these groups and even help them to start a petition, just as they help people access other services.

However, these types of organisations would not necessarily think of facilitating engagement with petitions, as they may themselves be unaware or unconvinced of their value. This was apparent in our interviews. Facilitating further involvement from these groups would also be challenging for community organisations due to a lack of capacity and resources.

Still, interviewees suggested that a buddy system in which engagement “champions” are identified could make this role easier. Following the “train the trainer” principle, these champions could be based in community organisations and trained to have a better understanding of petitioning and their potential role in supporting service users.

5. Managing expectations and guiding participation

Managing expectations was a recurring theme in our research. This is closely linked to the way parliaments’ e-petitions systems are communicated to the public. The language used to communicate with petitioners and explain the petitions process was often seen as unclear, with many asking for more plain language to be used.

Although petitioners were happy overall with their experience, a few found the process disjointed and unclear. These concerns were well summarised by one petitioner, who highlighted that clarity around the process and the language used to describe it is key for managing petitioners’ expectations: “You’ve got to have that clarity, otherwise people’s expectations go up here and they’re just going to be massively deflated by the end of it.”

The language used across all communication channels is essential to making the process more accessible beyond the usual suspects. This should be accompanied by the development of resources aimed at wider audiences, such as infographics, audiovisual material and “Easy Read” guides.

6. Collaboration with citizen-centred services

Finally, our research showed that petitioning processes cannot be considered solely through the actions of the officials directly involved. Other citizen-centred services, such as education, communication, outreach and participation services, play a key role.

However, links between these services and the staff responsible for petitions are not always well established. Petitions to parliament are considered to be parliamentary business, but they are also led by citizens. Supporting the petitions process therefore requires closer collaboration between those services that focus on enhancing the public’s understanding of parliament.

The need to be proactive

Overall, we found people have considerable interest in political issues and petitions, including those within seldom-heard groups. However, there is also deep mistrust within these groups, often coupled with a lack of knowledge, skills and confidence to engage with participatory tools such as petitions.

To expand the reach of petitions beyond the usual suspects, parliaments need to be proactive in reaching out to a wider audience. The mere fact a participatory tool exists does not mean it will be used by everyone. Our research underlines the importance of education and clear communication for enhancing the value of participatory tools.

This post was first published on the LSE British Politics and Policy blog.

About the authors

Cristina Leston-Bandeira is a Professor of Politics in the School of Politics and International Studies at the University of Leeds.

Blagovesta Tacheva is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Politics and International Studies at the University of Leeds.

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The (worst) laws of the land: The concept of legislative basket cases in Central-Eastern Europe

By Miklós Sebők and Rebeka Kiss.

Is it possible to conceptualise the quality of legislation in a multidimensional manner? If yes, how can we define the laws which are of the lowest quality? This blog examines these conceptual and methodological issues by introducing a theory of legislative basket cases and offering illustrative case studies from Central-Eastern Europe.

How can we conceptualise legislative quality in a multidimensional manner?

One way to start the conceptualisation of legislative quality is to look at some examples which are universally (regardless of party affiliation) considered to be “bad” laws. An example, which we described in more detail in Sebők, Kiss and Kovács, 2023, that highlights the potential failures of the legislative process is the famous case of the ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ in Alaska. The ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ narrative commenced in 1996 when municipal authorities in the city of Ketchikan endorsed a proposal to construct a bridge. This proposed infrastructure aimed to connect the sparsely populated Gravina Island to the Alaskan mainland. The justification for this bridge was vigorously debated, especially since a functional and inexpensive ferry service was already in place. Despite the availability of this service, the  bridge project secured initial federal backing under the ‘Transportation Equity Act of 1998’.

Eventually, the Gravina bridge became a notorious example of wasteful expenditure and dysfunctional legislation, particularly after a dramatic U-turn by Sarah Palin, who was campaigning for the governorship of Alaska at the time. Palin had initially displayed support for the project, only to pivot post-election as governor and ultimately dismissing the bridge in 2007 as an impractical solution. Extant scholarship often correlates such poor legislative practices with authoritarian and illiberal regimes. The case of the ‘Bridge to Nowhere’, however, demonstrates that ‘good’ and ‘bad’ laws are not a regime characteristic as the legislative process leading up to is passage unfolded in one of the longest-standing liberal democracies.

Conceptualising the quality of law-making and legislative basket cases

Although the problem of legislative quality has not generated a unified strand of research in political science and legal studies, various approaches to conceptualisation are available that we can build on:

Based on the literature cited, a ‘good’ law can be characterized by a clear, and publicly supported policy objective which was fleshed out in stakeholder consultations. It should be efficient, coherent, transparent, and relatively stable post-adoption. Essentially, a ‘good’ law meets high standards across four key dimensions of legislative quality: (1) public policy; (2)  formal–legal–constitutional; (3) procedural; and (4) stability.

Conversely, a legislative basket case signifies a major failure in law-making, marked by various deficiencies compromising its effectiveness and legitimacy. Such laws often miss their public policy goals, have unclear purposes, and may conflict with existing laws and constitutional principles. Their drafting often bypasses essential consultations and is rushed through the legislature without adequate justification, leading to a lack of consensus. Post-enactment, these laws are unstable, requiring frequent amendments. The absence of post-implementation evaluations and a failure to establish necessary enforcement conditions further diminish their effectiveness and enforceability. In essence, a law can be considered to be a legislative basket case if it is flawed across a wide-ranging of indicators of legislative quality.

Building on our previous research, which delves into the concept and measurement of legislative backsliding (Sebők, Kiss and Kovács, 2023), in the manuscript serving as the basis of this blog entry, we aim to identify legislative basket cases by employing a multidimensional framework for assessing legislative quality considering content, public process, legal formalities, and constitutional considerations. We examine the quality criteria listed in Table 1 for each law under consideration.

An empirical case study: The Polish Law on Forests

In our presentation at PSA Parliaments Conference 2023, we examined illustrative cases from the Czech, Hungarian, Polish, and Slovak legislation in detail. Here, we focus on the Polish Law on Forests (Act on Forests of 16 December 2016, known as “Ustawa o lasach”) and evaluate it from the perspective of our theory of legislative quality. This piece of legislation was at the centre of a significant legal controversy due to its provisions allowing land clearing and excessive cutting down of trees, which was claimed by its detractors to be in violation of European Union conservation laws. The initial goals of the law were to enhance the rights of property owners regarding tree and shrub growth, simplify regulations on felling trees, and delegate to local governments the ability to adjust greenery protection levels to their needs. The law aimed to introduce a stable solution under the oversight of the Minister for the Environment, who was expected to ensure environmental balance and prevent selective application of provisions (Radecka, 2018).

However, the law’s implementation led to a scandal involving the Minister of Climate and Environment, who approved a logging plan that sparked widespread criticism. The law’s enforceability was complicated by the fact that the area in question—Białowieża forest—is part of the Natura 2000 network and UNESCO World Heritage sites, which is subject to stringent protection standards. The European Commission consistently and formally called on Poland to avoid extensive logging in the primeval forest, which Poland’s government initially ignored and proceeded with the logging activities.

The law faced challenges regarding its constitutionality and compliance with EU law, whereby the Polish government defended its policies by asserting that national legislation mandated sustainable forest management, implying that its tree-cutting practices were environmentally friendly. However, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) sided with the European Commission, ruling that Poland’s policy contravened the EU’s nature conservation rules (C-432/21). Notably, this was not the first instance of Poland facing legal action over forest management. In 2018, CJEU had already ruled that Poland should halt tree-cutting in the protected Białowieża forest (C-441/17). Due to a ruling in 2023 (C-432/21), Poland was required to revise its national legislation to align its forest management plans with EU biodiversity conservation laws.

The procedural aspects of the law’s enactment were also criticised, as it was adopted hastily, without sufficient preparation, stakeholder consultation, and proper public deliberation. The parliamentary debate was conducted in a fast-track manner, raising concerns about the law’s rushed adoption and potential violation of EU directives— this was later confirmed by the judgments mentioned above. Overall, the Forest Law ticks most boxes related to poor legislative quality and, therefore, constitutes an example of a legislative basket case.

As we showed in our presentation at PSA Parliaments 2023 this case is not unique, and similar multidimensional deficiencies can be observed in relation to many other laws passed in the Central-Eastern European region. Notable such examples include the Czech taxation of church restitution (Act No. 125/2019 Coll.), the Hungarian Medical Chamber Law (Act I of 2023) or the Slovak Land Acquisition Law (Act No. 140/2014 Coll.). Avenues for future research include developing methods to measure and quantify individual quality criteria in a multilingual  research design and to assess the causes and consequences of passing legislative basket cases.

About the authors

Miklós Sebők is a Research Professor at HUN-REN Centre of Social Sciences and poltextLAB (poltextlab.com). He serves as the research director of the Hungarian Comparative Agendas Project, and as principal investigator of the V-SHIFT Momentum research project, funded by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. His research in legislative studies includes co-authored contributions such as “The Concept and Measurement of Legislative Backsliding” in Parliamentary Affairs, “Measuring legislative stability – A new approach with data from Hungary”, in European Political Science, and “Comparative European legislative research in the age of large-scale computational text analysis: A review article” in International Political Science Review.

Rebeka Kiss is a Junior Research Fellow at the HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences and a PhD student at the Doctoral School of Public Administration Sciences of the University of Public Service, specialising in legislative studies. Her contributions to the field include co-authored works such as “The Concept and Measurement of Legislative Backsliding” in Parliamentary Affairs and “The Transparency of Constitutional Reasoning: A Text Mining Analysis of the Hungarian Constitutional Court’s Jurisprudence” published in Studia Iuridica Lublinensia. She has participated in various research projects including as the Hungarian Comparative Agendas Project, the V-SHIFT Momentum research project, and the OPTED – Observatory for Political Texts in European Democracies. 

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February 2024 Newsletter

Here are the latest February updates for you:

  1. Call for Papers
  2. #PSA24: Early Bird Registration Deadline Extended
  3. Spotlight on Our Members
  4. Invitation to an Exhibition on Parliaments
  5. Entries for the APSA-PSA International Partnerships Award
  6. Editorial Announcements from Parliamentary Affairs
  7. Recent Publications
  8. Recently on the Blog
  9. Overview of Parliaments Map

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

Best wishes,

Seán, Caroline, Diana, Ruxandra, and Jack.

1. Call for Papers

Sixteenth Workshop of Parliamentary Scholars and Parliamentarians, Wroxton College, 27-28 July 2024

Today is the last day to send a paper/panel proposal for the Sixteenth Workshop of Parliamentary Scholars and Parliamentarians, which will be held on Saturday 27 July and Sunday 28 July 2024 at Wroxton College, Oxfordshire, UK. The Workshop serves to bring together scholars and parliamentarians – from legislatures around the globe – to discuss research findings likely to be of practical interest to members of parliaments.

Paper proposals (no more than 300 words), should be sent to Professor The Lord Norton of Louth, via e-mail and should arrive no later than Monday 5 February 2024. Decisions will normally be made within a month of receipt.

2. #PSA24: Early Bird Registration Deadline Extended

The early bird registration for the PSA Annual Conference (25–27 March 2024), taking place in Glasgow, has now been extended until 9 February. This is your chance to take advantage of discounted rates. If your paper has been accepted on one of our panels, please take this opportunity to secure your spot.

3. Spotlight on Our Members

4. Invitation to Exhibition on Parliaments

The Global Research Network on Parliaments and People would like to invite members of the SPG, PSA and IPEN to an exhibition on Parliaments on 15th February 6-8pm, hosted by Emma Crewe (SOAS) with Professor Cristina Leston-Bandeira (Leeds) reflecting on a joint research programme Ethnographies of Parliaments and People – in Brazil, Ethiopia, Fiji, India, the UK and the US).

On the evening between 6-8pm guests will be offered a tour of the exhibition of photography, film, timelines and installations, with refreshments and networking in the Brunei lower gallery, SOAS University of London. Please sign up on Eventbrite.

For those able to come a little earlier, there is also the option of a film screening 5:30-6:50pm: “Elections in Paradise”. Directed by Tumeli Tuqota and Laisiasa Dave, this film is one of four in the exhibition, showing on 15th February in the central room of the exhibition.  

5. Entries for the APSA-PSA International Partnerships Award

The APSA-PSA International Partnerships Award honours those Political Studies academics engaged in collaborative and productive cross-national partnerships that make a significant contribution to the discipline in the areas of teaching, research, or civic engagement. The deadline for applications is 14 February 2024.

The award will be judged by a joint APSA and PSA panel and the winning entry will this year be announced at the APSA’s annual meeting in Philadelphia in September 2024 and will be awarded a cash prize worth £2,000. For entry requirements and submission process, please click here.

6. Editorial Announcements from Parliamentary Affairs

The editors of Parliamentary Affairs have issues a couple of announcements regarding a) aims and scope, hopefully clarifying the type of papers the journal is looking looking for, and b) authors’ guidelines have now been updated and submissions are now accepted in any format! 

7. Recent Publications

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

8. Recently on the Blog

If you have an idea for a blog on some aspect of parliamentary study, please get in touch with our new communications officer, Jack. We will be posting more blogs from those who presented at our Annual Conference last November, so watch this space!

9. Overview of Parliaments Map

We have two new contributions to our Overview of Parliaments Map.

  • Lebanon by Meray Maddah – PhD candidate at University of Konstanz
  • Peru by Milagros Campos and Ana Neyra  – Professors at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú and former head of parliamentary research at Peruvian Congress (Campos) and former Peruvian Minister of Justice (Neyra)

For anybody who wishes to cover any of the countries not yet covered in our map, contact our communications officer Jack.

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News

January 2024 Newsletter

Happy New Year to you all! We hope you’re well. Here are the latest updates for you:

  1. Call for Papers
  2. #PSA24: Early Bird Registration
  3. PSA: Nominations for Academic Prizes
  4. University of London Exhibition on Parliaments
  5. Call for Applications: ECPR Summer School of the Standing Group on Parliaments
  6. RKE Opportunities and Academic Fellowships
  7. Recent Publications
  8. Recently on the Blog
  9. Overview of Parliaments Map

If you have any notices/messages you would like us to circulate to our group, please let us know. The next newsletter will be sent on 5th of February.

Best wishes,

Seán, Caroline, Diana, Ruxandra, and Jack.

1. Call for Papers

Workshop: Legal aspects of reform to the devolved institutions in Northern Ireland

Please consider the call for papers for this joint workshop on legal aspects of reform to the devolved institutions in NI from the Liverpool Public Law Unit and the International Law and Human Rights Unit at the University of Liverpool. The workshop will take place on 10 April 2024. The deadline for submission of abstracts is 28 January. Any queries should be directed to Dr Katie Johnston (katie.johnston@liverpool.ac.uk).

The Central European University 19th Annual Doctoral Conference

The CEU Annual Doctoral Conference (Re)Searching Power: Emerging Approaches across Disciplines is taking place between 17 and 19 April, 2024. The conference provides a professional, supportive, and international environment for PhD students and early career researchers in various fields of the humanities and social sciences to discuss their works in progress, establish formal or informal networks, and initiate future collaborative research. The submission deadline is 14 January 2024. For more details, click here or email adc2024@ceu.edu

2. #PSA24: Early bird registration still open

The early bird registration for the PSA Annual Conference (25–27 March 2024 in Glasgow) is still open until 2 February. This is your chance to take advantage of discounted rates. If your paper has been accepted on one of our panels, please take this opportunity to secure your spot.

Please note that there is a further discount for scholars from the Global South and Low-income Countries. The application deadline for the PSA Support Fund to assist with conference expenses is also 2 February. 

3. PSA: Nominations for academic prizes

17 January (5pm GMT) is the last day to submit a (self-)nomination for the PSA academic prizes, which will be presented during the PSA’s Annual Conference. The PSA particularly encourages you to make a nomination for the prestigious teaching prizes. More information is available here.

4. University of London Exhibition on Parliaments, 12 January – 16 March

The Global Research Network on Parliaments and People is holding an exhibition Living Democracy: Frayed Entanglements on the relationship between politicians and people in the Brunei Gallery, SOAS. The exhibition is open Tuesday to Saturday 10:30am-5pm, from the 12th January to 16th March 2024, featuring research findings from Brazil, Ethiopia, Fiji, India, the UK and the US.

Living Democracy – Frayed Entanglements offers films, photography, installations, podcasts and timelines about riffs, rhythms and rituals in parliaments. 

5. ECPR Summer School of the Standing Group on Parliaments: Call for applications

The ECPR Standing Group on Parliaments has just opened the call for applications for their summer school. The school is for PhD students and early career scholars. It takes place 18-29 August 2024 in Frankfurt, Germany. More information on what to expect and how to apply can be found here.

6. RKE opportunities and fellowships

The UK Parliament Knowledge Exchange Unit Call for Thematic Research Leads 2024 – 2026

The KE Unit is recruiting to eight positions  for thematic research leads from a broad range of scientific and research disciplines. These part-time roles, funded by UKRI and supported by all of UKRI’s research councils, will be appointed to work with UK Parliament from September 2024 to summer 2026.

More details can be found here. The deadline to apply is 23:55, Sunday 3 March 2024.

Parliamentary Academic Fellowship Scheme (UK Parliament)

The Parliamentary Academic Fellowship Scheme (UK Parliament) runs on a rolling basis, as Parliament identifies a need for academic expertise. Open for applications are the following:

The closing date for applications is 25th February 2024 at 23:55. More details and guidance can be found here. 

7. Recent publications

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

8. Recently on the blog

If you have an idea for a blog on some aspect of parliamentary study, please get in touch with our new communications officer, Jack. We will be posting more blogs from those who presented at our Annual Conference last November, so watch this space!

9. Overview of parliaments map

We have two new contributions to our Overview of Parliaments Map.

  • Muhammad Asad Ayaz, a parliamentary researcher, has written a piece on the National Assembly of Pakistan.
  • Robert Hirst, a recent MA graduate from the University of Sheffield, has looked at the UK Parliament.

For anybody who wishes to cover any of the countries not yet covered in our map, contact our communications officer Jack.

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Blog

Obstruction, Alternation, and Amendments: Evidence from Israel

By Tal Elovits.

Obstruction in parliament dates back to the eighteenth century when legislatures became more diverse and democratic. Parliamentary obstruction is a deliberate strategy used within legislative bodies to delay or prevent legislation from being passed. A minority or individual legislators commonly use it to oppose the majority will. While conscious obstruction can be a strategic tool within a democratic system, its misuse can jeopardize the democratic principles that it means to protect. It can potentially reduce legislative power while increasing executive power, putting the democratic principle of broad representation at risk. If an obstruction is used excessively, it can endanger the proper functioning of legislative bodies, possibly threatening the future of parliamentary government. As a result, extreme caution is essential while employing obstruction techniques (Bell, 2018; Rutherford, 1914).

Previous study points out that obstruction using legislative instruments may be connected to government alternation. According to Zucchini (2011), who used the Italian case study to explore the relationship, the opposition is likelier to use delay tactics following an alternation government, and the more the opposition is ideologically cohesive, the greater the chance they will use obstruction tactics. In this study, I wish to explore the relationship between alternation and legislative obstruction in Israel following the alternation government of 2021 and specifically ask how the alternation affected the amendment’s introduction in the Israeli Knesset. Furthermore, when were amendments used more strategically? The use of amendments in the legislative process will measure legislative obstruction, and this study will be the first to analyze amendments in the Israeli parliament.

As a part of the legislative process, amendment is an instrument that allows parliament members to suggest changes to a bill under deliberation, usually by a committee. In the same way that private members have the right to introduce private member bills, private members may propose changes to a bill. Typically, amendments introduced by individual members of parliament (MPs) are voted on before the final vote of the plenum (Behrens et al., 2023; Mattson, 1995; Palau et al., 2023). Although a form of amendment as a parliamentary instrument can be found in many legislatures, they differ greatly in their restrictions, stage of voting, and deliberation time assigned to a bill considered in the final vote (Strøm, 1995).

The Israeli parliament posits an interesting and vibrant arena to study the possible effects of government alternation. In 2021, what is known as the “right bloc,” led by long-serving PM Benjamin Netanyahu, lost its governmental positions, and Israel had for a year an alternation government for the first time in 15 years. As illustrated in Figure 1, this special circumstance allows us to question and study the possible effects of government alternation in Israel and to provide further empirical evidence for the study of legislative behavior. We set two hypotheses for our study. H1 – Government alternation increases amendment introduction. H2 – Narrow ideological differences between opposition parties foster strategic cooperation.

Figure 1 – Israel political parties 2015-2022 with their coalition status

In Israel, amendments are the only tool allowing parliament members to gain debate time at the committee and the plenary. Each amendment allows a 5-minute speech for each sponsor, which can be multiplied, sometimes reaching hundreds of debate hours on a single bill (Akirav et al., 2010). Therefore, when studying legislative obstruction in Israel, using parliament members in amendments becomes a vital measurement.

Although amendments have been in use in the Israeli parliament since its first day, no data is available for analysis, and retrieving this requires manual analysis of bills in their final wording. This study covers 2015-2022, 3 legislative terms – the 20th, 23rd, and 24th and three different governments, as seen in Figure 1. In the study period, 791 non-budgetary bills have reached the final wording stage. Amendments data was collected manually regarding each bill. Further data, such as the legislative committee, bill category, type of legislation, and when the bill was introduced, were mined from the Knesset Odata API service. In total, 24,001 amendments were gathered. Figure 2 shows the share of bills with amendments by legislative term and yearly quarter. Even without any further statistical analysis, one can notice the different pattern that the 24th term presents.

Figure 2 – Share of bills with amendments 2015–2022

The data gathered was also statistically manipulated to uncover possible mechanisms explaining this change in using amendments. I have constructed two dependent variables: Amendments – dummy, where one is when a bill is introduced with amendment(s), and Strategic – dummy, where one is when amendments are introduced by half or more of the effective number of opposition members. The study hypothesis was tested using statistical Probit regression in Stata in two models —the first tested alternation as an independent variable, and the second focused on the Knesset term as an independent variable. Table 1 presents the results of the two models. Further marginal analysis was done following the first model to uncover the probability of a bill being introduced with amendments under an alternate government. The results, illustrated in Figure 3, show that while under continuous government, the probability for a bill to be introduced with the amendment is 26.4%, under alternation government, the probability rises to 70.8%, supporting the first hypothesis.

Table 1 – Probit model results for amendments and strategic (1)

Figure 3 – Margin analysis following first model probit regression

The result of the second model supports this study’s second hypothesis. As the opposition becomes cohesive, they will increase their cooperation, acting more strategically, providing additional evidence for earlier theoretical and empirical studies suggesting that when ideological distance is small, they are more likely to coordinate in the parliamentary arena (Dewan & Spirling, 2011; Kaiser, 2008; Whitaker & Martin, 2022).

Our analysis also suggests that the use of amendment is related to the legislative term cycle, where both the first month of the new government and the period following parliament dissolution appear to have an effect with a slightly significant positive coefficient and a highly significant negative coefficient, in accordance. At the beginning of a new government, regardless of the alternation status, the probability that a bill will introduced with amendment increases, and this probability drops significantly following parliament dissolution. We found no significant effect on the bill’s content or the committee it deliberated in.

This study’s findings open a wide window into how parliamentarian obstruction may look in Israel and shed light on the use of amendments in the Knesset. Alternation fuels opposition resistance. In Israel, this resistance manifested through the use of amendments. However, one must be aware that with obstructing comes anti-obstruction measures by the majority of parliament. This tit-for-tat escalation into a pattern of obstruction and retaliation can poison the spirit of mutual respect between parties. Partisan mistrust and even demonization replace good faith assumptions of sincerity and reasonableness. Thus, while limited obstruction may sometimes be justified, oppositions must also weigh the risks of it becoming entrenched in political culture. When this balance is disrupted, and the opposition resorts to obstructionist tactics without a clear strategy or purpose, it can weaken the legislature and, by extension, lead to democratic backsliding.

This study sheds light on the important role that amendments play in the hands of Knesset opposition members as a significant instrument in filling the gap in the existing scholarship. Furthermore, this study provides important empirical evidence for the use of legislative instruments by opposition parties, especially in the light of government alternation. Future studies, expanding this study period, might allow us to uncover additional patterns of the use of amendments in Israel’s busy parliament.

This short blog post is part of the author’s PhD project, “The Knesset: A Busy Parliaments in the 2020s”.

About the author

Tal Elovits is a PhD fellow at the Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Milan, Milan, Italy. Former faction director in the Israeli parliament. tal.elovits@unimi.it ORCID: 0000- 0003-2681-1445

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Blog

Necessary Women: pioneering women working in Parliament

By Mari Takayanagi.

Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, many people lived and worked in the Palace of Westminster. Some worked for the House of Commons or House of Lords, some were family members of office holders, and others were servants in households. This included many women. Indeed, at times female residents outnumbered male residents by nearly two to one: the 1911 census, for example, lists 67 women and 36 men living in the Palace of Westminster in addition to the suffragette Emily Wilding Davison who hid there in a cupboard overnight. There were also of course many staff who did not live in, an enormous variety of roles from Clerks to cleaners.

The presence of so many staff may be surprising, as Parliament is always equated in the general public mind with MPs and Members of the House of Lords debating in their chambers. Although some staff might play visible roles, such as the Doorkeepers in their uniforms and the Clerks sitting at the table, they appear almost as part of the furniture – blending in with the Gothic architecture, ritual and ceremony, rather than as individuals. Even more overlooked are the staff in less visible roles, including many women. 

But staff not only work in Parliament, they are also subject to the same kinds of employment and social issues as workers outside Parliament. Recent research by Rebecca McKee has examined ‘unsung heroes’, staff who work for MPs. The staff who work for the House of Lords and House of Commons are similarly unsung. My new book Necessary Women, co-authored with Elizabeth Hallam Smith, uses new archival research to provide the first ever history of women working in the Palace of Westminster. This approach helps reframe Parliament from a solely political workspace to a place of work more generally, highlighting women from all classes working in jobs reflecting gender roles in wider society.

I was delighted to share some of this research at the PSA Parliaments Annual Conference 2023. In this blogpost I’m going to focus on three pioneering women for whom the Second World War brought new opportunities in Parliament: Kay Midwinter, Monica Felton, and Jean Winder.

Kay Midwinter

In May 1940, shock rang around the House of Commons as a woman walked in and stood calmly on the floor of the House, looking around at her new workplace. This was Kay Midwinter, the first female Clerk in the House of Commons. Appointed to free up a man for war service, the ‘Girl Clerk’ as she was termed in the press –she was aged 32 – worked for the House of Commons National Expenditure Committee during the Second World War.  Previous experience of working with committees in the League of Nations in Geneva helped her to get the job. Highly praised by her managers and by Irene Ward and Joan Davidson, the female MPs on the committee, Midwinter worked particularly closely with Ward and Davidson on two reports, on the women’s armed services and women factory workers.

Midwinter later reflected on her time in the Commons as follows:

During the war I was standing behind the Speaker’s Chair about 5 or 6 yards from Churchill while he made all his famous war speeches. He used to glare at me as much as to say “What’s this woman doing?” but he never challenged me…. when it came to laying the Report on the table of the House – you know, my male colleagues said “Oh you’d better not do that, you know, it has never been done by a woman before!” So I said “Well, for that reason I’m going to do it!” So there we are. But really one was up against male prejudice throughout. Absolutely. There was never any question of promotion.

[Oral history recording, United Nations Career Records Project, Bodleian Library]

Not only promotion but pay, for Midwinter was paid less than half the rate of her fellow male Clerks doing the same job as her. Ward and Davidson expressed their opinion that she was ‘inadequately paid’ and she did receive a pay rise, although only to the ‘women’s equivalent’ of the male grade. She moved to the Foreign Office in 1943. After the war she went to work for the United Nations, first in New York and then back in Geneva, where she died in 1996.

Monica Felton

Like Kay Midwinter, Dr Monica Felton worked for the National Expenditure Committee in the House of Commons during the war as a fairly small part of a wider public career – but there the similarities end. Felton was as an elected Labour member of the London County Council, most unusual; Parliamentary staff would not usually have such a public party-political affiliation. She was appointed to the Commons as an economic advisor on the recommendation of Lewis Silkin, a Labour MP on the committee who had also previously been an LCC member.  He and Felton had a strong shared interest in town planning; her significance as a woman town planner has been studied by Mark Clapson.  Felton had a doctorate from the LSE and was previously a lecturer for the Worker’s Educational Association, where she was remembered by students as a Marxist. She worked in the Commons for 18 months before resigning with permission.

After the war, Silkin appointed Felton to be chairman of first Peterlee and then Stevenage New Town Development Corporations between 1949 and 1951. However, she was fired from Stevenage after going on an unauthorised trip to North Korea for the left-wing Women’s International Democratic Federation in 1951. It was a very controversial visit; on her return, she accused American, South Korean and even British troops of involvement in massacres of the Korean population and other atrocities, on Radio Moscow and in the Daily Worker, and was awarded the Stalin Peace Prize. The episode made her infamous and ruined her career in the UK. She made a new life for herself in India, where she died in 1970.

Jean Winder

Jean Winder was the first woman Hansard reporter. She fought a long battle for equal pay, and like Midwinter, was also assisted by Irene Ward MP. In August 1951, Ward stood up in the House of Commons chamber and said:

The House of Commons is run on the basis of equal pay… but there is one woman on the HANSARD staff in the Gallery, Mrs. Winder, who has not got equal pay… I have got Mrs. Winder’s permission to draw the attention of the House to what I consider is an intolerable constitutional position…

[House of Commons Debates, 2 August 1951, col 1710]

Jean Winder was appointed to House of Commons Official Report, known as Hansard, in January 1944 when the Editor was desperate for staff and unable to find a suitable man.  Like Midwinter, Winder was an immediate success in the Commons, highly rated, and performing exactly the same job as her male colleagues who were paid more than she was. Despite support all the way up to the Speaker, the Treasury refused equal pay. It took years of advocacy by Irene Ward before Winder finally achieved equal pay in late 1953. Ward supported Winder in private and in public over many years. This undoubtedly influenced Ward’s politics and relationships with political colleagues as she lobbied inside and outside Parliament.

In conclusion, the stories of Midwinter, Felton and Winder illustrate various themes of Necessary Women including opportunities brought by war, important relationships between staff and MPs, and struggles for equal pay. Sadly, these innovative Second World War appointments had no direct successors in the House of Commons. The next female Hansard reporter was not appointed until 1968, and further female Clerks did not follow until 1969. The indirect and direct contribution of these pioneering women to Parliamentary life and work deserves to be better known.

About the author

Dr Mari Takayanagi FRHistS is Senior Archivist at the UK Parliamentary Archives and a historian of women and Parliament. Her first book, ‘Necessary Women: the Untold Story of Parliament’s Working Women’, co-authored with Elizabeth Hallam Smith, was published in June 2023 by History Press.

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News

December 2023 Newsletter

We hope you’re well. We have some updates for you:

  1. Highlights: PSA Parliaments Annual Conference 2-3 November 2023
  2. #PSA24: Early bird registration
  3. PSA membership
  4. SGP Annual Weekend, 5-6 January 2024
  5. Call for papers: NoPSA 2024
  6. PhD scholarships, jobs and RKE opportunities
  7. Recent publications (and other things) that have caught our eye
  8. Recently on the blog

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

Best wishes

Seán, Caroline, Diana, Ruxandra, and Jack.

1. Highlights: PSA Parliaments Conference, 2-3 November 2023

Seeing so many of you at our Annual Conference in November was an enormous pleasure. Despite Storm Ciarán interfering with travel plans, the early career symposium we held for the first time, the drinks reception and the conference were a great success. Read the highlights and see photo evidence here.

If you attended the conference, whether in-person or virtually, we would be grateful to hear your feedback to help us improve future conferences. The survey just has four questions and should only take a couple of minutes to complete.

2. #PSA24: Early bird registration

The PSA Annual Conference will take place from 25–27 March 2024 in Glasgow, convened by the University of Strathclyde. The early bird registration is now open until 2 February, allowing presenters and attendees to secure their spot at a discounted rate. If your paper has been accepted on one of our panels, please take this opportunity to secure your spot and take advantage of the discount.

Please note that there is a further discount for scholars from the Global South and Low-income Countries. The application deadline for the PSA Support Fund to assist with conference expenses is also 2 February 2024.

More information on pricing and registration details can be found here.

3. PSA membership

If you receive our newsletter but are not a member of the UK Political Studies Association, then now is the perfect time to consider joining. Starting from £10/year for students, PSA membership provides numerous benefits including access to various resources and journals, discounted conference registration fees and opportunities to network and even win academic prizes. The full list of benefits and more information on how to join can be found here.

If you are already a PSA member, now is still a good time to verify that your contact details are up-to-date and that you are also an official member of our specialist group (in the ‘My group membership’ section of your PSA account). We would greatly appreciate your support since the number of members directly impacts our allocated funding and hence capacity to put on events for you.

4. SGP Annual Weekend, 5-6 January 2024

The Study of Parliament Group Annual Weekend 2024 will take place over Friday 5th and Saturday 6th January. You can register here, and check the action packed programme here.

5. Call for papers: NoPSA 2024

Our colleagues from the Nordic Political Science Association have published a call for papers for the NoPSA Political Science Congress, which will be held in Bergen (Norway), 25-28 June 2024. There are a few panels that may be relevant to parliamentary scholars (i.e., Conflict in Parliamentary Parties, Generational Politics: Participation, Representation and Politics, or Gender, Politics and Democracy).

6. PhD scholarships, jobs and RKE opportunities

PhD scholarships at the University of Leeds

Do you know of excellent students who are considering doing a PhD? If so, please forward the information below about this open call for PhD Scholarship in Politics and International Studies 2024/25, at the University of Leeds. The deadline  for applications is Monday 11th March 2024 and the application to PhD needs to be accepted first to be eligible to scholarship. Further details can be obtained by emailing Prof. Cristina Leston-Bandeira at C.Leston-Bandeira@leeds.ac.uk

CPA call for consultants

The CPA Headquarters Secretariat is calling for consultants to develop an online course on the role of Parliamentarians in upholding human rights as part of the CPA Parliamentary Academy online learning platform. The consultant will work with the CPA to develop the written course content for use by Parliamentarians of Commonwealth national and subnational legislatures. Deadline for applications – 8 December 2023. Read more about this call and apply here.

Research and Knowledge Exchange with the Welsh Parliament on gender and diversity quotas

A number of committees in the Welsh Parliament /Senedd Cymru are currently looking to engage with academics to support the scrutiny of forthcoming  gender/diversity quota legislation. You can sign-up through the Area of Research Interest (ARI) form and provide details about your existing and future research on gender and diversity quotas. This might lead to an invitation to provide oral or written evidence.

7. Recent Publications (and other things) that have caught our eye

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

8. Recently on the blog

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

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News

Highlights from our 2023 Annual Conference

Seeing so many of you at our Annual Conference in November was an enormous pleasure. Despite Storm Ciarán interfering with travel plans, the early career symposium we held for the first time (co-organised with the PSA Early Career Network), the drinks reception and the conference were a great success. We had around 50 participants attending the conference in person and another 20 online. There was a fantastic lineup of presentations organised in five panels covering a wide range of relevant topics and parliaments in the UK and across the globe.

Thanks to Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey for hosting us at the LSE Department of Government, and to the Department and the journals of Parliamentary Affairs and British Politics for their sponsorships to help us make the conference a success and everyone well catered for.

LSE Centre Building

The day kicked off with a few welcoming words from our Co-convenor Sean Haughey, the formal welcoming of our new Co-convenor Diana Stirbu and Communications Officer Jack Liddall, and a warm farewell to our outgoing Co-convenor Stephen Holden Bates. Thank you, Stephen, for all the time, ideas and positive energy you have dedicated to the group for over three years!

2023 Undergraduate Essay Competition winner Phoebe Legard
2023 Undergraduate Essay Competition runner-up Cameron Dasgupta

We then handed out awards to the winners of our annual undergraduate essay competition. You can read Phoebe Legard’s (University of Edinburgh) and Cameron Dasgupta’s (QMUL) winning essays here. Thank you, Alexandra Meakin, for judging!

The academic programme started with an insightful panel on the challenges and experiences of inclusion and (mental) well-being in the parliamentary workplace. The second panel featured the latest research on executive-legislative relations in the UK House of Commons, Scottish Parliament, Welsh Parliament and Israeli Knesset. The third panel focused on comparative perspectives on parliaments, with presentations on the UK, Germany, Central-Eastern Europe and Afghanistan. In the fourth panel, we explored the method of go-along interviews, seldom-heard groups’ perceptions of petitioning parliaments and the role of parliamentary turnover in authoritarian regimes. The programme was rounded off with a panel discussing legislative behaviour, procedures and select committees.

Engaging panel presentations and discussions

Thank you everyone for presenting, discussing and attending! If you have any feedback or suggestions for next year, please take a couple of minutes to fill in our post-conference survey or feel free to contact any of us.

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Blog

Making the Law Count: The UK Post-Legislative Gap

By Tom Caygill.

Over recent years, engagement in post-legislative scrutiny in Westminster has declined. A mixture of events (e.g. Brexit) and crises (e.g. Coronavirus) has pushed post-legislative review (by government departments) and, as a result wider, post-legislative scrutiny (undertaken by parliamentary committees) down the government and parliamentary agenda. In this blog post, I examine the nature of this decline, the wider reasons for it and suggest how we can move forward from here. As the UK Parliament is often placed on a pedestal as an example of how to approach post-legislative scrutiny, it is vital that it continues to lead by example.

In 2008, the UK Government agreed to introduce a systematic process of post-legislative review by government departments. Legislation would receive a departmental review within three to five years of that Act entering the statute books. Once such a review was completed, a memorandum containing its findings would be sent to the relevant departmental select committee in the House of Commons, for additional scrutiny. 

My 2021 report for the Westminster foundation for Democracy examined the extent and effect of post-legislative review and scrutiny between 2008-2019. Although it was rarely used to begin with, there was an increase in the number of published memoranda by government departments particularly between 2010 and 2015. This also coincided with an activist House of Commons Liaison Committee which was keen to ensure that select committee were undertaking a breadth of different forms of scrutiny (including post-legislative scrutiny).

The story since 2015 however has been a continued decline in the number of post-legislative reviews being undertaken by government departments which means fewer are being sent to House of Commons Select Committees. Although select committees do not need a government post-legislative review in order to initiate post-legislative scrutiny they are considered to be useful triggers to get select committees to consider undertaking post-legislative scrutiny.

Figure 1: Post-Legislative Reviews 2008-2023


Figure 1 shows the extent of the decline which has taken place since a peak in 2012. There are a number of factors which could be at play here. Two big factors slowing the pace of post-legislative review are Brexit and the Coronavirus pandemic which monopolised the intellectual capacity of government departments, for understandable reasons. This pushed post-legislative reviews off departmental agendas, but they have not returned to the agenda of government departments. Another factor potentially at play here is that between 2010 and 2015, the bulk of post-legislative reviews would fall upon the legislation of a previous government (from a different party). There is therefore likely to be a change in enthusiasm from reviewing your predecessors’ legislation rather than reviewing your own. In British politics, governments do not like to admit mistakes as they view it as a sign of weakness.

A further factor here, which coincides with the decline of post-legislative review, is that the House of Commons Liaison Committee since 2015 has taken a less proactive role in shaping the agenda of the committee system. This also means there is no one overseeing the agreement between the Cabinet Office and Committee Office made in 2008. For more information on the gap in scrutiny see my 2020 article on the UK post-legislative scrutiny gap.

There is also a lack of coordination in Whitehall. Lord Norton of Louth has submitted a number of parliamentary questions over recent months in order to identify why post-legislative review has seemingly ground to a halt (no post-legislative reviews have been published on www.gov.uk in 2023). From her answer on the 7th August (figure 2), the Minister makes clear that no further post-legislative scrutiny work is expected within government before the end of 2023.


Figure 2: Parliamentary Question from Lord Norton on post-legislative review currently taking place.


It does look like we will end 2023 without any post-legislative reviews having taken place. As noted above there is no oversight of this agreement which will only contribute to the lack of urgency from government to undertake these reviews.

The lack of co-ordination in Whitehall is also visible in her response (figure 3) to a follow up question from Lord Norton on the 27th September 2023.

Figure 3: Parliamentary Question from Lord Norton on which Acts the government considers eligible for post-legislative review.

The fact that the Cabinet Office does not hold information centrally does give away that there is at best limited coordination and oversight of what is happening in government departments in relation to post-legislative review. At the moment the future of post-legislative reviews does not look promising. Although I will note again that this does not prevent post-legislative scrutiny being undertaken. Indeed, special inquiry committees in the House of Lords will initiate an inquiry without a post-legislative review and then ask for one. Further to this, over the course of the last couple of sessions, there have been between 3-4 inquiries across both Houses. So while post-legislative scrutiny has not stopped, the number of inquiries has reduced.

So what might happen next? This of course could be corrected if there were to be a change in government following the 2024 General Election with a future Labour Government being more than happy to review Conservative legislation. However, we would face the same issue of enthusiasm draining as the term of office goes on. So doing nothing is likely to lead to a repeat of the past 15 years with a peak shortly after an election and then a steady decline.

A more proactive response is needed. There is a need for someone to start overseeing the process of post-legislative review and that should be from the parliamentary perspective as government departments will find reasons not to do them without parliamentary pressure. The Scottish Parliament’s Convenors Group (made up of committee convenors) has made post-legislative scrutiny a strategic priority for the sixth session of the Parliament, and this is having results with eight inquiries having been undertaken since the start of 2022 (and more in the pipeline), with two and a half years to go of this session. It looks set to break records in the parliament. A strategic focus can clearly make a difference and this could be something which returns to the House of Commons Liaison Committee or the House of Lords Liaison Committee (which decides which Acts will receive post-legislative scrutiny via special inquiry committees in the Lords). There have also been arguments for a dedicated joint post-legislative scrutiny committee to over see the process across both Houses but to also monitor the agreement between the Cabinet Office and the Committee Office. A simpler approach would be to create a dedicated space for post-legislative scrutiny on the UK Parliament website, in a similar way to which draft bills (for pre-legislative scrutiny) are featured on the ‘Bills & Legislation’ section of the website. This is also an approach undertaken by the Scottish Parliament. There is also an argument that after 15 years, this agreement is in need of review (indeed many in Westminster argue that these reviews should take place 10 years after passage rather than 3-5 years). This is something that either a dedicated committee or one of the Liaison Committees could do. It is clear from the perspective of the House of Commons (in particular) that there is more work to do to institutionalise post-legislative scrutiny in Westminster. As we approach the end of the 2019 Parliament, this is an important time to reflect on the progress made since 2008 while recognising the need to enhance post-legislative scrutiny further.  

About the author

Tom Caygill is a Senior Lecturer in Politics at Nottingham Trent University