Author: psaparliaments

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Urgent Questions

Dr Mark Bennister

MARK BENNISTER

Mark Bennister is an Associate Professor of Politics at the University of Lincoln. He is Director of the Lincoln Policy Hub and ParliLinc, the Lincoln Parliamentary Research Centre. He was awarded a parliamentary academic fellowship (2016-19) and has published on political leadership, prime ministerial power, and political oratory. He is also co-convenor of the PSA Political Leadership Specialist Group.

Please tell us a little bit about how you entered academia and your academic career

I took a rather roundabout route into an academic career. I started off working in an independent record shop Selectadisc in Nottingham and had various jobs in the theatre after completing my degree at Nottingham Trent University. I returned to academia to complete an MA at Loughborough University in Contemporary European Studies. I managed to get a job working for Alan Simpson, the Nottingham South Labour MP, and then worked for an MEP in Kent before a year working at LSE and then several years at the Australian High Commission in London as a locally engaged officer supporting diplomats. My time at the High Commission really got me interested in comparative political leadership. I was lucky enough to get a ESRC 1+3 studentship at Sussex with Paul Webb and Tim Bale looking at comparative prime ministerial power in the UK and Australia. After some associate lecturer posts at Sussex and UCL, I landed a lectureship at Canterbury Christ Church University, moving on to the University of Lincoln in 2018.

Which five books/articles (written by someone else) have been most important to you in your academic career?

Political Leadership by Jean Blondel first got me thinking about the topic. I was lucky enough to later meet with Jean after he took part in our ECPR joint sessions and delighted that he wrote a chapter for our book.

Political Leadership in Liberal Democracies by Robert Elgie introduced me to comparative research possibilities through the interactive approach.

The House of Commons by Emma Crewe was a revelation and got me interested in anthropological approaches to studying legislatures.

Paul ‘t Hart’s work has always been particularly influential as he gets readers to think about research ‘puzzles’ and Understanding Public Leadership has been a key teaching text for me.

Jim Walter’s biography of Gough Whitlam provides a real insight into political leadership and introduced me to political psychology in leadership studies.

Which people have been most influential and important to you in your academic career?

In no particular order: my Dad who passed away long before I started my academic career, but as a chemist he passed on his inquisitive mind; Lindsey for everything especially supporting my late career change; and Bea for questioning the way we older folk think about stuff. In academia: Larry Wilde who sadly passed away recently, Paul ‘t Hart, Jim Walter, Alix Kelso, Ben Worthy, Kevin Theakston, Paul Webb, Tim Bale, Dan Hough, David Bates, Frank Dabba Smith, Matt Flinders, Sarah Childs, Meg Russell, Andrew Defty, Anitha Sundari, Hugh and Cath Bochel.

Which of your own pieces of research are you most proud of?

Turning my PhD into a book Prime Ministers in Power. Completing the challenge of co-editing a book. To be honest just getting stuff published is something to be proud of.

What has been your greatest achievement in academia?

Becoming an academic is an achievement itself! Publishing a book. Gaining an academic fellowship in the House of Commons attached to the Liaison Committee and being around in Westminster during the turbulent Brexit years. Being awarding a contract to deliver Parliamentary Studies module at Canterbury Christ Church.

What has been your greatest disappointment in academia?

Numerous unsuccessful funding applications – so much effort for so little reward.

What is the first or most important thing you tell your students about parliaments?

It’s all about relationships between parties, MPs, parliamentary staff, public, etc.

Where were you born, where did you grow up, and where do you live now?

I was born in the northwest London suburb of Queensbury, near Wembley. Went to the local comprehensive school. I now divide my time between High Barnet in North London and Lincoln.

What was your first job?

Packing frozen rabbits (lasted a week), then runner in the City, clearing cheques in the pre-digital era.

What was the toughest job you ever had?

See above – frozen rabbits. Working backstage on Panto at Nottingham Playhouse (oh yes I did!) was great fun, but 3 shows a day was exhausting. Screaming kids, hectic scene changes, early start and late finishes mopping the stage at midnight.

What  would your ideal job be, if not an academic?

Cricket commentator – travel the world, watch cricket, talk about it. Perfect.

What are your hobbies?

Used to be playing cricket, now just watching. Football – I share an Arsenal season ticket (lucky me this year!). Going to watch live music. I volunteer at the Roundhouse in Camden. Travel – India, Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, Canada, etc. etc. Hiking – have walked London to Brighton, round the Isle of Wight, and have completed 2 stages of the Pennine Way. Knees knackered though.

What are your favourite novels?

Taken to audiobooks in the last few years and best recent books I’ve listened to are Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart and Mayflies by Andrew O’Hagan. Beekeeper of Aleppo and the Taliban Cricket Club deserve a mention. Mark Lanegan’s rock ‘n’ roll autobiography read by the author was a harrowing listen.

What is your favourite music?

Big Bowie fan and Low, Ziggy Stardust and Hunky Dory are my top 3 albums. Missed seeing The Clash but London Calling is still the best. Last 3 gigs were Kae Tempest, Ezra Furman and Fontaines DC – all brilliant. Nick Cave keeps getting better. Recently got into ambient classical such as Olafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm (great for working to). Thom Yorke’s new venture The Smile at Edinburgh Usher Hall – probably the best live gig I’ve seen for a long while.

What is your favourite artwork?

Blown away by Kusama at Tate Modern recently. As a kid I was fascinated by Dali’s Metamorphosis of Narcissus. My aunt’s Marching on Parliament abstract painting in our sitting room is a particularly favourite.

What is your favourite film?

Tough one. Kes is an amazing film and still Loach’s best. We did a school production of it, and I played the unfortunate lad who got caned for nothing.

What is your favourite building?

Big fan of the British Library, if you can get a seat to work. St Pancras station shows what can be done with great architecture and public spaces. Lord’s Cricket ground manages to blend old and new.

Favourite parliament –Reichstag Building in Berlin, the public space in the roof looking down on the proceedings is spectacular.

What is your favourite tv show?

Anything with Stephen Graham in.

What is your favourite holiday destination?

Love the food and wine in Portugal. Landscape in Iceland. Vastness of Australia. Could go back to Berlin again and again. St Agnes in Cornwall is fab too.

What is your favourite sport?

Cricket and football. Played both, but never good enough. Honourable mentions to rugby union having travelled to watch England lose and synchronised (now artistic) swimming having watched my daughter in countless competitions.

What is your favourite restaurant?

Cant beat a really good fish restaurant or indeed fish fresh from the sea in Portugal.

Hybrid proceedings in Parliament: yes please or no thanks?

Yes, please.

Appointed or elected upper chamber?

Elected.

Restoration or Renewal?

Both.

Cat or Dog?

Dog.

Trains, planes or automobiles?

Trains – I’m always on them!

Fish and chips or Curry?

Fish and chips.

And, finally, two questions asked by Ira and Bernadette, who have just turned four: What’s your favourite colour and why? And have you ever had a pet?

Red – see my team above.

Dougie the dog who is 10 years old (see below).

Categories
Blog

Evidence use by parliamentary committees: what is it good for?

Select committees in the UK House of Commons are the principal mechanism by which Parliament holds government to account, which can be highly influential on government policy and legislation. While many adopt distinctive approaches and styles to undertake their scrutiny work, a key element of all committee work is the basis of their scrutiny through an evidence-gathering process. Many of us are familiar with oral evidence: combative sessions between chairs and ministers, emotional testimony from high-profile witnesses, or significant and detailed information-gathering with academics, NGOs, think tanks and businesses. Alongside these sessions, committees receive large volumes of written evidence from a whole host of groups and individuals to share their perspectives on a policy question under scrutiny. Evidence, then, is an everyday part of committee work. But how well is the process working? What are the practices of gathering and using evidence? That’s exactly what I wanted to find out in my 12-month parliamentary academic fellowship, organised by the Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology (POST).

In autumn 2021, I set out to review and study trends and practices of evidence use by committees. Although recent research has begun to shed light on the role of evidence in Parliament (especially POST’s own landmark report from 2017), I was intrigued to examine the everyday practices and judgements made by MPs and officials as they directly engage with, question and handle evidence. To study their views, I therefore undertook interviews with 50 participants (26 MPs and 24 officials) to reflect on the processes and practices for gathering, analysing and using select committee evidence. There are some unsurprising findings: written evidence makes up the bulk of evidence and is indeed seen as the main source of information for officials. MPs’ own engagement focuses on oral evidence, which are usually divided into information-gathering or accountability types of hearing.

Alongside these findings, I found three trends that are impacting the way that committees gather, analyse and use evidence. First, there is a much bigger focus on ‘lived experience’ as a form of evidence to support formal and informal evidence-gathering than in the past. Committee members, in particular, value direct engagement with the public and with those that come into direct contact with government policy. As a result, committees have sought to innovate with the use of social media to elicit questions, use of surveys to understand the public’s views of government policy, and focus groups to get more qualitative and in-depth knowledge. 

Second, committees’ long-standing interest and tradition in gaining a diversity of political viewpoints is being matched by an emphasis of diversity on witnesses’ personal characteristics. Increasingly, committees see it as important to make sure that their evidence reflects the make-up of wider society. 

Both of these factors come out of a third trend that I have observed, namely that the role of select committees is changing. Committees exist not only to provide scrutiny of government policy, but increasingly for MPs (and officials, though this was less noticeable) committees should be vehicles for public participation. This builds on previous initiatives and academic research on how to combat public disaffection with politics and political institutions. 

The three trends – especially the final one – raise really interesting questions about the democratic and institutional design of parliaments. First, it raises a normative question about how far committees should pursue a role of public participation. Second, relatedly, it raises a practical question of how well committees are equipped to fulfil this, and other, roles.  These are important questions because I have found, in my research, several challenges that the changing trends and patterns seem to give rise to: a significant growth in the volumes of evidence, which has created pressures on committee teams; a lack of clarity over the principles and values of using ‘lived experience’ as a form of evidence in committee inquiries; a continuing tension in promoting diversity of evidence, which some see as a normative good but others do not; and resultant pressures on resources, including time, training and staff to fulfil the growing number of tasks being given to committees. At the same time, the process for gathering evidence has remained largely the same – despite innovations, improved technological advances, and changing practices and values.

Based on my research, and interviewees’ reflections, there are lots of ways that evidence-gathering could be improved (in my report, I list 14 small suggestions), but there are two areas I want to focus on. First, we need to open a debate about what ‘good’ evidence use in Parliament looks like. These choices are not without consequences. And while I can sketch out broad principles – appropriateness, diversity and representativeness, systematic analysis, and focused on the needs of MPs – much more work could be done about what values parliamentary democracies need to hold to promote use of evidence. 

Second, regarding the procedures of evidence-gathering, I want to suggest that maybe the traditional process for gathering evidence – that will be familiar to an MP from today as much as it would for one in the nineteenth century – needs updating. I would re-think evidence in terms of ‘pillars’, each recognised formally as evidence in Parliament:

  • Pillar 1. Submissions of information/evidence. Formerly known as written evidence, this would include other formats except Word or PDF documents written by professionals, such as video evidence, pictures, graphs, etc.
  • Pillar 2. Committee hearings. Formerly known as oral evidence, this part of the process would be kept largely the same but with a plainer form of language.
  • Pillar 3. Consultation and engagement. Rather than classing all non-written/oral evidence as ‘informal’, I would give other processes for gathering information a formal status through a summary document within Pillar 3, which summarises the findings from surveys, focus groups, or large volumes of written evidence received by individuals.

I am aware that this suggestion is not without its own problems – but once again I want to open a debate to question whether the way that the process currently works is working well in light of the changing practices of evidence use by Parliament.

This gives you a flavour of some of the findings and conclusions from my research project. You can find the full report on which this blog is based here. I am hugely grateful to have had the support from Parliament to pursue this research, and time and funding from my university to pursue it. Most of all, my interview participants have been incredibly kind in giving up their time for this research.

—

Dr Marc Geddes is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh. His research focuses on how MPs and officials interpret and undertake their roles in parliaments. He has published widely on the role of select committees in the UK House of Commons, including an award-winning book, Dramas at Westminster (Manchester University Press, 2020), and in a range of specialist journals and for public audiences.

Categories
News

January 2023 Newsletter

Happy New Year! We have some updates for you in this slightly later than normal newsletter:

  1. PSA Parliaments Annual Conference 2022: Extra Online Panels!
  2. PSA Annual Conference 2023 in Liverpool & Online
  3. Urgent Questions with Emma Crewe
  4. PSA Parliaments Book Launch: Henry J. Miller’s A Nation of Petitioners
  5. IPSA RCLS Online Seminars on Legislative & Parliamentary Committees
  6. Call for Papers: RCLS at the IPSA World Congress
  7. Call for Papers: Party Politics at the Local Level
  8. Job Opportunity: Research Fellowship – Addressing Barriers in Political Engagement
  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 our prizewinning group, please let us know.

Best wishes

Stephen, Seán, Caroline, Chris and Ruxandra.

1. PSA Parliaments Annual Conference 2022: Extra Online Panels!

After a very successful annual conference in Birmingham at the start of November, PSA Parliaments will be holding two extra online panels in the new year.

Our first panel is on representatives and representation and will be held on Wednesday 25th January 2023 at 2pm (GMT). 

Full details of the panel, including how to book tickets (for free) can be found here.

Our second panel is called Parliaments & Parliamentarians in Context and will be held on Wednesday 15th February 2023 at 2pm (GMT). 

Full details of the panel, including how to book tickets (for free) can be found here.

2. PSA Annual Conference 2023 in Liverpool & Online

Registration has opened for the 2023 PSA Annual Conference being held in Liverpool and virtually in April 2023. Early bird registration ends on 4 February 2023, and accepted paper-givers must register by then to guarantee their place. Full details of the conference and how to register can be found on the PSA23 website.

The PSA offers support to UK based PhD students and early career researchers as well as scholars from the Global South. See the website for more information.

We are running at least four panels. More information will follow soon.

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

3. Urgent Questions with Emma Crewe

This month’s interviewee is Professor Emma Crewe (SOAS)!

Head over to Urgent Questions to read about Himachal Pradesh, Rodin, Bourdieu, and chatting to daughters!

4. PSA Parliaments Book Launch: Henry J. Miller’s A Nation of Petitioners

We are delighted to announce that PSA Parliaments will be hosting a book launch for Henry J. Miller’s new book, A Nation of Petitioners: Petitions and Petitioning in the United Kingdom, 1780-1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023).

The event will take place via Zoom on Wednesday 3rd May at 2pm BST.

Full details, including how to book your free ticket, can be found here.

5. IPSA RCLS Online Seminars on Legislative & Parliamentary Committees

Our very good friends on IPSA’s Research Committee of Legislative Specialists are holding two online seminars in the new year on legislative and parliamentary committees.

The first is On the Outskirts of Parliament – the Delegation for Women’s Rights where Claire Bloquet (Institute for Parliamentary Research, Berlin) will be discussing their prize-winning work about the French National Assembly. The seminar will take place on Monday 23rd January 2023, 14:00–15:30 UTC.

Full details of the event, including how to book your free tickets, can be found here.

The second is a book launch for Maya Kornberg‘s Inside Congressional Committees: Function and Dysfunction in the Legislative Process (Columbia University Press). The launch will take place on Monday 13th February 2023, 14:00–15:30 UTC.

Full details of the event, including how to book your free tickets, can be found here.

If you are not yet a member of RCLS, you can join (for free) here.

6. Call for Papers: RCLS at the IPSA World Congress

RCLS are also hosting a number of panels at the IPSA World Congress in Buenos Aires and online, 15-19 July 2023.

Please see here for more details.

7. Call for Papers: Party Politics at the Local Level

The call for papers for the ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops 2023 in Toulouse (25-28 April) is open until January, 9, 2023. 

One workshop is endorsed by the ECPR Standing Group on Parliaments. It concerns ‘Party Politics at the Local Level’ and will be directed by Simon Otjes (Leiden University) and Christina-Marie Juen (Darmstadt University).

This Workshop aims to shed more light on the role of political parties in local politics. It focuses on the interaction, competition and cooperation between parties in the electoral arena and local councils.

More information can be found here.

8. Job Opportunity: Research Fellowship – Addressing Barriers in Political Engagement

Are you interested in working on perceptions and barriers to political engagement? If so, this post may be for you. 

You’d be working with Prof. Cristina Leston-Bandeira together with staff in the UK and Welsh Parliaments to explore people’s perceptions of political engagement through focus groups. 

Deadline for application: 10 January 2023. Feel free to contact Cristina for more details.

9. Recent Publications that have Caught Our Eye

Philip Cowley and Resul Umit have published Legislator Dissent Does Not Affect Electoral Outcomes in the British Journal of Political Science.

Simon Weschle has published Politicians’ Private Sector Jobs and Parliamentary Behavior in the American Journal of Political Science.

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

10. Recently on the Blog

We published two great blogs last month:

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

December 2022 Newsletter

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

  1. PSA Parliaments Annual Conference 2022: Extra Online Panels!
  2. PSA Annual Conference 2023 in Liverpool & Online
  3. Urgent Questions with Felicity Matthews
  4. Welcome to Ruxandra Serban!
  5. PSA and Specialist Group Membership
  6. New Parliament Thematic Research Lead: Congratulations to Rick Whitaker!
  7. IPSA RCLS Online Seminars on Legislative & Parliamentary Committees
  8. Petition against Job Losses at Birkbeck
  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 our prizewinning group, please let us know.

We’ll see you in 2023!

Best wishes

Stephen, Seán, Caroline, Chris and, for the first time, Ruxandra.

1. PSA Parliaments Annual Conference 2022: Extra Online Panels!

After a very successful annual conference in Birmingham at the start of November, PSA Parliaments will be holding two extra online panels in the new year.

Our first panel is on representatives and representation and will be held on Wednesday 25th January 2023 at 2pm (GMT). 

Full details of the panel, including how to book tickets (for free) can be found here.

Our second panel is called Parliaments & Parliamentarians in Context and will be held on Wednesday 15th February 2023 at 2pm (GMT). 

Full details of the panel, including how to book tickets (for free) can be found here.

2. PSA Annual Conference 2023 in Liverpool & Online

Registration has opened for the 2023 PSA Annual Conference being held in Liverpool and virtually in April 2023. Early bird registration ends on 4 February 2023, and accepted paper-givers must register by then to guarantee their place. Full details of the conference and how to register can be found on the PSA23 website.

The PSA offers support to UK based PhD students and early career researchers as well as scholars from the Global South. See the website for more information.

We are running at least four panels. More information will follow soon.

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

3. Urgent Questions with Felicity Matthews

This month’s interviewee is Professor Felicity Matthews (University of Sheffield)!

Head over to Urgent Questions to read about Suede, architecture, cakes, pizzas and wood pigeons!

4. Welcome to Ruxandra Serban!

Welcome to Ruxandra Serban who joins the PSA Parliaments team as our new Membership Officer and Treasurer!

Ruxandra is a political scientist specialising in comparative legislative studies and UK parliamentary politics. She is an LSE Fellow in Qualitative Research Methods in the Department of Methodology at the LSE. She holds a PhD in Political Science from UCL, where she also worked as a Research Assistant at the Constitution Unit. 

Ruxandra has published on procedures and practices of prime ministerial questioning in different parliaments, and she maintains a research agenda on parliamentary questioning procedures.

You can follow her on Twitter here (if it’s still working by the time you read this).

5. PSA and Specialist Group Membership

If you receive this newsletter and are not a PSA member, please consider joining. You enjoy lots of benefits as a PSA member, such as subscriptions and free or discounted access to events. More information on how to join can be found here.

If you are already a PSA member and enjoy this newsletter and our activities, could we kindly ask you to check that you have also formally joined our group via your PSA account.

Joining our group officially will help us with our funding and capacity to host events and support early career scholars, and we would greatly appreciate it!

For any questions, please contact our membership officer, Ruxandra.

6. New Parliament Thematic Research Lead: Congratulations to Rick Whitaker!

Congratulations to Rick Whitaker of the University of Leicester on becoming the first Thematic Research Lead on Parliament, Public administration and the Constitution.

The thematic research leads have been established by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) and the holders will each join new thematic policy hubs which will bring together staff from POST, the House of Commons Library and Select Committee teams, ensuring greater co-ordination and a better flow of research information through Parliament.

More details about the initiative can be found here.

7. IPSA RCLS Online Seminars on Legislative & Parliamentary Committees

Our very good friends on IPSA’s Research Committee of Legislative Specialists are holding two online seminars in the new year on legislative and parliamentary committees.

The first is On the Outskirts of Parliament – the Delegation for Women’s Rights where Claire Bloquet (Institute for Parliamentary Research, Berlin) will be discussing their prize-winning work about the French National Assembly. The seminar will take place on Monday 23rd January 2023, 14:00–15:30 UTC.

Full details of the event, including how to book your free tickets, can be found here.

The second is a book launch for Maya Kornberg‘s Inside Congressional Committees: Function and Dysfunction in the Legislative Process (Columbia University Press). The launch will take place on Monday 13th February 2023, 14:00–15:30 UTC.

Full details of the event, including how to book your free tickets, can be found here.

If you are not yet a member of RCLS, you can join (for free) here.

8. Petition against Job Losses at Birkbeck

You may have already heard the depressing news about the potential job losses at Birkbeck, including up to 7 in the Politics Department where PSA Parliaments has many friends.

You can read a BISA, UACES and PSA joint letter on the future of politics at Birkbeck here and you can sign a petition against the job losses here.

9. Recent Publications that have Caught Our Eye

John Connolly, Matthew Flinders, David Judge, Michael Torrance and Philippa Tudor have published an article, Institutions Ignored: A History of Select Committee Scrutiny in the House of Lords, 1968–2021, in Parliamentary History.

Anja Osei and Daniel Wigmore-Shepherd have published an article, Personal Power in Africa: Legislative Networks and Executive Appointments in Ghana, Togo and Gabon, in Government & Opposition.

And there are new issues of the Journal of Legislative Studies , the International Journal of Parliamentary Studies and Legislative Studies Quarterly out.

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

10. Recently on the Blog

We published seven(!) great blogs this month:

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

Information Literacy for Scrutiny: Equality and Diversity in research

Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) “ensures fair treatment and opportunity for all. It aims to eradicate prejudice and discrimination on the basis of […] protected characteristics” (University of Edinburgh, 2021[1]). In the workplace, EDI is usually addressed centrally, through policies and Human Resources training. 

In this blog post I will share the development of an Information Literacy (IL) framework to strengthen scrutiny within Select Committee proceedings. The framework is aimed at highly skilled researchers through an EDI lens.

My role in the House of Commons Library is to work closely with the Select Committee Team and to perform a knowledge exchange role. My work can be summarised in three areas of focus: liaison, outreach, and training. 

Information Literacy

One of my first projects after joining Parliament in 2020 was to introduce IL to select committee specialists.

Information Literacy is defined by CILIP; the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals as “the ability to think critically and make balanced judgements about any information we find and use”. 

Information Literacy is not a new concept, but it can be divisive amongst scholars and information professionals especially in terms of what it encompasses and how it applies in different context.

Early in the process of creating training content, I knew I had to make this concept meaningful within Parliament: through its “branding” and its applicability. 

I chose the term Information Scrutiny. Scrutiny relates back to a familiar concept whilst the introduction of the word “information” introduces a new layer of knowledge and expertise that enhances current practices and encourage reflection on methodology. 

To develop an appropriate and challenging Information Literacy framework, I needed an approach suited to this very particular audience and to find a hook to get them to see Information Literacy as an integral part of research and scrutiny. 

EDI

EDI has been a focus in Parliament like in many workplaces across the United Kingdom with efforts on recruitment, on progression for colleagues and all the training we can think of to address systemic imbalances.

For Select Committees this is underpinned by the 2019 Liaison Committee report on the effectiveness and influence of the select committee system. 

It leant on the work prompted by the 2018 Witness Gender Diversity report to increase gender diversity of witnesses and encouraged committees to continue their efforts and share good practice to increase witness diversity and to go further on BAME representation. .  

In practical terms this translates into increasing the diversity of evidence received, the diversity of witnesses, the effort to make everybody able to participate in this democratic process, from start to finish.

It is something I feel strongly about; with my education background, this aligns well with wider decolonisation and critical librarianship practice in the academic sector. 

So, I chose to focus on IL and research through a diversity and inclusion angle. 

Information behaviour analysis

However, the last thing I wanted to do was to stand in front of an expert crowd and tell them what they already know! This is where the concept of enrichment is key. 

To develop the below modules, I conducted information needs and information behaviour analysis to better understand select committee specialists:

  • Their research practices
  • How they had evolved to suit the needs of the Select Committee
  • How policy area affects their research
  • The typical running of an inquiry

I conducted 15 interviews with specialists across the Select Committee Team and carried out other activities to help me understand research in a Select Committee context such as shadowing inquiries or examining scoping documents and reports.

Co-creation

Co-creation is the practice of creating content with the intended audience. It is a process I found immensely valuable when I worked in Further and Higher Education, and I wanted to explore how I could replicate this in a workplace environment. 

From the start, I had the intention of anchoring the knowledge of the modules with clear examples of how some issues or solutions looked like in day-to-day work practices, so I chose to run a peer-review programme. 

The peer-review process was easy and straightforward:

  • Peer-reviewers had a month to submit feedback. They would receive a shared link to the PowerPoint with slides, slide notes and instructions by email and then 3 weeks later, a gentle reminder
  • Two types of responses about the content were sought:
  • General comments such as answers to “does the knowledge flow well?” or “Is this advice practical for your job role? Why?” Peer-reviewers were asked to send answers to those by email.
  • Using the “comment” function in PowerPoint; targeted questions on slides were asked, usually when specific feedback or an example were needed.

A concerted effort was made to make the peer-review process easy for all users and this included not taking for granted their level of digital literacy so all instructions for the peer-review were included in the PowerPoint. 

All the received feedback was imported into a shared document and colour-coded by peer-reviewer to analyse the response. Similar comments were collated and differences in opinion highlighted. This resulted in a list of changes to be made. 

Impact

The modules have been extremely well-received. Select Committee colleagues understand why Information Scrutiny is important and how it benefits their practice. 

Though the content was developed with specialist researchers in mind, the sessions have been attended widely across teams and departments. 

The feedback was mostly positive with some, welcome, suggestions for improvement such as leaving more room for discussion or sharing more examples of how some issues had manifested in Select Committee inquiries. 

Measuring the long-term impact of Information Literacy interventions is challenging as it relies on assessing personal development and day-to-day working practices but already colleagues have seen the value of being more reflective on their research, of including EDI as an essential component of their strategy.

Measuring impact by following small cohorts going through the whole course of the framework would provide better impact data. New joiners in the Select Committee Team, for example, would be an ideal target.

Applicability 

If you too would like to run an Information Literacy programme here are my top tips: 

  • Make sure to research how your audience research: why, how, who do they talk to, how much time do they dedicate to this. Carry out observations, interviews, have a look at outputs
  • Find an angle: here I used EDI to enrich my content and have a concrete impact in and beyond Parliament. This could be different for you: look at your department/organisation’s aims and objectives are a good place to start
  • Get buy-in involve colleagues in your decision –making
  • Do not assume levels of digital literacy or understanding of key concepts. 
  • Think strategically about knowledge sharing: how can you use the time in your modules more efficiently by sharing content ahead of time
  • Establish early on how you will measure your impact. 

Biography

Anne-Lise Harding (she/elle) is Senior Liaison Librarian at the House of Commons and Deputy Chair of the CILIP Information Literacy Group (ILG). 

Anne-Lise’s interests lie in Information Literacy, decolonisation, information behaviour and trainer education. After graduating with an MA in Librarianship in 2011, Anne-Lise held several roles in the education sector; making the transition to the government sector in 2020.  

In her role, Anne-Lise supports both the House of Commons Library and Select Committee Teams; focusing mainly on Information Literacy training, liaison and outreach. She is leading on Information Literacy work to make research for scrutiny more diverse, inclusive and representative.

[1] https://www.ph.ed.ac.uk/equality-diversity-and-inclusion/about-edi/what-does-equality-diversity-and-inclusion-mean#:~:text=EDI%20(Equality%2C%20Diversity%20and%20Inclusion,group%20of%20individual’s%20protected%20characteristics.

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Urgent Questions

Professor Emma Crewe

EMMA CREWE

Emma Crewe is Professor of Social Anthropology and Director of the  Global Research Network for Parliaments and People at SOAS University of London. Her most recent book is An Anthropology of Parliaments: Entanglements in Democratic Politics (Routledge). She is on the right in the above photo, visiting the Sao Paulo Legislative Assembly with Professor Cristiane Bernardes.

Please tell us a little bit about how you entered academia and your academic career

I studied social anthropology at Edinburgh University. I fell in love with this discipline when I visited a village in Himachal Pradesh in 1984 as a 3rd year undergraduate to study inter-caste relations. Caste was horrifying but it was exciting to realise that everything I knew about the world growing up in London was culturally specific. I had to unlearn to learn anew.

For years I worked in international development NGOs, continually arguing that we needed to unlearn our assumptions about progress and expertise and be more honest about the politics of aid. But due to disillusionment with my own capacity to change mindsets and practices, I returned to academia in the early 1990s getting a job as a university lecturer.

A few years later, I jumped to researching Parliaments – first the House of Lords and then the House of Commons. I wrote ethnographies of both Houses, aiming to be provocatively sympathetic in recognition of the increasingly difficult work that politicians and parliamentary officials do. I’m shifting towards a more critical view now, because scholars need to do a job of scrutiny as well, but I’m also creating coalitions for comparative work across parliaments (ww.grnpp.org). My two current jobs are a perfect combination for me: a research professor in social anthropology at SOAS University of London and supervisor of PhDs in management at the University of Hertfordshire. My obsession for today is how to make collaboration work well both intellectually and ethically.

Which five books/articles have been most important to you in your academic career?

As an undergraduate Nature, Culture and Gender edited by Carol MacCormack and Marilyn Strathern helped me realise that not only is gender experienced differently across cultures, but so are most interesting aspects of our being in the world. During my PhD the book that changed the way I think was Pierre Bourdieu’s An Outline of a Theory of Practice. I did not really understand it, but he gave me a way of conceiving of social structures beyond individuals and seeing how inequality was continually being created at every turn. His theory was so compelling, I got stuck in a post-structural rigidity for years. My examiner, Jonathan Spencer, was a massive influence – his article Post-colonialism and the Political Imagination (and later his book Anthropology, Politics and the State) – freed me up to think more about history, emotion and performance. Chantel Mohanty’s Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses alerted me to the racism in much Western feminism but also scholarship more generally. It wasn’t until I worked with Ralph Stacey – who has written a range of books about complexity and management – that I began to understand the experience of structural constraint and individual freedom through the concept of paradox. Our colleague Chris Mowles summarises this theoretical approach beautifully in his book Managing in Uncertainty: Complexity and the paradoxes of everyday organizational life.

Which people have been most influential and important to you in your academic career?

Tony Good suggested that I apply for a PhD award under his supervision. I wouldn’t have dreamt of doing this in a million years if he hadn’t encouraged me. He was a brilliant supervisor. I liked to take arguments to the extreme and he kept pulling me back to a more honest position.

Which of your own pieces of research are you most proud of?

I like a passage where I copy Woody Allen’s film Annie Hall and provide the transcript of giving evidence to a select committee alongside an embarrassing narrative of the emotions I was feeling, and political tactics I remember calculating, as a witness during the session (the Anthropology of Parliaments, p.123).

What has been your greatest achievement in academia?

Learning to live with imposter syndrome.

What has been your greatest disappointment in academia?

Failing to entirely banish imposter syndrome.

What is the first or most important thing you tell your students about parliaments?

What you can’t easily see is even more interesting that what is on public view.

Where were you born, where did you grow up, and where do you live now?

Born in Cambridge, grew up in London, about to move to Hastings.

What was your first job?

A waitress in a hotel in Norfolk.

What was the toughest job you ever had?

Teaching undergraduate courses about branches of anthropology that I knew nothing about at all.

What  would your ideal job be, if not an academic?

A novelist if I had the talent, which I don’t.

What are your hobbies?

Chatting to my daughters in cafes and kitchens.

What are your favourite novels?

Hopeful Monsters, by Nicholas Moseley – it’s about love, political idealism, and history of the twentieth century. I read it as a student and it prepared me for life. Otherwise magical realism starting with Isabel Allende’s The House of Spirits.

What is your favourite music?

Playlists created by my two daughters. I can enjoy the music, but also enjoy the thought of my daughters enjoying the music.

What is your favourite artwork?

Rodin sculptures in his museum in Paris for their beauty.

What is your favourite film?

Nearly all films directed by the Coen brothers for their humour.

What is your favourite building?

I find it interesting looking at religious buildings that are like Russian dolls – a temple inside a mosque inside a church etc – even though they can have disturbing histories.

What is your favourite tv show?

The Wire – the most sociological box set I’ve ever seen.

What is your favourite holiday destination?

Brancaster, North Norfolk, for the swimming, walks and mussels.

Hybrid proceedings in Parliament: yes please or no thanks?

No thanks.

Appointed or elected upper chamber?

Hybrid.

Restoration or Renewal?

Renewal.

Cat or Dog?

Cat in the house, dog outside.

Trains, planes or automobiles?

Trains.

Fish and chips or Curry?

Fish and chips in small towns, curry in the city.

Scones: Cornish or Devonshire method?

Cornish.

And, finally, a question asked by Ira and Bernadette, who have just turned four: What is your favourite letter of the alphabet and what’s your favourite number?

My favourites are Z and 5.

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Blog

We need reform of the legislative process to empower Parliament

Jess Sargeant

Parliamentary sovereignty is the UK’s central constitutional principle; in theory, parliament holds all the power, but in practice, the government wields much of it. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the legislative process; legislation is one of Parliament’s core functions, but government control of the timetable and scrutiny mechanisms in the House of Commons – means that its ability to influence the content of bills is limited. Recent trends towards passing bills on expedited timetables and increased use of secondary legislation – accelerated by the UK’s exit from the EU and the coronavirus pandemic – have curtailed opportunities for parliamentary input still further. This has prompted urgent warnings from two House of Lords committees of the need to rebalance power between Parliament and the Executive.

But redressing this constitutional imbalance requires going beyond asking the government to exercise restraint.  It means empowering parliament and creating new opportunities for parliamentary influence. The recommendations of the Wright Report, published in 2009, led to the election of Commons select committee chairs and the establishment of a backbench business committee. They demonstrated the power of procedural change in giving parliamentarians the tools and opportunities to challenge government policy and influence debate. In this spirit, the Institute for Government and Bennett Institute has undertaken a comprehensive study of the legislative process to identify opportunities for reform. 

One area is pre-legislative scrutiny (PLS). There is wide consensus amongst MPs, ministers and officials that pre-legislative scrutiny can greatly improve the quality of legislation. It gives Parliament the opportunity to influence legislation before it is finalised, allowing for more time and space for the government to make changes to reflect the views of parliamentarians on the quality and content of draft legislation. It can be useful too for the government, allowing ministers to tease out disagreements on knotty policy issues, test arguments and ultimately smooth a bill’s passage through parliament. 

Since 1997 eight parliamentary select committee reports have recommended expanding the use of pre-legislative scrutiny and making it a core part of the legislative process. However, bursts of enthusiasm for the practice amongst governments have been short-lived. Pre-legislative scrutiny remains a rarity; overall just 11.6% of the total government bills receiving royal assent since 2007 were published in draft.

It is clear that the current approach to pre-legislative scrutiny, in which the government has complete discretion as to whether and which bills to publish in draft, is failing to unlock its full potential. So we propose taking inspiration from the Oireachtas (the Irish Parliament) and requiring that the government give parliament an opportunity to conduct pre-legislative scrutiny on all government bills. 

This does not mean that a full PLS inquiry – taking three to four months – should take place on every bill, but that the government should publish all its bills in draft and give parliament the opportunity to select bills for PLS and allow others to progress without delay. They should be able to choose from a menu of options including a full inquiry and report, scrutiny of certain clauses, to a one-off evidence session and letter. This should ensure the level of scrutiny is proportionate and does not introduce undue delay to the bill timetable, or pressure on parliamentary capacity. 

Another area ripe for reform is Commons Committee stage. While public bill committees are intended to allow MPs to scrutinise each clause of the bill in detail, their partisan nature means that they are rarely constructive, and research suggests their impact on the content of bills have diminished over time. Reforms to permit oral evidence-taking has improved the functioning of these forums, but it is still only taken a quarter (27%) of all bills passed in the last five parliamentary sessions. Witnesses are chosen through the usual channels, meaning they are often there to support one political position or the other rather than bring new evidence and perspectives to deliberations. 

One proposal, already adopted by the devolved legislatures, is to abolish public bill committees and give select committees responsibility for scrutiny during this stage of the bill’s progress. This has the potential benefits of bringing more expertise and cross-party working into the process, as well as the ability to utilise the relationships with key experts, interest groups and businesses. But it risks overwhelming these committees’ work, and by making them a forum for key votes it could undermine their independence. 

Nonetheless, we believe there is a middle ground. Building on the informal inquiries they already conduct on bills, we propose that select committees should be able to request a ‘select committee’ stage on all government bills – to allow them to consider the bill, take oral evidence and publish a committee view, including draft amendments. This can inform the debate in public bill committees and beyond, while giving select committees the opportunity to decide which bills to prioritise.

We recognise that many of these recommendations may add time and potential friction to the legislative process. But legislating is a serious business – policy is more likely to succeed where it has been robustly tested and where it has broad support from the people’s representatives. The government’s short-term desire to do things quickly should not overrule the long-term objective of do things well. 

Jess Sargeant is a senior researcher working on devolution. She joined the Institute for Government in May 2019 from the House of Lords Library.

Categories
Urgent Questions

Professor Felicity Matthews

FELICITY MATTHEWS

Felicity Matthews is Professor of Politics at the University of Sheffield and Director of the White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership. Her research concerns the exercise of power in the policy process, and the relationships that exist between government, parliament and citizens. She completed a Parliamentary Academic Fellowship in 2018-19, working under the auspices of the House of Commons Petitions Committee.

Please tell us a little bit about how you entered academia and your academic career

I kind of fell into academia. I was a bit rudderless as a teenager and didn’t really have any role models, being the first person in my family to go to uni and coming from a ‘low participation’ area. Growing up, I wanted to do something artsy such as being a graphic designer or illustrator, and was set to start an Art Foundation course after my A-levels. But I had a last minute change of heart, and ended up dropping out… and without enough ‘academic’ A-levels to get into university. So I ended up studying two A-levels condensed into an eight month (!) period: History, and Government and Politics. This was perhaps the most intensive year out ever – I was also working full-time alongside these compressed A-Levels – but I was inspired to study the subjects at university, and in the late 90s I arrived at to the University of Sheffield to study BA Modern History and Politics.

I loved it, and decided to train as a history teacher, duly embarking on a PGCE after my degree. Teaching sadly turned out to be the wrong choice for me at that time in my life, and instead I started working for a local housing association. But I’d stayed in touch with my undergraduate dissertation supervisor, Matt Flinders, who was encouraging me towards postgraduate study. And crucially, was able to explain to me the various funding options available. There was no way I could have undertaken further study without financial support, and I was incredible fortunate to be awarded a 1+3 scholarship from the University of Sheffield.

After this, things took a more conventional route: PhD, post-doc, post-doc, lectureship, lectureship, SL and then Professor in 2021. In recent years, I’ve moved towards university leadership and am currently the Director of the White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership. It’s mad to think about how far I’ve come, as I can still remember calling my mum in tears from a phone box to say I’d dropped out of art school, but didn’t know what to do!

Which five books/articles have been most important to you in your academic career?

I’m meant to whittle this down to five? Okay…. And in no particular order…. Anthony King’s 1976 ‘Modes of Executive-Legislative Relations’; Isabel Hardman’s 2019 Why We Get the Wrong Politicians; Emma Crewe’s 2015 House of Commons: an anthropology of MPs at work; David Judge’s 2014 Democratic Incongruitie: Representative Democracy in Britain; and, Christopher Hood and Martin Lodge’s 2006 The Politics of Public Service Bargains: Reward, Competency, Loyalty – and Blame.

Which people have been most influential and important to you in your academic career?

I’ve been so fortunate to be supported by excellent colleagues who have generously shared some fantastic opportunities and have put their faith in me.  Foremost amongst these is Matt Flinders, who was my PhD supervisor, and has been a long-time friend.  Without Matt, I wouldn’t have an academic career, as he opened so many doors for me at the start.  More recently, the kindness and wisdom of past-and-present Sheffield colleagues including Nicola Phillips, Ruth Blakely, John Flint and Craig Watkins has been greatly valued as I’ve started to move into University leadership.  I’m learning from fantastic role models!

What has been your greatest achievement in academia?

Without doubt, being made Professor.  I went crazy and changed all of my bank cards the same day I found out!

What has been your greatest disappointment in academia?

There isn’t enough space to list, and we certainly do need more honesty about the disappointment to success ratio (I reckon about 10:1).  But my greatest disappointment was early on in my career when, after pouring my heart and soul into a new third year module, I got so-so student feedback accompanied by some unnecessarily personal (dare I say gendered) feedback.  Not much sleep that evening.  It’s really incumbent on all of us to think about how our actions and word affects others.

What is the first or most important thing you tell your students about parliaments?

If you don’t like the way in which politics is done, do something about it.  Don’t grumble from the sidelines.

Where were you born, where did you grow up, and where do you live now?

I was born in Margate and moved when I was eight to a Fleetwood, which is a small fishing town near Blackpool.  I then moved to Sheffield at 19 to go to uni.  Since then, I’ve lived in various bits of Sheffield, had a couple of incursions into Leeds, a very enjoyable period in the Derbyshire Dales, and now live in Harrogate.

What was your first job?

Working on a cake stall on a local market.  I have a sweet tooth, so must confess to eating more stock than was defensible!

What was the toughest job you ever had?

Secondary school teacher.

What  would your ideal job be, if not an academic?

Architect, without a doubt.  I would love to design fantastic buildings whilst wearing funky glasses and black knitwear.

What are your hobbies?

I spend too much time knee-deep in yarn, as I love knitting and crochet.  It’s the ultimate destress!  Gardening too, as I love getting up close to nature.

What are your favourite novels?

Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia.  The BBC adaptation was broadcast when I was 13, and straight after the series I read the book.  It made such an impression on me as a bored and stifled teenager growing up in a small fishing town miles away from the action, and I love re-reading it now.

What is your favourite music?

Where to begin? In the interests of brevity stick with just one old-time favourite, which is Suede’s first album.  Massive memories of my youth, including seeing Suede live at Blackpool Empress Ballroom in 1995!

What is your favourite artwork?

‘Nocturne: Blue and Gold – Old Battersea Bridge’ by James Abbot McNeill Whistler is one of my longstanding favourites.  That said, my tastes are generally more bright and graphic.  Give me anything by Keith Haring and I am happy!

What is your favourite film?

Definitely The Full Monty.  Everything about it is perfect, particularly its Sheffield-ness!

What is your favourite building?

Too many to list, but the Lloyds Building is probably my number one.  I saw it just after it opened when I was 7 or 8, and it was like something from space.  Completely path-breaking, a perfect representation of the 1980s City of London/Big Bang zeitgeist, and to me it remains fresh and exciting.

What is your favourite tv show?

The Great British Sewing Bee.  I never miss an episode!  Ditto Gardener’s World.

What is your favourite sport?

I sometimes get dragged to a local football match on Boxing Day.  I actually don’t like football (or any sport really…), but have fond memories of seeing Fleetwood Town FC with loved ones no longer with us.

What is your favourite food and restaurant?

Mmmmm pizza!  We have two pizza ovens at home (outdoors and indoors – all weather bases covered).  But nothing can beat Proove in Broomhill, Sheffield and Pizza Social in Harrogate.

Hybrid proceedings in Parliament: yes please or no thanks?

Yes please, but in a way that is inclusive and ensures that people are not left behind.  This is a wider challenge related to hybrid, and I am concerned about the impact on careers for those who already face barriers to progression.

Appointed or elected upper chamber?

Fixed-term appointment according to stringent criteria/vetting and with a strict limit on numbers.

Restoration or Renewal?

Full decant followed by a permanent move into a modern and inclusive space.

Cat or Dog?

Cats for now – I love my two ragdolls!  But a dog for retirement.  I’d love a Scottish Terrier, and always take the dog token if I am ever coerced into playing Monopoly.

Trains, planes or automobiles?

Trains. Let someone else take the strain of getting me from A to B!

Fish and chips or Curry?

Fish and chips are nice as an idea only.  Give me a good veggie curry any day of the week.

And, finally, a question asked by Ira and Bernadette, who have just turned four: What is your favourite animal and your favourite bird?

My favourite animal is a platypus.  I would love to see one in real life.  My favourite bird is a wood pigeon.  They’re bumbling and gentle, despite the ridiculous noise they make on take-off.

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Blog

Procedural Vetos and Parliamentary Sovereignty

Adam Tucker

Parliamentary sovereignty has been characterised as the “central organising principle” and “focal point” of the constitution. But it is a doctrine of striking absolutism with uncompromisingly hard edges:  it asserts that there is nolaw that Parliament cannot make, that no other body can override or set aside Acts of Parliament (and so on).  Yet in practice a range of issues are now considered sufficiently important that ways have been found to soften those hard edges and carve out protections against legislative infringement. 

Important constitutional principles (like the rule of law and access to the courts) are protected by common law principles of interpretation, capable of challenging and even overriding the intention of Parliament.  Human Rights are protected by both a procedural mechanism designed to bring embarrassing attention to legislation compromising them and a statutory principle of interpretation capable even of overriding Parliamentary intention.   The autonomy of the devolved legislatures is protected by a convention constraining Parliament’s legislative authority over devolved matters. And, most famously of all, our membership of and even departure from the European Union involved judicially enforceable statutory limits on Parliament’s legislative power.  These are just the most prominent of a complex array of techniques limiting Parliament’s legislative authority without (overly) trespassing on the core status of parliamentary sovereignty. 

This post argues that we should think of the procedural rules exemplified in the parliamentary processes of King’s Consent and English Votes for English Laws (EVEL) as a further part of this constitutional tradition.

I realise that my two examples are not promising starting points for fruitful analysis.  King’s Consent is a constitutional aberration, which grants the King an inappropriate opportunity to intervene in the legislative process.  It should be abolished.  And EVEL is widely seen as an idiosyncratic failure– it was abolished, without the House of Commons even needing to vote, after a debate which saw it attacked across party lines – “baffling” (Conservative), “completely pointless” (Labour) and a ”absolute and utter disgrace” (SNP).   Nevertheless, I want to suggest that their shared core is worth further attention, as a model for a potentially constructive addition to our repertoire of techniques for limiting parliamentary sovereignty.  In this post I (i) characterise that shared core, (ii) briefly consider its possible features and finally – very tentatively – (iii) suggest two areas where it might be sensibly deployed.  

The shared core of King’s Consent and EVEL

King’s consent is a rule of parliamentary procedure which gives the King a power to intervene in the passage of certain proposed legislation. It is found in Erskine May, which provides (for Bills to which the process applies):

 If the [King’s] consent has not been obtained, the question on the third reading of a bill for which consent is required cannot be proposed

EVEL was a rule of parliamentary procedure which gave English MPs an additional opportunity to scrutinise certain proposed legislation.  It was enacted through a change to the Standing Orders of the House of Commons, which provided (while EVEL was in force, for Bills to which the process applied):   

A Consent Motion which gives consent…must be passed by the legislative grand committee…before a motion may be made for the third reading of the bill.

Each (obviously) have greater depth and breadth than these extracts reveal – in terms of when they apply, the processes they involve etc. But these extracts capture their shared core, and the features of each that I want to focus on here.

The key point is that both have the same structure:  they create a veto process, and if that veto is wielded then the proposed legislation concerned cannot pass through all the stages of the legislative process or, in other words, the proposed legislation cannot become law.  Furthermore, each is a binding rule of parliamentary procedure rather than, say, mere guidance.  A bill which required, but had not yet received, EVEL consent could not proceed.  And a bill which requires, but has not received, King’s consent cannot proceed.  So the Deputy Speaker did not merely chooseor exercise a discretion to refuse Tan Dalyell’s attempt to secure a third reading for his Military Actions Against Iraq (Parliamentary Approval) Bill in 1999 – he was compelled to:

Queen’s consent has not been obtained…As the House knows, and as “Erskine May” … makes plain, without Queen’s consent, I cannot propose the question (emphasis added)

Both, then, are prescriptive elements of the law and custom of Parliament with the capacity to prevent legislation completing its passage through Parliament.  As a result, they engage the first limb of most influential definitions of Parliamentary Sovereignty, which claims that there is no legislation which Parliament cannot pass.  At present that element of parliamentary sovereignty is false to the extent that Parliament cannot pass legislation which requires, but has not received, King’s consent.  And from 2015 until 2021 it was also false to the extent that Parliament could not pass legislation which required, but had not received, consent under EVEL.  Procedural vetos like these soften the hard edges of parliamentary sovereignty.  We should consider the possibility that a better use can be found for this technique than these two examples.

Two characteristics of procedural vetos

As we saw above, there are many other ways to circumvent the less desirable consequences of parliamentary sovereignty.   They are hard to measure against each other because they work in different ways and have virtues (and vices) in different dimensions.  I will mention only two such dimensions of procedural vetos here:  their force, and the place they occupy on the political-legal spectrum.  

First, their force, by which I mean the degree to which they can be suspended or overridden (when this is very difficult it even begins to make sense to use the language of entrenchment).  In this dimension, procedural vetos are extremely flexible.  At one end of the spectrum, a procedural rule could be vulnerable to easy circumvention or abolition.  For example, when the government decided to abolish EVEL this was very straightforward to achieve with a simple motion in the Commons.  But a procedural veto could be designed to be slightly more entrenched – for example the EVEL procedures could have been drafted so that, say, any motion proposing their abolition or suspension was itself subject to the consent procedure, making them more problematic to circumvent.  A procedural veto could even be fully entrenched, that is protected by its own provisions against even legislative override.  Indeed, the prevailing opinion amongst parliamentary lawyers seems to be that King’s consent is entrenched in this way – that a statute abolishing King’s consent would itself require King’s consent. Whilst in my view this position is extremely problematic with regard to that specific example, it would clearly be possible to craft a veto which more clearly functioned in that way.  The upshot is that procedural vetos, as a technique, are very flexible in terms of their force – and therefore in terms of the scale of the obstacle that they present to a government which intend to promote legislation which would violate whatever value or principle they protect.  They can be used to impose very soft or very hard limits on Parliament’s capacity to legislate.

Secondly, procedural vetos are more a political than a legal mechanism.  Admittedly they seem mildly legalistic:  they are part of the law and custom of parliament, they are authoritative rules which depend on tying categorisation to consequence (and so on) – to the extent that legal advice is involved in their application and operation. Nevertheless, the existence, continuation and negotiation of the limitation they impose on Parliament remain firmly in the political arena.   The respect of and survival of EVEL were political questions, and its fate rested on politics.  The respect of and survival of King’s Consent are political questions, and its fate rests on politics.

These are promising characteristics.  Carefully crafted and appropriately deployed (King’s Consent is, and EVEL was, neither) procedural vetos have the potential to be a valuable addition to the constitution’s set of techniques to soften parliamentary sovereignty. 

Two possible uses of the mechanism

I want to close by suggesting, very tentatively, two contexts in the contemporary constitution where it might be appropriate to deploy procedural vetos to restrict parliament’s capacity to make law.

First, as a replacement for the Sewel convention, which is designed to protect the legislative autonomy of the devolved legislatures against infringement by Parliament.  It is (despite being put on a statutory footing) a purely political constraint, but it is also weak and easily circumvented.    Yet it would be relatively straightforward to craft a procedural rule obstructing, say, the passage of legislation certified to trespass on devolved competencies without a statement that the necessary consent had been obtained.  This form of procedural veto would maintain the content and political nature of Sewel, whilst buttressing its force.  It need not be entrenched at all – even as a simple veto it would have greater force than the present Sewel Convention because it would at least impose a procedural hurdle (say, passing a circumvention motion) on a government promoting legislation in breach of Sewel.  This approach has been referred to before (in different contexts by Alistair Carmichael MP and by Ian Loveland) although not in detail. It is a proposal which merits being taken more seriously.  

Secondly, as an alternative to the rule in Anisminic and Privacy International, which constitutes a wide and judicially-imposed limitation on parliament’s legislative authority, preventing it – almost entirely – from successfully enacting provisions ousting the jurisdiction of the courts over executive action. This rule achieves a justifiable aim, but it also moves into the legal arena an issue – the appropriate scope of Parliament’s power to enact ousters – that might more appropriately be tackled in the political domain.  A procedural veto could be crafted so as to maintain the existing strength of this rule (especially in core cases) but with the additional virtue of returning to the political domain the broader question of the appropriate limits of legislated ousters.

To summarise:  Parliamentary sovereignty is not always desirable, in fact a whole variety of ways are often used to circumvent its requirements.  Whilst King’s Consent and EVEL are not, in themselves, successful examples of this kind of process they are nevertheless instances of an approach which might be harnessed more successfully in other contexts including, perhaps, as an alternative approach to the Sewel convention and to the rule in Anisminic and Privacy International.

Dr Adam Tucker is Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Liverpool.

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Together and Apart: Innovations in Prime Ministerial questioning the Canadian House of Commons

Historically, the questioning model of Question Period in the Canadian House of Commons was collective: the Prime Minister was questioned together with ministers. Question Period takes place every sitting day, and by convention the Prime Minister is expected to attend. In this collective questioning model, MPs addressed questions to the Prime Minister or to ministers. Conventionally, the Prime Minister received questions at the start of Question Period, usually from the Leader of the Opposition and from other opposition party leaders. The remaining questions went to ministers.

During the 2015 federal election, the Liberal Party promised to introduce a Prime Minister’s Question Period in order to make the Prime Minister more accountable. Following a long tradition of collective questioning, in April 2017, halfway through the 42ndparliament, the Liberal government introduced a questioning slot for the Prime Minister. Similar to the procedure for PMQs in the UK, the Canadian Prime Minister would be questioned on their own once a week on Wednesday. 

What can we learn about prime ministerial questioning from this reform?

Given its introduction halfway through a parliament, this reform offers a unique methodological opportunity to study whether, and in what ways questioning the Prime Minister is different in collective procedures compared to individualised procedures. 

Previous studies have explored this question through cross-case comparisons: for example, by comparing how prime ministers are questioned in legislatures that use individualised procedures (UK) versus similar legislatures that use collective procedures (Canada and Australia). A within-case comparison before and after a reform in the same legislature may offer insights into whether questioning the Prime Minister alone is conducive to more or better accountability.

Previous work has also shown that a key variable is whether or not the procedure allows spontaneous questioning (i.e. topics are not known in advance), or whether questions are submitted in advance. For example, in Ireland, questions for Oral Questions to the Taoiseach are submitted in writing in advance, whilst in the UK questions are asked spontaneously on the day at PMQs. The Irish procedure displays far higher levels of questions targeted at the Prime Minister’s responsibilities compared to the UK’s PMQs, where questions to the Prime Minister span a wide range of topics; the Prime Minister is seen as responsible for everything. Given that the Canadian Question Period also involves spontaneous questioning, we would expect that moving to an individualised procedure would lead to a similar pattern: a wide range of questions addressed to the Prime Minister.

Importantly, Question Period is to a large extent party controlled. For every Question Period, political parties hand over a list of questioners to the Speaker, who uses the list as a guide in calling MPs to ask questions. This means that access to questioning is largely determined by internal party strategy.

Research design

This paper asks an exploratory research question: How are prime ministers questioned in collective and individualised procedures? Did the introduction of an individualised procedure in the Canadian House of Commons lead to the Prime Minister being more accountable, as the Liberals intended?

Leveraging the introduction of the reform halfway through the 42nd Parliament, I use a before-and-after evaluation design. The first stage of this study involves a quantitative analysis of questions addressed to the Prime Minister in collective sessions before the reform, and in individualised sessions after the reform. I randomly sampled 30 questioning sessions: 15 on each side of the reform. Questions were coded on several variables based on validated coding protocols and analysed in R. The topic of each question and the political party of each questioner were sourced from the labels given in Hansard. I coded whether the topic falls within the Prime Minister’s direct remit, as that remit is understood within the Canadian political system, whether it is shared with a minister, or whether the topic is in the competence of a minister. I also coded whether the question included a conflictual remark. 

This first stage aims to explore patterns in questions to the Prime Minister before and after the reform. The next stage of the project will involve interviews with Canadian MPs active during the 42nd parliament, to gain a deeper understanding of their experience of Question Period and of the reform. This paper presents preliminary results from the first stage.

Results

  1. Widening access to questioning

The move to an individualised procedure increased access to questioning: MPs from a wider range of roles and political parties are able to ask the Prime Minister a question (Figures 1 and 2). Although the pre-reform collective procedure meant that the Prime Minister appeared in parliament more often during the week, he was only asked around eight questions at the start of each Question Period session. This means he was always questioned by the Leader of the Opposition, the leader of the second opposition party, and other frontbench actors who conventionally ask questions at the start of Question Period. More junior frontbenchers and backbenchers did not get to question the head of government. The individualised procedure, by contrast, dedicates a full session to the Prime Minister, with questioners including a wider range of frontbench roles, and backbenchers also getting a chance to question the Prime Minister.

Figure 1. Number of questions by party
Figure 2. Number of questions by type of actor

2. Less focus on matters within the Prime Minister’s remit.

As Figure 3 shows, the introduction of an individualised slot for the Prime Minister did not result in more questions targeted at Prime Ministerial responsibilities. In the collective procedure around 70% of questions were targeted at topics that were either the Prime Minister’s own remit, or topics that the Prime Minister shares with a minister. After the introduction of an individualised slot, more than half of questions were on topics not within the Prime Minister’s remit. Within the sample included in this study, the range of topics in questions to the Prime Minister increased from 29 during the pre-reform procedure to 59 topics over the course of the individualised sessions included.

Figure 3. Questions within the Prime Minister’s remit

Previous studies have shown that the UK’s PMQs, the most well-known opportunity for individualised prime ministerial questioning, displays a wide range of topics in questions; the Prime Minister is held to account for everything. A similar pattern appears in Canada after the introduction of a weekly individualised procedure: when the Prime Minister appears on their own, the range of topics of questions broadens. Far from offering an opportunity for more targeted questioning, a weekly individualised slot results in more questions addressed to the Prime Minister on a wider range of issues.

An individualised plenary questioning procedure creates an opportunity for regular dialogue with the Prime Minister, and a focus point during the parliamentary week, but not an opportunity for holding the Prime Minister to account in a targeted way. This finding has important procedural implications for designing questioning mechanisms. 

3. No difference in how adversarial questions are

The change from a collective to an individualised procedure did not generate different patterns in terms of conflictual questions (defined as questions containing at least one conflictual remark). In fact, although in both types of procedure over 75% of questions include a conflictual remark, the proportion of conflictual questions decreases slightly in the individualised procedure (Figure 4). However, as Figure 2 shows, a wider range of actors get to criticise the Prime Minister in the individualised procedure. Whilst the collective procedure primarily involved a duel between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, in the individualised procedure a wider range of frontbench and backbench actors intervene to ask critical questions. The high levels of conflict suggest that the Canadian Question Period is inherently an adversarial procedure, at least when it comes to questions addressed to the Prime Minister, and that changing whether the Prime Minister is questioned alone or alongside the cabinet does not have any visible effect on that.

Figure 4. Conflictual questions

Conclusions: what difference did the reform make?

The move to an individualised procedure led to a new model of Prime Ministerial questioning and accountability in the Canadian House of Commons.

Firstly, the reform widened access to questioning the Prime Minister: MPs from more political parties and from a wider range of parliamentary roles (including backbenchers) can now question the Prime Minister. However, Question Period remains very party controlled, and access to questioning is not open on the floor of the House. The Question Period strategy and who gets to be added to the list of questioners are determined internally by parties.

The reform also made the Canadian Question Period more similar to PMQs: the Prime Minister is tested on many aspects across government policy. But evidence from other legislatures suggests that this is not always the case for all individualised questioning procedures. For example, comparative evidence from Ireland and the UK showed that open individualised procedures, where the topics of questions are not known in advance, are more conducive to a wide range of topics in questions. If questions are submitted in writing before the session, they tend to be on topics that are within the Prime Minister’s remit. It is hence the combination of the open, spontaneous nature of Question Period, and its new individualised version, that makes it more similar to PMQs.

Finally, the reform did not affect how conflictual questions to the Prime Minister are, suggesting that the underlying culture of Question Period is adversarial, and the individualised/collective character does not affect levels of adversarialism in questions. 

Dr Ruxandra Serban is an LSE Fellow in Qualitative Methodology at the London School of Economics and Political Science.