For the second year in a row, we’ve had to break out the emojis to celebrate a very successful night for PSA Parliaments and its members at the PSA Annual Awards!
🥳 PSA Parliaments won the Specialist Group of the Year Prize for the second time in four years!
🥳 Philip Norton won the Sir Isaiah Berlin Lifetime Achievement Prize!
🥳 Louise Thompson won the Richard Rose Prize for a distinctive contribution to the study of British Politics!
🥳 Sarah Childs won the WJM Mackenzie Prize for the best book published in political science for her co-authored book with Karen Celis Feminist Democratic Representation!
🥳 Steven MacGregor won the Walter Bagehot Prize for the best dissertation in the field of government and public administration for his thesis Does government dominate the legislative process?
🥳 The Institute for Government won the Political Communicator of the Year Prize!
Congratulations to all the winners and thank you to our members for making PSA Parliaments such a now-officially-recognised brilliant group!
Book Launch: Held in contempt: What’s wrong with the House of Commons?
Book Launch: Accountability, Impeachment, and the Constitution
PSA Trustee Elections: PSA Parliament’s Member, James Strong, is Standing
Recent Publications that have Caught Our Eye
Recently on the Blog
If you have any notices/messages you would like us to circulate to the group, please let us know.
1. PSA Annual International Conference 2022
Registration remains open for the 2022 PSA Annual Conference in York and online, 11th-13th April 2022. Full details of the conference and how to register can be found on the PSA22 website.
As detailed below, the PSA Parliaments panels and roundtable are being held on the Monday and Tuesday.
Whether in person or online, we hope to see you there!
We are pleased to announce the launch of our 2022 Undergraduate Essay Competition! The winner will be presented with a prize of £100 and a runner-up prize of £50 at our annual conference in November 2022.
The competition is open to all undergraduate students who have submitted a piece of assessed work which contributes to our understanding of parliaments or legislatures.
Full details of the competition can be found here.
3. Urgent Questions with Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey
This month’s interviewee is Prof. Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey, author of the recently published Deliberative Accountability in Parliamentary Committees.
Head over to Urgent Questionsto read about Idaho, romance novels and how long it’s been since Cheryl ate a curry
4. Book Launch: Held in contempt: What’s wrong with the House of Commons?
The launch will take place virtually on Wednesday 25th May 2022 between 11:00am and 12:30pm BST. The speakers include:
Hannah White
Alexandra Meakin
Baroness Morgan of Cotes
And another TBC!
Full details of the event, including how to register, can be found here.
5. Book Launch: Accountability, Impeachment, and the Constitution
We are similarly delighted to announce that PSA Parliaments will be co-hosting the book launch of our very own Chris Monaghan’s forthcoming monograph Accountability, Impeachment, and the Constitution(Routledge).
The launch will take place virtually on Wednesday 8th June 2022 at 2pm BST.
Full details of the event, including how to register, can be found here.
6. PSA Trustee Elections: PSA Parliament’s Member, James Strong, is Standing
One of our members, James Strong, is standing for election to become a PSA Trustee.
If you have a vote, please check your inbox for details of how to vote.
The timetable for the PSA Annual Conference, which is being held in York and online between the 11th and 13th March 2022, has been released.
All of the PSA Parliaments panels and roundtables are being held on the Monday and Tuesday. You can find full details of them on the conference timetable, on our website or, more quickly, below.
We hope to see you – either in-person or virtually – at the conference!
Book Launch: Deliberative Accountability in Parliamentary Committees
Book Launch: Accountability, Impeachment, and the Constitution
New Overview of Mexico’s Congress of the Union
Call for Applications: Parliamentary Academic Fellowship Scheme
EUGenDem virtual workshop: Gender and Leadership in the European Parliament at Midterm
Recent Publications that have Caught Our Eye
Recently on the Blog
If you have any notices/messages you would like us to circulate to the group, please let us know.
1. PSA Annual International Conference 2022
Registration is open for the 2022 PSA Annual Conference being held in York and digitally in April 2022. Full details of the conference and how to register can be found on the PSA22 website.
Unfortunately, at the time of writing, the timetable for the conference has not been released. We will send details of timings for our five panels and roundtable once they are available.
Whether in person or online, we hope to see you there!
We are pleased to announce the launch of our 2022 Undergraduate Essay Competition! The winner will be presented with a prize of £100 and a runner-up prize of £50 at our annual conference in November 2022.
The competition is open to all undergraduate students who have submitted a piece of assessed work which contributes to our understanding of parliaments or legislatures.
Full details of the competition can be found here.
3. Urgent Questions with Meg Russell
This month’s interviewee is the Director of the Constitution Unit, Prof. Meg Russell.
Head over to Urgent Questionsto read about Turin, Camden Market, the Thin White Duke, and roofing!
4. Book Launch: Deliberative Accountability in Parliamentary Committees
The launch will take place virtually on Wednesday 9th March 2022 between 3:00pm and 4:30pm GMT.
Full details of the event, including how to register, can be found here.
5. Book Launch: Accountability, Impeachment, and the Constitution
We are similarly delighted to announce that PSA Parliaments will be co-hosting the book launch of our very own Chris Monaghan’s forthcoming monograph Accountability, Impeachment, and the Constitution(Routledge).
The launch will take place virtually on Wednesday 8th June 2022 at 2pm BST.
Full details of the event, including how to register, will be announced soon so, in the meantime, please save the date.
If you would like to write an overview of a parliament or legislature not yet covered on our maps, then please contact Chris.
7. Call for Applications: Parliamentary Academic Fellowship Scheme
The Parliamentary Academic Fellowship Scheme gives university-based researchers and staff working in knowledge exchange the opportunity to participate in a fellowship project with an office in UK Parliament. Each fellowship project in the Directed Call is proposed by a team at Parliament as a project on which academic input is needed.
There are 12 projects open for applications. You can read about the Call, including details on eligibility, funding, key dates, and the application process, here.
8. EUGenDem virtual workshop: Gender and Leadership in the European Parliament at Midterm
EUGenDem are holding a workshop to celebrate International Women’s Day on March 11th 2022 at 11:00-12:30 EET (10:00-11:30 CET).
The workshop draws together the findings of a new book edited by Henriette Müller (NYU Abu Dhabi) and Ingeborg Tömmel (University of Osnabrück): Women and Leadership in the European Union, published with Oxford University Press (2022).
Book Launch: Deliberative Accountability in Parliamentary Committees
Job Opportunity at the University of East Anglia
Other Events
Recent Publications that have Caught Our Eye
Recently on the Blog
If you have any notices/messages you would like us to circulate to the group, please let us know.
1. PSA Annual International Conference 2022
Registration has opened for the 2022 PSA Annual Conference being held in York and digitally in April 2022. If you haven’t booked yet, early bird prices have been extended to 4th February 2022. Full details of the conference and how to register can be found on the PSA22 website.
We are pleased to announce the launch of our 2022 Undergraduate Essay Competition! The winner will be presented with a prize of £100 and a runner-up prize of £50 at our annual conference in November 2022.
The competition is open to all undergraduate students who have submitted a piece of assessed work which contributes to our understanding of parliaments or legislatures.
Full details of the competition can be found here.
3. Urgent Questions with Jonathan Tonge
This month’s interviewee is the outgoing editor of Parliamentary Affairs, Prof. Jonathan Tonge.
Put on your Fred Perry, get yourself a suedehead and head on over to Urgent Questions to read about some great mod bands and – what is frankly – a shocking answer to a question about Star Wars.
4. Book Launch: Deliberative Accountability in Parliamentary Committees
The launch will take place virtually on Wednesday 9th March 2022 between 3:00pm and 4:30pm GMT.
Full details of the event, including how to register, can be found here.
5. Job Opportunity at the University of East Anglia
An exciting opportunity has arisen to join the ESRC’s flagship Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations (CAST) at the University of East Anglia as a Senior Research Associate in Policy, Politics and Climate Change (Fixed-term).
The post holder will join an international team of scholars to conduct research on politicians’ role in accelerating climate mitigation in upcoming decades, commensurate with limiting climate change to 1.5 or 2°C of warming.
A new issue of Parliamentary Affairs has been published, featuring a special collection on Parliaments as Workplaces: Gendered Approaches to the Study of Legislatures edited by Josefina Erikson and Tània Verge.
If you would like your published research to be featured in this section, please email Stephen with details.
PSA Parliaments will be convening a number of panels at PSA23. The 73rd Annual Conference of the Political Studies Association will be held in Liverpool and online between 3-5 April 2023 (full details can be found here).
The submission process is different from previous years in that specialist groups have been given an exclusive timeframe until the 12th September for them to receive papers and propose panels ahead of the open call in October.
If you would like to propose a paper or a panel to be held under the auspices of the prize-winning PSA Parliaments group, then please fill out this form.
As always, we do not have any preferences in terms of theory, method or empirical focus and we welcome papers from PhD students through to professors, as well as from practitioners. We are fully committed to avoiding all-male panels. We are also seeking to increase the proportion of papers on our panels from people from an ethnic minority background so please get in touch with Alexandra if you come from an ethnic minority background and would like to discuss how your research could be highlighted on our panels.
We hope to see as many of you there as possible for what promises to be another great conference!
Dr Mark Shephard is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Strathclyde. He is the Deputy Editor of the Journal of Legislative Studiesand theJoint Chair of the Study of Scottish Parliament Group.
Please tell us a little bit about how you entered academia and your academic career
I was one of “The 7” in the first full year (1988-1992) of Professor Lord Norton’s then Politics and Legislative Studies course. I worked in the European Parliament and the House of Commons in my vocational year of study (1990-91). I was going to teach English in Japan, but did really well in my final exams (I actually won a prize!) & ended up in Houston, Texas doing a PhD in Political Science. I then applied for a temporary job at the University of Strathclyde in the heart of Glasgow and I loved it so much – 24 years later – I’m still here!
Which five books/articles (written by someone else) have been most important to you in your academic career?
Richard Fenno – Home Style (I just could not put it down…it really got me hooked on legislatures and academia as a possible career).
Parliamentary Scrutiny of Government Bills by J.A.G. Griffith plus Parliamentary Questions by Mark Franklin and Philip Norton mashed with Robert Packenham’s article on legislative functions – the core theoretical underpinning and developmental basis for my mixed methods PhD on PMQs.
James Sundquist – Dynamics of a Party System (this really helped me start crack US politics at a deeper level of understanding).
Which person has been most influential and important to you in your academic career?
Professor Lord Norton + Professor Ed Page (my crucial formative Hull years) + most of the incredible Political Science Department at the University of Houston in the 1990s (e.g. Mark Franklin; David Judge (1993-94); Susan Scarrow; Kathleen Knight; Bob Erikson; Christopher Wlezien; Donald Lutz; Richard Murray; Ross Lence; James Gibson; Richard Matland; Robert Carp; Jay Greene…)
Which of your own pieces of research are you most proud of?
I’m not very good at liking my own work, but a student once said: “You are to politics what Kate Bush is to music”: my research seems to try out a lot of different methods on a lot of different topics (parliaments to social media to electoral behaviour to election campaigns…) often in quirky and/or pioneering ways (e.g. exploring questions asked by the PM rather than what we might otherwise study, or parliamentary impact over time and not just cross-sectionally…).
What has been your greatest achievement in academia?
Getting a PhD from The University of Houston, Texas (GRE exam + 3 years of relentless coursework + 30 hours of comprehensive exams over 3 days + 3 years on a PhD theory devising and theory testing using mixed methods. If you can do that, and survive without air conditioning in a Texas 108F Summer with 98% humidity, you can do anything…).
What has been your greatest disappointment in academia?
Not having enough time to do everything I want to do properly. If I could repeat it all over again, I’d probably not try and do as much as it takes time to jump around different fields…
What is the first or most important thing you tell your students about parliaments?
That they are multi-functional, and we need different procedures to fulfil very different functions. Beware the trap of evaluating the relevance of procedures just through the lens of legislative impact.
Where were you born, where did you grow up, and where do you live now?
Born in The Royal Canadian Hospital, Taplow, Buckinghamshire. Grew up on Shoreham Beach, West Sussex (and survived the strongest winds ever recorded (until 2022 storms) – 120mph on Shoreham Beach during the Great Storm of 1987 – we hid under the stairs as the roof started to peel). Have lived in Hull; Brussels; London; Houston, Texas; Glasgow; and I now live in Paisley, Scotland.
What was your first job?
A greengrocer in Shoreham.
What was the toughest job you ever had?
Teaching 3 classes during the height of lockdown and working 75 out of 77 days to deliver them properly.
What are your hobbies?
Gardening, photography, and painting.
What are your favourite novels?
One Day by David Nicholls (I still thank academia from saving me from a life of too much excess and fleeting celebrity!).
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein (the first book I ever got totally immersed in).
Animal Farm by George Orwell (if only the world had more Benjamins and Boxers).
Anything by Milan Kundera (some sentences just capture life experiences like nobody else does).
The first 3 Harry Potter books (the others needed an edit, too much sports and camping…).
What is your favourite music?
Anything by Kate Bush or Richard Hawley. If I had to pick one: Richard Hawley’s ‘Caravan’. It transports you to a sunny island instantly & at 2 minutes 29 seconds long, you can play it twice during a 5 minute break! I recommend it to all my students along with 2 other songs that will help get them through: “I Get Knocked Down, But I Get Up Again” and “Life is a Rollercoaster”.
What is your favourite artwork?
Rothko’s Seagram murals at The Tate Modern, London. If you sit still and watch the lilac oblongs on the mauve backgrounds you are taken to another world. Sometimes into the painting and sometimes out of the painting.
What is your favourite film?
Beautiful Thing by Jonathan Harvey (important piece of social political history and it is very funny and clever at the same time. I like to think it has helped make Britain a more tolerant place more embracing of difference).
What is your favourite building?
Brighton Royal Pavilion (like Brighton it is OTT to the max and I love it!).
What is your favourite tv show?
Victoria Wood as Seen on TV (I still remember most of the lines, for example, “Never touch prawns… Do you know they tread water outside sewage outlet pipes with their mouths open”).
What is your favourite holiday destination?
Lanzarote (warm sun in Winter + lovely architecture & volcano & sea vistas) + Sitges (close to Barcelona, but more chilled out and cosmopolitan).
What is your favourite sport?
Tennis and Badminton (because I used to be good at them).
Hybrid proceedings in Parliament: yes please or no thanks?
I think we will find ways to make this work better, so yes when needs must.
Appointed or elected upper chamber?
Appointed by an independent body representing a myriad of areas of expertise.
Restoration or Renewal?
Bit of both.
Cat or Dog?
Cat while in academia, both when I have more time in retirement.
Trains, planes or automobiles?
Bicycle.
Fish and chips or Curry?
Curry (with lots of salad).
Scones: Devonshire or Cornish Method?
Cream first, then jam (the scone often needs the moisturising ability of the cream that the jam does not have and I like the taste of jam first better than cream).
And, finally, a question asked by Seth, who is 9 and a half: Would you rather be a duck or a horse?
A duck, I adore water and, despite my love of a good party, mainly quite like being away from too many people.
This year, the SCIE Politics Club organized multiple events on the topic of UK select committees. We’ve witnessed many meaningful debates and thoughts coming out during the process.
At the start of the term, the Head of Humanities and Social Sciences faculty and founder of SCIE’s Politics club, Mr. Richard Driscoll introduced us to the basics of the select committee. To better answer our questions on how the select committee works in real life, Mr. Richard led us through a recent report published by the Health and Social Care and Science and Technology Committees, a select committee in the House of Commons[1]. It concluded the UK’s major lessons from Covid 19 regarding public health management by analyzing six critical areas of responses: preparedness, non-pharmaceutical intervention; social care; impact on different communities, and vaccines distribution. Within each section, specific statistics and quotations of experts are referenced.
We further discussed the comprehensiveness of the report by reading it in detail. A problem identified in the report was the lack of resources in the NHS. The Royal College of Midwives reported that “NHS was short of over 3,000 midwives and that 40% of RCM members worked three or more hours of unpaid overtime every week, suggesting that the NHS had been ‘reliant upon the goodwill of those who staff the system.'”,[2] the specific data of which provides convincing evidence of the credibility and accuracy of the report. However, the solution explicitly given to this problem, “the experience of the demands placed on the NHS during the covid-19 pandemic should lead to a more explicit, and monitored, surge capacity being part of the long term organization and funding of the NHS”[3], seems vague and unpromising. We are concerned that an unclear short-term and long-term target may be hard to follow up.
On January 6th, 2022, our school invited Dr. Alexandra Meakin from the University of Leeds to lecture on the select committee system in depth. A majority of our Politics Club members appreciated this opportunity and joined the event passionately. Dr Meakin showed us a detailed understanding of the working mechanism of the select committee and its composition. The lecture taught us that the select committee, usually a permanent division representing the public to examine and make recommendations to governmental policy, consists of MPs elected in the secret ballot. It conducts pre-appointed hearings with experts, goes through the written evidence submitted by experts, and ultimately forms reports to the government.
Most interestingly, she listed some common arguments about the strengths and weaknesses of the select committee, which inspires interesting thoughts in us. For example, statistics show that the select committee’s suggestions are relatively practical, among which the executives implement over 40% of recommendations. This helps improve policymaking a lot. Also, she explained the advantages of its membership which reflects the composition of parties in the Commons. Hence, a report representing a cross-party consensus would more forcefully influence the House of Commons.
However, she also admitted some flaws in the select committee. The cross-party composition may make the select committee less effective in giving a thorough recommendation, as reaching consensus may sacrifice some detailed plans. MPs are also busy with businesses outside the select committee, so they may not devote sufficient time to drafting a comprehensive report. Compared with the Commons in general, the select committee usually does poorly in terms of diversity. Most detrimentally, the select committee lacks formal power. They can not directly implement but merely suggest policies to the government. Nor does the committee have any mechanism to follow up the changes in governmental policies. That’s why around 60% of the recommendation provided by the committee cannot be implemented as expected.
Dr. Alexandra Meakin’s lecture inspires interesting thoughts among our club members. We actively participated in the Q&A session to discuss further the role of the select committee. One of our members asked about how the committee balances between the power constraint on the Chair, and the consistency of the policy recommendation or the committee’s expertise. To further explain, the student considered that giving the Chair a relatively huge power to control the committee’s agenda may be a prerequisite for systematic policy recommendation over time, yet this may allow the power of the Chair to grow uncontrollably – a threat to the democracy. Dr. Meakin agreed that this conflict constitutes the core conflict within the select committee. Based on her expert knowledge, she concluded that, in practice, different chairs solve this problem with their approach. Some may lean towards reaching a consensus in the committee at the sacrifice of effectiveness, while others may take a more rigid grip to reinforce their ideas. This would also have something to do with the composition of the committee. The extent of party politics in the committee may be a crucial factor determining how fiercely effectiveness collides with consensus.
Inspired by Dr. Meakin’s answer, another club member added a follow-up question. Because the composition of the committee reflects the composition of the Commons, the club member was wondering whether this membership benefits the majority party, and if so, to what extent the committee can still achieve its goal of supervising the government, especially over some fields at the core of party struggle. Dr. Meakin admitted the composition does somehow formally benefit the majority party while offering some counter-arguments for us to think about. For example, the backbench MPs don’t necessarily agree with the governmental policies, if not critical of it, thus are still likely to provide insightful recommendations. Also, being in the same party with the government, the MPs from the majority party are more incentivized to give constructive criticism for the governmental policies, as improving the government’s performance yields benefit in the elections. Yet, it’s correct to question the extent of criticism the committee can give. With the harsh party whip, a select committee with a majority of MPs from the majority party is unlikely to provide criticisms at the risk of infringing the government’s fundamental interests. In response, one student added another question: the select committee supervises the government, then what institution is responsible for overseeing the select committee? Dr. Meakin’s answer of “the Parliament” also led us to think about democracy in the UK. The lack of the absolute doctrine of separation of power in the UK political system may indicate the impossibility of strict supervision over the majority party’s power.
In addition to theoretical analysis, we have seen other interesting practical questions. One student extended our previous club activity to discuss the effectiveness of policy during the Covid and how the select committee may help improve that. Another student also asked about how the lesson from the select committee may improve our work at the student council. Dr. Meakin shared constructive suggestions for us from her years of experience working for a select committees. The event ultimately concluded with our heated discussion and abundant new knowledge in our heads.
With continued interest in the topic, we plan to organize a Mock Education Select Committee at the Humanities and Social Sciences week at our school, on the subject of “cap on the number of international students admitted in the UK universities,” a relevant topic to us all. Members from our Political Club will represent the 11 MPs in the committee, while four competitors outside of the club will act as four experts to provide written evidence and go through a hearing process. We hope that this event can boost students’ interest in political affairs and encourage critical thinking throughout the process.
Author Details
Winnie Zhou is 18 years old and is a student at Shenzhen College of International Education (SCIE).
[1] Health and Social Care, and Science and Technology Committees, House of Commons. “Coronavirus: lessons learned to date: Sixth Report of the Health and Social Care Committee and Third Report of the Science and Technology Committee of Session 2021–22.” Sept. 2021, https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/7496/documents/78687/default/
The current Prime Minister’s long running battle with the Seven Principles of Public Lifecontinues to gather pace. Boris Johnson’s actions relating to the pandemic ‘partygate’ scandalhave arguably violated each of the principles established by the Nolan Committee in 1995: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. The Prime Minister’s full house of ethical violations concerning his attendance and subsequent denials of social gatherings held in Downing Street, contrary to lockdown restrictions, have also yielded Fixed Penalty Notices from the police for him, his Chancellor, his wife, and other government officials, with the prospect of more to follow. Yet the Prime Minister remains committed to staying in post, and has refused to resign.
A key accusation made against Johnson by Peter Hennessy (the historian and now member of the House of Lords) is that his actions during the partygate scandal, combined with his refusal to resign, have ‘shredded the Ministerial Code’, generating ‘the most severe constitutional crisis involving a Prime Minister that I can remember’. Similarly, the political journalist Robert Peston has argued that if Conservative MPs refuse to topple Johnson, they will ‘blithely ignore the ministerial code’, with the consequence that ‘the constitution means little or nothing’.
It is of course understandable why the Ministerial Code has had such prominence in this episode – it is a relatively clear, succinct, and publicly accessible statement of some relevant rules and principles concerning ministerial conduct. The very idea of a ‘Ministerial Code’ sounds constitutionally important, and also effectively highlights the hypocrisy of Johnson apparently refusing to adhere to the standards applicable to ‘ordinary’ ministers, given the Code is formally issued in each new Prime Minister’s name accompanied by a personalised foreword preaching about the importance of upholding ‘the very highest standards of propriety’ (2019).
Yet the pre-eminence of the Ministerial Code in debates concerning the Prime Minister’s conduct also raises some important questions. In particular, in this blog post I want to consider whether the Ministerial Code is the best reference point by which to assess the Prime Minister’s actions, and what impact its central status could have on the debate around whether the Prime Minister should resign.
There are two key issues which make it questionable whether the Ministerial Code should be the primary tool for critiquing the conduct of the Prime Minister. First, the fact that the authority of the Code flows from the Prime Minister, and is therefore a statement of constitutional principles derived from the executive. Second, the specificity of the Code – and especially the rules concerning the provision of accurate information to Parliament – seems to invite quite technical analysis of the Prime Minister’s conduct, and even his state of mind, when assessing whether the legislature has been misled.
The PM as Arbiter of the Code
First, it is made explicitly clear that the Ministerial Code is the Prime Minister’s document, and it is for the Prime Minister to apply and enforce: ‘Ministers only remain in office for so long as they retain the confidence of the Prime Minister. He is the ultimate judge of the standards of behaviour expected of a Minister and the appropriate consequences of a breach of those standards’ (2019, para 1.6). This was also accepted by the High Court in the recent case of FDA v Prime Minister [2021] EWHC 3279 (Admin). While the court (dubiously, in my view) held that some questions relating to the Ministerial Code might be justiciable (in this case, the interpretation given to the concept of ‘bullying’), Lewis LJ and Steyn J acknowledged at para [60] that the Prime Minister was the ultimate decision-maker in relation to whether there had been a departure from the standards set out in the Code.
Of course, it has long been true that a Prime Minister has the decisive say over ministerial resignations. Writing in 1956, long before the publication of a Ministerial Code, the political theorist Samuel Finer – who was sceptical about the ‘constitutional folk-lore’ concerning the existence of a ‘supposed’ resignation convention – identified three factors which determined whether a minister would lose their office: ‘if the Minister is yielding, his Prime Minister unbending and his party out for blood’. If, as in the present circumstances, the minister under pressure is also the Prime Minister, then his or her decision-making effectively accounts for two out of three of these variables.
Yet if criticism of Boris Johnson’s conduct is made against the benchmark of the Ministerial Code, of which he is the stated arbiter, this sets up an accountability paradigm which is entirely premised on the fact that it is a matter of the Prime Minister’s own moral calculation whether to resign. If Finer’s third variable – the attitude of the political party – was already peripheral, in focusing on the text of the Ministerial Code it is written out of the picture.
This first limitation of accountability via the Ministerial Code is now partly being addressed by Parliament taking a greater role in the accountability process. The vote last week in the House of Commons to order an investigation into the Prime Minister’s statements to Parliament about the non-occurrence of parties in Downing Street is a welcome reminder that it is a matter for the Commons to determine whether a Prime Minister has misled the House. But while it will surely add to the overall political pressure on Johnson and the government, any such investigation remains some way off – pending the completion of the police investigation and the publication of Sue Gray’s full and final report – and the consequences of it are difficult to anticipate, especially if the Prime Minister manages to survive until that point. The Conservative Party has a majority on the Privileges Committee, which will carry out the investigation without its current chair Chris Bryant, who has recused himself on the basis of his previous criticism of Johnson. A vote on any recommended sanctions would then come back to the whole House, where the Conservatives also enjoy the protection of a substantial majority. And while potential sanctions include a (likely short) suspension from the Commons, the Privileges Committee could not instruct Johnson to resign as Prime Minister.
More importantly, Conservative MPs have not to this point lacked a formal means to remove the Prime Minister, which they could attempt through a no confidence vote in his leadership of the party or even in his government – instead, it has been the unwillingness of a majority of MPs to use these constitutional mechanisms which has ensured Johnson remains Prime Minister. But at least these parliamentary developments have refocused the debate and remind us that, in this case, whatever the text of the Ministerial Code may say, the Prime Minister does not have the exclusive power to determine his own fate.
Avoiding Technicalities
The second challenge raised by the pursuit of Prime Ministerial accountability by reference to the Ministerial Code is that it may be encouraging an unhelpfully technical approach to the rules which prohibit misleading Parliament. The relevant provision of the Code (which is replicated in a Commons resolution of 19 March 1997, Cols. 1046-47) says ‘It is of paramount importance that Ministers give accurate and truthful information to Parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity. Ministers who knowingly mislead Parliament will be expected to offer their resignation to the Prime Minister’ (2019, para 1.3(c)). This provision is unusual in the Code in identifying a specific potential sanction – resignation – for misleading Parliament. And there is also plenty here for those who are used to dealing with legal rules to get their interpretive teeth into, in particular the question of when an error will count as ‘inadvertent’, and what it means for a Minister to mislead Parliament ‘knowingly’.
The risk, however, is that focusing on the textual formulation of this rule encourages a legalistic approach which distracts from the underlying normative purpose of the principle that Ministers should not mislead Parliament. There will be rapidly diminishing returns from a debate about whether ‘knowingly’ means the Prime Minister must have intentionally or consciously lied to Parliament to violate the relevant norm, or whether having (or claiming to have) a misguided subjective belief that he was giving accurate information based on the assurances he had received would be sufficient to avoid a technical violation. It also, crucially, sets up the defence Johnson has already used to deny he misled Parliament – that it did not occur to him ‘then or subsequently’ that the gathering he attended to celebrate his birthday would be a breach of the law, so in that sense there has been no knowing deception.
Instead, when establishing whether the Prime Minister misled the Commons, his alleged state of mind need not be the decisive factor. The scale and significance of the misleading claims are also material, a point which emerges from the speech of Harold Macmillan in the debatefollowing the resignation of John Profumo for misleading the House of Commons in 1963: ‘I do not remember in the whole of my life, or even in the political history of the past, a case of a Minister of the Crown who has told a deliberate lie to his wife, to his legal advisers and to his Ministerial colleagues, not once but over and over again, who has then repeated this lie to the House of Commons’ (HC Deb 17 June 1963 vol.679, cols.54-55).
In relation to partygate, the current Prime Minister expressed a clear position, repeated in the House of Commons and elsewhere (on one count, the denials of rule breaking were made some 39 times), about a matter of major public significance, which has proved to be inaccurate. Going down the rabbit hole of whether the Prime Minister did or did not know that he was misleading the Commons is a distraction from the fact that, regardless, he ought to have known. Especially as the head of the government which enacted the relevant secondary legislation regulating the response to Covid-19, as the political leader responsible for communicating the need for and effect of these rules directly to the people, via television press conferences on a regular basis throughout the pandemic, or even simply (as we are frequently reminded) as a public figure who obtained an education from an expensive school and a leading university.
There is a recent precedent which reinforces this approach. In 2018, Amber Rudd resigned as Home Secretary having misled the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee over the existence of immigrant removal targets. The information she relied on was prepared by civil servants within her department, but in her resignation letter to the then Prime Minister Theresa May, Rudd wrote ‘I have reviewed the advice I was given on this issue and become aware of information provided to my office which makes mention of targets. I should have been aware of this, and I take full responsibility for the fact that I was not’ (emphasis added).
There are of course a multitude of factors which shape any ministerial resignation, and no doubt Rudd’s departure from office was influenced by other considerations. They include the objectionable nature of the removal targets which she had denied existed, wider public outrage about the deportation and denial of rights by the state of the generation of black Commonwealth citizens caught up in the Windrush scandal, and the fact that Rudd’s resignation might be viewed as a form of sacrificial accountability which protected her Prime Minister Theresa May, who as Home Secretary had been the leading architect of the hostile environment immigration strategy which led to Windrush.
Yet with all these caveats, Amber Rudd’s resignation shows that we need not get caught up in excessively technical arguments about the Prime Minister’s state of mind which are elevated in this debate by overfocusing on the written text of the Ministerial Code. In constitutional terms, this is a precedent which indicates the Prime Minister should be expected to resign.
Nevertheless, even in a situation where 78% of the public do not believe the Prime Minister’s claims, there is no authority which can compel him to accept this conclusion and resign (although as Alison Young points out, there are still consequences for him to bear in the meantime, in the form of vociferous political criticism). Looking beyond the Ministerial Code, however, at least allows us to construct the argument that the “it never crossed my mind” defence is an inadequate defence – constitutional principles have been violated, because the Ministerial Code is not exhaustive or determinative of the Prime Minister’s obligations to Parliament.
Conclusion
The Ministerial Code is a valuable document in clarifying many standards applicable to government ministers in an accessible way. But over-emphasis on the Ministerial Code as the central instrument of political accountability generates some challenges.
If the Ministerial Code becomes a de facto replacement for the deeper constitutional conventions of ministerial responsibility, rather than a supplement to them, it imports a key structural problem: it emphasises the PM–Cabinet accountability relationship over the government–Parliament accountability relationship. This is especially problematic when it is the Prime Minister whose conduct is the subject of scrutiny, as well as being the formal source of these ethical rules within government. Reliance on the Ministerial Code as the primary vehicle for establishing ministerial standards also demonstrates that, as well as generating the potential for accountability, the existence of precise written rules can be a limitation if those rules are susceptible to being interpreted narrowly.
These tensions are evident in the debate about whether the Prime Minister should resign over partygate. The Ministerial Code is obviously not the main problem in the UK constitution at present, but it is nevertheless worth considering how a shift in constitutional discourse might create some scope for more effective accountability in practice.
I’m very grateful to Alison Young for her comments on an earlier draft of this post.
Mike Gordon, Professor of Constitutional Law, University of Liverpool
This post was originally published on the UK Constitutional Law Blog. Republished with the permission of the author.
(Suggested citation: M. Gordon, ‘The Prime Minister, the Parties, and the Ministerial Code’, U.K. Const. L. Blog (27th Apr. 2022) (available at https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/))
Dr Louise Thompson is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Manchester. She is the author of Making British Law: Committees in Action (Palgrave), co-editor of Exploring Parliament (OUP) and the journal Parliamentary Affairs, and is the recent winner of the PSA’sRichard Rose Prize, which is awarded to an early career scholar who has made a distinctive contribution to British politics.
Please tell us a little bit about how you entered academia and your academic career
I started my undergraduate degree in British Politics and Legislative Studies at Hull University in 2003. It was fab, but after a placement year at Westminster with Labour MP Ed Balls just after the 2005 General Election I thought “proper” politics was the place to be. I worked at the Smith Institute for six months when I graduated, then as an opposition researcher for the Labour Party for a couple of years. I did an online MA part time (also at Hull) while I was working at the Labour Party and then came back to Hull properly to do my PhD. And that was that.
Which five books/articles (written by someone else) have been most important to you in your academic career?
The British Polity (Philip Norton) I read this as an A Level student and honestly, I used to carry that book everywhere. I bought it from a Politico’s catalogue I think when I first started sixth form.
Parliamentary Scrutiny of Government Bills (JAG Griffith): A super super book that inspired my PhD. I still use it all the time.
J Blondel et al, ‘Legislative Behaviour: Some steps towards a cross party measurement’, Government and Opposition, Vol. 5 (1) 1970, pp. 67-85: As above, the idea of viscosity was the basis of my PhD research. I got an email from Jean out of the blue a few years ago. He’d read one of my articles about the SNP at Westminster and we had lunch together to chat about it. Amazing.
Legislatures (Philip Norton ed): As a undergraduate student at Hull this was THE book to get your hands on. It was out of print and we’d all try to find it on amazon but it was always over a £100 for a second hand copy. When we were on placement in parliament my course mate (and now husband) got it out of the House of Commons library and we (kind of illegally) photocopied the whole thing. Apologies to the Commons library. We are very sorry. I’ve still got the photocopy in a folder in my office and I use it all the time. But I did also finally manage to get an amazon copy for a fiver. It only took about 15 years of waiting.
Which person has been most influential and important to you in your academic career?
There’s a bit of a Hull theme to all these answers, It has to be the one and only Cristina Leston-Bandeira. When I went to the Hull University open day my mum embarrassed me in front of her and Lord Norton (I still cringe about that). Cristina taught me from my very first week as an undergraduate student and I can still remember so many of her tutorials. If I needed any help, she was always the one I would go to. She taught me on my MA and became one of my PhD supervisors. I used to describe her as my academic ‘mum’ – holding my hand through everything and cheering me up/ taking me out for lunch when I was miserable. When I had my first baby she came round to my house with baking. When I’ve had rejections at work she’s always the one with the smiling face and the good advice. She’s my best mate and god mum to my eldest daughter, Alba. Alba knows her only as ‘Portuguese Cristina’. In fact, in our house she is known only as Portuguese Cristina, or CLB. Hopefully she knows how special she is to us all!
What is the first or most important thing you tell your students about parliaments?
That they are NOT government!
Where were you born, where did you grow up, and where do you live now?
I was born in Keighley, West Yorkshire. I lived there with my mum and my sister until I went to University. I’ve moved around a lot since then (London, back to Hull, Kent, London again, back to Hull, Surrey, Kent again, then Sheffield). I’m still in Sheffield right now, but about to move back to where I grew up. I’m surrounded by boxes as I write this.
What was your first job?
I got a job working in Greggs when I was about 17 because I wanted to save up for a laptop for when I went to university. I worked Saturdays plus one evening in the week to clean the shop. At the end of the day we could buy the leftover cakes for about 10p each so I’d bring them all home. I still love Greggs. I took the kids there today! I had a paper round at the same time that I hated. My dad is a mechanic and I used to wash ALL the cars on the garage forecourt where he worked each week in the school holidays for a tenner, with my sister. It took us ages.
What was the toughest job you ever had?
I used to do temp work over the summer holidays and one summer landed a job as an arrears chaser for a mortgage company. That was really horrid.
Working at the Labour party during the MP expenses scandal was also a tough one. Being asked to scroll through Conservative MP expense claims to look for daft items was the point at which I realised that politics was not for me.
What are your hobbies?
They mainly revolve around the kids at the moment. I like baking when I have time (anything but biscuits, I just can’t make biscuits) and I read a lot on the train to work. I do some volunteering for the Breastfeeding Network. In a couple of months I’ll be starting some shifts on the National Breastfeeding Helpline.
What are your favourite novels?
The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. I read this book as a student on placement and decided while reading it that if I ever had a daughter I would name her Alba, after the little girl in the book. My very own Alba is now 8 years old and just as independent and feisty as her namesake.
Recent books I’ve really liked are The Silence of the Girls (Pat Barker) and The Binding (Bridget Collins). I read all sorts of random stuff though, usually on the train to Manchester.
What is your favourite film?
Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Best final scene of any movie.
What is your favourite tv show?
My favourite question of them all. As a teenager I became the biggest fan of the 80s TV programme The A Team. Still love it. And I have a massive collection of A Team memorabilia stored in my mum’s attic that I don’t think she is very keen on me leaving there. I keep a Mr T badge in my kitchen drawer that always has (and still does) come with me for anything important – exams, interviews, driving tests. It’s my good luck charm, even though it doesn’t always bring me good luck. It came to five driving tests with me!
I also watch far too much Netflix while I’m ironing. I have a LOT of ironing. I love sci fi programmes –Star Trek, Shadow and Bone, Stranger Things etc. Anything with vampires (I know, I’m totally sad) – I watched Discovery of Witches over the Christmas holidays which was fantastic. Bridgerton, The Gilded Age etc are also guilty pleasures.
What is your favourite holiday destination?
I’m not the sort of person who gets excited about holidays but everyone else in my house does. My husband loves Cyprus, as do the kids, so we’ve been there a lot. Iceland (pre-children!) was also beautiful.
Hybrid proceedings in Parliament: yes please or no thanks?
Yes, definitely. But done in the right way.
Appointed or elected upper chamber?
Appointed (I was Lord Norton’s student. How could I answer anything else?!).
Restoration or Renewal?
Both.
Cat or Dog?
Cats. Always cats. We have one big fluffy one called Flower.
Fish and chips or Curry?
Depends, I love both, but if it’s curry it’s got to be veggie dhansak.
Trains, planes or automobiles?
Cars if they’re electric. Love trains. Hate flying.
Scones: Devonshire or Cornish Method?
Neither because I really don’t like cream. It’s jam only for me unless I’m feeling brave.
And, finally, a question asked by Seth, who is 9 and a half: What was your favourite subject at school and why?
Geography. I had the best geography teacher, Glenda Priestnall who made me obsessed with rivers, volcanoes, earthquakes etc and took us on fieldtrips to the coast to study the sand dunes. If I hadn’t done politics, I would have done a geography degree.
