PSA ParliamentsIn their nearly-eponymous 1995 hit, Reverend Black Grape, I’m a Celebrity runners-up and Bargain Hunt cheats, Black Grape, asked ‘Can I get a witness?’ In 2019, why is it that some select committees seemingly find it difficult to get female witnesses to give evidence at their sessions? Some of the answer may well be found in the gendered make-up of the committees themselves.
At a time of significant structural change, the UK’s constitutional and political arrangements face unprecedented challenges. There are strong arguments to be made for increasing the level of scrutiny of constitutional reform by accountable bodies, particularly through the vehicle of the Parliamentary Select Committee. Yet, the number of Committees tasked with examining constitutional matters has decreased; in particular, the Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee was not re-appointed following the 2015 General Election. Drawing on a detailed case study of the work of this unique committee, Dr Eloise Ellis examines the implications of its dissolution for the parliamentary scrutiny of constitutional reform more broadly.
How can we judge success or failure in relation to e-petitions to Parliament? Dr Catherine Bochel discusses a framework for assessing e-petitions, drawn from research in the National Assembly for Wales and Scottish Parliament.
Drawing on the History of Parliament’s oral history project, Emmeline Ledgerwood discusses the thought processes and critical influences that drove or inhibited their political aspirations of women who served as MPs in the 1970s, 80s and 90s.
In a blog from our recent Making Sense of Parliaments conference, Thales Torres Quintão develops a framework for the justifications and meanings in the development of participatory policies in legislatures.
On Tuesday 4 December the UK Government was found to be in contempt of Parliament. Dr Andrew Defty explains how this unprecedented situation occurred.
In a new blog from our Making Sense of Parliaments conference, Lawrence McKay investigates the effects of how MPs communicate on constituents’ awareness of their MPs.
In the first blog from our Making Sense of Parliaments conference, Matt Williams, Jonathan Jones and Ruth Dixon draw on computer-assisted methods of analysis adapted from biological sciences and natural language processing to show how the text of the EU (Withdrawal) Bill was altered through its parliamentary passage; how government and non-government amendments to the Bill differentially changed the text, and how the Bill’s language compares to other contemporary legislation.
In September the Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee published their report into Pre-Appointment Scrutiny Hearings. Robert Hazell gave evidence to the committee’s inquiry on the subject; here he discusses the report’s conclusions, and describes the events that led to its being undertaken, including two Constitution Unit studies that evaluated the effectiveness of such scrutiny.
Since payments for MPs were introduced early in the 20th century, the rhetoric used to justify them has changed markedly. Initially, writes Nicholas Dickinson, on a blog originally posted by Democratic Audit, any remuneration was almost always construed in terms of broadening democratic representation. Related to a landmark 1971 report, however, MPs increasingly began to be depicted as political professionals. This change in framing allowed salaries to increase, but at the cost of lasting public ambivalence.