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Petitions Committee, the most significant reform since 1979 – did you notice it?

By Cristina Leston-Bandeira

Remember the week of the cash-for-access scandal? It was the same week as the infamous interview with Green Party leader Natalie Bennett and the Labour party’s announcement of its policy on university fees. No doubt you remember these. This was also the week when the House of Commons passed a motion to set up a Petitions Committee. Remember that? No, didn’t think so. It is no surprise that in the midst of it all, little notice was given to a motion creating a new Committee. This may seem a small decision of little consequence for wider party politics, however it does signal an important moment in the UK parliament. As was said in the debate: “if we, as Parliament, got this right, it would be the most significant reform since the setting up of Select Committees in 1979”.

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Simpler language in Parliament must go hand in hand with simpler processes

By Louise Thompson

One of the key targets outlined in last month’s Digital Democracy Commission report was that the House of Commons should make sure that everyone can understand what it does. One of the examples it gave to demonstrate this was the rather arcane language still used during Parliament’s scrutiny of legislation. As someone who spends most of their time reading bill committee transcripts, I completely understand where they are coming from. How can we expect members of the public to know what MPs mean when they ask to ‘move’ or ‘speak to’ an amendment? Or what it actually means if a clause ‘stands part of a bill’ or an MP asks to ‘beg leave to withdraw the amendment’? And this is all before we get to starred amendments, manuscript amendments and clause stand part debates. Such language, the report says, is a ‘barrier to understanding’.

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Rip It Up and Start Again: Parliamentary Politics, Destruction and Renewal

This blog was originally posted on the Oxford University Press website.

By Matthew Flinders

‘London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down; London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady’. ‘Oh no it’s not!’ I hear you all scream with oodles of post-Christmas pantomime cheer but Parliament is apparently falling down. A number of restoration and renewal studies of the Palace of Westminster have provided the evidence with increasingly urgency. The cost of rebuilding the House? A mere two billion pounds! If it was any other building in the world its owners would be advised to demolish and rebuild. Let’s design for democracy – Let’s do it! Let’s rip it up and start again!

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What can Open Data do for Parliament?

By Ben Worthy

Last week the Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy reported. Among its recommendations were that Hansard, the Register of Members’ interests and all bills should be released as Open Data by the end of 2015 (see Recommendation 31 here). But what is open data and, more importantly, what does it mean for Parliament?

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Reflections on the Speaker’s Digital Democracy Commission Report

By Cristina Leston-Bandeira

Today’s launch of the report of the Speaker’s Digital Democracy Commission (DDC) marks the end of an extraordinarily interesting year for us Commissioners. The DDC was established by the Speaker of the House of Commons to explore the potential of digital technology to support a modern and inclusive parliamentary democracy. Throughout the year we have collated evidence, listened to people and organised workshops across the whole of the country from all walks of life, as well as internationally. The Report reflects this. It shows the diversity of views we have received on many issues from the making of legislation to the language of parliament.

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In Defence of Prime Minister’s Questions

Please note that this blog piece was originally published on the Crick Centre blog on 21 January 2015, and is available here.

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg’s suggested this week that prime minister’s questions should be abolished. Today we follow up our blogs on BBC Democracy Day by responding to Clegg’s comments. Marc Geddes, Associate Fellow of the Crick Centre disagrees with Clegg, arguing that he misunderstands how the drama of PMQs helps the public understand how politics works.

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Do Irish Voters Love Bicameralism?

By Muiris MacCarthaigh and Shane Martin

In a referendum held in October 2013, voters in the Irish Republic were given the opportunity to abolish the Irish Senate (Seanad Éireann). What was meant to have been a populist centrepiece of political reform for the governing coalition ultimately produced a surprising outcome: Irish voters, despite being heavily disillusioned with the political system and political elites, voted to retain bicameralism, albeit on a turnout of just under 40 percent and by a thin margin (51.7 voted to retain the Seanad).

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A driver’s guide to parliaments and political reform in the Arab World

By Dr Sue Griffiths and Sameer Kassam

Parliaments in the Arab world were dismissed prior to 2011 as rubber-stamps for their regimes, and afterwards as too dysfunctional to warrant serious consideration, but their stories since have reflected broader trends in those countries.

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Hardcopy or #Hashtag: Young People’s Vision for a Digital Parliament

By Cristina Leston-Bandeira and Louise Thompson

About eight months ago, we got together to come up with an idea for Parliament Week. We’d recently taken over as the new Co-Convenors of the Political Studies Association’s specialist group for Parliaments and Legislatures, and we thought the group should be involved with this initiative. It fit right in with our strategy of promoting the study and understanding of parliament and, most importantly, it went beyond the academic community. Eight months later we were sitting in Portcullis House in one of Parliament Week’s prime slots, waiting for The Political Studies Association (our co-organisers) to arrive, along with over 100 sixth form students!

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“A model of good practice and innovation?”: The governance of the House of Commons

By Barry Winetrobe

The recent fiasco over the appointment of a House of Commons Clerk/Chief Executive has led to the appointment of a select committee on House governance chaired by Jack Straw.  It is tasked with reviewing this complex topic, especially allocation of the most senior responsibilities currently held by the Clerk/Chief Executive, and reporting to the House by 12 January 2015.

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