In addition to their floor debates, a crucial role of legislatures is to scrutinise government law-making and policy implementation. The House of Commons looks at legislation via bill committees, and its select committees cover each of the Whitehall departments to scrutinise implementation. As part of the 2018 Audit of UK Democracy, Patrick Dunleavy and the Democratic Audit team consider how well current processes maintain parliamentary knowledge and scrutiny of the central state in the UK and England.
Tag: diversity
Sarah Childs, Professor of Politics and Gender, Birkbeck College University of London and Distinguished Visiting Researcher, University of Auckland, discusses progress on implementing the recommendations of her report The Good Parliament two years on from its publication.
In the latest blog from our Legislatures in Uncertain Times conference, Anouk Berthier (Scottish Parliament) and Hugh Bochel (University of Lincoln) discuss their research into the diversity of witnesses to committees in the Scottish Parliament.
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Promoting Gender Equality in Parliaments
By Jacqui Smith and Kristen Sample
Women account for half of the global population, yet represent less than a quarter of the world’s parliamentarians. The causes behind this imbalance are myriad and multi-faceted, based on culturally rooted gender norms, political institutions, and economic disparities. In other words, a woman who is elected to parliament has beaten the odds.
By Sarah Childs
Lots of people have to plenty to say about what is wrong with the UK parliament. Many do so at some distance from the Palace of Westminster. The Good Parliament report, launched on 20 July, is the culmination of a year working intimately with members and with House officials: its 43 recommendations are guided by this experience and expertise and offer a ‘menu of reforms’ that when implemented would meet the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s gender sensitive parliament status. Indeed, the report goes beyond this approach in developing and setting out proposals to deliver a diversity sensitive parliament.