Tag: House of Commons

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Evidence on Stage? Comparing committee hearings in the UK House of Commons and German Bundestag

By Marc Geddes.

Parliamentary and legislative committees perform a range of roles, such as the scrutiny of legislation or accountability of government. Increasingly, committees are holding public hearings, which can be really important for MPs to gather relevant knowledge and evidence to support their work and fulfil committee tasks. In recent research, I spent time in the UK House of Commons and German Bundestag and interviewed MPs and staff to get a better understanding of whether committee hearings are important information-gathering tools. Given that these are often official and formal routes for parliaments to listen to stakeholders, these are prestigious and important and can be seen as ‘evidence on stage’.

In the House of Commons, the parliament has two committee systems. For scrutinising legislation, temporary bill committees are made up of 30 or so members, appointed by parliamentary parties, to go through proposed laws via public meetings with an optional evidence-gathering stage. For scrutinising policy and holding government to account, permanent select committees exist to shadow government departments. Made up of small groups of MPs – usually around 11 members – and elected by the party colleagues, they are often independent-minded spaces. Select committees conduct policy scrutiny through inquiries that include open calls for written evidence and public hearings with a variety of witnesses (e.g. scientists, business or trade union leaders, interest groups, etc.). Committee members deliberate in private to identify key conclusions and recommendations, to which government must respond (but is not forced to accept). Analysis has shown that around 40 percent of recommendations are accepted.

In the German parliament, permanent committees mirror government departments (plus some cross-cutting ones, such as a Petitions Committee). Committees are tasked with both examining legislation and with scrutinising policy. Committee size varies depending on the topic, but they are in general much larger than UK committees. For example, the Committee on Work and Social Affairs has 49 members. Members are appointed by parliamentary parties and take on the role of rapporteur, i.e. they are allocated specific portfolios within the committee’s wider remit. For example, in the Committee on Work and Social Affairs, one MP from each party will have responsibility for migration issues, another for pensions, etc. In general, Bundestag committee meetings are private but, especially since the 1980s, they have increasingly made use of public hearings. These can be used to invite experts to give evidence as part of scrutiny of legislative or policy proposals.

At first glance, both parliaments seem reasonably similar. But this masks considerable differences. In the UK, committees are supported by a secretariat of procedural and policy specialists, who write briefing papers for all members, suggest witnesses and analyse written evidence. Witnesses are usually identified on the basis of suggestions from members and especially the committee’s chair, in consultation with the advice from parliamentary officials (including the secretariat but also the House of Commons Library and the Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology). Bundestag committees, meanwhile, are also served by a secretariat, but their role is to offer procedural advice only. Witnesses are instead nominated by parliamentary parties, often via group leaders and rapporteurs, who’s own staff will undertake research and identify experts. The number of witnesses depends on the size of the parliamentary party. Witness lists are published, inclusive of the party that nominated them, so it is fully transparent who invited whom.

The two approaches by the House of Commons and the Bundestag push evidence-gathering in different directions. In the former case, hearings are usually organised in a non-partisan way, especially for select committees. In the latter, given the inbuilt party political considerations, the process sharpens political divisions. These differences are reinforced through other practices. Briefing packs in the House of Commons are produced by the parliamentary administration and shared with all members; these often serve as agendas and give suggestions for issues to probe. Witnesses are often given oral briefing by the inquiry manager so that the witness can adequately prepare. In the Bundestag, briefings are handled by the rapporteur within each parliamentary party, often in close collaboration with the party leadership teams. Witnesses are usually briefed by the relevant party, too, in terms of the kinds of points and questions the party wants to get across.

These dynamics mean that committee hearings in both parliaments operate differently. Questioning in the House of Commons can be very political, but it is rarely directly partisan. Indeed, many hearings – especially with experts – tend to be thematic and open-ended, which may be directed a the panel in general or at specific witnesses, and without time limits (though the chair may play an active role in directing questioning). Committee hearings in this context can allow for robust questioning of political and policy positions, and allow MPs to gather information and expert opinion on a range of issues. In the Bundestag, meanwhile, questioning dynamics are very different. MPs usually focus their questions only on witnesses that they have invited, and usually have a set amount of time to both pose a question and receive an answer (in committees I’ve observed, this was often three to five minutes). Consequently, hearings do not develop thematically or where responses can build on one another; there is no dialogue. The end result is that hearings are often used by MPs to confirm existing knowledge, legitimise pre-existing political positions, or criticise the government.

Given the often assumed centrality of committees, and the growing prevalence of hearings, understanding how these function and work on a daily basis is critically important. What does this mean for committee hearings as evidence on stage? In both settings, it is clear that expertise is used, but used differently. Borrowing from the work of Christina Boswell, it seems that committee hearings in the UK case are used more ‘instrumentally’, i.e., for their problem-solving functions, while in the German case to ‘substantiate’ and ‘legitimise’ policy positions.

What I have found so far is notably different to what we might expect. Given the UK’s wider adversarial political culture, replicated in many dynamics in the House of Commons (not least prime minister’s questions), and Germany’s consensus-seeking political system characterised by coalition governments and bargaining, we would have perhaps expected committee work to echo such cultural differences. And yet, they operate in opposing ways. We can explain this at least in part due to their parliamentary structures, whereby the German Bundestag is organised with reference to its parliamentary party groups and the UK House of Commons gives primacy to the individually elected representative.

However, there are deeper underlying issues at play. First, with respect to the parliamentary administration, for example, MPs in the UK are a lot more positive about the service provided by officials who are seen as trusted and impartial. In my interviews, German MPs were a lot more sceptical of the idea of neutrality, with many questioning whether anybody can ever be neutral. Second, MPs view their roles in the institutions differently. In the House of Commons, MPs are either part of the frontbench or backbench; and if the latter, they see themselves as independent-minded and with the freedom to focus on anything they want. In the Bundestag, MPs are allocated policy portfolios on behalf of their parliamentary parties, and so see themselves as becoming specialists and advocate for their party in respective debates and committees. This suggests a more general point of difference between the two parliaments, which have developed within different parliamentary traditions and therefore have developed different structures and organisational methods to achieve those results.

About the author

Dr Marc Geddes is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh, and Visiting Fellow, Institute for Parliamentary Research (IParl). His past area of research expertise focuses on parliamentary committees in the UK House of Commons. Since 2024, he has begun a new research project to compare how parliaments across Europe gather, analyse and make use of different types of knowledge to fulfil their democratic functions.

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Changes in UK executive-legislative relations: A Congressionalising House of Commons, 1997-2015

By Kento Ohara.

Literature on the changing nature of the UK constitution in recent years abounds. Although there is a widespread perception that the UK constitution has been undergoing some significant change recently, there is little consensus to date on how to conceptualise this change. In addressing this challenge and placing the UK’s recent constitutional developments in a comparative context, my project focuses on executive-legislative relations in the UK as the underlying dimension in the country’s recent constitutional evolution. This focus flows from the fact that the sovereignty of crown-in-parliament has been widely identified as the core of the UK constitution. To repeat the well-rehearsed phrase of the late English constitutional thinker Walter Bagehot, it is the ‘close union, the nearly complete fusion of the executive and legislative powers’ that is the ‘efficient secret’ of the (English) constitution (2009, p. 11). Notable recent developments within the UK’s sovereign parliament (especially the House of Commons) and its relationship with the executive branch include: major shake-ups in the Commons’ select committee system (Fisher 2015; Russell 2011), increasing number of rebellions within parliamentary parties (Cowley & Stuart 2012; 2014) and new legislation on the prime minister’s dissolution power (Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011; Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022). The role perception of MPs and their career patterns, amid the rise of ‘career politicians’ in UK politics, have also been said to be going through some transformation, influencing attitudinal changes on part of these politicians to a certain extent (Fisher 2015; Heuwieser 2018).

How then can we conceptualise these changes in UK executive-legislative relations, and how can we measure such changes empirically? My project seeks to address these questions by turning to the classic works of Polsby (1975, ch. 4) and Wilson (1885) on Anglo-American comparison of legislatures. Drawing on these influential studies on comparative legislatures, my project proposes the concept of ‘Congressionalisation’ of the UK House of Commons. It is argued that both institutionally and behaviourally, UK executive-legislative relations are incrementally becoming more similar to those observed between the US executive and congress.

Traditionally, the UK’s executive-dominated parliamentary system has been contrasted with the US presidential system, where Congress dominates the legislative process. Whereas in the UK the parliamentary majority, controlled by the executive, is vested with extensive agenda control and legislative power in its fusion-of-power model of government, under the US’s division-of-power constitution, the executive and legislative branches retain a much more significant degree of power to constrain each other in the legislative process (not to mention the heftier role of the judicial branch) (Bagehot 2009; Lijphart 1992; Wilson 1885).[i] This arrangement has created what the US political scientist Richard E Neustadt called a system where ‘separated institutions shar[e] power’ (1960, p. 39). This Anglo-American difference has long been noted by American and British constitutional thinkers, perhaps most notably by the future American president Woodrow Wilson, who decried the American system as a ‘congressional government’ (1885).

It was Polsby who picked up on these earlier observations on the different levels of policy-making influence legislatures have in Western democracies, and conceptualised the Westminster parliament as the ideal-type of an ‘arena’ legislature, in contrast to the ‘transformative’ Congress in the US (1975, pp. 278ff). In short, an arena legislature exercises very limited policy-making powers, whereas a transformative legislature enjoys a vital role in shaping policies. Following Wilson’s and other earlier observations, Polsby attributed this difference in policy-making influence of the UK and US legislatures primarily to the strength of their committees. Whilst the UK featured ad hoc standing committees to scrutinise bills, congressional committees yielded significant and effective policy influence. Indeed, some ‘mega-seat’ committees, such as the House Rules Committee, have acted as gateways for bills thereby exercising considerable agenda control, a power that is usually reserved for government ministers in the UK.

Polsby also proposed some preliminary hypotheses as to why some legislatures enjoyed larger policy-making influence than others. According to Polsby, it was the ‘character of parliamentary parties’ (emphasis added) that was related to the extent to which a legislature was ‘arena’ or ‘transformative’: the more coalitional, decentralised and flexible the parties, the more transformative the legislature.[ii] Among these characteristics, the first dimension (the extent to which parties are coalitional) related to the electoral parties, and the third dimension (flexibility) to the legislative parties, whilst the second dimension (the extent to which parties are decentralised) concerned both electoral and legislative parties. Hence, with respect to the internal working of legislatures, Polsby’s argument on the difference between the UK parliament and the US congress can be summarised into the following three key aspects:

  1. Committee strength: the US congress features stronger committees in terms of policy influence than the UK parliament.
  2. Agenda control: the US congress features a more decentralised, coalitional agenda control over its business than the UK parliament.
  3. Legislative parties: the US congress features parties that are more decentralised in terms of the distribution of legislative posts and more flexible (less party-disciplined) in terms of intra-legislative voting than the UK parliament.

My project argues that the UK parliament is indeed incrementally growing similar to this classic understanding of the US congress on these three dimensions, and seeks to corroborate the Congressionalisation argument by empirically measuring recent changes in these three aspects.

Existing studies do point to some recent developments in Westminster with regard to these three aspects. For example, studies have shown that with reforms to both public bill committees (legislative committees, formerly known as standing committees) and select committees (executive oversight committees), parliament is in a better position to scrutinise the government effectively (Levy 2009; Benton & Russell 2013). Especially in the case of select committees, these institutional innovations seem to have strengthened Parliament’s policy-making influence (Russell & Benton 2011; Lynch & Whitaker 2019). Although the UK government still retains unrivalled agenda control (a pledge made by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition to establish a House Business Committee in the House of Commons went unfulfilled), there now exists the Backbench Business Committee, which determines the topics to be debated during backbench business, giving parliamentarians more control over their own time (Matthews 2015). Distribution of legislative posts, such as select committee chairs and membership, has also become more decentralised, taking patronage away from the party whips (Fisher 2015; Russell 2011).

It is also important to note the behavioural changes on part of both MPs and the executive as well. Party cohesion in the House of Commons has waned in recent years with rebellions and government defeats becoming increasingly more common (Cowley & Stuart 2012; 2014). The preventive, as opposed to reactive, influence of Parliament has also manifested in the government’s approach to the legislative process, with the government’s Guide to making legislation explicitly advising ministers to anticipate potential dissent in Parliament (Cabinet Office 2022, pp. 159-160; see also Russell & Cowley 2016; Russell et al 2016). This is more akin to what we are used to see in the US context, where the executive branch is required to anticipate and bargain with congressional actors to achieve policy goals (e.g. Mayhew 1974, p. 107).

My project seeks to further this comparison of the British and American legislatures, especially on the flexibility dimension of legislative parties. I am devising new measures on divisions, i.e. intra-legislative voting, and on parliamentary speeches, that will allow me to trace behavioural changes of parliamentarians over time, especially in relation to Anthony King’s ‘modes’ of executive-legislative relations (1976). This will make a novel contribution to the literature on UK parliamentary reform and cross-national comparison of legislatures, as well as documenting the logic of Westminster’s evolution over recent years.

[i] Takayasu’s recent contribution highlights the changing roles of the judiciary and the House of Lords in the UK constitution as well, which he denotes as ‘Madisonianisation’(2018, in Japanese). My project focuses on the UK’s narrower executive-legislative relations.

[ii] Later studies have also confirmed that in parliamentary systems, having a coalition government is correlated with stronger parliamentary power to scrutinise the executive (Martin & Vanberg 2011; André et al 2016).

About the author

Kento Ohara is an MPhil student reading Politics (Comparative Government) at the University of Oxford. He is primarily interested in legislatures in parliamentary democracies, mainly in the UK, Germany and Japan, and how their internal procedures change over time.

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Necessary Women: pioneering women working in Parliament

By Mari Takayanagi.

Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, many people lived and worked in the Palace of Westminster. Some worked for the House of Commons or House of Lords, some were family members of office holders, and others were servants in households. This included many women. Indeed, at times female residents outnumbered male residents by nearly two to one: the 1911 census, for example, lists 67 women and 36 men living in the Palace of Westminster in addition to the suffragette Emily Wilding Davison who hid there in a cupboard overnight. There were also of course many staff who did not live in, an enormous variety of roles from Clerks to cleaners.

The presence of so many staff may be surprising, as Parliament is always equated in the general public mind with MPs and Members of the House of Lords debating in their chambers. Although some staff might play visible roles, such as the Doorkeepers in their uniforms and the Clerks sitting at the table, they appear almost as part of the furniture – blending in with the Gothic architecture, ritual and ceremony, rather than as individuals. Even more overlooked are the staff in less visible roles, including many women. 

But staff not only work in Parliament, they are also subject to the same kinds of employment and social issues as workers outside Parliament. Recent research by Rebecca McKee has examined ‘unsung heroes’, staff who work for MPs. The staff who work for the House of Lords and House of Commons are similarly unsung. My new book Necessary Women, co-authored with Elizabeth Hallam Smith, uses new archival research to provide the first ever history of women working in the Palace of Westminster. This approach helps reframe Parliament from a solely political workspace to a place of work more generally, highlighting women from all classes working in jobs reflecting gender roles in wider society.

I was delighted to share some of this research at the PSA Parliaments Annual Conference 2023. In this blogpost I’m going to focus on three pioneering women for whom the Second World War brought new opportunities in Parliament: Kay Midwinter, Monica Felton, and Jean Winder.

Kay Midwinter

In May 1940, shock rang around the House of Commons as a woman walked in and stood calmly on the floor of the House, looking around at her new workplace. This was Kay Midwinter, the first female Clerk in the House of Commons. Appointed to free up a man for war service, the ‘Girl Clerk’ as she was termed in the press –she was aged 32 – worked for the House of Commons National Expenditure Committee during the Second World War.  Previous experience of working with committees in the League of Nations in Geneva helped her to get the job. Highly praised by her managers and by Irene Ward and Joan Davidson, the female MPs on the committee, Midwinter worked particularly closely with Ward and Davidson on two reports, on the women’s armed services and women factory workers.

Midwinter later reflected on her time in the Commons as follows:

During the war I was standing behind the Speaker’s Chair about 5 or 6 yards from Churchill while he made all his famous war speeches. He used to glare at me as much as to say “What’s this woman doing?” but he never challenged me…. when it came to laying the Report on the table of the House – you know, my male colleagues said “Oh you’d better not do that, you know, it has never been done by a woman before!” So I said “Well, for that reason I’m going to do it!” So there we are. But really one was up against male prejudice throughout. Absolutely. There was never any question of promotion.

[Oral history recording, United Nations Career Records Project, Bodleian Library]

Not only promotion but pay, for Midwinter was paid less than half the rate of her fellow male Clerks doing the same job as her. Ward and Davidson expressed their opinion that she was ‘inadequately paid’ and she did receive a pay rise, although only to the ‘women’s equivalent’ of the male grade. She moved to the Foreign Office in 1943. After the war she went to work for the United Nations, first in New York and then back in Geneva, where she died in 1996.

Monica Felton

Like Kay Midwinter, Dr Monica Felton worked for the National Expenditure Committee in the House of Commons during the war as a fairly small part of a wider public career – but there the similarities end. Felton was as an elected Labour member of the London County Council, most unusual; Parliamentary staff would not usually have such a public party-political affiliation. She was appointed to the Commons as an economic advisor on the recommendation of Lewis Silkin, a Labour MP on the committee who had also previously been an LCC member.  He and Felton had a strong shared interest in town planning; her significance as a woman town planner has been studied by Mark Clapson.  Felton had a doctorate from the LSE and was previously a lecturer for the Worker’s Educational Association, where she was remembered by students as a Marxist. She worked in the Commons for 18 months before resigning with permission.

After the war, Silkin appointed Felton to be chairman of first Peterlee and then Stevenage New Town Development Corporations between 1949 and 1951. However, she was fired from Stevenage after going on an unauthorised trip to North Korea for the left-wing Women’s International Democratic Federation in 1951. It was a very controversial visit; on her return, she accused American, South Korean and even British troops of involvement in massacres of the Korean population and other atrocities, on Radio Moscow and in the Daily Worker, and was awarded the Stalin Peace Prize. The episode made her infamous and ruined her career in the UK. She made a new life for herself in India, where she died in 1970.

Jean Winder

Jean Winder was the first woman Hansard reporter. She fought a long battle for equal pay, and like Midwinter, was also assisted by Irene Ward MP. In August 1951, Ward stood up in the House of Commons chamber and said:

The House of Commons is run on the basis of equal pay… but there is one woman on the HANSARD staff in the Gallery, Mrs. Winder, who has not got equal pay… I have got Mrs. Winder’s permission to draw the attention of the House to what I consider is an intolerable constitutional position…

[House of Commons Debates, 2 August 1951, col 1710]

Jean Winder was appointed to House of Commons Official Report, known as Hansard, in January 1944 when the Editor was desperate for staff and unable to find a suitable man.  Like Midwinter, Winder was an immediate success in the Commons, highly rated, and performing exactly the same job as her male colleagues who were paid more than she was. Despite support all the way up to the Speaker, the Treasury refused equal pay. It took years of advocacy by Irene Ward before Winder finally achieved equal pay in late 1953. Ward supported Winder in private and in public over many years. This undoubtedly influenced Ward’s politics and relationships with political colleagues as she lobbied inside and outside Parliament.

In conclusion, the stories of Midwinter, Felton and Winder illustrate various themes of Necessary Women including opportunities brought by war, important relationships between staff and MPs, and struggles for equal pay. Sadly, these innovative Second World War appointments had no direct successors in the House of Commons. The next female Hansard reporter was not appointed until 1968, and further female Clerks did not follow until 1969. The indirect and direct contribution of these pioneering women to Parliamentary life and work deserves to be better known.

About the author

Dr Mari Takayanagi FRHistS is Senior Archivist at the UK Parliamentary Archives and a historian of women and Parliament. Her first book, ‘Necessary Women: the Untold Story of Parliament’s Working Women’, co-authored with Elizabeth Hallam Smith, was published in June 2023 by History Press.

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Making the Law Count: The UK Post-Legislative Gap

By Tom Caygill.

Over recent years, engagement in post-legislative scrutiny in Westminster has declined. A mixture of events (e.g. Brexit) and crises (e.g. Coronavirus) has pushed post-legislative review (by government departments) and, as a result wider, post-legislative scrutiny (undertaken by parliamentary committees) down the government and parliamentary agenda. In this blog post, I examine the nature of this decline, the wider reasons for it and suggest how we can move forward from here. As the UK Parliament is often placed on a pedestal as an example of how to approach post-legislative scrutiny, it is vital that it continues to lead by example.

In 2008, the UK Government agreed to introduce a systematic process of post-legislative review by government departments. Legislation would receive a departmental review within three to five years of that Act entering the statute books. Once such a review was completed, a memorandum containing its findings would be sent to the relevant departmental select committee in the House of Commons, for additional scrutiny. 

My 2021 report for the Westminster foundation for Democracy examined the extent and effect of post-legislative review and scrutiny between 2008-2019. Although it was rarely used to begin with, there was an increase in the number of published memoranda by government departments particularly between 2010 and 2015. This also coincided with an activist House of Commons Liaison Committee which was keen to ensure that select committee were undertaking a breadth of different forms of scrutiny (including post-legislative scrutiny).

The story since 2015 however has been a continued decline in the number of post-legislative reviews being undertaken by government departments which means fewer are being sent to House of Commons Select Committees. Although select committees do not need a government post-legislative review in order to initiate post-legislative scrutiny they are considered to be useful triggers to get select committees to consider undertaking post-legislative scrutiny.

Figure 1: Post-Legislative Reviews 2008-2023


Figure 1 shows the extent of the decline which has taken place since a peak in 2012. There are a number of factors which could be at play here. Two big factors slowing the pace of post-legislative review are Brexit and the Coronavirus pandemic which monopolised the intellectual capacity of government departments, for understandable reasons. This pushed post-legislative reviews off departmental agendas, but they have not returned to the agenda of government departments. Another factor potentially at play here is that between 2010 and 2015, the bulk of post-legislative reviews would fall upon the legislation of a previous government (from a different party). There is therefore likely to be a change in enthusiasm from reviewing your predecessors’ legislation rather than reviewing your own. In British politics, governments do not like to admit mistakes as they view it as a sign of weakness.

A further factor here, which coincides with the decline of post-legislative review, is that the House of Commons Liaison Committee since 2015 has taken a less proactive role in shaping the agenda of the committee system. This also means there is no one overseeing the agreement between the Cabinet Office and Committee Office made in 2008. For more information on the gap in scrutiny see my 2020 article on the UK post-legislative scrutiny gap.

There is also a lack of coordination in Whitehall. Lord Norton of Louth has submitted a number of parliamentary questions over recent months in order to identify why post-legislative review has seemingly ground to a halt (no post-legislative reviews have been published on www.gov.uk in 2023). From her answer on the 7th August (figure 2), the Minister makes clear that no further post-legislative scrutiny work is expected within government before the end of 2023.


Figure 2: Parliamentary Question from Lord Norton on post-legislative review currently taking place.


It does look like we will end 2023 without any post-legislative reviews having taken place. As noted above there is no oversight of this agreement which will only contribute to the lack of urgency from government to undertake these reviews.

The lack of co-ordination in Whitehall is also visible in her response (figure 3) to a follow up question from Lord Norton on the 27th September 2023.

Figure 3: Parliamentary Question from Lord Norton on which Acts the government considers eligible for post-legislative review.

The fact that the Cabinet Office does not hold information centrally does give away that there is at best limited coordination and oversight of what is happening in government departments in relation to post-legislative review. At the moment the future of post-legislative reviews does not look promising. Although I will note again that this does not prevent post-legislative scrutiny being undertaken. Indeed, special inquiry committees in the House of Lords will initiate an inquiry without a post-legislative review and then ask for one. Further to this, over the course of the last couple of sessions, there have been between 3-4 inquiries across both Houses. So while post-legislative scrutiny has not stopped, the number of inquiries has reduced.

So what might happen next? This of course could be corrected if there were to be a change in government following the 2024 General Election with a future Labour Government being more than happy to review Conservative legislation. However, we would face the same issue of enthusiasm draining as the term of office goes on. So doing nothing is likely to lead to a repeat of the past 15 years with a peak shortly after an election and then a steady decline.

A more proactive response is needed. There is a need for someone to start overseeing the process of post-legislative review and that should be from the parliamentary perspective as government departments will find reasons not to do them without parliamentary pressure. The Scottish Parliament’s Convenors Group (made up of committee convenors) has made post-legislative scrutiny a strategic priority for the sixth session of the Parliament, and this is having results with eight inquiries having been undertaken since the start of 2022 (and more in the pipeline), with two and a half years to go of this session. It looks set to break records in the parliament. A strategic focus can clearly make a difference and this could be something which returns to the House of Commons Liaison Committee or the House of Lords Liaison Committee (which decides which Acts will receive post-legislative scrutiny via special inquiry committees in the Lords). There have also been arguments for a dedicated joint post-legislative scrutiny committee to over see the process across both Houses but to also monitor the agreement between the Cabinet Office and the Committee Office. A simpler approach would be to create a dedicated space for post-legislative scrutiny on the UK Parliament website, in a similar way to which draft bills (for pre-legislative scrutiny) are featured on the ‘Bills & Legislation’ section of the website. This is also an approach undertaken by the Scottish Parliament. There is also an argument that after 15 years, this agreement is in need of review (indeed many in Westminster argue that these reviews should take place 10 years after passage rather than 3-5 years). This is something that either a dedicated committee or one of the Liaison Committees could do. It is clear from the perspective of the House of Commons (in particular) that there is more work to do to institutionalise post-legislative scrutiny in Westminster. As we approach the end of the 2019 Parliament, this is an important time to reflect on the progress made since 2008 while recognising the need to enhance post-legislative scrutiny further.  

About the author

Tom Caygill is a Senior Lecturer in Politics at Nottingham Trent University

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Parliamentary scrutiny: what is it, and why does it matter?

Parliamentary scrutiny is at the heart of UK politics. In this post, Meg Russell and Lisa James examine the four key methods of parliamentary scrutiny, and offer proposals on how to strengthen it, calling for better behaviour by government and strong engagement from backbenchers.

Background

Parliament lies at the heart of UK politics. The legislature is a core institution in any democracy, but is particularly important in the UK, due to our tradition of ‘parliamentary sovereignty’. The government is dependent on the confidence of the House of Commons, which can potentially remove it from office. Parliamentary consent is required for primary legislation, and parliament is a particularly central and important body in holding ministers to account day-to-day.

This makes scrutiny – the detailed examination of policy proposals, actions and plans – one of the essential roles of parliament. Other functions include representation, and serving as a space for national debate – which in turn feed into parliament’s scrutiny function.

This briefing summarises why parliamentary scrutiny matters, what different kinds of parliamentary scrutiny exist at Westminster, some recent concerns about the decline of scrutiny, and ways in which it can be protected and strengthened.

Why does parliamentary scrutiny matter?

The government is responsible for much day-to-day decision-making, in terms of national policy formulation and implementation. But the government itself is not directly elected, and depends for its survival on the continued confidence of the House of Commons. This makes parliament one of the central checks and balances in the constitution – arguably the most central one of all. To provide government accountability, one of the core functions of parliament is scrutiny.

Parliament is a very public arena, with debates televised and transcribed on the public record. Hence parliamentary scrutiny means that ministers must justify their policies in front of an audience, which provides transparency and accountability, and helps to ensure that policies are seen as legitimate.

Crucially, parliament contains many and varied political voices. MPs are elected from diverse constituencies all over the UK, and represent different political parties. The House of Lords includes members from a wide range of backgrounds, many of whom are independent of political party, and some of whom are respected experts in their field. Parliamentary debates, and other mechanisms such as committee calls for evidence, also enable specialist groups and individual citizens to hear about policy and feed in their expertise, evidence and concerns. All of this ensures that different perspectives are heard in parliament when considering government policy.

The mere existence of parliamentary scrutiny, given its public nature and diverse contributors, can have an important effect. Even where nothing visibly changes as a result (e.g. if a government bill remains unamended) studies show that ‘anticipated reactions’ are important. Policy is more carefully thought through because ministers and officials know that it will be scrutinised by parliament. Hence scrutiny improves the quality of decision-making; and if it is lacking, policy may be poorer as a result.

What are the key forms of parliamentary scrutiny?

Scrutiny takes place both in the Commons and in the Lords, and both on the floor of the chamber and in various kinds of committees. At Westminster, even processes not focused directly on government policy require a ministerial response. Scrutiny and accountability thereby come through numerous mechanisms. These same forums also to some extent subject opposition parties to scrutiny, in the sense that they too must set out their own views on the public record.

The key forms and venues for scrutiny are set out below. In a number of these areas there have been recent concerns expressed about weakness or decline in scrutiny, which deserve attention.

1. Scrutiny of legislation

Most obviously, parliament conducts scrutiny of government legislation, and also of private members’ bills, with slightly different mechanisms operating in the Commons and the Lords.

Despite occasional backbench rebellions resulting in visible government climbdowns, scrutiny in the Commons is often seen as weak. But this can be overstated, given that ministers think carefully about the acceptability of bills to MPs before they are introduced. Changes in the Lords also often respond to concerns raised (including behind the scenes) in the Commons.

Nonetheless, adequate bill scrutiny depends on government cooperation. Ministers must ensure that bills are in good shape before introduction, and (given government’s extensive control of the Commons agenda) allow sufficient time for debate. They also need to be willing to listen and respond to reasonable points made by parliamentarians. There have been recent concerns about bills being rushed, and about late government amendments.

There are various known weaknesses in the legislative scrutiny process. Commons public bill committees are temporary and nonspecialist, unlike in many other legislatures, and the process of evidence-taking could be improved. Meanwhile, there is no formal evidence-taking stage for bills introduced in the Lords, or that have their committee stage in the Commons on the floor. This limits opportunities for expert input.

Perhaps the biggest concern in recent years has been about the growing use of delegated (or ‘secondary’) legislation, and increasing powers delegated to ministers in bills. This legislation receives very limited parliamentary scrutiny, raising clear accountability gaps if it implements major policy. Particular controversies emerged in this area during the Covid-19 pandemic, but overuse of delegated legislation has long been criticised, including by parliamentary committees, and expert groups such as the Hansard Society.

2. Parliamentary questions and government statements

Written and oral questions in both chambers put ministers on the spot about policy. Aside from scheduled questions, more ad hoc urgent questions allow sustained questioning on a topic, and their use has grown in recent years. Voluntary government statements take a similar form – and when not offered on key topics may trigger an urgent question.

Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) are the highest profile forum and have long been subject to criticism for their ‘bearpit’ and adversarial nature. They attract attention, but are unrepresentative of most forms of questioning, which can be more constructive but are lower profile. There are regular calls to reform PMQs but even they may have important ‘anticipated reactions’ functions.

The Cabinet Manual states that ‘the most important announcements of government policy should, in the first instance, be made to Parliament’, but there have been many recent complaints about ministers flouting this rule. This again occurred particularly frequently during the pandemic, but has continued – often to the displeasure of the Commons Speaker. Making major announcements outside parliament denies the opportunity for the kind of sustained questioning and democratic accountability that occurs when making announcements to MPs. Follow-up statements or urgent questions sometimes follow, but may be lower profile.

3. Opposition, backbench and adjournment debates

Parliament holds various kinds of debates in non-government time, including Commons backbench business debates, opposition day debates and adjournment debates. Irrespective of the topic, ministers must always appear and explain the government’s position, creating additional accountability. Often such debates are directly focused on government policy, and/or on topics that ministers would prefer to avoid.

Backbench business debates and opposition day debates may result in a vote on a substantive motion. In recent years there have been criticisms of the government’s relatively new practice of instructing MPs to abstain on opposition motions. Although decisions in these votes are not enforceable, the House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, has suggested that this shows a ‘lack of respect for the House’.

These two forms of debate are guaranteed a minimum number of days per session in standing orders. But recent years have seen a number of long sessions (2010–12, 2017–19, 2019–21), which gives excessive control to the government over their scheduling.

4. Select committees

The select committees are seen as jewels in Westminster’s crown. They are unusual in international terms for conducting extensive and careful non-legislative scrutiny, for their nonpartisan ethos, and for generally producing unanimous reports. Committees in the Commons mostly shadow government departments, while those in the Lords are more crosscutting.

Committees gather expert and other evidence (including some recently using citizens’ assemblies to elicit considered public views). Ministers are often called to give evidence to the committees, as well as the government being required to respond to their reports. There have been occasional concerns about ministers cancelling committee appearances, but this is the exception.

Research shows that, while the select committees have little ‘hard power’ to force changes, they can be influential through putting topics onto the political agenda, feeding valuable evidence into wider debates, and having an ‘anticipated reactions’ effect – through forcing ministers to consider policy carefully, because they know they may have to publicly explain it to committees later.

In the Commons, select committee structures are routinely changed when government departments are reorganised. This can cause concerns – for example most recently when the abolition of the International Trade Committee left little opportunity for scrutiny by MPs of important international agreements (though such scrutiny remains in the Lords).

How can parliamentary scrutiny be strengthened?

There have been some welcome changes to mechanisms for parliamentary scrutiny in relatively recent years, such as the election of House of Commons select committee members and chairs (since 2010), and introduction of evidence-taking by Commons public bill committees (in 2006).

But this briefing has mentioned various weaknesses in parliamentary scrutiny processes, including recent concerns about decline – for example through primary legislation being rushed or subject to late government amendments, and an overreliance on delegated legislation. Recent polling shows that the public wants new laws to be subject to full parliamentary scrutiny. Improved government behaviour could make a good deal of difference in this area, but the Hansard Society has also proposed procedural changes.

Proposals exist for strengthening Commons public bill committees – e.g. by injecting greater permanence and specialism – and for publishing more government bills in draft. The Commons Procedure Committee has proposed improvements to the private members’ bill process.

Government control of the House of Commons agenda creates weaknesses, including over the timetabling of bills, ministers’ ability to withhold backbench and opposition days, and parliament’s inability to recall itself from recess. The Constitution Unit has proposed changes in this area.

Fundamentally, improved scrutiny depends on better behaviour by government, but also on strong engagement by backbenchers and other non-government parliamentarians. Even seemingly ‘toothless’ scrutiny mechanisms can have important effects, by subjecting government policy to public exposure and debate. Both government and non-government parliamentarians therefore have important responsibilities to maintain the system of parliamentary scrutiny – in order to uphold good quality government decision-making, and the legitimacy of politics in the eyes of the public.

This blog is part of the UCL Constitution Unit’s briefing series designed to inform policy-makers and the public about key constitutional issues and democratic debates. Our briefings draw on international evidence and examine both long-term trends and current developments in the UK. This is part of our project on constitutional principles and the health of democracy.

It was originally published on the Constitution Unit’s blog and is re-published here with thanks.

About the authors

Meg Russell FBA is Professor of British and Comparative Politics at UCL and Director of the Constitution Unit.

Lisa James is a Research Fellow at the Constitution Unit.

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Is confrontational questioning bad for parliaments and democratic politics?

Parliamentary procedures such as Prime Minister’s Questions in the UK or Question Time in Australia are often criticised for their contentious style of debate. Ruxandra Serban compares questioning procedures in the UK, Australia, Canada and Ireland, and discusses whether a confrontational style has negative consequences for parliaments and for democratic politics.

Parliamentary questions are a well-known feature of politics, and procedures such as Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) in the UK, Question Period in Canada, and Question Time in Australia are at the centre of public perceptions of parliament. These procedures receive more attention than their European equivalents, which are considered less ‘interesting’ than the theatrical antics of PMQs. But they are also criticised for being too combative, with the implication that the confrontational dialogue seen during PMQs or Question Time is detrimental to parliament and for politics more broadly. Recently, the new Leader of the House in Canada also promised to change the adversarial character of Question Period. But how confrontational are these procedures, and why? Does confrontational questioning have negative implications for parliament and for democratic politics? And, importantly, what can be done about it?

How confrontational are different questioning procedures?

PMQs in the UK is notoriously conflictual, with numerous studies documenting face-threatening strategies, incivility, and personal attacks in questions and answers. But how does confrontational language at PMQs compare with similar procedures in other parliaments? To investigate this, I looked at four similar parliaments, during four comparable premierships: Enda Kenny in Ireland (2011-16), David Cameron in the UK (2010-15), Julia Gillard in Australia (2010-13), and Stephen Harper in Canada (2006-8). Taken in pairs, the four premierships are of a similar duration, with both Cameron and Kenny having a term of about five years, and Gillard and Harper of about two. All four led similar types of government: coalition governments in the UK and Ireland, and minority governments in Australia and Canada.

I sampled a set of 30 questioning sessions for each case-study, amounting to 3,212 parliamentary questions. Each question was labelled based on whether or not it included a conflictual remark, understood as explicit instances of an MP criticising the government, a political party, policy, or the Prime Minister.

During the periods analysed, the Canadian Question Period was the most confrontational, with 75% of questions including a conflictual remark. The Australian Question Time came second, with 44%, and the UK’s PMQs third, with 40%. Oral Questions to the Taoiseach was much less conflictual, with only 13% of questions including a critical comment. Although some of these patterns may be related to the context of each premiership, my new research shows similar findings apply to the Trudeau premiership, during which around 80% of questions to the Prime Minister included a conflictual remark. Ongoing conversations about excessively contentious questioning in Canada, Australia and the UK suggest that things have definitely not improved over time.

Why do MPs use conflictual remarks in their questions?

To understand why MPs pursue confrontational questioning, we need to look at the incentive structure of oral parliamentary questions. Questioning time is scarce, and oral questions to the Prime Minister in the parliamentary plenary (a meeting open to all MPs, usually in the Commons chamber) is the most visible political event of the week. In the media spotlight, political parties have an opportunity to embarrass their opponents, and also to put their side at an advantage in the competition for issue ownership and votes at the next election. Recent studies have documented how parties amplify their attacks in questions in the run up to an election. There is, hence, a clear incentive for both government and opposition parties to control how MPs ask questions, and to ensure a cohesive questioning strategy.

Who gets to ask questions at Question Period in Canada and Question Time in Australia is, to an important extent, controlled by political parties. In both cases, parties have ‘tactics’ or strategy committees that plan questioning approaches and topics for each week. In Canada, although on paper questioning is spontaneous, party whips hand over a list of questioners to the Speaker before each Question Period. Similarly, in Australia, parties decide which of their MPs will ask questions at Question Time. MPs in leadership positions, such as the Leader of the Opposition and main party leaders, have precedence over backbenchers, and the latter must also follow the main questioning lines set by their party. Backbenchers on the government side are often reduced to asking ‘helpful’ questions, and rarely get to ask other questions, for example on matters relevant to their constituencies. In the UK, parties also strategise their questions for PMQs. The Leader of the Opposition undertakes weekly preparation with their team, which establishes the main attack lines for each PMQs session. Backbenchers also largely follow these lines, and occasionally receive questions planted by whips. However, the fact that government backbenchers do not always just ask helpful questions to the Prime Minister, but also pursue other topics, and are occasionally even critical of the government, suggests that PMQs is not as tightly controlled by parties as its Canadian and Australian equivalents.

This highly charged political atmosphere and winner-takes-all incentive structure leads to an adversarial questioning culture: whether in leadership or in backbench roles, MPs are socialised by their parties into a confrontational style of questioning, and whilst some might see this as a small, distinct part of their job, for others, especially for women and new MPs, it is intimidating and off-putting, and not a style of communication that would be admissible in other workplaces. The fact that confrontational questioning is an established part of the culture of some parliaments is also evidenced by the involvement of Speakers. In all four parliaments, Speakers mainly intervene to limit shouting and noise in the chamber, but rarely to limit confrontational questioning, unless unparliamentary language has been used.

Are confrontational questions bad for parliament and for democratic politics?

If questioning is perpetually dominated by conflictual language, what are the implications? In terms of what the public thinks, evidence is mixed. In the UK, surveys and focus groups reported that the aggressive nature of PMQs puts members of the public off politics. Similar evidence exists in Canada. But a study of oral questions in 22 countries found that questioning mechanisms that allow open, spontaneous and adversarial exchanges increase engagement with and attention to politics. Using an experimental design, another study found that watching PMQs does not decrease trust in parliament, and makes citizens feel better equipped to understand politics.

Whilst adversarial questioning may be seen as entertaining, and captures the attention of the public, it also normalises a type of negative, aggressive debating style, and paints a particular picture of what democratic politics looks like, and of what parliaments do. The snappy soundbites and shouting that define PMQs and Question Period contribute to a wider environment of negative language and interactions in politics. A growing body of literature spanning different countries has shown that the language and style of political debate have consequences for democratic politics, and can, for example, cultivate an increasingly polarised political environment. Parliaments are a space for the expression of disagreement among political actors. But the routine deployment of vicious insults is arguably not necessary to express disagreement with decisions of the government or Prime Minister, or with technical aspects of policy.

In terms of negative effects on parliament, the key question is whether the incentive structure that encourages conflictual questioning prevents MPs from using questions to scrutinise the government in a meaningful way. If oral parliamentary questions are dominated by political attacks, and MPs must play their parties’ game, there is less room for the kind of detailed scrutiny of the executive which parliaments must be able to perform. Confrontational questions also encourage confrontational answers, leading to a less than ideal deliberative interaction. Concerns about the role of procedures like PMQs in perpetuating negativity in politics should hence be taken seriously, as should the implications of adversarialism for scrutiny.

What can be done?

The incentive structure that leads to an adversarial questioning culture in some parliaments is difficult to dismantle, as it is also related to other components of the political framework, such as the electoral system. Unless parties agree to a ‘truce’ on confrontational questioning, it is difficult to see how meaningful change could happen. But questioning takes place within rules of procedure, and some procedural options can ensure that parliamentarians have both opportunities for spontaneous interaction and a ‘safety valve’ for the expression of conflict, as well as forums for a more focused dialogue with the Prime Minister or ministers, centred around requests for information and explanation.

Evidence from recent research suggests that spontaneous plenary questioning is the least conducive to focused scrutiny – MPs use the opportunity to ask questions on a wide range of topics, and to score political points. This is exacerbated in contexts that are highly party-controlled, like the Australian Question Time or the Canadian Question Period. On the other hand, closed questioning, with questions submitted in writing in advance followed by supplementary questions, creates a forum for more detailed scrutiny. The Irish Dáil provides an illustrative case for how these two types of questioning work together. Oral Questions to the Taoiseach is structured around closed questions, submitted in writing and in advance. Leaders’ Questions allows spontaneous questioning. The two procedures ensure that parliamentarians get both a chance for detailed scrutiny and long-term policy questions, and one for more spontaneous political interactions and topical questions. A similar effect can be achieved if the plenary procedure is complemented by a committee procedure. In the UK, the Commons Liaison Committee – which consists of the chairs of select committees –  complements PMQs with detailed scrutiny of the Prime Minister on a small set of topics, and ministers are questioned separately on a rota at Departmental Question Time.

For procedures to be truly complementary, they must have different features. If one includes closed questions, the other should include open questions; if one is in plenary, the other could be in committee. The Canadian House of Commons recently introduced a Prime Minister’s Question Time on Wednesdays, similar to the UK’s PMQs. The rest of the week, Question Period includes a set of ministers, as well as, occasionally, the Prime Minister. This is a change from the traditional model of Question Period, which included both the Prime Minister and ministers attending questioning every day. By only separating the questioning opportunity for the Prime Minister and not introducing any other procedural changes, the new PMQs turned out to be just as adversarial as the old Question Period model. MPs operate under the same set of rules, and have no incentive to change the style of questioning.

Another procedural element that singles out the Canadian Question Period as a puzzling case of excessive conflictual language is time limits. MPs are allowed 35 seconds to ask a question, and answers must comply with the same time limit. The Australian Question Time is similar, with a time limit of 30 seconds for questions. These are both outliers in the population of questioning procedures that include prime ministers, most of which allow a moderate time limit for questions of up to two minutes. In an environment that already encourages conflictual language, short time limits for questions and answers further incentivise a snappy remark that can make it into a social media clip, as opposed to meaningful scrutiny. Increasing the time limit for questions slightly may facilitate an interaction that allows more elaboration, and which is not exclusively focused on delivering the attack line.

Conclusion

Procedural solutions can ensure that parliament performs its functions well, and that the government is held to account, but they do not remove the broader problem. Adversarial questioning validates and contributes to a political culture of aggressive confrontation and constant negative campaigning. Instead of accepting this as a permanent feature, it is worth continuing to ask whether it is a type of politics that is desirable.

This blog draws on a recent article published in the British Journal of Politics and International Relations, entitled ‘Conflictual behaviour in legislatures: Exploring and explaining adversarial remarks in oral questions to prime ministers’.

About the author

Ruxandra Serban is an Associate Lecturer in Democratic and Authoritarian Politics at UCL.

This post was originally published on the Constitution Unit blog and is re-published here with thanks.

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Our Survey Says (Part 2): A Few Interesting Nuggets about Committee Prestige

By Stephen Holden Bates, Caroline Bhattacharya and Stephen McKay

Just like in Family Fortunes[i] but by chance rather than by design, 100 people responded to our survey[ii] about the prestige of different select committees (SCs) in the UK House of Commons (HoC).[iii]

From a score of one to five (with five being the most important), respondents were asked to rate the prestige of UK HoC SCs, permanent oversight committees of three main types: (i) Departmental, which scrutinise corresponding government departments; Domestic/Administrative, which are concerned with various aspects of the internal workings of Parliament; and Other Scrutiny, which focus on issues that cut across government departments.

The average committee received a prestige score of 3.03 with Departmental SCs receiving an average of 3.21, Domestic/Administrative 2.96, and Other Scrutiny 2.74. The highest ranked committee was, perhaps unsurprisingly, the Treasury SC (4.48) with the lowest being the punctuationally-anachronistic Consolidation &c. Bills Joint Committee (1.94), which considers Bills that “bring together a number of existing Acts of Parliament on the same subject into one Act without amending the law”.

Figure 1 ranks SCs from most to least prestigious according to the results of the survey. There are perhaps some results which deserve greater attention than others. For example, we may wonder whether the Standards and Privileges SCs would be ranked so highly if the survey hadn’t taken place in the aftermath, or at the same time, as their high-profile inquiries into the behaviour and probity of various MPs, such as Chris Pincher, Matt Hancock, Margaret Ferrier and the former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. We may also be a little surprised at the lowly rankings of the Northern Ireland, Scottish and Welsh Affairs SCs, perhaps not in relation to other Departmental SCs but maybe in relation to some of the Other Scrutiny and Domestic/Administrative SCs. Finally, those of us who are concerned about the climate crisis (which, let’s face it, should be all of us) may be perturbed by the fact that the three environment-related committees all appear in the bottom half of the table.

Table 1 shows the difference between a committee’s overall ranking and the ranking by different types of respondents. Results with a green font colour indicate a committee which is at the top of the list of those ranked higher by that type of respondent than the overall rankings; those with a red font colour indicate a committee which is the top of the list of those ranked lower. As can be seen, when it comes to departmental and other scrutiny SCs, MPs and their staff who answered the survey think that the International Trade, International Development, Scottish Affairs and, especially, the Levelling Up, Housing & Communities SCs are more prestigious than the average respondent, whereas Work & Pensions, Women & Equalities and the Human Rights Joint Committee are less prestigious. In addition, the Exiting/Future Relationship with the EU Committee is considered more prestigious by parliamentary staff and less prestigious by academics. Some interesting results can also be observed with Domestic/Administrative SCs. Both academic and parliamentary staff respondents believe the Procedure and Petitions SCs are more prestigious than MPs and their staff do, whereas the situation is reversed when it comes to Backbench Business.

Figure 1: Ranking of Select Committees by Prestige
Overall RankingCommitteeDifference between overall ranking & ranking by
AcademicsMPs & their StaffParl. Staff
1Treasury0-10
2Foreign Affairs-210
3Public Accounts1-20
4Home Affairs110
5Defence-110
6Liaison10-1
7Health & Social Care0-11
8Privileges010
9Standards-4-40
10Public Administration & Constitutional Affairs-10-1
11Education2-4-4
12Business & Trade01-1
13Exiting/Future Relationship with the European Union -613
14Human Rights Joint Committee4-112
15Justice0-2-1
16National Security Strategy Joint Committee07-2
17Work & Pensions0-60
18Procedure4-84
19Culture, Media & Sport130
20Backbench Business-22-3
21Energy Security & Net Zero10-1
22Transport12-4
23International Trade-442
24Levelling Up, Housing & Communities010-1
25Environment, Food & Rural Affairs-331
26Petitions3-56
27Science, Innovation & Technology20-1
28International Development24-3
29Women & Equalities0-80
30Environmental Audit0-63
31Administration-731
32Finance-23-1
33Selection21-4
34European Scrutiny24-1
35Northern Ireland Affairs2-33
36Statutory Instruments Joint Committee-422
37Statutory Instruments-441
38Arms Export Controls3-20
39Scottish Affairs450
40Regulatory Reform-400
41Welsh Affairs2-10
42European Statutory Instruments5-10
43Consolidation &c. Bills Joint Committee120
Table 1: Difference between overall ranking and rankings by different types of respondents

Table 2 compares the rankings and scores of female and male respondents. A positive number indicates that female respondents scored/ranked that committee higher than male respondents and a negative number that they scored/ranked that committee lower. As can be seen from the lists, all committees which scrutinise policy areas stereotypically seen as feminine are ranked/scored higher by female respondents than male correspondents – Women & Equalities most notably – and only two committees which scrutinise policy areas stereotypically seen as masculine (Business & Trade and Environment, Food & Rural Affairs). Although, of course, no firm conclusions can be drawn from our survey results, they do contribute in a small way to important debates about who gets to define which committees are prestigious. For example, Franchesca Nestor is currently undertaking interesting work about whether influential measures of committee prestige used to rank US congressional committees fail to take into account the fact that different groups of legislators may have systematic differences in their views of which committees are prestigious and that, consequently, prestige is understood in relation to what the majority group (i.e. white, middleclass, male representatives) do and think. It would be intriguing to delve into this issue more deeply this side of the pond…

CommitteeDifference between Female & Male RankingDifference between Female & Male Scores
Women & Equalities80.87
Energy Security & Net Zero60.61
Northern Ireland Affairs60.6
Human Rights Joint Committee40.58
Levelling Up, Housing & Communities40.56
International Trade40.53
Regulatory Reform40.5
Culture, Media & Sport40.45
Welsh Affairs30.51
Scottish Affairs30.44
Finance20.47
Business & Trade20.42
Privileges20.38
Health & Social Care20.36
Education20.36
Arms Export Controls20.32
Petitions10.48
Environment, Food & Rural Affairs10.43
Public Accounts10.12
International Development00.53
Science, Innovation & Technology00.5
Selection00.32
European Statutory Instruments00.31
Work & Pensions00.27
Consolidation &c. Bills Joint Committee00.24
Standards00.2
Home Affairs00.09
Treasury0-0.04
Environmental Audit-10.48
Exiting/Future Relationship with the EU -10.17
Foreign Affairs-1-0.06
Liaison-1-0.07
European Scrutiny-20.26
National Security Strategy Joint Committee-20.19
Defence-3-0.15
Statutory Instruments Joint Committee-40.17
Transport-50.18
Public Admin. & Constitutional Affairs-5-0.08
Justice-60.07
Statutory Instruments-60.05
Procedure-70.07
Administration-8-0.01
Backbench Business-90.14
Table 2: Comparison between the scores and rankings of female and male survey respondents

[i] Or Family Feuds in the US, or Familien-Duell in Germany.

[ii] The survey was run as part of Stephen Holden Bates’ 2021-22 Parliamentary Academic Fellowship, which was funded by the UKRI/ESRC Impact Acceleration Account, and is part of on-going work looking at the impact of membership patterns on the work and outputs of select committees.

[iii] 100 people answered our online survey between 22nd May and 18th July 2023. The survey was aimed at experts, although we allowed anyone to answer, and was distributed via Twitter, the newsletter of the UK Political Studies Association’s Parliaments Specialist Group and through email contacts. Of the 100 respondents, 30 were parliamentary staff in the House of Commons, 15 were academics, 13 were MPs, 12 worked for MPs, and 10 were parliamentary staff beyond the HoC, with the other 20 compromising members of the public, journalists, people who work for think tanks, and ‘other’. Overall, 30 respondents were female, 63 were male and seven preferred not to say; no respondent said their gender was not the same as the sex they were assigned at birth. Seven respondents said they belonged to a group which was considered an ethnic minority in the country in which they worked, 86 said they did not belong to such a group and seven preferred not to say. Four respondents were removed for the analysis presented in this blog, as there were problems with their answers and/or they did not complete the survey properly.

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Our Survey Says (Part 1): No Real Surprises about the Importance of Parliamentary Work

By Stephen Holden Bates, Caroline Bhattacharya and Stephen McKay

Just like in Family Fortunes[i] but by chance rather than by design, 100 people responded to our survey[ii] about the importance of different elements of MPs’ work in the UK Parliament.[iii]

From a score of one to five (with five being the most important), respondents were asked to rate the importance of a non-exhaustive list of parliamentary activities. As can be seen in Table 1, contributing to the work of Select Committees is considered the most important aspect of MPs’ work by quite a distance. Next, bunched together quite closely, are, in order, debating in the Chamber, Public Bill Committee (PBC) work and tabling Written Questions (WQs). There is then a bit of a gap to tabling Private Members’ Bills (PMBs) and then another to introducing and to signing Early Day Motions (EDMs).

RankActivityAverage Score (max = 5; min = 1)
1Contributing to the work of Select Committees4.12
2Debating in the Chamber (including Westminster Hall)3.81
3Contributing to the work of Public Bill Committees3.60
4Tabling Written Questions3.54
5Tabling Private Members’ Bills2.73
6Introducing Early Day Motions1.70
7Signing Early Day Motions introduced by another MP1.43
Table 1: The Importance of MPs’ Parliamentary Work

None of this is perhaps particularly surprising. Select committees are often considered both to be Parliament ‘at its best’ and to overshadow Public Bill Committees, and the House of Commons has traditionally been seen as a deliberating parliament par excellence.

Although we don’t, of course, have enough respondents to draw robust conclusions, what may be considered more intriguing results come when we look at the rankings of different types of respondents. For example, female and male respondents both ranked the activities in the same order as in Table 1 but, interestingly, female respondents ranked each activity at least 0.29 and as much as 0.67 higher than male correspondents. Furthermore, as shown in Table 2, while academics, MPs and their staff, and parliamentary staff agree that tabling PMBs and introducing and signing EDMs are the 5th, 6th and 7th most important activities respectively, there is disagreement at the top of the rankings. MPs and their staff appear to place greater importance on the talking elements of Parliament, ranking debating in the Chamber first. Academics, on the other hand, rank debating in the Chamber fourth, seemingly placing greater importance on the working elements of Parliament and, in particular, committee work and WQs.

ActivityRank
AcademicsMPs & their StaffParl. Staff
Contributing to the work of Select Committees121
Debating in the Chamber (inc. Westminster Hall)412
Contributing to the work of PBCs2=34
Tabling Written Questions3=33
Tabling PMBs555
Introducing EDMs666
Signing EDMS introduced by another MP777
Table 2: The Importance of MPs’ Parliamentary Work by Different Groups of Respondents

These results might raise questions about how different groups of people who variously engage with Parliament understand its importance[iv] and place different emphases on the functions that it fulfils – and should fulfil – in our political life. Such differences might perhaps be fruitfully explored in future qualitative work.

[i] Or Family Feuds in the US, or Familien-Duell in Germany.

[ii] The survey was run as part of Stephen Holden Bates’ 2021-22 Parliamentary Academic Fellowship, which was funded by the UKRI/ESRC Impact Acceleration Account, and is part of on-going work looking at specialisation in the UK House of Commons.

[iii] 100 people answered our online survey between 22nd May and 18th July 2023. The survey was aimed at experts, although we allowed anyone to answer, and was distributed via Twitter, the newsletter of the UK Political Studies Association’s Parliaments Specialist Group and through email contacts. Of the 100 respondents, 30 were parliamentary staff in the House of Commons, 15 were academics, 13 were MPs, 12 worked for MPs, and 10 were parliamentary staff beyond the HoC, with the other 20 compromising members of the public, journalists, people who work for think tanks, and ‘other’. Overall, 30 respondents were female, 63 were male and seven preferred not to say; no respondent said their gender was not the same as the sex they were assigned at birth. Seven respondents said they belonged to a group which was considered an ethnic minority in the country in which they worked, 86 said they did not belong to such a group and seven preferred not to say. Two respondents were removed for the analysis presented in this blog, as there were problems with their answers and/or they did not complete the survey properly.

[iv] Left deliberately undefined in the survey because we didn’t want to impose our understanding of what activities were/should be considered important within the UK Parliament on the respondents.

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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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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.