Thomas Fleming of Nuffield College discusses his recent research into parliamentary procedural change during the premiership of Theresa May.
Parliamentary procedures have many important political consequences. Yet during the premiership of Theresa May, British parliamentary procedure was scrutinised, criticised, and challenged to an extent unprecedented in recent years. This placed intense pressures on the important ‘rules of the game’ governing parliamentary politics in Britain. In a recent article in Parliamentary Affairs, I have described these pressures and their consequences.
How was parliamentary procedure challenged?
This period saw four areas of parliamentary procedure come under particularly intense scrutiny and pressure.
First, the government’s control of the agenda – a key feature of parliamentary politics at Westminster – was challenged by several controversial rulings by the then Speaker, John Bercow. Bercow initially broke with convention by allowing a vote on a backbench amendment to the government’s timetable for the ‘meaningful vote’ on their Brexit deal. After that deal had been defeated in the Commons twice, Bercow angered the government further by ruling that they couldn’t bring it back for a third vote unless it were a substantially different proposition.
Second, the government’s agenda control was also challenged by backbench MPs who opposed the government’s approach to Brexit. On several occasions backbenchers voted to set aside the parliamentary rule granting the government near-total control of the Commons agenda (Standing Order 14), and set the agenda themselves. This highly controversial move gave backbenchers the opportunity to hold ‘indicative votes’ on various alternative Brexit approaches, and to rapidly pass legislation in April 2019 which aimed at preventing (or at least delaying) a ‘no deal’ Brexit.
Third, this period saw intense controversy around the procedures by which MPs cast their votes in parliament. Historically, MPs have only been able to vote if they are physically present. Between 2016 and 2019 there was ongoing discussion of the adverse effects of this rule for MPs who are new parents. Despite a growing consensus around Professor Sarah Childs’ proposal that new parent MPs be entitled to vote by proxy, the government was slow to actually implement any reforms. In the end, this change was only implemented after high-profile controversies involving the MPs Jo Swinson and Tulip Siddiq highlighted the need for urgent change.
Finally, this period saw considerable scrutiny of the process by which backbench MPs propose legislation known as ‘private members’ bills’. This process has long been criticised as opaque and open to obstruction. But its shortcomings received widespread public attention when a Conservative MP, Christopher Chope, blocked bills which aimed to ban ‘upskirting’ and increase the protection of children from female genital mutilation. Much criticism in the press and from fellow Conservatives was focused on Chope himself. But this incident also appeared to validate existing concerns about parliament’s rules, and the ease with which individual MPs are able to block their backbench colleagues’ legislative proposals.
How did parliamentary procedure change?
Given how many parliamentary debates and newspaper column inches were occupied by these discussions, they led to surprisingly little formal change in how the House of Commons works.
Of the four areas of pressure discussed above, only one – proxy voting – saw any change in the Commons’ formal rules. In January 2019, the Commons adopted a system allowing new parent MPs to nominate another MP as a proxy to vote on their behalf. This system was only established on a temporary basis, but looks set to become permanent. When it was initially due to expire in January 2020, the scheme was extended without any opposition. Moreover, it has subsequently been widened to grant proxy votes to MPs who are unable to attend Westminster in person due to the coronavirus pandemic.
However, the three other areas of pressure on parliamentary procedure described here saw no changes in the Commons’ formal rules. In fact, this period saw remarkably little formal parliamentary reform. Using data from the ParlRulesData Project, I have calculated how far the House of Commons’ formal rules were altered during the tenure of every prime minister since 1945. This shows that only three post-war prime ministers – Anthony Eden (1955-57), Alec Douglas-Home (1963-64), and James Callaghan (1976-79) – oversaw less extensive changes than Theresa May.
While this period saw very little formal change to parliament’s rules, it did nonetheless see significant informal change. When backbenchers voted to suspend Standing Order 14 and take control of the Commons’ agenda for themselves, this was a highly significant innovation. The government has had virtually monopoly control of the parliamentary agenda for over a century, despite some recent decentralization. This innovation also outlasted Theresa May’s premiership – a similar procedure was used again in September 2019 when MPs fast-tracked a bill designed to prevent Boris Johnson from pursuing a ‘no deal’ Brexit at the end of October.
However, this temporary informal development is unlikely to become permanent, for several reasons. Most importantly, the MPs behind these measures seem to have only conceived of them as temporary expedients. Their goal was not to permanently alter the way the Commons’ agenda is set. Instead, they wanted to facilitate discussion of alternative approaches to a situation they saw as an emergency. For example, in March 2019, Sir Oliver Letwin told the Commons that he hoped future MPs ‘… will not for many decades face an emergency of the kind that we are currently facing, because this is not a way of proceeding that I think any of us would like our country to face in the future’. It thus seems unlikely that MPs will seek to entrench this practice as a regular part of Commons procedure. Even if they did, such attempts are highly unlikely to pass, given the sizeable majority secured by the Conservatives at last year’s general election.
Why was there so little change?
How can we explain this combination of long-term procedural stability and significant short-term procedural innovation? Crucially, parliamentary rules do not change simply because they are challenged or criticized. Instead, Philip Norton has argued that significant long-term changes usually require favourable political conditions – a window of opportunity, a clear reform agenda, and leadership. All three of these conditions were arguably absent between 2016 and 2019. It was a period of severe political turmoil, with little time for parliament to focus on anything except Brexit. Proposals for procedural change were largely ad hoc responses to events, rather than part of a coherent overall reform agenda. Perhaps most decisively, the government showed little interest in procedural reform in this period, let alone leadership.
However, temporary change was still possible because of divisions in the Conservative party over Brexit. The Conservative MPs who voted to let backbenchers control the agenda were not trying to permanently alter parliamentary rules. Instead, they used temporary procedural changes to address specific, time-limited grievances with the government’s approach to Brexit. Despite these temporary changes, the overall pattern in this period is clear. Between 2016 and 2019, parliamentary rules in Britain were challenged extensively but changed very little.
