{"id":223,"date":"2024-02-01T14:23:49","date_gmt":"2024-02-01T14:23:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/pb-happ\/?p=223"},"modified":"2024-02-01T14:23:49","modified_gmt":"2024-02-01T14:23:49","slug":"parliament-governments-friend-or-foe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/pb-happ\/2024\/02\/01\/parliament-governments-friend-or-foe\/","title":{"rendered":"Parliament: Governments friend or foe?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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Overview<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sitting in the heart of London is the Palace of Westminster, the British Parliament. Parliament is bicameral by its nature, holding two houses, the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Operating within a fused system whereby the government are sitting members of the legislative body, usually the Commons, leads to a very interesting Parliamentary dynamic. The role of Parliament has been tried and tested by successive governments. At times Parliament can be used to their gain, at other times Parliament can be a real thorn in the side of the government of the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The House of Commons<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Commons is the upper chamber of Parliament where the vast majority of laws are introduced and passed. Meg Russell remarked a \u2018British hallmark was traditionally single-party majority government- allowing the winning party to reliably win votes in the House of Commons\u2019 (Russell, pg.100). Parliament is no stranger to executive dominance, the current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak passed his Rwanda bill through the Commons last week. Despite the largest opposition parties opposing and some of his own MPs not voting for the bill his 82 seat majority saw off any opposition comfortably.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, when Boris Johnson suspended Parliament in September 2019 to ensure his Brexit Bill  would pass the authority of Parliament looked to be at an all-time low. How could such a prestigious institution be so easily ignored?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite this, Parliament is not always held back by executive dominance. Theresa May\u2019s time in office was cut short by her failure on three separate occasions to pass a Brexit deal that Parliament would accept. May operated in this time under a minority government, showing circumstances play a pivotal role in the functioning of the British Parliament. Multiple defeats on bills and a vote of no confidence in Parliament led Theresa May to resign from Office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The House of Lords<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The House of Lords is the lower chamber of Parliament and usually acts as a revising chamber. Cowley\u00a0Remarks how \u2018the lords had largely been dismissed as uninfluential\u2019 (Cowley, 2016, pg.127). The Lords does not have the capabilities of the Commons. Due to the Salisbury convention<\/a> and claims of illegitimacy the Lords often finds itself on the back foot. However, since the reforms made under Tony Blair, and the Wright Reforms the Lords has grown in clout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Johnson government introduced the Crime Bill in 2022 which was repeatedly blocked from passing by the Lords. The Johnson government was defeated 141 times by the House of Lords.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the Lords can only do so much. Every amendment the Lords made was rejected by the Commons, the bill spent months going back and forward between the two chambers. Despite the bill becoming law,  victory was claimed for the Lords when Dominic Raab was forced to edit parts of the bill. The government also had its proposed amendments to the bill rejected by the Lords.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parliamentary Scrutiny<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Scrutiny is one of the most important roles of Parliament, but just how well does it actually perform this role? One of the most influential forms of scrutiny is through committees, namely parliamentary\u00a0 select committees. Of amendments made by these committees since their creation \u201840% were found to have been full or partially accepted\u2019 (Cowley, 2026, pg.131). A positive statistic for parliamentary scrutiny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, these committees can very easily ignored and their recommendations cast as null and void. Multiple EU based select committees had their withdrawal deal recommendations ignored by the Johnson Government. Moreover given executive dominance of these committees they very often cause the government little headache.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This cannot be said for the Privileges Committe<\/a>e tasked with examining whether Boris Johnson deliberately misled Parliament. Gruelling evidence sessions and examining of his actions at the time played a significant part in his resignation as Prime Minister. The eventual report produced was very damaging to Johnson and fellow ministers showing select committees ability to probe the government of the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Final Remarks<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parliament can be a very effective body when it is given the opportunity to act freely and independently, away from government interference. However, when a government has a sizeable vote and mandate it can seem a \u2018friendly\u2019 environment easily controlled by the government. Despite this, British politics is no stranger to changing circumstances. Reduced parliamentary majorities, or collapsing support within the governing party changes the dynamics of Parliament. Votes no longer are a given and the level of scrutiny increases. So, to conclude, is Parliament a \u2018friend or foe\u2019? The truth is, it depends on the nature of the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bibliography<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russell, Meg (2016) \u2018Parliament: A Significant Constraint on Government\u2019 in Richard Heffernan, Meg Russell, Philip Cowley and Colin Hay (eds). Developments in British Politics 10. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russell, Meg, and Philip Cowley (2016) The policy power of the Westminster parliament.<\/a> the \u201cparliamentary state\u201d and the empirical evidence.” Governance, 29(1): 121-137.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Overview Sitting in the heart of London is the Palace of Westminster, the British Parliament. Parliament is bicameral by its<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1495,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/pb-happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/pb-happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/pb-happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/pb-happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1495"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/pb-happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/pb-happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":242,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/pb-happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223\/revisions\/242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/pb-happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/pb-happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/pb-happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}