Evaluate The View That Changes In Recent Decades Have Limited The Executiveʼs Dominance Over Parliament.

Question 1

P1: Agree Wright Reforms

Answer 1

1. BBBC chooses the topic of debate for 35 days in each parliamentary session.
2. 5 December 2024, CMP Sir Iain Duncan Smith led a BBC debate on the issue of detained British nationals abroad. Number of arbitrarily detained British nationals overseas, including about the risk of human rights abuses and the perceived lack of active support for those detained. Smith called on the Foreign Office to provide regular reports detailing when each
   case was last raised and different cases were discussed.
3. SC chairs elected in secret ballot not by whips. Thornberry Chair of Foreign Affairs Committee. Stronger action against Uyghur Muslims and Russian sanctions, arguing that loopholes still allow oligarchs to shield assets in the UK.

Question 2

P1: Agree Increased Use of Urgent Questions

Answer 2

1. The Speaker decides whether to grant Urgent Questions
   and if they do, a government minister is required to attend the House of Commons to answer it immediately.
2. Use has significantly
   increased under Speaker Bercow and Speaker Hoyle.Lindsay Hoyle has averaged around 0.6 Urgent Questions per day.
3. On 30th March 2023, for example, there was an Urgent Question in relation to Junior Doctors
   strikes that asked the government what they were doing to resolve the situation

Question 3

P1: Disagree Criticise Wright Reforms

Answer 3

1. Wright Reforms and the increased use of urgent questions in fact has had a limited impact in decreasing the dominance of the executive over Parliament.
2. BBC does give backbenchers greater control over the parliamentary timetable, this is still dominated by the executive due to its majority in Parliament, as is the legislative process.
3. Urgent Questions and debates may be able to raise the profile of an issue
   and get it on the agenda, they are much less likely to get any action taken or influence government policy. executiveʼs dominance over Parliament hasnʼt decreased since 2010, as it still continues to dominate the parliamentary timetable and legislative
   process.
4. SC are still made up of a majority of governing party MPs.18/27 of the total Select Committee chairs are from the Labour Party and there is a majority of Labour members in each committee

Question 4

P2: Agree Reformed HoL

Answer 4

1. New Labourʼs reforms, which removed all but 92 of the hereditary peers, the House of Lords no longer has an in-built Conservative majority, with the crossbenchers ensuring no
   single party can get a majority.
2. Lord Andrew Adonis,a Labour peer who served as Secretary of State for
   transport under Gordon Brown.
3. Lord Mair is a geotechnical engineer and Professor of Civil Engineering at
   the University of Cambridge and he is able to bring this expertise to his role as chair of the HoL Science and Technology Committee.
4. TB was defeated just 4 times in the HoC, all of which were in his
   last term, but was defeated 353 times in the HoL. 2001 ten defeats in the House Lords led the government to remove incitement to religious hatred as an offence from its anti-terrorism legislation

Question 5

P2: Disagree HoL Reform Not Helping

Answer 5

1. Parliaments Acts of 1911 and 1949 prevent the Lords from voting down any financial bills and mean that the HoL can only delay legislation for up to a year, after which the House of Commons (dominated by the government) can force through legislation. Used 3 times by the Blair government, including to pass the Hunting Act 2004, which banned hunting with dogs.
2. Salisbury Convention prevents the House of Lords from voting down any legislation that fulfils a commitment in the governing partyʼs election manifesto.
3. HoL (Hereditary Peers) Bill, which if passed would remove the 92 hereditary peers in the upper chamber. As this was included in Labourʼs 2024 manifesto, the Lords will be unable to block the bill despite it making a significant change to the upper chamber.

Question 6

P3: Weak Gov Agree

Answer 6

1. In comparison to governments before 2010, these government have suffered frequent defeats in the HoC and therefore have had to compromise on key policy priorities.
2. Tony Blair was defeated just four times in his 10 years in office, all of which were in his third term and Gordon Brown was defeated three times in his 3 years in office.
3. Theresa May, by contrast was defeated thirty-three times when she had a minority government, including worst defeat in modern political history (432202, with 118 Tories voting against) on 15 January 2019, when her government tried to get Parliament to approve its Brexit Withdrawal Agreement.
4. BJ was defeated twelve times in just 6 months when he had a minority
   government and four times in 3 years when he had a majority government.
5. 5 September 2021, an opposition day motion from the Labour Party
   calling on the government to cancel a planned £20/week cut to Universal Credit was passed 2530 after the government told its MPs to abstain.

Question 7

P3: Minority Can Still Be Powerful

Answer 7

1. Sunak and his government being very unpopular throughout his leadership, he faced few problems passing legislation due to the significant majority secured by the
   Conservative Party in the 2019 election.
2. He was defeated just once as Prime Minister and in the 2022/23 parliamentary session,
   the government introduced 56 bills. Of these, 43 76% received royal assent by the end of the session. Successful laws included the Illegal Migration Act and Online Safety Act.
3. Starmer securing the biggest majority since 1997, with a huge 174 seat majority in the 2024 election, he has faced no problems passing legislation.
4. David Cameron was defeated just seven times from 20102015 and was able to fulfil key manifesto pledges such as austerity, with a government bill being successfully passed every six sitting days of Parliament