UK Parliament

Question 1

What is the Head of State?

Answer 1

Monarchy; embodies the state’s power and authority

Question 2

Powers of Monarchy

Answer 2

1) Appointing government - chooses Prime Minister (now just leader of party)
2) Opening and dismissing Parliament - at request of PM, dismisses or dissolves parliament for general election
3) Queen’s speech - informs parliament of the legislative programme
4) Royal Assent - Sign the bill to make it an act (now a convention as Monarchy has never refused)

Question 3

Outline the differences in composition between the House of Commons and House of Lords

Answer 3

Commons: 650 MP's, backbench and frontbenchers
Lords: 
1) Life peers - 667/779, most influence
2) Hereditary peers - 92
3) Lords Spiritual - bishops, 26

Question 4

Powers of Commons

Answer 4

1) Ultimate legislative power - exercise parliamentary sovereignty
2) Can remove government - if defeated, must resign/call election

Question 5

Powers of Lords

Answer 5

1) Delay bills - for up to 1 year, except money and government manifesto aspects
2) Veto powers - general election, judges, introduction of secondary legislation

Question 6

How does the HoC scrutinise the Government

Answer 6

1) Select committees - scrutinise policies, ministers and witnesses - called in May as Home secretary for issues on immigration and drug policy. Govn must respond to reports but not required to accept recommendations
2) Question time - PMQ’s, urgent questions allow MP’s to call ministers in to answer relevant q’s - Hunt called in on health department cover up
3) Debates - Government policy can be examined through legislative debates and emergency debates that are held at the discretion of the speaker. MP’s can scrutinise policy and try to affect and change them.
Adjournment debates happen every parliamentary day which allows backbench MP’s to initiate debates on issues they deem important. BBBC allows MP’s greater influence over debate as choose topic once a week – BBBC raised the issue of the referendum of Brexit after the government attempted to side-line it

Question 7

How has Lord’s appointment been exploited

Answer 7

• PM use of appointments for political gain
o From the recommendations on the commission for 2010-2015, only 8 of them were actually appointed by the PM – this has lead to accusations of the appointment process being corrupt – Blair: “Cash for honour”
o This undermines the chambers ability to effectively scrutinise the government
o E.g. After tax credit cuts defeat, Cameron threatened to flood the upper chamber with Conservatives to avoid similar defeat-completely undermines the function of the chamber to scrutinize the government.

Question 8

Why is Lord voting in line with whips concerning

Answer 8

o Between 199-2009, Conservative Peers voted against the Labour government 97% of the time in whipped divisions; and Labour Peers voted against the coalition government 99% of whipped divisions between 2010-2015. This shows that the peers do not really effectively scrutinize in an independent minded way, but rather just re-enforce the partisan lines already apparent in the Commons.

Question 9

Why are Lord’s not as fit for the job as you may think

Answer 9

o 27% of Lords represented national politics as a formal career, 7% came from law, and 9% have finance and commerce
o Transport, manual and skilled trade, and policing have less than 1% representation in the Lords
o Crossbench Peers, who are appointed to bring their professional expertise and inform debate, vote far less than party-political peers. Nearly half of all crossbenchers participated in fewer than 10 votes in the 2014/2015 session.

Question 10

Lord scandals

Answer 10

o Between 2010-2015, £360,000 were claimed by 62 peers who had never voted within those years
o Lords can can out a £300 allowance per day tax free, and between Fed 2014 – Jan 2015, £21 million were spent on Lords expenses
o Lord Sewel was caught with hoes

Question 11

Why is HoL undemocratic

Answer 11

• Increase of pro-active lords blocking measures of the elected chamber
o In 2015 they blocked the tax credits – which not only is prohibited by the Parliament Act (1911) which gives all jurisdiction on money bills to commons, but also was in the government mandate, which the Salisbury Convention prohibits Lords from blocking
o The lords defeated the governments twice regarding the bill on Article 50, which was criticised as an unelected body shouldn’t be able to rule on a democratically made nation decision

Question 12

Why might an elected 2nd chamber increase democracy

Answer 12

• Elected 2nd chamber would facilitate the election of independents through STV rather than FPTP, which would most likely deliver single party majorities
o This could lead to a different majority in the Lords than in the House, providing sufficient scrutiny of the government
o Through having a regional system, Scottish and Welsh representatives are incorporated into the heart of Westminster – needed due to increased devolution
• Elected 2nd chamber would also legitimise decisions of Lords, thereby making it a more democratic body
The same restrictions on the Lords would stand, which means they wont stand in the way of Commons primacy

Question 13

What benefits are there for a partially elected HoL

Answer 13

o A wholly elected Lords may be encouraged to use its delaying powers more, challenging primacy of commons and leading to a situation of legislative gridlock.
o Partially elected would still ensue idea that Commons has primacy and Lords is second
• The PM should not have an unconstrained right to appoint peers, since Lords’ purpose is meant to act as another form of checks and balance. Instead, all appointments would be done by independent commission who seek to appoint experts who bring valuable expertise and scrutiny.
• Issue of inequality within chamber and if the candidates who would run in election would be a 2nd class of career politicians (e.g. lost seat in commons or stepping stone to commons)

Question 14

What are the arguments to reform the HoL

Answer 14

1) Lords are exploited
2) Lords voting in line
3) Some Lords are not as fit as you may think
4) Lord’s scandals
5) Increases democracy

Question 15

What are the arguments against a 2nd elected chamber

Answer 15

1) HoL is effective
2) Problems of a 2nd elected chamber
3) Better types of reform

Question 16

How are Lords still effective in doing their job

Answer 16

• The House of Lords provides appropriate scrutiny:
o Meg Russell argues that Lords is legitimate due to its high output of defeats and scrutiny of the government within parliament
o 528 defeats against the Blair government in the Lords compared to only 5 in the commons
• The Lords contributes to lots of important legislation
o E.g. Parliament (e.g. The Dubs Amendment allowing for 3000 child unaccompanied refugees to enter the UK)
• Lords does not infringe upon Commons’ primacy
o Lords understand the will of democratically elected body – dropped its amendment on the rights of EU citizens in article 50 bill
• House of Lords Reform Bill 2012 failed to pass through parliament which would have made lords mostly elected

Question 17

A 2nd elected chamber does what

Answer 17

• Likely to create mirror image of commons
o Due to the election of a second chamber, people are likely to vote the same in the Lords as they are in the commons
o This will lead to a lack of effective scrutiny
o Elections will lead to a loss of independents – currently 117 crossbenchers, which will result in an increase of partisanship and again loss of effective scrutiny
o Elections will also lead to a loss of variety of expertise, and instead lead to the election of career politicians, who people dislike

Question 18

What did Clegg’s reform bill highlight about a 2nd chamber

Answer 18

• The 2012 reform bill put forward by Clegg would have ensured proportional representation in the new chamber – ensuring lib Dems would sit in the 2nd chamber to provide scrutiny
o This however could lead to adversarial nature within the chamber, preventing effective passing of legislation
o AV referendum also showed that people were unwilling to have proportional representation – 67% voted against in 2011

Question 19

What other types of reform could be beneficial to the HoL

Answer 19

• Clegg: “don’t make the best the enemy of the good”
o E.g. capping number on PM appointees could stop the chamber growing uncontrollably, and prevent the PM flooding chamber with their own party and thus maintaining scrutiny.
o E.g. Stricter appointments; there could be more restrictions placed on Life Peer appointees to ensure that more experts and less partisan peers are appointed.
o The House of Lords Reform Act of 2014 demonstrated how beneficial reforms can be implemented that aren’t necessarily election. E.g. it removed Peers who commit serious criminal offences and peers who did not turn up for a year.