Weaknesses Of The Uk Parliamen Essay, Research Paper

What accounts for the weakness of the UK Parliament?

The UK Parliament has certain weaknesses. This essay will identify and analyse five of the major weaknesses. Firstly, I will argue that the Parliament is not a true representation of the electorate. Then, I will look at claim that the strong party system and the whip system cause weaknesses within Parliament. Thirdly, I shall argue that the committee system within Parliament does not effectively scrutinise the workings of government departments. Fourthly, I will address the claim that because of the House of Lords only having limited powers and because it is not sufficiently independent or representative, it is unable to legitimate the actions of the government and finally, I will argue that external bodies reduce the strength of Parliament. The primary role of the Parliament is that of manifest legitimation- giving the formal seal of approval ii. The weaknesses in Parliament cause inefficient procedures and in the end may cause the Parliament to be unable to effectively legitimate the actions and policies of the government.

Parliament is not a true representation of the electorate, regarding both the electorates choice of MPs or the representation of the needs and characteristics of the electorate. The first-past-the-post (FPP) electoral system of does not give a fair representation of the views of the electorate. The FPP is good on the account of it keeping extremist parties at bay and it maintains the local base for MPs. This system is can give absolute majorities in Parliament to parties with considerably less than 50 per cent of the vote. This is useful in creating an effective legislative majority to enable the bills to be passed quickly and with little debate. However, I believe that the FPP system is unrepresentative. It exaggerates the lead of the winning party i, for example in the 1992 General Elections, the Conservative Party won 42 per cent of the votes nationally, but 52 per cent of the seats in the Commons. In addition, third parties who lack a regional base are under-represented in the amount of seats they gain win in relation to the percentage of the vote they win nationally. In 1989 the Green Party won 15 per cent of the vote nationally, but due to their vote being thinly spread over the country no seats in the House of Commons were won. When FFP system is being used, it can be argued that the all votes are not equal. Norton identifies some votes as wasted votes (votes cast for losing candidates have no effect) . The Commons is not just unrepresentative in the nature of party representation; the MPs that are elected into the Commons are not a reflection of the electorate in terms of ethnicity and sex. The Commons are predominantly white, male and middle class. At present nine per cent of MPs are female and seven per cent of them are non-whiteiii. Professional politicians have little experience of other forms of work and middle class MPs may have little experience of the issues that effect people living in run-down areas. This leads to the question: are people able to represent others who have little or nothing in common with? The parties have a major role in the selection of future MPs, through the candidates they selected, due to the relatively low number of seats that actually change hands in any given election. The example that Adonis refers to is, in 1987 only 55 seats (eight per cent of the total) changed hands between parties. The electorate in the UK play no role in the selection of candidates running for Parliament, thus Adonis believes that the electorate… is of far less importance than the selectorate i in deciding who shall be MPs. The selection of candidates occurs through a variety of methods, many of which are greatly influenced by party opinion. Thus, it cannot be said that although the electorate has some choice (e.g. out of 3 or 4 candidates) it does not have complete choice over who represents them.

The strong party system and the power of the majority party cause weaknesses of the Parliament as a whole. Party Whips are appointed; their roles are to ensure that the turn out of MPs is large enough for a majority to be won in a Commons vote and to ensure that MPs who vote against the party line are punished. MPs are forced to vote along party lines by the threat of having the party whip withdrawn, which means expulsion from the party and thus, in many cases, the end of their political career. Parliament rarely significantly changes the content of proposals. The majority of MPs follow the party line, which is in favour of the bill and so the bill is passed without amendment. Thus, Parliament is nothing but a rubber stamp, for whatever the Government lays before it ii. The Parliament has lost its role of legitimising the legislation. In addition, when the majority party has a large majority, like the one that is seen in the current government, factions may occur within the party and may cause backbench revolt. The size of the majority thus becomes the cause of instability and discontent within Parliament.

The committee system is not sufficiently effective at scrutinising the work of government departments. The government is under scrutiny by debates, questioning and select committees in Parliament. These have a great role in making the government accountable to Parliament and thus, legitimating the government as the legislative body. The report, which are produced by the select committees have the potential to influence departments however, this impact is rarely felt when legislation is being formulated. Select Committees work mainly on consensus and try to avoid votes as it is thought to weaken the impact of their findings. MPs within a select committee are urged to tow the line of the consensus of the select committee, rather than of the party. The appointment of members of the committee is free from the influence of party Whips and so; the committees are traditionally non-partisan in nature. In recent years there has been an increasing use of Whips in the appointment of members of select committees for example in 1992 there was controversy over the influence of Tory party Whips in the failure to nominate Nicolas Winterton onto the Health Committee. It is important for them to be impartial, as they have to evaluate evidence and produce recommendations and thus, the influence of the party on select committees is not appropriate as it may cause bias. Furthermore, if a member has been appointed with the help of the party Whip, factions and disagreement may occur within the committee, thus jeopardising the important consensus nature of the committee. Although the select committee system has greatly improved scrutiny of government departments, there are great limitations in their impact. They have extremely limited resources, for example, in 1987/8 there were only 59 staff allocated to the running of all the departmental select committee. In the USA, there would be this amount of staff allocated to the running of one standing committee. There are great limitations on the scope of investigation. Select committees cannot consider legislation itself and so are limited to investigating issues before a bill is proposed. So, much of their work is on issues that may not become relevant to Parliament and so some of their work is of limited significance. The government disregards many of the reports and recommendations produced by the select committees. Only a quarter of select committee reports between 1979 and 1988 were debated, yet alone passed.

There are many limits on the power of the House of Lords. This, along with the argument that it is not representative of the populace and that it is not independent enough from the Commons, implies that it is not able to legitimate the actions of the government. The Lords have the right to delay primary legislation for one session and the power to veto subordinate legislation; they have the right to veto a private bill and they hold the right to agree extend or refuse to extend the life of a Parliament for longer than five years (e.g. during war). However, the powers of the Lords are limited: they cannot amend or delay any finance bill and due to the Salisbury Convention, peers cannot oppose any legislation that has been in the party s manifesto. This is because it has already been approved and backed by the electorate. Over the last century the House of Lords has become increasingly weak. The Conservative majority in the Lords has lead Labour governments to try to weaken the powers of peers, as it was feared that the Lords might oppose Labour legislationiv. The problem of the Tory majority has been caused by the populace not being proportionally represented in the Lords. Hereditary peers, who are a selection from the remaining aristocracy and predominantly conservative, are seen to be totally out touch, while life peers are, by definition not a reflection of the electorate, as they are appointed due to their exceptional achievements. The reforms in the House of Lords under the current government, which abolished the right of hereditary peers to sit in the Lords has begun to address the issue of the unrepresentative nature of the Lords. The abolition of but the 92 hereditary peers that were may life peers has meant that the current government has greatly influenced the composition of the House of Lords by the introduction of Labour chosen life peers. The government does have great power to influence the decisions made by the House of Lords by the peers it introduces. For example, in 1910 the government threatened to swamp the Lords with Liberals to enable a specific bill to be passed i. The House of Lords is not independent from the government and thus, the Lords very rarely attempt to veto or delay a bill. Therefore the House of Lords cannot legitimate the actions of the government.

There are external bodies that reduce the strength of Parliament. The European Union (EU) is the only body that s policies take precedence over Parliament s own policies. Thus, the absolute sovereignty of Parliament has been undermined. On the other hand, it can be argued that the government is actively agrees to be part of the EU and is free to with draw at any time, so thus it is not so much a constraint on Parliament s sovereignty but an expression of it. However, it is not really a plausible option for the government to withdraw from the EU, as the economic implications of this would be severe. The media also takes away some of Parliament s power. The majority of the electorate is not actively involved in politics and so rely on what they learn from the media to make an educated decision regarding their vote. The media has a great power to manipulate people s views by giving once sided accounts and arguments.

There are many other factors which account for the weakness in Parliament including the movement away of the decision making from Westminster and the increase in quangos (quasi-governmental organisations); the influence of pressure groups who lobby MPs; and the actual workings of the Parliament like the length of the day and the allocation of time within the session. The major causes of weakness in Parliament seem to stem from the unrepresentative nature of both the House of Commons and the House of Lords and from the strength of the majority party. The strong majority in the Commons that the election system creates can be seen as both beneficial and destructive. It helps to create a stable government but it also brings weaknesses and a question over the role of legitimation of the government. The problem of representation may be improved by the introduction of a system of partial representation, however this may lead to other problems like a loss of the local MP and the upsurge in extremist parties.