To what extent is the House of Commons effective at carrying out its various functions?
The House of Commons is the name of the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom. In the UK, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the upper house of parliament, the House of Lords. The House of Commons has many main functions, with a few of the main ones being: its legislative role, its scrutiny, and the redress of grievances. Members of the House of Commons must be 18 years of age or older. Peers of England, Scotland, or the United Kingdom may not be elected to the House of Commons, though Irish peers may be. Certain clergy, judicial officers, members of the armed forces, police officers, and civil servants are also ineligible for election. Women became eligible under an act of 1918. Members were paid beginning in 1911.
The House of Commons is the effective legislative authority in Great Britain. It alone has the right to impose taxes and to vote money to, or withhold it from, the various public departments and services. The House of Lords has only infrequently held up major legislation passed by the Commons, and the British sovereign almost automatically provides the Royal Assent to any bill passed. Indeed, the last bill to be rejected by a monarch was the Scottish Militia Bill of 1707, which was vetoed by Queen Anne. Acts of Parliament are not subject to judicial review. The passage of legislation is the House of Commons’ primary function. Almost all legislation proceeds from the majority party in the Commons, which forms the government and the cabinet; the latter is composed of senior ministers chosen by, and belonging to the party of, the prime minister, nearly all of whom serve in the House of Commons. The government’s main work in the Commons is to implement the legislative program on which it fought and won the last general election.
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At the beginning of each new session of Parliament, the House elects from its members the speaker, who presides over and regulates debates and rules on points of order and members’ conduct. The speaker does not participate in debates and votes only in order to break a tie, a case that compels the speaker to vote in favour of the status quo. The calling of members to speak in debate is entirely in the speaker’s hands, the main concern being to ensure that a variety of points of view is heard. By a convention of the constitution not established until the 20th century, the prime minister is always a member of the House of Commons, instead of a member of either house. The government party appoints the leader of the House of Commons, who manages the party’s legislative program. Except for occasional independents, members of both the government and opposition parties are under the control of party management within the Commons, whose discipline—particularly over voting—is exercised by members called “whips”. Their simple aim is to keep parliament under control. The whips office is said to have a little black book that contains all of the MPs sins that they have committed. This, though good in keeping the MPs in check, also gives considerable power to the Whips. They are therefore able to have power over the MPs through slight blackmail. They can therefore influence them to vote for a certain bill for example. In that respect the House of Commons does not effectively carry out its scrutiny function.
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The tradition that a bill must be read three times in the Commons (and also in the Lords) before it can be voted on is based on the need to allow members adequate time to investigate the principles on which the bill is based and the details of its provisions. The first reading is purely formal, but the second reading provides the occasion for debate on the principles involved. The bill then goes into committee, where it is examined clause by clause. Most bills are sent to standing committees, each of which deals with bills belonging to a particular range of topics, with the committees reflecting in their makeup the respective strength of parties in the House. Having examined the bill, line by line,the committee then reports back to the House, and after further amendments may have been proposed in the course of more debate, the bill is read a third time and is then voted on. In addition to bills proposed by the government, a limited number of bills sponsored by individual members are considered by the House each session.
Aside from passing legislation, the most important business of the full House is the question period, which is held on a regular basis. During this period, members can require government ministers to answer questions regarding their departments; it thus provides the opposition with an opportunity to attack government policy and to raise issues on which the government may be thought to have been negligent. It also generates regular policy debates between the prime minister and the leader of the opposition. These exchanges have been made more important by their public broadcast, first by radio in 1978, and then by television in 1989. Parliament is now virtually the only source of legislation. The main, but very limited, exception is legislation under the prerogative e.g. in regard to civil servants at GCHQ. This power to legislate is especially important in so far as Article 4 goes on to provide that Acts of Parliament alone (and not the prerogative as recognised in earlier common law cases) can authorise the levying of taxes. Together, these Articles are vital in ensuring that the executive accounts to Parliament, and both give Parliament some leverage over the Government. The Government constantly needs grants of taxation (the annual budget is about £250billion).
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Because of the effect of the Parliament Acts 1911-49 and convention, the House of Common is of far greater importance in these matters than the House of Lords.
But, as with the first function, one can exaggerate the power of Parliament. In reality, Parliament largely reacts to legislation initiated by the Government. It does not initiate its own legislative programme reflecting its own policies, and few Acts are passed which are not sponsored (i.e. put forward) by Government Ministers. As before, the constitution is said to enshrine the idea of Parliamentary Government. This does not mean that Parliament governs but that the Government must work through Parliament.
The Commons next has the task of scrutinising the Government’s policies and administration of its policies. Once again, Parliament has few policies of its own and certainly no coherent overall programme which rivals that of the Government – its functions are mainly to examine and react to the Government’s policies and actions. The alternative to the Government is the Official Opposition not Parliament per se
Parliament is expected to sustain, scrutinise and influence rather than block Government. After all, most MPs are elected on the basis that they support the Government’s policies. Parliament thus provides legitimacy for Government in the sense that its approval can be seen as representing the assent of the electorate. the UK has a representative democracy rather than a participatory democracy. MPs, once elected, are not then the direct agents of the electorate but are allowed a wide discretion to represent their electorate as they think fit. The electorate has no further say, whether by referendum or otherwise, but merely endorses at election time – possibly as far apart as every five years – one candidate or another. This position has been changed to some extent by an increase in party activism in the Labour Party/government and more generally by a post-1945 growth in pressure groups.
The final task of the Commons is the redress of specific grievances. All MPs, even the Prime Minster, are elected by a specific locality (constituency) in which they are the sole representative and link with Parliament. It follows that they are seen as having constituency interests and responsibilities. In other words, they ask questions or raise matters in debate concerning the problems of their area and constituents. This work is often done informally and behind the scenes by meetings in the constituency and by letters to, and discussion with, ministers or civil servants. MPs receive millions of letters a year primarily from their constituents (as many as 50%).
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In order for an agency or organization to function properly it must have policies and laws put in place. With out these policies the agency or organization would not be able to function at a proper level. Legislative tasks are one of the most important parts of making a policy. There are several different tasks involved. Task one: the group must provide a clear informative issue; they need to ...
The majority of these letters are concerned with individual matters – council housing, welfare benefits and so on. The input is said to be about 40,000 letters per year per MP and the output around 30,000, so this work is an important part of the work-load as well as providing an important source of information. Its political impact may be limited nationally but is locally significant. The MP may meet 10% of constituents, and though it has been reckoned that the best efforts are worth only about 1500 votes, this number could affect the result in about 20 constituencies. A report by the Fabian Society in 1998 suggests that there are far too many MPs and that they engage in far too much constituency work which they are ill-equipped to deal with. It recommends that the number of MPs be reduced by 200 and that a parliamentary official be appointed to look into individual grievances.
Another aspect of the redress of grievances is private legislation i.e. legislation sponsored by private individuals. This is now relatively rare, primarily as parliamentary time does not allow for it. Along similar lines is local legislation, i.e. legislation sponsored by local authorities and applying only to their own area e.g. West Yorkshire Act 1980. Again this is now rare as time does not allow for it. The Commons finally fulfils this role by receiving public petitions which are then sent to the relevant Minister who is expected to print a reply or they may even be debated if urgent. The petition is an increasingly popular way of raising the political profile of an issue. It is also a way of allowing a small degree of participation by the electorate in the business of Parliament.
To conclude the house of commons is effective at carrying out its various functions. This is because the above functions are key to the success of parliament. Without one, the system would not function correctly. Every function is not performed perfectly and some are clearly far less effectively executed than others, for example, the function of scrutiny where MPs expenses were not moderated or controlled well enough. But the house of commons is largely successful at performing its functions because their have been no large or major abuses or failures of these functions.
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