Introduction to Parliament

The House of Commons

The UK’s House of Commons is probably the best-known democratic institution in the world. But in recent years the politicians of Westminster have become deeply unpopular. A radical process or reform has begun in the upper chamber, the unelected House of Lords. Increasing public criticism suggests that the time has come to conduct the same kind of operation on the House of Commons itself.

People could be forgiven for thinking that parliament has never changed, and indeed the justification for some of its rituals and routine does line in events and customs of the distant past. For example, it is thought that the opposing front benches in the House of Commons were originally placed two sword-lengths apart in order to prevent bloodshed! The annual Queen’s Speech, which reveals the government’s legislative programme, is still printed on goat’s skin although the monarch reads a copy printed on humble paper. But over the history of parliament, change has been as important as continuity. In particular, the UK’s gradual transformation into a democratic nation has caused a shift in the role that its representative institutions are expected to play.

The Opposition

Even though the government of the day commands a majority in the House of Commons, not all MPs are members of the executive. After the general election of May 2005, Labour had 356 MPs. This left 289 seats shared among the opposition parties. The Conservatives, with 197 MPs, formed the official opposition. They might be heavily outnumbered, but they have an obvious interest in holding the executive to account. Even if they cannot muster enough votes to defeat the governments’ bills, they can make damaging contributions in debates. The opposition leader can also use Prime Minister’s Question Time to make public criticisms of the government’s record. Other senior opposition spokespeople, known as shadow ministers, have similar opportunities to hold members of the executive to account.

It can be argued that every government needs a strong official opposition. The importance of the role has been acknowledged since 1935, when the opposition leader was first awarded a special salary. The sense of unchallenged power can lead to serious mistakes but, perhaps more importantly, the existence of a dangerous political enemy helps to keep the governing party united. Even a party in a dominant position, as Labour was, had to keep reminding its backbenchers that rebellions will only play into the hands of an effective and ruthless opposition, ready to take advantage of any dissenting votes. The same can be applied to the Coalition government and the Labour opposition today.

The House of Lords

Originally the House of Lords was regarded as (at least) the equal of the Commons. But once the Commons was elected by something close to universal franchise, the Lords began to seem outdated, with an automatic Conservative majority built on the votes of hereditary peers – that is, members of the House of Lords who owed their right to attend and to vote to a title bestowed on one of their ancestors, not to their own merits. Its very existence was likely to come into question should it ever conflict with the Commons, particularly if the elected government was pushing for radical reforms against the resistance of hereditary peers.

Sure enough, in 1911, after a protracted struggle over the right of the Lords to challenge the government’s budget, the Liberal government passed a Parliament Act, restricting the power of the upper chamber. The Lords could no longer reject legislation outright, but merely delay it. An act of 1949 reduced this delaying power further. If the Commons continued to insist on any piece of legislation, it would automatically become law after a year, whatever the Lords might think. If the Lords opposed a bill introduced within the year before a general election, the government would have to hope that it was re-elected to start the whole process again in the new parliament. But almost invariably these would be bills considered to be of minor importance by the government. Even this temporary power to kill off legislation could actually be more useful to the government than the Lords. It allowed the ruling party to blame the Lords for obstructing bills that the government never wanted to pass in the first place!

In 1958 the Life Peerages Act vastly increased the prime minister’s power to change the composition of the Lords. Instead of being dominated by hereditary part-time politicians with illustrious titles, the upper House became something like a retirement home for members of the Commons who had once held ministerial rank. New hereditary titles were virtually unknown – the last was awarded in 1983, to a politician who had no male heir. The Peerage Act (1963) allowed any heir to a hereditary peerage who was really serious about a political career to renounce the title and thus remain qualified for membership of the Commons. Further reforms were proposed later in the 1960s, but they failed to pass the Commons because of combined opposition from right-wing Conservatives, who hated to see the Lords tampered with, and left-wing Labour MPs, who wanted it abolished. It was left to the New Labour government of Tony Blair to return to the subject.

How does parliament perform?

Parliament is still central to UK political life, at least on paper. But is it really effective in performing its roles? If not, why not? And can anything be done about it?

One possibility that we have to consider is whether the current displeasure with parliament might be a reaction to unusual circumstance. After the 1997 general election, parliament seemed impotent because the New Labour government enjoyed an overwhelming majority. Backbenchers like Tony Benn, who disagreed with government policy, could be ignored safely. Conservative MPs seemed wholly irrelevant. Almost the only thing they could decide was the identity of their leader, and after William Hague’s reforms of the selection process they lost their previous dominance even on this question. Because there was no danger that the government would be defeated, parliament rarely appeared on the television news, apart from the weekly Punch and Judy show, Prime Minister’s Question Time. This has changed somewhat with the Coalition’s majority being considerably smaller at just 40. Other recent revelations have increased the public’s displeasure with parliament, for example the MPs expenses scandal.

Unfortunately, although complaints about parliament have been increasing recently, they are far from new. Back in 1931, the former Prime Minister David Lloyd George told a parliamentary committee that “the House of Commons has no real effective and continuous control over the executive”. In the 1960s, the apparent failings of parliament as a whole formed part of the general view that the UK’s institutions needed a radical overhaul.

In 1969 one MP, Ian Gilmour, commented that complaining about the House of Commons had ‘long been a minor industry’. Yet instead of improving since then, the situation seems to have deteriorated further. The Conservative government led by John Major (1990-1997) was seriously divided over the question of European integration, and the very public wrangling over this issue did further damage to parliament’s reputation. More seriously there was a stream of scandals, either sexual or financial, involving ministers and backbenchers.