The role of Parliament

• Legislatures typically have three core roles: accountability, representation and law-making.
• Accountability involves examining the government’s activity and making sure it explains its decisions. In the UK, which operates under a parliamentary system of government, the executive is both drawn from and accountable to Parliament. To govern, it must command the support—or 'confidence'—of a majority in the House of Commons.
• Parliaments are also meant to represent the interests and concerns of the public and advocate on their behalf.
• Finally, parliaments debate, form, and pass laws.

How does Parliament hold the government to account?

• Select committees are one of the primary means through which Parliament scrutinises the government and holds it accountable.
• Most select committees mirror the work of government departments and focus on a particular policy area (although some work on a more cross-cutting basis).
• Select committees conduct inquiries into particular policies and issues within their remit, gathering information, questioning government ministers, and producing reports.
• After a series of reforms in recent decades, select committees have become more independent and prominent.
• In this sense, many argue that Parliament is performing its accountability function better than before.
• However, others believe the government still has too much influence on select committees, as a majority of committee members are still from the governing party.

The constitution explained: the UK Parliament

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2022

Other forms of government accountability

• Parliamentarians can also hold the government to account by asking questions of ministers and making them explain their decisions.
• The Ministerial Code states that the most important announcements of government policy must be made in Parliament.
• This gives parliamentarians an opportunity to respond to these announcements.
• Furthermore, MPs are able to apply to ask Urgent Questions. If the Speaker of the House of Commons determines that the question is urgent and of public importance, the relevant minister has to come to the Commons to answer the question and take further questions on the matter from MPs.
• There are also more regular departmental question sessions in the Commons chamber, where MPs get to ask questions of government minsters.
• As well as the high-profile Prime Minister’s questions, held every Wednesday.
• The ultimate sanction that Parliament has against a government – used only very rarely – is to pass a ‘no-confidence’ motion. This may lead to an early election.

How does Parliament represent citizens?

• Each MP in the House of Commons represents a particular constituency.
• This arrangement is said to make the Commons particularly responsive to local interests and concerns, as each area has their own dedicated representative.
• MPs spend more time in their constituencies dealing with local issues than they did in the past, with each MP running an advice surgery where residents can come to speak with their elected representative.
• The House of Commons also better reflects the country as a whole than it used to.
• The 2019 election saw more women and MPs from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups elected than ever before.
• However, there are still less female MPs than male MPs, and the proportion of BAME MPs is still lower than the UK population as a whole.

Legislating

• The UK Parliament can in theory make any law it wants to, as long as a majority of MPs vote for it, and the Lords either similarly support it or – in exceptional circumstances – are bypassed.
• On the surface, this makes the UK Parliament seem a very powerful law-making body.
• However, most successful legislation is introduced by the government. MPs that are not in the government or from the governing party have only limited ways in which they can put forward their own laws and influence legislation.
• It is the job of government Whips to ensure that MPs from the governing party support government legislation.
• MPs can put forward amendments to bills, but a government with a supportive majority in the House of Commons will usually be able to reject them.
• Private members’ bills offer an opportunity for MPs and Lords who aren’t government ministers to try and make new legislation
• However, unless they are supported by the government, very few of them become law.

Commons reform

• A key area of change has involved select committees. Reforms have been made to select committees in recent decades that have increased their independence and effectiveness.
• The departmental select committee system that we know today was established in 1979.
• However, until the 2000s, the party Whips were largely in control of the appointment of committee members, and committees lacked resources.
• This hampered their independence and the scope of what they could do.
• After the 2001 election, reforms were made to give select committees more resources, including additional pay for the chairs of select committees.
• It wasn’t until 2010 that the Whips lost more of their control over select committee appointments.
• The Select Committee on Reform of the House, led by Tony Wright MP (the Wright Committee), recommended that the chairs of select committees be elected by the whole House and committee members be chosen by a secret ballot of MPs in their party.

Commons reform continued

• The Wright Committee also recommended the creation of a ‘House Business Committee’ that would oversee a system where non-government business was scheduled by backbenchers and the House would vote on its own agenda.
• The proposal that the House, rather than the government, control its own schedule was not taken forward. However, a Backbench Business Committee was created which was given the power to schedule debates suggested by backbench MPs on 35 days in each parliamentary session.
• Other relatively recent reforms have included giving the House of Commons more of a role in major public appointments made by government, with public hearings for the preferred candidates for certain roles (though the final decision rests with ministers).
• We have also seen the introduction of an e-petitioning system, whereby members of the public can register their support online for a particular demand, for the House of Commons to consider.
• However, some have been disappointed that it has not had more impact or been more ambitious.

Lords reform

• 1999: In 1999, the House of Lords Act was passed. This did not entirely remove all hereditary peers, but reduced their number by more than 600, with only 92 allowed to keep their seats.
• 2005: Constitutional Reform Act passed, providing for the removal of the most senior court in the UK from the House of Lords, creating a separate UK Supreme Court, which began operating from 2009.
• 2014: the House of Lords Reform Act was passed. It allowed for Lords to resign or retire and for members to lose their seats if they did not attend the House of Lords or if they were convicted of a serious offence. It started out as a private members’ bill.
• 2015: the House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Act was passed, having also been introduced as a private members’ bill. The Act enabled the House of Lords to change its disciplinary procedures through its Standing Orders, including allowing for the expulsion of peers in a wider range of circumstances than those set out in the House of Lords Reform Act.
• 2024: The government introduced the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill on 5 September 2024. The Bill seeks to implement Labour’s manifesto commitment to remove the right of the remaining hereditary peers to sit in the chamber. The 92 remaining hereditary peerages left after the 1999 reforms will be removed.

How are peers currently appointed?

• Appointments to the House of Lords are made by the King on the advice of the Prime Minister.
• There are a number of different circumstances in which political appointments to the House of Lords may be made.
• For example, when a Prime Minister resigns they often appoint people to the Lords in what is known as ‘resignation honours’.
• The other political parties also get to nominate individuals to become peers, so there is a range of different political groupings in the upper chamber.
• The House of Lords Appointments Commission was created in 2000.
• It has two main roles. The first is to make nominations of individuals for crossbench members of the House of Lords (non-party political members).
• The second is to review nominations to the House of Lords made by the Prime Minister and the political parties, to make sure potential members have conducted themselves to a high standard in the past.
• However, it is only advisory to the Prime Minister, who can always ignore the advice given by the Appointments Commission.

An elected second chamber?

• Those who propose that the House of Lords should be directly elected say that it is undemocratic and illegitimate to give individuals who haven’t been elected by the public a say over the laws that will affect them.
• Lawmakers derive their legitimacy through being chosen by the public.
• This gives the public the opportunity to remove politicians at regular intervals if it is believed they are doing badly. Lords are given their positions for life.
• Unlike the House of Commons, they lack what is referred to as a democratic mandate.
• However, others – who do not believe the UK’s second chamber should be directly elected – say that the Lords derive their legitimacy from their particular expertise and knowledge.
• They would argue it is important to have a more experienced second chamber, with people drawn from professions beyond those that usually go into politics.
• Furthermore, the Prime Minister has the power of appointment, and the premier is democratically elected, meaning there is a democratic element to the process.
• They point out that with a democratic mandate the Lords may come to see itself as equally legitimate to the House of Commons.

The Salisbury-Addison convention

• The Salisbury convention was named partly after the fifth Marquess of Salisbury (the leader of the Conservative Opposition in the House of Lords at the time of the post-war Labour government).
• The Labour Government had a majority of 156 in the House of Commons, and was elected with a far-reaching legislative agenda.
• But there was a Conservative majority in the House of Lords, which could delay the passage of legislation for up to two years (under the 1911 Parliament Act).
• The Marquess of Salisbury reached an agreement that the Conservatives would consider legislation that was in Labour’s manifesto to have a democratic mandate, and not frustrate its passage through the Lords.
• This established a convention that the Lords do not vote down bills on the second or third reading that were mentioned in the government’s election manifesto.
• However, the convention is not always followed. This is because it does not have legal force and is only a traditionally observed practice.

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The Constitution Society is an independent educational foundation and charity which works to promote public understanding of the UK constitution. We monitor constitutional developments and proposals for change, and assess them against core constitutional principles.