How Effective Is Parliament in Carrying Out Its Representative Role?

Firstly, the House of Commons has the ultimate check on government power via a vote of no confidence, this last happened in 1979 when Margaret Thatcher was able to be elected due to the Labour government's failure.

Parliament is very effective when dealing with the public and their interests and needs like when they redress public grievances to make sure they are listened too. However, parliament isn’t so effective on the representative side of things. This is because the electoral system that we use isn’t very fair and excludes smaller parties of a chance of being voted into parliament. This therefore means a large number of public votes have been

While the United Kingdom is considered a representative democracy it is arguable to how representative it is of everyone. It is highly unlikely that you would ever find an MP is Parliament who is from a lower class background with the majority of MPs coming from the middle and upper classes. This shows a problem with the UK’s system as not everyone is getting their voices heard in this regard. While it is possible for pressure groups to get their views heard by governments, they will ensure that pressure groups do not become so powerful they steal the government's legitimacy.

The House of Lords is a section of the UK parliament, which oversees and reviews changed and bills made or passed by the House of Commons. Unlike the House of Commons, the members are not decided by the voting of the general public. There are 2 members who are representing due to their job, the Duke of Norfolk and the Marquess of Cholmondely, who are both responsible for organising royal events. There are then another 90 members who are represented due to one of their ancestors being made a member; these people are known as Hereditary Peers. Twenty six senior Bishops of the Church of England are also represented; these are known as Spiritual Lords. The other members have been made members for life, by either being appointed as a Life Peer,

In the UK, Parliament consists of the Monarchy, the House of Commons and the House of Lords. This has existed for centuries and has stood the test of time, in that it still exists. However a number of concerns have been raised about some of the functions and whether they function adequately enough (to a satisfactory or acceptable extent). Parliament currently carries out several functions and is the prime legislative body in the UK. It has many functions such as being representative, legitimising legislation, calling government to account as well as scrutinising and amending legislation. It is made up of representatives who are voted in order to represent

The House of Lords is the second chamber of the UK Parliament and is independent to the Commons although it complements the work of the Commons. Members of the Lords play a vital role in scrutiny, there are two main reasons for this, the first being that they are independent to the Commons and in many ways have increased power which they often use to stand up to the Commons by blocking reforms. Lords also have a better balance of parties so no government has a majority. The Government however can override Lords by using Parliament Act; this was used when the fox hunting ban was being put through under Blair’s government as there were too many in opposition of the ban in the House of Lords. The Parliament Acts, although rarely used, provide a way of solving disagreement between the Commons and the Lords. The Parliament Act of 1949 also prevents Lords from delaying bills for more than one year.

Most of the general British public were not able to vote meaning they had no control over MPs and the laws that effected their lives. The MPs in the running for elections were part of Britain’s richest families so they didn’t have much of an idea of what life was like for the average Britain;

The other two ways that a member is in the upper chamber is through hereditary peers and Lord Spirituals. The hereditary peers are members whose family was appointed by kings or queens at one point in the United Kingdom's history, and that family has had that seat since appointment; there are ninety members who are appointed because they are hereditary peers. The other seat is given to twenty-four bishops representing the Church of England in the affairs of state. There is controversy about both of these member groups. The hereditary peers represent an era that was undemocratic and commonly considered irrelevant in a modern democracy. The other represents a religion that the majority of United Kingdom, a secular state, does not associate with (Lambert, 2016). The number of members in both of these groups mean that they have minimal influence on the government; steps were taken to remove the quantity of hereditary peers under Tony Blair and includes the slow removal of hereditary peers entirely from the chambers (Deborah Summers, 2009: 1).

I believe it is valuable for Members of Parliament to be involved in initiatives such as this because I believe in the importance of any program that provides students with a voice in or involving government. As the generation who will very soon become the leaders of this country, it is important for us to know what good government looks like. Being able to interact with our local MP, Mike Bossio, as part of the larger initiative being taken by Justin Trudeau to include young people in Canada's decision making, is an example of great government and leadership. This initiative is one of benefit to both the young people of Canada and Members of Parliament as it will help create a government more aware of the needs and wants of its

Baroness Glenys Thornton took a larger sociological approach toward the underrepresentation of minorities. Her presentation was based on the diversity of the members of the British parliament as well as the diversity of the other portions of the British government. She stated that minority groups are underrepresented by a margin of about three percent of the current population in the British parliament.

View the link below or use other sources to learn about the important roles within Parliament. Then, find who currently holds the top positions in Parliament. Create a Google presentation with details of the top roles and who currently holds them. (Must include: Prime Minister, Speaker, and our current MP)

The prospect for change in the House of lords has been an endless debate in British politics. The structure of the Chamber has bought about a significant argument for a transformative change in its composition. The upper chamber has already experienced some reformations over the last 100 years, including the Life Peerages Act (1958) and the Lords Act of 1999. The Lords Act reduced the number of hereditary peers to 92 members. This was seen as a significant amendment but academics claim a greater change is needed to establish a more democratic and effective body (Seidle, 2003). Brazier argues the House of Lords continues to be “unelected, unrepresentative and unaccountable” (2008, p. 66). The current composition of the Lords consists of mostly appointed peers, known as life peers, whom are appointed by the Prime Minister. There are currently 707 life peers and 88 hereditary peers. Most importantly, the chamber includes only 26 bishops which remain the only elected members (Parliament UK (2015). This significant proportion suggests the necessity for reforming the composition of the Lords. This essay will assess the merits of switching to a fully-elected House of Lords. I will use the elected U.S. Senate to assess whether a fully-elected upper house would be an effective reform. The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition in 2010 agreed “to bring forward proposals for a wholly or mainly elected upper chamber on the basis of proportional representation” (Russell, 2013, p. 265).

Identify - explain the types of people in the House of Commons and House of Lords.

The concept of political representation is misleading. To understand the question at hand we are inclined to ask is what it means to be “more representative”? To most MPs, the phrase simply means attracting more women, ethnic minorities, disabled people and gay people (Hannan, 2009). By claiming a political system is unrepresentative is suggesting that it has drifted away from public opinion and the consensus established by parliament does not reflect the national temper.

"The rise and fall of class in Britain" is both an allusive and ironic phrase, totally correct yet also at least half mistaken. It is allusive (and correct) because, during the last twenty years or so, the once-fashionable and widely accepted view that class structure and class analysis provide the key to understanding modern British history and modern British life has been disregarded by many historians and abandoned by almost all politicians. Yet it is also ironic (or mistaken), because it remains a generally held belief, not just in Britain but around the world, that class, like the weather and the monarchy, is a peculiarly and particularly British preoccupation. It certainly has been in