To What Extent Is Parliament an Effective Constraint on the Executive?

‘Parliamentary sovereignty is a constitutional relic. It has been rendered obsolete, in particular, by the supremacy of EU law and the UK’s statutory recognition of human rights. We should no longer talk about this irrelevant doctrine.’

Arguably, the scrutiny of Public Bills has depended more on the House of Lords than it has on the House of Commons in recent years. The term “scrutiny” means the critical observation or examination regarding the Public Bills. The “effectiveness” of the scrutiny could be measured in a variety of ways, such as the period of time the bill stays in parliament for, and whether parliament can take on board evidence from committees and implement the bills into legislation. In order to determine if the House of Lords has been more effective than the House of Commons in scrutinising public bills, it is crucial to compare and contrast the effectiveness of the procedures used in both houses.

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.

Committees, a crucial part of the legislative system, are used as a way where Representatives can represent the interests of their constituents - an elector (Bianco, Cannon, 278); as previously illustrated. The committees that Congresswoman Norton, engages in, are called ‘standing’ committees - permanent and specialize in an area of public policy. Being a part of a standing committee becomes beneficiary in relevance

As Parliament is required to scrutinise the executive, each week there is Prime Minister’s Questions giving backbench MPs

With democracy on the incline and other countries catching up to where the UK once lead it can be argued that parliament does not carry out its functions adequately. Many would say there are not enough checks and balances on the government to insure its parliament is run legitimately being argued that a cross on a ballot paper every four years is hardly a true expression of our will. Current circumstances have lead to his enquiry of the people, most significantly the freedom of information act 2000 introduced by Blair’s government allowing transparency and putting the government under some scrutiny resulted in the daily telegraphy uncovering the expense

Most of these problems are rooted in the fusion of the legislature and the executive, which has resulted in the dominance of the executive. From the declining effectiveness of parliament, we can see that an elective dictatorship in Britain is present, but whether Britain is a fully elective dictatorship is an issue we have to discuss. Under Tony Blair’s government Britain has been increasingly seen as an elective dictatorship as many people feel its moving from a Prime Ministerial government to a presidential style government. Firstly this is seen by the relationship between the cabinet and the Prime Minister. Tony Blair’s period as Prime Minister since 1997

Parliament Sovereignty is the right to make or unmake any Law, Parliament are the supreme making body. According to A.V Dicey ‘No person or body is recognised by the law of England having a right to override or set aside the legislation of Parliament’1. So nobody has the right to question the validity of the Law, it should lie with Parliament as no one can challenge to change it. This report offers information to assist party concerned of a conclusion to the effect devolution has on the UK.

In light of the above statement by Lord Reid, it is evident that UK courts do not have the power to strike down an act of parliament as unconstitutional due to a variety of factors. Having a political constitution in the UK the efficiency of the Government overpowers the strict separation of powers and upholds the sovereignty of parliament, leading to the courts being unable to go beyond the power of Parliament and striking down acts that are unconstitutional. Majorly unlike that of the legal constitution of the United States, who allow the courts to strike down any Act they deem unconstitutional. This essay will look at the why the courts cannot deem an act of parliament unconstitutional in comparison to that of the United States.

The first Parliamentary and possibly most important one is that of the Parent/Enabling Act. This Act sets the limits as to who can make the law, when they can make it and the process the bill has to go through to potentially become law. This uphold Parliaments supremacy above the rest as the Enabling Act also allows Parliament to repeal it at any time which is an advantage however this means there will no longer be restrictions on how the law can be made. The powers of the Enabling Act are also very wide which means

This is not to say independent MPs are unable to voice their constituents’ concerns, merely that by design, responsible government is fashioned through negative control – in other words, by dissenting votes through votes of confidence, non-confidence or rejecting money bills, and thereby calling a new election. Cabinet acts; Parliament scrutinizes their actions. For instance, although Donald Savoie wrote that “Parliament continues to move away from one of its central roles,” he stressed that its foundational mold was Gladstone’s instruction to his MPs that ‘You are not here to govern, but rather to hold to account those who do.’ Consequently, ministerial responsibility sets the stage for the fused executive-legislature. Through collective ministerial responsibility, the entire party

This essay will explore the extent of legislative power Parliament holds, specifically examining the concept of Parliamentary sovereignty, the separation of powers and Dicey’s rule of law. However, there is a school of thought that Devolution can undermine Parliaments supremacy, despite this it will be argued that within the UK constitution Parliament does have unlimited legislative

There is a House of Commons Select Committee for each department within Whitehall. These were set up to scrutinise government and hold them to account. The formation of these committees consist of a minimum of 11 members and look at three aspects of each department – Administration, Policies and Spending. With this established, we will be looking at the policy aspect of scrutiny and evaluate how much Select Committees influence the content of legislation. The paper will be structured by starting with the analysis of current literature on this topic and trying to pinpoint what has already been stated about the influence select committees have

Prior to the English Civil War and 'Glorious Revolution ' the Crown acted outside Parliament, causing there to be a struggle for power between the King, the Courts and the Parliament in the 17th Century. Eventually the Courts and Parliament defeated the power of the King and Parliamentary Sovereignty emerged. Parliamentary sovereignty holds that parliament has absolute sovereignty - it is the supreme law maker over all other government institutions. There are no legal limitations on the legislative competence of Parliament and no person is allowed to override or set aside the law of Parliament. R (on the application of Jackson) v AG (2005) shows that the definition of an Act of Parliament differs according to whether it has been passed with consent of House of Commons and Lords or just the House of Commons. The courts have the power to decide if a document is an Act of Parliament. In this case they found that the Parliament Act 1949 and the Hunting Act 2004 were passed under procedure laid down by Parliament Act 1949 and are valid statutes.

The supremacy of legislative power is a deceptive phrase in the Second Treatise. If one were to follow Locke’s blueprint for the original formation of the commonwealth closely, it would become apparent that supreme power in political society rests with the people, not the legislature, because ultimately, there must be a constitution that is written by the people. In order to most clearly see this, a distinction must be drawn between the basic political society and the higher level institution of government, and the events that take place in each sphere must be differentiated. In light of this distinction, the relationship between