Another strength of the legislative system is that it provides lots of good opportunities for scrutiny of bills. Which means, although it contradicts my first point, governments do not always get their own way. The committee stage is a particularly good opportunity for detailed line-by-line scrutiny of a bill, where anomalies in the bill can be identified and amendments suggested.
Private Members Bills are also a big strength of the legislative system, as they provide an excellent opportunity for ordinary backbench MPs to introduce bills on issues they personally feel strongly about. These can often be moral or ethical matters that the government might otherwise try to avoid. For example; The Abortion Act in 1967 and the abolition of the death penalty in 1964 were both Private Members Bills that made a huge difference to society. However, unfortunately, very few Private Members Bills are passed, for example last year just 3 out of 100 were passed. And the government controls the time table, so without government backing, they are doomed to failure. With the stereotyped view that Private Members Bills aren't nearly as important as government ones, they are rarely taken seriously and often get ignored, despite how good the idea is.
Public Bill Committees are another positive point about the legislative system as they offer a perfect opportunity for debating and in-depth scrutiny and of bills by a smaller group of MPs away from the House of Commons. These committees also have the added power of bringing in outside experts to help and give evidence. On the other hand, there are also weaknesses of Public Bill Committees, for example; the selection of members is random, but the overall balance does reflect the party strength in the House of Commons. Meaning if the government doesn't like the Bill, it is likely it won't do well with the Public Bill Committees because most of the people would be from the leading party, and it also works the other way round, for example if the Bill was proposed by the party in government, it is likely to do well in the Public Bill Committees. For instance, at the moment the conservatives are the largest party in the Commons, so each Public Bill Committee has more conservative MPs than any other party. Committees are also temporary, not permanent, so MPs can spend lots of time becoming an expert on detailed line-by-line scrutiny, and then have nothing to do with the Committee.
Lastly, there have been recent reforms that have strengthened the legislative process. For example; since 2006, the committees scrutinising Bills have been given the additional power of taking evidence from experts. Also, the new backbench Business Committee has taken away some of the governments control over the parliamentary timetable. So the legislative system is becoming more and more effective as years go by.
Over all I do think the function of legislation makes the House of Commons a highly effective parliamentary chamber, as it does offer a good amount of opportunities to scrutinise which is key in a legislative system.
Scrutiny, the second, and in my opinion the most important, function of the House of Commons, involves holding the government to account for its actions. In the past it has been suggested that because the government often has such large majorities in the House of Commons, the task of scrutiny can be difficult and the results are ineffective. Despite this, there are still many ways in which MPs can keep check on the government which makes the House of Commons a highly effective parliamentary chamber, for example; PMQs, debates, early day motions, Departmental Select Committees, Public Bill Committees, threats to vote against the government and votes of no confidence.
PMQs (Prime Minister's Question Time) is held for half an hour every Wednesday and has a high level of media coverage, which puts a lot of pressure on the Prime Minister or whoever is answering the question. It is a perfect opportunity for backbench MPs to challenge the government on an important and topical issue and they often speak on behalf of the nation. Questions to ministers can also be written, but PMQs is particularly good because it puts the Prime Minister on the spot. However PMQs does a weak side, as the Prime Minister is often asked 'patsy' questions from his own side and he is usually expecting these questions so has an answer planned, which makes him look very good. The Prime Minister also tends to avoid answering topical questions directly by quoting complicated statistics to confuse the MPs. The biggest disadvantage of PMQs would have to be the theatrical, over excited atmosphere. It often appears that it is not taken seriously enough and the rowdy ambiance gives it more of a pantomime feeling than political.
Debates are another key way of holding the government to account and can be said to make the House of Commons a very effective parliamentary chamber. There are a number of different types of debate, so I'll start by talking about emergency debates, which are in my opinion the most useful and important ones. These are held in response to a particular crisis, for example the debate held on possibly military action against Iraq in September 2002, and a more recent example would be the 2010 rioting debates held in August. Another type is called half-hour adjournment debates. These are debates held at the end of each day which allow individual MPs to raise matters of concern. There are also 20 "Opposition Days" per year, which is an opportunity for the main opposition parties to select the topic for debate. These can often have very successful results, and are very good examples of effective scrutiny, for example; in April 2009 the Lim Dem party chose the issue of residency rights for Ghurkhas, for an opposition day debate. The debate resulted in a crushing defeat for the government and Gordon Brown was forced to change the policy a few days later. But, on the other hand, attendance to debates is often low and the outcome is usually predictable, which is the government getting what it wants. Also, although opposition days are a perfect example of effective scrutiny, there are only 20 a year, which really isn't enough, so they would definitely benefit from having more of those.
Early Day Motions are another, but fairly minor method of Scrutiny. This is where MPs can table a motion to be debated on "the earliest day" possible and other MPs can then add their names to the proposal to indicate to the government the strength of feeling of an issue. This can often be effective, for example; in May 2009, a number of MPs signed an early day motion calling for a debate on the future of the Speaker, Michael Martin. However, this doesn't happen terribly often and isn't extremely significant when talking about the effectiveness of the House of Commons as a parliamentary chamber.
Departmental Select Committees is a very good form of scrutiny and makes the House of Commons a very good effective parliamentary chamber. DSCs were introduced in 1979 and are considered a great improvement in the way in which scrutiny is conducted. There are DCSs to scrutinise every government department, for example; health, education, environment and defence, and two examples of DSCs are the Defence Select Committee and the Heath Select Committee. These Committees have the power to interview witnesses and look at government papers during their enquiries, which end in the publication of a report. A very positive point about DSCs are that they are permanent, so members can develop expertise and become very good at scrutinising in that particular topic area. They can also choose the topic they want to investigate, which essentially gives them more freedom and hopefully they are usually interested in the topic they are examining. Another positive factor is that even with a big majority, DSCs still provide constant scrutiny and the reports they write at the end can often be very influential. For example; The Defence DSC report of the Gulf War Syndrome lead to change in government policy. Also, the Liaison Committee, which questions the Prime Minister twice a year, is made of the chairmen of the DSCs, so they have quite a lot of scrutiny power. However, there are a range weaknesses of DCSs. One of the biggest being, the government doesn't have to respond to reports, so they can essentially ignore the work done by the DSCs. Also, they can't force witnesses to come and answer questions so they can sometimes be left with no evidence, and, like Public Bill Committees that I mentioned earlier, they reflect the party balance in the House of Commons, which is an obvious clear disadvantage because some could be bias. Lastly, although the chairmen of the DSCs are elected by MPs, members are chosen by whips, which is a drawback as whips are manipulating and it is likely you would be rewarded with being a member of a DSC for shady reasons.
Threats to vote against the government is another way the House of Commons holds the government to account and proves to be a highly effective parliamentary chamber. This is where, even when the government has a big majority, it can be forced to think again if a sufficient number of backbench MPs from its own side is unhappy with its proposals. This can often prove to be very useful, especially when there is a small majority, for example; in 2009 Gordon Brown made an announcement on YouTube about his plans to reform MPs' expenses. But when he heard that many Labour backbenchers were threatening to vote against his ideas, he withdrew his proposal. Although these can still work with a large majority, it rarely happens when there is one so it is often a very useless factor of scrutiny.
Lastly votes of no confidence is the ultimate way of scrutinising the government. These can be called if it is believed that the government is guilty of real negligence in a particular area. If a government loses a vote of no confidence, the convention is that is reigns and a general election is held. The last time this happened in Britain was in 1979, where the government of Callaghan failed, but this very recently just happened in Greece. So this is a crucial form of scrutiny and makes the House of Commons a very effective parliamentary chamber, but it very rarely happens and is only really viable when the government majority is very small or even non-existent.
Overall I personally think the House of Commons does a really good job of scrutinising the government. DSCs, debates and PMQs are used very often and are in my opinion the highest forms of scrutiny, making the House of Commons appear to be a very effective parliamentary chamber..