Criticisms of this style of scrutinising the government include that Ministers have a chance to prepare a generic answer to the question. The Minister can also prepare for possible follow up questions which means that it’s harder to get an idea of whether the Minister knows about all the variety of issues concerning his or her department. On the other hand it does mean Government ministers can be asked justify policies and elaborate on the reason the policy was made.
Prime minister’s question time is seen as a key method of scrutinising the government. The Prime Minister can be asked any question as he or she has no direct responsibility for any specific department. Questions can be asked to gain information, flag up an issue on behalf of a constituent, urge the government to take action on a specific issue or support or embarrass the government by publicising an issue. The PM has to answer any question he has been asked whether it is a supportive one by an MP from his own party or an aggressive one from the opposition. It is rare for a question asked by an MP of the majority party to criticise the government or PM, however this does occasionally happen when the MP is making a stand for his or her constituents. The leader of the opposition will usually ask the PM a series of questions; this often leads to almost a debate from the two party leaders.
There disadvantages of PMQs include that Prime Minister’s Question Time has now become a sort of 'contest' between the leader of the opposition and the Prime Minister; political commentators described the back and forth of Cameron and Brown as ‘like a Punch and Judy show’ . It's now becoming more and more of a media show than scrutinising the government. Like in departmental questions the PM has a chance to write out a generic answer. MPs of the majority party also can ask questions which don’t scrutinise the government or PM but simply to show support; for example an MP could ask a question of whether the PM is visiting a hospital within that MPs constituency already knowing that he is. However like in departmental questioning it does give MPs a chance to question the certain policies and justify them not only to the opposition but to the general public as the questioning is televised. So to a certain extent both departmental questions and PMQs are a good method of scrutinising the government as the government (no matter how generic the answers maybe) has to justify policy making and defend their actions.
The House of Commons itself was designed to be a debating chamber. There are also many opportunities for debates. Usually debates are opened or closed by a government minister or member of the opposition’s front bench. Frontbenchers are always given more time to speak than the backbenchers. Each bill is debated in its second reading and further debates take place when the opposition uses its time to debate an aspect of government policy. Each parliamentary day will end with an adjournment debate when an MP can raise a matter regarding a matter that affects the MP’s constituency with the relevant minister. There can also be emergency debates in the event of a crisis. An emergency debate is a debate called at short notice on a subject of a "specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration".
Debates have advantages as they provide an open floor for MPs to speak and question members of the Government. The debates bring more follow up questions than seen in methods such as PMQs which means that we’re more likely to see a minister being ‘caught out’. In many ways debates are as successful as departmental questions at scrutinising the government and they share many of the same faults. In many debates, MPs have the questions beforehand so they can prepare a generic answer instead of being put on the spot spontaneously.
Standing Committees can be made up of people from all parties in the Commons, and their job is to scrutinise bills in great depth. Although no member of government may join there is always a government majority on the committee and the chair is also a member of the government majority. Standard committees tend not to change any principles of the bill but simply to make amendments. Relevant ministers or civil servants can be called to explain items. As the whips play a role in this process as well as their being a government majority party, the government party nearly always will get its way. If the government is in a hurry to get the bill through it can use the procedural device of a guillotine whereby the discussion of the committee is cut short and only a small amount of the bill has been examined.
Standard committees are not a very effective method of scrutiny. Scrutinising the government isn’t their primary role which is to make small amendments to a bill which is going through. It is really an advantage for the government as generally only small changes are made and it invariably gets put through.
The role of the select committee is to investigate government policy, expenditure and administration, question ministers, civil servants, interested bodies and individuals and finally to organise hearings and publish reports to bring before parliament. 15 committees have been set up in total to carry out these functions. The select committees are made up of backbenchers. The majority of the MPs belong to the party of government and like in the standing committees are expected to support the government. They cannot force a minister or civil servant to attend or insist that they answer any question (however all MPs do as it would look bad if they failed to do so).
These committees have many advantages and are generally much more successful than standard committees in scrutinising government. The committees can uncover major mistakes made by government. They can scrutinise public institutions and uphold public interest. The select committee are now often televised which means the general public can get a good idea of any faults made by government. However there are flaws in select committees scrutinising the government. As previously stated there is always a government majority who are expected support and not criticise the government. They only have the power to point put problems and therefore cannot enforce decisions. Also known critics of the party are excluded from membership.
In this essay I have discussed the main methods by which the executive is scrutinised by Parliament followed by how successful I feel these methods are. As I have shown above there are flaws in all of these methods. I feel the least successful method is the use of standing committees as they have a different role to play and do very little actual scrutinising. I feel that departmental questions are a more effective than PMQs as due to the ability to ask follow up questions and the fact that in departmental question an MP can ask the relevant minister a question referring to his or her department. I feel that debates have been key method of scrutinising government for a long time and still are, however I feel select committee are the most successful method as they can scrutinize the individual in much more detail.
