Question from January 2003

The legislative, under a parliamentary government, has more power than that of a presidential government. The president is solely responsible for selecting his or her cabinet members, however in a parliamentary system the Prime Minister must have their selection confirmed by the legislative. The legislative can also hold a vote of no confidence, if they feel the Prime Minister to be ineffective. Under a presidential system, however, the president can only be removed mid-term if they have acted illegally and therefore they would be impeached.

c) How effective is parliament in holding the government to account?

Parliament acts, in many ways as an effective form of scrutiny. Both select and standing committees allow for deep analysis of government policy administration and bills respectively. Select committees in particular compel ministers to answer questions that may or may not otherwise get asked. This being said, as the government is not obliged to act upon their recommendations it can be argued that they lack expertise, this being particularly true of the commons committees. Standing committees, it can also be argued, are a bit of a waste of time as, like the house of commons, they are government dominated and whipped and so they cannot always offer effective scrutiny. Some select committees though, have shown some teeth, with a prime example being Labours recent education white paper, with both Labour & the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives each writing their own version of the paper. Committees in any case are limited as to how effective their scrutiny can be. The tradition of Government secrecy, for example, makes it difficult to obtain information from Ministers and, without express permission of the house as a whole, ministers do not have to attend, although they usually do.

Prime Ministers questions, to an extent, are effective, as the Prime Minister is put on the spot, with no preparation time for their answers. Prime Ministers questions offer a chance for local issues to be raised and it is difficult for the Prime Minister to avoid the question topic. It brings to attention that may not otherwise make it into the public eye. Being televised, however, it has been argued, turns what should be an effective form of scrutiny into a point-scoring exercise with insults and one-liners covering up the questions at hand. The fast pace of the questions allows for a wide range of issues to be covered, although this could mean that the focus is lost with all the changes. Although the Prime Minister does not have time to prepare, they tend to spend time, and money, trying to guess the questions that will be asked in the session. This is, it can be argued, a waste of time and money for both the Prime Minister and the civil servant. All in all, Prime Ministers questions is an ineffective check on the government as it really only focuses on the Prime Minister, not the rest of the government.

Although the Government always has a majority in parliament, they cannot always avoid the issues raised by parliament.