Spending is scrutinised by the Public Accounts Committee, which is chaired by a senior member of the Opposition. This is fair and allows for fair and proper scrutiny by the House of Commons to ensure minimum dishonesty and minimum incompetence of the government.
Another effective way in which the House of Commons scrutinises, is in the ways that select committees work to make issues known so that the government cannot ignore them and are encouraged to act. An example of this was when a committee investigated RORO Ferries when a wave had entered one of the ferries through an open port door and had sunk it; the committee encouraged the government to pass new laws to prevent this from happening so the government later introduced new legislation to ensure that all ferry doors were closed before the ferry left the port. By effective scrutiny, the select committees were able to encourage the government to act in preventing future problems.
However, Scrutiny in the House of Commons can have some weaknesses. The government can refuse to answer questions or provide information for the Select committees like they did in the “Sandline Affair” when the government refused to answer questions to the Foreign Affairs Select committee over arms being sent to Iraq.
Accountability is when the government and ministers have to account for what they are doing to the House of Commons; this is answering questions and justifying their actions and decisions.
A problem in accountability is that Prime Ministerial attendance in the House of Commons has declined since the mid- 19th century and during Question Time, where the Prime minister is asked questions about the latest government actions, questions in favour of the government can be planted so the Prime minister has more support. The House of Commons has failed in its accountability on some occasions like when it failed to make Tony Blair account for sending troops to Afghanistan without prior consultation.
However, there are many cases in which the House of Commons has made sure that people are accountable for their actions and example of this is the July 2001 AS Examination debate that asked questions to education ministers and gave the Opposition a chance to criticize the government; this acts as a deterrent for ministers as they don’t follow any bad policies if there is a chance that they will have to fully justify their reasons for it.
Legislating is passing laws. The House of Commons aren’t expected to defeat government laws as the government has the majority.
A problem of legislating is that the government usually gets what it wants as it dominates the House of Commons and MPs are unlikely to rebel; Tony Blair said in a speech “Look at the Tory party...They were all swept away, rebels and loyalists alike...you are here because of the Labour party under which you fought.” This was to tell MPs that they had to be united or they would lose power like the Conservatives had. They were told that they should rely on their party because it was the only reason they had a job. MPs aren’t willing to risk losing their salary for a rebellion.
Devolution seems to show a problem with legislating because Wales and Scotland have introduced new laws that they seem to benefit from. This shows that laws that the people wanted weren’t passed previously. This however, doesn’t show a major decline in the House of Commons because the House of Commons role isn’t to pass legislation because they have to allow a mandate for the elected government. In legislating they only are to amend laws and advise the government that proposed laws might be unpopular, an example of this is the recent proposals of ID cards that is being debated in the commons. The ineffective function is that the House of Commons had failed to represent local interests because laws had failed to be introduced that were later introduced in devolution.
Law making involves creating new legislation from Private Members’ bills. It is rare to see these laws get passed but this doesn’t show a decline in the House of Commons because Private Members’ bills have always been unlikely to succeed so this hasn’t changed.
Redressing grievances is when and MP raises the grievances of an individual or their whole constituency in the public forum in Parliament. An example of this is to reject certain proposals like land use for undesirable things like landfills. This role is carried out effectively as there is an Ombudsman who deals with personal grievances like benefits problems and many constituents write to their MP to thank them for their help.
Deliberation is when the House of Commons has general debates on all issues of the day. MPs must represent the different groups in society. This is carried out effectively with the increasingly more fair representation system; that may seem ineffective due to under representation, but is a great improvement from the past. More time can now be spent on this due to Modernisation that has reduced the holiday time that MPs get so that they have to return to work in September rather than November. MPs were given pagers to make sure that they attend any important debates so that the population is properly represented.
Large rebellions can seem ineffective as the government has the government has the largest majority since 1935 and can stand large rebellions and still win the vote. An example of this was the massive rebellion against the war in Iraq that failed to stop Tony Blair form going to war with Iraq. However, this doesn’t show the role of deliberation to be carried out ineffectively because the government may have the majority which allows them to dominate the House of Commons, but this is representative of the population because they were the ones who voted for a majority government and gave them a mandate i.e. a “right to rule” to introduce the policies they were elected for.
The statement that the House of Commons in an “Institution in decline” isn’t correct because there is no evidence to show that the House of Commons isn’t carrying out its roles effectively. There has been no decline in the effectiveness of the way in which the House of Commons carries out its roles of scrutiny, accountability, legislation, law making and redressing of grievances; as they are still carried out as well as they always had been. There have been improvements in the legitimating functions of the House of Commons as there is better representation and there is still a great deal of respect for other MPs as they represent their public constituency by the use of the title “honourable member.” Another function that is being carried out ,ore effectively by the commons is deliberation due to better representation and an elected government. There are minor problems with the functions of the House of Commons that prove rather ineffective e.g. MPs are unlikely to rebel so they may be agreeing with their party rather than speaking to represent their constituents, but overall, the functions of the House of commons are carried out as effectively or if not, more effectively than in previous times.
