Party loyalty is justified on the bases that almost all MP’s are elected on party label, rather than on their own individual census. This loyalty is, due to the stringent system of party whipping and strong party loyalties apparent in the contemporary British political system, it is almost certain that government MP's will follow the courses of actions favoured by their party, whether in standing committees, or similarly in votes on bills in the House of Commons, rather than risking harsh disciplinary action as is often the case which includes threats i.e. exposure of MPs private life, the threat of de-selection which means that an MP will be unable to stand in the next election and physical threats this type of threat is rarely used. These happen when MP's act against the wishes of their party The whip can also make promises to MP’s about promotions but this can only be used a few times, also access to treats which are gifts in return for party loyalty these gifts are known ‘fact finding missions’. This point completely support the view that the house of commons can be described as a lapdog doing whatever the party whip state or else there will be consequences.
There are 3 main ways in which parliament holds the government to account one is select committees, official opposition, ministerial Question time is another important tool for scrutinizing government, and is a valuable source of information for Mps and the electorate. It forces government ministers to explain their policies and respond to the issues of the day. The limitations for Question Time include the amount of time that is available, as there is often not much time to answer questions. Ministers can give inadequate and vague answers which decreases Parliaments ability to be a watchdog, in the cases of "Arms to Iraq" and the Scott enquiry found that ministers were lying. The government refuses to answers questions on taboo topics, such as security matters. As in the case with other debates, question time often develops into party political point scoring, and no effective use of the time available is made. There is also Prime Ministers Question time, and this is the main set piece of the parliamentary week. This supposedly gives MP's a chance to criticize and scrutinize the Prime Ministers policies. Tony Blair has revised the timetable for Prime ministers Question Time, and it is now held once a week. Limitations of Question Time are that there is planted or friendly questions are asked. This reduces parliamentary time yet further, and there are often endless debates on these issues. Other aspects, which do not have any effective use, are things such as disproportionate cost excuse, where ministers refuse to answer questions because the information is not readily at hand.
Select committees
Select committees are a small group of MP’s who are supposed to be appointed by parliament, they enable parliament to scrutinise more effectively carrying out the watchdog role effectively. Select committees in the Houses of Commons monitor and scrutinize the executive functions of policy formulation and implementation by government rather than solely its legislative functions. Select committees focus on specific policy areas, and by the means of convention should have the right to paper, person and records. It could be argued that they are an extremely useful tool available to parliament, in scrutinizing individual areas of the policy making process. However, it has been apparent on occasions in the past, that respective governments may have withheld information to various select committees which could have been proved extremely damaging to the government's reputation. For example, the investigation of the Westland helicopter affair by both the Defence, and the Trade and Industry select committees was hampered by the fact that the government refused access to a number of top civil servants who were actively engaged in the affair. In addition the committees are made up in accordance with each parties strength in the house of commons, which means that the governing party always has an in built majority in the committee, the effect of this factor is to undermine the independence of the committees and gives them tendency to be instinctively supportive of their government. Therefore it would be fair to say that although standing committees do allow opposition MP's the chance to scrutinize the legislative functions of the government of the day, because of the fact that the government is likely to have an inbuilt majority's in each of the committees, the extent to which this is likely to be effective is compromised.
Another major factor which undermines the effectiveness of select committee is the extent of what is called; the official secrets’ within the British political system, this is guaranteed by the official secrets act which was passed in 1911 and update in 1987 to ensure that all information about the government activities no matter could be kept a secret no matter how trivial if the government decided, this enables the government ministers to avoid political embarrassment by claiming that the exposure of certain information required by the select committee would be harmful to national security, so therefore again select committees power of scrutinizing the government is undermined due to official secret acts.
Sporadic difficulties be initiated by back bench mps within their own party, rather than by select committees or the official opposition for example during the last conservative government the pm (john major) was faced by a substantial minority of back bench mps within his own party over the issue if euro although this opposition only lead to a small number of defeats and did not have significant effect on the governments legislative programme it did create a public perception when the party was disunited to the point were they were defeated in the 1997 general election, currently the labour government has had a degree of opposition from some if its back bench mps over issues like tuition free, the introduction of the private sector in the public services e.g. water taxes and also the war in Iraq. However the house of commons can be describe as being a watchdog, due (PMB's) are introduced and promoted by backbench MP's. They take up approximately 10% of Parliamentary time, and are held on twelve Fridays in each session. The majority of PMB's fail, due to the lack of time available. In reality, the MP needs the government support to pass a Bill. PMS's are prone to filibustering, although there have examples of success in the 1960's reforms to law on abortion and homosexuality. In 1994, a PMB influenced the government to lower the age of consent for homosexuals to 18, this prove that not all the mp’s can be described as being loyalty and obedient to some stand up for what they believe in and the house of common can then be called a watchdog.
