Constitutional Law: In the late twentieth century it is no longer possible for Parliament to fulfil

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Constitutional Law: In the late twentieth century it is no longer possible for Parliament to fulfil

Parliament, the Commons and Lords, play an important role in calling the executive to account. They perform both a retrospective and prospective role to keep the executive in check. Retrospectively using question time and select committees and prospectively in standing committees and voting on legislation, amongst other things. Their authority to scrutinise is somewhat curtailed in that the executive, which can be described as the cabinet and top civil servants, is by convention limited to the government of the day which makes up the Cabinet. Parliament can scrutinise only the actions for which a Minister is responsible although this area may be large. Civil servants are not required to answer for their actions to Parliament only to their departmental Minister. They can however be questioned by Parliament regarding departmental matters on the running of departments. Junior ministers can also be questioned on government matters although they are not directly in the executive. This leads to a somewhat haphazard system of accountability which becomes more entrenched with the fact that part of the executive resides in the House of Lords.

The Commons retrospective powers of scrutiny can be divided into two areas, those on the floor of the house and those not. On the floor of the house the most famous is that of parliamentary question time. The Prime Minister takes questions twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 3pm for 15 minutes, other Ministers do so on a rota basis. M.P.s give notice to the Speaker of their main question and are then allowed to ask a subsidiary question. This area of scrutiny is becoming more and more impotent with the introduction of the Next Steps executive agencies as Ministers become less involved in the day to day running of their department, a trend which is set to continue with the Next Steps revolution. Opposition M.P.s try and wrong foot the Minister involved and most noticeably led to the "dismissal" of Patrick Jenkins after several poor performances over the abolition of the G.L.C. The governing party have been charged with planting questions so as their colleagues appear competent. Question time only accounts for 8% of parliamentary business and its main significance seems to be the portrayal of a gladiatorial match between the parties in the interests of a good "sound-bite" for the media. Of much more importance are the parliamentary select committees.

The concept of select committees has been around since the nineteenth century but it wasn't until 1979 and the establishment of 12 committees, to shadow the main departments, against the wishes of the government, that a tangible system of examination of executive powers was introduced. Committees, usually made up of eleven back-bench M.P.s and the Chair elected by its members, investigate all areas of executive control. These bodies have no formal power except to call for witness, Edwina Currie and the Maxwell brothers were forced to attend, although they did not say much. Mrs. Thatcher forbade William Whitelaw from attending the Home Affairs committee to answer questions on the Maze breakout. They can also summon civil servants and departmental working papers which has led, in theory, to the notion of a more open government. They also allow for specialisation, Frank Fields serving in two parliamentary sessions of the Social Security Committee, and they serve as an open a forum for outsider groups to be heard.

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Committees submit reports to Parliament although they do not have to be debated, in fact between 1979-88 only thirteen reports were debated in depth but some can be very influential. Griffith and Ryle said that select committees had had twelve notable successes, repeal of the S.U.S. laws, privatisation of H.G.V. testing and North Sea oil taxation to name a few but there has also been some notable failures including the failure to stop the withdrawal from U.N.E.S.C.O. and privatisation of the naval dockyards. Some reports have been dismissed out of hand, most noticeably that on the N.C.B. and miners strike, ...

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