Questions

1. Explain why parliamentary scrutiny of the government is important.
2. Outline the three main ways in which scrutiny takes place. Are they effective?
3. What is a public Bill?
4. Outline the stages of the legislative process for a public Bill.
5. How can the government dominate the law-making process?
6. What is secondary legislation?
7. Explain the issues that can arise in relation to scrutiny of statutory instruments.
8. What are Henry VIII powers and what potential issue do they raise?

Answers

1. It acts as a check and control by preventing the government from exceeding its powers, requiring the government to be answerable for its public expenditure, policies, and errors, producing accountability, and encouraging the government to review policy. Public questions and debates ensure that government is open and transparent. It encourages dialogue between parliament and the government, allows parliament to be informed, and helps promote more efficient and effective government.
2. Ministerial questions, debates, select committees. All three are critical functions of parliament, providing an opportunity for government scrutiny by elected representatives and holding ministers and government departments to account. There are issues with all of them but select committees have become a highly effective method of public scrutiny.
3. It has general application when it becomes law. Most bills introduced into parliament are Public Bills and many are put before parliament by the government.
4. Sometimes pre-legislative scrutiny takes place, then first reading, second reading, committee stage, report stage, third reading, House of Lords (if introduced in the House of Commons), royal assent.
5. Through the government’s inbuilt support as the party with the largest number of seats within the Commons. A large majority gives the government much greater control in both the Commons and committees.
6. Power to make secondary legislation (or delegated or subordinate legislation) is granted to e.g. ministers or local authorities by an Act of Parliament called an enabling Act or a ‘parent Act’.
7. Negative statutory instruments are only debated if a Member specifically requests a debate. Some statutory instruments are required to be laid before parliament without any subsequent scrutiny procedure, and some are not subject to any parliamentary procedure at all.
8. A Henry VIII clause in a Bill or statute allows government ministers to make secondary legislation to repeal or amend primary legislation. The issue is that this can deliver wide law-making power to the executive and enable the government to rewrite primary law without further parliamentary scrutiny.