AS revision: Parliament

Are tales of legislative decline exaggerated?

Georges Videl, the French constitutional expert, said of his country’s assembly that “Parliament no longer has any role to play in political life.” This is a view that scholars of Westminster will be familiar with.

The decline of Parliament thesis is based on the idea that recent PMs have exploited what Bagehot called the “fusion of powers”, i.e. that the executive is drawn from the legislature in our parliamentary system of government. Bills are said to be presented to the Commons pretty much as fait accompli. But it is important to remember that Parliament performs other functions than simply legislating. One of these is to act as a forum for debate.

Voters in the UK might think that political debate takes place on the BBC’s Question Time or Newsnight and we hardly bat an eyelid if the PM appears on Richard and Judy. But despite the fact that politicians appear on TV does not diminish the fact that assemblies set the tone for political debate. Just recently media focus switched to the Commons for the debate on human embryo research and abortion.

On the former you can read more here

And on the latter

It’s fair to say Videl is right about our legislature to some extent. It is true that Parliament’s executive dominance has decreased the capacity of our legislature to legislate. But they still perform important roles in other respects, especially scrutiny of the executive, and thus remain as a central part of the respective political systems. And when it comes to acting as a national forum for debate and educating the electorate we could claim, as Mark Twain said, “reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”