How Well Does Parliament Perform Its Various Functions? Essay

How well does parliament per do its various subprograms? There argon several weighty functions that fan tan must(prenominal) perform. The word s pull downs derived from the Latin parliamentum and the french word parler which originally meant a talk- which is what Parliament does most of the time. Parliament consists of the reside of parking lot, the field of Lords and the Monarchy. Parliament is the highest judicial, legislative and administrator dodging in Britain.A parliamentary form of disposal acknowledges that it derives its power directly from the comply of the concourse. This sort of system ensures democracy and an combat-ready interaction amidst the people and their moveatives. The leash functions that I am going to cogitate on argon Scrutiny, Representation and right reservation. Scrutiny is carried out in quadruplet principal(prenominal) delegacys- tip Ministers Questions, drive Committees, The posterior Benches and The mansion of Lords. Prime Ministers Questions is a for for each oneness one week opportunity for backbenchers to scrutinise the Prime Minister.This happens all(prenominal) Wednesday and is an opportunity for the leader of the opposition as well as other mononuclear phagocyte system to highlight establishment failings or beseech the Prime Minister a question. This is a good way to scrutinise the Prime Minister as it puts them under pinch to justify their actions and normally with potentially no pre-warning of what topics will halt to be defended. The subdivision of surprise allows opposition MPs as well as backbenchers and sometimes members of the cabinet to catch the prime subgenus sometime(prenominal)or out with an awkward question.The relative mental process of each of the primary(prenominal) ships company leadership is closely watched and each is under nifty pressure to get the musical composition of their opp mavinnt. The main weakness of this form of scrutiny is that it is very a goo d deal accused of cosmos more worry Gardeners Question Time as some believe the questions ar planted and so the Prime Minister and Opposition throw out prep atomic number 18 their answers beforehand. Select Committees in twain the tin of jet and the Lords investigate the build of governing departments and produce reports of policy proposals.They induce the power to call witnesses in the stratum of their proceedings. Their role is multi-faceted and includes some tasks such as investigating the piss of the politics departments to chequer whether they have acted efficiently and effectively. This is a salubrious form as scrutiny as it reports back to the public what is happening cig atomic number 18tte the scenes in the government but the Select Committees lack resources, expertise and power to ca-ca damage if the government werent doing their melody properly.Select Committees have been described as a mere irritant. The government relies on backbenchers in providing services to their constituents and relaying the opinions of their constituents. Although backbenchers do not hold power, a accommodative revolt could topple the ruling society finished a no self-confidence select. An example of a successful riot occurred during November 2006 over the Terrorism Act 2006 when a large number of backbenchers voted against the 90-day detention purvey of the anti-terror legislation in order to poststill the bill.This provided to be the single largest defeat for thence Prime Minister Tony Blair since his government. Recently David Cameron set about a threat of a clean backbench Tory revolt as traditionalists lined up to oppose government plans to legalise unfearing marriage but umteen another(prenominal) a(prenominal) debated that this in fact could not be counted as a rebellion as backbenchers would likely be given a poverty-stricken vote in any vote on legalising gay marriage. This at that placefore is a strong form of scrutiny as it has been proven exceedingly powerful and has even overthrown past governments for example Marg aret Thatcher and James Callaghan. ane of the main issues with scrutiny and backbenchers is that they are a good deal under the control of the Whips (MPs or Lords decreed by each party in Parliament to help organise their partys contribution to parliamentary business) and one of their main responsibilities is making sure the maximal number of their party members vote the way their party wants. Unless the backbenchers have enough people to rebel they will not come after and therefore it is not lots that a government is defeated, for example Blairs government was only defeated in the third estate four times over their ternion terms in power.The endure of Lords is the minute chamber of the UK Parliament and is independent to the Commons although it complements the work of the Commons. Members of the Lords play a life-sustaining role in scrutiny, there are two main reasons for this, the first cosmos that they are independent to the Commons and in many ways have change magnitude power which they frequently use to stand up to the Commons by stoppage reforms. Lords as well have a better balance of parties so no government has a majority.The Government however elicit override Lords by using Parliament Act this was used when the fox run ban was being put through under Blairs government as there were too many in opposition of the ban in the House of Lords. The Parliament Acts, although rarely used, provide a way of solving disagreement between the Commons and the Lords. The Parliament Act of 1949 withal prevents Lords from delaying bills for more than one year. The second function that Im concentrating on is Representation. In the Commons MPs are pick out all(prenominal) five years to represent local constituencies.The link between the House of Commons and the local constituency is very important as it provides information to the government on how the pub lic is responding to their policies and ideas for unseasoned laws, reforms and ideas. In recent years there has similarly been many attempts to make the government more divers(a) for example more women and ethnic minorities. This was curiously pushed by Tony Blair as it was obvious to him that the UK was out-of-the-way(prenominal) behind the US in being diverse, he started by pushing for there to be more women in government and these became known as Blairs babes.The Lords are also a large part in representing the national interest as they are less party governmental and many have had long careers in public service, business, arts and culture, or another(prenominal) area of activity. Therefore the members of the House of Lords confer their expertise and knowledge to Parliament and its work and consequently able to take the big picture into account. thus far there are many downfalls in pattern in the government.The most often referred to is how First Past the Post (FPTP) does not produce a very accurate representation in the House of Commons as it produces many wasted votes. In the Institute for universal Policy Research report, which looks at the ratio of votes to MPs under FPTP for the main parties in the 2010 general election, it was shown that it took 33,468 votes to elect a do work MP, 35,028 votes to elect a Conservative MP and 119,780 votes to elect a Liberal populist MP. This therefore is an interesting piece of order showing the unfairness of the FPTP system as it strongly favours some parties over others.However there was a referendum in may 2011 which asked the public whether the Alternative Vote (AV) system should be used for general elections rather of FPTP and more than two thirds of those who voted said to persist the FPTP system- although many of those in opposition to FPTP says this in itself was unfair representation as the production was less than 65% of the community. The lack of women in MPs has also been blamed on the FPTP system there are presently 504 male MPs and 145 feminine MPs nationwide.Therefore the House of Commons is unrepresentative of the UK as there are roughly 28. 6 million males in the UK and 30. 2 million females. The House of Lords is also seen as unrepresentative as it is unelected and even more out of ratio with the population of the UK as it has many old, socially elite group members. Another one of Parliaments main functions is Law Making is debating and issue statue law. The Government introduces most plans for new laws, with many included in the Queens Speech at the opening of each session of Parliament.However new laws fundament originate from an MP or a Lord. Parliament passes about 100 laws each year and every law goes through several stages and is debated continuously in much detail before being passed. need issues such as the threat of terrorism all contribute to the need for the new laws. Before draft laws, known as bills are introduced to Parliament there is oft en consultation or discussion with stand up Committees and as these consist of MPs from every party they guarantee that every opinion point is reflected in discussion.The House of Lords main role when it comes to the function of Law Making is to amend bills or make suggestions of improvements. The Lords also have the power to reject bills that depend unworkable or undesirable (for example the fox hunting bill and recognition cards bill). The governments majority always ensures that its proposals are passed as they have elective tyranny and bottom also use parliamentary Acts to override the House of Lords. Also the House of Lords is also limited to only one year of delaying bills and therefore the government can pass new laws fairly slow after one year.Standing Committees also generally reflect the composition of the House of Commons and therefore the party in government will always have a higher majority. Government often imposes time limits on Standing Committees discussions . In my opinion Parliament performs its various functions- scrutiny, representation and legislation (law making)- well. Although there are many weaknesses to each function it would be extremely hard to remove these weaknesses without making the executive separate like they have in the United States.