议会如何工作
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猫儒Daniel2018-12-09Select committees seem to be held in generally high regard – perhaps more than anything else that Parliament does. There may be several reasons for this: they provide access to the political process; they provide challenge and an alternative point of view based on evidence; but probably most of all they show how politicians of different parties can work together.There is no doubt that unanimous committees are more effective. They speak with a single voice, and it is much harder for governments to dismiss cross-party agreement. Some people see consensus as implying flabby compromise, but select committees show time and again that they can reach a tough agreed view on politically hot subjects. Given that select committees are made up of party politicians, how does this happen?There are thr...
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猫儒Daniel2018-12-09A key phrase in a committee’s powers is ‘to send for persons, papers and records’ (known as ‘PPR’). This means that they have the formal power to compel witnesses ‘within the jurisdiction’ (that is, within the UK) to attend, answer questions and deliver up any papers that the committee may wish to see.Most witnesses before select committees are willing, even enthusiastic; they want the opportunity to make their case on a very public stage. But some are not, for a variety of reasons from a eneralised reluctance to answer a committee’s questions to having something discreditable or damaging to hide. In such cases, the committee may make an order to attend (or pro duce documents), which is served personally on the witness. If he or she does not comply, the committee may report the matter to ...
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猫儒Daniel2018-12-08For the government, Question Time is an opportunity to tell the story the way ministers see it. It can also be a high-risk occasion, and government departments prepare very carefully. Ministers will have had briefing meetings with their civil servants, and each minister will take into the Chamber a ring-binder with the answer he or she is to give to each question, together with a ‘survival pack’ of information and briefing, according to a fairly standard template:The reason for the question: why is the MP asking it? Is there a particular constituency focus? What has he or she raised with the department recently? When a government MP puts down a question, he or she will often helpfully let the department know what is behind it, or what he or she plans as a supplementary question. Oppositi...
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猫儒Daniel2018-12-08If Question Time is seen as a duel, the tabling of the question and the minister’s often low-key reply are rather like two fencers squaring up to each other before the swords clash. The real conflict of Question Time is in the supplementaries. Thus, an opposition MP may table a question that simply asks the Home Secretary how many police officers there are in England. The Home Secretary gives the figure, and the MP then asks ‘But is the right honourable Member aware that in the police authority that covers my constituency, police numbers have fallen by 9 per cent over the last three years, and violent crime has increased by 13 per cent? Doesn’t that demonstrate that the government is soft on crime? Will the Home Secretary tell my constituents why she is not committed to improving their saf...
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猫儒Daniel2018-12-08Answers to parliamentary questions provide a huge amount of information on the whole range of government responsibilities, but attention inevitably focuses on occasions when answers are not given. Before the coming into force of the Freedom of Information Act, ministers’ judgement of ‘not in the public interest’ was normally based on the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information, first introduced in 1994, which listed 15 cat egories of exemptions to the provision of information, on grounds includ ing harming international relations, or the frankness of discussion inside government, or the ability of the government to manage the econ omy, or the proper and efficient conduct of the business of a government department. Although it was expected that the government would continue to...
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猫儒Daniel2018-12-08There is a rather hackneyed story of a minister and a senior civil servant being driven to some remote government establishment. The fog closed down, the car went slower and slower, and finally the driver, dimly seeing a passer-by, rolled down the window and said ‘Where are we?’ Back came the answer ‘You’re in a car, in the fog’. ‘Do you realise, Minister’, said the civil servant, ‘that’s a perfect answer to a parliamentary question. It’s short, it’s absolutely true, and it tells you nothing you didn’t know already.’
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猫儒Daniel2018-12-08When the previous MP sits down, all those in the Chamber wanting to speak will bob up, hoping to ‘catch the Speaker’s eye’. The Speaker then says ‘Mr Smith’ and Mr Smith begins his speech. It is said that the practice of calling out a member’s name originated with the corrupt Speaker Trevor at the end of the seven teenth century (see page 106). Up to then, the Speaker merely looked meaningfully at the member he wished to call; but Speaker Trevor had a truly grotesque squint, which is supposed to have led to wide spread misunderstanding as to which member he had intended to call. This may be apocryphal, but Trevor’s portrait confirms the squint, at least.
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FACT2018-04-07上院议事厅：位于王座前方的便是上院议长座( Woolsack)，以来自英联邦各个成员国的羊毛填充而成。爱德华三世认为这一大袋羊毛是个很好的象征，可以让上院的贵族们不时想起作为国家经济基础的畜牧业一也是主要税源——这项传统——直延续至今。
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猫儒Daniel2018-12-09The European Parliament sees itself as the democratic institution repre senting citizens across the European Union. It is reasonable to ask, in that case, what is there for national parliaments to do? The answer is that the European Parliament is, in practice, remote from the citizens it seeks to represent and it lacks key powers expected of a parliament: it does not sustain a government in office (it must agree the appointment of the President of the Commission and can dismiss the entire Commission, but it has no power over the Council); it cannot impose taxes (although it must agree the EU budget); and, although with the agreement of the Council it may make amendments or block proposals for legislation, it cannot initiate legislation. While there is no cause for complacency about the re...
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猫儒Daniel2018-12-09The Treaty of Lisbon ostensibly gave national parliaments a greater role in Europe. It gave them, in particular, a specific role in monitoring whether EU proposals comply with the principle of subsidiarity (that is, whether action at EU rather than national level is necessary). Any national parliament or any chamber of a national parliament of a member state may send a reasoned opinion to the Council, Commission and European Parliament stating why it considers that a proposal does not comply with the principle. Bicameral parliaments have one vote per chamber; unicameral parliaments, two votes. Where reasoned opinions on the same proposal received within eight weeks amount to at least one-third of all the votes allocated to national parliaments – one-quarter for proposals in the area of fre...
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猫儒Daniel2018-12-09The institutions of the EU are not directly accountable to any national parliament, so parliaments can exercise influence mainly through their own governments and ministers. No matter how strongly the shellfish proposal was criticised, the most the House of Commons could have done would have been to agree to a motion instructing the government to vote against in the Council. The minister would have had a strong political imperative to obey that instruction, but could well have been out-voted in the Council.The European scrutiny process is nevertheless valuable. It is comprehensive, and it catches a wide range of European proposals and other documents, on which ministers have to state their policy and provide evidence. It is open: EMs are public documents, and the committee’s reports are p...
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猫儒Daniel2018-12-09To return to our shellfish example, things might have proceeded in this manner. The European Scrutiny Committee recommends a debate, which takes place in European Committee A. The minister is subject to some very hostile questioning from opposition MPs with fishing constituencies, and even some critical interventions from her own side. The government puts down a fairly bland motion about ‘protecting public health and ensuring that all relevant factors are taken into account’ but is unable to prevent the motion being amended to condemn ‘an ill-thought-out proposal that will have a devastating effect on fishing communities throughout the United Kingdom’.The same week, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee, which deals with fisheries, announces its intention of mounting a ...
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猫儒Daniel2018-12-09The Commons committee had a remarkable success in getting included in the Amsterdam Treaty a protocol on the role of national parliaments that requires a six-week period of notice before the Council decides on a piece of legislation (now eight weeks); but late changes to proposals often mean that this requirement is circumvented.In 2013, the Committee concluded that things were not getting better and that developments since the Lisbon Treaty (for example, the increasing frequency of first reading deals) mean that national parliaments are still, too often, being shut out of crucial stages of the legislative process. It also proposed a new version of the scrutiny reserve resolution, not least because the current situation of operating on the basis of a text agreed before the Amsterdam, Nice...
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猫儒Daniel2018-12-09We said earlier that a European regulation could become part of the law of the United Kingdom without the involvement of the British Parliament. Let us take a hypothetical example and then see whether British parlia mentarians might have been able to affect what happened.A virus that causes severe food poisoning has been found in cockles and small clams harvested in the western Mediterranean. Several people have died. During questions to the Fisheries Commissioner at a sitting of the European Parliament he is urged to take action, and undertakes to do so. The Commission then goes rather over the top and produces a whole new regulatory regime for shellfish, which among other things would require people catching shellfish of any kind to have their catch screened for the virus, and dealers t...
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FACT2018-04-07“议会”这个词源自法文“parler”，意思是“演说”或“谈论”，在13世纪首次在英国被用来指称扩大举行的御前会议，由贵族、主教以及大臣向国王提供立法、行政与司法上的建议。至于现代议会制度形态，则源出1265年由西蒙・德·蒙特福特( Simon de Montfort)代表享利三世召开、首度纳入各地市镇代表的国是会议。国王现在依然是议会名义上的召集人。