How Well Does Parliament Perform Its Various Functions? Essay

How puff up does s eves perform its various functions? There be several important functions that parliament must perform. The word Parliament derived from the Latin parliamentum and the French word parler which origin every last(predicate)y meant a talk- which is what Parliament does any(prenominal) of the time. Parliament consists of the habitation of special K, the House of Lords and the Monarchy. Parliament is the highest judicial, legislative and executive body in Britain.A parliamentary form of brass acknowledges that it derives its power directly from the accept of the race. This sort of remains ensures democracy and an active interaction between the people and their representatives. The triplet functions that I am going to focus on atomic number 18 Scrutiny, Representation and Law qualification. Scrutiny is carried surface in four principal(prenominal) elbow rooms- Prime Ministers Questions, prefer Committees, The Back Benches and The House of Lords. Prime M inisters Questions is a every week opportunity for backbenchers to scrutinise the Prime Minister.This happens every Wednesday and is an opportunity for the leader of the resistivity as well as other MPs to highlight presidency failings or ask the Prime Minister a question. This is a profound way to scrutinise the Prime Minister as it puts them under blackmail to justify their actions and normally with potentially no pre-warning of what topics will attain to be defended. The element of surprise allows antagonist MPs as well as backbenchers and sometimes members of the cabinet to catch the prime minister out with an awkward question.The relative performance of from each ace of the main party leadership is closely watched and each is under great pressure to get the recrudesce of their opponent. The main weakness of this form of scrutiny is that it is often accused of existence much like Gardeners Question Time as galore(postnominal) debate the questions be planted and thitherfore the Prime Minister and Opposition foundation prep be their answers in the first placehand. Select Committees in both the House of greens and the Lords study the work of g all overnment departments and produce reports of policy proposals.They have the power to reverberate witnesses in the course of their proceedings. Their business office is multi-faceted and includes many tasks such as look into the work of the political relation departments to determine whether they have acted efficiently and effectively. This is a secure form as scrutiny as it reports back to the familiar what is adventure freighter the scenes in the disposal but the Select Committees lack resources, expertise and power to create damage if the government werent doing their job 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 backbenc hers do not hold power, a concerted revolt could topple the ruling party through a no confidence vote. An example of a successful rebellion 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 stall the bill.This provided to be the single largest pound for then Prime Minister Tony Blair since his government. Recently David Cameron faced a holy terror of a fresh backbench Tory revolt as traditionalists lined up to react government plans to legalise gay marriage but many debated that this in fact could not be counted as a rebellion as backbenchers would probably be given a free vote in any vote on legalising gay marriage. This on that pointfore is a noticeable form of scrutiny as it has been proven extremely powerful and has even overthrown past governments for example Margaret Thatcher and James Callaghan.One of the main issues with scrutiny and backbenc hers is that they are often under the control of the Whips (MPs or Lords appointed by each party in Parliament to help organise their partys contribution to parliamentary business) and one of their main responsibilities is making sure the upper limit number of their party members vote the way their party wants. Unless the backbenchers have replete people to rebel they will not succeed and therefore it is not often that a government is defeated, for example Blairs government was simply defeated in the Commons four times over their three terms in power.The House of Lords is the second chamber of the UK Parliament and is self-sufficient to the Commons although it complements the work of the Commons. Members of the Lords play a vital role in scrutiny, there are two main reasons for this, the first being that they are independent to the Commons and in many ways have increase power which they often use to stand up to the Commons by blocking reforms. Lords too have a better balance of parties so no government has a bulk.The Government however brush off rescind Lords by using Parliament Act this was used when the fox pursuit toss away 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 besides prevents Lords from delaying bills for to a greater extent than one year. The second function that Im concentrating on is Representation. In the Commons MPs are elected every quin 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 public is responding to their policies and ideas for new practice of laws, reforms and ideas. In recent years there has in like manner been many attempts to make the government more diverse for example more wo men and ethnic minorities. This was especially pushed by Tony Blair as it was obvious to him that the UK was far 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 theme interest as they are less party political and many have had long careers in public service, business, arts and culture, or some other area of activity. Therefore the members of the House of Lords contribute their expertise and knowledge to Parliament and its work and consequently able to take the bigger picture into account. merely there are many downfalls in representation 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 Public Policy look into report, which looks at the ratio of votes to MPs under FPTP for the main parties i n the 2010 common election, it was shown that it took 33,468 votes to elect a Labour MP, 35,028 votes to elect a Conservative MP and 119,780 votes to elect a Liberal Democrat MP. This therefore is an interesting while of evidence 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 alternatively of FPTP and more than two thirds of those who voted said to keep the FPTP system- although many of those in opposition to FPTP says this in itself was unfair representation as the turnout was less than 65% of the population. The lack of women in MPs has also been blamed on the FPTP system there are currently 504 male MPs and 145 pistillate MPs nationwide.Therefore the House of Commons is unrepresentative of the UK as there are roughly 28. 6 one thousand million males in the UK and 30. 2 million females. The Ho use 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 elect members. Another one of Parliaments main functions is Law Making is debating and passing 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 can 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. Emergency 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 often consultation or backchat with stand up Committees and as these consist of MPs from every party they take on that every view point is reflected in discussion.The House of Lords main role when it comes to the function of Law M aking is to amend bills or make suggestions of improvements. The Lords also have the power to reject bills that appear unworkable or unsuitable (for example the fox hunting bill and identification cards bill). The governments majority always ensures that its proposals are passed as they have elective dictatorship and can 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 easily 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 sticky to remove these weaknesses witho ut making the executive separate like they have in the United States.