WEaknesses of the UK Parliamen

A detailed Summary of WEaknesses of the UK Parliamen

What accounts for the weakness of the UK Parliament?

The UK Parliament has certain weaknesses. This essay will identify and analyse five of the major weaknesses. Firstly, I will argue that the Parliament is not a true representation of the electorate. Then, I will look at claim that the strong party system and the whip system cause weaknesses within Parliament. Thirdly, I shall argue that the committee system within Parliament does not effectively scrutinise the workings of government departments. Fourthly, I will address the claim that because of the House of Lords only having limited powers and because it is not sufficiently independent or representative, it is unable to legitimate the actions of the government and finally, I will argue that external bodies reduce the strength of Parliament. The primary role of the Parliament is that of "manifest legitimation- giving the formal seal of approval "ii. The weaknesses in Parliament cause inefficient procedures and in the end may cause the Parliament to be unable to effectively legitimate the actions and policies of the government.

Parliament is not a true representation of the electorate, regarding both the electorates' choice of MPs or the representation of the needs

and characteristics of the electorate. The first-past-the-post (FPP) electoral system of does not give a fair representation of the views of the electorate. The FPP is good on the account of it keeping extremist parties at bay and it maintains the local base for MPs. This system is can give absolute majorities in Parliament to parties with considerably less than 50 per cent of the vote. This is useful in creating an effective legislative majority to enable the bills to be passed quickly and with little debate. However, I believe that the FPP system is unrepresentative. It "exaggerates the lead of the winning party"i, for example in the 1992 General Elections, the Conservative Party won 42 per cent of the votes nationally, but 52 per cent of the seats in the Commons. In addition, third parties who lack a regional base are under-represented in the amount of seats they gain win in relation to the percentage of the vote they win nationally. In 1989 the Green Party won 15 per cent of the vote nationally, but due to their vote being thinly spread over the country no seats in the House of Commons were won. When FFP system is being used, it can be argued that the all votes are not equal. Norton identifies some votes as "wasted votes (votes cast for losing candidates have no effect)" . The Commons is not just unrepresentative in the nature of party representation; the MPs that are elected into the Commons are not a reflection of the electorate in terms of ethnicity and sex. The Commons are predominantly white, male and middle class. At present nine per cent of MPs are female and seven per cent of them are non-whiteiii. Professional politicians have little experience of other forms of work and middle class MPs may have little experience of the issues that effect people living in run-down areas. This leads to the question: are people able to represent others who have little or nothing in common with? The parties have a major role in the selection of future MPs, through the candidates they selected, due to the relatively low number of seats that actually change hands in any given election. The example that Adonis refers to is, in 1987 only 55 seats (eight per cent of the total) changed hands between parties. The electorate in the UK play no role in the selection of candidates running for Parliament, thus Adonis believes that " the electorate... is of far less importance than the selectorate"i in deciding who shall be MPs. The selection of candidates occurs through a variety of methods, many of which are greatly influenced by party opinion. Thus, it cannot be said that although the electorate has some choice (e.g. out of 3 or 4 candidates) it does not have complete choice over who represents them.

There are external bodies that reduce the strength of Parliament. The European Union (EU) is the only body that's policies take precedence over Parliament's own policies. Thus, the absolute sovereignty of Parliament has been undermined. On the other hand, it can be argued that the government is actively agrees to be part of the EU and is free to with draw at any t

Some common words found in the essay are:
House Lords, Party Whips, House Commons, Health Committee, Union EU, Select Committees, Parliament Adonis, Conservative Party, UK Parliament, Lords Hereditary, house lords, select committees, select committee, legitimate actions, legitimate actions government, government departments, current government, committee system, actions government, unrepresentative nature, majority party, produced select committees, strong party system, true representation electorate, cause weaknesses parliament,

Approximate Word count = 2085
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Politics