Reform in the House of Commons: the Select Committee System
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University of Kentucky UKnowledge European Politics Political Science 1993 Reform in the House of Commons: The Select Committee System Michael Jogerst University of Iowa Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Thanks to the University of Kentucky Libraries and the University Press of Kentucky, this book is freely available to current faculty, students, and staff at the University of Kentucky. Find other University of Kentucky Books at uknowledge.uky.edu/upk. For more information, please contact UKnowledge at [email protected]. Recommended Citation Jogerst, Michael, "Reform in the House of Commons: The Select Committee System" (1993). European Politics. 4. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_european_politics/4 Comparative Legislative Studies Malcolm E. Jewell, Editor This page intentionally left blank IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS The Select Committee System MICHAEL JOGERST THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY ISBN: 978-0-8131-5303-2 Contents List of Tables and Figures vii Acknowledgments ix 1. Introduction 1 2. Party Government in a Parliamentary Forum 19 3. Parliamentary Committees under Party Government 38 4. Labour Commits to Reform 58 5. The 1979 Select Committee Reforms 86 6. Defining the Role of a Member of Parliament 111 7. MPs' Views on Parliament and Its Role 138 8. MPs' Attitudes on 1979 Select Committees 155 9. MPs on Select Committee Roles and Rewards 178 10. Conclusion and Assessment 201 Appendix A. Questionnaire and Evaluation 218 Bibliography 222 Index 239 This page intentionally left blank Tables and Figures Tables 6.1. The Appeal of Being in Politics for MPs 6.2. MPs' Descriptions of Their Jobs 7.1. Qualities and Skills Needed to Be Effective as an MP 7.2. The Importance and Power of Parliament 7.3. Tasks Best Performed by Parliament 7.4. Attitudes toward Executive Power 7.5. Means for Changing the Executive-Legislative Balance 7.6. MPs' Vision of a Future Parliament 8.1. Reasons for Choosing a Particular Committee 8.2. Links between Committee Service and Constituency Activity 8.3. Committee Membership as a Stepping Stone 8.4. Reasons for Leaving a Committee 8.5. Ratio of Conservative Committee Members Who Became Front- benchers, May 1979-November 1990 8.6. Ratio of Labour Committee Members Who Became Frontbench- ers, May 1979-November 1990 8.7. Ratio of All Committee Members Who Became Frontbenchers, May 1979-November 1990 8.8. Percentage of Frontbenchers Who Had Served on Select Com- mittees, 1980-1990 8.9. Percentage of 1983 Frontbenchers Who Had Served on Monitor- ing Select Committees, 1968-1979 8.10. Annual Turnover Rates for Select Committees by Session, 19791 80-1989190 8.11. Average Turnover Rates for Select Committees by Percent of Membership, 1979-1990 8.12. Perceived Willingness of Other Committee Members to Move to the Frontbench 8.13. Willingness of Interviewed Committee Members to Move to the Frontbench 8.14. Reasons for Not Choosing Committee Membership 9.1. Qualities and Skills Needed to Be an Effective Committee Member 9.2. The Role of Committees in Parliament 9.3. PMs' Descriptions of Their Jobs as Committee Members 9.4. Rewards Received through Committee Service 9.5. Perceptions of Increased Parliamentary Involvement through Committee Membership 9.6. Perceptions of Increased Participation in Debates through Com- mittee Membership 9.7. Percentage of Backbench Speakers Who Were Committee Mem- bers 9.8. Number of Committee Reports and of Reports Debated, 1979- 1989 9.9. Committee Attendance Rates (Percentages), 1979-1990 9.10. Changes Desired in Future Committees 10.1. Criteria for Determining the Effectiveness of Committees 10.2. Perceived Cooperation of Ministers and Civil Servants with Committees Figures Employment in Manufacturing, 1966-1986 Perceptions of "Class Struggle" Composition of the Lowest Income Quintile by Family Type Occupations before Entering Parliament for All MPs Inter- viewed Occupations before Entering Parliament for Members of 1968- 1969 Estimates Committee Occupations before Entering Parliament for Members of 1977- 1978 Expenditure Committee Occupations before Entering Parliament for Committee Mem- bers Interviewed, 1986-1987 Roles MPs Most Wish to Play in Parliament Consequences of Voting Against or Not Supporting One's Party Average Attendance Rate per Select Committee, 1979-1990 Acknowledgments Researching, writing, and completing a book that required over a hundred interviews in a country not one's own usually requires the advice, help, and encouragement of a number of people. This case is no exception. A number of colleagues have helped me with their comments and suggestions for transforming my original, often vague, ideas into this final project. I especially want to thank James Christoph, Larry Dodd, Marjorie Hershey, Norman Furniss, and Freddie Diamant for their contributions and criticisms early on in this project. And special recognition is deserved for Vince della Sala, who continues to chal- lenge my understanding of legislative politics and whose contribu- tions to this field have shaped my own scholarship. I also want to thank the fellows and students of Nuffield College, Oxford, and in particular Vincent Wright and David Butler, for pro- viding me with the resources and facilities to complete such a major part of this research. David and Vincent were particularly helpful in keeping me on track and getting me over those inevitable hurdles one finds when doing research in a country not one's own. This book also would not have been possible without the gener- ous help of the Fulbright Commission and the patience of many members of Parliament and House of Commons staff who agreed to be interviewed and so willingly gave of their time to answer my end- less questions. They deserve special thanks. I am indebted to Mark Ruggeberg and Bob Brooks. They make life easier and the burdens lighter. I am also grateful to the University Press of Kentucky for making an interesting manuscript into a publishable one. In particular, I want to thank Malcolm Jewell, the series editor, for his comments and those of the reviewers chosen by him. Finally, I want to dedicate this book to Ted and Joyce. And they know why. This page intentionally left blank Introduction Since the Reform Act of 1867, parliamentary government in Great Britain has steadily yielded to the primacy of party government. Members of Parliament were first and foremost members of a political party, and their behavior and attitudes were guided by this con- straint. Parliamentary politics were understood in terms of front- and backbenchers, leaders and followers, policy-makers and policy- ratifiers. Through this tight nexus of party dominance, Parliament's purpose seemed to be to ratify what had been decided elsewhere. The leaders of the largest party in the House of Commons returned at the last general election became the nation's executive branch, re- tained their legislative seats in the House, organized the majority party in the legislature, and dominated the proceedings, timetable, and agenda of the House. Perhaps Parliament was sovereign, but the cabinet had become supreme. This accepted notion of party and executive control over the House of Commons has served to inhibit closer scrutiny of the inter- nal political changes in the 1960s and 1970s, changes that coincided with the creation of a new committee system for the House of Com- mons. In the House, nascent committees were created in the mid- 1960s to investigate politically safe policy domains, such as agriculture or science and technology. When committee members ac- tually undertook parliamentary inquiries into executive policies, the majority party in power had them abolished. But during the 1960s and particularly the 1970s, the cracks in party solidarity began to ap- pear. As Norton (1975; 1978; 1980b) has so ably demonstrated, back- bencher~were rebelling in greater numbers on more occasions and with more effect than had been the case since the introduction of party government into the House in 1867. Outside the House, voters were deserting the two major parties at the polls, decreasing their partisanship and loyalty to Labour and Conservatives, and showing 2 Reform in the House of Commons up in smaller and smaller numbers on polling days (Crewe, 1985). And despite the traditional notion of national parties contesting na- tional elections based on national manifestos, local constituents in- creasingly expected their local MP to serve his or her constituency, even if that meant voting against the party's leaders and campaign promises (Cain et al., 1987). American political scientists generally embraced this pre-1970 view of parliamentary government (APSA, 1950; Kirkpatrick, 1971) and lamented its passing when they became cognizant of the changes taking place (Epstein, 1980). The Westminster Model had provided order, efficiency, and strong government at a time when American political institutions were challenged by constitutional and policy struggles between the legislature and the executive as well as a po- litically unaccountable Supreme Court whose decisions increasingly changed the laws of the land and challenged its social fabric. Parlia- mentary sovereignty in Britain, however, had bestowed all such questions and issues on one democratic institution: the "Mother of Parliaments." The executive was drawn from the legislature and con- stitutionally accountable to it. Laws and government policies could not be declared unconstitutional precisely because they were Acts of Parliament and had been subject to parliamentary assent and legiti- macy. There was no judicial review left to another institution com- prised of politically appointed jurors-for-life. Democracy, efficiency, and accountability. These were the watchwords, the marvelous at- tributes of the Westminster Model. Of course, from an institutional and constitutional perspective, the differences between the American Congressional Model and the British Westminster Model are fairly stark. Nevertheless, supporters of the British polity would also still bemoan continental parliamen- tary governments for their (perceived) gross shortcomings. Britain's European counterparts appeared to be a hodgepodge of ignoble pro- ceedings and practices.