Questions about the UK political system
Today there are elections in the UK at local level in some parts of England and at country level in Scotland & Wales. Although we are likely to have a new Prime Minister shortly, we don’t need to have a Parliamentary election for three years.
Now some months ago, I gave a lecture to a group of Chinese civil servants entitled “A Short Guide To The British Political System”. I put a supporting text on my web site here.
People seem to have found it helpful and I recently had an e-mail which said: “I found your website most interesting and very helpful when explaining the workings of the British Parliamentary system to my young son.” However, the writer went on to ask six detailed questions and I thought that you might find the answers of interest:
- Must the prime minister be a member of the House of Commons and, if so, since when has that been the case?
Technically, no – he can be a member of the House of Lords. The only PM from the Lords in modern times was Alec Douglas-Home in 1963-64. These days, I don’t think a Lord as PM would be politically acceptable.
- Must all cabinet minsters be MPs and are they always from the same political party as the prime minister?
No, they don’t have to be MPs – they can be members of the House of Lords instead, although this is rare. No, they can be members of any party or none – but this only happens in very unusual situations such as the Second World War.
- Since when has the term of a government been limited to 5 years?
The Parliament Act of 1911 reduced the maximum lifespan of a Parliament from seven years to its present five years.
- Does the term “government” refer to the two Houses of Parliament or just to those Members of Parliament who are are members of the ruling political party?
Neither – the term refers to all Ministers whether they are members of the House of Commons or the House of Lords.
- How can the ruling party get laws voted through Parliament (ie passed) if they do not have an overall majority in the House of Commons (and/or House of Lords)?
They can only do this by persuading members of other parties to support that legislation or to abstain when it is voted upon. This is not easy and so a minority government usually calls an early General Election.
- Are the number of voters in each of the various constituencies equal, or are there any constituencies which have a significantly higher/lower number of voters (ie which leads to a disproportionate high/low number of votes cast in an election for a particular MP)?
The Boundary Commissions for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland try to achieve a rough equality of size in terms of electors. But seats in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are generally smaller than those in England (so that the ‘national’ character of the UK is respected) and rural seats are generally smaller than urban seats (so that they do not become too big geographically).
Do you have any questions? If so, I’ll try to answer them.
May 3rd, 2007 at 11:32 am
Re point 6, the Scotland Act (1998) requires the Boundary Commission for Scotland to make average constituency size in Scotland equal to that in England. It almost achieved this: in 2004 the number of seats in Scotland was reduced from 72 to 59, only two more than Scotland’s quota of 57. Small island seats accounted for the discrepancy. Wales currently has 40 seats, whereas based upon population it should have only around 32. (It also has the Welsh Assembly, of course.)
Three questions:
The Electoral Commission recently estimated that there are at least 1m and possibly up to 3.5m people whose names appear on the electoral roll even though they are ineligible to vote. Senior officials say that in some areas the electoral roll is thought to be only 60% accurate. To what extent does this state of affairs undermine democracy in Britain?
Would local democracy be reinvigorated if councils were able to raise more of their own revenue? (I think I read recently that about 80% of council revenue comes from central government, but I can’t find the reference.)
Why does the Commons European Scrutiny Committee, which assesses the political and legal impact of EU documents (including new laws and regulations) and decides which ones will be debated, meet behind closed doors? See We Won’t Win EU Argument Without Proper Scrutiny of Brussels for background.
May 3rd, 2007 at 12:52 pm
Many thanks for the extra information on point 6, Nick.
The disparaties between the size of constituencies in the different parts of the UK is much less than it was before the three smaller parts obtained their own legislative bodies.
As for your questions:
1) Obviously the accuracy of the electoral roll is a vital element of any democracy and I would welcome more resources for local authorities to take action to improve the accuracy. Maybe, if we ever have a national ID system, that could play a role in making the electoral roll a national database of greater accuracy.
2) On the one hand, local democracy probably would be improved by local authorities having greater revenue-raising powers; on the other hand, such powers would probably increase economic and social inequalities in our already unequal society.
3) I am always in favour of openness and transparency and would support the Commons European Scrutiny Committee meeting in public.