The Effectiveness of the House of Commons as a Check on the Executive

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The Effectiveness of the House of Commons as a Check on the Executive

What is meant by the effectiveness of the commons check on the

executive is basically, how able is the house of commons to prevent

the Government (executive) from getting its own way or forcing its

will upon the people of Britain. In theory the commons level of

effectiveness is constant as each Member of Parliament has an opinion

on every bill or motion that is put forward that is based on

conscience. This is not practicable, however, as the party system and

the party whips change this. The whips tell MPs which way to vote and

can impose sanctions upon those MPs who rebel against the government.

Therefore when considering the effectiveness of the commons as a check

on the executive one must consider how that effectiveness can change

with each general election. For example, John Major was extremely

limited in the power he could exercise as Prime Minister as his the

Tory party was the biggest party by only twelve seats and so he could

easily be outvoted if a policy was widely opposed.

The opposite of this would be the first of Tony Blair’s terms in

office. With over four hundred New Labour Members of Parliament Blair

could afford to push almost any policy he wanted and expect it to be

passed with a comfortable majority. Gradually the number of New Labour

dissenters has grown and there have been a number of backbench

rebellions against Blair. He has, however, survived all of these by

virtue of his huge parliamentary majority.

Many commentators have suggested that in the coming 2005 election

Blair will be returned to office with a majority reduced by thirty to

forty seats. If this is the case it is likely that Blair will be

forced to operate as if he were heading a minority government as Major

did. Should this happen then the commons will be more effective at

controlling the executive.

As I have hinted, in New Labour’s first term 1997 to 2001 the Labour

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