Parliament is the highest legislature in the UK and consists of the Monarchy, the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The House of Commons consists of 650 elected members of parliament and is often referenced to as the lower house of the UK parliament. The upper house is the House of Lords which is made up of approximately 800 members or ‘peers’ who have been appointed by the Queen. Parliament’s main duties are to “check and challenge the work of the Government; make and change laws; debate the important issues of the day; and check and approve Government spending”. Scrutinising legislation is an essential duty of Parliament and so, understandably, considerably more time is spent on this than on any other task. Scrutiny is described as “any activity that involves examining (and being prepared to challenge) the expenditure, administration and policies of the government”. Parliamentary scrutiny is is one way in which the government can be held to account for its work it is carried out through questions, debates and various committees. It is crucial that legislation is adequately scrutinised in order to avoid circumstances in which “such legislation may not achieve its goals…may violate human rights standards, or may be counterproductive.” It is the shared responsibility of both Houses to ensure that government scrutiny is sufficient, however in recent years, the question has arisen of whether the scrutiny of Public Bills has depended more on the House of Lords than the House of Commons.
The powers of the House of Lords is an important aspect to consider when analysing the extent to which it is able to scrutinise Public Bills (proposals affecting the UK public as a whole). The Lords are somewhat restricted in their powers due to the Salisbury Convention and Parliament Acts. The Parliament Act 1949 set out a number of rules outlining the Lords’ powers. While they can amend and delay Bills, the House of Lords is unable to veto Bills. Additionally, the Lords cannot amend Money Bills and regardless of whether the Lords has passed them, these Bills will receive Royal Assent within a month of being presented. This shows that the House of Lords’ powers are limited in comparison to the House of Commons, which suggests that they are less strong in terms of scrutinising legislation. Furthermore, if the Lords disagrees with a Bill which has been presented to them by the Commons, they can only stall it for approximately one year. However, in the next session after this year has passed, the Commons can simply reintroduce the Bill and pass it without agreement from the Lords, again, proving lack of power on behalf of the Lords which limits their effectiveness and ability to fully scrutinise Public Bills. Additionally, the Salisbury Convention made it so that the Lords cannot reject a Bill which is in the governing party’s manifesto, showing further limitations to their powers of scrutiny for these types of Bills, suggesting that it might be better to depend on the Commons. Furthermore, Lady D’Souza, former Speaker of the House of Lords recently stated: “There is a core of peers who work incredibly hard…and there are…many peers who contribute absolutely nothing but who claim the full allowance.” It must then be questioned, due to these facts, whether the House of Lords can be depended on for such crucial work or whether it is better to depend on the Commons.
However, despite these limits in power, the House of Lords presents many advantages in terms of scrutinising legislation. Within the House of Lords, the scrutinising of legislation can be carried out in a non-partisan fashion as there is no one partly solely in control. Within the House of Lords, many of the peers are independent and so are not affiliated with a particular party. This gives further room for unbiased examination of Bills by cross-bench peers. It is important to add that the role of Lords Whips in the House of Lords is “different from that of Whips in the Commons” and is less about strict management of the party, meaning Lords are more likely to approve or disapprove of Public Bills based on personal knowledge and beliefs instead of the general belief of the party they are affiliated with. Arguably, this could increase the effectiveness of legislation scrutiny. Further to this, the House of Lords is under less of a time constraint than the Commons which should allow for Bills to be examined more thoroughly and therefore more effectively. As well as the general debating time being less limited, the Lords have no constituency duties and therefore have more time to focus on their role in legislation scrutiny. Additionally, many Lords are experts in certain fields and while fulfilling their duties make use of “professional experience and specialist knowledge”. Within select committees, Lords use this expertise to present a fuller scrutiny on specific areas of government work; in 2016-17,328 members sat on committees with 185 putting forward proposed Bill changes showing positive participation in Government scrutiny. Overall, due to the Lords more non-partisan approach, more time and more expertise, it can be argued that the scrutiny of Public Bills, in recent years, has depended more on the House of Lords.
The House of Commons is also significant in the scrutiny process. In 1979, the Commons introduced Select Committees to “extend parliamentary scrutiny of government policy and administration” and also to hold the executive to account . Currently, there are 19 Commons departmental Select Committees and each consists of between 11 and 16 MPs. In Public Bill Committees, both oral and written evidence is taken from experts outside of Parliament. This provides MPs with more information on which to base their decisions which arguably should make them more thorough in the scrutiny process. Furthermore, the Commons has more power than the Lords in that, due to the Parliament Act 1949, they are able to pass legislation without the Lords’ consent. It is due to this act that they are also permitted to make the final decision when the two Houses disagree on a matter. These committees scrutinise proposed laws in great detail and additionally create reports on them, which could be said to be an effective way of scrutinising Bills.
However, scrutiny of Bills by the House of Commons is not always effective. The Commons Select Committees are often limited in terms of the number of issues they can deal with in their allocated time and even if they manage to scrutinise Bills, the government is not required to take on any of their recommendations which suggests a limited role in governmental scrutiny. Furthermore, party whips have a more significant (and negative) impact within the Commons; critics hold the opinion that “scrutiny of legislation via partisan whipped bill committees…[is] always ritualistic, ineffective and normally of very little value” and that “government whips can completely dominate proceedings”. Pressure from party whips can negatively affect the quality of scrutiny as no matter what the issue, members will vote in line with party views. Pre-legislative scrutiny (which consists of examining Bills in detail before the Government’s final version is made) is also meant to be an important part of Commons’ Select Committees work however they often spend very little time on this and occasionally disregard it altogether. Overall, the scrutiny of Public Bills by the House of Commons is significantly less effective than it could be due to lack of time, influence from party whips, and inexecution of pre-legislative scrutiny supporting the argument that the House of Lords is depended on more for this task.
To conclude, these arguments present the view that both the House of Lords and the House of Commons have advantages and disadvantages in terms of legislation scrutiny. Despite its power limitations, the Lords takes a more unbiased approach, has more time to allow for fuller debating, and also has many experts on specific issues. All of these points show that the Lords is able to be depended on for scrutiny of Public Bills and that they are somewhat effective in doing so. On the other hand, the scrutiny of Public Bills by the House of Commons is significantly less effective than it could be due to lack of time, influence from party whips, and inexecution of pre-legislative scrutiny. Overall, though neither House is perfectly effective in its scrutiny, in recent years, the effectiveness of the scrutiny of Public Bills has depended far more on the House of Lords than it has on the House of Commons.