What is wrong with the UK Parliament?

Write a bullet point list of as many criticisms you can think of and give real world
examples as much as you can.

Uncodified constitution
o In theory this means, with the lack of entrenchment of a codified
constitution, a government with a strong majority can pass any law it
wants, in order to adjust or amend the UK Constitution (if the Lords were to
disagree, the Commons could enact the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949,
a major part of our uncodified constitution, and allow the incumbent party
to force through legislation). This last happened in 2004 with the Hunting
Act under Labour, when amendments to the Bill could not be agreed upon
by both Chambers.
Fusion of Powers
o In UK Politics, the Executive (the branch of government that runs the
country) and the Legislative (the law-making branch) are fused, meaning
the head (the Prime Minister) and other members of the Executive (Cabinet
minister, junior ministers, etc.) sit in the legislature (the House of
Commons) and vote on policy. This means that, if the government wants a
law passing through the Commons, and they have a large majority or a
small majority with no backbench rebellions, they can do so. If the powers
were separated, far fewer MPs (with close ties or strong loyalties to the PM)
would be able to vote on proposed legislation and, as such, it might be
voted down in the interest of parliament as a whole, and not passed in the
interest of the Prime Minister.
First Past the Post
o The voting system we use to elect members to Parliament (FPTP) is equally
controversial. For one, the system is disproportionate, as the winner only
needs 50%+1 seats in order to govern the country. In individual
constituencies, this disproportionality goes further. For example, in the
2015 Election in Gower, Wales, just under 43,000 people turned out to
vote, and Labour lost to the Conservatives by only 27 votes. However,
under FPTP, this closeness has no bearing on the constituency result, and
the winner (even by a marginal number) takes all. This means smaller
parties, with non-geographically concentrated support, may lose out
despite popularity. As well as this, voter apathy increases due to the
electorate seeing their votes for less popular parties as wasted and may
turn to tactical voting as a way of keeping someone they do not want, out
of power. This, it could be said, damages democracy further as, under this
system, you may not be able to vote for who you truly want to vote for.
Eventually and inevitably, as it has done with UK politics, this voting
system (for the above reasons) creates a two party system, upholding the
idea of adversarial politics. Some argue that coalition is more effective
than a majoritarian government; it is the current system of government in
35 European countries. Without the need to politically point-score,
government could be seen as more effective and mature.
Weakness in Parliamentary Functions
o Passing Legislation
There are several things Parliament does to thoroughly scrutinise
legislation and then, eventually pass it. One method they have is
the establishment (in the Commons) of a public bill committee. In
theory, these committees investigate the Bill and how it will affect
people. However, a flaw in this would be the fact that these
committees, as they are temporary and dissolve after legislation
has been passed, are made up on non-specialist MPs who may not
know much about the law they are examining. A similar thing is
true in the Lords; the Bill is looked at by a committee of the whole
House, meaning that, though specialists may be in some way

involved, the majority of the people reporting on the bill will have
no specialism in the area it is covering. The law-making process
itself is lengthy and can be obstructed by our bicameral system, if
the lower and upper chambers disagree on proposed amendments
etc. The stages of passing a Bill are the first reading in the House of
Commons (where a title is announced), the second reading (the first
debate and vote on the law, it can be killed here), the committee
stage (where the public bill committee investigates), the report
stage (where the committee outline their ideas for improvements
and amendments in a report) and then the same steps are repeated
in the House of Lords (with a committee of the whole House instead
of a public bill committee). If it passes these stages, it reaches royal
assent, an archaic condition where the monarch signs the Bill into
law and an announcement is made in the Commons. However, as
previously mentioned, there is sometimes disagreement between
the two Houses, resulting in parliamentary ping-pong. If an
amendment is made to the bill in the House of Lords, it must go
back to the House of Commons, and so on and so forth. This has
happened this year, with the EU Referendum Bill. The Lords added
an amendment, which allowed 16 and 17 year-olds to vote in this
referendum. The Commons did not want the amendment and, as
such, ping-pong began. This process can be extensive and delay
the passing of important legislation.
Scrutiny of the Executive
Parliament is supposed to hold the government to account.
Theoretically, this makes the opposition and the lower chamber (the
House of Lords)s scrutiny highly important. The means by which
they achieve this are questions, debates and select committees. In
the Commons, perhaps the most important question time is Prime
Ministers Questions. These are televised and this is positive;
another way the electorate can hold their government to account.
However, watching one only goes to prove how much more about
point-scoring against the Opposition it is than actually answering
questions and getting comprehensive answers. In the Commons
and in the Lords, they can ask question Ministers, either orally or
with written questions. These are often more helpful, but oral
questions are often brief (an hour in the Commons and only 30
minutes in the Lords). Debates can also be held, but these (known
as adjournment debates) also last 30 minutes and only occur in
the Commons. As well as this, these debates are poorly attended
and cannot be expected to have much bearing on how the
Parliament scrutinises the executive. Finally, there are select
committees, who are groups of MPs (sometimes specialised in a
field as these are long-running committees) who scrutinise the work
of the executive. In the Commons, these are set up for each
government department. In the Lords, there are five permanent
committees (the European Union Committee, the Science and
Technology Committee, the Communications Committee,
the Constitution Committee and the Economic Affairs Committee).
This is where the first problem arises. Issues that do not fit into
these categories may not properly be scrutinised and the executive
may not be fairly contested. As for the Commons, the committees
represent the make-up of the Commons itself, so the party with a
majority in the Commons also enjoys a majority in select
committees. Though committee members are elected
democratically by other MPs, this could mean that the executive,
instead of being scrutinised, could see loyal MPs attempting to push
their partys agenda through.
Raising and Spending of Public Money

One main weakness of this is that the Parliament Act (1911) took
away the Lords power of amending money bills. This is
controversial, as the countrys budget and economy is one of the
fundamental issues of politics, and it (in theory) is not allowed to be
scrutinised by a lower chamber. This is not to say, though, that the
Lords has no influence over policy. Last year, George Osborne
backed down planned on tax credit cuts after the Lords (who
exercised the Salisbury Convention a convention that allows Lords
intervention if the government did not have a mandate and
mention plans in their manifesto) rejected them. This, however,
almost caused a constitutional crisis and, had the government had
a mandate, the interference from the Lords would have been
unlikely to make the government U-turn on the cuts and, as a
result, the poorest families could have been badly affected by these
measures.
o Representation
According to the 2011 UK Census, 13.9% of the UK is an ethnicity
other than white. Around 51% of the population are women. In the
Commons, 29% of MPs are women (16:1 men to women) and only
6% are an ethnicity other than white (5:2 white to other ethnicity).
As well as this, there are precious few MPs that represent people
with mental or physical illnesses and disabilities, the LGBT
community or the working class. The fact is, over half of each
chamber are white, university-educated, middle-class males and
this, it is certain, does not represent the UK population. As the Lords
is unelected, it has no obligation to be representative, which also
leads to an astounding lack of diversity in a modern legislature.
o Recruitment of a Government
Governmentt can be recruited from either the Lords or the
Commons,
though it is more common that MPs are selected from the
Commons. Although we elect the MPs, we have no say in who gets
which position. Usually, the Prime Ministers closest friends or allies
end up in the top positions (Chancellor, Home Secretary, etc.), and
other MPs may get overlooked. A cabinet has to be balanced, but
this is the Prime Ministers view of balance. For example, the
current cabinet has no ministers under 40 years old. Also, as the
Lords is unelected but can still be in government, this means a
person we did not elect may be running a section of a very
significant government department, like Lord Bates, who is the
Minister of State (only one step below Secretary of State) for the
Home Office.
o Debates
Debates occur in both Houses on all subject matter that the
government covers. The main debates take place as part of the
legislative process, but there are also adjournment debates
(mentioned previously) and Early Day Motions (EDMs) which take
place earlier on in the day. The weakness here is that the whips
have control of MPs agendas, and highlight debates to attend and
which to not bother attending. This means that most debates are
poorly attended and some legislation is never properly debated in
full.
Backbenchers
o Backbenchers have decidedly more influence in small majority
governments. Though Private Members Bills (to bring forward a Bill for
something that affects them or their constituency) and EDMs exist for
backbenchers to put forward their ideas, it is often said to be of little
consequence to the core executive. However, if the incumbent party has a
small majority, a backbench rebellion (where backbenchers disobey the

whips and vote against the government) could occur and make the
government appear weak.
The Role of the House of Lords
o The main problem with the House of Lords is that it is unelected but has
such an essential role in passing and scrutinising legislation. On top of this,
there are 92 hereditary peers who were not even appointed, but claim
their position by virtue of birth. More problems arise when we look at
solutions to the problem of this lack of democracy. A wholly elected Lords
could challenge the sovereignty of the House of Commons, which would
cause even more ping-pong in terms of passing legislation. To further add
to this gridlock, if the candidates we elected were from a political party,
there could be an entirely different majority in the lower chamber to the
upper. If the parties cannot agree, important legislation may not get
passed. If we party elect and partly appoint the Lords, we would risk an
inner conflict between appointed and elected peers, with elected peers
claiming. If we remove all hereditary peers and have a fully appointed
House, it is still undemocratic and the Prime Minister could strategically
create more Lords of his or her party to give them a majority. Though, in
practice, media pressure may make the PM rethink the proposals, it is
something that could happen and further work to undermine democracy in
the UK.