Beyond committees: parliamentary oversight of coalition government in Britain

Abstract

A legislature's ability to engage in oversight of the executive is believed to derive largely from its committee system. For example, powerful parliamentary committees are considered a necessary condition for the legislature to help police policy compromises between parties in multiparty government. But can other parliamentary instruments perform this role? This paper suggests parliamentary questions as an alternative parliamentary vehicle for coalition parties to monitor their partners. Questions force ministers to reveal information concerning their legislative and extra-legislative activities, providing coalition members unique insights into their partners behaviour. To test our argument, we build and analyse a new dataset of parliamentary questions in the British House of Commons covering the 2010-15 coalition. As expected, government MPs ask more questions as the divisiveness of a policy area increases. Legislatures conventionally considered weak due to the lack of strong committees may nevertheless play an important oversight role through other parliamentary devices, including helping to police the implementation of coalition agreements.

The Allocation of Committee Chairs and the Oversight of Coalition Cabinets in Belgium

“…Last but not least, for six of the legislatures (1988-2010) we analysed whether there is complementarity between the use of shadow committee chairs and monitoring via parliamentary questions. This was motivated by the findings of recent research which has shown that coalition parties in the UK (Martin and Whitaker 2019) and Germany (Höhmann and Sieberer 2020) also use parliamentary questions to keep tabs on their partners' ministers. Drawing on data from the Belgian Comparative Agendas Project (Walgrave et al 2019), we computed the shares of oral questions and interpellations addressed to each department by MPs belonging to coalition parties other than the party appointing the respective minister.…”

Whose bread I eat, their song I sing? How the gender of MPs influences the use of oversight mechanisms in government and opposition

“…First, to fully understand the functioning of the legislative oversight process, we need to consider the characteristics of the actors involved in this process. Even though previous research presents this phenomenon as a strongly institutionalised process close to being determined by government-opposition and coalition dynamics (Franklin and Norton, 1993;Wiberg, 1994;Akirav, 2011;Martin and Whitaker, 2019;Höhmann and Sieberer, 2020;Höhmann and Krauss, 2021), men and women behave differently. By taking into account how individual-level differences between MPs influence the interaction of government and parliament, we draw a more accurate picture of the functioning of legislative oversight in parliamentary democracies.…”

“…Given their importance for the functioning of parliamentary democracy, legislative oversight instruments constitute a key research interest in the field of legislative studies. An extensive set of scholarly work explores the formal means that MPs (members of parliament) use to control government activity, such as written or oral questions to the government submitted by individual legislators or whole fractions (Saalfeld, 2000;Friedberg, 2011;Martin, 2011;Jensen et al, 2013;Martin and Whitaker, 2019). This research depicts a highly institutionalised process, with MPs who usually belong to opposition parties holding the government accountable (Franklin and Norton, 1993;Wiberg, 1994;Akirav, 2011).…”

“…However, the usage of oversight instruments is far from determined by government-opposition dynamics. For instance, even representatives belonging to governing parties submit questions, in particular in coalition governments (Martin and Whitaker, 2019;Höhmann and Sieberer, 2020;Höhmann and Krauss, 2021). And even within the opposition, variation in the oversight activities of MPs is considerable.…”

Can parliaments be strengthened? A case study of pre-legislative scrutiny

“…As such, the committee scrutinising proposed legislation is not the committee that otherwise oversees the activities of government departments. Moreover, the UK Parliament tends to an adversarial government-opposition culture which may make it more difficult for committees to act in a non-partisan fashion (Martin and Whitaker 2019)…”