What a parliament is for

Ask what a parliament does and most people will say it makes laws. That is true, but incomplete. A legislature that only passed the bills put in front of it would be a rubber stamp, however elegant its building.

Three jobs, not one

Constitutional scholarship usually describes at least three functions. Legislation: turning proposals into binding rules. ScrutinyParliamentary scrutinyThe ways a legislature examines and questions the government: committees, questions, debates and inquiries.↗: questioning ministers, examining budgets, investigating failures. Representation: giving the people governed a voice inside the institution that governs them.

The three pull in different directions. Legislation rewards speed and discipline. Scrutiny rewards independence, sometimes from one's own party. Representation rewards attention to constituents who may want something neither the party nor the government is offering.

Trustee or delegate?

The tension is old. In 1774 Edmund Burke told the voters of Bristol that their representative owed them his judgment, not merely obedience to their instructions.¹ Critics have answered ever since that a representative who ignores the represented is not representing anyone.

A legislature that only passed the bills put in front of it would be a rubber stamp, however elegant its building.

How to judge a parliament

A useful test is to look away from the headline votes. Are committee hearings substantive, or ceremonial? Do questions to ministers receive real answers? Are bills amended in response to evidence, or passed unchanged? A parliament that does these unglamorous things well is doing its job, whatever its majority.

Sources & notes

1. Edmund Burke, Speech to the Electors of Bristol, 3 November 1774. ↩