There are 18 departmental select committees who shadow the work of major government departments, for example the Defence select committee. They carry out enquiries and write reports, and analysing governmental documents, scrutinising them as they do. A third way parliament carries out its scrutiny function is through the opposition, which is made up by the second biggest party in the House of Commons usually, and is
c) The cabinet is made up of the senior ministers in the Government in power; most of its members are heads of government departments such as Home office, Treasury, Foreign office. The cabinet members must be members of Parliament and most are drawn from the House of Commons and are appointed by the Prime Minister. The main functions of the cabinet are to discuss and decide on major issues, receiving reports on key developments and determining government business, register and ratify decisions made elsewhere in the cabinet and settling disputes between government departments. Even though the cabinet has these key roles it could be argued that the cabinet is now more of a formality and the actual powers belong to the Prime Minister suggesting that the cabinet is to a rather large extent no longer an important body. The importance of the cabinet could begin to be question right from the selection process as the Prime Minister also known as ‘primus inter pares’ which means first among equals, selects the ministers and could be dismissed at anytime as was seen in the cabinet reshuffle under Tony Blair in 2006 which saw Charles Clarke dismissed, therefore suggesting that the cabinet ministers would show some form of loyalty to the Prime minister and could be likely to support the Prime minister in order to keep their job and could have no major impact on any policy or action.
However there are cases in which the media has had positive effects on a Prime Minister’s popularity, such as “The Sun”, which, notably, turned its bias towards Tony Blair and the Labour party before their large win of 1997. Secondly, the cabinet is a large source of the Prime Minister’s power. Although the Prime Minister has the power to appoint and fire the members of his cabinet, these members have the authority to reject the Prime Minister; this was the case for Margaret Thatcher in 1990 after the leadership challenge by Michael Heseltine. The powers of the cabinet mean that a Prime Minister has to have significant support by the members to be able to receive the full amount of power. This source of power is also affected by members of the cabinet whom are too powerful and important to easily dismiss, most recently famous was during Tony Blair’s leadership, 1997 – 2007, and the pressure he received off Gordon Brown to leave.
As PM Cameron, in this case, can dismiss and appoint any cabinet members without the constraints of parliament. The only people he consults are his current senior ministers who tend to side with any decision the PM makes. An example of his appointments and dismissals in his cabinet is where Cameron reshuffled his cabinet earlier in the year. He appointed several females to important roles and even demoted Michael Gove to a ‘Whip’. One of the women he appointed was Nicky Morgan, who replaced Gove as Education Secretary.
MP’s are given the opportunity to debate a Bill before a vote. However, from source to quote, “whips have a lot of influence and much seems to be unofficially decided ‘behind the Speaker’s Chair’”. Whips ensure party discipline and MP’s are expected to vote the way to which government wants them too, quote from source 2 “Backbench MP’s have few powers and most of Parliament’s time is controlled by the government.” This ensures that if a government has a majority of seats in the House of
The main functions of the Cabinet are registering and ratifying decisions taken elsewhere in the cabinet system, discussing and deciding on major issues, receiving reports on key developments and determining government business, and settling disputes between government departments. However, even though these are the formal roles of the Cabinet many would argue that the Cabinet is now more of a formality and the power actually lies only with the Prime Minister. Firstly, it can be argued that the Cabinet is no longer an important body
Parliament may face difficulties in controlling executive power as the government usually has an overall majority. This is especially the case when there has been a creation of a large majority after elections such as 1997 and 2001 with Labour majorities of 179 and 167 respectively. Majorities of 66 in 2005 and 83 with the coalition in 2010 have also been recorded. This allows the government to claim a mandate from the people for its policies when it is elected to power. Therefore the parliament lacks the legitimate right to ignore the mandate and tends to accept the government’s right to govern.
Due to the increasing presidential style of recent prime ministers and the party loyalty of the executive one can consider Parliament’s control of executive power minimal. However, due to the development of independent bodies surrounding Select Committees and the delaying of legislation by the House of Lords it can still be argued to be effective. The government usually has an overall majority. This is due to our voting system of FPTP which gives preference to the two main parties, normally giving them majorities (and increasingly large ones) as opposed to coalitions and minority governments which are produced through other voting systems such as AV in Scotland and Wales. Although we are currently in a coalition the government still has a majority through the combination of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.
This argument shows that the leader of the Labour Party may have restrictions on his or her powers when in opposition as they are made to work with a shadow cabinet hence delegating power. Also it isn’t just the shadow cabinet ministers who have a say, but also the party leader must attend back-bench meetings which allows less prominent members of the parliamentary party to voice their opinions which may influence the party’s next manifesto. Yes the Labour Party leader may delegate some power whilst in opposition, however when in government, it may be an entirely
Evidently, Cameron’s idea conflicts with Thatcherism’s social views, like on sexuality and race, and also opposes New Labour’s views on ‘nanny state interventionism. The main difference is that Cameron is more pragmatic on his reform views and the fact that most of them are critical of New labour and Thatcherism result in a dramatic impact on the party, in being able to conform with the modernisation. All Cameron’s social policies fall under the ‘Big Society’; this is the main term which conforms to allowing local decision-making power to communities, decentralising government power, and giving communities the opportunity to take control of the services in their