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Fans of the US political drama series
"The West Wing" will be familiar with "Big Block of Cheese Day", a
day on which the doors to the White House would be opened to the
public to allow them to bring issues to the President's staff. This
event was much maligned by the civil servants who had to listen
politely to people who, on any other day, would be blocked from
bringing their concerns to the President due to the unusual, niche,
or simply weird nature of their requests. However, many would argue
that this is democratic politics at its best: people bringing
issues which matter to them to the attention of those at the heart
of power.
When Prime Minister David Cameron described the Backbench
Business Committee in the UK Parliament as having "arranged for a
range of issues to be discussed, from the very mundane to the quite
obscure-it has, if you like, been a year of bread and circuses"; it
is easy to see the comparison. However, the Prime Minister's
description of the operation of the Backbench Business Committee
belies the significant change to parliamentary procedures which it
has overseen in its brief 16 months of operation. Looking at the
list of topics which it has facilitated debate on suggests that,
rather than being mundane or obscure, it has enabled debate on a
range of subjects which, for various reasons, successive
governments and opposition parties have avoided bringing
forward.
This article had initially been intended to be a general feature
on the Backbench Business Committee, but recent events surrounding
the scheduling of a debate calling on the Government to hold a
referendum on continuing membership of the European Union has meant
that the focus of the article has changed. I will outline the
background and operation of the Committee, but also consider the
extent to which the Committee has made a significant impact on the
operation of the House of Commons.
Formation of the Committee
Following the 'expenses scandal' in the UK Parliament, a
committee was formed to look at parliamentary reform. The
recommendations of the Wright Committee extended beyond just
expenses, and one of the innovations suggested was the formation of
a committee to schedule a new type of business, "Backbench
business", which would be scheduled alongside Government business
and Opposition day debates. This received cross party support, and
in June 2010, the Backbench Business Committee was voted into
existence. The proposal for this new committee had therefore been
formulated under the previous Labour government, and implemented by
the coalition Conservative and Liberal Democrat government. This
was a good indication of the cross-party support for the idea.
The Committee has responsibility for scheduling debates in
the House of Commons, and also in Westminster Hall.
Labour MP Natascha Engel, a former member of the Wright
Committee, was elected as Chair. The Committee also comprises 4
Conservatives, a further 2 Labour members and 1 Liberal
Democrat. The Committee has "at least 35 sitting days" at its
disposal, spilt between debates in the House of Commons and
Westminster Hall. Debates in the House of Commons must be
based on a motion which can be voted on, known as a "votable
motion". It is important to note that backbench motions are not
binding on the Government, but their strength as an indication of
intent cannot be overlooked. This is, arguably, one of the most
significant aspects of the Committee's success: the ability for MPs
to have a substantive debate, rather than relying on more brief, or
low profile means of raising their issue, such as Early Day
Motions.
When considering proposals, the committee is not making a
judgement on the substantive arguments which would be put forward
in a debate, they are looking for MPs to justify why their topic
demands debate on the following criteria: why holding a debate is
important, which other Members are likely to take part (cross-party
support for a debate is usually needed), and why a debate is
unlikely to be secured through other routes, e.g. Urgent Question,
opposition day, adjournment debate, etc. NHS blood contamination,
and the continued deployment of troops in Afghanistan are two
notable examples of issues on which MPs had never had an
opportunity to vote before these were granted Parliamentary time by
the Committee. MPs were also able to use a debate on prisoner's
voting rights to send a strong message to the Government that they
opposed extending voting rights, despite a ruling by the European
Court of Human Rights. Issues which the Government and official
Opposition do not wish to schedule can now be brought to light by
tenacious backbenchers, as long as they are able to secure enough
support amongst fellow MPs for a debate.
Fostering Public Engagement? Backbench business and
E-petitions
One way in which MPs may be able to justify why a debate is
necessary is that there is significant public interest in an issue.
One such way of demonstrating this interest may be through
signatures on a public petition. What the Backbench Business
Committee was not expecting, however, was the recent re-launch of
the Government e-petition system to issue the promise of
parliamentary debate for popular petitions, which would have to be
allocated out of Backbench Business Committee time - already
oversubscribed by backbench MPs lining up with proposals.
The Backbench Business Committee has made it very clear that the
Government had not given them prior warning that e-petition
subjects may be liable to be channelled through their Committee;
secondly, there has been no additional Parliamentary time allocated
for debates occurring as a result of e-petitions. This, however,
did not stop the Government continuing to publicise the e-petitions
system as enabling any petitions gaining 100,000 signatures or more
to be "eligible for debate in Parliament".
According to the procedures in place in the Committee for
assessing eligibility for debates, e-petitions do not automatically
qualify: there is no guarantee that an MP will pick up an
e-petition, or be able to secure a number of MPs who are similarly
interested in seeing the issue debated. One of the difficulties
with the well-publicised petition that called for convicted rioters
to lose their benefits was that it related specifically to London;
a difficulty in determining whether this was actually a matter for
the UK Government or the London Assembly to deal with. Prime
Minister David Cameron then also stepped in and announced that
there would be a debate on this petition; this undermined the role
of the Backbench Business Committee in allocating business, and
risked them being shown as unresponsive to public opinion, as
initially no MPs came forward to propose the petition. Eventually a
compromise was reached, with an MP bringing forward a proposal on a
more general debate on the riots in Westminster Hall. Similarly, a
petition calling for the release of documents relating to the
Hillsborough disaster also was picked up by a local MP, who sought
cross-party support and secured a debate.
Nevertheless, some public petitions do also have widespread
support from backbench MPs. A very topical example is the debate on
urging the Government to hold a referendum on continuing membership
of the European Union, which has the support both of members of the
public (expressed through a newspaper petition, demonstrating that
more traditional forms of petitioning are not being ignored by
MPs!), but also by a significant number of MPs, from across a
number of parties. However, this case also provides a useful
example of the ways in which the Backbench Business Committee is
still subject to the control of the Government. The Committee had
been allocated one debate slot in the House of Commons, and several
MPs had brought forward proposals for what should be debated in
this time. The motion on EU membership "calls upon the Government
to introduce a Bill in the next Session of Parliament to provide
for the holding of a national referendum on whether the United
Kingdom should remain a member of the European Union, leave the
European Union, or renegotiate the terms of its membership in order
to create a new relationship based on trade and co-operation."
There has not been a referendum for the British public on EU
membership since 1975, and the MP proposing the motion, David
Nuttall, was able to demonstrate that, due to front-bench policy on
membership of the European Union, it would be very unlikely that
either the Government or the Opposition would propose a debate on
the matter. The Committee therefore decided that the issue merited
debate, and scheduled time in the House of Commons on Thursday 27
October.
However, the Government moved quickly to bring the date of this
debate forward to allow Prime Minister David Cameron and Foreign
Secretary, William Hague, to attend (they were scheduled to be in
Australia on 27 October at the Commonwealth Heads of Government
Meeting). At the time of writing this article, there is much media
coverage of this issue, particularly the decision of the Government
to impose a "three-line whip" to vote against the motion (meaning
that MPs could not vote as they wished, but as they were directed
by the Government). This is an example of an issue that the
Government has attempted to keep off the agenda, but the issue has
now been pressed by backbench MPs. Backbench votable motions
are not binding on the Government, but they can make a powerful
statement of intent, and in bringing the debate to the Commons, the
Government has to make a response to the House. The MP who proposed
the debate, Conservative MP David Nuttall has said: "If the House
of Commons passes this motion any Government would be hard-pressed
to ignore the democratic will of the British people as expressed
through their democratically-elected members of Parliament."
Direct or Representative Democracy?
The conflict between the Government and the Committee over the
handling of e-petitions goes to the heart of one of the most
fundamental questions of representative politics; one which has
long exercised both academics and politicians: do MPs directly
represent the wishes of their constituents, or do MPs make
decisions based on what they believe to be best for their
constituents? Allowing the public direct access to democracy, as
the Government's e-petitions site claims to do, does enable the
public to make their voice heard on a myriad of issues. However,
conflating this process with one which was designed to allow
backbench MPs to "bid" for debate time in the House of Commons
somewhat muddies the waters.
The Scottish Parliament's e-petition system is a more direct
form of democracy, allowing individuals or groups to petition the
Parliament to urge the Government to address a particular issue.
Aside from requiring one signature, there is no minimum threshold
on the number of signatures which require to be gained before the
Scottish Parliament's Public Petitions Committee can consider it.
However, this is not comparing like with like, because the
petitions system at Holyrood is administered by the Scottish
Parliament, rather than the Government.
100,000 signatures is an ambitious target, particularly for a
petition deriving from Scotland. The e-petitions site itself is
quite tricky to navigate, and it is unrealistic to expect that
support will be generated organically by posting the petition on
the website and letting it gain signatures by people just browsing
through petitions. The layout of the website is not
necessarily conducive to this approach, and the most successful
petitions appear to be those which have a significant public
campaign behind them, some of which may have been circulated to
large mailing lists, others which have been publicised more
informally but equally successfully through social media such as
Facebook and Twitter. However, if you or your organisation does
successfully manage to garner support for your UK Government
e-petition, that will not guarantee public debate on the matter. To
bridge that gap, therefore, it is best to try to do both: by all
means raise the issue in the minds of the public (who may contact
their MPs about the issue anyway), but be prepared to do a bit of
leg-work to make sure there are a number of MPs (across a range of
parties) who you can count on to make the pitch at the Backbench
Business Committee for you.
Reflections
Whatever the result of the debate on an EU referendum, what is
clear is that the Backbench Business Committee is making its mark
on parliamentary processes at Westminster. The visibility of
debates such as this one, and one on the release of documents
relating to the Hillsborough disaster, may be the real success of
the Committee: demonstrating that the agenda in Parliament is no
longer simply dominated by Government and official Opposition
concerns. Although the relationship between the Government's
e-petitions site and the Backbench Business Committee remain to be
resolved, the true impact of this shift in Parliamentary business
allocation may only just be becoming apparent.
Alison Bennett
October 2011
This article was produced following discussions with Stephen
Matthews, Senior Parliamentary Advisor to Natascha Engel MP, Chair
of the Backbench Business Committee. My thanks are due to Stephen
for his willingness to share his expertise on this area with
us.
Reference: Russell, M (2011), 'Never Allow a Crisis To Go To
Waste: The Wright Committee Reforms to Strengthen the House of
Commons", Parliamentary Affairs Vol. 64 No. 4, 612-633
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