So I thought that I had a decent understanding of the parliamentary system, but I guess I don’t. I have some very basic questions that Wikipedia seemed to not clear up.
First, I believe that the PM comes from the House of Commons. Do they still get a vote in the House of Commons? Can they participate in debate? What about the other members? If they can’t vote, how are their constituents represented?
Second, there is another position, Speaker of the House of Commons. Apparently, they do NOT usually get a vote except for tie-breakers, and when they do they (by convention) must vote a certain way (for the status quo, basically). Since they do not get a vote or even to debate (I think), how are their constituents represented?
Third, according to Wikipedia (I know, not the best citation), “the Prime Minister guides the law-making process with the goal of enacting the legislative agenda of their political party.” In the Speaker of the House of Commons article, it says that “according to parliamentary rules the Speaker is the highest authority of the House of Commons and has final say over how its business is conducted, as well as other key choices, for example which tabled amendments are selected for votes.” So who is really in charge of the House of Commons?
In the sense of voting on issues, I suppose they’re not, but all the individual issues constituents raise will be dealt with in the usual way.
“In charge” means different things. The government, under the overall direction of the PM and cabinet, set the legislative programme, through a cabinet member usually called Leader of the House of Commons. The Speaker supervises the process of debates and ensures the rules are followed; he also supervises the running of the building and services for members.
Normally, government and opposition get standard allowances of time and space for proposals and amendments, agreed through “the usual channels” (i.e., the Leader of the House and his/her shadow, and the whips on both sides), and the government can rely on its majority to see their business through.
But just as the moment, because the government party doesn’t have a majority and is divided on top of it, they’re also losing control of the details of the legislative agenda, at least as regards Brexit. Because of the impasse on the government’s preferred option on Brexit, supporters of every alternative option are using every procedural opportunity to get their ideas considered, which necessarily puts the Speaker into a more central position.
Yes, they are still a sitting/serving Member of Parliament, still represent their constituents and still vote and debate just like anyone else. Haven’t you seen Prime Minister’s Question Time?
The only exception to this would be if the Prime Minister was chosen from the House of Lords, which has happened, but isn’t common. In this case, they wouldn’t have debating or voting privileges in the Commons, but would in the Lords. Someone would stand in for them at PM’s Question Time, as Lords aren’t allowed in the Commons.
The Speaker is effectively the referee of the Commons, which is why they don’t get to debate/vote in normal procedure. They are selected from sitting MPs, and leave their party as a result (as they must be seen to be impartial).
It’s an odd situation where the speaker must be an MP in order to be allowed to preside over events, but it does mean his constituents aren’t represented in votes or debates. It is an historical oddity of disenfranchisement, I admit.
Th Speaker, but only in as much as he/she controls the order of the day. The PM brings the bills for debate - going back to sport, imagine she’s captain of the team that’s leading the attack.
The UK government has three branches - the executive (PM and ministers), the legislative (Parliament) and the courts. The only difference here is that members of the cabinet/PM sit in the legislature as well as the executive.
For example, the Speaker recently ruled that the PM can’t just keep putting the withdrawal agreement up for a vote, citing the long-established rule that once a matter has been debated and rejected in the Commons, it can’t be re-introduced in that session of Parliament.
There’ve been two votes on it already. It went down in flames on the first vote in January. The Speaker has said that he allowed the second vote because it was accompanied with clarifying information from the EU about the legal effect of the backstop, as well as a new opinion from the Attorney General, which in his view made it a vote on a slightly different matter. That second vote also resulted in a government defeat.
For the PM to re-introduce it for a third vote, she would have to show that it is different in some way from the versions defeated in votes No. 1 and No. 2. She can’t just keep re-introducing it, Groundhog Day style.
The PM is reportedly extremely angry about that, but the Speaker’s procedural ruling stands. However, in addition to being a procedural ruling, it has the political effect of emphasizing that the PM is not bringing anything new to the Commons. She has no Plan B, only a shop-worn Plan A.
In normal times, the Government would have the votes to get a major proposal through the Commons. Or, if they knew in a minority situation that they would lose the vote, they wouldn’t introduce the measure. Either way, the Speaker’s power to disallow another vote wouldn’t even come up.
Thank you all! I think things are somewhat clarified.
Not to hijack my own post, but my understanding is now the House of Commons is essentially throwing out ideas regarding Brexit and voting on them to see if something can pass, but it is all non-binding on PM May, correct?
So, they could possibly say they want a full customs union with the EU, but without freedom of movement, to which May (and the EU) will just laugh and laugh?
Their constituents are as well represented as any other Minister by their constituency office. Indeed by far the vast majority of representation and issues of constituents for all MPs is done by their office. Question Time is theatre for the political parties, not for getting the plumbing fixed on Ms John Bull’s council flat.
Speakers are not usually installed with a record of being opposed/antagonistic to the Government. So (if they were not Speaker) you would expect that they would normally follow the Whips instructions. (but, as previously pointed out, these are not normal times)
The decisions of successive Speakers are guided by, though not without inconsistency, three principles:
• the Speaker should always vote for further discussion, where this is possible;
• where no further discussion is possible, decisions should not be taken except by a majority; and
• a casting vote on an amendment to a bill should leave the bill in its existing form.
At this point they don’t have time for faffing about; there is no point in voting to guage support within the Parliament for unattainable forms of Brexit.
(As it happens, being in a customs union with the EU, but without free movement, is not unattainable; that’s the relationship Turkey has with the EU, albeit that the customs union is not full. And this proposal isn’t a thousand miles from the Brexit policy of the Labour party, who want a customs union (but with freedom for the UK to negotiate its own trade deals, which looks a bit unicorny) but no participation in the single market (which at least in theory means no freedom of movement).)
The Commons Select Committee on Exiting the European Union produced a report the week before last which listed various models of Brexit that might be considered. My guess is that this will form the basis of the options put to the Commons for indicative votes.
In Australia the speaker remains a member of their party but doesn’t get to attend strategy meetings, backroom plots etc, so acts as independently as they can given they are not absolved of party affiliation and election.
It can serve the government’s purpose to support a member of the opposition or an independent for the Speaker position, as it means they have one less vote agaInst them. New South Wales just had its state election on the weekend - one of the independents looks like being put forward for the speaker’s job.
No, but in 2000, some Conservative MPs were annoyed when a Labour MP was elected to succeed another former Labour MP as Speaker, based on the idea that there was a tradition of alternating parties. The supposed tradition was only 35 years old at most, though.
The speaker holds office until retirement, so whichever party they originally came from may at different times during the speaker’s term of office be in government or in opposition.
Just to add a point of order, Deputy Speakers also don’t vote. My MP is a Deputy and I feel somewhat disenfranchised as a result.
She’s a true Tory, got caught in the expenses scandal and only paid back 1/10 of what she had fiddled. She had an affair with one of her researchers and then got promoted and she’s now a Dame to boot. No one around here seems to have a good word to say about her, yet her majority increases at every election!
The speaker and his three deputies are supposed to be drawn two and two from the two major parties, so the fact that they don’t vote should have a neutral net effect.
As for feeling disenfranchised, you live in a rotten borough. Your MP is in effect chosen by a small group of Tory party loyalists, who will be disproportionately white, male, elderly and prosperous. They are the only people whose views would have any chance of affecting the votes cast by your MP, even if she did vote.
She may be chosen as a candidate by a small group of Tory party loyalists, but at the last election, she managed to convince 31462 of JacobSwan’s neighbours to vote for her, as opposed to the Labour candidate who only had 13219.
I think they all live on the other side of the constituency. This side of town is very much a liberal bubble, which is reflected in district and parish elections.
I grew up in the midlands and Betty Boothroyd was my MP for many years. She was also a Speaker, so I should be used to this by now. She had a habit of always mentioning she was a proud Yorkshire lass in any interview. It would have been nice of her to give an occasional shout out to the people who elected her, but I don’t think she ever did.
So are there just no elections in the speaker’s district until they retire? What if they do something bad or become senile, is impeachment the only out?
a bit of Trivia : in the US there is no law or rule that the speaker of the house has to be a member of the house but they always have been a member by tradition.