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Excellent piece by the @ConUnit_UCL on the "shocking" collapse of parliamentary govt over the last year. Five changes, in particular, "amount to a fundamental undermining and exclusion of parliament from crucial decisions". Some extracts follow. [1/9] https://constitution-unit.com/2021/04/21/covid-and-parliament-one-year-on/
1. Emergency Legislation. The far-reaching Coronavirus Act was rushed through Parliament in a single day. "In the year since it was passed, ministers have provided just five hours debating time for MPs to consider ongoing measures", with speeches limited to just 4 minutes each.
2. Radical new laws, "shutting down businesses, forcing people to stay at home, imposing hotel quarantines or mandatory testing", have routinely been made by Statutory Instruments, issued by ministers without parliamentary scrutiny, even when there was no immediate time pressure.
3. Money. Historically, the Commons built its influence on "the power of the purse": its control over the supply of money to the govt. Yet "unlike in other parliaments", there have been "no special oversight measures...to deal with the huge spending pressures posed by the crisis"
4. Ministers unilaterally shut down full digital participation in Parliament in May. Full access was not restored until December. "Hence, at ministerial insistence, the most medically vulnerable MPs were locked out of participation in key Commons business for a shocking 224 days"
5. Wholesale use of proxy votes. Just 18 people are now responsible for casting 595 votes in the House of Commons. A single govt whip holds more than half of all MPs' votes. Ministers refused to allow MPs to vote digitally, despite development of a secure App used by the Lords.
6. It's possible to argue that all this was a necessary response to emergency conditions. But overriding scrutiny & legislating by decree are habit-forming. The Brexit trade deal was rammed through in 5 hours. Brexit legislation uses Statutory Instruments on an industrial scale.
7. Why does this matter? Parliamentary scrutiny produces better govt: it tests arguments, gives a voice to opposing ideas and produces more robust policy. It is the only directly elected institution we have, and the only place where voices outside the governing party have a say.
8. The govt might retort that it "won the election". But every MP won an election in their own constituency - the only UK-wide election for which any of us could vote. They, and their constituents, have a democratic right to participate in the process by which our laws are made.
9. To conclude: "There are real dangers that, over the last year, the govt has become too comfortable with decision-making that evades parliamentary scrutiny". "With lockdown hopefully now ending, it is essential to prioritise the full restoration of parliamentary democracy".
The full article is well worth reading. It's available here: https://constitution-unit.com/2021/04/21/covid-and-parliament-one-year-on/.
