AS: revision reading

It has been encouraging to see so many candidates employ recent events in their answers in this summer’s exam session. Evidence has been particularly strong in questions on parties and/or democracy. Here is a pointer to some excellent comment on the recent constitutional reform packages touted by the various party bigwigs in the past few days.

Peter Riddell argues that reform of the system should pretty much focus on how MPs conduct themselves. Personally I think it would be shame to ignore the bigger picture:

‘The debate has been marked by confusion and wishful thinking. There has been a failure to distinguish between the immediate problem over expenses and wider questions of reform. Of course, the public’s anger goes wider than just expenses. But does it really go as far as electoral reform and a written constitution? The discussion is also prone to golden-ageism (the belief that things were better in the past) and ignoring recent changes. Contrary to Mr Cameron’s speech, the Commons is more effective than 30 to 40 years ago.

Scrutiny of legislation can obviously be improved a lot but is better than it was. Moreover, Mr Brown has already limited the use of the royal, effectively prime ministerial, prerogative by, for example, making big public appointments subject to select committee hearings.

The reformers embrace two distinct, and contrasting, views: first, that MPs should be held more accountable to voters and second, that MPs should be given more powers in relation to the executive.

The best way of achieving the former would be by introducing e-petitions to allow direct access, while recalls of MPs to force reruns of elections should be used only in rare cases otherwise members will be reluctant to take controversial decisions. There is also a strong case for fixed-term parliaments.

On the second, there is no shortage of proposals, now being re-examined by Jack Straw and Harriet Harman, to strengthen the role of backbench MPs. That could be done quickly. But don’t muddle this with creating a new constitution. That debate should be left until later.’