A Place at the Table? Parliamentary Committees, Witnesses and the Scrutiny of Government Actions and Legislation

Abstract

Issues of diversity in elected bodies have been highlighted in recent years, both with regard to elected representatives themselves, and, more recently, in respect of the treatment of those working in such institutions, especially women. This article focuses on another aspect of diversity, inequality and representation, the voices heard by parliamentary committees in their scrutiny of government actions and legislation.The article discusses the current position in the Scottish Parliament (and other UK legislatures) with, for example, around three-fifths of witnesses at Holyrood being male, and highlights both ‘demand’ and ‘supply’ factors that influence the make-up of committee witnesses. It also identifies a number of functions that witnesses can play for committees, and how these relate to diversity and representation, and suggests that there may be benefits to committees and legislatures in hearing from a wider range of voices.

Is this a men’s world? On the need to study descriptive representation of women in lobbying and policy advocacy

“…First, input legitimacy of civil society participation as common in consultation practices of many political institutions will depend on whether the participating actors plausibly represent the underlying society or introduce biases (Bochel & Berthier, 2020). As Beswick and Elstub (2019, p. 948) write: 'It would be difficult to justify the committee inquiry system as fair if the inquiries only included certain types of people and, by extension, only captured a narrow range of experiences and perspectives'.…”

“…A recent study by LaPira et al (2019) looks at individuals registered to lobby the United States' (US) federal government and shows that women account for only 37 per cent of these lobbyists. Bochel and Berthier (2020) assess the representation of women in legislative hearings in Scotland and show that around 38 per cent of committee witnesses were women between 2016 and 2017.…”

“…First, descriptive representation is likely to be relevant for the legitimacy-related reasons discussed above, that is the (perceived) legitimacy of civil society participation, political decisions and institutions (cf. Arnesen & Peters, 2018;Beswick & Elstub, 2019;Bochel & Berthier, 2020;Scherer & Curry, 2010). Future studies should assess these effects in the realm of lobbying.…”

“…To play this role equitably, one can argue that lobbyists should ideally come from a diverse set of backgrounds to be able to link policymaking to different types of constituents. Both input and output legitimacy in political decision-making could be affected by this: First, in order to secure input legitimacy of their consultation practices, parliaments and other decision-makers should receive societal input from a diverse and representative range of actors, i.e., interest groups (Bochel & Berthier, 2020). Secondly, there is evidence that the decisions made by descriptively representative bodies are considered as more legitimate by citizens (Arnesen & Peters, 2018) and this might also hold for the influence the lobby community exerts over policy outcomes.…”

(Inequality in) Interest Group Involvement and the Legitimacy of Policy Making

“…There are several ways in which such inequality may distort the (perceived) benefits that interest group participation can have on policy making. By consulting a diverse and balanced range of stakeholders, parliaments can send a signal to citizens that they take an interest in and listen to a broad range of views (Bochel and Berthier 2020). If the interest groups representing different groups in society participate in unequal degrees, it might suggest to citizens that their indirect influence might also be unequal.…”