The shifting landscape of prime ministerial accountability to parliament: An analysis of Liaison Committee scrutiny sessions

Abstract

Please cite this publication as follows:Bennister, M., Kelso, A. and Larkin, P. (2016) AbstractPrime ministerial power is always contingent, based on the utilisation of personal and institutional resources, subject to various formal and informal constraints. Parliament is both a political resource to be utilised, but also a veto-player. In the absence of formal mechanisms setting out the requirements for UK prime ministerial accountability to parliament, a fluid and essentially personalised relationship has developed. Regular prime ministerial appearances before the House of Commons Liaison Committee, begun in 2002, have added to parliament's scrutiny toolkit. This article considers the accountability of the prime minister to parliament by analysing the emergence and development of the Liaison Committee evidence sessions, and draws on interviews with participants and examination of the session transcripts, in order to assess the value of this scrutiny mechanism within the broader framework of prime ministerial-legislative relations. KeywordsUK parliament, prime minister, executive scrutiny, Liaison Committee.

The practice of accountability in questioning prime ministers: Comparative evidence from Australia, Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom

“…In the United Kingdom, PMQs is the routine check-up on the Prime Minister (Hazerika and Hamilton, 2018), and mainly concerns topical issues. The Liaison Committee is a more appropriate setting for detailed scrutiny of the Prime Minister’s personal responsibilities (Kelso et al, 2016). Similarly, on foreign and EU affairs, the Prime Minister’s statements in the Commons offer another opportunity for scrutiny.…”

“…Going back to the wider role of questioning mechanisms, topics may also depend on whether parliamentarians have other venues for questioning the prime minister, and on whether these venues facilitate a different kind of questioning. In the United Kingdom, the Prime Minister is also questioned by the Liaison Committee, which was introduced to facilitate more in-depth scrutiny (Kelso et al, 2016). The Prime Minister also gives statements to the Commons after international events and summits, so questions on foreign affairs may be addressed in more detail on these occasions.…”

How are prime ministers held to account? Exploring procedures and practices in 31 parliamentary democracies

“…The literature analysing prime ministers as political leaders has focused on comparing their power resources, either between countries (Rose 1991;Jones 1991;Sartori 1997;King 1994;O'Malley 2007), or relative to other institutional actors within particular countries. The direct relationship between prime ministers and legislatures has received limited attention in the comparative literature, aside from studies on the UK (see for example Dunleavy et al 1990Dunleavy et al , 1993Burnham et al 1994;Harris 2001;Bates et al 2014;Lovenduski 2012;Bull and Wells 2012;Reid 2014;Bevan and John 2016;Kelso et. al 2016;Hazerika and Hamilton 2018;Waddle et al 2019), Canada (Crimmins and Nesbitt-Larking 1996), Ireland (Elgie and Stapleton 2004) and Italy (Furlong 2004).…”

“…Several studies distinguished between plenary and committee questioning mechanisms (Yamamoto 2008;Maffio 2002), but most classifications focus on plenary mechanisms such as oral questions (Russo and Wiberg 2011;Salmond 2014). Committee questioning mechanisms remain virtually unexplored (with the exception of Jensen 1994, Arter 2004, and Kelso et al 2016. The setting in which questioning takes place is likely to have an important effect on the dynamics of questioning.…”

Questioning scrutiny: the effect of Prime Minister’s Questions on citizen efficacy and trust in parliament

“…PMQs is a form of scrutiny, but its usefulness as such is questionable. So, why study PMQs when there are arguably better examples of parliamentary scrutiny of the PM (Kelso et al, 2016) and when its mixture of theatre, noise, and a packed chamber is quite atypical of Parliament's work?…”