Members of Parliament in Western Europe: Roles and Behaviour (Library of Legislative Studies)

Evidence of the impact of questions on executive and bureaucratic oversight challenges conventional views of parliaments as weak and ineffective parts of the political process. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Legislative Studies. The Best Books of Check out the top books of the year on our page Best Books of Looking for beautiful books?

Visit our Beautiful Books page and find lovely books for kids, photography lovers and more. Other books in this series. Parliamentary Representation in France Olivier Costa. Table of contents 1. An Introduction Shane Martin 2. Parliamentary Questions as Instruments of Substantive Representation: The second important question is to what extent office holders are available for party activity. While making a contribution to the public political debate may not require much time per se, the precise timing of such interventions is often crucial.

Reacting too late may mean that the public floor de facto has been left to the competitors. A too late response may miss the editorial deadlines of important mass media and fail to balance or override messages from political competitors. Such availability is severely limited in the case of members of the executive who may be bound up in meetings or international travel especially to Brussels , duties that do not vanish in campaign periods. Holders of high parliamentary office — the presidents of parliament and the floor leaders — should display much greater availability, as the parliament typically is not in session when the election approaches.

This is probably less true for MPs, many of whom will have to combine private occupation and constituency campaigning. With respect to party office holders, the party secretaries again are most likely available. Contrary to other politicians they are almost permanently present in the capital and the party headquarters. The most likely source of prominence is high public office followed by high party office.

Three groups of actors seem plausible: The top group includes the head of government and the other party leaders and top candidates respectively. A middle group comprises the members of the cabinet, the speakers of parliament, the parliamentary floor leaders, the party secretaries, and leading sub-national executive officers. A third group, finally, consists of MPs, other sub-national office holders, and candidates without public office. We can now bring the discussions of the three questions together. Clearly, the incentives to attack constitute the most important factor.

Here we see that the holders of high public office have no incentive to attack competitors. Even party leaders have little incentive to do so, though leaders of opposition parties and those who are serious contenders for the office of prime minister should be more prone to attack. Conveniently, these offices, and the general secretaries in particular, are also endowed with the required time resources and relevance for media to lend effectiveness to such behaviour.

Table 1 summarizes these expectations. The present article is based on a content analysis of party press releases. This source, to the best of our knowledge, has been hardly used in the study of negative campaigning 3 even though it has two general advantages: Second, press releases are issued frequently and continuously during a campaign and therefore capture its dynamics Dolezal et al. For the present article this source is best suited because of a further characteristic: Press releases allow for studying the campaign communication of a much broader range of party representatives.

Naturally, leading politicians can easily use other means of communication such as interviews in newspapers or TV news shows. However, press releases typically follow these channels and distribute the messages provided to a broader media audience. In Austria, press releases are distributed via the APA, the national news agency.

Research has demonstrated that press releases strongly influence news coverage in many countries, including Austria Haselmayer et al. In a further step we manually de-selected all press releases that only informed about coming events e.

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Note that we deliberately do not include press releases distributed by ministries. In we only found one cabinet member using this channel to attack an opponent. All in all we collected press releases from seven parties. This method goes back to the work of Kleinnijenhuis and his collaborators e. Kleinnijenhuis and Pennings, and was also used in comparative research on election campaigns and public debates Kriesi et al.

Given the high number of press releases we only coded their title. However, because of the length of the headings a maximum of characters set by the OTS-system and the high quality with which most press releases are written, the content of the titles perfectly captures the basic message of most press releases. What is more, press release titles are the main selection criterion for journalists only titles and subtitles are visible when journalists scroll through the APA system , thus our measure registers whether party actors choose to make the attack the main point in their communication.

For the present article we define any negative relation between subject and object actors, thus any form of criticism, as negative campaigning e. For both the subjects i. Of course, in an archetypical party democracy such as Austria it is natural to find some overlap between party and public offices. Parties reserve the highest public office available to them for their leaders. Therefore, leaders of government parties typically take positions in cabinet mostly as Chancellor or Vice-Chancellor , whereas opposition party leaders usually assume the position of party floor leader in parliament.

Apart from the office variables, we also control for gender as men and women are sometimes expected to differ in terms of negative campaigning , government status, and the week of the campaign as campaigns may systematically vary in emphasis on individuals and attacks over their course. Media relevance, as argued above, is the precondition for any communication strategy based on press releases; otherwise journalists would simply neglect them. Even though in these members of the political elite comprised only 33 individuals or four percent of all individuals recorded in the content analysis , they were mentioned in no less than 54 percent of all articles or television pieces analysed.

Figure 1 presents the level of negativity by political office. Heads of government and leaders of parties in government i.

Members of Parliament in Western Europe : Roles and Behaviour

Vice-Chancellors almost completely refrain from attacking opponents. Other holders of high public office in government and parliament exercise similar levels of restraint. Opposition party leaders are somewhat more likely to direct negative messages at their opponents, yet still stay below the average level of negativity. Party floor leaders are just above average, yet clearly not as aggressive in their messaging as party general secretaries.

Attack shares by political office. A more detailed breakdown of the number of observations and attack shares by office and election year is presented in the Appendix Table A1. To see whether these results hold in a multivariate test, we present a binary logistic regression with random effects at the party-election level Table 2 to account for structural factors that remain constant for each party during a campaign.

The reference category for the political office predictors is the set of non-elite politicians that make up the majority of all senders in the press release data. All groups except the government party floor leaders display statistically significant differences from the reference category, with public offices and party leaders displaying negative coefficients and the remaining party offices exhibiting positive effects. The odds ratios suggest large differences between the groups, with heads of government and government party leaders showing the lowest levels of negativity, and opposition floor leaders and party secretaries the highest propensity of attacking.

To make effect sizes comparable, we present predicted probabilities from the regression model Figure 2. Heads of government are clearly least likely to attack. A somewhat higher probability of attacking is displayed by party leaders, cabinet members, and speakers of parliament. Next, government party floor leaders exhibit a level of negativity that is indistinguishable from that of the reference group.

Opposition party floor leaders and party secretaries have the highest probabilities of attacking. Predicted probabilities calculated based on regression in Table 2 ; all other variables held constant at mean or mode; the government dummy was set to one for categories that coincide with government status; 95 percent confidence intervals shown. Taken together, these results largely confirm our expectations. Politicians in high public offices that come with expectations of non-partisanship are least likely to attack, whereas somewhat lower-ranking positions that are also more partisan in nature induce higher levels of negativity.

Also, government participation dampens negativity for all party offices although the differences are not statistically significant for general secretaries. These marked differences according to role expectations are especially relevant as we only included press releases distributed by partisan channels — discarding all official government channels such as ministries which would increase the differences even more.

One criticism that could be levelled against our approach is that the willingness to engage in attack behaviour varies primarily across individuals, and this variation may lead to self-selection or selection by others into positions that come with specific role expectations.

In order to demonstrate that our findings are robust to these concerns, we take advantage of the fact that many individuals moved into, out of, or between high offices in our observation period. We can thus additionally test our expectations on a smaller sample of observations where the same individuals perform different roles. To arrive at this subgroup we identify all subjects that assume more than one role including the reference category across the four election campaigns.

In total, the pool of office switchers comprises 41 individuals see Table A2 in the Appendix producing over press releases. Table 3 presents the same regression model as in Table 2 , but with fixed effects at the level of individuals.

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Thus, all variation left to explain is within individuals switching between offices we therefore drop the gender variable which is fully accounted for by the fixed effects. As Table 3 shows, the results are very similar to our analysis of the full sample. Compared to the reference category, holders of public office and party leaders use negative messages to a much lesser extent.

The coefficients and odds ratios for the party floor leaders imply little difference compared with the reference group. The same conclusion can be drawn for general secretaries in government parties. By contrast, opposition party general secretaries are significantly more negative than the comparison group and thus constitute the group most prone to attack in our subsample of office switchers.

These results strengthen our conjecture that the attack patterns observed in the data are not driven by self-selection of more or less aggressive types of individuals into different political roles, but by a strategic division of labour within parties. This article builds on and contributes to the literatures on political roles and party organizations in election campaigns.

Our core argument holds that parties have good reasons to implement a division of labour regarding negative campaigning. While most parties clearly prefer to have their competitors attacked during election campaigns, the incentives for individual politicians to carry out such attacks are limited. In the context of parliamentary systems with coalition governments, the collective interest of the party is served by delegating attacks to the offices of party floor leader and, in particular, general secretary.

The latter are part of the party leadership most often by means of appointment and therefore remain accountable to the party leader. At the same time, the party compensates them financially and controls their further political career. More than half of all general secretaries in our sample were promoted to ministerial positions after their party entered government. Delegating much of the attacks to them allows other party elites to largely stay free from such behaviour.

They thereby follow their personal motivations and, at the same time, do what is in the collective interest of the party. It is worth pointing out that the effect sizes reported in the regression models are substantial — especially when considering that the large sample size of almost reduces the chance that random noise produces such huge differences. Moreover, the analysis of a subset of party elites that switch offices between elections strengthens the claim that the observed differences are, in fact, caused by the intra-party division of labour and are not due to self-selection.

Our study is a first step in building a theory of party offices and is limited to party campaign behaviour. While campaigning is a vital party activity, further analyses should expand the scope of analysis to other realms. Policy innovation may allow for a rather straightforward extension of our theoretical reasoning. When parties want to change course on an issue, for instance to expand their electoral appeal, approach potential coalition partners, or because they now consider earlier ideas unworkable, they may face a problem similar to that inherent in riding attacks.

In such uncertainty, a division of labour might be testing the viability of the new policy first by one high-ranking official, for instance a minister or party policy specialist, airing it before the party leader throws his or her authority behind it. Similar to negative campaigning, policy innovation constitutes a collective action problem. While beneficial to the party if successful, it also involves risks. A division of labour similar to the one analysed in this article can resolve this dilemma.

As is true for all single-country studies, there are, of course, limits in how far we can generalize from our findings. However, since Austria is fairly typical of most West European parliamentary democracies regarding party system and party organizational characteristics, we are confident that a similar division of labour is present in many parties in other countries. Even if individual incentives and role expectations may vary somewhat between countries and parties, there are strong reasons to assume that campaign communication will be strongly diversified between holders of different public and party offices.

His research focusses on party competition and political participation. His most recent publications include an article on online campaigning in Austria Policy and Internet and chapters for a book on the politicization of Europe Politicising Europe: Integration and Mass Politics. He works mostly on political institutions, political parties, and government coalitions. Sum of N per election is somewhat greater than total number of press releases because a minority of press releases have two subjects.

The table presents the number of press releases issued by each group of office holders in each campaign. Percentages refer to the share of releases that contained an attack. Junior ministers are coded as ministers. In the following, we provide some examples of press releases to explain our coding procedure in more detail. We always present the original title, an English translation, the ID of the press release, and the values we record for actors and their relations.

Note that press release titles often use informal language and shorthand expressions. We also record the substantive issue of the press releases as well as additional variables such as references to track record and justification claims of issue positions. However, as these aspects are not relevant for the present article we only explain how we capture relations between political actors.

When coding press releases we record up to two subjects and three object actors. In around six percent of all press releases we find two individuals as subjects. For each actor we record his or her name and organizational affiliation if it is an individual actor , for collective actors we record the name of the organization.

In most cases the subject of a press release is an individual whereas the objects comprise individual as well as collective actors. The title typically does not include the first name of actors. Coders typically find this information in the first paragraph of the press release. In the first example an individual actor attacks two collective actors, i. During election campaigns, relations between actors from different parties are mostly negative. Positive relations primarily exist between actors from the same party. In the following example an individual male politician attacks an individual female politician.

To the best of our knowledge, no studies on the backlash effect have been conducted for European multiparty systems Lau et al. Article on Life after Parliament: Linda Asper, Rita Dionne-Marsolais, Clif Evans, Karen Haslam, Gilles Morin, Derwyn Shea and David Warner Every current parliamentarian will become a former parliamentarian, and associations representing former parliamentarians have been formed to provide transitional assistance to these people and maintain and foster social links established during their time in the legislature. This article brought representatives of associations of former members who spoke on the work of their respective organizations and how they might be able to offer their wealth of parliamentary experience to assist in current research and outreach projects of legislatures.

The Committee publishes three reports and this is the final report of the inquiry. The first report sets out the background to this inquiry, including an overview of the Committee's inquiry into the performance of DPS conducted in This report concludes the inquiry and provides recommendations for improving the organization structure, management and operation of DPS.

The author divides the motions and requests into seven categories based on conduct of meetings, agenda items and persons introducing the motion or request. Richard Kelly and Sarah Priddy, House of Commons Library UK In February , the House of Commons of the UK agreed to adopt the proposals for a collaborative system of e-petitions to bring together the Government's e-petitions website which is administered by the Office of the Leader of the House and the House of Commons paper petitions system onto one platform.

The new system is overseen by a newly formed Petitions Committee and the joint e-petitions website went live on 20 July This note looks at the background of the introduction of the system and the role and functions of the Petitions Committee. Article on Some Editing Required: Deborah Caruso, Lenni Frohman, Robert Kinsman and Robert Sutherland As producers of the official transcripts of parliamentary debates, Canada's Hansards are responsible for ensuring parliamentarians and Canadians have a fair and accurate report of what happened on any given day on the floor of a legislature.

A new scheme was then introduced after the General Election. The new scheme has the following features: This note provides an overview of MPs' pensions and current proposals for reform. It also provides a brief history of past changes to the governance and administration of the House of Lords. This report is the final report in a series of consultations on MPs' pay and pensions which began in The report examines the responses to the consultation, explains the thinking and decision of IPSA in light of those responses.

House of Lords Expulsion and Suspension Act The power for expulsion is new, while the power for suspension has been extended to a period which can go beyond the end of a Parliament. The expulsion or suspension requires the passage of a motion following the recommendation of the Committee for Privileges and Conduct that the member has breached the Code of Conduct. UK Government and Parliament UK This new initiative comes as a result of the work of the House of Commons Procedure Committee which produced a report making recommendations for how an e-petitions system should function.

In view of improving public engagement with the work of Government and Parliament, the new website allows users to create, publicise and sign petitions, with actions guaranteed at certain points in the process. Guidance to members on accepting gifts, benefits and hospitality July Author: The report does not recommend any new rules; rather it sets out in one place how various existing provisions in the Code and Guide cover the acceptance of gifts, benefits and hospitality. House of Commons Canada This Bill amends the Parliament of Canada Act for the purpose of establishing the Parliamentary Protective Service under the purview of the Speaker of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Commons to oversee the physical security throughout the parliamentary precinct and Parliament Hill.

The Bill provides that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has to provide physical security services throughout the precinct and Parliament Hill. This report contains the assessment of the Committee on the 10 recommendations provided by the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner on the following areas: House of Commons Canada This report looks into the political situation in Hong Kong in the context of the proposed framework for the election of the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in The report a gives an overview of the political development in Hong Kong; b addresses decisions affecting the election and its related reactions; c examines the situation in Hong Kong in consideration of its political, economic and social challenges; and d discusses the role of Canada in responding to this situation.

Blueprint Public Relations Inc. In the past few years, the work of the Senate has been under increased scrutiny, and some Senators have expressed concern about the effectiveness of the Senate's communication process.

The goal of this review is to perform a system-wide analysis of the existing communication practices, both internal and external, to identify strengths and gaps, and to develop specific recommendations and action plan for the improvement of the communication process. Briefing Paper - Parliamentary Questions: It also provides background material on recent developments and the history of the Questions system.

In , the Committee published a report recommending some minor changes to the procedures. It also considered the process for re-electing the Speaker after a general election. This briefing paper reviews the election of the Speaker in , and the Committee's review and the changes made to the procedures for electing a Speaker in Inter-Parliamentary Union During the last 20 years, there has been notable increase in the percentage of women members of single or lower houses of parliaments around the world.

This report highlights the progress made and lessons drawn from countries with women's representation. Social Media in the House of Representatives: With the increased use of social media accounts for official representational duties, the US House has adopted policies and regulations regarding the creation, content and use of third-party social media services.

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This report answers questions about the regulation of social media accounts in the House of Representatives. House of Representatives US The bill lapsed at dissolution of Congress at end of but was reintroduced in the House of Representative in the new session on 27 February The bill seeks to amend the reporting requirements under the United States-Hong Kong Policy Act of to direct the Secretary of State to certify to Congress that Hong Kong is sufficiently autonomous to justify separate treatment different than China under new US laws in and then annually thereafter for 10 years.

The Scottish Government then announced that it would introduce legislation to give effect to his proposal to prevent the introduction of the Member's bill. The Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee "Committee" therefore conducted an inquiry and produced this report for the Government's consideration.

The Committee recommended a new register of lobbying activity to be established in order to make information about lobbying activities on matters relating to Parliament and the Government more transparent and accessible to the public. It also recommended on the design of the register; its compliance system; and measures to complement the register.

A Matter of Privilege: Senate Subcommittee on Parliamentary Privilege of the Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures, and the Rights of Parliament Canada The objective of this paper is to initiate debate as to how best Parliament may adapt its understanding and exercise of parliamentary privilege to meet the needs and expectations of Canadian parliamentary democracy in the 21st century.

The Subcommittee on Parliamentary Privilege of the Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures, and the Rights of Parliament suggested that Parliament of Canada should proactively re-evaluate and reconsider parliamentary privilege in the Canadian context, reassess privilege in a way that Parliament would function adequately without infringing on the rights of others.

A framework to adapt elements of parliamentary privilege to contemporary norms was introduced. House of Commons, Committee on Standards UK This report arises from the different interpretations over the requirements on declaration of Members interests stipulated in the House of Commons' Guide to the Rules relating to the conduct of Members "Guide". The Committee on Standards is of the view that the requirements in the Guide should not be solely directed at conflicts of interest.

In cases where an interest appears more relevant than in fact it is, Members of Parliament should either simply declare the interest or explain the true position. However, there has been little understanding among the general public of what they do, the rules governing their conduct, and the ways in which those rules are enforced. This report aims to increase understanding of what MPs do and the rules that govern them, as well as propose improvements. The report also sets out the range of functions that an MP undertakes, and describes the various aspects of MPs' work and the limitations of their role.

Joanne McNair Canada In this article, the author explores incidents where social media was used to violate or circumvent a standing order or parliamentary convention, or to challenge parliamentary privilege. She concludes that while social media is another form of communication which can conflict with and challenge parliamentary conventions and rules in the same way as traditional forms of communication, parliamentarians should be aware that its access is "instant" and audience is global.

Digital Democracy Commission UK This report provides a comprehensive road map on how the UK Parliament can use digital technology to enhance and improve its work. It also makes recommendations on breaking down barriers to public participation and facilitating better scrutiny and improving the legislative process. It also looks at the history of the Prime Minister facing questions in the Chamber of the House of Commons, the changes to Prime Minister's Questions, and current arrangements. Standard Note on the Administration of the House of Commons The House of Commons Governance Committee was appointed in September to consider the governance of the House including the allocation of responsibilities for House services exercised by Clerk of the House and Chief Executive.

In this report, the Committee recommended changes to the role and composition of the House of Commons Commission and that the joint role of Clerk of the House and Chief Executive should be separated. A new Director General with primary responsibility for the delivery of services should be created.

Congressional Research Service US Over the years, the Congressional Research Service "CRS" has assisted Members, committees, party leaders and staff aides in performing the oversight functions, such as the review, monitoring and supervision of the implementation of public policies. Developed and updated by CRS, the Congressional Oversight Manual summarizes the main investigative tools of oversight which include the subpoena power, interviews and depositions conducted by committee staff, grants of immunity, application of the contempt power and prosecutions for perjury and false statements.

After considering the bill, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations issued a report in December The report recommends the US reaffirming the principles of the United States-Hong Kong Policy Act of ; and reinstating as well as amending the reporting requirements under the Policy Act. The amendment is to direct the Secretary of State to certify to Congress that Hong Kong is sufficiently autonomous to justify separate treatment different than China under new US laws in and then annually thereafter for 10 years.

However, with the new session of Congress started in January, the bills have to be re-introduced for consideration. House of Commons, Procedure Committee UK On 8 May , the House of Commons agreed a motion on the establishment of a "collaborative" e-petition system which would enable members of the public to petition the House and press for action from Government commencing next Parliament.

This report presents the proposal of the establishment of the system which will be jointly owned by the House and the Government. Oversight of the system will be undertaken on behalf of the House by a Petitions Committee, chaired by a member elected by the whole House. Queensland Independent Remuneration Tribunal Australia This reports contains information on the review of the changes made to the allowances system for Members of Parliament "MPs" in Queensland in January The changes involve the reduction of over 30 allowances of the previous system into three broad categories, namely electorate, information and communication and general travel; and the introduction of new acquittal and reporting requirements.

The Code is accompanied by a detailed Guide to the Rules which sets out detailed requirements for registration and declaration of interests, as well as rules relating to lobbying. The Bill provides that a recall petition will be triggered if a Member is sentenced to a prison term or suspended from the House for at least 21 sitting days. It also introduces rules on the conduct of the recall petition, including campaign spending limits for people supporting and opposing recalling of the Member. The Bill was introduced on 11 September , and the second reading and the committee stage debates were held in October and November respectively.

The Standard Note provides a brief summary of the debates concerned. Maya Fernandez, Rebecca Whitmore, Vanesa Tomasino Rodriguez and Kate Russell Low levels of youth voter turnout in recent elections in Canada have caused public concern about the disengagement of young people's interest in parliamentary politics. In this article, the authors proposed three recommendations for increasing youth engagement in parliamentary politics given the experience drawn from the legislative internship programme of British Columbia.

House of Commons Library UK Run by young people, the UK Youth Parliament provides opportunities for youth aged to exercise their vote to bring about social change. Through the Make Your Mark ballot, young people vote for five issues for debate in the House of Commons, among which MYPs vote for two issues for launching a wider campaign during the following year. This paper provides background information on each of the 10 issues that appeared on the Make Your Mark ballot. House of Representatives, Standing Committee on Procedure Australia Members increasingly use electronic devices, particularly hand-held devices, for communications in the Chamber.

This report covers a range of issues including relevant aspects of parliamentary privilege, Members' obligations when using electronic devices, and the nature and content of their communications from electronic devices. Alison Loat and Michael MacMillan Canada In Tragedy in the Commons, the authors draw on exit interviews with 80 former parliamentarians to reveal how federal politicians felt about their experiences leading and directing the country.

This book excerpt suggests that many Members of Parliament found the most tangible result of their work is individual casework for their electoral districts, prompting the authors to ask if all constituency work alone is the best use of an MP's talents and time. It also provides some background to the current debate on the appointment of the next Clerk of the House. Congressional Research Service US In the US, the Constitution provides the exclusive qualifications for a Member of Congress, and that neither a state nor the Congress itself may add to or change such qualifications in the absence of any constitutional amendment.

Although states have no such aforementioned authority, they are responsible for administering elections for the federal office. This paper gives an updated account on the administration of elections. Article on Perceptions and Performance: Elisabeth Gidengil and Heather Bastedo Canada This article examines citizens' evaluations of their elected representatives and assesses several key aspects of the performance of Members of Parliament "MPs" in light of these evaluations.

It also suggests possible ways for MPs to improve their public image. This note provides an account of the deliberations by the House and the response of the Government on this topic.

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This note provides an overview of contemporary political opinion polls and the understanding of polling data, professional standards within the polling industry and various types of political poll commonly conducted as well as organisations which conduct these polls. The note also provides comparative data for women in Parliament and other elected bodies in the UK and other jurisdictions.

Some milestones over the last years for women in the UK Parliament and Government are also included. Parliament of Australia, Department of Parliamentary Services Australia This paper draws on recent data and research to discuss trends and issues relating to women in Australian parliaments within an international context. It includes data on women in leadership and ministry positions, on committees and as candidates in Commonwealth elections. It also includes comparative information about women in state and territory parliaments.

This plan outlines how ICT will be used to connect parliamentarians, the public and the parliamentary departments to the information and services they need from anywhere, at any time, through a range of devices, and provide new opportunities for greater efficiency and effectiveness for the Parliament of Australia. House of Commons Library UK The programming of legislation was introduced on an experimental basis in and has been made permanent since In December , the Procedure Committee reviewed and proposed changes to the way in which programming operated, as there were concerns that sometimes significant amendments were passed without debate at report stage.

On 8 May , the House of Commons agreed a motion to give effect to the Procedure Committee's proposed trial of a three-day deadline for tabling amendments in the Session. This Standard Note provides the background and the review as well as the proposed changes made by the Procedure Committee. House of Commons Library UK The carry-over of government bills from one session to the next was suggested by the Modernisation Committee as a way of reducing the fluctuations in legislative activity caused by Parliamentary sessions. This Standard Note provides the background on carry-over of government bills, details of the bills that have been carried over and examples of the form of words used in carry-over motions.

Library of Parliament of Canada Canada This paper reviews the rules, conventions and practices of the Canadian Parliament in respect of question period. It also examines processes similar to question period in the UK, Australia and New Zealand, as well as in Canadian provinces. It focuses on the general framework that governs question period and the rules regarding this parliamentary tool. House of Lords, Committee for Privileges and Conduct UK This report recommends a closer link between the requirement for Members to act always on their personal honour and the system of financial support for Members.

It also recommends a code of conduct for Members' staff and proposes a procedure for dealing with the imprisonment of Members. Congressional Research Service US With the increased use of social media accounts for official representational duties, the House of Representatives has adopted policies and regulations regarding the creation, content, and use of third-party social media services. This report answers several questions about the regulation of social media accounts in the House of Representatives.

Standard Note on House of Commons: House of Commons Library UK This note looks at trends in the sitting hours of the House of Commons since , both in terms of the number of hours sat and the incidence of late night sittings.

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Article on House of Commons Committee Chairs: Dubois, Alexis Canada This article looks at the issue of the impartiality of chairs of the House of Commons standing committees during the 41st Parliament. House of Commons Library UK The Select Committee on the Reform of the House of Commons "the Committee" was asked to consider how the public could initiate debates and proceedings in the House, and recommendations were made in respect of engaging the public in the legislative process and changing the House of Commons petitions system.

This note provides information on the background and the reports on the pilot public readings of government bills administered by both the UK Government and the House of Commons. Standard Note on Public bill and general committees: House of Commons Library UK This note outlines the background to proposals for introducing salaries for the chairs of standing committees, including public bill and general committees.

In March , the House of Commons agreed a resolution setting out which chairs were entitled to an additional salary. Standard Note on Modernisation: Select Committees - pay for chairs February Summary Author: House of Commons Library UK This note reviews the background to proposals for paying select committee chairs, the recommendations from the Modernisation Committee that led to the Review Body on Senior Salaries considering the issue, and the Committee on Standards and Privileges' report on chairs' outside interest.

House of Lords reform: In the absence of wider reform, the Government seeks to support minor changes. These include the introduction of retirement provisions in the House of Lords and the provisions to enable the expulsion of peers convicted of a serious offence, and the tackling of persistent non-attendance. Interests of Committee Chairs: House of Commons Committee on Standards UK The Committee on Standards considers it important to study the issue of whether Chairmanship of a Select Committee brings with it a particular influence on matters of public policy that justifies the imposition of additional restrictions in relation to conflicts of interests.

As such, the Committee published a report launching its consultation on the interests of committee Chairs. The consultation seeks to establish whether or not the current regime for committee Chairs needs changing. Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority UK This report stipulates the decisions of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority on pay and pensions for MPs after their election in , including a one-off increase of 9. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v2. The Remuneration Board, National Assembly for Wales UK This report sets out the work the Remuneration Board has done to ensure a right package is in place to attract and retain high calibre supporting staff of Assembly Members.

It also outlines the areas, including a more systematic approach to performance review as well as greater support for high quality policy and legislative work, for future consideration. Majority Cloture for Nominations: Congressional Research Service US On 21 November , by overturning a ruling of the chair on appeal, the Senate set a precedent that lowered the vote threshold required by Senate Standing Rule XXII for invoking cloture on most presidential nominations. The precedent did not change the text of Rule XXII of the Standing Rules; rather, the Senate established a precedent reinterpreting the provisions of Rule XXII to require only a simple majority of those voting, rather than three-fifths of the full Senate, to invoke cloture on all presidential nominations except those to the U.

This report explains the procedural context within which the precedent was set and addresses the precedent's effects on floor consideration of nominations.

The Roles and Function of Parliamentary Questions

Congressional Research Service US On 21 November , the Senate voted , with all Republicans and 3 Democrats voting against, to eliminate the use of the filibuster against all executive branch nominations and federal judicial appointments other than those to the Supreme Court. At the time of the vote there were 59 executive branch nominees and 17 judicial nominees awaiting confirmation. Queensland Independent Remuneration Tribunal Australia The current framework for remuneration of Members of Parliament "MPs" in Queensland is based on a s entitlements regime and has not been subject to independent review.

The Premier therefore established the Queensland Independent Remuneration Tribunal as an independent entity on 16 July to review and decide the remuneration of MPs. Post-legislative Scrutiny October Conslusion Author: Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee, The Scottish Parliament Scotland There have been concerns that the Scottish Parliament is not doing enough to assess the effectiveness of legislation once it has become law.

A number of voices have argued that post-legislative scrutiny should be a greater priority for MPs. This report studies possible approaches to carry out post-legislative scrutiny in the Scottish Parliament, and considers what changes are required with respect to Standing Orders and the Parliament's procedures.