Parliament: Mostly Continuity, but More Change than You'd Think

Parliamentary Affairs

Volumn 55, Issue 2, 2002, Pages 271-286+i

  Cowley, Philip ^a   Stuart, Mark ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF HULL   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 10744223279     PISSN: 00312290     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/parlij/55.2.271     Document Type: Review

References (16)

1. The Queen's Speech of 2000 is outlined in Cowley and Stuart, 'Parliament: A Few Headaches and a Dose of Modernisation', Parliamentary Affairs, 2001.
2. See e.g. P. Norton, 'Parliament' in A. Seldon (ed.), The Blair Effect, Little Brown, 2001 and Report of the Modernisation Committee on Programming of Legislation and Timing of Votes, HC 589, 2001-02.
3. See e.g. G. Jones, 'Week In Westminster', The House Magazine, 17.7.00.
4. The first programming motion occurred in December 2000, but all the others were in 2001. After the election, the Commons voted to continue with both deferred divisions and automatic programming motions, although the procedure for the latter was modified somewhat.
5. Usually but not always. As a result, the procedure does appear to have lead to a slightly higher number of mistaken votes on the part of MPs.
6. Not all did. Two Conservative MPs voted with the government; five voted against.
7. One Conservative MP, Douglas Hogg, has now refused to take part in the process at all in the new Parliament.
8. Excluding the three short ones, just four postwar Parliaments had more rebellions in their final sessions, those of 1974-79, 1983-87, 1945-50 and 1992-97.
9. Cowley and Stuart, loc. cit., pp. 251-2.
10. See P. Cowley, Results and Rebellions: Parliamentary Voting Under B tor, London, Politico's, 2002, c. 10.
11. For more on the composition of the Commons post-2001, see P. Cowley, 'The Commons: Mr Blair's Lapdog?' in P. Norris (ed.), Britain Votes 2001, Oxford University Press, 2001.
12. One - Martin Bell - Doing so in a different seat (Brentwood and Ongar) to the one (Tatton) he had been representing for the last four years.
13. That is, excluding the two short Parliaments of 1950-51 and February-October 1974.
14. Given that one of the Conservative gains was Tatton-a seat held by the Independent Bell since 1997, but in which Bell was not standing in 2001 - The net gain from other political parties was effectively nil.
15. Also among the four draft bills to be published during the session was the NHS (Wales) Bill which sought to reform the Welsh NHS in line with the NHS Plan for Wales that had already been agreed by the Welsh Assembly.
16. Marsden subsequently defected to the Liberal Democrats.