About these notes. This is the sub-topic lookup version. For the full narrative lesson, use the Walk-through. For active recall, use the MCQ Quiz. To practise the judgement, use the scrutiny grid and the committees grid.
Likely exam angles. The 30-mark question asks whether Parliament scrutinises the executive effectively, or whether scrutiny has improved since 2010. The running theme is exposure versus enforcement: most mechanisms produce answers, not outcomes.
Scrutiny is Parliament's job of examining and holding the executive to account between elections. The effectiveness of any mechanism can be tested the same way each time:
The two chamber mechanisms make the cleanest contrast in the topic - the same House doing theatre and scrutiny in the same week.
The weekly half-hour exchange. The Leader of the Opposition gets six questions; a backbencher gets one with no follow-up; government backbenchers ask planted questions. The PM rarely answers a substantive question and the format rewards the soundbite. PMQs is the most-watched scrutiny event and arguably the least effective - visibility without answers. Pearson's own mark scheme guidance calls it high-profile and dramatic, and stops short of calling it effective.
Granted by the Speaker, not the whips, an urgent question forces a minister to the despatch box the same day on the issue of the moment. Speaker Bercow expanded their use from 2010 and Speaker Hoyle continued it: around 250 were granted in 2010-15 and over 600 in 2019-24. Any MP can apply. It is the sharpest day-to-day accountability tool the Commons has - though it still produces answers, not amendments.
| Committee | Strength | Limit |
|---|---|---|
| Departmental select committees | Elected chairs by secret ballot since the Wright reforms 2010; ministers answer on the record; Windrush (Home Affairs, 2018, led to Rudd's resignation) and the mini-budget hearings (Treasury, Oct 2022, forced Truss to recall Parliament) led the news. | Around two-thirds of significant recommendations are not implemented. |
| The Liaison Committee | All the select committee chairs together; the only committee that questions the PM directly, three times a year, on substantive policy. | Three sessions a year and no enforcement - the PM controls the answers. |
| The Public Accounts Committee | Usually rated the most effective: chaired by an opposition MP by convention, backed by National Audit Office evidence; departments change spending practice under its pressure. | Confined to value-for-money and spending, not policy generally. |
| Public Bill Committees | Scrutinise legislation line by line. | Whipped, reconstituted for every bill, government amendments almost always the only ones to pass, untouched by the Wright reforms - the weakest link. |
| Lords select committees | The deepest expertise in Parliament (former ministers, scientists, judges), the least partisan, real influence on technical questions. | Advice without a mandate, and rarely covered by the media. |
No single party holds a majority, many peers are crossbenchers, and nobody faces re-election - so the chamber is hard to whip and serious about detail. A Lords defeat forces the Commons to think again, and the October 2015 tax credits defeat forced a full government retreat. The limits are constitutional: the Salisbury Convention protects manifesto bills and the Parliament Acts cap delay at about a year.
The scrutiny mechanism inside the governing party. Rebellions have risen in every parliament since 2001, and governments usually negotiate before losing - the threat does most of the work. In spring 2025 the Starmer government dropped the deepest version of its welfare cuts after a rebellion of 50-plus Labour MPs plus Cabinet pressure. Blair's 139-MP Iraq rebellion in 2003 shows the scale rebellions can reach.