How effectively can British citizens hold British government accountable?

The British government is often put to scrutiny amongst many committees, debates and elections, though, whether these are actually effective is of significance. One might argue that whilst committees that scrutinise government legislation and action are helpful to aid the democratic process and create transparency for the electorate, it is has no power at all to change government if indeed they find anything has gone wrong, or worse yet, if corruption has been at play. The reason being, to hold a government accountable means there shall be repercussions for actions made by said government in the event they have done something wrong or illicit, and by the orders of the UK constitution the sole supreme power in the UK is held in Parliament; committees have no right to sack or replace a government, or even a minister for that matter. The only power that arguably has more superiority than Parliament is the electorate. Therefore, the only means by which British citizens can effectively hold government to account is through the use of their vote. However, it is very plausible to argue that this power is of little significance, and thus ineffective, due to its lack of use, the elective dictatorship, and the ultimate factor that Parliament is supreme, not the people.
It can be persuasively argued that British citizens can ‘hold government to account’ by using both select and standing committees in Parliament to make the Government explain what exactly it Is doing and how and why it is spending the taxpayers’ money in order to achieve what it is it wants to achieve. They are also there to ensure that the government is fulfilling the promises made in its manifesto, and to ensure that it is not acting against the law. These roles of scrutiny, thereby holding the Government to account, are an effective means to help bring about transparency and clarity of policies for the electorate to follow, which thus is an effective means of holding the Government to account for the citizens.
However, it is certainly more convincing to argue that this ultimately does not mean that British citizens themselves can effectively hold British government accountable, for it is a committee, who is not elected by the electorate, who enforces scrutiny onto the UK Government. In a report done by the institute for Government in 2015, on ‘Select Committees under scrutiny’, the institute found in its conclusion that it ‘has shown that parliamentary committees are progressing and innovating but that the committee system as a whole lacks the capacity to evaluate and build on the progress they are making’ (Institute for Government, 2015). The report goes on to state ‘Some would argue that the unequal relationship between the executive and the legislature under the UK’s system of government makes it impossible for the scrutiny conducted by Parliament to have any significant impact on the government’ (Institute for Government, 2015). It could be well argued that this might be due to the fact that the government of the day gets to choose who chairs the select committees, and thus there is a lack of truly effective accountability, as the chair may work in their favour only to benefit them, not to scrutinise them. Therefore, not only can the effectiveness of British citizens on holding the government to account be at doubt, but also the effectiveness of those who make the governments’ actions and policies more transparent to hold it to account can be dubious also.
One platform on which the citizens of Britain can use to hold the government accountable is by accessing courts to challenge the legitimacy of government actions and bills, through the use of Judicial review. One recent famous example of this being executed was the case R. Miller vs. Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. Here, Gina Miller, a British business owner, challenged the government over its ruling to implement the British exit of the European Union without allowing Parliament’s approval to do so. Miller won the case, stopping the government in its tracks and thereby forcing a vote on Parliament. This case is a very convincing example of where British citizens can very effectively hold the British government accountable to their actions or proposed one in this instance.
It is not only through the use of courts, via judicial review, that can be an effective means by which to hold the British government accountable. After Tony Blair’s Labour Party were elected into government on the 2^nd May 1997 the new Labour government announced the introduction of the Freedom of Information Act, 2000. This act made it possible for anyone in Britain to ‘have right of access to information held by public authorities. And person making a request for information to a public authority is entitled to be informed in writing by the public authority whether it holds information of the description specified in the request, and if that is the case, to have that information communicated to him’ (Freedom of Information Act, 2000, Part I). This right to access any public information has entitled citizens to review anything the government has done, or is doing, thus making the process for holding the government to account easier and more transparent; the increase in the power of scrutiny for British citizens is a very effective means that citizens may use to hold the government to account. Whilst scrutiny does not essentially, nor necessarily, force the government into changing their course of action for policy, ministers have been previously sacked from the government due to pressure from the Prime Minister to do so due to incompetence found via scrutiny. For example, Damien Green resigned after ‘the 61-year-old was investigated by the Cabinet Office after he was accused of inappropriate behaviour towards a young Conservative activist’ (Weaver, 2017), that he covered up indecent images that he possessed, thus breaching the ministerial code and therefore was asked to resign from the government.
There are, in addition, alternative means for citizens to hold the government to account and this is done by indirectly doing so; cross-party elected officials are appointed to create a committee of scrutiny towards the head of the government, the Prime Minister, in the form of the Liaison Committee, something that has been done since 2002. The Liaison Committee’s role includes ‘Taking evidence from the Prime Minister on matters of public policy – usually three times a year. The Committee takes a particular interest in encouraging effective committee scrutiny of draft bills, government departments’ finance and performance, European business and public appointments’ (Parliament UK, Role - Liaison Committee, 2018). The Liaison Committee thus places a large amount of pressure on the Prime Minister to act legally and justify her actions to the public. If the Prime Minister is found to have done something illegal or indeed extremely unpopular, she may face enough media and public pressure to resign, causing a mass change of governance across the country, thereby making British citizens’ scrutiny effective as a means to hold government to account. However, this has not yet happened, though it is possible. As once more, whilst this committee provides a large amount of scrutiny upon the Prime Minister, it neither has the power, nor the constitutional right, to change government matters or the Prime Ministers actions.
The Liaison Committee is not the only elected body that has the power to exercise scrutiny towards the Prime Minister and her government. The people who did not vote for the party in power are represented in the form of the Leader of the opposition, currently Jeremy Corbyn MP. The Leader of the opposition has an important responsibility to not only represent those who did not vote for the government, but also to scrutinise it in Prime Ministers Questions every Wednesday in Parliament. This meeting is televised and is followed popularly in the UK and worldwide. However, whilst it does provide a certain amount of scrutiny towards the Prime Minister and her government, it once again does not fully hold them accountable for their actions, as the Leader of the opposition has no constitutional right to replace the Prime Minister or her ministers. Many might also argue that Prime Ministers Questions are now more of a media show for entertainment than actually holding the government to account each week. It is more of a contest to see which leader is the more likable candidate; the Prime Minister or the Leader of the opposition. Therefore, whilst it does slightly increase transparency for the electorate, it does not, yet again, hold the government fully to account by the citizens, directly or indirectly.
It could be reasonably argued that the House of Lords is one way in which British citizens can indirectly hold government policies to account, as they have the role to review and vote on bills presented by Parliament. However, whilst one of the main powers and responsibilities of the House of Lords is to scrutinise government policies, thus holding the government to account to a varying degree, it is a somewhat ineffective method of representing citizens’ concerns as none of the House of Lords are voted by the British public. In addition to this, they are only able to reject a bill for one year, due to the 1949 Parliament Act of reducing the delayed power of the Lords to one year. This therefore is not a fully effective means of holding government and their policies to account, much like all of the other scrutinising forces in British politics.
It has been argued that there is a fundamental flaw with attempting to hold the British government to account. The most effective way in which British citizens can hold government accountable to their actions and policies is by voting for or against them in a general election. Due to the accountability of elections, it would seem necessary to have lots of choice in who you can vote for in a general election in order to vote out an incumbent governing party. However, in the UK, many, such as Maurice Duverger, a French politician, have argued that ‘the simple-majority single ballot system encourages a two-party system’ (Duverger, 1954). Therefore, if there is little choice, especially if the two parties have very similar policies, such as Ed Miliband’s Labour Party manifesto in 2015 compared to that of the Conservative party’s in 2015, as many might argue, then there is little that will change as a result of there being few differences between the two major parties that have a genuine likelihood of gaining governing power in the UK. This leads to a lack of necessity for scrutiny, and thus little chance to hold government to account even at elections, for no matter how much we can scrutinise a politician or party we will never gain a vast change in politics and economics; the general consensus and status quo of third wave capitalism between the two parties has led to British citizens not able to effectively change government and thus not able to effectively hold government to account. Therefore, it is a convincing argument to make that due to the Westminster party electoral first-past-the-post system the UK has, we cannot hold the government, very effectively, to account, for a two-party electoral system cannot have the government as accountable as a multi-party system could, allowing more choice, thus more scrutinized accountability.
One other fundamental flaw with holding the government to account due to the electoral system in place is that voting is optional in the UK. The fact that the UK does not have compulsory voting means that not everyone in the UK turns out to vote who are legible. Voter apathy has increased so much so that in 2001, only 59.4% of voters voted in the general election of that year, and most recently in 2017, 68.8% voted (Audickas, Hawkins, Cracknell, 2017). Some might well argue that this low percentage turnout is a result of distrust towards politicians, believing that not much will ever change in policy. Yet regardless, with apathy comes little to no accountability, as a government cannot be said to have been held fully accountable for its policies if only 68.8% of the electorate are holding it accountable in the form of their votes.
It is of course the best argument to make that British citizens do have the ultimate, and most effective above any other, power to hold the British government to account. Whilst the governments may not change a lot in policy for many years, and that the turnout is somewhat low, and that scrutiny does not terminally change the nature of government, no other tool is more effective in holding governments accountable for their policies and actions than a general election. Indeed, elections may very well be the most effective means by which we are able to hold the UK government accountable, however it should be noted that it had been famously argued previously by the former Lord Chancellor of the UK, Lord Hailsham, that the UK, and thus all representative liberal democracies, is an “elective dictatorship”, meaning once a government is elected and formed, it can essentially, through the justification of Parliamentary Sovereignty, enact and law they please, creating a new style of dictatorship, according to Hailsham. However, due to the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act, 2011, governments now must face accountability for their policies and actions at the very least of 5 years. Therefore, with the introduction of Fixed-Term Parliaments, British citizens can effectively hold the British government
It is thus plausible to argue that the only way of truly changing a government, other than by force of pressure by public and media pressure, is by holding elections. In order to inform the British public on political and economic issues, the UK have recently introduced General Election Debates, a platform for individual citizens to scrutinise MP’s and the current government. Whilst many can persuasively argue that debates do not directly hold the government to account, as much as it gives voters a choice for a manifesto that each party produces for the next election, it should be noted that this is the only scrutinising force that will certainly alter the government come election time. Therefore, whilst there are various ways in which government can be held accountable, it is perhaps most convincingly argued that the only truly effective way by which it can be held accountable is through elections. This is because regardless of how much scrutiny a government, or an individual minister/Prime Minister can receive by any person or organisation, the only way to respond practically to the government collectively on their actions is by either re-electing them or by electing another government, thereby allowing citizens to effectively hold it to account.