Blog

A House more divided: Practice and procedure in a multipolar Parliament

15 Jul 2024
©House of Commons
©House of Commons

The composition of the opposition in the new Parliament is very different from that of recent Parliaments, including the period following the Labour landslide of 1997. For the time being at least, we are in a new era of multi-party opposition. What might be some of the procedural implications of this shift?

Paul Evans, Former House of Commons Clerk
,
Former House of Commons Clerk

Paul Evans

Paul Evans
Former House of Commons Clerk

Paul Evans CBE retired in August 2019 from the post of Clerk of Committees in the House of Commons, after 38 years working there. He was made a CBE in 2019.

Get our latest research, insights and events delivered to your inbox

Subscribe to our newsletter

We will never share your data with any third-parties.

Share this and support our work

The general election changed the composition of the House of Commons in more ways than just replacing the party of government. It brought two newcomer parties – Reform UK with five MPs and Traditional Unionist Voice with one – and saw the Green Party and Plaid Cymru (equalling its best-ever previous result) become more distinctly visible with four MPs each. The SNP dropped dramatically to just nine MPs and ceded their status as the second largest party of opposition to the Liberal Democrats, who have their largest-ever number of MPs at 72. There is also a very new phenomenon of six independent MPs, the largest such batch elected (as opposed to losing a party whip during a Parliament) since at least the abolition of the University seats in 1948.

In Northern Ireland seven Sinn Fein MPs were elected, who in accordance with their party’s longstanding practice will not take their seats. One Alliance MP was elected (whose party broadly align themselves with the Liberal Democrats). Unionist politics became more fragmented than ever with three parties sharing seven seats between them – the DUP, which in 2015 had equalled the Liberal Democrat score of eight MPs and whose then 10 MPs helped prop up Theresa May’s government after the 2017 election, now has five.

Between them this group of ‘other’ parties and independents represent about 28% of those who voted in the 2024 general election.

But of course, the real story of the 2024 election was the catastrophic losses suffered by the Conservative Party – the lowest ever score of seats in a century, though they still retain the status of the Official Opposition (or “His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition” if you prefer). The table below compares their share of opposition seats to the seat shares at three recent low points for the parties that formed the Official Opposition.

At a glance it is clear that the make-up of the opposition in this Parliament is very different from what we are used to. Whereas in the recent past the Official Opposition has held around 70-74% of the seats on the opposition benches, in this Parliament it holds just over half (53%). Consequently, the second-largest opposition party and the other parties concerned all hold a much bigger share of seats than their predecessors in previous parliaments.

This significant change in the political make-up of the opposition benches inevitably raises questions about whether the Official Opposition party, being so much smaller than its predecessors, should retain the same predominant share of the rights and responsibilities that go with the role.

Opposition parties in previous Parliaments • The size of the opposition and seat share of the Official Opposition and other opposition parties in previous Parliaments (1997, 2015, 2019 and 2024)

Parliament startingTotal no. of opposition seats (1)No. of 'Official Opposition' seats / Percentage share of total opposition seats (2)No. of second-largest opposition party seats / Percentage share of total opposition seats (3)No. of 'other' opposition party seats / Percentage share of total opposition seats (4)
1997235165 / 70% (Con)46 / 20% (Lib Dem)27 / 11%
2015312232 / 74% (Lab)56 / 18% (SNP)27 / 9%
2019274202 / 74% (Lab)48 / 18% (SNP)27 / 10%
2024227121 / 53% (Con)72 / 32% (Lib Dem)38 / 17%

Note: All percentages are rounded and will not total 100%; the exclusion/inclusion of the Speaker and his Deputies and Sinn Fein MPs (who do not take their seats) means that the figures for seats in the last three columns do not add up to the figure in the second column. (1) The figures in this column exclude the Speaker and Sinn Fein MPs (2) The figures in this column may include the Speaker and Deputy Speakers (3) The figures for 2024 may include a Deputy Speaker (4) The figures in this column exclude Sinn Fein MPs

Standing Order No. 14 of the House of Commons allocates 20 days in each parliamentary Session to the opposition parties. On these days those parties can set the agenda of the House. Currently (as they have been for a very long time) these days are divided to give 17 to the Official Opposition and three to the second-largest opposition party. That latter party is expected by convention to give some of this time to the ‘smaller’ parties, but the convention is very unclear. Back in February I blogged about an almighty row which broke out when the SNP (then the second-largest opposition party) felt that the Speaker had stolen one of their precious days and given it to the Official Opposition (then Labour).

But overall that 17:3 distribution was very broadly proportional in the first three examples given in the table above (though slightly favouring the Official Opposition and disadvantaging the ‘others’). It no longer looks to be so. A more proportionate distribution in the current House would be say 11 to the Official Opposition, six to the second-largest party (the Liberal Democrats), one to the third-largest party (the SNP – slightly more than they mathematically deserve) and four half-days divided between the ‘others’ (Reform, DUP, Plaid and Greens). Those ‘others’ might be expected to share these half-days out by agreement but failing that the Speaker’s decision could be determinative. This arrangement would, however, exclude both the independents and the parties with only one or two MPs (although the SDLP are closely aligned with Labour, Alliance with the Liberal Democrats, the UUP with the Conservatives and TUV may have some form of agreement with Reform).

Such a reallocation would require the government to initiate a change to Standing Order No. 14(2), but any amendment to achieve this redistribution should, in the traditional phrase, “have effect to the end of the present Parliament”, so that the distribution resets to the default after the next general election (after which it could again be tweaked if need be).

One of the House of Commons’ most high-profile events (some would say unfortunately) is the weekly half-hour at noon on Wednesdays of questions to the Prime Minister (PMQs). Currently the Speaker allocates six supplementary questions during the half-hour to the Leader of the Official Opposition and two to the Leader of the second-largest opposition party. The other party leaders have to take something that looks like potluck, though there is some method behind the Speaker’s choices. A more proportionate distribution between the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the second-largest opposition party in the current Parliament would look like 5:3. This change could be made entirely at the Speaker’s discretion.

At the daily question times (including PMQs and also following ministerial statements), and in most debates, the principal convention guiding the occupants of the Chair in the Commons in deciding which MPs to call has always been that they alternate between the Government and opposition sides of the House. This disadvantages Government-side backbenchers, particularly when there are a lot of them. But in deciding which backbenchers to call from the opposition the Chair has to work hard to try and balance opinion (especially from one-or-two-member parties and independents), and this challenge is only going to get more difficult in the current Parliament.

Frontbenchers from both sides of the House, on the other hand, enjoy a presumption in favour of them being called to speak in debate – before any speech limits are imposed on backbenchers (as the occupants of the Chair have been all too keen to do in recent years). Generally, the relevant Official Opposition spokesperson is called immediately after the Minister in the opening of a debate (or the other way round on opposition days) and immediately before the Minister in the ‘wind-up’ at the end of a debate. The spokesperson of the second-largest opposition party is generally called fourth but has no presumptive right to be called in the wind-up speeches. Again, these practices may have to be revisited given the new balance of the House.

Those outside the Westminster bubble would probably be quite surprised by how much of the business of the Commons chamber is stage-managed through informal discussions between the business managers (mostly the Whips but also the Leader of the House and her opposition homologues). These behind-the-scenes negotiations are traditionally referred to as the ‘Usual Channels’.

The ‘Usual Channels’ are, of their nature, a mystery to those who haven’t swum in them, but their design may need to be revisited to take account of a more multipolar opposition. This could obviously be done through informal negotiation, the preferred modus operandi of the Whips throughout history. But those ‘Usual Channels’ usually include only the usual suspects, and their operation is opaque to everyone else. There is also a tendency for the Government and Official Opposition managers often (though not always) to conspire together to put the smaller parties at a procedural disadvantage whenever convenient.

The radical solution to the existence of a multi-party opposition would be to revisit the idea of a Business Committee or parliamentary bureau on which the smaller parties had at least some representation. Most legislatures (including the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Senedd) have some version of these. Their role is generally to propose the agenda of the House. Back in 2009 the Select Committee on Reform of the House of Commons proposed such a committee to sit alongside the Backbench Business Committee in its report Rebuilding the House. Although the coalition Government promised to allow a vote on this proposal in its second Session, the proposal was quietly forgotten, never to reappear.

Perhaps the new multi-party House of Commons will bring pressure to revisit this idea – the smaller parties may feel they deserve more say in the way the business of the House is organised than they have historically enjoyed under the Government/Official Opposition duopoly. This may be potentially a topic for the promised Modernisation Committee to consider. That would be a radical change.

An early start could be to elect a Liberal Democrat MP as one of the Deputy Speakers when elections to those posts are held within the next fortnight (none of the Deputy Speakers from the last Parliament have returned in this – two stood down and one was defeated). Standing Order No. 2A(5e) which governs those elections specifies only that two of the Deputies must come “from the opposite side of the House to that from which the Speaker was drawn”. (It also specifies that – if the Speaker is a man – at least one of the Deputies must be a woman.)

A ‘Speakerate’ that included someone outside the duopoly could form a nucleus around which discussion of the management of the House could develop in a more open and multipolar direction, potentially laying the foundations for some sort of business committee – a role which is often given to the Chair and its deputies in other legislatures. It would, for example, potentially give a voice for the non-official opposition parties in the crucial matter of selecting amendments for debate or decision when Bills or other matters are being considered in the House.

But expanding the Deputy Speakers beyond the duopoly is not directly in the Government’s power to deliver. It is a choice for MPs when they come to vote in a secret ballot (using the Single Transferable Vote system) on 23 July – if a third-party candidate puts themselves forward.

In a parliamentary system effective opposition is essential to ensuring good government. In recognition of this constitutional truth, since 1975 the House of Commons has allocated money from public funds - known as Short Money - to support the opposition parties in their parliamentary work (and only in their parliamentary work).

Currently the annual amount payable to qualifying political parties is just over £22K for every seat won at the last general election plus just under £45 for every 200 votes gained by the party at that election. An additional travel fund of just under £250K a year is divided between the qualifying parties proportionately.

For parties of five or fewer MPs there is a floor of just over £125K and a ceiling of just over £375K. Though the parties currently with four or five MPs might be tempted to try and game the system by merging or allying with others this is unlikely to work – the sums are all done on the basis of the party ticket MPs were elected on.

These sums are obviously calculated on a fair and proportionate basis to the balance of representation in the House plus (uniquely) the top-up representing vote-share. But there is one prize in the winner-takes-all tradition of Westminster. The Leader of the Opposition (defined as the leader of the opposition party which won the most seats at the previous general election) gets a further sum of just over £1m to run their office (equivalent, I suppose, to something between a dozen and twenty staff). Clearly, in the present Parliament the Liberal Democrats will have cause to feel a degree of envy of the Official Opposition on this account.

These arrangements are overseen by the House of Commons Commission, chaired by the Speaker (but operating in the guise of the ‘Members Estimate Committee’ under Standing Order No. 152D). They could be amended by a straightforward resolution of the House (as happened in 2016). Whether the Government wishes to facilitate any change which recognises the new, multi-party composition of the opposition remains to be seen.

Evans, P. (15 July 2024), A House more divided: Practice and procedure in a multipolar Parliament, (Hansard Society blog)

News / Parliament Matters Bulletin: What's coming up in Parliament this week? 2-6 December 2024

Rachel Reeves will field questions in the Chamber, as her Bill to authorise the Budget proposals increasing National Insurance Contributions reaches its Second Reading debate. MPs will also discuss the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 Report. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards will face questions on the work of his office. The Government may introduce a money motion for the assisted dying Bill this week, allowing up to 45 minutes of debate, though it is not yet listed in the business papers. There may also be news on the appointment of members to its Public Bill Committee.

01 Dec 2024
Read more

News / How a British student has schooled the US Congress - Parliament Matters podcast, Episode 58

In this special episode, we dive into the fascinating world of US congressional procedure with Hansard Society member Kacper Surdy, the once-anonymous force behind the influential social media account @ringwiss. Despite being a 20-year-old Durham University student, Kacper has become a go-to authority on Capitol Hill’s intricate rules, earning the admiration of seasoned political insiders. With Donald Trump hinting at bypassing Senate norms to appoint controversial figures to his cabinet, Kacper unravels the high stakes procedural battles shaping Washington.

04 Dec 2024
Read more

News / Assisted Dying Bill passes Second Reading: What next? - Parliament Matters podcast, Episode 57

From the emotional weight of the Assisted Dying Bill’s historic Second Reading to the first Cabinet resignation under Keir Starmer’s leadership, this has been a whirlwind week of high-stakes drama and political intrigue in Westminster. Nearly three million people have signed a parliamentary e-petition calling for another general election and it’s been a week of party defections and divisions. We unpack what it all means for the future of this Parliament.

29 Nov 2024
Read more

Briefings / The Assisted Dying Bill: A guide to the Private Member's Bill process

This briefing explains what to watch for during the Second Reading debate of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill on 29 November. It outlines the procedural and legislative issues that will come into play: the role of the Chair in managing the debate and how procedures such as the 'closure' and 'reasoned amendments' work. It looks ahead to the Committee and Report stage procedures that will apply if the Bill progresses beyond Second Reading. It also examines the government's responsibilities, such as providing a money resolution for the Bill and preparing an Impact Assessment, while addressing broader concerns about the adequacy of Private Members’ Bill procedures for scrutinising controversial issues.

27 Nov 2024
Read more

News / What's the point of petitioning Parliament? - Parliament Matters podcast, Episode 56

It’s Parliament Week, and Ruth and Mark are joined by researchers Cristina Leston-Bandeira and Richard Huzzey to celebrate an unsung hero of Westminster: the petitioning system. Once on the verge of irrelevance, this mechanism has seen record levels of public engagement, sparking debates and inquiries on an avalanche of citizen-driven issues. Together, they explore how petitioning adds value for both petitioners and MPs, and what has driven this surprising revival of a centuries-old tradition in the digital age.

22 Nov 2024
Read more