The Roles and Function of Parliamentary Questions


Book Description

Parliamentary questions are a feature of almost all national legislatures. Despite this, we know very little about how questions are used by MPs and what impact questions have on controlling the government. This volume advances our theoretical and empirical knowledge of the use of questioning in a number of different parliamentary settings. The propensity of parliamentarians to ask questions indicates that the interrogatories are an important tool for measuring an individual legislator’s job. Ultimately, how a parliamentarian chooses to use the questioning tool provides a unique insight into legislator behaviour and role orientation. Many of the chapters in this volume provide new empirical measures of legislator activity and use this data to provide new tests of leading theories of legislator behaviour. At an institutional level, questions provide an important source of information for the chamber and are a critical tool of government oversight – as many of the chapters in the volume indicate. 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.







Prime Minister's Questions


Book Description

“Parliamentary questions can be used by Members of Parliament to seek information, to press for action and to hold the Government to account. Questions for oral answer are directed to Ministers in the Chamber of the House of Commons. This note outlines the procedures for the tabling of questions for and answering of questions at Prime Minister’s Question Time. 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.”




Handbook of Parliamentary Law


Book Description

This work is a complete manual of parliamentary law and practice. It aims to provide in readily accessible form and understandable terms the rules of order by which popular assemblies are governed. It is at once and in the strictest sense a handbook for both the inexperienced learner and the experienced practitioner in parliamentary bodies. The following points distinguish it from other works of its kind: 1. It is systematic and concise in its presentation of rules and principles, each standing out as a distinct sentence on the page; and forms, rules, effects, etc., are clearly distinguished by a suitable arrangement of type. 2. The first part of the book provides a carefully outlined syllabus of parliamentary law freed from any needless verbiage of explanation. 3. The second part furnishes abundant explanatory notes, giving reasons and illustrations in parliamentary practice for the less experienced and the inexperienced parliamentarian. 4. The third part of the book gives specific directions for successfully conducting a club or class for the study and practice of parliamentary law, while the fourth part adds a hundred review questions as an aid to mastery. 5. The book supplies model forms of expression suitable to be employed in all parliamentary practice. 6. A unique and simple graphic classification of motions is furnished such as will in itself answer on a single page over four hundred parliamentary questions. There is also given a luminous single-page diagram of parliamentary motions. 7. A system of thumb indexing makes the information of the book immediately accessible, -a matter of great moment to one presiding over an impatient assembly. The book is the outgrowth of over ten years of experience in teaching parliamentary law to students in normal schools and colleges, and is designed as a textbook for use wherever the subject is studied or practiced.







House of Commons Procedure and Practice


Book Description

This reference book is primarily a procedural work which examines the many forms, customs, and practices which have been developed and established for the House of Commons since Confederation in 1867. It provides a distinctive Canadian perspective in describing procedure in the House up to the end of the first session of the 36th Parliament in Sept. 1999. The material is presented with full commentary on the historical circumstances which have shaped the current approach to parliamentary business. Key Speaker's rulings and statements are also documented and the considerable body of practice, interpretation, and precedents unique to the Canadian House of Commons is amply illustrated. Chapters of the book cover the following: parliamentary institutions; parliaments and ministries; privileges and immunities; the House and its Members; parliamentary procedure; the physical & administrative setting; the Speaker & other presiding officers; the parliamentary cycle; sittings of the House; the daily program; oral & written questions; the process of debate; rules of order & decorum; the curtailment of debate; special debates; the legislative process; delegated legislation; financial procedures; committees of the whole House; committees; private Members' business; public petitions; private bills practice; and the parliamentary record. Includes index.




The Roles and Function of Parliamentary Questions


Book Description

Parliamentary questions are a feature of almost all national legislatures. Despite this, we know very little about how questions are used by MPs and what impact questions have on controlling the government. This volume advances our theoretical and empirical knowledge of the use of questioning in a number of different parliamentary settings. The propensity of parliamentarians to ask questions indicates that the interrogatories are an important tool for measuring an individual legislator’s job. Ultimately, how a parliamentarian chooses to use the questioning tool provides a unique insight into legislator behaviour and role orientation. Many of the chapters in this volume provide new empirical measures of legislator activity and use this data to provide new tests of leading theories of legislator behaviour. At an institutional level, questions provide an important source of information for the chamber and are a critical tool of government oversight – as many of the chapters in the volume indicate. 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.




Parliamentary Questions


Book Description