The controversial origins of centralised agenda control at Westminster 

The 1902 ‘Balfour reforms’ established a core function of the UK Home of Commons: ministers’ management of its agenda. In a brand new article, summarised on this blogpost, Tom Fleming, Simon Hix, and Radoslaw Zubek discover how this necessary change took place, and query the concept that it was adopted with cross-party consensus. 

Authorities management of the agenda is a central function of the UK Home of Commons. Beneath Standing Order No. 14, authorities enterprise takes priority at each sitting of the Home, apart from a number of particular exceptions. However this has not at all times been the case: ministers’ management of the agenda was step by step prolonged over the course of the nineteenth century, and was cemented in 1902 by the so-called ‘Balfour reforms’. These sweeping procedural modifications included the predecessor of at the moment’s Standing Order No. 14, establishing priority for presidency enterprise because the default association. 

Our latest article in Legislative Research Quarterly explored how this modification took place. Particularly, the article probed the argument – present in some earlier analysis – that it was handed consensually, with assist from the principle opposition social gathering. Opposite to this view, we discovered proof that the opposition constantly opposed the introduction of this new rule. This sheds new mild on a landmark episode within the evolution of the Home of Commons, and suggests a have to revisit wider accounts of the evolution of presidency agenda management. 

The background: what had been the Balfour reforms? 

The Balfour reforms had been a collection of procedural modifications proposed in 1902 by the Chief of the Home (and future Prime Minister), Arthur Balfour. They recast many points of the Home’s procedures, however their essential ingredient for our functions was the introduction of the precursor of at the moment’s Standing Order No. 14. This new standing order on ‘Precedence of Enterprise’ offered that authorities enterprise would have priority at each sitting by default, with some particular exceptions. The brand new standing order additionally set out that at mounted factors in later components of every session, these exceptions would mechanically revert to authorities management. MPs debated this new rule intimately over a number of days earlier than voting to undertake it on 11 April 1902. 

This was a key milestone within the improvement of the UK Home of Commons. Whereas authorities agenda management had developed step by step within the previous century, the 1902 change marked the end result of that course of, and established a core function of Commons process that has persevered ever since. The excessive diploma of presidency agenda management at Westminster has had important (and generally controversial) penalties for British politics, and has set the UK parliament other than different legislatures with extra decentralised agenda-setting processes. 

The puzzle: did the opposition assist these reforms? 

Given the importance of those reforms, you will need to perceive how they got here to be adopted. Current literature has painted this ultimate step within the centralisation course of as a largely consensual episode, whereby the Unionist (Conservative) authorities gained assist from the principle opposition social gathering, the Liberals (although not from the smaller Irish Parliamentary Social gathering). Most explicitly, an article by Eggers and Spirling argued that ‘opposition actors apparently consented to, and even embraced, these modifications’. Related claims will be present in different work, way back to Josef Redlich’s 1908 historical past of the Commons. 

This obvious opposition assist for the Balfour reforms presents a puzzle: why would opposition events assist new procedures that additional advantaged ministers over non-government MPs? Eggers and Spirling offered one reply, depicting this modification as a quid professional quo wherein the opposition exchanged decreased agenda entry for extra dependable alternatives to query ministers. 

Nonetheless, present work doesn’t supply a lot direct proof that the Liberals supported these reforms, which leaves scope for additional evaluation of this necessary however counter-intuitive argument. Particularly – as our article explains at better size – earlier research don’t present intimately how the Liberals really voted when confronted with the particular proposed new rule on ‘Precedence of Enterprise’. 

Our method 

To discover this puzzle, we used the net parliamentary document to determine the formal votes (‘divisions’) linked to the introduction of this new rule within the spring of 1902. The rule was first formally launched and debated on 8 April, debated once more on 10 April, after which adopted on 11 April. The Commons held numerous divisions over these three days. We deal with 9 specifically. These had been held on the adoption of the ultimate movement on 11 April 1902, and on eight amendments that attempted to water down the federal government’s proposal in numerous methods.  

We then used an present database recording MPs’ parliamentary behaviour (created by Eggers and Spirling) to determine how Liberal MPs voted in these 9 divisions. We appeared significantly at two questions: the bulk place taken by Liberal MPs in every division, and the way unitedly they voted for that place. Proof of the Liberals voting towards the federal government, and doing so in a extra cohesive style, would contradict the concept that the opposition supported the Balfour reforms. 

Our findings 

We found a transparent sample within the knowledge: Liberal Social gathering MPs constantly and unitedly voted towards the introduction of the brand new rule on ‘Precedence of Enterprise’. They first voted for all eight of the amendments that sought to water down the proposed extension of presidency agenda management. They then voted towards the adoption of the rule on 11 April 1902. In all of those divisions, the Liberal Social gathering confirmed 100% unity: all Liberal MPs who took half voted the identical approach. 

We additionally examined different proof past the voting patterns. Particularly, we studied the encompassing debates, to discover how far Liberal MPs criticised the substance of the federal government’s proposal slightly than merely criticising their wider document or their method to introducing these procedural reforms. Primarily based on classifying Liberal MPs’ contributions to those debates as both crucial of the federal government’s proposals, supportive of them, or neither, we discovered the overwhelming majority had been crucial, whereas none had been supportive. 

One necessary speech was by the Liberal chief, Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who criticised the a part of this new rule that might mechanically let ministers management a bigger share of parliamentary time in later components of session. Whereas acknowledging that MPs had granted this to ministers in earlier periods, he highlighted that doing so had required a recent request and vote on every event. He thus argued as follows: 

The controversy between the advocates and the critics of the Authorities proposal was who was to be the grasp of the Home of Commons. Was it to be the Home itself, or was it to be the Government Authorities? That was what it got here to. The best hon. Gentleman [Balfour] mentioned he was merely proposing an association which had existed in previous years. Sure, but it surely had existed with the connivance, and on the specific authority, and by the need of the Home of Commons itself. The entire level lay in that. In the event that they accepted the proposal of the Authorities because it now stood they might half with the management on this matter, and they’d hand themselves over to the appropriate hon. Gentleman and his successors with none energy or expressing a voice within the matter. (HC Deb 10 April 1902, c1532) 

Our proof thus exhibits that the Liberal Social gathering voted towards this procedural change, argued towards it, and supported efforts to water it down. We view this proof as incompatible with the concept that the ultimate step within the centralisation of agenda management was adopted with cross-party assist. 

Implications 

What do these findings imply for our wider understanding of how centralised agenda management emerged within the Home of Commons? Our proof is probably suitable with two various accounts. First, it’s doable that that over the longer-term, centralised agenda management did evolve by means of a mutually useful cross-party cut price characterised largely, however not solely, by consensus. On this vein, the social gathering battle we discover in 1902 could be an exception to a typically consensual wider sample. Alternatively, our proof can also be suitable with a much less consensual account, whereby agenda centralisation was imposed by a majority slightly than being adopted with cross-party settlement. In different phrases, there may be potential for future analysis to discover which of those various accounts extra precisely describes the method by which agenda-setting guidelines developed within the a long time main as much as 1902. 

This put up is a abstract of a way more detailed article, which is obtainable to obtain. 

Concerning the authors

Tom Fleming is a Lecturer in British and Comparative Politics at UCL. 

Simon Hix is the Stein Rokkan Chair in Comparative Politics on the European College Institute, Florence. 

Radoslaw Zubek is an Affiliate Professor of European Politics on the College of Oxford.