The House of Commons and the House of Lords work on behalf of UK citizens to check/challenge the work of Government, make/shape effective laws, and debate/make decisions on the big issues. Parliament is one of the world’s most representative and open democracies. This is partly because of the way it works: parliamentary systems tend to have stronger economic policies, more effective social policies and more robust democratic accountability than presidential systems.
Parliament expresses grave concern at Gaza’s ‘catastrophic humanitarian crisis’, and calls for EU action. MEPs back new rules to allow greater flexibility in EU carbon border adjustments. They also call for a stand-alone post-2027 agriculture budget that includes less red tape and incentives to achieve environmental and social objectives.
The INTER PARES project – which this article forms part of – has just published a new Parliamentary Primer called “Parliaments and Crisis”. It explores how a range of parliaments responded to the coronavirus pandemic, within a wider exploration of how democratic parliaments can protect good governance and their constituents’ rights in a crisis. It highlights the many different measures that parliaments took, often in parallel: to enable their continued functioning including through innovative solutions such as virtual plenary sessions; to grant governments powers where necessary and to ensure they respect human rights; to conduct effective oversight of government actions; to set an example to their constituents through observing health requirements like social distancing; and to learn lessons from the response to feed into future planning and decision-making.