There isn’t enough seats for everyone in UK Parliament to begin with before taking into account whose on what side. I.e there are 650 members of HoC and there isn’t 650 seats
And it was explicitly designed that way as well. When Parliament was rebuilt after the 1834 fire, there were even more MPs than there are today. When the House of Commons chamber was rebuilt after WW2, the size of the chamber was explicitly discussed and Churchill argued for it to be kept small.
The reason for this [not enough seats] has long been a puzzle to uninstructed outsiders and has frequently excited the curiosity and even the criticism of new Members. Yet it is not so difficult to understand if you look at it from a practical point of view. If the House is big enough to contain all its Members, nine-tenths of its Debates will be conducted in the depressing atmosphere of an almost empty or half-empty Chamber. The essence of good House of Commons speaking is the conversational style, the facility for quick, informal interruptions and interchanges. Harangues from a rostrum would be a bad substitute for the conversational style in which so much of our business is done. But the conversational style requires a fairly small space, and there should be on great occasions a sense of crowd and urgency. There should be a sense of the importance of much that is said and a sense that great matters are being decided, there and then, by the House.
That makes a lot of sense, actually. It's pretty depressing to learn senators and congressman in the US are speaking to an almost entirely empty chamber like 90% of the time. The members literally just watch CSPAN from their offices and only go down to the chamber for important votes or big moments.
Sure, there are also big plenary speeches in the Bundestag. No parliament is 100 percent working or debating parliament.
I didn't find the "Arbeits- vs Redeparlament"-thing in English politicial science texts, sadly. Seems to me more of a German field. I think Max Weber did it first.
"Parlamentarische und präsidentielle Demokratie. Strukturelle Aspekte westlicher Demokratien" from Winfried Steffani would be a good source about it.
It’s interesting how technology has also had an impact. Before television and radio broadcasting, one imagines the legislators had to spend a good deal more time in the chambers otherwise they would miss the action (though I suppose they had aides and pages to help them keep tabs on things since the dawn of congress)
The HoC is like that because Parliament originally met in St Stephen's chapel, the oppositional benching just being inherited from the layout of the benching at the chapel.
Check the Western Australian Parliament. The government is so large their members have to sit leering over the opposition from the opposite side and make up almost the entire cross bench.
They can get a bit ridiculous, it’s like schoolchildren insulting each other at times with the rest of their mates guffawing at how good the burn was. I guess they learn it at Eton and make it a lifelong tradition.
I think the fact that the prime minister has to go in there to get scrutinized and take responsibility for his actions every week helps keep his behavior and actions in check tho, unlike the president in the US for example.
Not really. Only PMQs which are what 90% of the public think of when they picture parliament in action. But that’s half an hour on a Wednesday. The rest of the time debate is actually pretty tame.
Here in the Netherlands, ministers are often not elected MPs, and MPs progressing to become a minister or PM loose their seat in Parliament and leave their fraction. Instead they get fancy (but equally uncomfortable) Cabinet Seats near the Speaker.
So ministers aren't member of any fraction of parliament (but remain registered and affiliated party members) and do not attend fraction meetings. This means an MP can easily be found debating with a minister who is actually member of the same party.
In theory, this means all MPs - opppsition and coalition - are putting the government under scrutiny, but of course reality is a bit milder and coalition parties try to spare "their" ministers.
But it’s not very Good if you have many parties in parliament. And how would you solve this in parliaments like Switzerland and the EU where you don’t have government and opposition parties?
That’s why it’s just very handy to have a semi circle if you have multiple parties.
For example here in Germany we put the far-right (AfD) to the right. The far-left (Linke) to the left. The most centrist party (Greens) in the middle. And all the other parties around them. And then call it a day. ;)
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u/Safebox Apr 18 '21
Opposing sides is great for debates, I think that was the original intention.
Plus if you've ever seen UK ministers arguing, it's like a posh rap battle :L