Parliamentarians have had to scrutinise a large amount of secondary legislation to prepare the statute book for Brexit, with the burden of legislating falling unevenly between government departments and across the session. To try and limit defeats in the Commons, the government has kept its legislation beyond Brexit relatively narrow and uncontroversial – with bills on smart meters and circus animals – rather than attempts at major public service reform. Parliament has passed a comparable amount of primary legislation to most previous parliamentary sessions: 48 government bills have so far made it into law, with only six relating to Brexit. Deep political divisions over Brexit have contributed to many of these threats, but they have also been fuelled by the rise of social media, with many MPs reporting experiences of persistent online abuse. In the 2017/18 financial year, a total of £4.2m was spent on providing additional security assistance to MPs – over £4m more than was spent annually only two years ago. There has been a dramatic rise in security costs as MPs face unprecedented threats. When the session ends, it will have lasted over 340 days – beating the previous 295-day record set in 2010/12. When Parliament is prorogued next week, the longest parliamentary session on modern record will come to an end. When it comes to the everyday work of Parliament since 2017, the report finds that:
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The report finds an increase in public engagement with Parliament, with more members of the public than ever before have been watching parliamentary action live on television and online: there has been a 237% increase in the average daily viewers of between 20, with viewing figures peaking at moments of key Brexit drama.
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The government used its control of parliamentary time to avoid scheduling any time for opposition-led debate over a five-month period between late 2018 and early 2019 – a key period in the Brexit process. A new paper from the Institute for Government looking at different areas of Parliament’s activity in the 2017-19 session finds that the relationship between Parliament and government has deteriorated in many areas, most recently in relation to prorogation.Ĭontrol of the parliamentary agenda has been a key battleground.