Unelected Bodies
Unelected bodies can influence decision making in parliament. Discuss.
There are many factors which must be taken into account in regards to why a certain law or legislation is passed. Such factors may sway a law one way or another or indeed, push the Government into choosing what they want instead of what the Government would prefer to do. In this essay, I will discuss the unelected bodies which often greatly influence the Government in regards to the decisions which are made and in contrast, I will also point out how said unelected bodies do not always succeed in their tasks as a result of their own actions.
An unelected body which has great potential in being able to influence decision making in parliament, is an insider pressure group. Whilst a pressure group in general can be defined as a group of individuals which apply pressure on the Government in order to change something, an insider group specifically is a group that works very closely with the Government- often having expert knowledge on a specific issue. One such example of an insider group, is the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG). The CPAG works to raise awareness on the devastating impact that poverty can have on a child’s life and very often, succeeds in pressuring the Government into policies which would have perhaps not been passed otherwise. For example, in April 2012 numerous key benefits rose by a total amount of 5.2 percent in line with the Costumer Price Index. As a result of the CPAG, the ministers were persuaded that these benefits should not be cut again. Furthermore, the CPAG has played a leading role and worked closely with the Government to insure that a total of £500 million extra is being spent on childcare as families have been hit hard by the Coalition Government’s spending cuts. This not only proves that insider groups are very helpful for society in general, it also clearly demonstrates the substantial amount of power they possess in regards to decision making in the parliament. This however, is not to say that as they work closely with the Government, they can accomplish anything they set their minds to. For example, despite the fact that the CPAG has been working hard to end child poverty, 1 in 5 of Scotland’s children continue to live in it. In contrast, countries such as Denmark and Norway (which both have comparable wealth to Scotland) have less than 10%of children living in poverty.
As the above paragraph points out, insider pressure groups (such as CPAG) are certainly a type of unelected body with a substantial amount of power in regards to influencing decision making in Parliament- as was seen in the examples of benefit cuts and childcare. However, it is also very clear that despite all their efforts and hard work in keeping a close relationship with the Government, they have been unable to come to a decision in regards to being able to keep child poverty to a low percentage and thus, their influence is greatly lessened as this issue is very much outwith their control.
Another unelected body which has the capability to greatly influence decision making in Parliament, is an outsider pressure group. Outsider and insider groups have many similarities however whilst insider groups generally stay within the law and work closely with the Government, outsider groups do their best in ensuring that they raise as much public awareness as they possibly can about a certain topic- regardless if they have to break the law or go against the Government in order to do so. An excellent example of an influential outsider pressure group, is Greenpeace. Greenpeace is an environmental organisation which began in Vancouver in the year 1972 and operates in over 40 countries. Since its beginning, Greenpeace has been highly influential in regards to decision making in parliaments all over the world. For example, when the UK Government planned on adding on a third runway at Heathrow Airport, Greenpeace immediately set out to change this idea on the grounds of it running contrary to the reduction of carbon emissions in the UK. As such, with the help of over 90,000 supporters Greenpeace was able to co-purchase a plot of land at the airport- making it impossible for the runway to be built. However, outsider pressure groups do not always operate this smoothly and effectively. For example, in an attempt to gain public attention to an important issue, Fathers for Justice carried out numerous illegal stunts including scaling Buckingham palace dressed as Batman and flour-bombing Tony Blair during Prime Ministers Question Time. Whilst these stunts and unorthodox ways of protest drew attention to their pressure group, they did not draw the correct attention to their cause. They were hugely criticized for numerous courses of action and thus, the public support for them greatly lessened which in turn as they were an outsider group, caused them to lose any influence in regards to decision making within parliament.
To conclude, it is clear that whilst outsider pressure groups – providing that they do not take huge risks and do not wonder too far from the law- have the potential to create huge changes and influence decision making for the better in parliament, they do not always succeed as they do hugely rely on public support- once they lose that, they become ineffective and essentially useless.
Another way in which the decision making in parliament can be influenced, is by boycotts. Boycotts can be organised by both outsider and insider pressure groups and have proven to be highly effective in the past few years. For example, in 2009 after years of numerous complaints about Black-on-Asian violence (including 30 separate attacks in a single day), 29 Asian-American stopped attending South Philadelphia High School. This boycott lasted for longer than a week and publicly aired accusations about the school administration. As a result of this boycott carried out by a small group of students, a new principal arrived in July 2010, and the administration reports a 50 % decrease in attacks for 2011. As a result of this, it goes without doubt that boycotts can be very effective- even in a small form. The students saw something wrong with their school administration system and decided to do something about this. As a result of their actions, important decisions were taken and pressure was applied in order to attain change. Another successful boycott was carried out by Greenpeace on the issue of palm oil being used in Nestlé’s products. In March 2010, Greenpeace called out its supporters to not purchase any drinks, candy or anything manufactured by Nestle. As a result of the boycott, Nestle announced that they will stop the use of palm oil in their products and overall, the boycott had great success.
From the above i is clear that unelected bodies such as pressures groups can achieve great influence in decision making by using boycotts as a method of achieving what they want, regardless of how well known or small the pressure group is if they can successfully bring public attention to a topic, they can influence decision making.
To conclude, as seen i the aforementioned paragraphs, it is clear that unelectedbodeis can have an enormous impact on the way the parliament decides on issues. This impact can range from something as small as a school having to change principal to something as huge as millions of pounds being spent on childcare. However, as a lot of this relies on money, relationships with the government and public opinion, they are not always successful. Insider groups must always stay within the rules and outsider groups constantly risk losing public support by trying to raise public awareness and thus risk losing any importance in influencing decision making in the parliament itself.