Members of the House of Commons are embroiled in a number of discussions however; one that may miss a lot of attention is the discussion around the funding of opposition political parties known as “Short Money”. This money, named after former Leader of the House Edward Short MP, is the funding given to opposition parties by the state. This money is intended to level the playing field between political parties and the party of government.

The argument stems from a time where political parties were solely responsible for the funding of their actions in the House of Commons in their function of “holding the Government to account”. There was a time where political parties had to fund all of their actions privately, not just elections and politicking.

This meant that opposition parties would have to financially compete against the full power of the UK Government. Opposition parties would have to privately support the actions of hundreds of MPs while the ruling party had relatively unlimited funding by the taxpayers. It is easy to see how the Government would have a massive advantage over opposition parties and why a fair funding scheme is important.

In late 2015, the UK Government announced a near 20 percent cut in Short Money funding.

On the surface; a cut in Government spending sounds like a sound idea until you realise that this would mean that every opposition party would lose some of the ability to hire staff, conduct research and engage in the activities that hold the Government to account.

After making an announcement of this sort, it would be expected that the Government would be announcing a cut in their funding to make sure the playing field is level but, in reality, the Conservative Government has increased its own funding via the employment of special advisers.

Special advisers are politically appointed civil servants. Their job is to be the arm of the political party within the civil service to assist with the Government’s agenda. They are primarily press and policy officers and their pay ranges from £52,999 to £142,000 per year. The Government currently employees 92 special advisers including one former MP at an expected cost of £9.2 million in 2015-2016. Contrast that with the combined total cost of approximately £8.5 million pounds for the opposition parties and the Government is still able to outspend them but this number is not the whole story because it is the total amount for all of the opposition parties.

Most of the parties do not work together therefore the Government’s amount needs to be taken in tandem with the each party individually. This means that the UK Government has spent £9.2 million on just salaries while the Labour party has £5.7 million on staffing costs, travel and office costs.

Compared to the SNP’s one million pounds, the UK Government has a massive financial advantage over them and the trend continues over all of the other political parties in parliament.

A flat 20 percent reduction means less resources for the SNP who are, for all tense and purposes, the real opposition in Westminster.

There is a more worrying trend in the Government plans.

Since 2010 Conservative-led Governments have been systematically changing laws that reduce the power of the opposition and conversely raise the power of the Government. It started with the Fixed Term Parliament Act 2011.

The Fixed Term Parliament act ensures that a Government is virtually guaranteed a five year term in office. Until the act was passed, UK Government’s had to live in fear of being kicked out of office. Now, the Prime Minister, via prerogative power, had the ability to call the elections but, those elections could be called at any time because, there were no legislated time limits for Governments.

In short, they ruled until they didn't.

This is why the UK Parliament is designed as it is. The entire system is designed to showcase how well or poorly a Government is performing. Should the public be convinced that a Government is performing poorly (in theory) they had the right to have a snap election called and the opposition step in, at a moment’s notice, to become the new Government.

This is the rationale behind the whole system of “shadow ministers”. They don’t actually go to Government departments and "shadow" Government ministers. These people are supposed to be ready to step into a ministerial role at a moment’s notice, should it be necessary.

The Fixed Term Parliaments Act removed that ability because it required a 2/3rds majority vote of the House of Commons to trigger an election. This means that the governing party would have to vote for the dissolution of Parliament in addition to the entirety of the opposition and it is more likely that a government would limp along to the end of the five year term (Gordon Brown’s Government) than commit political suicide.

With that power of the opposition removed, the next step was the Parliamentary Voting Systems and Constituencies Act. This act, also passed in 2011, will reduce the number of seats in the House of Commons from 650 to 600 at the 2020 General Election.
Proposed changes indicate that every party loses some MPs but Labour will lose the most. According to PoliticsHome.com, Labour could lose upwards to 24 seats compared to the Conservatives losing 14 seats after the 2020 election but, the changes are starker than just what political parties could lose.

The four nations of the UK will see their allocation of seats reduced as a function of the law. England is expected to lose 32 seats (excluding the Isle of Wight which is protected by law) while Scotland is expected to lose six ( excluding Na-h-Eileanan an Iar and Orkney and Shetland which are also protected by law).
Wales is expected to lose 29 seats is expected to lose one.

At first glance, England loses the highest amount of seats with 32 seats disappearing but as a proportion of their seats in the House of Commons, England is losing about seven percent of its Members in Parliament with most of the losses come fromLabour strongholds in London, the North West and the West Midlands. Conservative heartlands never lose more than four seats while Labour areas lose between five and seven seats each. Northern Ireland loss is, frankly, negligible.

In Scotland the loss of six MPs is tantamount to 11 percent loss in representation but Wales will see the largest reduction from 40 seats to 29 a nearly 30 percent loss of their seats in the House of Commons.

Putting all of these things together shows a distinct electoral bias towards the Conservative Government drastically reducing the power of the opposition and increasing its own power instead.

First, the Parliament was locked into guaranteed five-year terms, then the seats were reduced, the funding for the opposition is cut by a fifth while the Government gives itself a 204 percent pay increase. and finally, the Government has excluded MPs from voting on certain bills.

Given that the Conservatives won by the lowest percentage in a generation, In a General Election which has resulted in the worst result in history. it is beyond inappropriate to rig the system in this way but, the UK’s political system is designed to allow this very thing to happen. Without checks and balances, the reigning Government lives as a law unto itself.

When the Conservative Government lost a vote on tax credits in the House of Lords, they announced plans to change the rules of the House of Lords so it could not stop their will, when the House of Commons unanimously voted to help women who would be affected by the equalisation of the state pension, they ignored it and David Cameron has stated that No Conservative will lose their seat as a result of boundary shifts. The sad part is that there is nothing the MPs or the people in general can do about it.

The only option available to the people was the ability have their Parliament call a snap election and have the opposition take over. That option is gone and there is no replacement. The House of Lords was never meant to act as a balancing house as the US Senate is and, the Queen hasn’t vetoed a bill in nearly 300 years and some wonder if she even can.

The only real check against executive power in the UK was the moral integrity of the UK Government of the day. Since they hold all of the cards, so to speak, they should treat others as they WILL one day be treated. This social contract has held the this constitution-less country together for hundreds of years. A contract that says, 'one may govern unencumbered but do not abuse that absolute power.'

Once that social contract is broken, how can MPs, how can anyone, fix the system?