At a glance it is clear that the make-up of the opposition in this Parliament is very different from what we are used to. Whereas in the recent past the Official Opposition has held around 70-74% of the seats on the opposition benches, in this Parliament it holds just over half (53%). Consequently, the second-largest opposition party and the other parties concerned all hold a much bigger share of seats than their predecessors in previous parliaments.

This significant change in the political make-up of the opposition benches inevitably raises questions about whether the Official Opposition party, being so much smaller than its predecessors, should retain the same predominant share of the rights and responsibilities that go with the role.

Note: All percentages are rounded and will not total 100%; the exclusion/inclusion of the Speaker and his Deputies and Sinn Fein MPs (who do not take their seats) means that the figures for seats in the last three columns do not add up to the figure in the second column. (1) The figures in this column exclude the Speaker and Sinn Fein MPs (2) The figures in this column may include the Speaker and Deputy Speakers (3) The figures for 2024 may include a Deputy Speaker (4) The figures in this column exclude Sinn Fein MPs

Standing Order No. 14 of the House of Commons allocates 20 days in each parliamentary Session to the opposition parties. On these days those parties can set the agenda of the House. Currently (as they have been for a very long time) these days are divided to give 17 to the Official Opposition and three to the second-largest opposition party. That latter party is expected by convention to give some of this time to the ‘smaller’ parties, but the convention is very unclear. Back in February I blogged about an almighty row which broke out when the SNP (then the second-largest opposition party) felt that the Speaker had stolen one of their precious days and given it to the Official Opposition (then Labour).

But overall that 17:3 distribution was very broadly proportional in the first three examples given in the table above (though slightly favouring the Official Opposition and disadvantaging the ‘others’). It no longer looks to be so. A more proportionate distribution in the current House would be say 11 to the Official Opposition, six to the second-largest party (the Liberal Democrats), one to the third-largest party (the SNP – slightly more than they mathematically deserve) and four half-days divided between the ‘others’ (Reform, DUP, Plaid and Greens). Those ‘others’ might be expected to share these half-days out by agreement but failing that the Speaker’s decision could be determinative. This arrangement would, however, exclude both the independents and the parties with only one or two MPs (although the SDLP are closely aligned with Labour, Alliance with the Liberal Democrats, the UUP with the Conservatives and TUV may have some form of agreement with Reform).

Such a reallocation would require the government to initiate a change to Standing Order No. 14(2), but any amendment to achieve this redistribution should, in the traditional phrase, “have effect to the end of the present Parliament”, so that the distribution resets to the default after the next general election (after which it could again be tweaked if need be).

One of the House of Commons’ most high-profile events (some would say unfortunately) is the weekly half-hour at noon on Wednesdays of questions to the Prime Minister (PMQs). Currently the Speaker allocates six supplementary questions during the half-hour to the Leader of the Official Opposition and two to the Leader of the second-largest opposition party. The other party leaders have to take something that looks like potluck, though there is some method behind the Speaker’s choices. A more proportionate distribution between the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the second-largest opposition party in the current Parliament would look like 5:3. This change could be made entirely at the Speaker’s discretion.

At the daily question times (including PMQs and also following ministerial statements), and in most debates, the principal convention guiding the occupants of the Chair in the Commons in deciding which MPs to call has always been that they alternate between the Government and opposition sides of the House. This disadvantages Government-side backbenchers, particularly when there are a lot of them. But in deciding which backbenchers to call from the opposition the Chair has to work hard to try and balance opinion (especially from one-or-two-member parties and independents), and this challenge is only going to get more difficult in the current Parliament.

Frontbenchers from both sides of the House, on the other hand, enjoy a presumption in favour of them being called to speak in debate – before any speech limits are imposed on backbenchers (as the occupants of the Chair have been all too keen to do in recent years). Generally, the relevant Official Opposition spokesperson is called immediately after the Minister in the opening of a debate (or the other way round on opposition days) and immediately before the Minister in the ‘wind-up’ at the end of a debate. The spokesperson of the second-largest opposition party is generally called fourth but has no presumptive right to be called in the wind-up speeches. Again, these practices may have to be revisited given the new balance of the House.

Those outside the Westminster bubble would probably be quite surprised by how much of the business of the Commons chamber is stage-managed through informal discussions between the business managers (mostly the Whips but also the Leader of the House and her opposition homologues). These behind-the-scenes negotiations are traditionally referred to as the ‘Usual Channels’.

The ‘Usual Channels’ are, of their nature, a mystery to those who haven’t swum in them, but their design may need to be revisited to take account of a more multipolar opposition. This could obviously be done through informal negotiation, the preferred modus operandi of the Whips throughout history. But those ‘Usual Channels’ usually include only the usual suspects, and their operation is opaque to everyone else. There is also a tendency for the Government and Official Opposition managers often (though not always) to conspire together to put the smaller parties at a procedural disadvantage whenever convenient.

The radical solution to the existence of a multi-party opposition would be to revisit the idea of a Business Committee or parliamentary bureau on which the smaller parties had at least some representation. Most legislatures (including the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Senedd) have some version of these. Their role is generally to propose the agenda of the House. Back in 2009 the Select Committee on Reform of the House of Commons proposed such a committee to sit alongside the Backbench Business Committee in its report Rebuilding the House. Although the coalition Government promised to allow a vote on this proposal in its second Session, the proposal was quietly forgotten, never to reappear.

Perhaps the new multi-party House of Commons will bring pressure to revisit this idea – the smaller parties may feel they deserve more say in the way the business of the House is organised than they have historically enjoyed under the Government/Official Opposition duopoly. This may be potentially a topic for the promised Modernisation Committee to consider. That would be a radical change.

An early start could be to elect a Liberal Democrat MP as one of the Deputy Speakers when elections to those posts are held within the next fortnight (none of the Deputy Speakers from the last Parliament have returned in this – two stood down and one was defeated). Standing Order No. 2A(5e) which governs those elections specifies only that two of the Deputies must come “from the opposite side of the House to that from which the Speaker was drawn”. (It also specifies that – if the Speaker is a man – at least one of the Deputies must be a woman.)

A ‘Speakerate’ that included someone outside the duopoly could form a nucleus around which discussion of the management of the House could develop in a more open and multipolar direction, potentially laying the foundations for some sort of business committee – a role which is often given to the Chair and its deputies in other legislatures. It would, for example, potentially give a voice for the non-official opposition parties in the crucial matter of selecting amendments for debate or decision when Bills or other matters are being considered in the House.

But expanding the Deputy Speakers beyond the duopoly is not directly in the Government’s power to deliver. It is a choice for MPs when they come to vote in a secret ballot (using the Single Transferable Vote system) on 23 July – if a third-party candidate puts themselves forward.

In a parliamentary system effective opposition is essential to ensuring good government. In recognition of this constitutional truth, since 1975 the House of Commons has allocated money from public funds - known as Short Money - to support the opposition parties in their parliamentary work (and only in their parliamentary work).

Currently the annual amount payable to qualifying political parties is just over £22K for every seat won at the last general election plus just under £45 for every 200 votes gained by the party at that election. An additional travel fund of just under £250K a year is divided between the qualifying parties proportionately.

For parties of five or fewer MPs there is a floor of just over £125K and a ceiling of just over £375K. Though the parties currently with four or five MPs might be tempted to try and game the system by merging or allying with others this is unlikely to work – the sums are all done on the basis of the party ticket MPs were elected on.

These sums are obviously calculated on a fair and proportionate basis to the balance of representation in the House plus (uniquely) the top-up representing vote-share. But there is one prize in the winner-takes-all tradition of Westminster. The Leader of the Opposition (defined as the leader of the opposition party which won the most seats at the previous general election) gets a further sum of just over £1m to run their office (equivalent, I suppose, to something between a dozen and twenty staff). Clearly, in the present Parliament the Liberal Democrats will have cause to feel a degree of envy of the Official Opposition on this account.

These arrangements are overseen by the House of Commons Commission, chaired by the Speaker (but operating in the guise of the ‘Members Estimate Committee’ under Standing Order No. 152D). They could be amended by a straightforward resolution of the House (as happened in 2016). Whether the Government wishes to facilitate any change which recognises the new, multi-party composition of the opposition remains to be seen.

Evans, P. (15 July 2024), A House more divided: Practice and procedure in a multipolar Parliament, (Hansard Society blog)