The House of Commons continues to play a central role in deciding whether the UK should deploy its military forces abroad. In the light of the recent debates on intervention in Syria, the Study of Parliament Group and the United Kingdom Constitutional Law Association held a seminar to debate Parliament's role on Monday 22 February 2016 at 6pm in the House of Lords, at which Dr Veronika Fikfak and Dr Hayley J Hooper presented their forthcoming monograph Parliament's Secret War.
Drs Fikfak and Hooper debated the nature of the British Parliament's role in respect of the war prerogative. They argued that the constitutional functions of Parliament are being frustrated by the strategic use of parliament and its potential impact upon the emerging Consultation Convention and in particular by a lack of access to relevant information, a practice which is usually justified by the Executive on the basis that providing relevant materials in open parliamentary sessions would be damaging to national security or international relations. They highlighted the responsibility of MPs to hold government to account across a broad range of relevant domestic issues, and presented their own proposals for reform, which would provide a greater opportunity for parliament to access relevant intelligence and security information.
They were joined by Professor Gavin Phillipson (Durham University) and Dr. Andrew Blick (King's College London). Both spoke of the growth of a new convention requiring parliamentary assent to military action and the increasing encroachment of Parliament upon powers that were previously in the gift of the executive, including the war powers.
The panel was chaired by Graham Allen, MP who has been the MP for Nottingham North since 1987. In the 2010 Parliament, he chaired the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. In 2011, the Committee published a report on Parliament’s role in conflict decisions, which it then followed up with an update in 2013. He has campaigned on a sustained basis for Parliament to obtain a legal right to be consulted on decisions over entry into armed combat abroad.