ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the role of Parliament in the defence arena. While dismissing ideas of a parliamentary ‘golden age’ in the making of defence policy, this chapter consider the argument that Parliament has already achieved far more than sceptical Conservative traditionalists are prepared to acknowledge. In part this is due to institutional and structural reform within the House of Commons, most notably in the form of the departmental select committee system established in 1979. The chapter also emphasises the crucial importance of behavioural changes in the voting lobbies of the House of Commons as government backbenchers have increasingly asserted themselves, simply by withholding their support for unpopular government actions in the defence sphere. Although backbench opposition failed in its efforts to stop the invasion of Iraq in 2003, MPs were subsequently able to prevent David Cameron from engaging in military intervention in Syria in response to chemical attacks on the Syrian population in August 2013. It has also pressed towards a War Powers Act modelled on American lines as part of a broader attempt to the expand the remit of the Defence Select Committee into new areas of activity.
