By Mufaro Makubika

Order! A call rings out in the chamber, barely audible, drowning in a sea of heckles and jeers! Across the aisles, people shout at each other, wildly gesticulating. If you were not mistaken, you would think you were in the middle of a bear pit. Order! The call rings out again and this time, the baying people quieten like school children who have been told off and now only guiltily murmur amongst themselves. You could be forgiven for asking, what is this craziness?

The scene above is not from a modern fictional TV show, it is in fact one of the more famous idiosyncrasies of UK Parliament’s Prime Minister’s Questions, more popularly known as PMQs. Perhaps this scene describes how most people in this country and across the world understand and interact with the work of the UK Parliament, although it is of course just a snapshot of the huge amount of work carried out by our elected representatives – and probably not a representative or fair snapshot either. PMQs has been running for six decades and over that time has evolved into what it is now. Gladiatorial in nature, past Prime Ministers have likened it to a nightmare, but PMQs is a vital and important part of the work of the UK Parliament.

This long running tradition is an opportunity for MPs to ask the Prime Minister and/or their stand in about the pressing issues of the day. The convention of questioning the Prime Minister is a feature of numerous parliaments across the world, adopted by these countries with the spread of parliamentary democracies. PMQs is just one example of the public face of the work of the UK Parliament, but it has been suggested that the nature of PMQs in its current form can be off putting when it comes to engaging the public.

The UK Parliament is composed of two chambers, the Commons and the Lords, both with similar functions. Both chambers are responsible for making laws - legislation, scrutinising the government programmes and debating current issues as and when they arise. The structure of the UK Parliament is designed so that both chambers provide checks and balances on each other. In a report published by Parliament in 2017, it was estimated that just over 40% of the population had ‘fair’ knowledge of Parliament. This same report also notes that a greater understanding of Parliament is essential to how the public engage with Parliament and its work.

In response to the concerns about general disengagement with politics amongst the public, the UK Parliament launched an initiative, UK Parliament Week. Established in 2011, this initiative was aimed at engaging the public with and increasing the awareness of the public of the work of the UK Parliament. This year’s UK Parliament Week has just ended, running from the 6^th – 12^th of November 2023. Now in its 13^th year, this initiative has grown to encompass a whole host of activities for a wide-range of people, with activities and engagement increasing year on year.

The OU has an ongoing and exciting partnership with UK Parliament Week. In 2020 the OU’s Politics and International Studies department launched a social media campaign called ‘Changemakers’. This campaign was designed in partnership with OU students. Students and the wider public were encouraged to consider individuals in society who had made a significant political or social change. and were then invited to submit their nominated Changemaker on X (formerly twitter). Nominated Changemakers can still be found by searching #OUatUKPW.

The OU then extended its ‘Changemakers’ project and created a  free downloadable guide outlining the ways in which the public can engage with the UK Parliament to make political and social change.

Following on from this, as part of its wider mission to open up ‘people, places, methods and ideas’, the OU then turned the guide into a free Open Learn Course called ‘Introduction to making political and social change’. This course not only explains how to make change through engaging with UK Parliament, it also takes a four nations approach and discusses the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Parliament, and Northern Ireland Assembly. Both resources launched during different UK Parliament Weeks and are still available for anyone in the UK and wider world to access, for free.

Last year alone over 1.1 million people took part in activities around UK Parliament week, including OU students and staff and the ‘Changemakers’ initiative. It’s clear that there is great value in the public engaging with and understanding the work of Parliament. That call to order in the chamber isn’t just for the MPs, but rather a wider rallying call by Parliament for all of us to engage with it, to the benefit of our own knowledge and understanding, but also democracy.

About the writer:

Mufaro Makubika is a multi-award-winning playwright living in Nottingham. Mufaro is currently studying for a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics with the OU. He is a Student Intern with the OU POLIS team.