The Passage of the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act, a Case-Study of Backbench Power

Abstract

This article considers the concepts of corridors of power and the locus of power, within the specific context of the backbench committee structures of the House of Commons. Taking as its case study the passage of what became the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act, the article considers the level of influence that should be attributed to these committees, and whether or not they should be considered as significant fora of power and influence. The committees in question are those backbench structures within the parliamentary Conservative party, principally the 1922 Committee, and the subject committees that shadow the work of government departments. While this article argues that it is indeed the case that these committees should be considered significant fora of power and influence, it proposes the notion of ‘influential impotence’ to describe the exercise of this power : while the committees are well suited to the expression of influence in general form, they often fail to translate this into power over specific policy proposals, and thus fail to realise their full potential.