How does parliament scrutinise executive?

Answer 1

Parliament scrutinizes the executive in many ways such as:

Opposition days,

minister and prime minister question time ,

debates,

select committees and

standing committees .

Answer 2

The opposition are part of parliament, I will assume you meant scrutinise government.

The opposition being the second largest party in the house, therefore when the opposition is having debates with the government it has a lot of backing. The main ways the opposition scrutinise government is during parliament. The house of commons is designed in a very confrontational way with the two leaders (one in govt and one opposing govt) facing each other, making debating a lot easier. The job of the opposition is to oppose the govt's legislation. It does this by questioning the govt leader on his/her policies, however it is often an attempt to embarrass the party leader by picking out flaws in his policies, which provides parliamentary theatre rather than effective scrutiny. During Prime Ministers questions is the main time the opposition get to scrutinise the govt, this gains lots of media coverage and so in this instance the opposition will use the media to scrutinise as well. Another way they scrutinise the govt is by acting as an alternative govt-in-waiting. This makes sure govt is always on its toes and maintains support of the public.