What is the role of the opposition?

It proposes motions and amendments to legislation and is able to get these debated.
Receive ‘short money’ to support research on topics and provide some balance in resources against the Government that has the whole of the civil service to help it – In 2015-16, Labour received £6.8 million in Short money.
It is the Shadow Cabinet’s responsibility to scrutinise the policies and actions of the government, as well as to offer alternative policies. The Shadow Cabinet makes up the majority of the Official Opposition frontbench – has been Labour since 2010.

Question Time:an opportunity for MPs and Members of the House of Lords to question government ministers about matters for which they are responsible.
PMQs: Leader of the opposition, leader of the third largest party and backbenchers selected by the speaker can question PM on any matter – in 2015 Corbyn asked questions sent in by the public.
MP’s will generally try to embarrass the PM by highlighting policy failures – provides parliamentary theatre rather than effective scrutiny. Qs are usually pre-prepared and used for partisan point scoring.9

The opposition can only choose the topic for debate on 20 days of the parliamentary year (‘opposition days’) – gov suffered a rare defeat on an opposition motion in 2010 when Liberal Democrats initiated a debate on the Brown government’s refusal to grant citizenship to Ghurkhas who had served in the UK armed forces.
The SNP, for example, used its allocation in November 2015 to instigate debates on the Trident nuclear defence system, to which they are strongly opposed, and on the closure of HMRC offices.