Public Bills And The House Of Commons

'The House of Lords is now more effective than the House of Commons in checking government power'. Discuss

Any proposed amendments by the House of Lords have to be approved by the House of Commons, as this is where the government dominates, which can mean no amendments go through.

“Some lawyers have been attracted to the argument that the union legislation placed constraints on the power of the UK Parliament to legislate, and that the UK Parliament might be unable to alter at least its most important terms. While there are powerful arguments against this view, - it continues to have its supporters. It famously received some judicial support from Lord Cooper in MacCormick v Lord Advocate, and has been referred to in several subsequent cases. However, there has been no case in which a Scottish court has questioned the validity of an Act of Parliament on these grounds. Indeed, whether an Act of the UK Parliament is compatible with the union legislation was treated as, in principle, a non-justiciable issue in MacCormick. However, supporters of the argument have taken comfort from the fact that in MacCormick, Gibson and Pringle Scottish judges reserved their opinion on what would be the case if legislation purported to amend 'fundamental provisions', for example, by abolishing the Church of Scotland or the Court of Session, or by replacing the Scottish system of private law with English

Parliament has a central function in carrying out a scrutiny role. It carries close inspection and where it is necessary, amendments maybe proposed this is carried out in both houses. It holds the government collectively and the PM and other ministers accountable for their actions. It does this in debates, question times and through the work of Departmental Select Committees (DSC). However it maybe be argued that is not enough since scrutiny does not often involve blocking legislation. It is not expected that parliament will make substantial changes, but it does

The House of Lords is the second chamber of the UK Parliament and is independent to the Commons although it complements the work of the Commons. Members of the Lords play a vital role in scrutiny, there are two main reasons for this, the first being that they are independent to the Commons and in many ways have increased power which they often use to stand up to the Commons by blocking reforms. Lords also have a better balance of parties so no government has a majority. The Government however can override Lords by using Parliament Act; this was used when the fox hunting ban was being put through under Blair’s government as there were too many in opposition of the ban in the House of Lords. The Parliament Acts, although rarely used, provide a way of solving disagreement between the Commons and the Lords. The Parliament Act of 1949 also prevents Lords from delaying bills for more than one year.

Professor F.A. Kunz described his three personal reasons for the Senates existence: The committees' job is to give "a skilled and leisurely consideration to the technical provisions of a bill to scrutinize public accounts and departmental estimates; and to inquire.” However, Kunz’s first requirement of the senate is no longer relevant, as legislative drafting skills have dramatically improved since he wrote this in 1965. Additionally, Kudz’s second point is that the senate must scrutinize public accounts and departmental estimates, however the senate, and the entire parliament as a whole is not doing an adequate job in regards to this. The parliament has been becoming increasingly unaware of government spending, and has now become a “ceremonial

This essay will be arguing that parliamentary committees are very important and have a lot of benefits to the public and the government… Parliamentary committees are one or more members of a legislative body to who are appointed to deal with select issues in parliament, in order to do so they may investigate, question and examine into it and report to the people who gave this authority to them. Parliamentary committees work by looking at the terms of reference they have been set and works out how to make an inquiry , they then post the evidence at a public or private. This essay will argue that.parliamentary committees are important One reason why it could be argued that committees are important is because they provide accountability and a transparent insight to whether the government are dealing with current issues ethically and systematically .Accountability means ensuring that officials in public, private and voluntary sector organisations are answerable for their actions and that there is redress when duties and commitments are not met. Transparency is similar as it means that the government are obligated to share information with citizens allowing citizens to hold them accountable and committees to scrutinise them.

"Their role is to be in Parliament, to discuss Bills, to announce policies, to scrutinize the government, but in reality Labour MPs occupy their time with leaks to the Press and internal battles". The most unfortunate things of all, however, is that this absolute absence of the Most Loyal Opposition comes at a time of great constitutional changes such as the Scotland and Wales Bills, the newly established committee considering a written constitution. A time shaking Europe and the Middle East.

“Parliamentary sovereignty is no longer, if it ever was, absolute” (Lord Hope). Discuss with reference to at least three challenges to the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. Parliamentary sovereignty is the concept that Parliament has the power to repeal, amend or create any law it wishes and therefore no body in the UK can challenge its legal validity. There are many people who would argue that this is a key principle to the UK Constitution, on the other hand, there are those who strongly believe that this idea is one of the past, and that the idea of the UK Parliament being sovereign is false. One of these people is Lord Hope, who said “Parliamentary sovereignty is no longer, if it ever was, absolute”. During the last 50 years there have been a variety of developments that have proved to be a challenge for the legitimacy of parliamentary sovereignty, and the ones which will be examined in this essay are: the devolution of powers to the Scottish Parliament; The United Kingdom’s entry into the European Union in 1973; and finally the power of judicial review. Starting with the devolution of powers, these challenges will all be evaluated when discussing whether or not the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty applies to the United Kingdom. Westminster’s sovereignty has been gradually diminishing over time as varying amounts of power have been devolved to Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland. In this essay, the devolution of powers to the Scottish Parliament will be

There is a House of Commons Select Committee for each department within Whitehall. These were set up to scrutinise government and hold them to account. The formation of these committees consist of a minimum of 11 members and look at three aspects of each department – Administration, Policies and Spending. With this established, we will be looking at the policy aspect of scrutiny and evaluate how much Select Committees influence the content of legislation. The paper will be structured by starting with the analysis of current literature on this topic and trying to pinpoint what has already been stated about the influence select committees have

The House Bill 2 has become a huge topic these past few months with its main hot button issue being the accessibility of public bathrooms to the transgender community. For those whom are unfamiliar with the bill it was created and issued by North Carolinas governor, Pat McCrory. The bill focuses on sticking to the gender norms of public and business owned bathroom. Thus making it illegal for someone whom identifies as a different gender than they sex they are born with to enter the bathroom that they see fit. One of the points that McCrory tosses around in order to keep HB2 in a positive light is that it will help protect the women and children in the community from “predators.” Well how does this bill work when it is applied to public schools in North Carolina were children are the main concern? The answer is that it does not work at all. For now, the previous policy for public school bathrooms are going to stay the same thanks to the federal government, but when applied to schools it becomes a toxic environment for everyone who is not cis gendered.

Parliamentary sovereignty, a core principle of the UK's constitution, essentially states that the Parliament is the ultimate legal authority, which possesses the power to create, modify or end any law. The judiciary cannot question its legislative competence, and a Parliament is not bound by former legislative provisions of earlier Parliaments. The ‘rule of law’ on the other hand, is a constitutional doctrine which primarily governs the operation of the legal system and the manner in which the powers of the state are exercised. However, since the Parliament is capable of making any law whatsoever, the concept of the rule of law poses a contradiction to the principle of parliamentary supremacy, entailing that Parliament is not bound by the

This approach however has been overshadowed by the textual approach. In this approach “the context of legislation, including social and political policy directions Is also taken into account to establish the purpose of legislation”.

Legislation recently enacted by Parliament in the form of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 has been created with the intention of challenging the problems of modern slavery within the UK. It is estimated that there are as many as 13,000 individuals currently being subjected to forced labour in England and Wales. Historically, female members of our society have been objectified and despite equality law this perception of women as objects to be used still pervades society on many levels. The vast majority of victims of modern slavery in the UK are trafficked from oversea’s. Female victims are generally trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation and domestic servitude. The Act seeks to protect all those who are victims including those

In the UK Parliament the governing party’s authority is frequently challenged by opposing parties. Often within a political party there will be challenges to the authority of the leadership – ‘votes of no