Scotland Lobbying Case Study

Legislation is a law or act which has been enacted by a governing body. Legislation can have many purposes: to regulate, authorize, provide (funds), declare or to restrict. Legislations are important throughout any work environment and society as without them we are not protected from

“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 of Australia (2012) has claimed that it’s “Establishing a funding scheme that ensures fairness and openness requires a legislative system that promotes an equitable distribution of resources among political parties and candidates and the timely disclosure of political donations and electoral expenditure”.

However such legislation has raised considerable concern as to whether the changes to legislation are necessary, constructive or simply a thin veneer displaying the government’s statement of intent.

Currently Scotland has its own parliament in Edinburgh which can deal with chosen devolved issues from Westminster. Originating mainly from the YES YES campaign in 1999 headed by the Labour Government. This means that Scotland has control over

Arguably, the scrutiny of Public Bills has depended more on the House of Lords than it has on the House of Commons in recent years. The term “scrutiny” means the critical observation or examination regarding the Public Bills. The “effectiveness” of the scrutiny could be measured in a variety of ways, such as the period of time the bill stays in parliament for, and whether parliament can take on board evidence from committees and implement the bills into legislation. In order to determine if the House of Lords has been more effective than the House of Commons in scrutinising public bills, it is crucial to compare and contrast the effectiveness of the procedures used in both houses.

Proposed bills can be introduced either by the government, individual MPs or Lords, and private individuals and or institutions. There are three different types of bills; public bill, private bill, and a private members bill. A public bill is the most important bill as it is usually a piece of legislation which affects the UK. Examples of a public bill would be the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and Police & Criminal Evidence Act 1984.

Lobbyists have been around for many years and can be very convincing characters whenever they want to make a change that will favor them. They are undeniably the powers that are behind a great deal

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

Legislation is essential in order for a civilised society to function effectively and appropriately and to provide standardised

Within the United Kingdom, a recurring issue has been raised regarding the political position of Scotland and how the Scottish Parliament could better govern the country. To establish whether the quality of life could be improved for the Scottish people, key events, devolution, and the Scottish Parliament must be evaluated and analysed. The argument for greater power in decision making and the ability to implement change for the citizens of Scotland, has been central to Scottish politics for some time.


In 1979, The Scots become asked whether they wanted a Scottish parliament or not, 52% of voters said they did—but the number was too low to accept it. Years went by, the and in 1997, over 74% of Scots voted for a parliament, which become duly formed. In 1999 Scotland got its own parliament. England still holds Scotland in an iron grip, because even though they have their own parliament, they don’t have the right to say much. Scotland getting its own government, gave them a little taste of

In October 1974 is was held another elections and the SNP representation in the Parliament raised to 11 seats. The Labour Government became weaker and started to prepare the legal situation for the incoming Referendum. The Government failed in amend a bill for Scotland and Wales Devolution, but it was introduced a separate amendment which made necessary the 40% of the eligible Scottish electorate to vote “yes” for the effective devolution of powers, that was known as the Cunningham Amendment. The 1st of March of 1979 it was held a referendum and “Yes” won but with not enough representation to reach the 40% needed to start the Scottish devolution.

“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