The Legislative Process and Parliamentary debate

4 functions of parliament = legislative, representative, scrutiny, deliberative

Telegraph approaches from conservative view point

Mirror approaches from labour view point

-          SpAds - special advisors

·       Dominic Cummins - Boris Johnson

·       Alastair Campbell - tony Blair

·       Sue Gray

-          Lots of power over elected officials

-          The salary has been leaked which shows controversy within the party

-          She is chief of staff

The legislative process and parliamentary debate

Public bill = Bill that applies to everyone once it becomes law

-          E.g. Budget responsibility act 2024

-          A Bill to impose duties on the Treasury and the Office for Budget Responsibility in respect of the announcement of fiscally (government revenue) significant measures.

-          Most bills are public bills – shows flaws in parliament as most bills are drawn up by the executive and make it though other bills from backbenchers don’t pas through normally

Private members bills = MPs (and also peers) can and do draft and present their own

The legislative process

30-40 public bills are passed every year 

First stage of bill =green paper which is the discussion document

Second stage of bill = white paper which is more detailed set of plans and proposals for legislation

E.g. green paper - April 2022 - Special Educational Needs Green Paper

- Government's proposed integrated national SEND and alternative provision system - -

- Establishing new local SEND partnerships

- Introducing a standardised and digitised EHCP process and template

- Revised and clarified accountability for responsible bodies, such as schools and local authorities

E.g. white paper - March 2022 - Schools White Paper 

- Higher standards in English and Maths - by 2030 wants 90% of children to achieve expected standards by the end of primary school - The Government also wants the average grade in English language and maths GCSE to rise to 5

- Schools to open for longer - all mainstream state funded schools are open for a minimum of 32.5 hours per week by sept 2023

- Wide ranging other measures -  school admissions; behaviour, attendance and absence; oversight, accountability, and intervention; curriculum support; and teacher and school leader development

-          Government sets out its legislative programme at the kings speech at the start of each year

Process of bill passing through government:

English votes for English laws

-          Shows how easy it is to change the UK’s uncodified constitution

-          Reversed powers to English MPs to vote for laws which affect English people as powers in Scotland and Ireland have devolved to themselves

-          Procedure was in place between 2015 and 2021

-          Abolished in July 2021

Case study: house of commons as a Legislative and a scrutinising chamber (Gina Miller)

-          Took the government to the supreme court in 2017 – made clear that any brexit bill had to be agreed by parliament

-          European union withdrawal act 2018 = repealed the European communities act 1972 so takes the UK out of the EU

-          meaningful vote clause was one of the 470 proposed amendments which was inserted to give parliament a legal guarantee of a vote on the final Brexit deal parliament needed to vote on the law and the Supreme Court needed to scrutinise this

-          15th of January 2019 the first vote took place and was lost by 432 to 202

-           12th of march 2019 the second vote took place and the deal was rejected again by 391 to 242

-          29th of March 2009 a third vote was held following several changes but the government was still defeated by 344 votes to 286

-          1st April 2019 the Commons held four indicated votes on the possible options to progress Brexit

-          when the Commons takes control of a day's business it signifies an equal power balance between the front and backbenchers as it posts the backbenchers into the driving seat

-          the European withdrawal act also known as the Cooper letwin act April 2019 required the Prime Minister to request an extension from the EU to the leaving process

-          the European Union withdrawal number two act also known as the Benn act September 2019 required the Prime Minister to seek yet another extension to the Brexit withdrawal date beyond the 31st of October 2019

-          Boris Johnson said he would rather be dead in a ditch than request an extension as required by the Benn act he then also tried to suspend parliament for longer than normal to avoid scrutiny of his revived withdrawal

-          on September 24th in 2019 the Supreme Court ruled this action illegal after he was taken to court by Gina Miller who was the hedge fund manager

-          19th of October 2019 a special Saturday sitting of parliament was held to debate the revised withdrawal agreement the MPs once again defeated 322 votes to 306 which forced Johnson to seek another extension

-          the early parliamentary general election act of 20 19 past by the fixed term parliaments act of 2011 and set an election date for the 12th of December general elections used to have to be called every five years but now it was up to the Prime Minister to choose when they wanted to call a general election. The Liberal Democrats and the conservative coalition government created the five year olds so they could have at least five years in power without being kicked out but Johnson knew that he could get nothing done with the minority who took over from Theresa May so therefore run the election to get a majority to then passed laws easier

-          23rd of January 2020 the European union withdrawal act agreement 20/20 was easily passed by a majority of 99 it was in the manifesto so therefore the House of Lords didn't objected as it was voted on by the people

Case study shows parliament was an effective check on the government's power:

-          the Supreme Court got involved and ruled the attempted suspension of parliament as legal show Prime Minister could be punished

-          Gina Miller made sure the Supreme Court got involved an overall by power

-          many votes were taken by the government was defeated which showed the government didn't have all of the power

Case study shows parliament warrant an effective check on the government's power

-          the government was regularly allowed extensions to the Brexit withdrawal agreement

Secondary legislation (=statutory instrument)

Statutory instrument  = Provisions within primary legislation for the relevant minister is to introduce new clauses or changes, Mainly for the sake of efficiency and is minister made law

3500 are passed annually

The joint committee are a scrutiny group on statutory instruments

Backbench MPs and legislation

Lobby folder = MP's who are only there to support or oppose bills drafted by the front benchers

Three types of private members bills = ballot bills, 10 minute rule bills, presentation bills

The abortion act 1967 on the appellation of capital punishment in 1965 were both introduced via private members bills

Bills are often blocked by MP speaking on them until time runs out in a debate

-          e.g. this happened to the turing bill in 2016 which order would have pardoned all men living with UK convictions for same-sex offences committed before the law was changed in 1967

o   government withdrew its initial support for the bill and the government minister spoke on the bill for 25 minutes reaching the time limit allotted meaning the bill failed to progress

Ballot bills

-          13 Friday sittings are set aside in house of commons for consideration of PMBs

-          7 of the Friday are given to ballot bills

-          These have bet chance of becoming a law

-          Backbench MP's can enter a ballot every year with 20 names drawn out

-          some MP's normally don't have a specific bill in mind so normally are approached by pressure groups who often have suggestions

Handout bills

-          handout bill generally makes technical changes or discrete additions to existing laws

-          they're bills which the government may be unable to find time for in its own legislative programme so therefore MPs use their ballot bill to do this

-          handout bills have government supports have a higher chance of becoming a law

Ten minute rule bills

-          Essentially policy aspirations put into legislative language in order to secure a 10 minute speaking slot during time after question time in the house of commons chamber

-          Most important as an opportunity for backbenchers to raise issues of concern - normally relating to their constituencies

-          Party whips decide the slots

-          these bills normally fail and don't pass through

-          An example of when a 10 minute rule bill was passed was the guardianship act 2017 which created a new legal status of guardian of the affairs of a missing person allowing someone to act in the missing persons best interest after they had been gone for 90 days

Presentation bills

-          When MP's present their bills after giving prior notice to the public bill office

-          the MP presenting the bill does not give a speech and there is no debate on the proposal

-          they can be used to address discrete non controversial policy issues and resolve anomalies  in the law

-          they aren't useful to MPs as there's no speech or debate

Indirect backbench pressure

-          This is when backbenchers influence government legislation by applying pressure before the bill reaches the House of Commons

-          the government is often keen to buy off rebels in advance and make changes to the bill before it is debated

-          E.g. Rishi Sunak has had to drop compulsory housebuilding targets after a backbench rebellion of Tory MPs - instead the targets will only be advisory - The government initially hoped to buy off Tory opponents by offering them to add amendments to the bill but they refused

E.g. private members bills -2024

- backbench MPs from Labour was first in the private members ballot

- means she was given some time to debate an issue on change to law for assisted deaths

- government confirms it will remain neutral on the bill

- they will be able to vote how they wish