Legislation

• • All government legislation must pass through what can be a lengthy process in both the House of Commons and House of Lords before it reaches the statute book.

  • This gives members an opportunity to debate the principles of the bill before them as well as the detail of the legislation.

  • There is also the opportunity for MPs to table amendments to the legislation in order to get concessions from the government.

  • Delegated legislation does not have to pass through a rigorous procedure, but orders still have to be laid before MPs.
• First Reading

  • formal presentation of the title of the bill in the house by a minister from the responsible department, or an individual MP/ Peer (private member bill)
  • no debate or vote at this stage
• Second Reading

  • the main debate on the principle of the bill
  • the govt minister explains + justifies the objectives of the bill, shadow minister responds and backbenchers also debate
  • if the bill is contested, a vote is taken
  • govt defeats at 2nd reading stage extremely rare- only 2 since 1945
• Committee Stage

  A）

  • bills are sent to a public bill committee- where detailed scrutiny of each clause takes place and amendments can be made
  • a new PBC set up for each bill and is named after it
  • committee dissolves after this stage
  • finance (money) bills + bills with constitutional significance-

  scrutinised in Commons- committee of the whole house
• Report Stage

  • amendments made in committee are considered by the full HOC
  • may accept, reject or alter them
  • MPs not on PBC have chance to table amendments
  • 2015- new procedures introduced for bills concerned solely with English matters
• Third Reading

  • a debate on the amended bill on the floor of the House- VOTE on this
  • no further amendments are permitted
• House of Lords stages

  (or HOC stages- depends where the bill started)

  • bill is sent to the HOL and these stages are repeated
  • if amendments to the bill are made in the Lords, the Commons may accept, reject or amend them further
  • bill may go back & forth between houses (Parliamentary ping-pong) eg. 2010-12- Commons overturned a series of Lords amendments on legal

  aid + welfare reform = ping-pong

  -if agreement cannot be reached, govt must decide whether to accept changes made by Lords, drop the bill or invoke Parliament Act
• Royal Assent

  -the bill must be signed by the Monarch- becomes an Act of

  Parliament- statute

  -convention that the Monarch doesn't refuse royal assent- last time was 1707
• A private members bill is a bill sponsored by a backbench MP.
• Private members bills can take one of three routes: ballot, early in each parliamentary session, where 20 MPs who wish to introduce a bill are drawn in a ballot and allocated time for these bills.
• Presentation- an MP presents a bill on floor of House by introducing name of bill- no debate at this point
• The Abortion Act (1967) originated as a PMB and had government support.
• Ten minute rule bill- MPs have 10mins to introduce a bill or talk about an aspect of existing legislation- used to draw attention to an issue- few bills get past here
• PMBs usually require government support to become law due to time constraints and difficulty of persuading other MPs to back a proposal.
• Some private members bills fall victim to filibustering.
• Secondary Legislation

  • law made by ministers, who have been granted this authority by an Act of parliament, rather than by parliament
  • eg. 3,500 pieces of secondary legislation (statutory instruments) are issued each year- matters such as immigration, taxation, education
• Public bills - bills presented by government, they are expected to pass successfully into law