Law reform:

• General election

  All political parties publish a list of their policies and suggest reforms and new laws they would introduce if they were to come to power. These are contained in their Manifesto. Used to persuade voters.
• Policies and reforms in a Manifesto

  • Finance
  • Education
  • Transport
  • Law and order
• 1997 Labour Manifesto


  • Bring rights home = achieved when government passed Human Rights Act 1998
• 2019 Conservative Manifesto


  • Get Brexit done = achieved when number of new laws were introduced and formalised in 2020, to remove the UK from the EU and establish new systems covered by EU rules
• Individual MPs

  Can introduce a Bill to Parliament and can be from any political party
• Backbenchers


  MPs who do not sit at the front of the House of Commons and do not have Governmental responsibility
• Ways for MPs to introduce a Bill

  1. By ballot (20 private members are selected to present their Bills to Parliament. Given very little time to present these Bills and realistically only the first 6-7 ever get presented)

  2. Through the 10 minute rule (under a section 23 order, they can be included in addition to those entered through the ballot)
• Relatively few private members' Bills become law
• Abortion Act 1967


  • Allowed abortion to be legalised in this country and came about through a Private Member's Bill introduced by David Steel
• Abortion Act 1967


  It was introduced by David Steel as a Private Member's Bill, but was backed by the government, who appointed the president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Sir John Peel, to chair a medical advisory committee that reported in favour of passing the Bill
• Media


  The ways in which information is supplied to the public. Includes, television, radio, news, social media etc.
• Media

  • Brings public attention to key issues
  • Free Press - the public are able to criticise public policy and demand government action
• Issues that have a 'high profile' within the media

  May have more influence on law-making, where a political party is keen to gain public support
• Members of the public contact and use the press
• Government monitors social media to judge public opinion and uses focus groups to gauge public opinion and their overall popularity
• Successful media campaigns

  • The Snowdrop Campaign - used to ban handguns through/ Firearms Amendment Act 1997
  • 'dangerous' dogs attacked several members of the public including children, the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 was passed
  • Mother of a murdered child campaigned through The Sun for a change in law naming child abusers led to changes to the system and the creation of the Child Sex Offender's Disclosure Scheme