Stages of Law Making Process in Parliament

Proposals for law making are the policies of the government of the day, government may propose legislation to deal with a particular event in the society, which indicates a need for legal regulation, or act as a statutory duty to maintain the law under review and recommend reform observation.

Before a Law is passed, it must first follow the procedure or stages of law-making process in Parliament. This assignment will describe the stages of law-making process in parliament and the extent in which the House of Lords approval is always required [1] .

All statutes commence as a bill, which is put on a green paper as a proposal given to the interested parties who may consider and give their perception on it. There are three different types of Bills under the Green paper known as the Public Bills, Private Member Bills and Private bills. These three bills all have different purposes but are all proposals.

Public bills are written by the parliamentary counsel, given to the Parliament by government ministers and change the law of the country. Private member bills are organized by a backbench MP and Private Member bills are usually presented by large corporations or authorities.

The White paper is the second stage of the process of law-making. It consists of the specific reform plans.

The first reading is where the bill is read for the first time to the House of Commons [2] . This acts as initiation or notification of the proposed bill. It is done by a person standing up to read it. Following is the second reading, at this stage the proposal is debated on. Members debate and vote on whether the bill should progress. The next stage is the committee stage, where the bill is scrutinized by specialise group of people of the House of Commons where amendments are made [3] . These specialised groups of people may include solicitors and the police departments. Continuing, the committee then reports back to the house, which is the next stage known as the Report stage, where amendments are debated and voted on. The voting is done by members walking through doors in which they prefer.

The Third reading [4] is where the bill is re-proposed to the House of Commons. At this stage, members debate and vote on whether to decline or allow the legislation to stay in its original form. After the legislation has been decided on, the bill then goes to the House of Lords [5] , for further scrutiny, if the House of Lords make any changes to the bill will it then be sent back to the House of Commons for extra deliberation.

The last stage is called the Royal assent [6] . The Royal assent is required in order for a bill to become an act. At this stage the Queen must give her consent to the bill before it becomes a law. Normally in practice, the Queen never refuses or rejects the bill even though she has the power to do so. From then, the bill is then an act of parliament, and then becomes law. However, the Royal Assent has not been personally granted by the monarch since 1854 and last refused in 1708.

To what extent is approval of the House of Lords always required?

Proposals for law making are the policies of the government of the day [7] , government may propose legislation to deal with a particular event in the society, which indicates a need for legal regulation, or act as a statutory duty to maintain the law under review and recommend reform observation [8] .

The role of the House of Lords [9] in the law-making process is to approve Bills [10] . During the stages in the process of law-making, bills have to be scrutinised and approve or rejected by the House of Lords. Dating back to time it has been known that the House of Lords an effective control on the judgement on whether a bill should be made a law or not. However with society drastically evolving at the commence of the twentieth century, the House of Lords powers have being reduced to the extent where the proposal of legislation can go for Royal Assent without consent of the House of Lords.

The role of the House of Lords [11] in the law-making process is to approve Bills [12] . However if the Lords decline to concur to a Bill there is a statutory procedure that will be used to resolve the situation.

The Parliament acts 1911 [13] and 1949 [14] brought about the procedures in which the proposal of legislation can go for Royal Assent without consent of the House of Lords. This act reduced the power in which the Lords had. In addition, the in 1997 [15] , the Labour government also reformed the powers of the House of Lords.

Delegated legislation is an attack on our law-making process

Delegated legislation [16] is statutes passed by parliament as detailed rules to Government departments, local authorities, or public or nationalised bodies. It is used as a tool to the effectiveness of Government operation within the country.

Delegated legislation has many purposes as to why it used. These purposes include the updating and modifying existing legislation without parliament having to pass a new act. In other words, it acts as a catalyst to speed up the making of rules, for the government, allowing the government to focus on vital situations.

There are three forms of delegated legislation, statutory instruments which are conducted by the government, bye- laws, are made by local authorities, public and nationalised bodies and orders in council, implemented for emergency situations by the Government. In order for a delegated legislation to be valid, it must fall within the extent of power granted by the Act of Parliament.

In retrospect delegated legislation is an area of the legislative process, which has been scrutinized and criticised for years with calls for reform [17] . But it is notified that the advantages of delegated legislation, exceeds the disadvantages.

The advantages [18] of the use of delegated legislation are that it enables the parliament to operate effectively in insufficient parliamentary time, allowing them to focus on essential points. Delegated legislation speeds up the making of Laws [19] , also the technicality of the subject of the matter is dealt with efficiently because delegated legislation uses experts who are familiar in the specified areas rather than MPs who do not usually have the detailed acquaintance required with the relevant areas. For example experts such as the police department, Privy council, nationalised bodies are all involved in some part of the community or have a clear understanding of the areas. Moreover, unlike the Statutes which must follow procedures for ratifying [20] and can only be revoked or amended by statute, delegated legislation are rather implemented rapidly and can be revoked if there is fault.

However, the disadvantages [21] are, delegated legislation has increased drastically in numbers over the past half-century, there is approximately 17,000 [22] delegated legislation per year. With the significant increase of delegated legislation, have been subject to little or if any parliamentary scrutiny. This has been criticized because with little or if any parliamentary scrutiny, releases powers to executives who abuse their power causing a lack of democratic involvement. In addition, with the lack of control over delegated legislation, makes it hard for courts to control delegated legislation, since judicial reviews relies on individual challenges, brought before the court.

In conclusion, delegated legislation enables the parliament to operate effectively in insufficient parliamentary time, allowing them to focus on essential points. It is statutes passed by parliament as detailed rules to Government departments, local authorities, or public or nationalised bodies to be carried out. Understanding that the advantages outweighs the disadvantages of the delegated legislation. However there are some concerns on parliamentary little scrutiny on the delegated legislation.