Week 4 - Acts of Parliament Flashcards
How many MPs are in the House of Commons?
650 members
How do MPs get their job in Parliament?
Voted for from general election every 5 years
Definition of Government
The winning party is the party w/ most votes becoming the governing party
Who chairs debates?
The speaker
Apart from MPs who else has a seat in the House of Commons?
- Minister
- Speakers
How many members does the House of Lords have?
800 members
On what basis are Lords selected?
- Appointed and provide expertise
What does the monarch do?
- Sign the royal assent
*Opening Parliament - Read government programme
3 ways the parliament holds the government to account/scrutinise them?
- Through question time
- Selecting committees
- Debating
Domestic Law- Making process
- Proposed Bill
- Green and White papers
- First reading
- Second reading
- Committee Stage
- Report Stage
- Third reading
- House of Lords
- (1st, 2nd reading, committee stage, report stage, 3rd reading)
- Royal Assent
What is a Parent Act of Parliament (enabling act)?
Required authority or power is given by Parliament
What does the enabling act do?
- Creates the framework of law
- Delegates authority to others to make laws.
Making laws for the government departments
- Parliament is supreme + makes primary laws called Acts (statutes).
- Some of these laws defer law-making powers to the Secretary of State for a government department.
5 largest departments
- Ministry of Justice
- Department for Work and Pensions
- HM Revenue and Customs
- Ministry of Defence
- Home Office
- Staffed by thousands of workers, many work directly with the public – Civil Servants.
Stages of departments
- PM
- Ministers
- Civil Servants
What does the Civil service do?
- Deliver support and benefits to those who need them
- Responsible for schools and education
*Work for the minsters departments
around 23 main departments and 66 executive agencies delivering services to the citizens through networks of offices and outlets which number in the thousands.
500,000 civil servants
What is secondary legislation (delegated/subordinate legislation)?
- Must come from a primary source (Act)
- Statutory instruments are the vital laws that make regulations for the government departments to operate
3 main types of secondary legislation
- Statutory Instruments
- By law
- Orders in council
Parliamentary control of delegated legislation
- P has control in the parent act passed by P and sets out a framework w/in which delegated legislation is made
- Are scrutiny committees in both Houses of Parliament (role = consider delegated powers proposed by a Bill)
- All SIs are subject to review by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments
What is affirmative resolution?
Some SIs must be approved by Parliament before they can become law
2 types of ultra vires
- Procedural ultra vires
- Substantive ultra vires
What is Procedural ultra vires?
The court can find the delegated legislation to be ultra vires and void if these procedures were not followed.
What is Substantive ultra vires?
Delegated legislation goes beyond what Parliament intended.
3 advantages of Delegated Legislation
- Saves Parliament time
- Flexibility
- Expertise
3 disadvantages of Delegated Legislation
- Scrutiny
- Volume
- Sub-delegation
