In this essay, we will consider the performance of UK Parliament in 3 main functions: making laws, representation and controlling the Executive. The name “legislature” suggests that Parliament has something to do with making law. Although this is not the primary function, but still, undoubtedly appropriate as most laws certainly have to get the assent from both Houses ( the Lords and the Commons ) and Parliament can amend or defeat any law easily. Debates on bills constitute about 40% of the time spent on the floor of the Houses and in theory give backbenchers-people who support the government or the opposition, opportunity to infuence the shape of legislation with their speech. Along with the rising number of back-bench rebellions and MPs defeating government’s proposals such as the Syria war in 2011, it can be seen that Parliament is performing well in making laws.
Firstly, the stages of making an Act of Parliament are initiated by the pre-legislative process. In the UK, the most common pattern of legislation is that of Public Bills, which are introduced by government ministers and change the general law. They can furthermore be introduced by other MPs In the UK, the most common pattern of legislation is that of Public Bills, which are presented by government ministers and change the general law. They can furthermore be presented by other MP’s. In this case they are called Private Member’s Bills.
The job of the Committees is to investigate the bills and any perceived faults or flaws with them, as well as amending or redrafting the bill before it goes to the full chamber. This gives the Committees a significant role in the analysis of a given bill, which has huge influence on the overall passage of a bill through Congress – in other words, if a Standing or Select Committee finds a bill to be imperfect, that will certainly have an effect on the overall perception of a bill. Furthermore, the members of these committees are regarded as experts, and are able to amend bills as they wish – meaning that what comes out of this process to move further through the legislative process is basically the work of the committees, providing us with evidence that in this aspect, Congressional Committees are extremely important. After bills have passed through the committee stage, they must be timetabled. It is at this stage that the House Rules Committee takes part in the process.
After a bill is written it needs to be introduced into the House or the Senate. Rarely, bills will then be sent straight to the floor for review. However, a bill is almost always sent to the relevant committee for review. "The bill is referred to the appropriate committee by the Speaker of the House or the presiding officer in the Senate. Most often, the actual referral decision is made by the House or Senate parliamentarian.
Anna Mitakos To what extent is the House Of Commons effective in carrying out its functions? The House of Commons holds legislative functions and is designed to hold the executive to account. On the one hand it can be argued that it is effective through the use of regular questioning of ministers, the introduction of select committees and also reforms. However it can be argued that MPs are not socially representative of the general population. A function that demonstrates that the House of Commons is effective is because ministers are regularly questioned and held accountable.
Once a bill is out of committee, the committee’s recommendation for that legislation is read on the floor of the House or Senate. The Rules Committee of each chamber then determines what bills will be considered and places them on the House or Senate calendar, which is a daily list of bills to be acted on in each chamber. The calendar of bills to be acted on is divided into bills on third reading, bills on second reading and bills on first reading. Under the State Constitution, a bill is to be read three times. The first reading of the bill is the information stage and alerts membership that the bill will be considered.
The Three Tiers of Parliament Monarchy: The UK head of state is currently reigning the monarchy, and since 1952, has been HM Queen Elizabeth II, although laws are generated and approved by an elected body- The Houses of Parliament. The Queen has several important formal and ceremonial governmental roles, such as opening each new session of Parliament, dissolving Parliament before law, appointment of the Prime Minister (PM) and peers, advice, and guidance to the PM, and final approval of laws via ‘Royal Assent’. House of Commons: 650 elected MP’s who represent a broad spectrum of political parties make up the House of Commons. They are elected to the House of Commons by either a general election or a by-election. A range of political views and interests are represented, which enables the House of Commons to ensure that legislation and decisions are well debated by a variety of individuals holding different political views.
The Cabinet is the committee of senior ministers who are the main collective decision-making body of the government. Many politicians debate over how much control the Prime Minister has over his cabinet. I believe that the Prime Minister has the ability to control their Cabinet tightly and does so effectively. The Prime Minister holds and chairs meetings with Cabinet ministers. He manages the agenda as well as summarising final decisions.
The Parliament consists of the House of Lords and House of Commons -which include various party representatives. Lord Hailsham stated that the UK has an “elective dictatorship” implying that executive is able to dominate the legislature. It could be argued that parliament does control executive power because parliament has scrutiny features such as Prime Minister's Questions, Ministerial question time and select committees, which all make the government and its executive powers accountable for their decision making. However to some extent it could be argued that parliament does not control executive power effectively, due to the fact that the government naturally has an in built majority within the House of Commons, as well as that the whipping system and the ideology of ‘toeing the party line’ results in the executive powers having the ability to gain a majority of support from the House of Commons. Furthermore the increase in prime-ministerial or even ‘presidential’ government in the UK, with the leader of the executive having accumulated more power, makes it more difficult for Parliament to control executive power.
The main functions of UK Parliament are legitimating of political power of the executive through being a democratically elected body, scrutiny and influence of the proposals made by the executive through votes on the passing of Bills as well as the elimination of Governments through votes of no confidence. The recruitment of Government ministers from MPs also falls to Parliament through MPs, as does law making and deliberation on current events affecting the nation. Representation of citizens within the UK is expected of Parliament. However, a widely held public belief is that Parliament is unrepresentative of the current population within Britain. Many people say the ‘Commons are male-dominated since in 2005 only 19% of MP’s were women.