Parliament can make laws on any matter due to Dicey in ‘Law of the Constitution (1885).’ He said that ‘in theory Parliament has total power. It is sovereign'. He states a number of reasons as to how this is possible. Firstly Dicey points out that Parliament can pass laws on any subject without legal restriction therefore it is sovereign. This principle is a result of the election of the Members of Parliament (MPs), by the electorate which gives them authority to represent and pass legislation on their behalf.
Parliamentary debates give members an opportunity to discuss government policy and performance, proposed new laws and current issues. For example, recently Labour’s shadow health secretary, Andy Burnham, led an opposition debate calling on the Health Secretary to scrap the Health and Social Care Bill. However, the government can limit or restrict debate. For example, programme motions are usually debated immediately after a bill’s second reading, which set the timetable for the rest of the bill’s progress through the Commons. They can be controversial if MPs believe they are being used to limit or restrict debate.
The doctrine of parliament sovereignty has been regarded as the most fundamental element of the British constitution. It can be summarised in three points: that parliament has the power to make any law they wish; that no parliament can create a law that a future parliament cannot change; that only parliament can change or reverse a law passed by parliament. Parliamentary Sovereignty thus gives unconditional power to the Westminster Parliament. A.V. Dicey describes it as ‘the dominant characteristic of our political institutions',and ‘the very keystone of the law of constitution'.
Parliamentary sovereignty is the most important part of the UK constitution. People often refer to the UK having an 'unwritten constitution' but that's not strictly true, large parts of it are written down, much of it in the laws passed in Parliament - known as statute law. Therefore, the UK constitution is often described as 'partly written and wholly uncodified' (Uncodified means that the UK does not have a single, written constitution.). Over the years, Parliament has passed laws that limit parliamentary sovereignty. These laws reflect political developments both within and outside the UK.
In addition to that, Parliament also has the function of scrutinising and challenging the government on its legislative proposals as well as on a broader, more general level. It has been argued that this is Parliament’s most important function, rather than maintaining it in office. With regards to this point of view, an analysis of the present mechanisms of scrutiny and challenge used by Parliament and their effectiveness offers an insight into its validity. To begin with, Parliament, as the state legislature, plays a role in scrutinising government legislative proposals. Each bill has to go through First reading, Second reading, Committee stage, Report stage and Third reading in both the Commons and Lords.
So why are the MPs following this and acting as a sheep? All parties expect party loyalty from their members and if the MPs rebel or speak out against the party they may decide to send out the party whip to ensure they will follow what they want and if that doesn’t work they may de-select them for the election thus giving the MP zero chance of gaining election as there are only 2 independent MPs elected, both ways showing the party discipline expected from the backbenchers. The MPs can also simply think about themselves and follow all party orders and support all bills in order to further their political careers by gaining promotion and the chance to be selected as the representative in a constituency. So with this model the MPs main role will be to follow their party in supporting or opposing the government over the representation of their constituents. The second model is the delegate model which in our representative democracy the MPs should follow.
This is an effective check because when minister have their question time the opposition should be ready to criticize and demand answers. This ensures that a Government is credible and held accountable. If not, an unchallenged government can make mistakes. The Commons are also play as a check point for legislation. Most of the UK’s legislation originates from the government.
The highly political aspect of the Yucca Mountain issue is shown in a directive issued by the NRC to begin closing out the evaluation of Yucca Mountain. In an article by Steve Tetreault “one of the five commissioners for the independent nuclear safety agency protested the directive.” The result was two commissioners recommended releasing an upcoming safety evaluation, while the other three commissioners abstained from the vote. As a The result was a quorum was not achieved and the directive is being will be carried out. This came shortly after Kenneth Rogers (who served on the commission from 1987-1997) said he did not believe the NRC Chairman, Gregory Jaczko, had the authority to issue a shutdown order. Rogers also feared the NRC’s reputation for independence was being tainted (Tetreault).
To what extent does parliament control executive power? (40 marks) A parliament is a body that has several roles, including legitimising legislation, passing laws, scrutinising or amending legislation, calling government to account and representing voters. Emphasis is placed that the government branch in the UK (the government) normally dominates the parliament due to various reasons such as high majorities, MPs loyalty to the party manifesto, influence of PM on MPs, existence of party whips and the limitations of the House of Lords. However, some may argue that the government does not have it all its own way as parliament can control the government in a number of ways including, dismissing large majoritarian governments, sovereignty of the parliament, public accountability, barriers set by select committees and the House of Lords. Parliament may face difficulties in controlling executive power as the government usually has an overall majority.
At a glance it is obvious that a major part of UK democracy is parliamentary democracy as this is our chosen form of government, having the houses of parliament which consist of the house of commons and the house of lords. In the UK we have the government which is drawn from parliament as well as the monarchy who are now concerned primarily with ceremonial roles within governing the country. However it is key to note that although the monarchy does have a part in the governing of the UK it is not elected and so this damages the argument of the UK being fully democratic. However the majority of parliament is elected at least. In the UK parliament all members of the house of commons are elected in free and fair elections by their local