The majority of new laws or changes to existing laws come from government but the can also come from MP’s, Lords or even a member of the public. E.g. ‘Sarah’s Law’. Both the House of Commons and House of Lords must debate and vote on the proposals. 2.
The main functions of the Cabinet are registering and ratifying decisions taken elsewhere in the cabinet system, discussing and deciding on major issues, receiving reports on key developments and determining government business, and settling disputes between government departments. However, even though these are the formal roles of the Cabinet many would argue that the Cabinet is now more of a formality and the power actually lies only with the Prime Minister. Firstly, it can be argued that the Cabinet is no longer an important body
c) The cabinet is made up of the senior ministers in the Government in power; most of its members are heads of government departments such as Home office, Treasury, Foreign office. The cabinet members must be members of Parliament and most are drawn from the House of Commons and are appointed by the Prime Minister. The main functions of the cabinet are to discuss and decide on major issues, receiving reports on key developments and determining government business, register and ratify decisions made elsewhere in the cabinet and settling disputes between government departments. Even though the cabinet has these key roles it could be argued that the cabinet is now more of a formality and the actual powers belong to the Prime Minister suggesting that the cabinet is to a rather large extent no longer an important body. The importance of the cabinet could begin to be question right from the selection process as the Prime Minister also known as ‘primus inter pares’ which means first among equals, selects the ministers and could be dismissed at anytime as was seen in the cabinet reshuffle under Tony Blair in 2006 which saw Charles Clarke dismissed, therefore suggesting that the cabinet ministers would show some form of loyalty to the Prime minister and could be likely to support the Prime minister in order to keep their job and could have no major impact on any policy or action.
When confronting the scientific complexities of environmental supervision or the financial intricacies of banking regulation, Congress's 535 members rarely manage to agree on more than the broad outlines of a legislative proposal. Consequently, many of the details are left for the president to work out after he is handed the bill for implementation. The president gets to decide how to prioritize the legislation's content and how to interpret its critical sections. And the president also possesses the authority to appoint the staff that will oversee or run any agency or board created by the congressional act. Thus there was a certain "natural" tendency for the presidency to expand as history progressed.
Another reason why federalism changed since the 1960s is due to the fact that President Carter, a democrat president carried on Nixon's ideas of New Federalism. From the 60's and before, it was clear that the democrats supported the ideas of a large federal government; however he was a governor, thus he wanted to give the states more freedom to act. He
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.
House of lords First reading intro Second reading debate Amendments Third reading Royal assent This process of a policy in government may seem very long and drawn out and some may wonder if some policies ever get to be approved. There are cases where a policy has stayed as a policy for years however this system is in place for a very good reason like making sure polices are complete trying to compromise with all parties and making sure there are no loop holes within the policy that people can exploit and bend this is also why the policy is seen by the house of lords and then finally approved by the queen. Some policies that are already in place may need to be updated to keep up with the time and current
The ‘prime ministerial’ government thesis focuses upon the range of patronage available to the prime minister and his tendency to by-pass the Cabinet in making policy decisions - Mackintosh saw the Cabinet as little more than a clearing house and a court of appeal. Other factors are his control over the civil service, his dominance of the House of Commons, his high media profile, and his ability to appear ‘above politics’ and to make direct, statesmanlike appeals to the
To what extent was royal support the most important reason for why Pitt the Younger dominated politics in 1783-1793? In December 1783 William Pitt the Younger became Britain's prime minister at the age of 24. Even though he was unexperienced in the beginning, he managed to dominate the politics. Many people believe, that the key to his answer was king George's support but I believe that it was his great financial policies such as Sinking fund, Commutation act and many others. Pitt's financial policies in this period revealed his genius.
* In theory then, the American President has much more power than the British Prime Minister - he is the commander-in-chief and has the power to issue executive orders which have the full force of law. However, the constitutional system of 'checks and balances' seriously circumscribes the power of the US President who often finds it really difficult to push legislation through Congress. By contrast, a British Prime Minister usually heads a government with a majority of seats in the House of Commons and the ability to pass almost any legislation that he wishes. * In the United States, the transition period between the election of a new president and that person's inaugration is two and half months. In Britain, the changeover of Prime Ministers is virtually immediate - within hours of the election result, one person leaves 10 Downing Street and within the following hour the successor enters