PARLIAMENT, POLITICS AND POLICY MAKING Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

PARLIAMENT, POLITICS AND POLICY MAKING - audition ExampleThe government Bills are customarily introduced in the abide of commonalty, with approved drafts going to the House of Lords and thus to Monarch for the subsequent assent. While such a procedure creates necessary checks and balances system in place to prevent the possible implementation of hastily approved Bills, it still limits the powers of popularly elected MPs in favour of non-elected governmental bodies, The time limits on the readings of the Bills in one session represent a fundamental deficiency of the present system of lawmaking as well. As the sessions of Parliament are closed by the act of prorogation, each Bill that fails to be carried through and through all necessary legislative steps is considered lapsed, and its authors arouse to go through this very process of legislative enquiry anew (Keenan and Smith 53). This has a meaningful adverse effect on the tempo of lawmaking and obstructs the efforts of lawmak ers. Nevertheless, the legislative procedure of British House of Commons has its own positive features as well. ... The modernisation agenda of Blaires government affected both Houses of the Parliament, leaders to many changes in its procedural rules and other structural elements. One of most significant of these policy moves was a thorough reform of the House of Lords, which lost its traditional character of the representative body of hereditary nobleness afterward the House of Lords Act of 1999 provided for abolition of all but 92 hereditary peerages (Strickland and Cracknell 3). The modernisation of the House of the Commons proceeded rather unevenly, being somewhat stalled and timid in 1997-2001 and increasing in pace after 2001 (Cowley 20). Under Richard Cook, the Labour Partys Leader of the House of Commons in 2001-2003, such master(prenominal) reforms were undertaken as the provision for more even resources allocation to select committees, the introduction of more topical p arliamentary Questions, and establishment of payment system for heads of select committees, so that the latter might wield an influence equal to that of the Ministers (Cowley and Stuart 29). The tenure of Jack Straw as the Leader of the House (after 2006) was marked by important changes in standing committees process, with the result that the powers of standing committees were broadened so that they might receive both oral and written bear witness before scrutinising the Bills under consideration (Cowley 21). Nevertheless, the other reforms to Parliament introduced by New Labour had mostly destructive effect on its standing. For instance, the introduction of automatic timetabling of legislation served to make each Bill going through pre-arranged sequence of the debates, which narrowed the chances of Opposition to