Legislative process house of commons

1. Parliament Explained:
Primary legislation –
Commons procedure

2. What do you already know?
What do you think you know about:
- the law?
- Parliament’s role?
- the role of the courts?
- Government bills?
…and what do you want to know?

3. Session aim?
To give you the knowledge you need to understand
the legislative process, in particular the input and
participation required from Ministers and what
departmental staff can do (and avoid doing) to
assist the various processes work smoothly.

4. Types of Government Bills
Three flavours:
• Major bill reflecting manifesto pledge &
Queen’s Speech
• ‘Problem-solving’ reactive bill
• Technical bill

5. Other sorts of Bills
Two and a half more flavours:
• Private Members’ Bills
• Private Bills
• Hybrid Bills

6. Government advantages
S.O. No. 14(1)
Save as provided in this order, government business
shall have precedence at every sitting.
S.O. 83A(6)
A programme motion may provide for the allocation of
time for any proceedings on a bill.
Election 2015
A small numerical advantage.

7. Stages of a bill
• Green paper
• White paper
• Election manifesto
• Queen’s Speech
• Draft Bill
• Pre-legislative scrutiny
• Presentation or First Reading
• Second Reading
• Committee stage or Line-by-line
• Consideration or Report
• Third Reading
• In the Lords (may start in that House)
• Lords Amendments or Ping-Pong
• Royal Assent
• Implementation
• Orders and regulations
• Post-legislative scrutiny

8. Stages of a bill
• Green paper
• White paper
• Election manifesto
• Queen’s Speech
• Draft Bill
• Pre-legislative scrutiny
• Presentation or First Reading
• Second Reading
• Committee stage or Line-by-line
• Consideration or Report
• Third Reading
• In the Lords (may start in that House)
• Lords Amendments or Ping-Pong
• Royal Assent
• Implementation
• Orders and regulations
• Post-legislative scrutiny
An optimist might say “look how transparent
and open and consultative and collaborative”,
a cynic might say “how cunning to draw out
the arguments, hone your rebuttals, and be
able to say - when time really matters – ‘oh
we dealt with all that in the consultation’ ”
During passage through the House is when
the whips want efficiency and iron-clad
certainty over ‘how long’ and ‘when’ – as it
all needs juggling with everything else
This is actually a mystery to me …
This is really truly a mystery to everyone
“Be it enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the
advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons,
in this present Parliament assembled …”
Nobody cares …….

9. In the Commons
• Presentation or First Reading
• Second Reading
• Money, Ways and Means, Programme
• Committee
• Further Programme, Evidence, line-byline
• Consideration or Report
• Further programme
• Third Reading
• Lords Messages or ‘Ping-pong’
• Royal Assent

10. First & second reading
• Presentation or First Reading
• ‘Here is the Bill’
• Second Reading
• Broad debate of the principles of the bill, including
what’s in it and what’s not
• Can table a ‘reasoned’ amendment (an objection too
big for an amendment in committee, but not simply
voting against second reading) (in fact this is about
more about stealing the initiative in debate …)
• Often followed by motions on ‘Money’, ‘Ways and
Means’ and ‘Programming’…

11. Committee stage
• Huge and tiny bills dealt with by ‘Committee of
the Whole House’ in the Chamber
• Mid-spectrum bills go to ‘Public Bill
Committees’ (18-22 members meeting like the
House in miniature – mostly about efficient use
of time)
• Committees can take oral evidence
• ‘Programmimng’ sets the ‘out-date’.

12. Committee stage (cont)
• The committee stage is about considering
amendments and validating (or not) the
existing text
• Amendments come in two flavours:
• Opposition – ‘we hate this bit’
• Government – ‘we forgot this bit’
• The clerk’s main job is “selection and grouping”
(and preserving the mystery about how this
works …)
• When the knife falls, the talking stops …

13. Committee stage – dooze‘n’
donce
• Do be nice to the clerk
• Don’t annoy the chair
• Do write timely, succinct and accurate notes for
your Minister
• … don’t wave them, throw them or try and
pass them directly
• Do feel free to make suggestions about
selection and grouping (via counsel)
• … don’t be offended if these are ignored

14. English votes for English Laws
EVEL … simple
◦ Bills and parts of Bills certified by the Speaker as applying
only to England (or England and Wales, or England, Wales and
Northern Ireland) – if voted on – have to command a majority
of the Members representing those seats as well as an overall
majority to be passed.
◦ New clauses or amendments that apply in this way, or have
this effect on existing parts of the Bill, must be considered by,
and consented to, by a ‘legislative grand committee’
consisting only of Members representing the relevant seats
before they are considered and decided by the House as a
whole.
◦ Making this work, and providing for all foreseeable
eventualities, takes 55 pages of amended and new standing
orders

15. Consideration or report
• Opportunity for the whole House to consider
what the committee did to the Bill
• Opportunity for:
• the Government to:
• honour commitments made in committee
• reverse any unexpected defeats (probably too soon)
• the Opposition to re-run its ‘big’ debates
• anyone to ambush the Bill with a ‘commonsense’
amendment and 100+ names from all sides (far
easier to sway a crowd than move a committee)
• …then Third Reading

16. Questions?