UK Parliament to be Made Redundant?

caluml writes "The Guardian is reporting that the current UK government is trying to sneak a new law though in an innocuously named bill called 'The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill,' which would get rid of that pesky, interfering need to put laws to the Houses of Commons and Lords to approve. There is already the Parliament Act that can be used to force laws through, which was used recently for the hunting bill. " The original coverage is a bit old but the bill is still being tossed around in parliament. The text of the bill is also available via the UK Parliament website.

Comments

The Parliament Act.

[Blapto]

This wasn't snuck in, it's been around for quite some time now. It actually serves a valid purpose as well. Basically, the part that this article refers to allows a government to bypass the House of Lords (an unelected body) after a certain number of tries in a certain time period when trying to pass a bill.
Anything that goes through the parliament act will generate enough publicity for the public to kick up a fuss about it if they don't like it anyway.

Re:The Parliament Act.

[DavidTC]

No. England is the opposite of a theocracy, which happens to look identical to one if you aren't paying attention.

In a theocracy, the church runs the government. In England, the government runs the church. As these both have the same entity running both the church and the government, it is easy to confuse them.

With England, however, the government runs the church because the church that used to claim authority (The Catholic Church) was asserting too much authority, so they got rid of it. And then, because it was expected at the time, they made their own church, which they have then continued to basically ignore.

Re:The Parliament Act.

[TheRaven64]

Okay, I know the Brits don't have an official constitution and so the rules on this may not be carved in stone, but that still seems kind of unlikely

Actually, we do have a written constitution. What we don't have is a codified constitution (our constitution is drawn from many sources). The grandparent poster is half right. The prime minister does have to be an MP, however they do not have to be a member of the House of Commons. The procedure for selecting a PM is roughly as follows:

1. The Queen selects someone and invites them to form a government.
2. This person must gain the support of half of the house of commons.
3. If so, they become prime minister. If not, then the Queen goes back to step 1.

Since the creation of Lords is one of the Monarch's Prerogative Powers, it is quite possible for her to select someone completely random, create them a peer, and then ask them to form a government. For the last couple of centuries or so it has been traditional for the monarch to invite the leader of the party with the most seats to form a government, since they are usually guaranteed support of the majority of the house.

If, at any point, the PM ceases to have the support of half of the house then a vote of no confidence can be passed. If this happens, a general election must be called and a new government elected. This can happen, for example, if they have a narrow majority and one of their members resigns or dies. At this point a by-election will be called, and their seat contested again. If someone from the opposition takes it then the government can lose its majority.

Re:The Parliament Act.

[MartinB]

This wasn't snuck in, it's been around for quite some time now. It actually serves a valid purpose as well. Basically, the part that this article refers to allows a government to bypass the House of Lords (an unelected body) after a certain number of tries in a certain time period when trying to pass a bill.

To separate out the two issues you're conflating:

The Parliament Act is there to prevent the unelected Lords from blocking legislation which the elected Commons has a mandate to implement. By convention this means the content of the goverment's election manifesto.

Now the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill means that not only will the Lords not be able to oppose Government policy (in the manifesto or not), this will be extended to the Commons.

Or, to put it in constitutional speak: the Executive usurps the power of the Legislature, and neuters the capacity of the Judiciary.

Yes, our freedom-loving government is plainly tired of all that mucking around attending Parliament, and persuading MPs to support its bright ideas. In future (so goes the vision), our beloved, trusted ministers will be able to amend, replace and repeal legislation by fiat. The only restrictions are that ministers can't impose new taxes (but can introduce new fees. Po-tay-to/Po-tah-to), or introduce prison sentences longer than 2 years.

So could HMG decide to make ID Cards entirely compulsory? Could they require all public services to be disposed of to PFI? Could they abolish the Scottish Parliament? Yes, Yes and Yes (they couldn't impose laws in devolved matters, but they could abolish the whole thing).

And the checks and balances on ministerial absolutism? Erm... none. The minister merely has to consider a vaguely written checklist and be personally satisfied that's it's a Good Idea overall. Because ministers are of course entirely impartial judges of their own proposals. It's already being called The Abolition of Parliament Act as Parliament simply won't be able to scrutinise legislation in advance or block it. But it's also an Abolition of The Judiciary Act as the courts can't challenge Ministerial Orders after the fact on the basis of being disproportionate or removing freedoms and protections from the citizenry as long as the Minister can show that he/she has thought long and hard about it. Presumably the fact that Ministers are genetically incapable of thinking like this won't help...

Separation of Powers? We've Heard of It

Anything that goes through the parliament act will generate enough publicity for the public to kick up a fuss about it if they don't like it anyway.

Which, as the Executive can impose what the hell it likes without the checks and balances of an adversarial Parliament, can be entirely ignored except for the 3 months before an election.

RTFA - this is not about the parliament act

[FhnuZoag]

Yes, but the parliament act isn't what is in question.

What is in question is this new proposed act, that allows any cabinet member to alter any piece of legislation by conducting a single vote with the minimum of debate or discussion. The parliament act is usually only used after ages of battling, so at least we are certain that MPs have looked at and understood what is being passed. With this new act, it would be very easy to sandwich scary ideas into an innoculous looking package, and sneak that through the vote. The worst case scenario is that one such scary bill would be a motion to alter this bill itself - and remove parliament from the process altogether.

Even if we trust the government not to abuse it, this is still a terrifyingly huge loophole. And in fact, the bill is currently *very* close to being passed. It only has a 1-hour final hearing in the commons, and then it's onto the Lords. And if the Lords don't cooperate, a truly malicious government can use the Parliament act to force it through....

Re:Constitution?

[anaesthetica]

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_U nited_Kingdom