Explanatory Statements on Amendments

Explanatory Statements on Amendments
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Procedure Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 30
Release: 2013-02-25
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780215054449

In this report the Procedure Committee invites the House to expand the tabling of explanatory statements on amendments to all bills at both Committee and Report stage from the start of the 2013-14 Session. Explanatory statements enhance MPs' ability to scrutinise legislation, unpacking complex or technical amendments and so opening up the legislative process to the wider public, as well as providing greater focus for Members' arguments during debates. There have been several previous pilots of explanatory statements. During the current session, MPs have been permitted to table explanatory statements to two bills. Having evaluated the pilot on the basis of criteria agreed between the Committee and the Leader of the House, the Committee concludes that the time has come to end the experimental approach and allow the culture of explanatory statements to embed itself, in a permissive environment where space is provided to backbench Members, the Government and the Opposition to ensure that explanatory statements become an accepted norm of the legislative process. The Committee considered the possibility of imposing a mandatory requirement at some or all stages, but concluded that to do so would risk restricting Opposition and backbench MPs from tabling amendments and would therefore be damaging to the House's ability to scrutinise legislation.

Monitoring written Parliamentary questions

Monitoring written Parliamentary questions
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Procedure Committee
Publisher: Stationery Office
Total Pages: 52
Release: 2013-05-08
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780215057372

In October 2010 the Committee in response to a report by its predecessor committee began a trial exercise in monitoring unsatisfactory and late answers to written Parliamentary questions. With just over 50 complaints from Members in response to the exercise of which half were followed up. This resulted in answers for Members on a number of occasions in circumstances where they would otherwise have found difficult or impossible to follow up on an inadequate response. The exercise will now come to an end and be put on a more permanent footing.In consideration of a memorandum from the Leader of the House providing statistics on the time taken to respond to WPQs in 2010-12, the committee has sought explanations from Ministers in charge of poorly performing departments for the level of performance in the memorandum and what steps are being taken to improve these levels. The Department for Education had a particularly poor performance and evidence was taken from the Parliamentary Under Secretary and a senior official in the Department which the Committee found unsatisfactory with and so a follow up session with the Permanent Secretary and Secretary of State was undertaken. The Committee will continue its interest in the answering performance of this Department and hold it to further account should its performance not improve markedly.

Review of the Backbench Business Committee

Review of the Backbench Business Committee
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Procedure Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 80
Release: 2012-11-22
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780215050731

Additional written evidence is contained in Vol. 2, available on the Committee website at www.parliament.uk/proccom

The Fluid State

The Fluid State
Author: Hilary Charlesworth
Publisher: Federation Press
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2005
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9781862875685

The Fluid State was cited by the High Court in Momcilovic v The Queen [2011] HCA 34 (8 September 2011)Traditional accounts of the relationship between international and national law present the interaction between the two as relatively ordered, if conflicting. This limited view of the relationship has become outmoded, as the scope of international legal regulation and the internationalised context of domestic law continue to expand. This book analyses some of the national contexts in which international law and domestic law interact and identifies the way in which attitudes to international law shift between them. Some of the questions considered are:How do perceptions of international law differ according to particular institutional vantage-points, whether that of the executive, the legislature or the judiciary? What is the impact of the perceived 'democratic deficit' in international treaty-making? What are some of the ways in which the judiciary acts as a gatekeeper between the national and international legal orders? How does national politics influence engagement with the international sphere? The contributors bring a range of different perspectives: politics, law and international relations. They include influential scholars such as Mayo Moran, Ann Capling, John Uhr, Andrew Byrnes and Janet MacLean and they discuss contemporary issues, such as the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement and the 2003 Iraq War.

Statements by Members who Answer on Behalf of Statutory Bodies

Statements by Members who Answer on Behalf of Statutory Bodies
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Procedure Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 20
Release: 2013-03-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780215054630

The Standing Orders and the practice of the House enable Ministers to make written and oral statements to the House on matters of public importance. That facility is not available to Members who answer in the House on behalf of statutory bodies which are not subject to direct Ministerial accountability such as the House of Commons Commission and the Church Commissioners. Consequently contrivances such as a "planted" written question or an agreed urgent question are necessary in circumstances where an announcement is to be made to the House. The Committee considered whether arrangements might be put in place to enable, in appropriate circumstances, Members answering in the House on behalf of statutory bodies to make written and oral statements. They recommend that the necessary amendments be made to Standing Order No. 22A to enable those Members to make written statements and that those Members who are for the time being on the rota for oral questions should be enabled, on being granted permission in advance by the Speaker, to make an oral statement to the House