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Right, because Im not sure how much everyone knows about the political process, Id better explain how the legislative process works. What happens is that someone proposes a law (called bills before they become law and acts after). After someone has proposed (Tabled) the bill, there will be a First Reading which is exactly that, someone reads the entire bill to the House (and these bills can be huge, The Companies Act 1985 is known as the jumbo act because it contains 747 sections, each section being up to twenty closely typed pages). You can understand why many MPs dont bother listening to First Readings. The First Reading is purely to inform MPs that someone is proposing a bill and that there are printed copies available.
The Second Reading is rather different. Again the bill is read in its entirety but this time there is a debate over the general intent of the bill and then a vote on if the bill should proceed. Thereafter the bill goes to the Committee Stage where a select committee (usually a group appointed especially for their expertise in the area), a standing committee (a group kept in committee purely for the purpose of drafting bills, often specialist lawyers) or, very occasionally, by all the MPs as a Committee of the Whole House. The bill will be amended in accordance with the points raised during the Second Reading, at least in theory (well come back to this later).
Then comes the Third Reading. Again the bill is read fully and a debate will be taken, however by this point the debate will be purely on the language used. Assuming the bill passes (and most do, again well come back to this), the bill goes to the House of Lords where the same procedure is followed (well come back to this one too) and then to the Queen to receive the Royal Assent.
Right, problems. Firstly, very few MPs bother to attend First Readings for the same reasons that you or I wouldnt bother to attend them. Theyre long, dull, filled with legalistic language and dont really affect anything. The Second Reading is fine but the debate is only over general principles not over specifics. So the specifics are raised in committee, right? Well, not always, no and theres nothing to stop an unscrupulous MP (put your hands up, 90% of the House) from inserting an absurd clause to stop the rest of the bill passing. You see, any MP can insert a clause into a bill (see series two of The New Statesman for a good example) and theres no provision in the procedure for a debate of specific clauses. When the bill passes to the House of Lords, any amendments that the Lords makes to the bill must be approved by the Commons (the various Parliament Acts saw to that) and if the bill isnt passed by the Lords on three tries in two successive sessions (roughly, one year, our time), the bill bypasses the Lords and goes direct for the Royal Assent. The Royal Assent is purely a formality, assent hasnt been refused since Elizabeth the First. If the Queen ever did refuse to pass a bill it would cause a constitutional crisis and probably bring down the monarchy.
The reason most bills pass is because almost all bills are proposed by the Secretary of State responsible for the department the bill affects. Now, in order to form a government, one party has to obtain a majority of parliamentary seats. Because of that majority, any law tabled by the government which the whips (those in charge of party discipline) can convince the entire party to vote for, will go through. The key part is convincing the entire party to back it, Norman Tebbit was best at this, its difficult to convey to those not involved in politics how much terror Tebbit could inspire. Whips can have an MP thrown out of the party, transferred to undesirable offices (Agriculture, for example) or even have you isolated in government totally. The upshot of all this is that the Secretary of State can usually expect to have his bill passed. On paper, there are a few ways that back-bench MPs (those MPs not part of the cabinet or shadow cabinet) can get an act onto the books. Firstly, every parliamentary session, there is a ballot held amongst back-bench MPs and the top twenty have the chance to propose a bill. That said, the aforementioned power of numbers means that if the government is actually opposed to his bill, the chances of it passing are nil. Under Standing Order No.43, any MP can present a bill to the house, all that has to be done is to give a days notice (Dirty Tricks Dept. MPs are not above spinning a debate out to ensure no time for the bill to be read). However, firstly, bills are read in a strict order of precedence, government bills first, balloted bills second and there is rarely enough time for a 43 bill and second, if even one MP opposes the bill (as the other party usually will on principle) it fails. The only other way for a back-bench MP to get an act on to the statute books is Standing Order No.13, usually known as the Ten-Minute Rule. This gives all MPs the power to make a speech of up to ten minutes up to twice a week and only one speech may be made against you. If theres no opposition to your speech, a date will be given for a Second Reading. Thats a sick joke because there is never enough time for ten minute bills to be debated. The only way for a Ten-Minute bill to become law is to get an unopposed Second Reading without a debate. The last time that happened was 1993. Bills proposed by back-bench MPs are known as Private Members Bills i.e. a bill proposed by a private member on their own behalf rather than as a member of a party. Each new MP can also give one speech (called a maiden speech) which by parliamentary tradition cannot be interrupted, also by parliamentary tradition however, it cannot be controversial.
Dirty Tricks Dept. Ever wonder how the government can get bills onto the statute without having a debate? There is a way. Its called the guillotine rule. It says that the person tabling the bill can decide that after a set length of time, the debate will be curtailed and a vote taken there and then. Since many MPs dont bother turning up to Readings, they arrive in the House not knowing what form of the bill they are voting for. Major used this for the Firearms Act that came in after the Dunblane massacre. In fact, Major guillotined the debate before it even started, thereby saying either you take this bill as is or nothing, then the whips mobilised the party in support and bang! Another pointless piece of legislation makes its way into statute. The appointment of committees provides much opening for tinkering in the way of assigning your mates to head the committee and buying you support (Blair is fond of that one). Also committee which undertake public enquirys (propose bills) are not legally binding. For example, after Dunblane (you might get the impression that I disagree with the firearms regulations brought in after Dunblane. Youd be right), Major created a public enquiry to look into changes in the firearms laws. So far, so good. Major appointed his good friend Lord F_______ to chair this committee. Uh Oh! Alarm bells starting to ring. Major then announced that whatever the committee said he would ban all handguns except single action, single shot .22s. YOU WHAT? So not only has Major said hes going to ignore the committees recommendations if they come in at less than a full ban (which they did) but hes snubbed a very old friend who he appointed to chair the committee, declared that there will be no debate on the bill and then had the party whips bully the members into backing it. It was a blatant attempt to disregard common sense in a bid to win votes (which failed, he still lost the next election). Theres also no lower limit on the amount of people who must be present for a bill to be passed (again, see The New Statesman where the protagonist Alan BStard tables a vote and has it passed with around eleven people present in the House). As may be seen above, the House of Lords has no power and given the current state of play where the only people in the Lords are life peers (appointed by the PM who gave them a peerage), the power of delay is pointless too. This is one reason why getting rid of hereditary peers was a bad idea. This is also how Herr Blair can table a bill to repeal (strike off) Section 28 (clauses in a bill become sections in an act) and then accuse the Lords of sinking it when the Lords can be bypassed or failing that just bullied into complying. Translation: Blair never had any intention of Section 28 being repealed but he tabled it to win votes from the liberal lobby then had it stopped by the Lords so as not to lose face with Middle England (On a personal note, I think Blair is evil incarnate, Hague is usually wrong but at least hes trying to get it right, Blair is simply out for himself). Another problem: Bills are filled with legalistic language, you almost need a legal degree to understand them. So even if the MP turns up to vote, they often have no idea what theyre voting for. The major problem is the practice of pairing. Put simply, this means that if an MP cant be bothered to vote, hell find an MP planning to vote the other way and theyll both arrange to stay away meaning that, in theory, the absence of both doesnt affect the end result. However, its a very old trick to arrange to be paired and then turn up to vote anyway.
Most people think that they, that vague, nebulous term for the powers that be are at least making an attempt to look after your best interests. Surely Joe Mundane thinks they wouldnt let them sell us poisonous water, BSE infected beef, mobile phones that will give us cancer. Surely they wouldnt outlaw our lifestyles just to gain a few votes. Joe Mundane has overlooked the fact that OF COURSE THEY WOULD!!! Ill put this as simply as I possibly can. With a very few exceptions, politicians are in politics for personal power, pure and simple. To make the point even more direct, Tony B (and Hague and almost every other politician) will take you, Neon, you, Angyl, me, Ebon or anybody else, flay your skin down to the nerve endings with a cheese-grater and then dump you in a bath of vinegar to win an extra two votes. Why do you think the government tables legislation which is blatantly morally wrong? Because it will win over Joe Mundane.
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