How Do Laws Get Passed In The UK?

the UK parliamentary system can seem a little confusing from the outside it's hard to know what's going on inside Parliament and what it means for your life that's why we were on a series called this week in Parliament to show you exactly what bills are being discussed on the floor we've loads of people ask us go into more detail about how bills actually go through the house and explain how laws are passed in the UK before you enter specifics of the bill it's important to first understand just how the British Parliament works Parliament is split into two houses the House of Commons and the House of Lords the House of Commons seats 650 members of parliament or MPs people elected to represent areas of the UK known as constituencies the House of Lords sits around 800 unelected members known as Lords they're appointed by the Queen usually at the advice of the Prime Minister or the House of Lords appointment committee established in 2000 the role of the Lords today is to hold the government to account and make sure that the laws being passed are effective and fit for purpose they cannot veto legislation though they can only delay it for one year historically this wasn't always the case in the past if the House of Lords didn't like a piece of legislation that the House of Commons suggested they could stop it completely this changed due to parsing of the Parliament acts in 1911 and 1949 these acts removed the veto power from the House of Lords and instead allowed them to delay legislation for two years and then for one year respectively these steps majorly reduce the power of the House of Lords in addition Fiss the Salisbury Convention which started in the 1940s was and still is an agreement between the House of Lords and the House of Commons which says that if a piece of legislation is in the government's manifesto the House of Lords will not block it at the second or third reading this again reduces the power of the House of Lords so in the modern day the House of Lords has a lot less power than it once did and serves only really as a check to make sure that the pieces of legislation are fit for purpose this isn't to say that their job isn't useful just that they can't cause as big a problem for the government as they once could now I've explained a brief history of the relationship between the House of Commons and the House of Lords it's time for the exciting bit how the laws are passed for the purposes of this video we're going to look at bills starting in the House of Commons introduced by the government known as public bills there are also what are known as private member's bills which are introduced by MPs or Lords who are not government ministers as well as private and hybrid bills there's so much to discuss that will have to do that in another video if you'd like us to cover these types of bills in a video like this video and comment below to let us know the first step towards legislation is often a green paper which is usually vague and contains multiple policy options these are consultation documents introduced mainly to stimulate parliamentary discussion on the topic of legislation once it's been briefly discussed in Parliament the government we usually begin the consulting citizens and the public bodies which are most liked to be affected by the legislation once this process is finished the government will then issue what's known as a white paper this will be informed by the public consultation and contain more concrete policy proposals they often include a draft bill to provide a basis changes to be made before the bill is formally presented to Parliament finally a bill is formally proposed and read this is the first reading there's no debate at this stage the bill will usually just be read to the House of Commons the next stage is the second reading this is when the House of Commons has its first debate on the proposed bill after the debate MPs have a vote on whether the bill should continue if it succeeds then the bill goes on to the third stage known as the committee stage this is when one of the committees in Parliament takes a closer look at the proposed bill the chairman of the committee can then decide which amendments the bill are discussed and then voted on by the committee after this is a chance for the whole House of Commons to suggest amendments this is known as the report stage once the whole of the House has had the opportunity to suggest amendments the bill goes on to its third reading usually there's little debate at the end of this stage the bill is voted on if it succeeds and it goes on to the House of Lords at this point the process is repeated in generally the same format in the House of Lords like in the House of Commons the bill goes through a first reading second reading committee stage report stage and third reading in the House of Lords if the House of Lords decide any changes to the bill then it's then sent back the House of Commons to be debated and agreed to there if during this stage the House of Commons makes any amendments is then sent back to the House of Lords to agree to this continues until no more changes are made this back and forth procedure is known as ping pong once the ping pong has stopped and both houses have agreed on the wording of the bill it's sent to the Queen for Royal Assent this is when the Queen signs off the bill and allows it to become law it's a convention that the Queen always grants royal assent the Parliament acts mentioned earlier can be used if during parliamentary ping-pong neither house can agree on the wording of the bill the House of Commons in these exceptional circumstances pulls rank so it's clear that both the House of Commons and House of Lords play a vital role in the lengthy process of creating laws in the UK if you want to stay up to date with where bills are in this process and what MPs are debating in the house you would enjoy our series this week in Parliament we're bringing the series back next weekend and we'll be running it bigger and better than ever all the way through until Christmas if you want to find out more about the series and what changes can be made this season then you can read the article that I've just posted on our patreon page you don't need to be a patreon backer to read the article but if you had been a backer you'd been able to read it a couple of days in advance so if you want all of the exclusive news as well as early video access producer credits and other perks sign up to be our patreon and chock a few bucks a month our way if you don't want to do that then make sure subscribe to our channel and the this week in Parliament newsletter for all of the latest updates when this series returns

Channel: TLDR News

Views: 107,455

Keywords: laws, bills, passed, passage, created, made, uk, united kingdom, parliament, house of commons, house of lords, commons, lords, england, wales, northern ireland, scotland, politicians, government, create, law, rules, tldr news, tldr, law making, uk parliament, theresa may, this week in parliament, twip

Id: g5CJNLRqZXs

Length: 6min 5sec (365 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 23 2018