Essay Example on Bill is a long process which usually takes months to be finally passed and Enacted

The passage of a Bill is a long process which usually takes months to be finally passed and enacted The process is as follows Firstly before the Bill is placed at Parliament it is needed to be written This happens when a policy is identified by the relevant government department This policy objective may have been set out in an election manifesto and they process a preliminary report to stimulate public discussion this is called a Green Paper Then after they re happy with that the creation of a White Paper can begin This is a report giving information and proposals on an issue by the government Usually after this the draft can be made When the final draft is completed it will be put forward to Parliament Then the first reading can now happen in the House of Commons This acts as a preliminary notion of the proposed measure and what the Bill includes Afterwards a second hearing occurs with the proposals debated within the House Some of the proposals may be amended after discussion and a vote is occurs on whether the legislation should be enacted Usually a party whip is used an official who makes sure MPs vote to support their party 

Therefore the majority government can almost always pass a Bill in favour of their policies Next is the committee stage the Bill is examined by a select group who sit in the House of Commons they take into account the arguments made in the debate And often make further amendments to the Bill Finally before the House of Lords the committee then feedbacks any proposed amendments and further debate and voting takes place after the third reading After its agreed in the House of Commons it is passed to the House of Lords where a similar process occurs with a first and second reading Then another committee stage with a report and third reading However if the Lords vote to disagree with the Bill then it gets taken back to the House of commons for further change This has happened with cases like the War Crimes Act and the Hunting Act Although if the Lords agree with the Bill it will be presented for Royal Assent and the King or Queen will give their consent to all Bills before it becomes law In reality the consent is never refused One of the reasons secondary legislation is used is because it saves a lot of time As you can see the passage of a Bill is a long and lengthy process that undertakes much debate and change Some of the Bills take months to be approved within both the House of Commons and House of Lords delaying the possible effect it may have Statutory Instruments are used in favor to save time in laws that may need quickly updating to get with modern times For example the banning of using a mobile phone while driving was issued by a Statutory Instrument No 2695 by the Minister of Transport under the Road Traffic Act This saved a lot of time as the update didn t have to go through Parliament and updated a crucial law that prevents traffic accidents 

For this reason making the use of secondary legislation very useful as it allows for rapid change In spite of that many opposing Conservative members have critiqued the current Governments over use of statutory instruments One article states that the Executive is using a Parliamentary loophole to pass controversial laws One such plan would to allow the use of fracking at national parks without a vote in Parliament Fracking is a highly debated controversial topic that many believe should be processed by Parliament In fact the number of statutory instruments was 3485 in 2014 at its peak This high amount of secondary legislation is difficult for the public and interested parties to raises their opinion within the matter One negative of secondary legislation is that the sub delegation of power to make the law As it is often civil servants who write and draft the proposed legislation and Ministers simply rubber stamping the ideas Therefore this gives power to the civil servant and raises the question of What Ministers actually do if most of the decisions are ruled by civil servants who have not been elected to serve the people On the other hand a positive use is that local and technical knowledge that MPs lack is being used This is important as then secondary legislation can be used to improve an area For instance the Cableway Installation Regulations an amendment needed technical knowledge as for why the UK should comply with the European Union directive The UK is obliged to implement under the Treaty of Rome and therefore it did implement the directives by the drafted regulations The EU wanted to harmonise the design and manufacture of cableway products in order to provide the market free movement for the parts and added protection for its users This provides the suppliers an added bonus as they can now specialise in making parts that are universally accepted across the EU which also are much safer to use Hence why the Secretary of Transport did pass this Secondary Legislation as it required technical knowledge that he sort after to comply with the EU directive