Green papers, white papers and draft bills
You may have come across references to government “Green Papers” or “White Papers” and wondered what these are. What follows is a brief overview of both. Green Papers, like white papers, originated in Great Britain. The term was coined by London newspapers from the colour of the covers of this type of document. The first [...]
The Queen’s Speech
The UK House of Commons will prorogue on 1 May 2012, and open a new session of Parliament on 9 May 2012 with a State Opening. A State Opening takes place on the first day of a new parliamentary session or shortly after a general election. The last State Opening took place on Tuesday 25 [...]
Keyword post: Do ministers continue to hold office during an election?
During an election campaign, the ministry continues to hold office until a new ministry is sworn in. There are, however, limitations on what a minister can do during both the election campaign and the period of government formation following a general election. This is commonly referred to as the “caretaker convention”. The Government of Canada’s [...]
Collective ministerial responsibility and Coalition Government
There appears to be significant interest in the issue of collective ministerial responsibility during Coalition government. For what follows, I will be largely quoting or paraphrasing Vernon Bogdanor’s The Coalition and the Constitution. Following the formation of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition in May 2010, the Coalition issued its Programme for Government which outlined in detail [...]
Why there won’t be a debate on the Drop the Health Bill e-petition
On 28 February 2012, the UK House of Commons Backbench Business Committee declined an application to hold a debate on an e-petition calling on Parliament to drop the Government’s bill to reform the National Health Service (NHS). The e-petition had received over 100,000 signatures, and the request for a debate was brought to the Committee [...]
How the Backbench Business Committee works
I have written a number of posts about the UK House of Commons Backbench Business Committee, trying to explain to readers what the committee is, what it does, and its role in relation to petition-driven debates. The Committee’s website now includes a very useful “How the Backbench Business Committee Works” page, complete with a video [...]
The Financial Privilege of the House of Commons
A controversial bill overhauling the UK’s social benefits system suffered a number of defeats in the House of Lords as the upper chamber rejected several provisions of the Government’s bill. When the bill was returned to the House of Commons, something happened. A committee of the House of Commons resolved that the bill “engages the [...]
The Primacy of the Commons and Lords Reform
As I have previously written, the UK Government has brought forward a draft bill on reforming the House of Lords. A Joint Select Committee – meaning a committee with membership drawn from both the House of Commons and the Lords – has been holding a series of meetings hearing from constitutional and other experts. I [...]
Parliaments, PMOs and Social Media
On Tuesday, 31 January 2012, Education Secretary Michael Gove appeared before the House of Commons Education Committee. It is the Committee’s mandate to monitor the policy, administration and spending of the Department for Education and its associated arms length bodies, and having the Minister give evidence allows them to scrutinize his work, performance and policies. [...]
Scottish Consultation on Independence Referendum
As mentioned in an earlier post, the Scottish Government launched its own consultation on a referendum on Scottish independence, which you can view here. The consultation runs until 11 May 2012. The Scottish Government is looking to hold said referendum in the fall of 2014. This time frame is to allow for the responses to [...]
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On procedure and politics by Radical Centrist is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
