“Critically evaluate the relationship between Members of Parliament, political parties and pressure groups in the formation of legislation."
Written by Jayna Shah (Feb 2007).
Introduction
Members of Parliament, political parties, and pressure groups all influence the formation of legislation. Members of Parliament also have an active role in making legislation, Acts of Parliament.
Most of the influence takes place during the consultation stage of a Bill. Though some of the influence can happen before that stage and because of it create a Bill.
There are other influences on parliamentary law-making. These include the European Union law, media, current events, case law, civil service, public opinion
Members of Parliament (MPs)
Parliament is made up of the Queen, the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The Members of Parliament concerned with here are those who sit in the House of Commons or the House of Lords. The Members of Parliament who sit in the House of Commons are elected by the public; however those who sit in the House of Lords are not.
Members of Parliament can influence the formation of legislation by putting forward private members’ Bills. These types of Bills will only affect corporations or individual people, unlike public Bills which will affect most of the country or the whole country and contain matters of public policy. This can be done through a ballot or the 10-minute rule.
Through ballots, 20 private members (MPs) are selected in a Parliamentary session. The members then present the Bill to Parliament, which is then debated. Not many members get a chance to present the Bill they wish to sponsor, as time to do so is limited. The Abortion Act 1967 and the Marriage Act 1994 are examples of Bills which had undergone the ballot to become Acts of Parliament.
A Member of Parliament can support the introduction of a Bill by making a speech up to 10 minutes long under the 10-minute rule. An example of a Bill which had undergone the 10- minute rule to become an Act is the Bail (Amendment) Act 1993.
Even if the Bill does not become an Act of Parliament, the issue has been drawn to the attention of Parliament, which may wish to consider the issue more and maybe bring in its own Bill on the issue later on. Also it is a quick and easy way to get a Bill introduced. These Bills may be on issues the Government may not have considered yet and therefore saves the Government time and money because they would not have to go into much detail when researching the issue.
Some of the Bills put forward by Members’ of Parliament through the ballot process may not be on important issues and take up time which could have been used to put forward the more important Bills in the selected 20, this is because of the time limit which doesn’t allow all 20 members to present the Bills they are sponsoring. Also the 10-minute rule doesn’t give Members of Parliament much time to make a speech on a Bill they are supporting, which can mean not enough is said to convince Parliament to at least look into the Bill.
Political parties
The three main political parties are the Labour party, the Conservative party, and the Liberal Democratic party. At the moment the Labour party forms the Government as they have the simple majority of seats in the House of Commons.
Political parties influence the formation of legislation through their manifestos, which contain reforms and proposals for law, and their general ideology. If any of the other political parties’ manifestos contained a popular law reform or proposal the government may wish to introduce them as Bills to Parliament.
The law reforms proposals are wanted by the public otherwise they shouldn’t have voted the political party to become the Government (they make Bills and introduce them to Parliament) so there shouldn’t be much objection to it.
Unfortunately as the new government can be voted in by simple majority (one vote more than anyone else could win them the election which could be an unfair representation of what the public want), the policies they have may not be popular with the whole population. Political parties do not usually contain experts so they do not have in depth knowledge of the law reforms or proposals they are trying to influence.
Pressure groups
Some of the pressure groups include Greenpeace, Shelter, Child Poverty, trade unions, the British Medical Association, the Law Society, Justice and Amnesty International.
Pressure groups influence the formation of legislation by organizing petitions, lobbying MPs, getting members of the public to write to the MPs concerned, getting as much publicity as possible and so on. The size and persistence of the pressure groups also help in getting the issue heard.
Due to influence from pressure groups the age of consent for homosexual acts was reduced to 18 from 21 in 1994.
One person is rarely heard by themselves but if you join a group of people you are more likely to be heard. Pressure groups grab the attention of the public who may then wish to join/support the group. It also grabs the attention of MPs who may then wish to discuss the issue further with their political party and may then put forward a Bill on the issue.
Some people will always dislike what the pressure groups want and will fight against them. They could do this by just ignoring the pressure groups or by starting another group which will argue against the pressure groups cause. Some of the methods used by pressure groups are very questionable and some are very annoying, this can cause the public to turn against these pressure groups even if they support the cause.
Relationship between Members of Parliament, political parties, and pressure groups
There is a link between Members of Parliament and political parties. The political parties are not made up entirely of Members of Parliament. The MP’s who sit in the House of Commons all belong to political parties; Alan Keen MP belongs to the Labour party. The political parties the MPs belong to can influence them to help Bills which they (political parties) favour through the legislative process and those they don’t not through the process. They can also influence the MP to try to introduce a Bill into the legislative process through the ballot process or the 10 minute rule.
Pressure groups can also influence Member of Parliament. It is very unlikely that a Member of Parliament belongs to a pressure group as then they would be seen to be biased. MPs may be influenced to try to introduce a Bill through the 10 minute rule or ballot process by pressure groups.
Pressure groups can influence political parties into changing their manifesto to contain law reforms and proposals wanted by the pressure groups, if the pressure groups have much support from the public.
Conclusion
Members of Parliament, political parties and pressure groups all have an influence in the formation of legislation. They can also influence each other in the formation of legislation.
Bibliography
The following are the resources I used to help me complete this essay: