Law essay

vote within the House which determines whether it will progress to the second reading for which a date is then set. Before the second reading the Minister makes a statement due to the Human Rights Act 1998 to state that the bill is compatible with it, if not the government won't go ahead with it. The second reading is when the House debates the whole Bill focusing on its main aims. The Minister begins the debate and at the end another vote is held to see if the bill should be progressed onto the next stage in the House which is The Committee Stage. The bill is given a detailed inspection by 16 to 50 MP's who make up the Standing Committee. These MP's will have knowledge or be interested in the subject of the bill and will make changes which will be voted upon within the committee. Financial bills are inspected by the whole House. In the House of Lords there are no Standing Committees instead the whole house examines the bill. Once the Standing Committee have made the amendments they report back to the House where the changes are debated and the House decides whether to accept or reject them by a vote. The MP's in the House may also add other changes. This is called the Report Stage, if there are no amendments made by the Standing Committee the bill progresses straight to the Third Reading. At the Third Reading the whole bill is reviewed and a vote decides whether the bill should progress through to the other House of Parliament. If the bill started off in the House of Commons (which most do) it goes through to the House of Lords where the same five stages are repeated, if any changes are made by the Lords the bill must go back to the House of Commons for examination. If the Lords don't accept the bill that has been approved by the Commons the Lords can delay the progression of the bill for up to a year unless it is a financial bill which can only be delayed for a month. This is stated in the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949. After this time the Commons can send the bill for royal assent without the Lords agreement. The House of Commons has domination over the House of Lords because the public vote for them and therefore they represent the people. Once a bill has passed through both the House of Commons and the House of Lords it needs Royal Assent to become a law. This means the Queen must formally approve the bill to make it an Act of Parliament. The assent is given by the Speaker in the House of Commons and the Lord Speaker in the House of Lords. The Act comes into force at midnight of the day it is given Royal Assent unless it requires special resources to be prepared and put into place in which case there will be a slight delay.