As mentioned in an earlier post, I was successful in the ballot for a Thursday debate and my motion – to call attention to the case for enhancing the means available to the House of Lords to scrutinise legislation and public policy – occupied the the first of today’s two debates. The debate was notable for the…
One of the other meetings I attended this past week was a Hansard Society seminar. It was the first in a series on ‘Making Better Law’. I gave a paper that examined some of the problems at the heart of the current law-making process. I identified various problems. One is the sheer volume of legislation. …
The Joint Committee on the Draft Constitutional Renewal Bill completed work on the draft Bill last Tuesday – the last day of sitting prior to the summer recess. Though the recommended period is a minimum of three months for a committee to engage in pre-legislative scrutiny, we had under three months to examine what constitutes five…
I promised in response to a comment on an earlier post to discuss post-legislative scrutiny. When I chaired the Constitution Committee of the Lords, we undertook a major inquiry into the legislative process. We looked at the legislative process holistically, examining not only the process when a Bill is before Parliament but also pre-legislative and…
