Download or read book Legislation at Westminster written by Meg Russell and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Westminster parliament is a highly visible political institution, and one of its core functions is approving new laws. Yet Britain's legislative process is often seen as executive-dominated, and parliament as relatively weak. As this book shows, such impressions can be misleading. Drawing on the largest study of its kind for more than forty years, Meg Russell and Daniel Gover cast new light on the political dynamics that shape the legislative process. They provide a fascinating account of the passage of twelve government bills - collectively attracting more than 4000 proposed amendments - through both the House of Commons and House of Lords. These include highly contested changes such as Labour's identity cards scheme and the coalition's welfare reforms, alongside other relatively uncontroversial measures. As well as studying the parliamentary record and amendments, the study draws from more than 100 interviews with legislative insiders. Following introductory chapters about the Westminster legislative process, the book focuses on the contribution of distinct parliamentary 'actors', including the government, opposition, backbenchers, select committees, and pressure groups. It considers their behaviour in the legislative process, what they seek to achieve, and crucially how they influence policy decisions. The final chapter reflects on Westminster's influence overall, showing this to be far greater than commonly assumed. Parliamentary influence is asserted in various different ways - ranging from visible amendments to more subtle means of changing government's behaviour. The book's findings make an important contribution to understanding both British politics and the dynamics of legislative bodies more broadly. Its readability and relevance will appeal to both specialists and general readers with interests in politics and law, in the UK and beyond.
Download or read book A Treatise Upon the Law Privileges Proceedings and Usage of Parliament written by Thomas Erskine May and published by . This book was released on 1844 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Dramas at Westminster written by Marc Geddes and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2019-12-06 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on unprecedented access to the UK Parliament, this book challenges how we understand and think about accountability between government and Parliament. Drawing on three months of research in Westminster, and over forty-five interviews, this book focuses on the everyday practices of Members of Parliament and officials to reveal how parliamentarians perform their scrutiny roles. Some MPs become specialists while others act as lone wolves; some are there to try to defend their party while others want to learn about policy. Amongst these different styles, chairs of committees have to try to reconcile these interpretations and either act as committee-orientated catalysts or attempt to impose order as leadership-orientated chieftains. All of this pushes and pulls scrutiny in competing directions, and tells us that accountability depends on individual beliefs, everyday practices and the negotiation of dilemmas. In this way, MPs and officials create a drama or spectacle of accountability and use their performance on the parliamentary stage to hold government to account. Dramas at Westminster: Select committees and the quest for accountability offers the most up-to-date and detailed research on committee practices in the House of Commons, following a range of reforms since 2010.
Download or read book A Short History of Parliament written by Clyve Jones and published by Boydell Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This institutional history charts the development and evolution of parliament from the Scottish and Irish parliaments, through the post-Act of Union parliament and into the devolved assemblies of the 1990s. It considers all aspects of parliament as an institution, including membership, parties, constituencies and elections.
Download or read book The Story of Parliament written by John Field and published by Third Millennium Information. This book was released on 2009-10 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book fills what has long been a gap - an essential work giving the history of Parliament in a digestible form. Anthony Howard CBEThis book gave me real pleasure. The Rt Hon Lord Hurd of Westwall CH CBE (Douglas Hurd)The standard work of parliamentary history designed for the general reader. This new edition of The Story of Parliament has been brought completely up to date with recent events. Thoroughly revised and updated, it includes the new Parliament since the May 2010 General Election, and major changes such as devolution and the reorganisation of the House of Lords.The book represents a unique approach to the way Parliament was established and evolved as the worldwide model for parliamentary democracy. The Story of Parliament is enriched by dramatic episodes and colorful personalities, and includes numerous illustrations as well as plans and simple explanations of the legislative process.Written by John Field
Download or read book Westminster s World written by Donald Searing and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Policy Advocates to Whips to Ministers, the many roles within the British Parliament are shaped not only by institutional rules but also by the individuals who fill them, yet few observers have fully appreciated this vital aspect of governing in one of the world's oldest representative systems. Applying a new motivational role theory to materials from extensive first-hand interviews conducted during the eventful 1970s, Donald Searing deepens our understanding of how Members of Parliament understand their goals, their careers, and their impact on domestic and global issues. He explores how Westminster's world both controls and is created by individuals, illuminating the interplay of institutional constraints and individual choice in shaping roles within the political arena. No other book tells us so much about political life at Westminster. Searing has interviewed 521 Members of Parliament--including Conservative Ministers Margaret Thatcher, Peter Walker, and James Prior; Labour Ministers Harold Wilson, Barbara Castle, and Denis Healey; rising stars Michael Heseltine, Norman Tebbitt, David Owen, and Roy Hattersley; habitual outsiders, like Michael Foot, who eventually joined the inner circle; and former insiders, like Enoch Powell, who were shut out. Searing also gives voice to the vast number of Westminster's backbenchers, who play a key part in shaping political roles in Parliament but are less likely to be heard in the media: trade unionists, knights of the shires, owners of small businesses, and others. In this segment of his study, women, senior backbenchers, and newcomers are well represented. Searing adroitly blends quantitative with qualitative analysis and integrates social and economic theories about political behavior. He addresses concerns about power, duty, ambition, and representation, and skillfully joins these concerns with his critical discoveries about the desires, beliefs, and behaviors associated with roles in Parliament. Westminster's World offers political scientists, historians, anthropologists, political commentators, and the public rich new material about the House of Commons as well as a convincing model for understanding the structure and dynamics of political roles.
Download or read book The Contemporary House of Lords written by Meg Russell and published by . This book was released on 2013-07-11 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Painting a detailed portrait of the House of Lords since reform removed most hereditary members in 1999, this book demonstrates the chamber's newly diverse membership and substantial policy impact in British politics. It also places the Lords in a comparative context, asks if it can be considered 'legitimate', and examines the likelihood of reform.
Download or read book The Houses of Parliament written by Bryan H. Fell and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Rebuilding the Houses of Parliament written by Henrik Schoenefeldt and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rebuilding the Houses of Parliament explores the history of the UK Houses of Parliament in Westminster from an environmental design perspective, and the role David Boswell Reid played in the development of the original ventilation and climate control system in parliament. This book retraces and critically examines the evolution of the environmental principles underlying the design of the Houses of Parliament, engaging with fundamental questions about air quality, energy efficiency and thermal comfort. This yields insights into the historic methods of environmental design that were characterised by physical experimentation and post-occupancy evaluation. Rebuilding the Houses of Parliament examines the history of the buildings' operation, studying the practical reality of its performance in use and offers the opportunity to reflect on current challenges faced by architects and engineers adapting to the realities of climate change. This book is an ideal read for academics, politicians and practitioners with an interest in architectural history and heritage, theory, engineering and conservation.
Download or read book The Story of Parliament in the Palace of Westminster written by John Field and published by Methuen Publishing. This book was released on 2002 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Story of Parliament presents the dramatic events, confrontation, struggle, war and compromise which have marked the evolution of the world's greatest democratic institution.
Download or read book The Palace of Westminster written by and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Women of Westminster written by Rachel Reeves and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-03-07 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1919 Nancy Astor was elected as the Member of Parliament for Plymouth Sutton, becoming the first woman MP to take her seat in the House of Commons. Her achievement was all the more remarkable given that women (and even then only some women) had only been entitled to vote for just over a year. In the past 100 years, a total of 491 women have been elected to Parliament. Yet it was not until 2016 that the total number of women ever elected surpassed the number of male MPs in a single parliament. The achievements of these political pioneers have been remarkable – Britain has now had two female Prime Ministers and women MPs have made significant strides in fighting for gender equality from the earliest suffrage campaigns to Barbara Castle's fight for equal pay to Harriet Harman's recent legislation on the gender pay gap. Yet the stories of so many women MPs have too often been overlooked in political histories. In this book, Rachel Reeves brings forgotten MPs out of the shadows and looks at the many battles fought by the Women of Westminster, from 1919 to 2019.
Download or read book The House of Commons Library written by David Menhennet and published by Stationery Office Books (TSO). This book was released on 2000 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Westminster Part II The Art Architecture and Archaeology of the Royal Palace written by Warwick Rodwell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-04-27 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Westminster came into existence in the later Anglo-Saxon period, and by the mid-11th century, when Edward the Confessor’s great new abbey was built, it was a major royal centre two miles south-west of the City of London. Within a century or so, it had become the principal seat of government in England, and this series of twenty-eight papers covers new research on the topography, buildings, art-history, architecture and archaeology of Westminster’s two great establishments — Abbey and Palace. Part I begins with studies of the topography of the area, an account of its Roman-period finds and an historiographical overview of the archaeology of the Abbey. Edward the Confessor’s enigmatic church plan is discussed and the evidence for later Romanesque structures is assembled for the first time. Five papers examine aspects of Henry III’s vast new Abbey church and its decoration. A further four cover aspects of the later medieval period, coronation, and Sir George Gilbert Scott’s impact as the Abbey’s greatest Surveyor of the Fabric. A pair of papers examines the development of the northern precinct of the Abbey, around St Margaret’s Church, and the remarkable buildings of Westminster School, created within the remains of the monastery in the 17th and 18th centuries. Part II part deals with the Palace of Westminster and its wider topography between the late 11th century and the devastating fire of 1834 that largely destroyed the medieval palace. William Rufus’s enormous hall and its famous roofs are completely reassessed, and comparisons discussed between this structure and the great hall at Caen. Other essays reconsider Henry III’s palace, St Stephen’s chapel, the king’s great chamber (the ‘Painted Chamber’) and the enigmatic Jewel Tower. The final papers examine the meeting places of Parliament and the living accommodation of the MPs who attended it, the topography of the Palace between the Reformation and the fire of 1834, and the building of the New Palace which is better known today as the Houses of Parliament.
Download or read book How Parliament Works 6th Edition written by Robert Rogers and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-13 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although Parliament is constantly in the news and televised daily, much of its work remains a mystery to outsiders and is sometimes perplexing even to its own members. This book provides a unique insight into the work and daily life of Parliament. It sets out plainly and intelligibly what goes on and why things happen, but it also analyses the pressures within the institution, its strengths and weaknesses, and ways in which it might change. Covering every aspect of the work, membership, and structures of both Houses, this book also reflects the profound changes that have taken place in Parliament over the years.
Download or read book The Houses of Parliament written by David Cannadine and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first time in over twenty years, the exquisite and unique building of the Houses of Parliament, also known as the Palace of Westminster, is the subject of an authoritative and fully illustrated publication, offering new insight into Britain's most famous and celebrated symbol of state. Spanning the medieval period to the present day, The Houses of Parliament: History, Art, Architecture is a fresh, innovative study of this unique and complex Victorian building, placing it within a broad historical, political, and cultural context. The absorbing narrative is complemented by newly commissioned photography and rarely seen archival material, revealing the richly ornamented interiors, the art and the architecture, and how they relate to the political institutions within this monumental edifice, the site of British authority since the eleventh century. -- First book published on the building for over 20 years. -- Fresh perspectives on the history, architecture, art and design of one of the most famous and recognizable buildings in the world. -- Sumptuously illustrated with newly commissioned photography and unseen archival material and artwork from the medieval period to the present day. -- The scene of many of the most famous and significant events in British history and politics. Continues to be at the centre of the British political world today. -- One of the most visited monuments in Europe, drawing millions of tourists from Britain and around the world each year.
Download or read book Constitutional Conventions in Westminster Systems written by Brian Galligan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-08-04 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conventions are fundamental to the constitutional systems of parliamentary democracies. Unlike the United States which adopted a republican form of government, with a full separation of powers, codified constitutional structures and limitations for executive and legislative institutions and actors, Britain and subsequently Canada, Australia and New Zealand have relied on conventions to perform similar functions. The rise of new political actors has disrupted the stability of the two-party system, and in seeking power the new players are challenging existing practices. Conventions that govern constitutional arrangements in Britain and New Zealand, and the executive in Canada and Australia, are changing to accommodate these and other challenges of modern governance. In Westminster democracies, constitutional conventions provide the rules for forming government; they precede law and make law-making possible. This prior and more fundamental realm of government formation and law making is shaped and structured by conventions.
