Legislative procedure in the House of Lords
Submission and first reading of bills
The first bill submitted to the house of lords
Before the announcement and agenda are announced, at the beginning of public business, or (in rare cases) at the end of public business before the adjournment of parliament (rule 39, paragraph 3), members of the House of Lords who are ready to introduce bills should stand up and introduce bills by reading out detailed titles. Later, the Member moved a motion of First Reading, which was put to the vote by the Chief Justice. Because at this stage, the House of Representatives does not know much about the contents of the bill, and the bill is usually passed without causing controversy or opposition. Subsequently, the bill was ordered to be printed. Compared with the legislative practice of the lower house, usually a bill can be printed immediately after it is put forward by the upper house. Write the name of the sponsor at the end of the bill, but don't attach other people's names. Members of the House of Lords may propose bills on behalf of other members of the House of Lords.
A bill put forward by the lower house to the upper house
The procedure for proposing a bill is to first propose a bill to the lower house and pass it. The clerk of the lower house shall submit it to the upper house and declare that the lower house has passed the bill. At the end of the pending matters, the person on duty will read this statement. The leader of the house of lords moves the first reading of a bill (whether it is a government bill or a member's personal bill), if. In the absence of the leader of the House of Lords, the leaders of other political parties will move a first reading motion.
Like the House of Lords bill, after the House of Lords bill is submitted to the House of Lords, out of courtesy, and there is no formal responsibility of the members of the House of Lords at this stage, the bill is generally passed on first reading and will not cause controversy. But there will be some deviations in practice. After the first reading, the bill was submitted for printing, and the name of the member of the House of Lords in charge of the bill was no longer indicated.
Procedure after first reading
Notice of subsequent stages.
After the bill is submitted, it belongs to the House of Representatives, not just the member in charge of the bill. In practice, however, the commencement dates of the Second Reading and subsequent stages were announced by the members in charge of bills in the House of Lords. After the first reading stage, a bill will be included in the list of bills "awaiting second reading" in the procedure. After the date of the second reading or the subsequent stage is determined, it will be announced in the second half of the meeting.
Any member of the House of Lords can move a motion in the name of the member in charge of bills in the House of Lords to start a certain stage.
Bills in the House of Commons shall not exceed 12 sessions.
For a bill submitted by the House of Commons, if the members of the House of Lords do not announce the date of second reading within 12 session, the bill shall not go to the next stage unless there is an announcement period of 8 days (Rule 47 of the Rules of Procedure). Motion to suspend the rules of procedure will be passed in individual cases.
Withdrawal of bills (withdrawal of bills)
According to an old congressional rule, a bill submitted by one house cannot be withdrawn at any stage. A no-objection bill submitted to the House of Lords for the first time with authorization (permission) can be withdrawn at any time after the members of the House of Lords who submitted the bill read it first. Members may withdraw the bill at the relevant stage or withdraw the bill with another bill (if the bill is between two stages).
Second reading
The second reading is the stage of considering the basic principles of the bill. After the Secretary reads the announcement of the second reading, the Member in charge of the bill will move the second reading and explain the purpose of the bill. After the speaker's speech, members in the front row of the upper house raised the question of "Now the motion is read for the second time", and then the debate began. Debate on the details of the Bill will be held at the Committee stage. Members can explain why they think the Bill should be amended and the general principles of their proposed amendments.
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After the second reading of a bill, it is usually submitted to the Committee of the whole hospital without a vote in accordance with rule 45 of the rules of procedure. In some cases, if the house has special provisions on delivery, different procedures need to be applied; Or because the bill belongs to a special category, the House of Representatives makes other provisions. Unless otherwise stipulated by the House of Representatives, the next step in submitting a bill to a large committee, a special public law bill committee or a public law bill committee is to enter the reporting stage, but the next step in submitting a bill to a special committee or a Scottish special committee is to resubmit the bill to the whole committee.
amendment
In the House of Lords, amendments are allowed at the committee, report and third reading stages. This section will describe the Committee's procedures for handling amendments, which are basically the same as those in the reporting and third reading stages, and the differences will be described later.
House committee of the whole.
Procedures of the whole hospital Committee
As the name implies, the committee of the whole hospital is composed of all members of the House of Representatives. In fact, this is an informal external image of the House of Representatives, presided over by a chairman rather than the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and guided by the principle of more flexible procedures.
Procedure of the Committee The procedure of the Committee is similar to that of the House of Representatives when it is in session, but members can speak on a certain issue many times and cannot move the next item.
When the House of Representatives read out the announcement that the bill had been submitted to the Committee, the member in charge of the bill put forward a motion that "the House of Representatives now enters the Committee stage". This motion can sometimes be used as an opportunity to ask questions or put forward opinions related to the amendment. All kinds of objections can be raised to this motion. In fact, there are few such objections. If the Committee stage lasts more than one day, the motion "Now the House of Representatives will enter the Committee stage again" may provide an opportunity to ask questions about the follow-up deliberation of the bill.
Renew commitment
A bill submitted to a special committee or joint committee for deliberation shall be submitted to the committee of the whole hospital for deliberation after the committee has submitted a deliberation report, except that it is explicitly denied in the report of the special committee or joint committee. Comprehensive bills (frequent), mixed bills (infrequent) and bills submitted to the Scottish Special Committee are usually resubmitted for consideration.
According to the bills put forward at any time between the National Committee and the Third Reading stage (controversial and need to be announced), all or part of the provisions or schedules of other bills can be submitted to the National Committee of the whole hospital or the General Assembly for reconsideration. When the bill or some parts of the bill need to be considered in more detail, the above procedure can be adopted, but there is no restriction on the report or the speech during the third reading. For example, when an important amendment is put forward too late at the Committee stage, it is impossible for the Committee to consider it; There are many handwritten modifications; Or propose amendments to the contents that have not been considered by the Committee at a later stage of the Committee. This procedure reserved the opportunity for the reporting stage to reconsider and improve the bills revised by the Committee. A bill that the House of Representatives enters the committee stage in the order of redelivery can be debated and opposed like "the House of Representatives enters the committee stage". The procedure of redelivery is the same as that of the committee of the whole hospital, but the shortest time interval between the committee stage and the report stage does not apply to redelivery.
Report (report)
The bill revised by the Committee must enter the reporting stage on a later working day. After the announcement of the report stage was read out on the specified date, the member in charge of the bill proposed the motion of "passing the report now"; If it is necessary to continue the reporting stage in the next few days, a motion of "continuing the bill review in the reporting stage now" will be proposed. The motion can be rejected, debated or subdivided; You can put forward a motion to postpone the reporting stage, and you can put forward a delayed amendment or a reasonable amendment aimed at opposing or recording special opinions when passing the motion.
Read and pass the third time.
The bill can only be read for the third time after the motion of "the third reading of the current bill" is formally put forward and questions are raised on the motion. There will be no debate at the third reading stage. Although according to the way of second reading, the motion that has been read for the third time may cause debate or be opposed, reasonable amendments or postponed amendments can be proposed to the motion that has been read for the third time, and these objections will only be effective when the motion that "the bill is passed now" is proposed.
If a bill needs the consent of the Queen or the Prince of Wales, it should usually be approved before the third reading motion is proposed.
Legislative procedure in the House of Commons
Propose a motion
In the House of Commons, there are three ways to introduce bills:
(1) Propose a bill according to the order of the House of Representatives.
In the past, it was a common way to introduce a bill according to the order of the House of Representatives. The order was made in accordance with a resolution or in response to a letter from the monarch; Or after ordering to read out some speeches about the House of Representatives, laws of the National Assembly, matters recorded in bulletins, resolutions of the last session, reports of committees or other documents and materials possessed by the House of Representatives. However, the current procedure is almost limited to bills proposed according to appropriation or tax resolutions and bills proposed according to the 10 minute rule.
(2) There is no need to instruct bills without instructions.
According to rule 57 1 of the rules of procedure, the vast majority of bills introduced by royal ministers and many bills introduced by individual members of parliament were submitted after the announcement. Rule 14, paragraph 7, of the rules of procedure stipulates that only after the House of Representatives meets on the fifth Wednesday, so that individual members' bills decided by lot have priority on Friday, can individual members issue a notice to submit bills in accordance with rule 57 of the rules of procedure.
(3) Bills introduced by the House of Lords.
Bills introduced by the house of lords will not enter the proceedings of the house of commons unless some members express their intention to take charge of them.
According to rule 50, paragraph 2, of the rules of procedure, any bill introduced by the House of Lords, which is mainly about public taxation, can only enter the second reading procedure under the responsibility of the Royal Minister without the authorization of the relevant monetary resolution.
First reading and printing of bills.
The first reading, printing and the designated second reading date of the bill are all recorded in the gazette as the same formal stage.
A bill first proposed by the house of commons.
A bill, whether submitted by order of the House of Representatives or in accordance with rule 57, paragraph 1, should undoubtedly pass the first reading in accordance with rule 57, paragraph 2, and should be ordered to be read the second time and printed on the date specified by the members.
Once the bill is submitted, its short title will be placed on the bulletin board and included in the nominal bill, which will be read by the secretary. At present, there are many opinions on rule 57, paragraph 2, of the rules of procedure, which ensures that the efforts of the House of Representatives to examine bills item by item are rejected by the Speaker.
After reading the abbreviated title, the Speaker asked the member who submitted the bill to specify the second reading date, and the Speaker repeated the specified date so that the bill could be registered in the Gazette and submitted for printing, because it passed the first reading and specified the second reading date.
House of lords bill (house of lords bill)
According to Rule 57 (3) of the Rules of Procedure, if a Member informs the Secretary on duty that he wishes to be responsible for a bill introduced by the House of Lords, the bill is deemed to have passed the first reading on the same day and ordered to be read the second time on the date specified by him. At the same time, it will be recorded in the Gazette as having passed the first reading, and will be read the second time on the specified date before being submitted for printing. In printing, the date when the upper house submitted the bill should be recorded on the back of the bill, but the name of the member in charge of the bill is not required.
In order to ensure that the bill drawn by lot on Friday gives priority to the second reading of the member's personal bill, the Rules of Procedure stipulates that the member's personal bill is prohibited from being responsible for the bill submitted by the upper house before the date of bill drawing.
Inspection of bills before printing.
Once a bill is submitted, it is assumed that its contents have been checked by the Public Law Bill Office according to the following principles and submitted for printing. For government bills, before they are submitted, they are usually checked according to the draft submitted by the parliamentary advisory office; And announce it on the day or the next day when the bill is submitted. For a bill proposed by an individual member, the member in charge of the bill may submit a draft for reference before and after submitting the bill. The Public Law Bill Office mainly checks the draft bill to see if it is consistent with the provisions of the House of Representatives.
Print the bill before the second reading
After reviewing the draft law, according to the order of the House of Representatives, the bill will be submitted for printing, so that the contents of the bill can be made public before the second reading, so that every member can understand it. The Public Law Bill Office is responsible for numbering each bill, which will be renumbered at each stage of reprinting, as will the amendments proposed by the House of Lords. Restart numbering at each session.
If a bill is not printed, it cannot be proposed for a second reading vote. In the past, this rule was mastered by the spokesman in practice, but now the ninth paragraph of rule 14 of the rules of procedure has strict provisions. If a member's personal bill is not printed and delivered to the lottery office before the specified second reading date, the order to specify the second reading date when the House of Representatives meets will no longer be valid, and the second reading can be ordered again only after the bill is printed.
Changes in the bill (changes in the bill)
After the bill is printed and published, it is generally only allowed to correct the text or typographical errors of the bill. If the error is serious, you can publish the correct text of the bill instead of the wrong text, and explain the difference between the new text and the wrong text in front. If it is more appropriate to correct errors with errata, errata will be published separately (together with other bills that need to be reissued after errors are found). Speakers seldom remind attention to mistakes before the second reading or at other appropriate stages.
Withdrawal of bills and submission of other bills
If the member in charge of a bill wants to amend the contents of the bill before the second reading, he can only withdraw the bill and submit another bill. If it is necessary to change the title of the bill, it should also be handled accordingly. For the bill drafted according to the resolution, after the resolution of drafting the previous bill was read out, the bill was withdrawn and another bill was ordered to be drafted.
Withdraw a bill
The member in charge of the bill may withdraw the bill that has been put on the agenda before the secretary on duty gives notice. According to the bill put forward by the member in charge of the bill, when the agenda is read out at any stage of the bill, he can be ordered to cancel the agenda and withdraw the bill. The bill can be debated or withdrawn.
The member in charge of the bill may withdraw the bill on the premise that the bill is voted at the second reading (or at other stages). If there is any objection, the voting proposal cannot be withdrawn, and the relevant stage should continue. If a Member who is not in charge of a bill moves a second reading motion, he may be allowed to withdraw the motion, but he cannot withdraw the bill. At the Committee stage, if the Committee is first exempted from the power to consider a bill, the bill can be withdrawn at this stage.
According to an old parliamentary law, bills submitted by other houses cannot be withdrawn, and the House of Commons has never complied with this law. In this case, it is more appropriate for the members in charge of the bill in the Second House to cancel the agenda of the next stage of the bill.
Second reading (second reading)
Motion for Second Reading.
Once the second reading date is specified, the bill will be posted on the bulletin board with other agendas on the specified date, and will be read out in order when the date comes. If the bill is to be passed, the second reading is the first important stage; At this stage, the main principles of the bill need to be announced by the House of Representatives and confirmed or rejected. If matters related to the honor or interests of the royal family constitute the basic content of the bill, the second reading order needs to be approved and read by the Queen.
Second reading (or third reading) voting amendment
When voting on the Second Reading of a Bill, two types of amendments can be proposed, which are also applicable to voting on the Third Reading of the Bill.
The traditional way to oppose the "six months" or "three months" amendment to the second reading of a bill is to propose an amendment to vote, delete the word "now" and add the words "six months (or three months later today). This method is not often used now. According to this amendment, the vote is: keep the word "now" in the vote. Once the House of Representatives accepts the amendment, it means rejecting the bill. If the session is postponed, the bill ordered to be read for the second time "today in six months or three months" will no longer be registered in the notice book of the House of Representatives.
Any Member who wishes to put on record the special reasons for opposing the Second Reading of the Bill may propose a "reasonable amendment". This amendment is to delete all the words after "that" and add some other words; Accordingly, the purpose of voting is to propose an amendment. A reasonable amendment will be published in the bulletin board in the form of a motion, which can be divided into one category or several categories.
(1) may be some important objections or different opinions on the principles, policies or provisions of the motion;
(2) can put forward opinions on the environment of the proposal and implementation, and can also raise objections to its follow-up procedures;
(3) The Committee and Members may seek more information or other evidence related to the Bill.
At present, the above modifications are mainly limited to the first two; The amendments that the Speaker chooses to discuss usually include "the House of Representatives tends to have the second reading" or something similar. The draft reasonable amendment reflects that the number of people supporting the amendment is equal to the number of people opposing the bill.
Vote on the second or third reading amendment.
When proposing an amendment to delete the word "now" during the second or third reading of the bill, the Speaker proposed to vote on "keeping the word" now "in the voting" (Rule 3 1, paragraph 1). If the vote is passed, the Speaker will further announce the second or third reading of the bill (rule 62, paragraph 1).
Other amendments to the motion for the second or third reading of a bill shall be proposed by the Speaker for voting. If the vote is rejected, according to rule 62, paragraph 2, of the rules of procedure, a main vote is required, so it is not appropriate to propose more than one reasonable amendment to the second or third reading of any bill. Opponents of bills that do not approve of reasonable changes to individual words have the opportunity to vote against the bill in the main vote; Similarly, there is no procedure to prevent Members from voting for reasonable amendments and supporting the Bill in the main vote.
During the second or third reading of a bill, a "six-month" amendment and a reasonable amendment are proposed, or more than one reasonable amendment is proposed. According to rule 32 of the rules of procedure, it is up to the speaker to decide whether to accept or reject.
Second reading Committee
Bill submitted to the Second Reading Committee
According to rule 90 of the rules of procedure, at the beginning of public affairs, the Royal Minister may submit a public law bill to the Second Reading Committee instead of the second reading debate required by the House of Representatives bill. The above proposals shall be announced at least 10 days, and no further proposals shall be put forward before the proposals related to this proposal are submitted for printing. When voting on the motion, make a decision without amendment and debate; However, if there are not less than 20 members standing up to express their opposition, the speaker must declare that it is not passed.
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After the second reading, amendments are proposed and debated, and the articles and schedules are passed separately, all public law bills of the House of Commons must be submitted to the Committee for deliberation, except those that are specially exempted by the House of Commons. The Standing Committee deliberates most bills, but it can also choose special standing committees, special committees and committees of the whole hospital. Delivery is mainly governed by Rule 63 of the Rules of Procedure, according to which a bill is automatically submitted to the Standing Committee for deliberation after the second reading unless otherwise ordered by the House of Representatives.
Committee procedure of bill
As mentioned above, under normal circumstances, the bill is submitted to the Committee or the Standing Committee of the whole hospital for deliberation. Comparatively speaking, more cases are submitted to the latter, or they are submitted to the two committees separately. Bills are rarely submitted to specific standing committees, special committees or joint committees of the two houses.
Although, according to Rule No.63 (1), the Standing Committee has become the standard body to judge whether the substantive bill is approved by the majority, the procedures that the bill should follow mainly come from the committees of the whole hospital.
Therefore, this section not only expounds the Standing Committee, but also involves the procedural rules of the public law bill of the whole hospital Committee. The examples and comments here come from the practice of various committees and are related to each other to a great extent. Once these committees have completed the preliminary evidence collection procedures, the procedures for considering bills in specific standing committees are the same. The differences in appointment, membership, chairman and organization of various types of committees will be described in detail below.
Procedures for entering the whole hospital Committee
Every time the agenda is announced, the bill will be allocated to the Committee by the House of Commons according to the agenda, and the Speaker will leave the room, so there is no need to vote on anything unless there is an instruction to vote at that time.
Then, the bill begins the procedure in the House of Commons. Methods and the chairman of the Liaison Committee or his assistant sat down at the long table. After the brief title of the bill was read by the principal officials, the Committee began to consider the bill.
Classification of articles
The Committee has the right to divide a provision into two provisions, or decide to regard the first part of a provision or the first part of a provision with supplementary provisions as a complete independent provision. The motion to split the clause was put forward before the clause was determined to be part of the bill.
Exchange of goods
A provision [or a paragraph (paragraph)] or a group of provisions [or a paragraph)] can be moved from the existing position of the bill to another position specified in the motion.
Delays in the consideration of articles
If no amendment is passed or negatived, no one will ask questions about the Bill or the confirmed part. At this time, the consideration of this clause can be postponed according to the motion. However, if an amendment is proposed or withdrawn, the consideration of this provision can also be postponed. Consideration of a part of a bill or a series of consecutive clauses proposed by a group of members may also be postponed. As for postponing the consideration of the preface, see page 533.
The proposal to postpone the consideration of the effective clauses in the bill, that is, the proposal to postpone the consideration of its subsidiary clauses and the proposal to postpone the consideration of part of a certain clause, is not in conformity with the provisions. This is a question of the order in which motions are considered, because if they are considered at the beginning of the procedure, the same effect will be achieved.
As for postponing the consideration of a certain provision, the debate can only be confined to the question of postponement, and cannot be extended to the merits of the bill or the provision itself. If there are no provisions to the contrary in the motion, the deferred provisions should be considered after the problems of other provisions of the Bill have been solved and before any new provisions are proposed. However, under special circumstances, it can also be discussed at any other time (such as after the whole article or a new article or other articles), or it can be further postponed.
Announcement of Committee of the Whole Amendment
As a rule, the Committee should give notice when amending a bill, although it is not obliged to do so. Every amendment should be notified as much as possible, because an amendment without notice will bring obvious difficulties and inconvenience to Members. If the amendment notice is issued only the day before, the notice document should be marked with an asterisk, and the chairman generally does not choose such amendments. The closer the notice period is, the more difficult it is to choose an amendment.
Before the second reading of a bill, the Committee generally does not receive notice of amendments to the bill. However, when a bill is extremely urgent and needs to be passed immediately, the House of Commons authorizes the amendment to be passed before the second reading.
Bill merger
Sometimes, according to an instruction, the two bills will be merged, and the discussion on the preambles of the two bills will be postponed respectively, and the discussion on their provisions will be postponed in turn.
Act department
If the Committee is instructed to divide a bill into two or more bills, the discussion of the provisions that can constitute an independent bill will be postponed or discussed according to the status of the bill to which it belongs. When considering bills, a preface (if necessary) will be attached, explaining the text and title of the bill, and a separate report will be made on each independent bill.
Reconsideration of the bill
As long as Congress requests, a bill can be sent back to a full committee, a standing committee or a special committee of the House of Representatives for reconsideration. To this end, the bill can be put forward immediately after reporting to the Committee of the whole hospital. When the judicial significance of a bill is determined as a daily clause, the first reading of the clause will produce a bill. A bill can also be introduced immediately after the completion of the deliberation stage, but it will never be introduced during the deliberation process. If a bill is passed at the third reading, the provisions of that day will no longer be valid and the resulting bill will no longer exist. Even if it exists, it can only be regarded as an amendment to the problems brought about by the Third Reading of the Bill.
A motion to reconsider the bill as a whole may be proposed, in which case Rule 74 of the Rules of Procedure needs to be applied. If you only propose a motion on certain articles or amendments to bills. The discussion on this bill is strictly limited to the scope of the reconsideration bill proposed by these articles or special bills. Any member can move a motion to reconsider all or part of the bill. However, any motion moved by the Member in charge of this Bill will have priority. At the same time, for those bills selected by the speaker and submitted for reconsideration only for some bills, they can only be proposed by amending the bills of the competent members.
The power to choose amendments is exercised by the Speaker. Because the chairmen of the committees
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