Legislature is the branch of government
which has the power to laws through
formal enactment of legislation (statutes).
Parliament MAKES these laws and is the supreme
legislature of the UK because it can make, unmake
and amend any law it wishes (subject to EU law) due
to Parliamentary Sovereignty.
Parliament is unrestricted due to our
uncodified constitution. Devolved
assemblies, local authorities and ministers
can only make laws because Parliament
allows them to.
Most of Parliament’s time is spent considering
government’s legislative programme and only
a small number of bills (private members bills)
are initiated by backbenchers (if they have
government support)
Party control of the Commons means that
government bills are rarely defeated, and most
amendments affect the details of the legislation, not
its major principles. Therefore these bills only need
tweaking, not scrapping. Legislation is passed
through government rather than by Parliament.
Lords play a subordinate role in the legislative
process because their roles are to ‘clean up’ bills
which need further scrutiny.
Representation
Parliament links the government and the people,
illustrated by its parliamentary democratic system.
It represents society by the election of MPs
into the Commons and the relationship
between MPs and their constituents.
The traditional view is that MPs make their judgement
on behalf of their constituents, whereas the doctrine of
the mandate * suggests that MPs serve their
constituents by ‘toeing a party line’.
*theory of representation that by winning an election,
the party gains a ‘popular’ authority to lead on
policies outlined in their manifesto
House of Lords in unelected, has no
representative role and undermines the
democratic system.
‘First past the post’ voting system
undermines the effectiveness of
representation in the House of
Commons
disproportionality of seats to votes gained, size of
the party and its distribution of support
MPs and peers are socially unrepresentative of
larger society.