The House of Lords Act 1999 – Dominic Price
The House of Lords is a flawed institution with no democratic mandate. The House of Lords Act 1999 was an of the that was given on 11 November 1999.
The House of Lords was criticized because there is no electoral system which decides its members, some inherit the position, some are awarded it by the Prime Minister. Although The House of Lords Act didn’t introduce an electoral system to The House of Lords, it the Act the in other ways. For centuries, the House of Lords had included several hundred; the Act removed such a right. The Act decreased the membership of the House from 1,330 (October 1999) to 669 (March 2000). Therefore this means that the Lords who had inherited their membership were out; ridding the Chamber of unworthy members, making the Chamber a bit more democratic. The next step would be to introduce some variation of an electoral system.
Scottish devolution referendum of 1997 – Patrick Tucker
The UK’ incorporation of referendums in its political system is testimony to its edge toward a more democratic society. The Scottish devolution referendum of 1997 is an example of a major referendum in UK history; in this act it was proposed that Scotland be given an assembly with limited legislative powers. The referendum was, however, seen as undemocratic because the “40% rule” came into effect; this rule meant that even though an overall majority voted in favour of the referendum, because 40% of the Scottish electorate did not vote in favour of the referendum, it was not passed—this limited the effectiveness of how democratic the referendum was, because despite a majority in the UK the act was not passed as the Scottish electorate did not hold a majority.
British General Election, May 2010 – Declan McClean
The General Election of May 2010 lead to the first coalition government since 1945, and ushered in a new form of representation, a coalition government does not usually have a clear mandate, as it is a synergy of two different political ideals, in this case, Conservative and Liberal Democrat, therefore, consensus has to be reached about which policies to pursue, this in turn leads to a greater deal of cooperation and thus proportional representation. In contrast, usually in coalition governments the larger party absorbs the smaller for their term in government, and this leads to only the people who voted for that party getting what they wanted for their vote. For instance, both parties compromised on the issue of the deficit reduction, the Conservative party agreed to no tax cuts for married couples, reducing their image of a ‘nuclear family’ party and the Liberal Democrats agreed to abstain to a vote about the recognition of marriage in the tax system. Therefore, even though neither party is completely satisfied, they will still be represented in their views and be able to represent the electorate better, leading to a more inclusive democracy.
Welsh Devolution Referendum, 2011 – Nathan Liu
This vote considered extending the law making powers of the National Assembly of Wales. Not only does carrying out a successful referendum show that the UK government is willing to listen to it’s people, and act democratically, but some people argue that Devolution further increases the democratic nature of a government. By granting powers to a sub-national, or regional level each person is allowed to have a bigger say in the running of their country. If a region or country has to report to a central government when law making, it will slow down the process of governing, and possibly reduce the impact which the people have. Each person in Wales is now better represented.
1928 Election – Shaun Munoz
In 1928 the principle of universal suffrage was finally established. Both men and women over the age of 21 were given the chance to vote. Britain could now finally be called a liberal democracy. With women given the chance to vote the population was better represented and the real views of the population were given. By the time of the 1928 elections political parties had been set up and were heading in their directions. The majority of UK was working class in 1928 but some areas of the nation were heading away from proletariat ways and towards the higher ends of the social class’. This meant for each area you had representatives of each party in every county. This stopped some of the Eton old boys preaching to areas like Hackney. This was good as women could now have a say on who ran their areas so the strictly working class areas could soon turn to a more liberal or conservative area. This changed the politics of the nation for the better.
Parliament Act 1911- Joe Larner
In 1909 the House of Lords rejected the finance bill, giving affect to the peoples budget, imposing new taxes on land owners, this caused a constitutional crisis ending up with the Liberals wanting to reduce the power of the House of Lords. The peoples budget was a way to tax the wealthy and create social welfare programs, the House of Lords was made up of some of the wealthiest people in Britain, so when a the bill came along proposing to take more money away from them, their power allowed them just to decline it. The crisis was then resolved in the 1911 election with the The Parliament Act which divided Bills into three classes.
- Money bills, to which the Lords did not consent within one month, could be given royal assent without their approval.
- On most other bills the House of Lords was given a suspensory veto. If the Commons passed the same measure in three successive Parliamentary sessions, covering at least two years, then it could become law without the agreement of the Lords.
- The remaining class related to bills to extend the maximum term of the House of Commons beyond five years. The House of Lords retained equal legislative power for those Bills.
These reforms gave more power to the people, for their representative party could now put forward a bill and if deemed important enough and was seen as a necessity for the benefit of the people, it could short cut its way through the House of Lords (“ruling class”) giving the people more democratic power as their choices could not always be knocked out by the house of lords who did not represent the majority.
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